Unwanted pains

*Chapter start*

Sasuke stops in the middle of a forest and stops to analyze a few droplets of blood on the ground.

"Hm… I think they are going in that direction, but why are they getting away from the village? Aren't they supposed to be part of the attacking force?" Sasuke inquires out loud while following their tracks.

'Anyway, that's not important now, Gaara is probably a jinchuuriki just like Aoi. He may not be stronger than her now, but he didn't seem to be using it's chakra or powers till a few moments ago in our fight. He was strong, but not overwhelmingly so. He was fast, but I was faster and he was definitely durable, but my chidori was able to cut through him.'

"This is doable. I have a few advantages over him, but he is still a jinchuuriki. Aoi can't even use a sliver of Kyuubi's power and she is already strong enough to fight a Legendary Sannin head on, even if he was holding back. There is no way that I will be able to win if Gaara has control over a considerable percentage of warever biju is sealed on him."

'My strongest attack is chidori and I have already used it twice and also used fire style twice as well, my chakra reserves are recovering, but I'm still below Two thirds of the total and after my fourth chidori I will start to feel the backlash of it. Which means I only have two chances of killing him and maybe stopping whatever the Sand is planning.'

After a few minutes of pursuit the forest gets denser and Sasuke finally manages to get visual on his targets.

"Kankuro speed up and take Gaara away from here, I will delay him." Temari says to Kakuro that is carrying Gaara while stopping in front of Sasuke, making him stop as well to confront her.

"I don't know what you guys are planning, but I suggest you surrender." Sasuke says as he stares at Temari with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

"Sorry handsome, but I can't let you pass. If you want to get to Gaara you will have to defeat me." Temari says, reading her fan.

"Well I was already expecting that." As Sasukes says his body slowly dissipates into smoke.

"What?" Temari looks surprised at Sasuke's body and doesn't notice a kick coming from above.

Already predicting that someone would come out to stop him, Sasuke created a genjutsu beforehand to confront whoever came to him and surprise them with a sneak attack.

Strongly hitting Temari on the head she immediately falls unconscious as her head hits the ground." Shirou was right. Genjutsu is really convenient, especially when people don't have good resistance to it."

Without a second thought Sasuke resumes pursuit and not a minute later he is already on their tail again." Fuck, Temari wasn't ble to hold that guy for even a minute? Gaara you have to move on without me right now, I don't know how long I will be able to keep this guy occupied."

Kankuro leaves Gaara on the ground as he turns to look over Sasuke and get in the middle of his younger brother and his pursuer.

'This guy is a puppeteer and he didn't fully use his puppet on his fight early in the preliminaries. I don't have enough information on him, my best plan of action is to not let him use his puppet.'

"Why don't we do it lik- fuck wait." Waiting for an opportunity Sasuke let's Kankuro try to engage in a conversation before sprinting straight to him, easily covering the few dozen meters between them way over a second.

Just as Sasuke approaches to give Kankuro a punch to the face, a sharp blade comes out of Kankuro's wrapped up puppet, thrusting at full speed. But, already having his sharingan activated Sasuke was able to see threads of chakra connectingKankuro's fingers to the puppet, because of that Sasuke narrowingly avoided the blade while using his feet to rotate his body and lower it, so as to let the blade pass over his head. While doing so he hastily uses his hands to disconnect his sheath from his sheath holder and uses it to hit Kankuro in the stomach and launches him into the air.

'I pretended to use this against Gaara, but I need to end this fight quickly before using too much chakra.'

Taking a ball wrapped in cloth from his pouch Sasuke throws it at the location where Kankuro is going to land. Seeing the bad stop he's put on, Kankuro says." This is going to be bad. Karasu."

With his master's command the puppet wrapped in white bandages on his back frees himself and wraps its body around Kankuro. As the two get near hitting the ground the ball shines indicating the time's right.

"Boom."

With a loud sound the ball explodes, creating a large explosion directly hitting the falling puppet with his creator, sending both of them up in the air again and to Kankuro's puppet merit, it was able to take the full force of the explosion and get out of it without a scratch on its body.

'Now.'

Taking his chance Sasuke jumps after the two using the momentum of the explosion to attack the two still being carried by it. Just as he gets directly above the two, Sasuke spin kick Kankuro's throat with enough force to torpedo him into the ground blowing the dust from the earlier explosion away as he hits the ground.

Kankuro on the ground instinctively reaches for his throat as he loses his ability to breath and fails to use his puppet to defend himself from the falling Sasuke, getting stomped on the stomach by Sasuke's feets and passing out not a second after.

"Hmph, I see you decided to stop running, but you could at least have helped your comrade." Sasuke says to Gaara, who is standing on a tree branch not far away from him and Kankuro on the ground.

"He is a nuisance, all of them are." Gaara says while clutching his head.

"Is this how you treat the people that risked their lives for you?" Sasuke asks, not really expecting an answer.

"I've already said they are only a nuisance, they only stay on my path to killing my prey, but don't worry. Since you like your friends that much then I will send them after you when we are finished and then I will prove that my existence is stronger than any of you." Gaara says with a crazy smile while his face cracks slowly letting small amounts of sand pass through his skin.

Sasuke makes a sad face and says to Gaara." I truly pity you."

Sasuke's sudden words make Gaara stop in his place paralyzed as if hearing something insane and at the same time comforting.

"That thing inside of you… it really can take a toll, doesn't it. All the time trying to consume you, corrupt you, make you something you aren't, because of it everyone you now hates you for no particular reason it makes you feel like you are alone in this world…  because of thatI truly pity you." Sasuke says while getting on his fighting stance.

'He and Aoi are one of the same, born into the world bearing a demon inside their conscience, hated by everyone, feared and despised. But Aoi had someone for her, no she had multiple people for her.'

"Hahhh… but my pity won't save you. I'm sure that you killed many innocent and will kill many more. Letting you live will only cause more death and destruction to whoever enters your path." Sasuke's eyes reddens as the sharingan appears.

Clutching his head in pain Gaara says." It's always like this, argg… lies all lies. Nobody loves, everybody hates me, they always try to kill me, always. But that is good… hehehehe, that's the proof that I live." As Gaara speaks, saliva comes out of his mouth, drooling his words and making him seem an animal." TheN aFtER you DIe i wiLl KilL the OTheR gIrl." Sand comes violently off his face and the gourd on his back meltys partially creating the very same arm that attacked him during the finals, and covering exactly half of Gaara's face making him seem like some sort of dog.

"BUT FIRST SHOW ME THAT I LIVE, UCHIHA SASUKE" Saying his last words Gaara leaps with an incredible speed at Sasuke making him hurriedly dodge the sand monster.

Having dodged Gaara's first attack Sasuke uses a tree to hide his presence from him." WHERE ARE YOU UCHIHA SASUKE? I THOUGHT THAT YOU WOULD KILL ME LIKE ALL THE OTHERS. YOU COULDN'T BE SCARED YOU ME, COULD YOU?" Gaara taunts Sasuke as he swings his arm wildly around, sending trees flying every time he hits one of them.

'He completely lost his mind, using his sand arm to propel himself through the air… he is faster than me when he moves that way, but that also means that he becomes much more predictable, he will always come in a straight line and because he seems so insane luring him into a favorable position will be easier.'

Peeking from his position Sasuke sees Gaara wildly swinging his arm around as he proceeds to taunt him.

'But chidori may not be the answer here, any damage done to him could probably be regenerated by him just like Aoi can do. No, even if he couldn't, I'm not sure if I would be able to hit him in any significant body part to cause damage, with that arm on the way. There is no other safer way, I may not have that much practice with it, but it may be just what I need for this situation.'

(Flash back start)

"Ohh, so five is your limit… no four. You really have an incredible body to be able to sustain the backlash of chidori this well and more than enough chakra and chakra control to do it more than twice. Wonder if you did some kind of training with physical enhancement with chakra when you were younger." Kakashi says as he looks at the five holes carved on the natural stone monolit. 

Sasuke looks fatigued while staring at the five holes he carved on the rock.' Who would have thought that training with reinforcement would come in hand with anything else related to ninjutsu, just makes it more unbelievable how much Shirou sucks at it. But even then I'm only able to do it five times in a row, not that I know if that is impressive or not.'

"For reference I'm only able to do it four times per day efficiently. If I really wanted to, I could do it seven times per day. But that is just stupid and dangerous. Chidori is a flawed technique that requires a sharingan to fully utilize it, the combo of sharingan and chidori is already costy enough once, no need to say using it five times. I truly recommend that you only use it twice or thrice per day, more than that and your chakra will be dangerously low for you to continue a fight efficiently." Kakashi finishes his explanation with advice.

"It would be so good if you put that much dedication on learning or clan techniques, Sasuke-kun~" Suddenly Sasuke hears Izumi's voice right beside his ear.

Jolting in surprise, Sasuke grabs his ear and yells." Stop being an idiot Izumi. And I already have a handful of fire style ninjutsu, I don't need more of them."

"Mou, how many times I have to say to you that our clan secret techniques aren't the same as those party tricks that you use." Izumi says while pouting.

"Well, some of those party tricks are also the clan secret techniques." Sasuke refutes not giving a damn about what Izumi says, more so because he is annoyed and doesn't want to agree with her.

"Okay, some of them may be our clan secret, but they are only low level jutsus. There is no way that those weak jutsu are anywhere comparable to our strongest techniques." Izumi says more passionately, almost raising her tone of voice. She seems pretty frustrated that the clan leader doesn't want to learn their clan techniques.

"Oi Sasuke, it would be better to listen to her this time. Though don't do it often or there will be consequences." Kakashi says, encouraging Sasuke to learn from Izumi." I've stolen… I mean I learned quite a few of them during the Third Great Ninja War. They can be very handy when you need to cause massive amounts of damage to a large area or enemy, besides that with your sharingan the time used to learn things is cut by more than half of the time needed to actually learn and master any kind of jutsu."

"Fine whatever, but only one." Sasuke says, conceding to Izumi.

"Yey, I will teach you my favorite one then." Izumi says while bouncing around like a child that just received a christmas gift.

"I see… it seems like I've made a mistake." Kakashi says dejectedly as he leaves the area as Izumi gets ready to demonstrate the ninjutsu.

(Flashback end)

Jumping onto another tree branch Sasuke says loudly." Hey ugly face I'm right here."

"SASUKE." Gaara leaps at Sasuke without a second thought, swinging his arm with a vertical motion cutting the tree branch in half, which is easily dodged by Sasuke, that reciprocated with a punch directly to Gaara's face, hitting the part not covered by the sand monster face, stunning Gaara for a second as he fall with the tree branch on the ground below.

'He really is just charging at me like an angry bull. I can't really complain, but this kinda makes me suspicious. I need to keep my guard high.'

'Shadow Clone'

I nod at the clone and look at Gaara figure falling onto the ground growling like an animal.

"I really abandoned your humanity, didn't you?" I said, mocking him.

"SASUKE" Gaara lunges at Sasuke, but is once more dodged by him, which in turn makes Gaara swings his arm once more hitting the trees around him as he wildly tries and fails to hit the moving Sasuke that fully uses the tree branch as cover and platforms to boost his mobility.

Finally jumping  midair and falling with a roundhouse kick Sasuke approaches Gaara's head with a powerful kick, but Gaara easily sees the kick coming and catches it while Sasuke is still in the air and uses his sand arm to slam Sasuke on the ground.

"ALL THAT RUNNING JUST FOR THIS?" Gaara asks Sasuke as his sand wraps around his body, almost completing a coffin.

"Hmf." Sasuke's body that was being enveloped in sand disappeared in a puff of white smoke.

"WHAT?"

'Fire style: Phoenix Flower'

From a shadow of an not faraway tree several small fireballs are launched by another Sasuke that went into hiding while a clone fought Gaara.

"THESE TRICKS ARE USELESS." Gaara sprints after Sasuke while using his arm to slap the fireballs away, like they were just flies. Keeping with his random destruction and irrationality Gaara passes right through the tree ignoring the fact that he has no visual of Sasuke and whatever he might be planning.

Suddenly just as he destroys the tree a weak mist envelopes Gaara and everything else in a few meters from his position.

"TSK ALL THAT YOU DO IS RUNNING? ARE YOU THAT AFRAID OF THE TRUE ME? UCHIHA SASUKE."

'It seems that in this insane state he can't see the difference between reality and genjutsu. Gaara you are making this way too easy.'

In a tree branch above Gaara, Sasuke looks down at him as he screams in anger at the imaginary mist surrounding him from all directions as he prepares for his next jutsu by slowly making hand seals.

'Tatsu.'

"UCHIHA SASUKE SHOW YOURSELF YOU COWARD."  Gaara wildly swings his arm around trying to disperse the mist around him.

'I.'

But the action is proven useless, after all the mist does not exist. His actions in fact only make the mist stronger as he loses more of his self control.

'Ne, Tori.'

Finally after seconds of attacking the mist in reckless Gaara says."YOU ARE TRYING TO DECEIVE ME, UCHIHA SASUKE?" Angry Gaara smashes his sand arm on the ground creating several cracks on the ground extending several meters with Gaara right in the center of it. Gaara shows a crazed smile as a faint sound of sand moving could be heard from the cracks below him.

'Saru, Ushi.'

"SAND TSUNAMI." From the crack on the ground created by Gaara's attack, massive waves of sand rise around Gaara's engulfing everything. As the waves of sand pass through, all the trees in dozens of meters fall to the ground as they are consumed by the sand sea, transforming a significant amount of the surrounding forest into sand dunes

'Uma.'

But despite all the odds right above Gaara a lonely tree stayed standing, weak and almost falling, but that was all that a certain someone needed. 

Feeling an enormous concentration of chakra right above his head Gaara looks up as his eyes meet Sasuke."UCHIHA SASU-"

'Fire style: Great Fire Annihilation'

As Sasuke's breaths out a massive flame explodes in front of him propelling itself directly to Gaara right below vanishing with Gaara's figure as the flame passes through him and engulfs the entirety of the sand tsunami used by Gaara just a few seconds ago and goes even further setting fire to the areas of the forest not affected by Gaara's sand.

"Cough, cough." In the middle of a crystal formation created by the heat of the fire hitting the sand, Sasuke stands coughing and with some burning marks covering a few places of his body, showing that despite being able to pull the ninjutsu out successfully he still wasn't ready to use it.

But contrary to how most people would react to almost being burned alive, Sasuke shows a satisfied smile as he looks at the massive flames sources around him and indiscriminate destruction in front of him.

"Hah… Hah, I did it. With this I can certainly make her… and then Itachi…" As Sasuke smiles to himself a fountain of sand appears right in front of him disrupting his joy of victory. From the rising and a cocoon of sand rises with it breaking apart and revealing Gaara with a maniacal smile of pure ecstasy.

"HEHEHE… HEHEHE… AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH… YES, THAT WHAT I NEEDED. THIS PAIN, THIS SUFFERING, THIS ANGER, ALL OF THIS THIS SHOW ME THAT I'M ALIVE. THEY ARE THE PROOF THAT MINE REASON TO LIVE IS GREATER THAN YOURS…" As Gaara speaks with his every present smile the sand from the cocoon breaks down showing Gaara's burned body.

Not a second after noticing the giant flames from Sasuke's jutsu approaching him Gaara used his sand to go underground and use the sand beneath his feet to increase his own defence, but although he was able to avoid certain death he still wasn't fast enough to avoid the full power of the jutsu, because of that most of his body got burned before reaching below the ground.

The sand arm that was burned to a crisp before starts to get reformulated as the sand around them starts spinning and creating a small tornado of sand covering both Sasuke and Gaara.

As the sand gathers over Gaara's body, all the burned marks and wounds over his skin start closing as a hiss and white steam comes off, signaling that Gaara made a full recovery. The cured wound gets covered with sand right along almost all of Gaara's body leaving just his feet and a part of his legs uncovered by it.

In a form much similar to Aoi's Gaara opens his demonic eyes and smiles."NOW, SASUKE ARE YOU READY TO DIE?"

*Scene break*

"How much further?" Aoi asks Pakkun, the dog summoned by Kakashi as she and Shirou follow it trying to get out of the village.

"Hmm, those four are either really fast or they didn't need to avoid this many shinobi when they escaped, because they are already several kilometers away from here, with how this place is in a full blown war, it will take more than ten minutes to get there with our actual moving speed." Pakkun says as he narrowly avoids a kunai flying in his direction.

"Tsk, we don't have all that time." Aoi says in annoyance as she projects a wind blade killing several sand shinobi on a rooftop. Shirou on the other side seems to be awfully concentrated on something else.

"What is Shirou?" Aoi asks Shirou while fending off another attacker.

"Several kilometers from here, I think I saw a toad head, there is an incredible amount of dust rising from that direction too. We have to bring Sasuke back right now, the village won't last long if things continue like this, I can feel the vibrations of several giant snakes and seeing how those shinobi were dealing with that three headed one before… if this war continues for any longer and with the addition of a bijuu on top of that… I think we will have to kill the boy, if it comes to that." Shirou says seriously while looking into the distance.

"Shirou, we can't kill him." Aoi only says that as she makes eye contact with Shirou.

After looking at each other for a few seconds Shirou breaks eye contact and says." Okay, but you will have to give an explanation after we are finished here and more importantly I hope you have some kind of plan in the case of us having to fight a tailed beast, because I don't have one."

Aoi gives Shirou a thankful smile before saying." I'm sure that we will be able to come up with something."

"Improvisation? Just what we needed right now." Shirou sasy dispirited as he projects a bow and arrow and shoots it at a nearby building making it explode."Well then get ready."

As Shirou says, he projects a sword the size of a small building and lets it fall on the ground.

"What are you doing?" Aoi asks curiously while she looks at Shirou working on the giant sword.

Not answering Aoi's question immediately, Shirou hastily takes Pakkun from the ground, surprising the dog."Oi, there is time and place you know. If you want to pet me, at least wait until we are over here."

Also ignoring the dog Shirou puts his hand on the giant blade as bright blue marks appear on the sword. After a few seconds of concentration the blade finally starts moving and reshaping itself, acquiring a more aerodynamic shape with a handle coming out from the middle of the new sword body.

Shirou takes the newly reshaped sword and sticks it's hilt on the ground." Shirou, what are you doing?"

"A bit of improvisation, just as you said." Shirou says as he puts his hand on the handle and angles the sword tip above the village walls." Remember when you used strike air to launch yourself at me during the preliminaries? The idea is the same."

"Shirou… I don't think this is a good idea." Appearing a bit reluctant, Aoi tries to persuade Shirou out of it.

"Don't worry. It will work. I can attest it." Shirou says.

"Shirou, what have you been doing with your life?" Aoi says dejectly as she puts her hands on the handle while pointing her sword behind her back.

"Oi, are you two crazy? We are going to die, let me out of here." Pakkun on Shirou's arm screams while trying to free himself.

"Too late for a refund. Uzumaki airlines is already departing." Shirou says as he braces himself.

"Oi,don't do this please, let me-"

"BOOOOOOMM"

Interrupting Pakkun a massive gust of wind comes out of Aoi's sword launching the trio off the ground at sonic speeds.

Suddenly in the middle of the battlefield every shinobi stops fighting as a sudden gust of wind passes through them and they notice the shadow of two people in a flying sword leaving the village with terrifying screams of a dog going with them.

"Hmm, what was that?" On top of giant cyan toad Jiraiya asks himself while looking at a massive tornado leaving Konoha.

'Could it be Aoi? I can see a barrier not far from here. The only people that I know that can do or teach that technique are either me, Sarutobi-sensei or Orochimaru and only Aoi and Orochimaru could be able to pull up a wind ninjutsu as strong as that in that. Tsk, maybe should I go investigate the barrier? If sensei is truly there then this could mean bad news, Orochimaru is not the type to make rash decisions, if he is fighting sensei right now then that means that he thinks he can win.'

"Lord Jiraiya." Interrupting Jiraiya line of thought, the Head of the Espionage Department of Konoha calls for Jiraiya." We have several other snakes summoning in the village right now, we haven't received orders from no one till now and only you and the Hokage-sama are able to fight these things. What should we do?"

"What happened with the Konoha Council? Koharu, Homura or Danzou should still be able to give orders, where are they?" Jiraiya asks while jumping down from his toad as it disappears in a puff of white smoke and addressing Ibiki with his doubts.

"Elder Koharu is supervisionating the evacuation of the citizens with the Hyuuga clan while Elder Homura is making sure that can gain some ground to breath and pushing the sand and sound shinobi out of the village, as for elder Danzou we haven't seen him and by how imobile the Root have been I don't think he has any intentions on moving." Ibiki says with a grim expression.

"Tsk, I'm fine with that snake not doing anything, but are those thinking these aren't their glory days anymore they have a village to run." Jiraiya says with a frustrated expression.

'Those three always end up causing more problems than they are worth, if only sensei were to be more rigid with them, then maybe Minato wouldn't….'

"Okay give me a moment." Jiraiya says while taking the giant scroll that he carries on his back, opening it he makes several hand seals before imprinting chakra on the scroll and making seven black balls come off it." Take seven of your fastest and give them these once they reach orochimaru's summonings and tell them to throw it on the ground. These balls have summoning circles in them. Once it breaks it will summon some toads from Mount Myoboku to fight the snakes. Under normal circumstances, I would be the one putting those down, but right now someone needs to put order in this place. Take me to your center of organizations and bring me Yamanaka-san. I want to know the true dimension of this attack and establish a line of intelligence by yesterday."

"Yes, Lord Jiraiya." Ibiki and several other jonin class say in unison as they depart in different directions while Jiraiya follows Ibiki back to the center of the village.

While Jiraiya and the intelligence force move themselves to the espionage department. Dozens of sound and sand shinobi gather in a destroyed building not too far away from the Chunin Exams stadium.

"You just received orders. Two unidentified shinobi flew off the village after the jinchuuriki. We have to stop them at all costs, we don't know how capable they are right now, but some of the shinobi were present when they left the battlefield and they said that they used an S-rank ninjutsu to launch themselves out of the village. They are definitively top tier shinobi." A masked shinobi breaks down the mission to the other shinobi in the room.

"I know that this is a conjunct operation between the sand and the sound, but with what authority can you order us around? More importantly, where is Lord Kazekage? He was supposed to help Orochimaru, but he is nowhere to be seen." A sand shinobi asks the masked shinobi giving the orders.

"Don't worry about the Kazekage. He is currently occupying Hamura Danzou, one of the Elders of Konoha, he suggested that after seeing that Lord Orochimaru was already more than capable to deal with his old mentor. As for my authority… I'm the second in command of this attack and the right hand of Orochimaru-sama, therefore I'm your superior by default and the only two that have the power to order me around are either the Kazekage or Lord Orochimaru. Now if you don't have anything else to complain about, it would be good that you listen, as you will have to accomplish the hardest mission of your life." The masked shinobi answer the sand shinobi with a hint of mockery.

"The hardest mission of our life? I thought that we were following unidentified shinobi." One of the many shinobi from the Sand Village asks curious.

"This is just speculation, but someone that was  able to use an S-rank ninjutsu of the offensive class and pretend to follow and probably fight an uncontrollable jinchuuriki. You guys can't possibly think that someone like that is normal, do you? Anyway they were last seen two kilometers north from here and they were accompanied by a summoned dog, the dog is probably giving them directions. Your objective is to find them before they find the jinchuuriki and stop them at all costs. Be it killing them or simply stalling them. This may be false information, but that dog probably belongs to Hatake Kakashi and it should be the one guiding the other two shinobi to the jinchuuriki, if you kill it maybe they will lose their tracks and be unable to follow their objective, that way you may avoid confrontation." The masked shinobi says to the group in front of him.

"Tsk, why it seems like you are too afraid of these two shinobi." A random shinobi from the sand says out loud.

"Hmph, I'm just a careful man, you do not need to heed my words if you want." Says the masked man with what seems a sly voice.

'Well they were able to seriously injure Orochimaru. There is no way that you will come back alive, but stalling them is still possible. You are all elite squads after all.'

"Whatever. Follow me." One of the sand shinobi says while exiting the building.

Not a minute later after the masked man is left alone in the building a pale boy wearing rags enters the building. The masked man turns to look after the boy that just entered.

'Who is this? I wasn't able to feel his presence.'

"Kabuto-sama I have a message from Lord Danzou." The pale boy says while bringing a scroll in front of him.

"He, that's the Root for you. You guys were always more competent in monitoring your own people." Kabuto says in annoyance.

'Tsk, damn you Danzou.'

*Scene break*

"See, I said that it would be fine." Shirou says while using a piece of cloth as an improvised parachute.

"I have to say, that went much better than I expected." Aoi says while clinging to Shirou as they slowly fall to the ground.

"I mekh shre thet Khkeshi wihl knhw abeth this.(I will make sure that Kakashi will know about this) Pakkun says something inconpriensively while using his mouth to hold himself onto Shirou.

"I hope we never meet again." Pakkun says, trembling as his paws touch the ground.

"Where is Sasuke Pakkun-san." Aoi asks hurriedly.

"A bit of consideration would be good, you know." After being ignored Pakkun then says." After all that flying I lost their wind. Give me a few seconds to find them.

After a while Pakkun says as he starts running west of his position." Found them."

"They are around twenty kilometers away in that direction. All of them are stopped, but one of them is a kilometer away from the others and seems to be completely immobile. while the other three seem to be fighting. I can smell the smoke from here." Pakkun explains the situation to the duo behind.

"At this speed we will take more than twenty minutes to reach them…" Aoi says in worry as she looks at Pakkun.

"Oi don't you dare." Pakkun threatens Aoi weakly as he looks at her approaching hand.

"Sorry, we don't have time." Aoi says with the intent of grabbing Pakkun and carrying him under her arm.

"Wait." Suddenly Pakkun says stopping and lowering his head to the ground.

"What is it?" Shirou asks as he looks at the dog.

"We are being followed." Pakkun says while looking in a specific direction.

"How many?" Aoi asks, getting ready to fight.

"I don't know, from this distance there are too many to accurately count their numbers with just their scent." Pakkun says seriously." We are moving faster than then, but not by much. If we continue we will reach Sasuke faster than them, but not much later they will reach us. Things will get way too complicated if that happens, we will have to do something about them first, but with their numbers…"

"They are trying to stall us. This is not good, with those numbers… whoever sent those guys has at least some level of knowledge about our strength. I don't think we can't take them down, but it will take too long." Aoi says with worry written on her face.

"It's ok." Shirou says turning to Aoi." You go after Sasuke and the jinchuuriki, you are much more able to fight that guy than I'm. Let this fight be one for me."

"Are you sure Shiro?" Aoi asks with a worried glance.

"Don't worry about it, I know what I'm doing. Now go after Sasuke." Shirou says turning to face the coming enemies.

"Ok." Taking Pakkun under her arm Aoi leaves with a sonic boom and disappears in the horizon.

'Eh didn't you leave me a bit too early.'

"Wherever." Biting the top of his thumb, Shirou slaps his hand on the ground creating a giant puff of white smoke.

"Ayo, I have been summoned by Shirou-chan again."Tama says as soon as he notices Shirou on top of his head." By how tense you are, I suppose we are going to fight."

"Hmm, sorry for the summon Tama-san, but I think I will need some of your help." Shirou says.

"Okay. What should I do?" Tama asks to prepare for the fight.

"Do you remember that scroll I gave you before?" Shirou asks.

"That big one? Right away." Tama says while pushing a human sized scroll out of his stomach and passing it to Shirou on top of his head.

Taking the scroll Shirou opens on top of Tama's head, revealing ten small summoning circles.' This one cost me a small fortune. Grandfather got really pissed off with the amount of money that I spent on this one, but it was worth it. A scroll with a maximum capacity of an S-rank amount of chakra or being able to seal an entire house worth of content, just what I needed for an occasion like this one.'

Tapping on one of the circles Shirou injects his chakra on it, making it glow and releasing a puff of smoke. From the smoke a bow and ten twisted arrows appear.

'I'm not in optimal condition as summoning Tama-san still takes a toll on my chakra reserves, but this scroll will be able to make up for that. With a hundred arrows with more than enough energy to blow half a block with each circle, now that I think about it… fuinjutsu is quite scary if used correctly.'

Taking his bow up while putting the arrows on a projected quiver Shirou says." Tama-san, I don't know how many there are, but possibly around thirty or more. Is also safe to assume that they are all chunin rank or above. I still have to come back and help Aoi with her fight and I can't waste much time with these guys, which means we will have to either make them retreat or kill them all. We will have to make them commit to attacking us, before making our move, I can't risk them stalling us."

"Okay I'm ready." Tama says.

"How high do you think you can jump Tama-san?" Shirou asks suddenly.

"At my best? I think I can jump around a hundred meters in the air." Tama says, curious about what Shirou is thinking.

"That's perfect. I think we are going to teach these shinobi the meaning of air superiority." Shirou says with a small grin while getting ready for the incoming fight.

"This is strange." Pakkun says while being carried by Aoi as the world around them passes as a blur.

"What?" Aoi asks while maintaining her focus on dodging all the trees in front of them.

"I can feel two very ominous scents that I never smelled before and one very pleasant that somehow is very familiar but I can't remember at all and I never forget someone or something's scent." Pakkun says with a strange face.

"What are you smelling specifically?" Aoi asks in worry.

"The first one is obvious. During the third war I smelled something similar to that one, but much stronger. That smell definitively belongs to a Tailed Beast, but for now it is very weak, at least compared with the other that I smelled before. The second one… it feels like senjutsu, but much darker than normal. I never smelled something quite like that, but this smell carries a hint to what feels like Orochimaru's scent, but I could be wrong. As for the third…" Pakkun pauses, seeming uncertain about something.

"The third?" Seeming more preoccupied with Pakkun pause, Aoi asks again.

"The third one is just too strange… almost alien. It is ever changing, sometimes it feels like the sea, other times it smells like flowers and other times it smells a lot like senjutsu, but distinctively different. Somehow this scent makes me feel comfortable… almost like home." Pakku is a little confused." Now that I think about it I can also smell similar scents coming from you and the other boy."

"Shit." Searing aou loud Aoi instantly increases her speed.

'Stay safe Sasuke.'

*Scene break*

"Fuck." In the middle of the sand and flames Sasuke does everything he can to dodge Gaara's attacks. With his body now resembling more like a beast than a human Gaara's speed and strength also soared to a new height.

'He is just like Aoi. He completely regenerated his burns in a second and now he has this full body sand cloak protecting him from my attacks.' Dodging Gaara's attack once more Sasuke finally reaches the tree lines, escaping the open space created by sand dunes and starts using the trees as coves and obstacles between him and Gaara.

"Hahh… Hahh… Hahh." Hiding his presence from Gaara behind a random tree, Sasuke stops to catch a breath.

' I don't have more than a third of my chakra remaining and I can't keep up moving like this for much longer either. With my remaining chakra I can probably use chidori once more and I will be exhausted… tsk this is not ideal.'

"WHAT IS THE PROBLEM UCHIHA SASUKE? WEREN'T YOU GOING TO KILL ME? WHERE IS ALL THAT COURAGE?"

'Can't he just stop with these cheap provocations already.'

"BUT I GUESS THAT WAS EXPECTED FROM SOMEONE PLAYING HOUSE LIKE YOU, ISN'T IT?"

"What is this guy even-"

"YOU KNOW, EVEN SOMEONE LIKE ME HEARD THE STORIES ABOUT YOU…" Gaara says as he looks around for any traces of his prey." AT FIRST I THOUGHT THAT WE WERE SIMILAR, I RECOGNIZED THE TRACES OF SOLITUDE IN YOUR HEART, BUT YOU ARE NOTHING ELSE THAN A COWARD… HEHEHEHE. AND YOU KNOW IT DON'T YOU, YOUR ENTIRE CLAN WAS MURDERED BY YOUR BROTHER. HE ONLY LEFT YOU ALIVE, YOU HAVE A PURPOSE, BUT YOU… INSTEAD OF FULFILLING IT YOU HIDE BEHIND THE FALSEHOODS OF FRIENDSHIP LIKE A COWARD."

'Why Itachi nii-san?'

'You are truly foolish, aren't you? You have always been the slowest to catch up to things.'

"YOU RAN AWAY FROM WHAT YOU TRULY ARE, THAT'S WHY YOU ARE SO WEAK." Hearing the chirping of the birds Gaara's turn to the direction that he hears it." YOU KNEW LONELINESS, YOU KNEW THE MEANING OF TRUE POWER."

'But I guess that it isn't that bad, soon enough you will understand it's true meaning.'

'True meaning…?'

'Yes… once you are truly alone… when you destroy everything that bonds you to these meaningless feelings… only then you will reach true power, by then you will be worth fighting against…'

Forgetting every notion of caution Sasuke sprints at Gaara, forgetting everything he learned while training with Aoi, Shirou and Izumi. Rooting his eyes only on the enemy ahead of him.

"Won't you just shut up already." Sasuke screams as he extends his arm at his enemy.

"BUT, AS YOU ARE NOW UCHIHA SASUKE…" Gaara swings his arm at Sasuke right in front of him in retribution, his crazed smile leaving his face, replaced by a bored one filled with spite.

'But, as you are now my foolish little brother…' His eyes rotate creating a pattern that Sasuke had never seen on a sharingan, that was it, that was the first sinal…

"YOU ARE TOO WEAK."

'You are too weak.'

"BOOOOM."

And that was the first sinal of the start of his own nightmare.

*Chapter end*