My Spring Break was last week and I was out of town, which is why I didn't post this sooner. I've still got to do the final edit on Chapter Three, but hopefully I'll have the next one up in the next week, two at the most.
I want to thank everyone that alerted, favorited, and reviewed the story. I'm glad you like it so far.
Regardless, here's Chapter Two. :)
Chest heaving frantically, Sakura cursed as she came to an abrupt halt before a large rock face, cut off from going forward any further by the looming obstacle. She didn't bother to consider climbing her giant hurdle, knowing she'd be picked off with kunai or shuriken faster than she could say "Hokages," so her only options were to run in a different direction than she'd been traveling previously or to stay and fight. She knew the more logical option would be to flee, but kami, she was sick of all the running.
She quickly made her decision to stay and fight, knowing that her only prayer was to hope that they would underestimate her abilities; but having come from ROOT—now with presumably unlimited access to all personnel files in the village—she knew that the chances of that were unlikely. Fleetingly, she wondered how often Tsunade had their files updated before shoving the thought from her mind, forcing her focus to the task at hand.
She turned her back to the rock face as the three masked nin came to a stop, situating themselves in a semi-circle that surrounded her on all sides, ensuring at the very least that she would not escape unscathed. The faces their masks bore were unlike those of any she'd ever seen before—still looking like animals as all ANBU did, but the mouths and eyes of these were twisted in wild, untamed expressions, giving the individual behind the mask the advantage of a more save appearance than that of a regular ANBU. Despite the look about them, of one thing she was absolutely sure: these subordinates of Danzo, the ANBU ROOT, were incredibly dangerous.
"Haruno Sakura, by order of the Rokudaime Hokage Shimura Danzo we order you to stand down and come quietly." The one directly before her, bearing a mask with the face of a ferocious tiger, spoke. She quickly presumed him to be the leader of the group, judging by the fact that he'd been the only one to speak thus far.
"And If I don't?" She bit out rhetorically, as she already knew the answer. Her teeth ground together in irritation, her hands curling into white-knuckled fists. Of its own accord, Chakra began to channel to her hands—so much so that the cool blue glow reflected off of their masks and back at her.
"We are authorized to use any amount of force necessary to ensure your return to Konoha, alive or otherwise." The tiger responded and though she could not see his face, she could envision a vicious grin on his otherwise blank face. These ROOT, she knew that they lived only for the mission—Yamato-taichou had told her as much—but apparently they weren't adverse to a bloody battle, either. Most ANBU Tried to completely the mission with as little energy expenditure as possible, it seemed those rules didn't apply to Danzo's men.
Despite her apprehension of what might come, a confident smirk found its way to her features. She didn't bother with words any longer—they would be pointless with these mindless puppets anyway—instead choosing to fall into a battle stance. At least she knew they would be able to interpret that language.
"Very well," the tiger drawled. Immediately the nin to her left—bearing the most bizarre expression she knew she would ever see on a rabbit—began weaving hand seals she quickly recognized as those of a genjutsu she'd mastered in preparation for her second shot at the chunin exam. Apparently her personnel file didn't give away her entire jutsu repertoire, which was probably the luckiest break she'd received in weeks.
She felt the air shift around her and quietly dispelled the illusion before it had the time to properly take effect, fluctuating her chakra erratically as though she were truly caught inside the illusion; the technique was a relatively harmless one that simply trapped the opponent inside their own mind, used for a stress-free capture of one's enemy or to give the opportunity to flee should the user be outclassed, preferably against a non-genjutsu type. If there weren't so much adrenaline coursing through her veins and she wasn't in the midst of trying to figure out the quickest way to end this before it got too nasty, she would probably have been offended that they saw her as someone so easy to capture. She wasn't the apprentice of the Godaime Hokage for no reason.
The leader began his advance on her immediately, pulling chakra ropes from somewhere she couldn't see as he moved nearer, intent on binding her.
"Looks like that wretch didn't do as great of a job training her apprentice as she claimed." The rabbit who had cast the genjutsu—a female from the voice—spat.
Sakura resisted the urge to roll her eyes, which were unfocused in order to keep the illusion that she was trapped in the jutsu. The leader drew closer, and when he was within arm's length, she quickly dropped the ruse, eyes losing their glaze. Her fist flew into his sternum, having come at him too quickly for him to even bother trying to dodge.
If not for the other two she still has to deal with after he was through, she would have relished the visual of his widening eyes through the mask just before he went careening backwards through the trees to eventually slam into one some fifty or so meters away. He slumped to the ground following his impact, either dead or unconscious. If she were honest with herself, she preferred the former.
The two remaining stood shell-shocked, but the shock only lasted for a moment. The nin to her right—a feral looking monkey mask sat upon his face—who was previously stationary until now slashed forward, ninjato poised for the kill. Having not anticipated the attack, Sakura was forced to take the brunt of the hit with her bare forearm, the sharp blade slicing through the flesh effortlessly. She could not stop the cry of pain that sprung from her lips, nor the torrent of blood that came rushing from the wound immediately following the attack.
She brought her other arm around, chakra-laden fist sailing toward her assailant but only managing to clip her attacker in the shoulder as he leapt backward, a grunt escaping his lips as he went. The small bit of contact was enough to make the nin grasp his shoulder, arm dangling uselessly at his side from being dislocated. She heard a growl from behind her back and swung around, leg raised in a high swinging kick as the rabbit charged her, kunai in hand.
The woman ducked the leg, kunai posed to slash at the leg holding Sakura vertical, but did not expect the fist that followed the swinging leg, which slammed into the woman's face, shattering her mask and knocking her unconscious instantaneously. Sakura grit her teeth as the kunai in the woman's grasp tore through the muscles of her upper thigh at the same time as her fist hit home. The only thing that kept her standing was sheer force of will.
Disoriented from her other injuries, Sakura wasn't anticipating for the last nin left standing—the monkey—to blast her with a fuuton jutsu from behind. She flew face-first into the rock face and knocked her head against the side of the hard formation with a sickening crack before falling to the ground. She rolled onto her back and lay prone on the ground for an immeasurable amount of time, trying to regain her bearings. As she lay there, the felt more than saw the masked nin advance on her, ninjato in hand once more.
He stood over her, blade poised for the killing blow and he spoke, voice monotonous and without sympathy. "No longer will you filthy idealists reign over Konoha. Danzo-sama's word is law and those who go against the law shall fall as your precious Tsunade-hime did."
Sakura's eyes widened at this proclamation, watching in what seemed like slow motion as the blade began to make its descent. At the last possible moment, she regained control over her mind and body, rolling to the side just as the blade struck the stone where her head had been not milliseconds previous, sparks and fragments of rock showering the ground where she had laid.
She jumped to her feet as quickly as her pounding head and wounded leg would allow before turning tail and running. The ROOT agent took no time at all to recover from his failed attack and was only steps behind her as she took to the trees once again. Her injuries would only slow her down and she knew that she couldn't run for very long, so she began to throw every weapon she had in her hip pouch, hoping that one would connect with enough force to knock the man from his pursuit. He returned her weapons in spades, only managing to miss her bit a hairs width, some of the weapons managing to nick her skin and clothes.
As she emptied her pouch, her hope came to fruition as she heard the man groan from behind her before his chakra signature fell to the forest floor, no longer moving. She knew she hadn't killed him, but she had at least given herself a good head start on her escape. They would follow her no longer at present, but she needed to get well away from this part of the country and heal herself, which would prove difficult as she'd nearly depleted her chakra in her getaway and the subsequent battle. She needed to distance herself from her would-be captors and bandage herself before she lost more blood than she already had—her pursuers would require much more healing time that her.
She pushed any thoughts but those of finding safety from her mind and resigned herself to another night of camping out in the wilderness. She absolutely couldn't show her face in any town or village looking as she did without drawing unwanted attention to her person and she honestly didn't have the energy to try to keep up pretenses, so it looked like she was roughing it.
After dropping to the ground once her shelter was secure, Sakura felt the floodgate that had been holding her emotions from the forefront of her mind overflow. Tsunade was dead—killed in the midst of the coup—the ROOT shinobi had all but said as much before he took a stab at her.
Tears flowed unchecked from her eyes as she hugged her legs to her chest, feeling as small and helpless as she had the morning following Sasuke's defection from Konoha. What would she do without the guidance of her shishou—the woman who had taught her to be her own person, her own kunoichi? The woman who had…
She cut that train of thought off, scrubbing her hands furiously across her face. She knew that if Tsunade were standing before her now, she's already have punted her to Iron Country for her behavior. She was no longer that little girl—left cold and defenseless on a stone bench—she was a strong and capable kunoichi. More than that, her shishou would want her to be proud of the sacrifice she had made, dying while trying to protect Konoha and its citizens' way of life.
She took a steadying breath and looked down at herself, assessing the extent of her injuries. The adrenaline from the fight was beginning to wear off and in its place, pain was quickly setting in. She knew she didn't have a fraction of the amount of chakra required to heal her wounds, but at the very least she could stem the blood flow and numb the surrounding nerves until she had rested enough to begin the daunting task the lay ahead of her.
Mind made up, her hands wove through the hand seals to activate her medical ninjutsu and she went about her task. Once she regained her chakra and healed herself she suspected that she would have to soothe the ache from her muscles for days, for they would surely be stiff afterward—but there was nothing she could do now short of taking a soldier pill and boost her energy to get the job done now. Seeing as she was still recovering from the last time she'd taken one, she would just have to suffer through the discomfort. It was no matter, for she'd endured worse during her training with Tsunade.
Pushing all irrelevant train of thought from her focus she set about completing the patchwork job in record time, though it left her feeling incredibly drowsy.
She reached into her pack and pulled the first thing from it that she recognized as nourishment, eating it without tasting anything at all. Once she was finished, she curled into a ball—too tired to pull out her bed roll—and fell asleep, sending a silent prayer to whatever kami were listening that everything would be alright, that this was all some awful dream she would wake up from in the morning.
She knew such thoughts were fruitless—that it was all very real—but she couldn't help but wish that they were somehow true.
Two days passed before Sakura was able to completely heal herself, mostly because she had done far more damage to herself than her enemies by pushing her already injured leg muscle past its limit. By the time all was said and done, she'd managed to tear a tendon in her leg past the point of repair for a medic less skilled than she, and though her arm wasn't in nearly as bad of shape as her leg, she'd still managed to do quite a number on it, as well.
One fully healed, though incredibly sore as expected, she set about changing her appearance once again. She had no more dyes—if the chemicals would even have taken to her already dyed hair in the first place—so she had no choice but to change her appearance with the aid of chakra, however risky it might be.
She decided to forego a traditional henge, instead deciding to use a technique she'd seen Ino use once when she was dealing with a particularly shady—and shinobi—boyfriend of hers. She supposed that using the technique should have been the most obvious from the beginning and wondered why she hadn't thought of it before, as the only shinobi capable of detecting the miniscule amount of chakra it used were ones with dojutsu like the Byakugan or Sharingan, and even then their kekkei genkai needed to be activated for one to see it clearly.
That thought in mind, she focused a small amount of chakra to the roots of her hair and once the application was evenly applied, set about turning her hair from its current muddy brown to the first color that popped into her head—a sunshiny yellow. Fingering at the ends of her hair, she smiled mirthlessly and went about coloring her eyes with the same amount of thought after the contacts she'd worn previously had been disposed of. If she'd have thought it prudent to look in a mirror once she was finished, she'd have been hard-pressed to keep her tears at bay, for they were the same honey amber of her mentor's.
Satisfied with, though ignorant of the specifics of, her appearance, she began hobbling to the north with the intention of moving deeper into Rain Country and—unbeknownst to her—closer to Amegakure. At the very least, she needed to find a town so that she could restock her rations and she prayed that the ROOT shinobi wouldn't think to look for a blonde—the color stood out far too much for one to truly stay hidden.
She slowly limped her way northward, finally coming across a lone inn to the side of the road just as the sun was dipping below the horizon. After she'd acquired a room for the night, she took the chance of asking the homely old baa behind the counter how close the next settlement was. After eyeing her critically for the longest moments, the woman informed her that the next town was some thirty miles away. At her current pace, she would have to travel from dawn until dusk to make the trip in a day's time.
She thanked the woman by leaving a few extra ryo atop the check-in counter before heading to her room for a shower and to get some sleep. She would need all the rest she could get If she had any hope of making the trip in one day, especially with her muscles feeling as tight and sore as they did, even after they'd been soothed with chakra.
The sun was at its highest point in the sky when Sakura chose to break and finish off the last of her rations as lunch. She was making better time than expected due to the fact that she had chakra-massaged the ache from her leg completely before setting out on her thirty mile trek to the nearest town. Atop her being ahead of schedule, the weather of the day was uncharacteristically sunny for the region, so she had decided to take advantage of the warmth and stop in a clearing to eat instead of eating while she travelled.
She'd saved the best of her pre-prepared food for last and was munching away at the last bit of it when she felt something: large chakra signatures—and they would run right into her if they continued on their same course. Her first conclusion was that ROOT was onto her once more, but a moment's analysis told her that the squad sent for her was still injured and these chakra signatures were much too developed to belong to any of Danzo's subordinates.
As the signatures—three, she counted—converged on her location, she began to stand and should her pack, the remains of her lunch left abandoned in the damp soil once she realized what was coming. She squinted slightly to try to focus better on them as they slowly came into view on the other side of the clearing, trying to catch a glimpse of her newest trio of harassers. In hindsight, she should have known to run as soon as she felt them coming near to her location, but her muscles were still sluggish and she that she couldn't outrun them even if she wanted to. Not to mention, the events of weeks past had left her undeniably worse for wear physically, mentally, and emotionally.
If she were meant to die here in this clearing in the middle of a country that wasn't her own, desperately struggling to meet up with her teammate, she would accept her fate graciously. She only hoped that Naruto would forgive her for failing him and the village, and that Tsunade wouldn't beat her too badly once they met up in the afterlife.
Her eyes widened as the three finally came into view, train of thought thoroughly derailed once she saw them. Who they were did not matter, only one thing did: black cloaks, red clouds. The Akatsuki had found her—what they wanted from her or whether they'd stumbled upon her by accident, however, remained a mystery.
Her gaze drifted from the symbol that left her stomach in her bowels, and if possible, it dropped even lower as her eyes connected with those of the very last person she ever wanted to confront from opposite sides of the battlefield: Uchiha Itachi. Her eyes had already locked with the crimson of the Mangekyo Sharingan before her brain had even had the chance to comprehend what was happening and it was at that exact moment she knew that she was irrevocably screwed. She didn't feel a shift, but she knew that she was already in the clutches of his deadly dojutsu—there was no question about it.
She sighed, now truly resigned to her fate and decided that being the first to speak could do nothing to make matters worse than they already were. "If you're going to kill me, you may as well make it quick, Uchiha Itachi. I'm in no condition to fight you or your Mangekyo Sharingan."
"It is not your death the Akatsuki seeks, Haruno Sakura-san." The smooth lilt of the Uchiha rang softly across the clearing. Had she been younger and less experienced than she was, the simple sound of his voice would have reduced her to a pile of metaphorical goo—but she was not.
"What is it the Akatsuki seeks then?" She asked, unable to stop her head from quirking to the side in a curious manner. She couldn't imagine a single thing the Akatsuki could want from her of all people, except maybe to be a lure for her kyuubi teammate, and even then Naruto wasn't foolish enough to fall for such a trick. She hoped.
"Your allegiance," was the impassive response he gave.
Ignoring the monotonous tone he had used to respond, she balked at the man, a maniacal laugh threatening to spill from her lips. "What the hell would the Akatsuki want from me?"
"You are a skilled medic, are you not, Haruno-san?" He asked, but his tone held no inquiry. It was a statement of fact and nothing more.
"And why the hell would the Akatsuki think that I would agree to such a ludicrous request?" She all but sneered, hands finding their way to her hips. She knew she shouldn't be testing the Uchiha's patience but this was absolutely insane.
"You are a nukenin of your village and those who might persuade you from joining the Akatsuki no longer pose a problem."
"My shishou may be dead and gone but there is no way that I would turn my back on Naruto! I would never turn on my family, unlike you, Uchiha. You may as well Mangekyo me into the next century if you think I'd ever do such a thing."
A smirk. "There is no need. The kyuubi has already been taken care of."
Her face contorted in absolute horror. "N-Naruto?"
"Aa."
Her mind couldn't take the shock of the information she had just been told, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. Not only was Tsunade dead, but Naruto as well? It just … it wasn't possible. Nothing could stop the hyperactive blond once he set his mind to something. Nothing. Not even the Akatsuki. Or at least, that was what she had thought.
Her body chose this moment to shut down, the stress of the past few weeks compounded with the knowledge that her unstoppable teammate would never see the light of another day, never live to see his dream of becoming Hokage fulfilled.
The last thought before the darkness consumed her was of mischievous blue eyes and a smile that would blot out the sun.
'Naruto…'
Itachi felt the connection sever between them as soon as consciousness left her. He shunshined across the clearing, catching the unconscious kunoichi in his arms before her body had the chance to hit the ground.
"Tell me you tortured the bitch!" The foul-mouthed Jashinist rubbed his hands together eagerly, a savage grin lighting his features.
"I did not, Hidan." Itachi responded, settling the woman on the ground for long enough to remove the pack from her shoulders and situate it on his own. Once this was done, he lifted her back into his arms and crossed the length of the clearing to rejoin his associates.
"Fucking useless. Should have let me take care of the bitch, I'd have—"
"She would be of no use to Leader-sama if you had. We must return to headquarters now, he is waiting." He stated before darting off in the direction of Amegakure, not bothering to wait for the irritating nukenin and his partner.
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