Guinea Pigs

This takes place in a slightly AU-Narutoverse.

The following changes are made:
Sasuke never betrayed Orochimaru and instead is a Sound-ninja, if only a reluctant one as he still feels he is not powerful enough to kill Itachi.

The genin-characters are all three years older than they are in the show, so that Tenten, Neji and Rock Lee are oldest with twenty years of age and Naruto and the other genin are all 18 to 19 years of age.

In this AU, it came to a climactic three-way battle of Sound, Sand and Leaf (Leaf and Sand were allied, of course). Akatsuki is not a major player here.
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This one was a mess. One broken arm, a broken leg, probably a few broken rips, a kunai still lodged in his shoulder, internal injuries were likely. This ninja could be grateful if he would ever work as a ninja again, if he even lived to see the next day. Just stitching him up would require hours, the healing process for his entire body would take months. But that was time that Sakura just didn't have right now. All that she could do was to heal the major injuries so that would not die immediately. So, she forced chakra out of her tired body into her palms, were they formed a small bubble of soothing energy, which she used to swiftly mend the most lethal of this mans injuries.

And he was one of the ninja who got to her in a better shape. It was past noon now, and Sakura had lost count at twenty-three a few hours ago. Some were missing limbs, eyes and one guy even had nothing left below his waistline. And all that Sakura was capable of doing was to give them a chance. There were too many, her conscience told her whenever one was laid before was to heal them, relieve them of their pain. But that was a luxury, a dream that she did not have.

"Hey Sakura, there comes another one!", a voice called out to her.

She looked up, over to her friend Ino, a medical ninja much like herself, forced to remain here as well. She too had an uneasy feeling in her eyes and Sakura could tell that her friend felt just like her. Her hands were soiled with blood, different sets of blood even. She was worn out, tired, exhausted, nearly out of chakra. Sakura knew she must've looked pretty much the same.

Following the blondes gaze, Sakura watched as already a replacement was carried over to her. The young man was placed in front of her and now Sakura had to fight back the gastric juices welling up in her stomach. She knew him.

"Not you too.", she whispered.

Until now, she had only treated allies that she knew only vaguely. That she had seen once or twice at most, some she had not even spoken to and only vaguely recalling their names. But this patient of hers, she recognized. A former classmate of hers.

One of her friends. Now lying on the ground, air wheezing out of his mouth as his life was fading. The ninja that brought him, Sakura could tell he would have wanted to stay and look after his comrade, but the battle was more urgent than personal matters. So he left to join the fray without as much as word... not that he ever spoke much anyway.

That professionality was something that gave Sakura the strength to imitate him. Pulling herself together, she forced herself past the shock of seeing a friend with his chest cut open from the left shoulder nearly all the way down to the right hip.

Blood was still pouring out, she could see the bones of his ribcage, thankfully only graced by the blade and not cut, and his organs were moving under the cut like eels in red water. Sakura began healing his injury, but a scar would remain. Always.

In a matter of minutes, he was not in danger anymore and brought further back to the base of Konoha, where regular nurses and doctors would look after him. No doubt they were already completely buried under patients. Ino, Sakura and the other medical ninja were simply the first aid, able to heal wounds that would otherwise be fatal in a matter of moments. But that had its price.

Seeing as she had a moment to rest now that no new fallen warrior from her side was brought to her, Sakura grabbed a bottle of water, leaned back a little and surveyed the battlefield as she tried to replenish her energy just a little bit.

She was torn between having to heal the wounded on her side and desperately wanting to fight the enemy to prevent further injuries to her allies. Sakura knew that her duty right now was to remain behind the front lines and give first aid to those wounded in the fighting... yet it felt wrong. She had studied with them in the academy, graduated with them, and now she could not stand at their side in this battle. It aggravated her, but she knew that what it was, this is where she was needed most. From here, all she could do was watch.

Most notably, she could see that the frontline consisted of ninja, no matter if they were Jounin, Chuunin or Genin. They all fought to protect their homes. But the numerous clans of Konoha had taken to fight on their own fronts. The Akimichi clan, the Inuzuka clan and the Aburame clan were all easy to spot from Sakuras point on a slight hill atop the field. The Yamanaka clan only had two members present on the battlefield. One was down there with his teammates, fighting the Sound ninja. The other one sat next to Sakura.

The two girls did not speak, they were to tense. And what to speak about anyway? The uncertain, searching look in Inos eyes betrayed that she was worried about her father. How cruel that would be if the daughter would have to treat her own father?

Sakura could not really relate. Her parents were civillians, they stayed in Konoha. They had been hesitant about their daughter becoming a kunoichi and had they known it would come to this, they would have surely forbidden it. But like this, Sakura could do her part to defend her hometown, or at least, she hoped.

She felt useless, even now, even when she was saving lifes. She felt as though she was only cleaning up behind all those who fought, scavenging what was still not broken yet. It made her sick, she wanted to fight. Why had she gained this power, painfully learned to control her chakra so acurately to smash boulders with little effort when she would not be allowed to do so when she deemed it to be critical?

In the distance, she could see the Hyuuga clan, standing united against the enemy. Branch and Main family both fought against the invaders under the lead of Hyuuga Hiashi, his daughters at his side and his nephew, Neji, close to them as well. They proved once more that they were the strongest clan in Konoha right now, but that was maybe the reason why hordes of Sound-shinobi attacked them and they were having the hardest time.

For now, it would seem as if Konoha would be victorious. They were slowly pushing the front line of Otogakure back to their leader, Orochimaru. But he just stood on his hill like a warlord and watched the bloodshed underneath him with indifference at best. From her position, Sakura could barely see that he threw his hands in the air once and the slammed them into the ground.

A splitsecond later, Sakura realized what was going on. Orochimaru had just brought in the heavy weapons, as the earth shook when four massive snakes, just like the ones that had been used in the invasion of Konoha a few years back, when Sunagakure had assisted them. But worst, even his huge personal snake, Manda, was towering of the battlefield now. And the snake wasted no time in diving headlong into the frontline, its massive mouth devouring any that stood in its path, friend or foe.

The other summons also began to attack the Leaf ninjas. A few tried to summon their own familiars and so a battle of the summons began, and the battlefield shifted. Now, it was no longer ninja versus ninja, but summon against summon. They had replaced the humans on the frontline, and the battlefield expanded now as the small humans scurried to their side to make place for the summons to battle, so much so that Sakuras position suddenly became dangerously close to the frontline.

But there was one circle in the middle of the summons that remained seemingly empty. There was enough space for another pair of summons to face off, but in that ring, only two mortals stood, the only ones that could stand aside creatures of that size and strenght. Their battle was raging on, bolts of lightning chakra and gusts of wind chakra sweeping over their surroundings. Even if they were obscured by the still raging battle, Sakura recognized them.

"No! Naruto... Sasuke!", she gasped.

The fight of the rivals was heated and it was understandable that even the familiars kept their distance to the powers that both of them unleashed. They fought fiercely. Even if Naruto had promised to bring him back, he drew upon the power of the Kyuubi inside. Yamato could not reach him now, but Naruto said he would be able to restrain himself with just one tail... but his strikes told Sakura a different story, even from afar.

That was when could not bottle her feelings up anymore. The two people that mattered most to her, locked in battle. And she was forced to watch, she could not take it anymore. She turned towards the place of their fight and ran.

"Sakura? Where are you going?", Ino yelled after her in desperation and confusion. But Sakura did not stop.

Then, an explosion behind her shook the ground. As she turned around, Sakura froze. A giant snake summon had crashed into the group of ninja around Ino, being knocked there by another summoned turtle. Ino herself was nowhere to be seen as the dust from the ground obscured the view, but Sakura could tell that it had been a most viscious attack.

"I-Ino...", she whispered, a whisper that went completely unheard under the noise of the battle. Was she alright? Was she still alive? Sakura worried about Ino.... but she could not turn back now. All she could do was have faith in her friend. 'Yeah, no way Ino would be killed by just that!', she told herself. Forcing herself to abandon her friend to an unknown fate, Sakura dashed towards Naruto and Sasuke.

Closer she came to them, and it was easy, most ninjas had taken the appearance of the summons as a sign to retreat and rest while they took over the fighting. So, Sakura only had to evade the fighting animals as she reached Naruto and Sasuke as their duel reached its climax.

"RASENGAN!"
"CHIDORI!"

The colliding masses of different chakra created a blast and a blinding white light was all Sakura saw as she was caught in
it. Then, blinding white turned to blinding black...

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The battle ended in a tie with both sides taking so massive losses that a continuation of the conflict was put on hold. All participants could not allow themselves to do more battle as it would weaken their defenses. On that, they could agree.

Further conflict was, for now, futile.

And so, both sides had time to clear out the chaos that this skirmish had caused, bury their dead and try to bolster their defenses anew.

Among the casualties of the battle were a lot of unknown ninja, selflessly giving their life in defense of their village, but at their side were the heroes of Konoha. A high number of shinobi was still missing, having vanished on the battlefield. Most presume that their bodies were torn apart by the forces unleashed or simply devoured by the snakes. But did they all die? Who knows what can happen to people in the chaos of a full-blown war? But more importantly... what comes after the battle?

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