Uzumaki Naruto had never thought much about dying. If he was being honest, he didn't tend to think about a whole helluva lot unless it was in front of his face. He'd been threatened with death plenty of times, sure, but it was just one of those things. Like getting beat up, but worse. You graffiti my shop again, I'll kill ya. Keep skipping class, you're dead. After a while it went in one ear and out the other. They'd tried to prepare them all for it in the Academy, but why plan for something you weren't gonna do? He wasn't dying anytime soon. How should he know how he'd take it when he did?

Turns out, he got pissed.

Naruto coughed, ribs rattling in his chest with each spasm. They'd been smashed to pieces. He spat, bloody saliva bubbling and steaming as soon as it left his mouth. He'd been driven into the earth and buried in liquid fire, could barely see the sky through the haze. He was burning alive, he couldn't breathe, and he'd never been in more pain in his life.

It made him madder than hell. He thrashed in the magma, howling in pain and outrage, and when he couldn't find any traction he crossed his fingers and spawned shadow clones by the dozens, all of them as broken and bleeding as himself, until one at the top of the pile rolled weakly over the edge of the pit and reached back down for him. It gnashed its teeth and hauled him up, and through the superheated air and flames, Naruto could almost swear its eyes were red.

It dispelled in the next instant and he staggered to his feet. What remained of the forest they'd been caught in was on fire, riddled with craters like the one he'd just crawled out of. The smoke would have been oppressive even without the shattered ribs, but with them it was unbearable. Lightning crackled and screamed somewhere in the distance, steel ground and chimed, but it all seemed so far away.

"Old man," he growled. The heat had mangled his throat, turned his voice guttural. Yoton no Roshi came to a halt not ten feet from his downed teammates, looking back at him in disbelief.

"Still? What are they feeding ya in Konoha, boy?" He flexed the fingers of his right hand, the one that had buried Naruto. It was still smoking.

Naruto hit the bottom of the pit like a comet, and only realized he'd been hit when he gagged on a tooth that had been knocked out of place. The bastard had knocked him back in? He clawed his way back up without help, furious at the cheek of it. This time he saw the blow coming, but that didn't stop Roshi from stomping him back into the pit as soon as he gained the lip.

His blood thundered. Naruto braced and leapt straight up, tanking the next hit and rolling across the dirt and char. He dug his fingers and toes in and came up to a sprinter's crouch. The pain kept coming, but so did strength. Adrenaline. He felt like he could take on the world, and die as soon as he won.

"Gotta say, the longer this goes on, the more I like ya," Roshi said, rolling his shoulder. Naruto tensed and threw himself spiraling sideways through the air, avoiding the next punch by inches. He still couldn't track the bastard's speed with his eyes, but he could react. He could move.

"Let's get wild."

"Now you're talkin'!"

Naruto crashed into the veteran shinobi at full speed, knocking him back a step and wrenching at his stone chestplate. Roshi seized him by the back of his orange jacket, uncaring of the magma sloughing off it, and heaved him over his head before slamming him back to the dirt. Naruto bounced back madder, stronger, and took him out at the knees.

There was no grace to it. No technique. Maybe he should have gone to class after all, but it was too late to worry about. They hit the dirt and Naruto scrambled to gain a dominant position, but he was still too slow. Roshi braced himself on one hand as he fell and used it to leverage a spinning kick that caught Naruto on the chin and flipped him end over end.

Outclassed. Naruto pushed harder. It felt like he was using up all his life's potential, draining it like broth from the bowl in one long pull. And if he was, it'd be worth it. He'd be damned if he let Roshi kill him and win.

Naruto summoned a dozen clones and fell upon Roshi from all angles. Most died immediately, but most wasn't good enough. One landed on Roshi's back and latched itself there, tearing at whatever unarmored skin it could find and sinking its teeth into his neck. Naruto used the distraction to summon more clones and took diving shots at the old jonin while he was occupied.

Roshi disappeared inside a ball of fire, and Naruto didn't even have time to lament how unfair being immune to fire was before it rolled over him, too. He lunged out of it, desperately forming clones to act as distractions while he and one other scooped his teammates up and carried them out of range. Sakura was still unconscious as his clone eased her to the ground and settled into a guarded crouch, knocked out by the concussive force of Roshi's meteors earlier in the fight.

Sasuke stared at him like he'd grown a tail. The lopsided tomoe in her freaky red eyes were spinning, her lips parted in disbelief. He tried to grin but it felt tight. Like his teeth were taking up too much space in his mouth.

"Don't go dying on me, bastard." He grimaced and tried to clear his throat. Aside from wishing he'd just gargled glass instead, no dice.

A brief, hair-raising sensation and the quiet whistle of metal cutting through air were the only warning Naruto got before a kunai slammed to the hilt in his back. He staggered and fell forward, onto his hands and feet again, and locked on to the shinobi who'd thrown it. Not Roshi, who was still somewhere in the fire, but one of his men. Naruto didn't know what rank he was, but the flak jacket he wore meant he was high enough. It didn't matter.

"Hold still," Sasuke hissed.

He buckled at the next flash of pain, but then the kunai was out and he was bounding forward. He didn't bother standing fully upright. No time. The Iwa nin had used the seconds to fly through a jutsu, and molten earth left over from Roshi's meteors and that Kurotsuchi girl's lava lunged toward him in the shape of a jungle cat.

What was one more burn? Naruto tore straight through it, leaping into the enemy nin and riding him to the ground. A kunai appeared in the man's hand like magic and Naruto only just caught him by the wrist before he could drive it through his throat. He snarled and twisted as hard as he could. The bone snapped. Naruto reared back and drove his forehead into the enemy nin's face, once, twice, three times. Then he lunged sideways and let Roshi stomp his own man further into the dirt.

"You've got guts, I'll give you that." The old man rubbed his neck, and Naruto noted with frustration the steam rising from it. Whatever marks his clone had left were cauterized now. "One helluva scrapper for your age, too, though ya still have that green look. What was your name again?"

He bared his teeth, because he couldn't really grin anymore. "Uzumaki Naruto."

Roshi guffawed. "That explains it."

They crashed together and Naruto rattled with the force of Roshi's strength, his own injuries, and the adrenaline pounding through his veins. It was too much for him to keep up with, and the thought made him want to scream. He swamped Roshi with clones again, but the old man wiped them out with fire before they could get close. He tried to engage in hand to hand, but Roshi was stronger and faster and about a hundred years more experienced.

Meteors as large around as his waist drove him into the earth, and every time he lurched up another pounded him back down. He felt delirious. He'd had dreams like this before, hadn't he? Starving, drowning, falling, until at the peak of distress he jerked awake and fell off his bed. Was that what this was? It had to be, right?

If it was, he wasn't at the peak yet. His skin was blistering, bubbling with heat. It should have hurt more than it did.

The meteor shower paused. For a long moment Naruto lay there, stunned. Then he heard screaming, had a faint impression of being crushed by sand, and his heart lurched up into his throat. He poured chakra into forming clones and rushed out of the pit with them.

A storm was rolling through the battlefield. The same storm they'd been running from for the last three days, clouds and reaching tendrils of sand that swept up fleeing shinobi one limb at a time and pulped them. Naruto cast around, sent clones in every direction, but he couldn't see a thing past the encroaching sand. Where were they? No, no, no-

Fire bloomed like a flower, and Naruto saw Sasuke at its center, struggling to walk with her injuries and Sakura's dead weight. Sand rushed to overtake them. Every clone he'd summoned ran into the sand, advancing by nothing but virtue of numbers. Clones snared and crushed were overtaken by more clones, running through the dead space and chakra smoke left behind.

"Boy!" Roshi roared. Naruto tensed, but he wasn't the target this time. The old Iwa nin stomped the blackened earth. "What the good god damn d'ya think you're doin' to my team!?"

It was the only opening he was gonna get. Naruto hit his blind spot with everything he had and tackled him into one of his own damn craters. The old man fought back at once, hit Naruto with closed fists harder than he'd ever thought you could get hit, and Naruto howled defiance and tore furrows in the man's skin with his fingernails. Roshi hocked and spat a wad of molten earth in his face, and Naruto spat sizzling blood right back in his.

"Two of a kind, aren't we?" Roshi's skin turned red hot, every scratch cauterizing at once. He bucked Naruto off and laid a kick into him that lifted him clear off the ground. He flew, senses flying wild in the sandstorm and the smoke, trying and failing to find some orientation.

Kakashi caught him.

"Sensei." Relief nearly finished the job Roshi had started, making him dizzy. Then he jerked in the man's arms, remembering, "Sasuke and Sakura, they're-"

"They're here." Kakashi crouched and lowered him to the ground slowly, as if he could shatter to pieces at any time. Well, that wasn't far from how he felt. "Your clones kept them safe until I got here. You've done a great job, Naruto. Can you walk?"

"Can do more'n that," he slurred. It was hard to talk, for some reason. He rose up to his hands and feet, decided that was more comfortable than standing, and braced.

"No." A hand that brooked no argument came down on the back of his neck. Naruto bristled and started to snap at it, then stopped. Where had that come from? "That's enough. You'll tear yourself apart if you keep going."

"Just give it a rest, idiot." Sasuke's voice. The words lacked the usual bite, though. She almost sounded concerned.

"They're coming," Naruto insisted. "Old man and the psycho. Can't take 'em both." It felt like Roshi had kicked him halfway across the forest, but he could see the sand coming. The old Iwa bastard would be in there somewhere, and something told him they wouldn't be lucky enough to have the two cancel each other out.

"I can't," Kakashi agreed. "But neither can you. Run."

He didn't even think about it. "No way."

"Naruto, look at me." Naruto hesitated. He didn't want to, really truly didn't. But he did. Kakashi had his headband up again, revealing a freaky red eye just like Sasuke's, but with more tomoe. In the weeks that he'd known him, Naruto had never seen him look so serious.

"You can't always win. Sometimes circumstances are outside your control, sometimes you suffer losses. Like now." He gripped Naruto's shoulders tight, leaned in. "If we don't bend, we break. A shinobi endures, Naruto. We're in over our heads, we can't win. Your teammates won't make it without you. Do you understand?"

Naruto clenched his eyes shut.

"Do you understand?"

"Ye-"

Roshi dropped the sky on them.

Kakashi threw Naruto out of the blast and scooped his teammates up in a blur, and Naruto scrambled as frustration and grief reached a peak in his chest. He snarled and dashed on all fours, hitting Roshi as soon as he emerged from the sandstorm and driving them both back into it.

The old man was changing. His dark eyes had turned a violent orange without pupils or irises, two long fangs hung down from his top row of teeth, and even through the haze of pain-numbing adrenaline Naruto's skin screamed at the heat of being in close proximity to him. He flattened Naruto with one punch, but before he could follow up on it a pair of hounds made of pure electricity sprinted into the sandstorm and pounced on him.

"Enough, boy."

They died with crackling yelps, before Naruto could fully recover, and Roshi drew back a fist that shimmered with chakra.

Kakashi appeared between them in a shower of leaves and Roshi tore out his heart.

He staggered forward a step, one arm wreathed in lightning, and fell. Naruto stared, frozen, unable to put it together in his head. Kakashi's corpse stared back at him, not accusing, not afraid, not much of anything but dead. And yet, it was like he was shouting louder than anything.

Endure.

Naruto turned and ran, ignored Roshi's cursing and thrashing in the sand, ignored Sasuke's frantic questions as he threw her and Sakura over his shoulders, ignored the Tsuchikage's granddaughter as she shouted orders. He ran for all he was worth, and then he ran harder than that.

He left Kakashi behind, and promised he'd never lose again.

Uchiha Sasuke wasn't surprised when her idiot teammate's miraculous strength left him as abruptly as it had come. In the space between breaths she felt his shoulders sag beneath their weight, braced herself for a tumble that was almost guaranteed to upset her broken wrist. She was surprised when Naruto planted his front foot and caught himself, cursed under his breath, and continued on. If his pace had slowed, she guessed it wasn't for lack of trying.

"Naruto," she said. "You're going to kill yourself."

No response.

"Hey, idiot."

Nothing. Her eyes narrowed.

"Ow! Bastard!" Naruto flinched away from her, but she only twisted his ear harder.

"I'm getting down." She waited for him to stop, then slid down and set her feet on the forest floor. Her legs buckled and Naruto hollered in pain as she yanked on his ear for balance. The past three days on top of the hours she'd just spent slung over his shoulder like a sack of rice had turned her limbs to jelly. She waited until she was sure they'd hold before she let go.

"What was that for?" Naruto grumbled, shifting Sakura off his other shoulder and leaning her up against a tree. For all that he tried to muscle through it, she could see the tremors in his arms.

"You're killing yourself," she said again.

"I'm fine." He didn't sit down, she noted. Probably worried he wouldn't be able to stand back up if he did. "But we're dead for sure if they catch up to us again. You heard sensei-" He faltered, and her stomach rolled at the memory of the heart burning in Roshi's fist. Naruto scowled and kept on, "He said it's on me to get us back home."

"And where is home?" she challenged him, and cursed the answering blank shock. She should have known. If she'd lost her orientation in the fight, why would he have been any different? "You've just been running this whole time, haven't you? We could be in Snow right now and you'd have no idea."

"I would! There'd be snow!"

"Well it's raining," she snapped. "So where are we?" He didn't know, obviously. She dug through the supply kit at her thigh and came up with a pack of smelling salts, threw them at Naruto.

"Wake her up. We can't afford the dead weight."

She set about filling a canteen while he made himself useful, holding it beneath a sagging leaf to catch the runoff. The rain was a many-faced blessing, soothing thirst as well as the burns they'd all sustained, and with any luck wiping away their trail. She supposed that Naruto's mindless escape could also have aided them in its own way. The enemy couldn't predict their path if they had no idea of it themselves.

"Ah! Wha- Sasuke!"

Sakura all but threw Naruto to the side as she stumbled to her feet. Sasuke imagined her last conscious moments were playing themselves out in her head, when Sasuke had been put out of the fight while saving her from one of Roshi's meteors. For all that she'd been knocked out, she'd probably taken the least damage of the three of them. Annoying.

"Are you okay? What happened? Everything moved so fast, I remember the forest caught fire and I lost track of the client but I could see Kakashi-sensei fighting the Tsuchikage's granddaughter and-"

"Kakashi is dead."

"What the hell, Sasuke!" Naruto glared at her and she glared right back. They didn't have time to beat around the bush.

"Kakashi-sensei is…" It hit her in waves, shock into denial into despair. "N-Naruto… that's not true, is it? He's not-" Naruto grit his teeth and looked away when she tried to meet his eyes. A sob rocked her back into the tree. "No, oh no…"

"He died saving me," he said, tortured. "It's my fault."

"Don't be stupid," Sasuke said. As much as she hated to admit it, and oh, did she hate it, he was the only reason they were still alive. Sakura had been more trouble than she was worth, and even her sharingan hadn't been enough to keep pace for more than a couple minutes.

She took stock of her supplies, frustrated to find little but the absolute basics of utility and weaponry. Naruto had gotten his backpack burnt what felt like weeks ago jumping into one of her jutsu, and theirs had been left behind in the chaos of the fight with Iwa. Aside from the canteen clipped to her belt and the contents of her pouches, she had nothing. It would be the same for them.

"We need food and a map," she decided. Priorities. "Naruto, help me splint my wrist."

"W-wait," Sakura said. "I'm better with first aid, let me-"

"It's fine. See if you can figure out where we are." She found a serviceable branch and had Naruto hold it still while she carved it into a smooth brace. His bandage wrapping was sloppy, but it held well enough. "You lost your headband," she mused.

"I did?" Alarmed, he prodded the hair usually held up by the cloth and metal. Sasuke rolled her eyes.

"We're better off without them until we make it to Fire Country." She untied her own and folded it up into her utility pouch. Her hair fell into her eyes, wet with rain, and she shook her head until it was more or less out of the way. "How are your injuries?"

"Told you, I'm good." He shrugged. "Felt like I was falling apart back then, but it didn't end up being too bad."

"Naruto," she said slowly. "One of those meteors took me and Sakura out of the fight, and it didn't hit us directly. Roshi was burying you with them."

She'd had a long time to think about the red irises and slit pupils that she'd seen after he crawled out of the first crater. The way he'd grinned at her, with canines longer and sharper than any human had, and spoke in that guttural, snarling voice. Her sharingan had shown her the way his chakra changed, a flickering yellow in one moment, and a raging blood-orange the next. She'd never forget it, thanks to her eyes.

"Turn around." His orange jumpsuit had been burnt almost to tatters, especially the back of it, so she didn't have to move it to see there was no lingering sign of the kunai she'd pulled out of his back. No scar. Even the blood had been washed away by the rain.

"Does this hurt?" She poked the skin where a bloody wound should be. He shook his head. "You're not even burnt. What did you do, idiot?"

"How should I know? I'm not a damn medic."

"Guys," Sakura said, sounding frightened. "I don't recognize these trees. They don't grow in Fire Country, and they don't look like anything we passed through in the last two weeks."

Finally, some useful information. "You went the wrong way," she told Naruto.

"Bite me."

"You wish."

"Guys!" Sakura stood shivering in the rain, hands balled up in her red dress. "What do we do?"

It was a question she'd been asking herself for the last several hours. Standing and fighting wasn't an option. Sakura could be trusted to fight another genin, maybe, but not the sort of nin they'd been hounded by for the last three days. Naruto was somehow not on death's door, but exhaustion was clearly taking its toll on him. As for herself, Sasuke needed time to recover and re-learn a few skills.

"We find a village," she said, and then for Naruto's benefit amended, "A civilian settlement, or something smaller. We'll need a map or directions from someone who knows the area, and then we can make a break for the nearest Fire Country outpost."

"But we're just genin," Sakura fretted, trembling on the edge of tears again. "Those were high ranking shinobi. And we might be inside their borders. What if they find us?"

"What do you think, Sakura? You got good grades in the Academy. You know what happens."

"Knock it off, bastard."

"Hn." She brought the heel of one foot up to her backside, then the other, testing the muscles in her legs. Good enough. "We'll be fine. For now let's find a place to sleep. Sakura can take first watch."

They ended up settling into a low ground depression beneath the overhanging roots of a storm-battered tree. They concealed themselves as best they could with fallen branches and other detritus, but even then their enclosure was damp and too cold for comfort. Sasuke fell asleep only after long minutes of rolling on wet leaves and dirt, jealous of the ease with which Naruto had slumped into a dead rest.

She dreamt of nothing she could put words to, but nonetheless jolted up in a cold sweat when Naruto finally shook her awake. He gave her a weird look and offered her his canteen. The water was cool and fresh, sweet on her dry throat. She joined him at the entrance of their foxhole, peering through the gaps in the branches and leaves. It was pitch dark, in the way only very early morning could be.

"You're third watch," Naruto said quietly. She hummed. Her wrist was throbbing, but aside from that she felt on her way to being well. A brief touch of chakra to her eyes brought the world into sharper clarity, allowing her to confirm that there was no chakra being used anywhere within view.

Minutes passed. "Go back to sleep," she said, side eying him. He grunted. "You need it."

"We're in a bad spot, aren't we?" Trust an idiot to point out the obvious. Sasuke watched rain hit the leaves and wondered why she couldn't predict which way they fell. There was too much she didn't know about her bloodline, too much she needed to learn. "We're in it deep. What's the plan?"

"I already told you. Find a settlement-"

"Grab a map, run home, yeah, I got that." He leaned forward, an elbow propped up on one knee, chin in his hand. "What about when they find us?"

"We don't get found."

"Don't screw with me," he growled. "They found us once. What do we do when they find us again?"

"We fight. What else?"

"We can't lose again."

"We won't," she promised him, as well as herself. "Why are you only worrying about this now? Don't tell me it just sank in."

"'Course not. But Sakura was getting pretty freaked out before. Didn't want to make it worse."

"Sheltering her won't do her any favors."

"I know," he said, annoyed. "Doesn't stop me from wanting to protect her. She's a girl, y'know?"

Sasuke scowled. "I'm a girl, too."

"Nah, you're a bastard." He grinned at her in the darkness, her sharingan rendering it in perfect detail. She scoffed. "But seriously. We're gonna have to kick a lot of ass."

"I don't need you to tell me that."

"So what's up your sleeve?"

Sasuke slowly formed hand seals, the motions awkward and painful with her splinted wrist. Each seal burned like fire to her eyes, overlapping in sequence until she formed the final seal and her jutsu came to life. Naruto sucked in a breath as lightning danced over her left arm, the faint sound of chirping birds filling their shelter. It dispelled a few moments later, and Sasuke grimaced at the muscle spasms it left in its wake. It needed work.

Kakashi's jutsu once, now hers. "The sharingan gives me enhanced perceptions and the ability to copy anything I see. Anything," she explained, her voice promising triumph. "Every jutsu they used to break us, they're mine now. I'll recreate them, I'll master them, and if Iwa or Suna find us again?" She met Naruto's eyes, shining feral blue in the dark.

"I will crush them."