Thirteen

                                    

                                          
One thousand views!!!! Omg!!! Thank you all for your support, sorry for the late update- the school year's coming to an end, and tests are killing meeee. Anyway. Back to the story!
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Naruto's POV
We appear inside an underground cavern underneath the Forest Tower. The room is damp, the ceiling held up by columns of marble stone with patterns drawn on. I release my grip on Sasuke, and form a handsign. Circles of sealing runes surround us, with Sasuke at the center. The outermost runes glow with an eerily neon green. 
"Sasuke. I'm going to remove the curse mark now." I say, flitting my eyes over to him, his body crouched on the floor. He turns to me weakly, and nods, his eyebrows furrowed in determination.
"It'll hurt like hell." I admit, outstretching my hand to him. "You can hold my hand if you want." He frowns a bit and hesitates, but takes it. 
I nod, signalling the start of the removal. I form a one-handed handsign, watching as a rune appears on my palm. Then I place my hand on the curse mark, pulsing a bit of chakra in. The circles of runes are all glowing now, and I feel Sasuke squeeze my hand from the pain.
Eyebrows furrowed in concentration, I pulse more chakra in. Sasuke chokes out a scream of agony, and I lift my hand, starting to pull the curse with it. His screams echo throughout the room, and someway through the procedure, I feel his nails dig into my hand, drawing blood. Ignoring an odd weight in my chest whenever I hear his screams, I pulse a bit more chakra and lift my hand higher. Pulsing, and lifting. This goes on for about an hour.
Frowning, I pull my hand up one last time, and the curse finally gives. The runes turn back to normal, and I feel Sasuke's body give out. He falls to the floor, having already used up his voice from all the screaming. He's unconscious. 
Realizing he's still grabbing my hand, I try to pry my hand away, but he holds on tight. Pursing my lips into a thin line, I sigh, and sit down next to him as he sleeps, letting him hold my hand.
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Also ignoring the fluttering in the chest as I watch him sleep, I stay on high alert. It's been a few hours now. I sense more chakra signatures in the Forest Tower. More teams have made it. The One-tail is one of them. No surprise there.
It's the first time I've removed something like that. Perks of being in the Uzumaki clan. 
Suddenly, I sense Sasuke stir beside me. I turn to him, and he gets up groggily, wincing as he tries to move his neck.
"The curse is removed, but I left the mark on there, so Orochimaru won't be suspicious." I say slowly, when he seems to come to his senses. "There might be some lingering pain, but it'll go away. I suspect that there'll be a decent number of people left after the second part of the exams, so there'll be a preliminary round. It's where you fight one on one. I don't want you activating your sharingan, or ninjutsu- anything that requires chakra, since that might make Orochimaru know somethings up."
Sasuke nods, rubbing the back of your neck and sitting up. I stare at him awkwardly.
"....How are you feeling?" 
He turns to me, a deadpan on his face. "Like hell." I snort.
"At least your personality's normal." I mused. Then he perks up, an eyebrow raised. His head slowly turns to our hands still entwined with each other.