Konoha fell away behind him in pieces.
Not metaphorical pieces. Real ones.
A roof tile spun past his shoulder and shattered against a wall. Smoke snagged in the treetops outside the east gate like dirty cloth. Somewhere inside the village, an alarm bell kept ringing—too fast, too panicked—like someone had grabbed it and decided the best plan was to shake their whole arm until their shoulder tore out.
Sasuke didn't look back.
Looking back was how you turned a goal into a question.
He kept his eyes on the moving line ahead—Temari's silhouette, Kankurō's hunched shape, and between them the sand.
Gaara's sand didn't move like a defense anymore.
It moved like an organism.
Clumping. Folding. Binding. Thickening the way a spider web thickened when something struggled inside it—except there was no struggle. Not yet. Just… preparation.
Sasuke's mouth went tight.
He could feel the time loss in his legs: every breath he took was a breath they didn't. Every heartbeat was a chance for them to widen the gap. That should have made him faster.
Instead it made him colder.
He hit a rooftop edge and launched. Landed. Launched again. The weightless half-second between buildings—his body remembered it like prayer. Training month had taught him how to move over his village like it belonged to him.
Now the village was burning under him and he was using that training to chase a monster out of it.
Kankurō glanced back once. Not scared. Measuring.
Sasuke met his eyes and gave him nothing.
The sand surged higher around Gaara's carried form as if it felt Sasuke's gaze like pressure. Temari's head snapped toward the cocoon. For a fraction of a second her face did something ugly—something honest—and then it was gone, replaced by the blank focus of someone doing a job that made them sick.
She didn't slow.
But her fingers tightened on her fan until her knuckles went pale.
Sasuke's Sharingan tracked the sand with clinical precision and a nausea he refused to acknowledge. The grains weren't just sliding. They were binding, turning themselves into wet plates, thickening into layers.
Armor was loud. Armor reacted. Armor threw itself at impact.
This was quiet.
A cocoon wasn't defense.
It was a decision.
Temari hit the next roofline and flicked her fan half-open.
Wind gathered.
Sasuke understood the intent before the technique hit: not to cut him down, not to win.
To shove him sideways. To make him lose three seconds, five seconds, ten.
To buy time.
Sasuke's jaw ached from clenching.
He dropped his center of gravity mid-run and drove forward anyway.
The wind hit.
Not a gust. A flat, brutal slam that tried to peel him off the roof like paper. His sandals squealed on tile. He skidded. His shoulder clipped a chimney and pain flashed white behind his eyes.
He didn't fall.
Falling meant she'd succeeded, and success was a luxury he didn't let other people have today.
He dug in, forced his momentum back into a line, and kept moving.
Temari landed in his path two rooftops later like a door closing. Fan fully open now. Stance clean. Confident. Too practiced for sixteen.
"I don't have time," Sasuke said.
"You don't get to decide that," Temari replied, voice sharp as snapped wire.
Her eyes flicked past him—toward the forest line, the direction they were dragging Gaara—and Sasuke caught it: the calculation, the guilt, the refusal to let either of those things change the outcome.
A bad combination.
He stepped forward.
Temari's fan moved and the air twisted tighter—focused, surgical. A blade of wind that could strip bark off a tree.
Sasuke raised his forearm and felt it kiss his sleeve, sting his skin, cut shallow and clean. Enough to tell him what she could do if she wanted to.
She wasn't trying to kill him.
She was trying to manage him.
That thought made something ugly crawl up Sasuke's throat.
"You're not stalling for them," he said, eyes locked on hers. "You're stalling for him."
Temari's expression didn't change.
But her fingers faltered for a heartbeat on the fan handle.
Sasuke filed it away like evidence.
"You don't know anything," she said.
"I know you're buying time for something you don't want to see," Sasuke said, and his voice came out colder than he meant—like that was the only way to keep the words from shaking. "So tell me: are you afraid of me… or of what you're carrying?"
Temari's mouth tightened.
Then she did what skilled people did when conversation got too close to the truth.
She attacked.
Wind screamed.
Sasuke moved through it, not around it—tight steps, small adjustments, Sharingan reading the way the air tightened before it cut. He could survive it like this, for a while.
He couldn't win like this.
And he couldn't afford "a while."
His right hand flexed.
Chakra ran down his arm like something eager and poisonous.
Kakashi's voice showed up in his head without permission.
You use it once, and your body will demand it again.
Sasuke ignored him.
His hand formed the seal.
Lightning detonated in his palm.
The sound wasn't just loud. It was hungry.
"Chidori."
Electricity crawled across his skin. His fingers went half-numb. His teeth buzzed. The world sharpened into a narrow tunnel, everything outside the target smeared.
Temari's body reacted before her face did—instinct, not fear. She pivoted. Fan sweeping hard.
Wind met lightning.
Not a clash so much as two different truths colliding.
Sasuke's Chidori punched through the air where she had been and shredded roof tile into a spray of stone. Temari's gust caught his momentum and slid it sideways; instead of cutting straight through her, he carved a jagged trench across the roof and skidded hard, sparks snapping under his feet.
Temari used the opening the way she was supposed to.
No gloating. No speech.
She vaulted back, landed near Kankurō, and the two of them moved as one.
Sasuke whipped his head up—
—and saw the sand cocoon lurch.
Not from impact.
From inside.
A sound came from it. A wet inhale. A drag of breath like lungs scraping.
Temari's face tightened, that same ugly flash.
Kankurō's shoulders rose like he'd been bracing for this moment since birth.
Sasuke's Chidori sputtered, still crackling in his hand, and for the first time he felt something that looked too much like hesitation.
Not fear of dying.
Fear of what this was becoming.
Gaara's breathing got worse.
The sand didn't just cover him.
It sealed.
Sasuke took one step forward.
Temari snapped, voice cracking on the edge of anger. "Stop!"
"Move," Sasuke said.
Temari's eyes went hard. "No."
Sasuke's Sharingan caught it—her stance shifting, the subtle angle of her hips, the way she set her weight like she was about to sacrifice her own body for the distance behind her.
He lunged anyway—
—and Kankurō yanked hard with both arms, dragging the cocoon behind him off the rooftop and down to the ground in a sliding avalanche of sand. Temari shoved a final gust into Sasuke's chest.
He hit the rooftop edge and dropped, catching himself with one hand.
His Chidori snapped out. Lightning died with an angry hiss.
For a second his arm refused to obey.
The aftershock buzzed down to his fingertips. He flexed them and got only a sluggish response.
He pulled himself up anyway.
They were gone from the roofline—
—but not from his sight.
Movement flickered through the trees beyond the wall: Temari's fan flashing, Kankurō's puppet pack bobbing, the sand cocoon carving a pale trail through underbrush like a dragged corpse.
Sasuke breathed once, hard.
Then he jumped the wall.
He hit the forest floor running.
Branches slapped his face. Roots tried to hook his ankles. The world turned green and brown and dim, the air thick with sap and smoke and something else—something like wet clay after rain.
His chakra coil felt raw, scraped on the inside.
He pushed anyway.
He pushed until his lungs burned, until his legs started to tremble, until the world narrowed into a simple equation:
Catch them. Kill the threat. Don't look back.
He didn't notice he'd started bleeding from the cut on his forearm until his sleeve stuck to his skin.
He didn't care.
He only cared when the sand trail ahead changed.
Not more sand.
Heavier sand.
Wet sand.
The cocoon dragged slower now, but the pressure in the air grew—dense enough that Sasuke's skin prickled as if static was building before a storm.
Temari looked back again.
This time she looked like she might say something.
Something she couldn't take back.
Then she didn't.
She just ran.
And Sasuke ran after her with his teeth clenched so tight he tasted iron.
Which, in a way, he was.
Naruto sprinted like the village was a hand at his back.
Konoha behind them sounded wrong—too many shouts stacked on each other, too many impacts, too many screams that didn't end quickly enough. The air tasted like soot and crushed leaves. Somewhere above the rooftops, an explosion boomed and the sound rolled across the streets like thunder.
Pakkun ran ahead, a compact blur hugging the edges of the path, nose low.
"Quit stomping like elephants," the dog barked without looking back. "You're shaking the scents loose."
Naruto huffed. "You're literally a dog!"
"I'm literally your only chance of catching them," Pakkun snapped. "So you can either be quiet or be heroic somewhere else."
Naruto had a retort loaded and ready—something dumb, something loud—when Sylvie cut in on his right, voice tight.
"Just… run," she said.
Naruto glanced sideways.
Her hair was darker from smoke. Glasses smudged. Mouth set in a line like she was holding herself together by force.
She wasn't panicking.
Which meant she was.
Naruto didn't know how he knew that.
He just did.
Shikamaru ran on Naruto's left with his hands in his pockets like the universe couldn't force him to look stressed. But sweat had already started to bead at his hairline, and his eyes were sharp—tracking rooftops, alley mouths, the open places where enemies liked to drop from.
They hit a narrow stretch where civilians were trying to funnel through a side passage.
A woman stumbled, clutching her child too tight. A man shoved past and nearly knocked them both down.
Naruto's reflex was to stop.
To grab them.
To yell.
To do something big and obvious that made him feel like the hero even if it made the situation worse.
Kakashi's earlier words slammed into him like a collar.
If you die here, you can't protect anyone.
Naruto's jaw clenched.
Sylvie veered without breaking stride, slapped a paper tag onto the wall near the bottleneck, and pressed her palm to it.
A faint shimmer of chakra.
Not a barrier like the Hokage would make. Not a real wall.
Just a cheap little stitch—enough to deflect thrown steel, enough to force an attacker to step wide, enough to buy half a second for a civilian to not get cut in the back.
Naruto watched her do it and felt something twist in his chest—hot, complicated, angry that she had to be clever because the world was cruel.
He yelled anyway, because yelling was his default and also because it worked.
"GO! KEEP MOVING! DON'T STOP IN THE MIDDLE!"
The woman flinched, then moved. The man moved too, shame flickering across his face like he hated being told what to do by a kid in orange.
Naruto kept running.
Pakkun cut toward the east gate.
"They went out," he said. "Sand, puppet lacquer, and something… metallic. Like dried blood on a blade."
Naruto's stomach tightened.
Gaara.
Sasuke.
The thought of Sasuke already being ahead—already alone—hit Naruto like a slap.
Of course he was.
Of course Sasuke couldn't wait. Couldn't trust anyone else to handle his problem. Couldn't stand the idea of needing help.
Naruto's anger flared so fast it almost tripped him.
Sylvie's breath hitched once, and Naruto heard it over his own running. She glanced back toward the smoke over Konoha—just a heartbeat—then snapped her attention forward again like she'd mentally punched herself.
They cleared the gate and the world changed.
Street noise fell away.
The forest swallowed sound. Leaves muffled footfalls. The air smelled cleaner, but smoke still threaded through it like a warning.
Pakkun slowed at the tree line and sniffed in tight, aggressive bursts.
"They're fresh," he said. "And they were hauling something heavy."
Sylvie pulled out her marker and started slapping tags on trunks as they passed. Not pretty ones. Fast ones. Practical. A trail that would survive wind, footsteps, panic.
Pakkun's nose snapped toward one.
He sniffed, then made a noise like he hated being impressed.
"…Not useless," he muttered.
Sylvie didn't look at him. She just kept moving, hand steady even when her breathing wasn't.
Naruto tried not to think about Konoha behind them.
Tried not to think about how leaving felt like betrayal.
Because it wasn't.
It was strategy.
It was adult logic stuffed into kids' lungs.
They pushed deeper.
Then the air shifted—subtle, wrong.
Not smoke.
Pressure.
A presence.
Shikamaru's head lifted.
Naruto followed his gaze and saw them.
Nine Sound shinobi, spread across the path in a loose arc like a trap that didn't need to hide. No rush. No panic. Just waiting.
One of them grinned like he'd been handed a gift.
"Found you," he said.
Naruto's blood went hot. "Get out of our way!"
"Or what?" another one asked, amused.
Naruto took a step forward, already yanking for chakra—
—and Shikamaru spoke, flat and calm.
"You keep going."
Naruto snapped his head. "What?"
Shikamaru stepped past him.
Just one pace, but it changed the whole scene. Like a line had been drawn.
"You keep going," Shikamaru repeated, eyes on the Sound nin. "I'll handle this."
Sylvie stopped short.
"No," she said instantly.
Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut.
Shikamaru didn't look at her yet. He looked at the enemy and did the math out loud like numbers were safer than fear.
"They're here to delay," he said. "Same as Temari." His gaze flicked briefly to Naruto. "If we all fight, Gaara gets farther. Sasuke dies alone. Konoha loses."
Naruto's hands shook.
Not fear.
Rage.
He wanted to grab Shikamaru by the collar and scream at him for volunteering to die like it was a chore on a mission list.
"Shikamaru—"
"Troublesome," Shikamaru muttered, and his shadow moved.
It spilled across the ground like ink and reached for their feet.
One Sound shinobi froze mid-step, eyes widening.
Then another.
Then three more, caught in the drag.
The rest jerked back and immediately spread wider—trying to flank, trying to break the line.
Shikamaru's posture stayed lazy.
His body didn't.
Sweat broke on his forehead almost instantly. His jaw tightened. His shadow trembled under strain, stretched thin like rope pulled too far.
Naruto saw the cost.
This wasn't a technique you held casually.
This was Shikamaru burning his stamina like fuel.
"Go," Shikamaru said without looking back.
Sylvie grabbed Naruto's sleeve.
Not gentle.
A yank.
"Naruto," she said, low and sharp, and Naruto heard the crack under her control. "Go."
Naruto's feet didn't want to move.
Leaving a friend behind felt like the kind of thing villains did.
Then he remembered Konoha behind them.
Civilians.
Iruka.
The hospital.
All the places where "holding" meant someone was bleeding for time.
Naruto swallowed hard and forced his legs to obey.
He ran.
Sylvie ran with him.
Pakkun bolted ahead, muttering curses under his breath like a tiny, furious priest.
Behind them, Shikamaru's shadow snapped and shifted, catching another body for a heartbeat and then losing it as the Sound nin strained against the bind.
A Sound shinobi laughed—too close.
Naruto heard Shikamaru grunt.
He didn't look back.
He couldn't.
Sylvie slapped another tag on a trunk as they passed. Ink flared faintly. Her hand shook once, then steadied.
They pushed forward until the forest opened into a wider strip of path—
—and an adult presence hit the scene like gravity.
A heavier landing.
A calm pressure.
A voice that didn't belong to a kid pretending he wasn't scared.
"Asuma."
Naruto heard the name before he heard the impact.
Then he heard the impact.
One strike—clean, heavy, unmistakable.
A Sound shinobi hit dirt with a wet thud.
Another stumbled back, cursing.
Asuma's voice cut through the scramble, blunt as a command.
"Fall back," he ordered.
There was a pause—half a heartbeat where Naruto imagined Shikamaru's face: not relieved, not grateful, just quietly wrecked that he'd needed saving and quietly proud that it had mattered.
Asuma again, harder. "Move. Live."
Naruto's lungs ached. His eyes stung.
They ran harder.
And ahead—far enough that it didn't make sense yet—Naruto felt something in the air.
Not chakra the way he usually noticed chakra.
More like the forest itself leaning away from something.
Pakkun slowed, sniffed, then sneezed violently.
"Ugh," he said. "That sand kid's doing something."
Sylvie's marker hesitated on the next tag.
Just a fraction.
Then she forced it down, finished the seal, and kept moving like she hadn't almost stopped.
Naruto looked forward through the trees and saw the trail.
Sand dragged through dirt in a thick smeared line.
Not scattered grains.
Heavy clumps. Wet-looking, like the earth had tried to swallow it and failed.
And somewhere ahead of them—barely audible over their own breathing—
another breathing.
Wrong breathing.
A wet inhale.
A drag like lungs scraping.
Naruto's stomach dropped.
He didn't say Gaara's name.
He didn't have to.
He just ran faster, because the only thing worse than leaving Konoha burning behind them was arriving too late to stop the next thing that would make it burn again.