Chapter III

After the Council meeting was over, Sakura left the refugee camp and went into the forest. She came upon an abrupt demarcation where the trees ended and a river began. At the other side of the river, there was rich vegetation that reached the height of her waist, but what Sakura loved were the spider lilies. There was a field of flowers across the river. Sakura had taken the pains to plant them there. They were a constant reminder of the day when she left Konoha. After Danzo killed Tsunade, he immediately took over the ninja's operations. He ordered Konoha's perimeters secured and also ordered any and all ninjas to kill Naruto on sight.

"What do we do about this one?" one of the ANBU ninjas asked. He was kneeling next to Danzo.

"Kill her," Danzo said. Danzo left for the Hokage's palace.

Sakura lay helplessly on the floor, completely at the mercy of her aggressor. The ANBU ninja withdrew a kunai, and just as he was about to strike, a hand stopped him.

"I'll get rid of her," the voice said. "You go protect Danzo-sama. The Nine-Tails is still at large and poses a threat to him and the village."

The masked ninja looked up at the person holding his hand. Sakura couldn't get a view of who it was, but the ANBU ninja obeyed. He withdrew his hand and the kunai. He turned around and disappeared.

From the corner of her eyes, Sakura saw the shadowy figure approach and she finally caught sight of his face. He was smiling. There were wrinkles in the corners of his eyes.

"Sai," Sakura said.

He picked her up, placed her arm around his neck, and lifted her.

"Sai," Sakura said, "Danzo, he—"

"You don't have to tell me, Sakura," Sai said. "I know."

Sakura's eyes widened. She understood.

"I'm not going to kill you," he told her.

Sakura felt Sai draw chakra to his feet, and bending his knees to draw force, he leapt into the air. High in the air and wind in ears, Sakura saw the panoramic view of the gargantuan crater in the middle of the village. Naruto, she thought. Tears came to her eyes.

"I need to go to the Hokage palace," Sakura said.

"Impossible," Sai said. "Danzo's going there."

They landed at the edge of the crater and Sakura felt Sai land carefully for her benefit. She was in excruciating pain, but she was already healing her wounds internally. It would take two days for her bones to fully recover. Sai bent his knees and springing his legs and feet, they were in the air again.

"Tsunade-sama is dead and Shizune too," Sakura said. "Tsunade-sama knew that Akatsuki might invade, and she left me in charge to keep Konoha's top secret information out of Danzo's hands if she or Shizune were compromised."

"Where did she leave the information?" Sai asked.

Sakura looked down at the zooming ground. They landed once again. Could she trust him? Sakura looked into Sai's expressionless black eyes. Up in the air, she turned to him and told him of Tsunade's secret vault where she kept Konoha's top secret information.

They reached Konoha's border gate and after cautiously placing Sakura on the ground, Sai took out his scroll and drew an eagle. With his ninja skill, he summoned it forth. He also drew snakes, and after giving them animation, he ordered them to wrap around Sakura's body.

"They'll help keep your bones in place so you can heal faster," he told her. He lifted her and placed her on the eagle's back.

"I want you to have this," Sai said. He gave Sakura his dagger and placed it in the fold of her hand. "I'm sorry, Sakura. For everything. And I'm sorry I will not be able to help you or Naruto get Sasuke back, but this weapon will help you in your mission. Conflict will be inevitable with him, but I've created a new jutsu that will help counter his Kusanagi sword. Stay at the outhouse until I send you Tsunade's information."

Sakura saw Sai take a few steps back and the eagle began to flap its large wings. With a gust of wind, it was off in the air.

Sakura lay on her back watching the blue sky. It never looked so beautiful, so peaceful to her, but she wept. She wept for her master, for Konoha, for the uncertainty of her future, and for all that she was leaving behind.

She arrived at the outhouse and she slept that afternoon and evening. At night, she heard a large rat's squeaking when it entered the outhouse. After screaming hysterically as she curled in terror in a corner, she saw that it was one of Sai's ink animals. She sighed in relief. Her arms were healed enough to allow some motion. She broke through Sai's snakes and when she touched the huge rat, it disappeared and turned into a large scroll. She opened it and saw a seal. Placing her hand on top of it, she released the seal and a copious amount of scrolls and books appeared around her. They filled the whole outhouse from floor to ceiling. Sai, Sakura thought, you gave me all of Konoha's top secret documents. You've wiped out all of the information from Danzo's hands. Sakura looked down at her hand where the seal used to be and she saw a notebook. It was the notebook Kabuto had given them a long time ago. It had intelligence on all of Akatsuki's members. Underneath the notebook was a box. Opening it, Sakura saw that it was full of tags that had written characters that said, "Lightning," "Water," "Earth," "Wind," and "Fire." Inside the box was a letter as well written in Sai's own hand. They were instructions on how to use his dagger with the tags, and they had illustrated characters on how to practice using the weapon.

Sai, Sakura thought. She put the box down and wept.

Sakura took out Sai's dagger. She hadn't seen him since that day three years ago, and she only hoped he was still alive. The spider lilies were in full bloom. She didn't want to destroy any of them, but she needed to hone her skills with Sai's weapon. She wrapped a tag that said "Wind" around the dagger's handle, and placing it firmly in her right hand, she began to release chakra. The dagger began to glow and a light breeze began to emerge from it. She fully extended her right arm in front of her and pointed the dagger's blade to the last spider lily in sight. She slashed the dagger in the air. A strong gust of wind blew across the river, across the field of spider lilies, and in less than a second, the petals of the spider lily were up in the air. The flower was sliced in two.

Sakura placed the dagger back into its sheath. As she placed the dagger on the back of her belt, a dragonfly flew past her. She carefully looked at it with her green eyes and remembered what Tsunade had once told her when a dragonfly entered her office one summer afternoon.

"These creatures," Tsuande said while she poured herself another sake drink, "have compound eyes. They are excellent at detecting motion, and because their eyes are wired into their nervous system and body, they have lightning-fast reflexes. It doesn't matter how fast an object is, they can see it coming. That's why you can try to swat at them as much as you want," Tsunade said, as Shizune went around trying to kill it with a flyswatter, "but they see you coming. Your efforts are transparent to them. All human movements can never be faster than the compound eye." Tsunade finished her drink and poured herself another one.

"It's like the Sharingan," Sakura said.

"Eh?" Tsunade said. Her face was flushed. "Yes, I suppose. But the Sharingan is still just a human eye. It can be deceived. The compound eye reads all incoming movement. Even the Fourth Hokage's technique would look slow to the dragonfly."

After Sai helped Sakura escape, Sakura studied the dragonfly for months afterwards. A lot of the books that Sai had sent from Tsunade's vault her were books that contained hidden secrets of forbidden medical jutsu. After the Third Hokage confronted Orochimaru and Orochimaru fled from Konoha, the Third Hokage kept many of his notes when Orochimaru had conducted human experiments. Sakura never ventured or tried to master anything that was beyond her ethics, but she did learn theoretically how to reanimate the dead, bring the dead to the living, and change the capabilities of her body. After training with Lee and learning how to expand her chakra system based on the eight chakra gates, Sakura pushed the limits of her ocular, nervous, and muscular systems. She sharpened the vision of her eyes. She learned how to send chakra to them, to dilate them so she could view a sharper image, calculate the distance between her and an opponent, and she also learned to send her chakra to her retina to create multiple set of mirrors so her eyes could function like compound eyes. Movements that were fast and beyond her vision became slower. She pushed the limits of her nervous system as well. She strongly wired her optic nerves to the nerves down her vertebrae and limbs so when her eyes and brain registered an approaching object, her body would instinctively and mechanically adjust and escape at lightning-fast speed. She had pushed the limits of her body, and she knew that she was shortening her lifespan because of it. Normally, her sight and body would begin their noticeable decline and failure while in her fifties, but Sakura knew that by the time she reached her forties, her vision would start to fail and her reflexes would be that of a woman in her late sixties. But she didn't have time to think. There were too many people counting on her and now with the invasion of Konoha, she needed to be at her best.

"You're getting good with that," Shikamaru said.

Sakura turned around and she saw Shikamaru walking toward her with Neji and Lee.

"I'm not as good as you with your brass knuckles."

"You're getting there," Shikamaru said.

"What's going on?" Sakura asked.

Shikamaru, Neji, and Lee exchanged glances.

"Sakura," Neji started, "we understand that—"

"Sakura-chan," Lee sliced through, stepping forward, touching Sakura's arm, "Danzo is an exceptional ninja. If we're going to invade, we need a ninja that can stand up to him, or at best, prove that they are at Danzo's level to protect Konoha."

Sakura turned her eyes to Shikamaru.

"I just heard from my source that Danzo is returning to Konoha," Shikamaru said. "He needs to come up with a better strategy now that Kisame is fighting for his village. Danzo will be back in Konoha in a couple of days."

"Sakura," Neji said, "Shikamaru proposed that all of our shinobi protect you as we invade Konoha. We have enough people and power to reach the Hokage palace, but once we get there, you will have to face Danzo alone."

"We'll have casualties and be exhausted," Lee said, "so we won't be able to help you in your fight."

"I can't fight Danzo alone," Sakura said.

"That's why we're here," Shikamaru said.

"What do you mean?" Sakura asked.

"All three of us are going to come at you at once," Shikamaru said. "And we're not going to hold back. If you can defeat all of us, you're ready to face Danzo."