Sasuke's Last Stand

"Damned worms!" growled Haido. "Whatever it is you're trying to do, I won't let you!"

His insect-like wings buzzed, granting him a burst of speed— but just as he was about to seize Sakura by the scruff of her neck, Sasuke flickered in front of him, the tomoe in his scarlet irises rotating rapidly around his pupils.

"Genjutsu: Sharingan!"

"Lord Hyde!" screeched Kamira, noticing her master's movements growing sluggish.

Kamira flapped her wings and swooped down to help, but Sakura had already finished moulding enough elemental chakra for her next attack.

"Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!"

Caught in the hurricane Sakura unleashed, the bat woman fought to stay airborne, battered by sharp blades of air that tore gaping holes in her leathery wings and shattered her bones. Eventually, she could endure no more and plummeted to the ground, screeching at the top of her lungs— leaving Hyde as the last enemy still standing.

"Whatever it is you're planning…" Sasuke grunted. "Hurry… He's struggling…!"

As an Uchiha, Sasuke instinctively knew how to use his Dōjutsu techniques without any outside help, but he was still fairly new at using Genjutsu, so he wasn't very proficient at it yet. Unlike Sakura, he had an easier time injecting his chakra into Hyde's brain via his optic nerves, but he was finding it difficult to keep track of his chakra once it had entered Hyde's skull, considering there weren't any chakra pathways connected to his neurons.

"What the hell happened to Naruto!?" Sakura hissed, spotting him bleeding out on the ground. "He's not dead, is he!?"

If Naruto was dead, then there really was no hope left for this world!

Maybe coddling the Asura and Indra incarnates hadn't been Sakura's best idea… by taking on the hardest foes in their place, she was making herself stronger, but she was also stunting the growth of the only two people who could reseal the Rabbit Goddess once she came down from the moon!

"Sakura…!" Sasuke cried out warningly. "He's… about… to break out of my Genjutsu…!"

Sakura didn't bother answering Sasuke's pleas— Naruto was in dire need of medical attention. He had managed to last this long thanks to the innate regenerative powers the Nine-Tails' chakra granted him, but his heart was giving out on him…

She shook her head. She couldn't afford to think this way; she had to focus on healing Naruto. If she failed to balance the output of yang chakra, she might end up doing more harm than good.

"Mystical Palm Jutsu!"

Sakura placed her right hand on Naruto's torn chest, bathing it in a gentle green glow. She had to gently stimulate his cells with just the right amount of chakra, or she would fry him like a fish…

"Come on, Naruto, you're stronger than this!" said Sakura urgently, guiding her healing chakra into Naruto's wounds. "Come on!"

She resisted the urge to flood Naruto's body with yang chakra— more wasn't necessarily better, but this wasn't going nearly fast enough. Even though Naruto's wounds were slowly knitting back together, there was still a gaping hole in his chest. Even if she outwardly staunched the bleeding, his heart, lungs and every structure holding those organs together were all badly damaged— and she had no idea how to fix them.

Sakura's long lessons in human anatomy with Lady Tsunade hadn't been a waste of time, but repairing injuries of this magnitude was far beyond the expertise of a novice. Anyone else would have already passed on by now, and even though Naruto had managed to hang on this long, he wouldn't survive much longer— with or without Sakura's ministrations.

"Get… out… of… my… head!"

Sensing his mental hold on Hyde slipping, Sasuke threw a bundle of steel wire like a lasso, holding one end between his teeth. The wires coiled tightly around Hyde's lean muscular frame, causing his arms and his legs to snap together. They wouldn't hold for long, given Hyde's extraordinary strength, but Sasuke didn't need them to…

With Sasuke no longer concentrating on maintaining his Genjutsu, Hyde finally managed to snap out of the illusion. Noticing the wires restricting his movements, he flexed his muscles and pushed outwards with his wings, straining against the taut wires.

"Fire Style: Dragon Fire Jutsu!"

Sasuke took a deep breath through his nose, before breathing out a torrent of orange flames through his gritted teeth. Guided by the wire clenched between his teeth, the flames spread quickly to their intended target, igniting a blazing pillar at Hyde's feet!

Hyde screamed in pain as the flames engulfed his body, which greatly surprised Sasuke. He'd tried Fire Style Ninjutsu earlier to no great effect, so why was it working now? Was the enemy getting tired… or was it because he'd got stronger?

Sasuke threw his head back and let out of a wild laugh, as he allowed his transformation to consume him. How could he have forgotten? This was the extraordinary power Orochimaru had granted him on a whim! Why had he ever considered sealing away this power to be such a good idea!?

"Damned brat… mocking me!" growled Hyde, extinguishing the sticky flames covering his body by firing a weak blast of Gelel energy at his feet. "You've all had Gelel energy at your disposal this entire time, you hateful shinobi! I'll tear your stones from your corpses, and then I'll find the mines myself and conquer your pitiful continent!!"

"Sasuke…" whimpered Sakura.

The situation was spiralling out of control. Sasuke had all but relinquished his entire being to Orochimaru's Cursed Seal of Heaven, and there was nothing she could do about it. She hated feeling this useless, but she couldn't give up on Naruto's treatment now, or he would surely die…

"…squeak!"

Sakura looked down.

Nerugui was standing on Naruto's head, holding delicately between its small jaws a blue gemstone, which was still dripping with crimson blood. The ferret dropped the stone on Naruto's forehead and looked up at Sakura expectantly. Evidently, it had taken advantage of Hyde's temporary incapacitation to steal Temujin's stone back from him!

Blinking back her tears, Sakura stopped her treatment and scooped up the stone of Gelel in her palms. With this, maybe she'd be able to save Naruto!

"Senjutsu: Mystical Palm!"

Using Temujin's royal blood as a medium and her own body as a conduit, Sakura drew upon the stone's almost endless energy reserves with single-minded focus, channelling it through herself without any regard for her own well-being and releasing it in the form of soothing yang chakra.

Sakura's concentration was such that she didn't even notice how the concentrated Natural Energy was altering her body— and even if she had, she wouldn't have cared. Hidden from sight beneath her curves, a second set of mounds was growing beneath her first pair, while at the same time, twin curved horns were beginning to peek out from her pink hair, on the sides of her head…