Ripples

Chapter 17

                           Pursuit

-xxx-

Sasuke was frozen, feeling his breath sting the back of his throat, unable to believe it was really over.

"Sasuke?"

Sakura's voice snapped him from his state of paralysed disbelief, and he came to himself to see her in front of him, looking battered but healthy. A strange feeling of lightheadedness was sweeping through him, as though he were about to faint.

"Take it easy."

A small hand closed around his bicep. He dimly realized that Sakura had reached out to him with her left hand, as her right was tucked into her side, holding her ripped bra to her body.

Through the fog surrounding him, Sasuke could still feel a wave of disgust and anguish at the sight. Numbly, he untucked his shirt from his pants and passed it over. It was bloody, tattered, and stiff with sweat...but the size discrepancy ensured it would fall to Sakura's mid-thigh, covering her.

Sakura donned it with a grateful smile. There was no way to secure it across the front, so she made a tiny tear in the fabric on one side, stuffed a small corner of the material on the other side through it and knotted it on the other side of the rip. She didn't think Sasuke would mind – the shirt was a write-off anyway.

She created a few makeshift buttons in that way before she glanced back at Sasuke again...to find him staring fixedly at Itachi's body, looking dangerously pale.

"Maybe you should sit down," she hazarded, reaching out for him again. "I can heal you – properly, this time-"

"He's dead, isn't he?" Sasuke said harshly, seizing her wrist in a grip that bordered on painful.

Sakura flicked her eyes to Itachi's corpse. "Yeah...he's dead."

Sasuke nodded slowly, then gave a rather frighteningly dark smirk. When the rain started falling again, it seemed almost symbolic.

"It's over," he whispered.

And that was all the warning Sakura had before his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell against her, unconscious. Sakura's arms came up as she automatically clutched at him, lowering him slowly to the ground, her movements hampered by the fact that the muscles in Sasuke's fingers appeared to have locked – his hand wasn't moving from around her wrist anytime soon.

Sakura glanced around – the black flames of Amaterasu had spread to completely encircle the pile of rubble they were in. Getting themselves out would be a problem – they'd probably have to use a teleportation jutsu.

Of course, it would be much better if Sasuke was conscious for that.

So Sakura called chakra to her hands and pressed her fingers against Sasuke's chest, slowly healing his many injuries.

-xxx-

The Konoha party skidded to a halt, staring at the man who seemed to have appeared out of thin air in front of them.

"Wow, I didn't think I'd find a bunch of Leafs out here!" he called. "And it's seven on one – that's not very fair!"

"I think that cloak means we can safely say he's an Akatsuki," Yamato commented.