A cherry blossom in the Holy Land

Author's Note: Hey y'all! Krjs is back! I've gotten into the Assassin's Creed fandom and with all of the fanfics I've read I've had the greatest urge to cross it over with Naruto mainly because I want to see how Altair would react to a pink haired girl that could break all of his bones with one punch. XD
Oh, and btw, all Japanese words will be in italic and if anyone needs a translation I'll have a note at the bottom explaining what it means.

…~*~…

Chapter 1

The Holy Land

Throughout her career as a kunoichi* Sakura has seen and done many things that most people would put in the realm of fantasy, her superhuman strength being the least of it; having a jinchuriki* as a teammate kind of guarantees that and it doesn't help that Naruto himself is such a maverick in the battlefield either. These days whenever she wakes up the first thing that she asks herself is: 'I wonder which law of physics is going to broken today?'

The last thing that she expected though, despite all her experience in the impossible becoming more than plausible was to be sent to another dimension because of the Mangekyō Sharingan*.

In hindsight it seems kind of silly of her to be so surprised. After seeing the jutsu* in action she always wondered where the target went if the jutsu was successful but never thought that she was going to have the question answered by becoming the target itself. She just never thought that Sasuke would have degenerated so far as using such a dangerous and little-known jutsu on his own former teammate. It was that action in itself that told her in clear bold kanji* that he no longer considers her a comrade, never mind as his former Genin* teammate.

Even knowing that in her mind she still couldn't bring herself to take him out, despite all the crimes he'd committed in her mind she still considered him her first love and fellow teammate. She couldn't just pretend that everything they had gone through never happened and that he was just another dangerous criminal that needed to be taken down like she's done in countless other missions beforehand. Every time she looked at him the love that she still held in her heart for him made her chest constrict and made her wish that she could bury her head and pretend that none of this ever happened, that the past year was nothing more than a prolonged and horrible nightmare.

The dull throbbing at her side however told her that this was no dream, that reality is far harsher than she could ever have comprehended. The warm flow of blood and the burning sensation told her that not only did the jutsu succeed the jutsu somehow managed to send her whole and possibly dying. Her chakra reserves are still dangerously low so any medical jutsu she had learned can't be used and with how bad her wounds are its quite likely that she could die if she doesn't find a healer or a hospital to have them treated.

On that note she proceeded to get up from her prone position on the sandy floor. Already she could tell that she was nowhere near Tetsu no Kuni* nor Konohagakure no Sato* or even being in the Ninkai* anymore. Though the sand made her wonder briefly if she had somehow ended up in Sunagakure no Sato* when she saw the way the buildings were constructed she dismissed the idea as pure folly. The buildings were made of some kind of white stone that was definitely not local to the Suna* village and the clothes worn by the civilians were made in such a way that couldn't possibly be worn by a shinobi*. There was too much fabric used to the point of impracticality and some was almost see-through, especially on the few women that wandered the street who were more than obviously prostitutes trying to get a client. The language was her last clue that she was nowhere near the Ninkai. Or should she say languages? Even though she understood little to nothing that was being said she could tell just by listening that the locals spoke different languages by the different accents, the emphasis on the words being different and even the way that they spoke. She was already getting a headache just listening to the din.

She wandered around like that, looking around her with wary eyes and hoping against hope that she could somehow find someone who spoke her language and could direct her to a place where she can get her wounds treated. She drew the eyes of many of the locals, many of their eyes lingering on her pink hair, something that she's had a lot experience ignoring. Surprisingly enough, even with the rainbow-like colors that can be seen back home pink hair is still relatively rare. She noticed also that many of the local women were rather conservatively dressed, being covered from head to toe which made her thankful for the cloak that she had on. Her pink hair is attracting enough attention as it is, she doesn't need to get accosted if someone her saw how little she wore underneath. Well, back where she's from her clothes are plenty modest, but compared to the civilians here she might as well have been one of the prostitutes on the street with how much skin she's showing underneath the cloak.

The place was the most shabbily up kept village that she has ever set foot at. The floor was little more than sand compacted by walking feet for who knows how long, water and what seemed to be possibly feces is also littered on the streets, and the smell! Ugh! If she was an Inuzuka* she would have already fainted from how disgustingly strong it was. And by the way that the stray dogs were treated here she was sure that Kiba would have been appalled and would have gone feral from sheer anger. She saw a few of them being kicked away by orphans from questionable looking food that they wolfed down like they were starving, which she could tell from their emaciated bodies that they most definitely were. She's seen prisoners of war that are treated better than they are.

With that thought it made her wonder whether she'd be able to find anyone who would be kind enough to treat her without payment. Though she still had a few ryo in her pockets she could tell by observation that the currency used in this place did not in any way resemble the one she's used to. Maybe she should just look for an inn instead of looking for a healer; she has a feeling that she'd have an easier time finding one.

That was when all hell broke loose.

"Hashashin!"

Peals of bells echoed in the air as the familiar sound of metal clashing rang in her ears. Purely by reflex she brought out a kunai* on her right hand and took on her ready stance as her eyes scanned her surroundings for any immediate danger, her face hardening into a determined expression.

Unbeknownst to her the reflexive stance she took unnerved the civilians in the vicinity and only garnered her more looks from the citizenry.

Her caution however paid off as a figure in white almost ran into her with many others following right behind him who wore a white cloth with a red cross in bold red thread on their torsos who carried rather crude forms of katana* that looked like they were just a bigger form of a dagger and wasn't made to slash people into pieces like a katana would be. She could already tell that by the way that they run that they were not well trained with it, and the way that they held it told her that they were not used to its weight and didn't know how to compensate for it. The figure in white however was a different matter. He moved like a high-level Jounin, almost silent and had quite a number of weapons showing on his person; at least what wasn't concealed was numerous.

She knew she could take them all on, with the possible exception of the white one, the others are not well trained in combat situations and it showed.

The white one stopped in front of her when he saw that she had a weapon in hand, and although she was rather curious about him she had to put away the questions bubbling inside her because the other foreigners had managed to circle them both in the short time that they had been distracted with one another. She had to adjust her stance to keep the new opponents within her sight.

She's gone through too much in her life to die so easily in this foreign land. Tsunade-shishou* doesn't train weaklings after all, and her Chunin rank isn't just for show.

The opponents started to speak in one of the languages of this foreign world, and shiroi*, as she's nicknamed the white one in her head, answered them back in the same language, though his words were slightly accented. It seems that there was no love lost between the two parties, if the motions they were making with their crude weapons were any indication. The stabbing motions they were making were making her antsy and made her put her kunai away and pull on her gloves to be prepared for a battle, something that did not escape the notice of the white one.

Whatever words they exchanged meant nothing as the one who had the most elaborate armor screamed a battle cry the others ran at them with their weapons pointed at them Sakura did the only thing that she could in the situation.

"Shannaro*!"

She punched the floor and made a crater form with some of her waning chakra* in hopes that it would knock them off their feet. Thankfully the sand was compacted enough that the punch was more than enough to knock them all off their feet. Their cumbersome armor only made it that much easier to fall. She saw that a few were on their knees instead of flat on their back, and she unthinkingly threw a few shuriken and kunai aimed at their hearts that only slightly punctured their metal armor. She could tell by the looks on their faces that they were unused to seeing such a strong example of strength, which only fortified in her mind that this was not her home. Everyone in Ninkai has at least heard of Tsunade and her legendary strength and her apprentice.

The only one who wasn't aversely affected by her crater was shiroi, and only because he had managed to walk up a building onto a windowsill away from the danger was he still standing. He earned her respect for his apparent strategic intelligence.

She was in no condition to fight in a prolonged battle and so followed shiroi up the wall and passed him up to the roofs, much to his surprise, hoping that there at least there will be fewer enemies to worry about. Although there were a few archers trained to take down anyone running through the roofs their bow and arrows were far too slow to hit their target, mainly one pink haired girl named Sakura. She heard the almost silent footfalls that signaled that shiroi was following right behind her though she could hear labored breaths escaping his lips as he tried to keep up.

Her chakra exhaustion was making itself well known as her pace slowed marginally, making her lag behind shiroi but she munched on a soldier pill to keep up her waning strength. She followed right behind him, seeing as she was now being chased by the guards that was after him and had no other choice in this foreign land.

He came to a stop on a rooftop with grates covered over a garden of some kind.

Unfortunately this was the time when all of her strength left and she fell unconscious. Just before everything went dark she heard a voice calling urgently in the foreign language and felt arms surround her, the warmth comforting and made her feel safe, despite of everything.

She hoped with all of her heart that whoever shiroi is he would find someone who can take care of her wounds, or at least someone who can stitch up the worst ones. She won't be able to heal herself if she dies after all.

…~*~…

Japanese Terms - Glossary

1. kunoichi: "female ninja"

2. jinchuriki: literally means "Power of Human Sacrifice"; in this context it means a human with a demon sealed inside of them

3. Mangekyō Sharingan: literally translates into "Kaleidoscope Copy Wheel Eye"; an advanced form of a ninja technique that lets a certain clan form illusions just by looking into the eyes of their target

4. jutsu: literally means "skills/techniques"

5. kanji: Chinese characters used in modern Japanese writing system in tandem with hiragana and katakana, two types of Japanese syllabry

6. Genin: literally means "low ninja"; lowest rank of ninja in the Naruto-verse

7. Tetsu no Kuni: "Land of Iron"; an icy, snow covered country that Sakura was just in before the story starts

8. Konohagakure no Sato: can literally be translated into "Village Hidden among Tree Leaves", "Village Hidden in the Leaves" or "Hidden Leaf Village"; Sakura's home village

9. Ninkai: "ninja world"

10. Sunagakure no Sato: "Village Hidden in the Sand"

11. Suna: "Sand"

12. shinobi: "recall" or "stealth", used in this case as another word for ninja

13. Inuzuka: "House of dogs"; in this case it means a ninja clan of similar name

14. kunai: a black dagger designed for thrusting and stabbing, though it is quite commonly used as a projectile with deadly effect

15. katana: Japanese sword that's well known for its slashing ability made of many layers of metal folded into each other; a well made katana can cut a human in two with little effort to the swordsman/woman, and historically speaking samurai cut dead (or sometimes not-so-dead) bodies of criminals in half to test how good a katana is made

16. Jounin: literally means "high ninja"; the rank higher than Chunin, they tend to be very experienced ninja that serve as military captains

17. shishou: means either "mentor" or "master"

18. Chunin: literally means "middle ninja"; the rank higher than Genin

19. shiroi: "the white one"; I thought it was an appropriate nickname for Altair.

20. Shannaro: This is really more of a meaningless catchphrase than anything else. It's usually said by Sakura with a scarily harsh voice that is usually translated by fan-subbers as either "Hell yeah", "Hell no" or "Damn it!" depending on the situation. The "Cha!" line that they replace it with in the English dub just didn't sound right to me so I kept this instead. Plus, she sound badass when she says it.

21. chakra: basically the Japanese way of pronouncing the Sanskrit word "kakra" that in the Naruto-verse is the name given to physical energies mixed with spiritual energies and used in almost all jutsu used by the ninja