A team Sasuke hadn't been worried about was the one from Kusagakure.
A village so weak they hardly had anything going for them; in fact, they didn't have anything.
Even among small villages, Kusagakure was among the weakest.
At most, they had a decent population.
Yet, as he spotted a lone Kusagakure kunoichi standing up ahead, he felt danger.
And a lot of it.
He quickly stopped, and Naruto and Sakura stopped as well; all three of them could see the kunoichi, so there was no need to ask why he stopped.
Sasuke didn't hesitate to activate his Sharingan and quickly scanned the surroundings, looking for signs of any traps or the kunoichi's teammates.
Yet he found nothing.
"Ahh, I was worried I wouldn't catch you before you got to the tower. I admit, I wasted a bit too much time with little Karin-chan," the kunoichi said, eyeing them up like prey.
Sasuke's eyes narrowed.
Karin.
So she had met the Ame team already?
"Karin?" Naruto asked, confused, but he still shifted his stance, his hands already close to forming a seal. "You mean that red-haired girl from Ame?"
"Oh? You know her?" the Kusa kunoichi asked, her smile widening. "How interesting. I suppose that shouldn't surprise me. Children do tend to gather around each other."
"Who are you?" Sasuke asked.
"Me?" she asked, placing a hand against her chest. "Just a poor little Genin from Kusagakure, looking for a scroll."
"Liar," Sasuke said without hesitation.
The woman's smile widened even more.
Sakura stiffened beside him, and Naruto looked at him for a moment before turning back toward the woman, his expression becoming more serious.
Sasuke did not take his eyes off her.
There was something wrong with her... he couldn't tell what it was... but she seemed... unnatural.
Was it a clone of some kind?
At a time like this, he wished the Sharingan also possessed the ability to see chakra like the Byakugan; that way, he would be able to judge the situation far better.
Still, one thing he was sure of: this kunoichi was bad news.
The way she stood there, the way she talked, the way she looked at them.
No Genin acted like that.
Even Gaara, with his absolute confidence, acted like someone who expected the world to bend around him.
Not nearly as natural as this.
This woman stood like someone who had long since seen through all the world's illusions, someone who stood at the apex.
"You have good eyes," the woman said. "As expected."
The moment she said that, Sasuke moved.
"Naruto!" he snapped.
"Yeah!"
Naruto's hands flashed through the seal.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
A dozen Narutos burst into existence at once, not screaming, not charging like idiots, but spreading out through the trees, moving to the flanks and above. Sasuke had drilled that much into his head, and for once, Naruto actually followed the plan.
Sasuke threw a volley of shuriken at the same time, each one guided with thin wire, while Sakura jumped back, kunai in hand, her face pale but not completely frozen.
The Kusa kunoichi didn't move.
Her tongue flicked out.
It extended far beyond anything human, snapping through the air like a wet whip, striking the first three shuriken aside before curling around the wire.
Sasuke's eyes widened.
He wanted to shout, but he couldn't, because that very instant, a monstrous pressure descended on them all.
A heart-crushing killing intent blanketed the area, making even thinking difficult, much less talking.
Sasuke managed to stay on his feet, though that was in part because his legs locked up in fear.
But Sakura directly fainted.
And Naruto's clones all popped, with the real Naruto missing his landing and falling down to the ground below them.
This was bad.
This kunoichi, whoever she was, was far above them.
This was like the Wave mission all over again, just even worse; this kunoichi was far beyond Zabuza.
Whatever this person was, they were not a Genin, and perhaps not even a normal Jōnin.
Sasuke forced himself to breathe.
In. Out. In. Out.
His body didn't want to listen to him. His lungs had locked up, his fingers felt numb, and every instinct he possessed screamed at him to run, to drop his weapons, to beg, to do anything other than stand there and face the thing in front of him.
But he couldn't.
He was Uchiha Sasuke.
He had survived Itachi.
He had survived Zabuza.
He had survived the night his clan died.
He would not collapse here just because some monster decided to glare at him.
His fingers twitched.
The Kusa kunoichi noticed.
"Oh?" she said, her smile widening. "Still moving? I guess that is to be expected of Itachi's brother."
That name, Itachi.
It broke through the fear.
Sasuke's Sharingan spun. His hand moved, pulling a single kunai from his pouch.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
His hands came together faster than they ever had before, his chakra surging as flames poured from his mouth, blasting toward the kunoichi in a roaring inferno.
The Kusa kunoichi merely raised a hand.
The fire split.
It parted around her like water around a stone, curling back to scorch the trees behind her, but not a single flame touched her body.
Sasuke didn't stop. He flung the kunai with all his strength, the wire still attached, whipping it around in a deadly arc aimed at her throat.
The kunoichi ducked.
The blade missed by centimeters.
Her hand shot forward, grabbing the wire.
Sasuke yanked it back.
But the wire didn't move.
Instead, the kunoichi held it tight, her fingers crushing the metal like it was nothing.
Then, with a flick of her wrist, she pulled.
Sasuke felt himself flying forward.
He let go of the wire, twisting midair, throwing another volley of shuriken, but she was already gone, moving faster than his eyes could follow, appearing behind him.
Sasuke's hands met in the Ram sign.
BOOM!
A massive explosion swallowed the monstrous kunoichi.
At the same time, the killing intent that had been like a stone weighing them down disappeared, making Sasuke collapse to his knees and pant hard.
"Did it work?" he whispered, his blood-red Sharingan scanning the area.
To explain what had just happened, one had to go back a moment. The instant Sasuke blocked the kunoichi's line of sight with his fireball, he had created a fire clone to replace him.
Never before had he pulled off this particular move this fast, but indeed, pressure was the best way to grow stronger.
"I'm afraid not," came a mocking voice from behind him.
Sasuke's eyes widened.
He hadn't seen her move.
No, that wasn't entirely true. His Sharingan had caught something, a flicker at the edge of his vision, a movement so fast that his body had failed to react despite his eyes seeing it.
That was worse.
Seeing an attack and still being unable to stop it was far more terrifying than not seeing it at all.
The Kusa kunoichi crouched on a branch behind him, her smile unchanged, though the edge of her disguise had been burned. A strip of skin hung loose from her cheek, revealing something pale and wrong underneath.
Sasuke forced himself to move.
He jumped away, throwing a kunai behind him as he did, not expecting it to hit, only needing the half-second it would buy.
The kunoichi tilted her head.
The kunai passed by her face, close enough to cut a few strands of hair, but not close enough to touch flesh.
"That was a clever trick," she said, reaching up to touch the burned edge of her face. "A fire clone, created in the middle of combat, under my killing intent. Very good, Sasuke-kun."
The way she said his name made his skin crawl.
"You know too much," Sasuke said, forcing himself back to his feet.
His legs still felt weak, but he could move now. The killing intent had faded, at least for the moment, and without that pressure crushing him, his body was his own again.
Mostly.
"Of course I do," she said. "I came here for you."
Naruto groaned from below, pushing himself up on one knee.
His face was pale, his breathing rough, but his eyes were furious.
"You creepy snake-lady," Naruto growled. "What the hell do you want with Sasuke?"
The kunoichi looked down at him.
For a moment, her smile became colder.
"Snake-lady?" she repeated.
Naruto's hands came together.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
This time, only eight clones appeared, but they appeared already moving. Two rushed to Sakura, grabbing her unconscious body and dragging her away from the open ground, while the rest scattered through the branches.
Sasuke noticed.
Despite everything, Naruto had remembered the plan.
He wasn't just rushing in blindly.
Good.
"Get Sakura out of here!" Sasuke shouted.
"I know!" Naruto shouted back. "But I'm not leaving you!"
"Idiot!"
"Yeah, yeah, yell later!"
The clones attacked from different directions.
One threw kunai. Another transformed into a large shuriken and was thrown by the real Naruto. Two more came from behind with explosive tags already lit, while another used the trees as cover and tried to get underneath her.
It wasn't bad.
In fact, against most Chūnin, it might have even worked.
Against this monster, it was barely an inconvenience.
The Kusa kunoichi moved like flowing water. One clone vanished with a kick. Another was caught by the throat and thrown into the transformed clone, dispelling both. The explosive tags detonated, but she slipped between the blasts, her body bending in ways no human body should bend.
Sasuke used the smoke.
His hands formed seals.
"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"
Several smaller fireballs shot forward, curving through the smoke with shuriken hidden inside each one.
The kunoichi's eyes shifted toward him.
"Good," she said.
Her tongue lashed out.
It struck the first fireball, then the second, knocking the hidden shuriken away before they could reach her. The third fireball hit her shoulder, burning through the Kusa uniform.
She didn't even flinch.
Sasuke clicked his tongue.
Was she even human? Not afraid of fire at all?
What kind of monster was eyeing him, and why?
He jumped back just as the branch beneath him split open, several snakes bursting from the wood itself.
His kunai flashed, cutting through two of them, but the third wrapped around his ankle and pulled.
Sasuke twisted in midair, cutting the snake apart before it could drag him down, then landed on another branch.
The kunoichi was already there.
Sasuke's Sharingan spun.
He brought his kunai up.
Her finger stopped an inch from his forehead.
Not because he blocked it.
Because she stopped it herself.
"Too slow," she whispered.
Sasuke's eyes narrowed.
The fire clone behind her exploded.
For the first time, the woman looked surprised.
The blast swallowed her from behind, flames blooming across the branch. Sasuke was thrown back by the force of it, hitting another tree and sliding down the bark before catching himself.
This time, he didn't ask if it worked.
He knew it hadn't.
But it had done something.
When the smoke cleared, the Kusa kunoichi stood there with half her face burned away.
The skin peeled from her cheek, her chin, even part of her forehead. Beneath it was not muscle, but another face.
Pale skin.
Golden eyes.
Long black hair spilling free as the false face tore apart.
Naruto stared.
Sasuke felt his blood turn cold.
He knew that face.
He had seen it countless times while looking through the Bingo Book; it was right next to Itachi's own page.
Konoha had two S-rank traitors; one was Itachi.
And the other.
"Orochimaru," Sasuke whispered.
(End of chapter)
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