Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
Chapter Seven
Sakura awoke the next morning still suffering from the effects of chakra depletion. Groggily she followed her teammates into the dining room to eat a later than usual breakfast, with their hosts eagerly attending to all their needs as they sat comfortably on the zabuton cushions around the low table. Once breakfast was through, Sakura took her team aside and confessed her suspicions.
"I've had my suspicions also," Shikamaru contributed. "It was too much of a coincidence that the mushrooms appeared near the entire village's food supply. We couldn't find any other batches growing anywhere else, and none of the villagers that were assisting us could recall ever seeing that type of mushroom around before."
"Either way, I want us out of here by noon," Neji's announced, standing up from his sitting position on the porch, just outside their room. "Shino, I'll have you scout the perimeter, while Shikamaru and I assist Sakura."
Neji turned to look down at Sakura who had her legs swinging off the edge of the porch, and was going through the supplies in her medical pack. "Sakura, can you get everything done in that amount of time?"
Sakura looked up from her pack, and furrowed her brow as she thought over his question. "Well I'll want to check on how all the patients are progressing, which won't take more than a few hours, and if you guys can help locate more deadly nightshade and extract the Atropine from the roots we should be done in plenty of time."
When Shikamaru and Neji nodded their heads in agreement, Sakura handed them each a bulging plastic bag full of vials. "I want you to fill all of these with the liquid from the roots. That should be more than enough for the patients and a few others, just in case anyone else gets sick.
Shikamaru sighed heavily as he took his bag of vials from Sakura, and grimaced down at her. "This will take forever...what a drag."
Sakura stood up, rolling her eyes. She affectionately pinched Shikamaru's arm as she smirked up at him. "You know Shika-kun, if you refrained from cloud gazing every five minutes you'd be done in no time."
The pineapple-head shinobi shoved the hand not holding the bag into his pocket. Slouching he turned away from Sakura, stepped down from the porch, and slowly made his way down the dirt road.
"I don't cloud gaze every five minutes," he mumbled to no one in particular.
Sakura laughed at him, and then waved at Neji and Shino as they took off in opposite directions; Neji to catch up with Shikamaru, and Shino to scout out the village's perimeter.
Strapping her pack around her waist, Sakura made her way toward Nobuo's house, but her progress was slow. It seemed she had suddenly become a celebrity among the citizens of the small village. She found herself dodging numerous civilians, who, upon spotting the pink-haired kunoichi, eagerly scurried up to her and bowed repeatedly while spouting words of gratitude and.
Upon entering the doctor's small house, Sakura was greeted by a lot more pleasant site than when she had first entered the Doctor's residence. All eight patients were sitting up in their cots, looking healthy, and chatting happily with each other and a few visitors, whom Sakura guessed were family members.
Fumio was talking animatedly with Yuki, who was sitting next to him on his cot. Upon spotting Sakura, he waved her over happily. Smiling, Sakura complied and walked over to him.
"How are you feeling?" Sakura asked, as she took in both boys' appearances. They both had improved so much, neither of them looked like they had ever gotten sick.
"Good...th-thanks to you," Fumio stuttered, blushing a deep shade of red. Yuki was grinning knowingly at his friend's obvious discomfort.
Sakura's smile just got bigger. She bent down and gently placed her hand on Fumio's chest, and delved her chakra into his body. A moment later she pulled her hand away, looking pleased.
"Fumio, you're healing very quickly! You should be back to normal in just a day or two." The young boy looked like he was about to leap out of his seat, he was so excited.
Sakura turned to Yuki, to checked him as well. "Same with you Yuki, you'll be like new in a few days."
She looked up as Nobuo walked up to her and the young boys. "Well you did a good job, Sakura-san. I don't think our little Fumio here," Nobuo rubbed the red-faced boy's head, making his already messy hair stick up even more, "would be sitting here today."
Sakura's eyes softened as she looked down at the boy. She didn't know how she'd done it, but she had, and she was suddenly eternally grateful for it as she continued to watch Fumio weakly wrestle he best friend, who had made a comment on Fumio's inability to 'keep from blushing whenever Sakura-san was around'.
"I think they're all fine to head home today, what do you think Sakura-san?" Nobuo asked looking down at the young nin.
Sakura nodded her head in agreement. "Hai, that should be fine. As long as they all take it easy and stay in bed for the majority of the day there shouldn't be any reason not to allow them to go home."
Sakura could hear a few sighs of relief and some cheers of joy (mostly coming from the young boys next to her) after her statement.
Grinning she turned back to Nobuo and handed him a plastic bag partially filled with vials full of the antidote. "Here, this is the last of the Atropine. Shikamaru and Neji are currently collecting more, so once they're done you should have enough for all the patients and about ten others, just in case some others have caught it and have yet to show symptoms."
Nobuo took the bag and thanked Sakura.
"My team and I will be leaving around noon, so as soon as I'm done here I'll need to check on the other patients."
Fumio, who had been frowning deeply after Sakura's last statement, suddenly perked up. "Sakura-san, will you walk me home? I want to introduce you to my mom!"
Sakura turn to smile down at the small boy. "Sure Fumio, once I'm done here we'll leave. Is that alright?"
"H-hai!" Fumio eagerly nodded his head.
Shino was leaning heavily on his heels, crouched on a large tree branch. His eyes were closed in concentration, and a few of his kikaichu were scurrying in and out of his clothing and around the branch. The quiet shinobi opened his eyes to find one of his insects sitting on his nose. Shino tilted his head, as if he were intently listening to something the black beetle was communicating to him.
His eyes narrowed behind his glasses a moment later. "Hn...where?" He stood abruptly a second later. "How many?" Shino's monotone voice held a hint of urgency. As soon as he received the insects unspoken answer his eyes widened in surprise, and he leaped up to the branch above him.
Before his sandals touched the bark of the branch seven kunai and two shuriken embedded themselves into the branch he had been crouched on.
"Bug Gathering Technique!" Shino had to sidestep another volley of weapons as an ever growing swarm of insects began piling around his feet.
"Bug Wall Technique!" The insects created a thick wall in front of Shino, protecting him from the continuing assault.
Shino could feel it himself now - he was slightly surprised he hadn't noticed it before. As his reliable kikaichu had detected, there were a number of chakra signatures speeding toward him and the village forty yards behind him. Thirty-one chakra signatures to be exact. Currently six of them were just meters from him, hidden behind the dense vegetation of the forest around him. The other twenty-five weren't far behind.
The wall of bugs opened like a curtain to allow him to gaze down at the forest floor beneath him. A figure stepped out behind the tree in front of the one Shino stood in. A ray of light caught his glasses as the nin lifted his head to stare back at the Konoha-nin.
Shino's eyes narrowed. "Kabuto."
Kabuto smirked and inclined his head in acknowledgment to the shinobi above him. "Aburame-san."
Five Sound-nin appeared suddenly on the branches around Shino, but the quiet shinobi did not look away from Orochimaru's right-hand man. They continued to stare each other down, while the silence dragged on. Then the two enemies simultaneously lifted a finger and pushed their glasses up the bridge of their noses.
"Get him."
"Arigatou, Sakura-san! You are such a blessing to our village!"
Sakura smiled sheepishly at Fumio's mother, as she tried to wave off the middle-aged woman's compliments. She currently had Fumio's arm wrapped around her neck, while she supported him as he slowly made his way across the front porch of his small home; Nobuo was supporting his other side.
"Don't worry about it, I was happy to help!" Sakura said, embarrassed, hoping the grateful woman would calm down. It didn't seem to work for Fumio's mother continued to repeatedly bow as she shuffled her way backwards into the house.
Sakura was guiding Fumio through the front door when she froze, her eyes widening in surprise and fear. Fumio and Nobuo stopped and turned to glance at her.
"Sakura-san...?"
Sakura lifted her hand, eyes still wide and unfocused, to silence Nobuo. Signaling to Fumio's mother, Sakura ducked out of the boy's arm and transfered his weight to the older woman. The kunoichi stepped back, seemingly coming out of her daze. Her jade eyes turned to Nobuo's worried ones, and when she spoke she sounded almost too calm.
"Nobuo, I need you to go warn the villagers. There are a number of enemy nin on their way, and everyone has to get inside and hide."
Something in her tone must have reflected the urgency of the moment, because the he did not question her. He quickly slipped out from under Fumio's arm, and took off down the street, yelling at the top of his lungs for the villagers to get in doors.
While the doctor's voice faded as he made his way further down the road, Sakura turned back to the terrified mother and son in front of her. "I want you two to quickly find a hiding spot, under a bed, in a closet, anything. Understand?"
Fumio's mother nodded wordlessly, but Fumio attempted to pull away from her and reached out toward Sakura. "No Sakura-san, let me help!"
Sakura's eyes softened, and she squeezed his shoulder. "Fumio, I'll be alright, I'm a Konoha kunoichi. Now do as I ask, okay?
Fumio looked like he was about to cry, but nodded his head, and allowed his mother to pull him into the house. Sakura shut the door firmly behind them, and sighing deeply she turned around and walked off the porch.
The kunoichi slowly made her way to the center of the unpaved street. She came to a stop, as a breeze blew her long hair around her. Sakura breathed in and out slowly as her fingers twitch, one hand hovering over the kunai pouch strapped to her thigh. She stood like a statue, waiting and listening, as she gazed down the street to the dense tree line that began when the dirt road ended, a few houses down from where she stood. Nobuo's yells was now a distant hum, and the only civilians left on the streets around her were quickly taking cover in the nearest building.
Sakura could feel them coming quickly, right at her. She stretched her senses to where she last felt Shino's chakra spike, but could only feel the chakra of the thirty or so nin speeding toward her. She didn't have to wait long before she spotted the first gray blur flicker between the trees. Barely a second later, a large Sound shinobi leaped out of the cover of the trees and onto the dirt road ten yards in front of her. As he straightened from his crouch to face her, he was joined by five more shinobi, then ten more, and then nine, who scattered across rooftops and the street in front of her.
Sakura, outwardly calm, looked over the twenty-five shinobi before her, and they stared right back. The only sound was the breeze rustling the leaves in the trees. She was having a hard time gulping down her heart, that had somehow found it's way up to her throat. It didn't matter how much she had trained and improved, nothing she had ever done had prepared her to take on twenty-five decent shinobi (if they're chakra strengths gave any indication of their skill – which it usually did).
Another nin walked out of the forest and onto the village street. Sakura's eyes narrowed as she watched the shinobi make his way through the Sound-nin and stop front and center.
"Kabuto..." Sakura hissed.
Kabuto inclined his head with a mock respectfulness, never looking away from Sakura's narrowed eyes. Smirking he drawled out, "Sakura-san."
"What a drag," Shikamaru sighed, leaning back on his heels from his squatted position over an uprooted shrub. He stared forlornly at the bag of vials; he only had half of them filled. He looked over at Neji, a few feet from him, who looked like he was finding some secret enjoyment out of squeezing the life out of a root. His eyes wandered to Neji's bag, to find that his teammate was three fourths done.
Neji looked up from his strangely satisfying task to see Shikamaru eyeing his hard work.
"You do cloud gaze every five minutes," the older shinobi said, and then turned back to his work. Shikamaru reluctantly followed suit.
Suddenly both shinobi's backs stiffened simultaneously. They turned to read each others faces, their eyes reflecting surprise. Without speaking a word they flickered away, speeding toward the mass of chakra signatures.
"What do you want Kabuto?" Sakura's voice was calm, but held a hint of malice.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, Sakura-san." Kabuto spoke as if he were speaking to a child. His smirk slowly grew wider into a sinister grin. "You really don't know?" His question was more of a gloating statement.
Sakura didn't reply at first, her mind was moving a mile a minute; a multitude of questions swarmed through her thoughts. She finally came to a conclusion, "You need a medic." Her voice was laced with anger and a hint of resignation.
Kabuto gave a low chuckle, and his eyes flashed with an emotion Sakura could only describe as dark, as he raked his gaze over her, from head to toe. "No, Sakura-san," the way his tongue caressed her name made an imperceptible tremble roll up her spine. "Orochimaru-sama doesn't want just any medic, he wants you.
Sakura visibly gulped, but she continued to make a show of glaring at Kabuto, while trying to keep all his Sound-nin friends in sight. She didn't think it would help if they knew how utterly terrified she was, and, considering the circumstances, she thought she was doing a pretty damn good job of acting tough.
"And why would that be?" came a lazy drawl from right next to her. Sakura nearly let out a sigh of relief when Shikamaru and Neji appeared on either side of her.
From the corner of her eye she could see Shikamaru's slouched posture on her right. If she didn't know him as well as she did he would have looked like he was completely bored, but she could tell, just by the fact that he didn't have his hands shoved in his pocket, that he was preparing himself for a fight. She knew he had probably already gone through ten different battle strategies within the time it took her to analyze his posture.
On her left, Neji had his byakugan activated and didn't look the least bit intimidated. But Sakura knew what he was thinking, she could tell in how close he and Shikamaru were standing next to her. They were going to try to protect her, and she knew it would fail instantly. What they needed to do was attack as a three-man team, and somehow find and save Shino.
"We both know I'm not going to answer that Nara-san," Kabuto sighed out, as if he too were bored. "I will, however, let you, Hyuga-san, and Aburame-san...if he's still alive," Kabuto smirked, "walk away. Just leave Sakura-san and you and this village will be unharmed."
"We all know that's not going to happen," Neji said, attempting to ignore the glares he was getting from Sakura. From the look on her face he was pretty sure she thought that was a good idea; she of course wouldn't want anyone dying for her. Neji wanted to roll his eyes at her; Sakura was crazy if she thought that they would leave her.
Neji caught Shikamaru's attention over Sakura's head. Shikamaru read the emotion in Neji's pearl eyes, and understood instantly. They needed to get Sakura out of there at all costs, even if they lost their lives in the process.
Sakura knew what they were both thinking, and she wanted to scream at them for it. She wanted them to run and save themselves, because if they died and she survived she wouldn't recover. These two men had become her anchor to sanity. They helped her find her way out of the darkness of depression that had overcome her when the combined strain of her team and parents dying threatened to destroy her. She was determined to do whatever it took to keep them alive. She was not going to lose anymore of her special people.
Kabuto inwardly sighed when he read the determination in the Konoha-nins' eyes. Their pathetic attachment to each other was going to get them and every pathetic person in the village killed, and then he'll have what he came for - Sakura. In the end it was just going to cause him more work.
Kabuto's thoughts were interrupted by three dwindling chakra signatures making their way toward them. All eyes flickered briefly to the new arrivals as they staggered out from the trees. There were two battered looking Sound-nin, and one of them was carrying the unconscious Shino over his shoulder.
Sakura sucked in a ragged breath at seeing her teammate's battered form. But she let out a breath of relief when she felt his depleted chakra – he was still alive.
Kabuto had left five of his subordinates to fight the Aburame clan member, and he didn't miss the fact that three of them were missing. Offhandedly he supposed that he'd underestimated the younger nin. Brushing that aside he turned his attention to the exhausted shinobi walking up to him. With a signal from Kabuto, the Sound-nin carrying Shino dropped his limp body with a thud to the ground. The second Sound shinobi gave a harsh growl and kicked Shino in the stomach, obviously bitter from their battle.
Neji placed a restraining hand on Sakura's shoulder. He could feel the anger emanating from the petite kunoichi as she clenched her fists and bit her lip in frustration, her eyes never straying from Shino's body.
"Now, if you'd but give up Sakura-san, Aburame-san here might survive if you get him to a doctor fast enough," Kabuto taunted.
Sakura felt the fury rising in her at Kabuto's words, but still could not look away from Shino. She needed to somehow get to him. From the looks of him she'd need to heal him quickly or, if the blood pooling on the ground around him was any indication, he wouldn't survive much longer.
"I need to get to Shino fast," Sakura told Neji and Shikamaru in a low voice. "Don't allow your fears of me getting captured prevent us from saving him. You need my help."
She could tell Neji and Shikamaru were warring with their thoughts, but she knew she was right, and they knew it too. After a quick glance in each others direction both shinobi turned their attention back to the group of Sound-nin in front of them. From the corner of her eyes Sakura could see them nod their heads, relenting.
They didn't wait for the Sound-nin to prepare themselves, and leaped into action. Sakura's chakra infused fists impacted with the ground, and fissures jutted out curving perfectly around Shino's body, and straight for Kabuto and the nin behind him. Kabuto escaped into the air, but three nin behind him, including the two who had fought Shino, were too slow, and were swallowed into the earth.
Neji, having anticipated Kabuto's move, had three kunai already flying toward him, but Kabuto was able to block them with his own. He flipped backward in midair landing agilely onto a rooftop, and gave Neji and arrogant smirk.
Before the enemy-nin nearest him could retaliate, Shikamaru flung two kunai with exploding tags attached. Before the Sound shinobi he was aiming for could leap away, he performed his shadow possession jutsu to freeze them and two others to the spot. The nin could only watch as the kunai come at them.
One kunai got a shinobi in the gut, and the other one - a perfect bullseye - became embedded right into it's victims forehead - where his forehead protector should have been, instead of wrapped around his neck. Before the other two shinobi, stuck in Shikamaru's jutsu, could even cringe at the death of their companion, the exploding tags went off, consuming all four nin.
Sakura sprinted along the deep craters toward Shino, dodging kunai and shuriken. She could tell they were only aiming to maim, not kill her, and she was using that to her advantage. She made it to Shino and hovered over him, using her body as a protective shield - knowing that Shikamaru and Neji were covering her - as she quickly assessed his injuries. Sakura determined the most life threatening wounds were from a shuriken that had sliced into an artery in his upper-thigh that was seeping out pints of blood, and a broken rib that had lodged itself into his left lung. Not bothering to look up from Shino, Sakura felt a number or chakras surrounding her.
Seeing the group of nin converging in on Sakura, Neji, with a spinning whirl - fast enough to make his own breeze - , flung three kunai, with overwhelming speed, at the group of them. Two made their target; one actually going straight through it's victims neck, and embedding itself in the side of the head of the shinobi behind him, as the other one sliced into it's victims heart.
Sakura was still busy worrying over Shino. She knew if she moved him she would cause more damage, and possibly kill him. She looking up, and signaled to Neji and Shikamaru. The two shinobi quickly sped to her side, taking a defensive stance around their teammates.
Sakura quickly began to work on Shino's injuries while Neji and Shikamaru covered her. Using her knew-found ability to heal two injuries at once, the medic had closed the wound on his thigh, removed the shard of the rib that had pierced his lung, and repaired the lung. She finished within a span of three minute, and quickly forced a blood replenishing pill down Shino's throat.
Three minutes may not have been long at all for healing mortal wounds, but in that time frame Neji's and Shikamaru's chakra had taken a beating. They had seventeen remaining opponents, not including Kabuto (who remained in the background directing his underlings), and though none of them had put up much of a fight, most likely because their target was in the middle of the fray, the constant bombardment of attacks was taking it's toll.
Feeling better about moving him, now that he was no longer on the verge of death, Sakura threw Shino's limp arm over her shoulder, and hefted him up, leaning him heavily against her. As one the Konoha-nin backed along the side of a nearby house, with Neji and Shikamaru continuing to block the Sound-nin's assaults.
Sakura gently laid Shino down, leaning him against the side of a crumbling home, and quickly stood and took her spot between Neji and Shikamaru. Now that she was confident Shino would be alright she was ready to concentrate all her attention on kicking the crap out of some Sound-nin.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!" Sakura roared.
The Sound-nin were not expecting her to perform such a large attack surrounded by houses of civilians, and had to quickly dive out of the way, some getting singed in the process. The fire jutsu caught the roof of a nearby house on fire.
Sakura performed a quick wind jutsu, which stirred the fire and caused it to spread by jumping to another house. The enemy-nin were forced to spread out, but the slower ones were not able to move fast enough and became sandwiched in between the surprisingly fast burning houses and Sakura, who had stepped away from her teammates.
Kabuto's eyes narrowed with dawning comprehension, as he watched the scene unfold a safe distance from the blazing flames, but he had no time to warn his fellow shinobi.
Sakura had successfully snared ten of the Sound-nin into a trap. Most of them stood rooted to the spot preparing for the next attack from the kunoichi. What they would have realized, if they decided to move, was that they had missed the second attack. The moment the house caught fire, shadows created from adding an additional source of light sprouted up from where there had been none before. The Sound-nin, having learned from their teammates' mistakes, had been mindful up until that point to keep from the shade. Now Shikamaru had them all within in his shadow jutsu, and Sakura spared no time in slamming her fists into the ground. One large fissure ripped through the ground, tearing it's way toward the surprised nin. All ten Sound-nin were consumed by the large crevice. If any of them had survived, the second the sides of the two burning houses tumbled into the jagged depths of the fissure after them the job would have been finished.
Suddenly seeing what he, as a high level shinobi, should have seen before, Kabuto growled out an irritated "Kai!"
The genjutsu that he and the rest of his team had been stuck in from the beginning lifted. He was now no longer surrounded by humble homes, but large trees surrounding a small clearing. They had some how been lured away from the village, and it's citizens. He could tell they were a couple hundred feet to the north of the small village. At their current location he couldn't use the lives of the innocent to inhibit the Konoha-nin.
Oh well, Kabuto sighed to himself. I suppose I'll just have to join the fight.
Jumping from the tree he'd been crouched in (not on a roof as he had previously believed), he signaled to his remaining nin to follow suit.
"Kai," echoed across the clearing from seven separate voices.
Kabuto grinned. Now that Sakura was standing away from her team he could order his team to attack the other Konoha-nin without restraint. It wasn't a coincidence that the remaining seven members of his small army happened to be the toughed.
"Just for that little trick, once we're done capturing you we're going back to that pathetic excuse of a village and make you watch as we slaughter every single one it's equally pathetic citizens," Kabuto sneered as he slowly sauntered toward Sakura.
"I'm not going to let that happen," Sakura vowed in a low growl.
The petite kunoichi sped forward, faster than Kabuto had been expecting. She flung a chakra enhanced punch that nicked Kabuto's shoulders as he dodged to the left. He was propelled backward, and had to dig his heels into the earth to stop. Sakura gave him no chance to recover, and came at him again. Using Mystic Palms jutsu she sliced into the arm Kabuto had held up to shield his more vital body parts.
In retaliation Kabuto sliced through Sakura's shoulder with his own chakra scalpel, but she somersaulted backward before the he could deepen the wound. Then she quickly jumped a few feet back, increasing the distance between them, while making rapid hand signs.
"Mythical Fire Phoenix Technique!"
Kabuto quickly dropped to the ground, and the balls of flames passed above him. He rolled to the side and flipped himself into a standing position, just in time to jumped out of the way of a large fissure tearing through the ground toward him. Sakura was on him before he could land. The two shinobi became indistinct blurs, as they dodged and blocked each others kicks and punches.
Neji, who was using his byakugan to watch how his teammates were doing, was relieved to see that Sakura was holding her own. He turned his attention back to his own opponents. All three of them seemed to be jounin level, and he was having to employ more skill in fighting them than their now deceased teammates. They had surrounded him, but he was not at all worried. One of them was making a series of hand signs, while the only one reached for his kunai patch. They attacked at the same time, one with a wind jutsu, and the other with a barrage of kunai.
"Eight Trigram Palms Heavenly Spin!"
The attacks ricocheted off Neji's chakra barrier, and then turned back to his opponents. The first nin successfully dodged his wind jutsu, but his teammate wasn't fast enough to avoid his own kunai. As one Sound-nin fell lifeless to the ground Neji turned to his third opponent who was running at his with a sword held in front of him. After months of practicing the ninjatō with his teammates Neji easily parried the enemy-nin's attack with his kunai, and successfully disarmed him.
Before the sword could hit the ground, Neji had dipped under the nin's defenses and in the blink of an eye had performed his Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms technique. Blood spurted from the Sound-nin's mouth, and he fell to the ground. Neji flipped backward as another wind jutsu sped toward him.
He turned to his last remaining opponent and was about to retaliate, but noticed one Sound-nin standing back from the fray performing a long series of hand signs. Neji got the feeling that whatever it was he was up to was not going to be good.
Shikamaru, who had taken down two of his own opponents, was busy shielding himself and Shino (who was still slumped to the ground behind him) from a volley of shuriken thrown from his last opponent.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
The Sound-nin was forced to cease his attack and leap out of the way of the large fireball. As his opponent landed on a branch above the tree Shikamaru was standing under, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.
Neji, who had turned his back on his own opponent, was sprinting toward a Sound-nin performing a long set of hand signs. But before Neji could get to him the nin finished, and with a grin on his face he blew a black cloud of smoke from his mouth. Within an instant the black cloud consumed half of the small clearing, surrounding everyone but the nin himself, and Kabuto and Sakura, whose battle had taken them up into the trees.
They all began to choke, as the black substance poured into their mouths and noses.
Poison! Shikamaru thought frantically to himself as he felt the black cloud burn his throat and nostril as he breathed it in.
Sakura turned from her own battle to see Neji and Shikamaru fall weakly to the ground, clutching at their throats in pain. Dodging a kick from Kabuto aimed at her back, Sakura flipped off the tree and in midair created three bunshin. The four Sakura's landed in crouch in the black cloud covered clearing.
With her mouth covered, Sakura signaled to her bunshin to retrieve her teammates. They quickly complied and each bunshin threw one teammate over her shoulder and jumped into the trees, a safe distance above the cloud that continued to hang in the air. With one hand still covering her mouth and nose, Sakura slammed her fist into the ground, and the tree that the shinobi, who had created the poisonous cloud, stood on crumbled into the hole in the earth.
Without bothering to make sure he was dead, Sakura turned, ignoring the two Sound-nin withering on the ground from their own teammate's poison, and leaped into the trees after her bunshin. She crouched upon a branch where her bunshin had left Shikamaru and Neji. Her third bunshin was leaning Shino gently against the trunk a few branches above her.
Sakura ordered her bunshin to watch her back, and then turned her attention to her teammates. She put her hand on both Shino's and Neji's throats and pushed her chakra into their bodies. The poison was quickly eating away at their lungs and throat. Without a seconds hesitation she began to pull the poison out of their bodies with her chakra. Once she was sure there was no more poison in their systems, Sakura jumped to the branch above, and did the same to Shino.
Though the poison was out of their bodies the damage was already done. She pulled a syringe with a blue liquid and plunged it into Shino's arm. The antibody she had developed herself would heal their damaged lungs completely, as long as she administered it immediately. Once she had finished injecting the liquid, she checked Shino's vitals again. He was unconscious from exhaustion, and though he still had many wounds he was going to be fine.
Sakura pulled out her last two syringes with the antibody and turned to leap back down to Shikamaru and Neji, when she was tackled in midair. She flew into the next branch with a thud, and with Kabuto on top of her. The petite girl brought her knee upward and connected with a very sensitive part of his anatomy, and Kabuto quickly slid off her, clutching his injury.
Sakura sat up and jammed a kunai into Kabuto's thigh, and leaped back towards her teammates' branch, with the syringes still clutched safely in her hand. She didn't have time to fight Kabuto. She needed to give Shikamaru and Neji the antibody immediately or the damage might be irreparable, even with her medical talents.
Once again, before Sakura make it to her teammates, who were still withering in pain, she found herself being propelled into another branch. She hit with another painful thud, and looked up to see a battered Sound-nin pinning her down. He was the one who had performed the poison jutsu. Sakura growled and tried to push him off, but the enemy-nin pulled out a kunai and stabbed it through her shoulder, impaling her to the tree. He stepped back as Kabuto joined him.
Orochimaru's right-hand man leered down at Sakura. "Caught you," he smirked, and then crouched down in front of her, intending to bind her with chakra strings. Suddenly both he and his fellow Sound-nin were tackled off the branch by two of Sakura's bunshin.
"You were saying?" Sakura said smugly, as she watched the Sound-nin and her bunshin fall toward the ground. She pulled the kunai from her shoulder, ignoring the searing pain, and quickly made it to her teammates and crouched down in front of them. Lifting up Neji's arm, Sakura injected the life saving antibody into his system.
She heard two loud 'POOFS' and looked down to see that Kabuto and his teammate had used her bunshin to lighten their fall. She quickly turned back to her teammates. She'd have to deal with the last remaining Sound-nin once she had Shikamaru taken care of. Pulling the stopper from the last syringe out with her teeth Sakura made to plunge the syringe into Shikamaru's shaking arm, when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. A kunai was flying at her and Shikamaru. She wasn't going to have enough time to pull her own kunai out to deflect it, so she threw herself over Shikamaru to protect him from the attack.
A second later, instead of feeling the blade slice into her exposed back, Sakura heard another loud 'POOF', and turned just in time to see her remaining bunshin, that had taken the kunai for her, get snuffed out of existence. Before Sakura could react, she felt a hand grip her upper arm from behind, and yank her away from teammates. As she was pulled backward she dropped the syringe which landed on the branch next to Shikamaru's left foot.
"No!" Sakura cried in frustration as she was pulled further away from Neji and Shikamaru. She turned growling angrily at her assailant who had her arms pinned tightly to her side as he continued to drag her from branch to branch. Sakura's anger turned to confusion when she spotted the expression on Kabuto's face. His eyes were wide and he was breathing raggedly. He looked completely terrified!
Terrified of what?
Before Sakura could bring herself to start fighting back, she heard a blood curdling cry of pain from below her. Her eyes went wide in fear and confusion as she looked to the forest floor, that was now cleared of the black cloud, to find an arresting sight. Kabuto's last subordinate lay lifeless face down into the ground, as a puddle of blood pooled around him. But that was not what was making her heart nearly pound itself out of her chest. It was the blue man who stood over the dead Sound-nin with an immensely large sword thrown casually over his shoulder with blood dripping from it, and who was smirking up at the two retreating shinobi. His beady eyes locked with Sakura's large jade ones, and his grin widened at the surprised look on her face.
It wasn't the fact that he was blue, or almost seven feet tall, or that he had an impossibly large, bloody sword, that had Sakura more scared then she'd been in years. No, it was his black cloak that hung like a curtain around him – his black cloak with red clouds.
"What the he-" Sakura's whispered exclamation was halted when she suddenly came to an abrupt stop.
Kabuto crouched down on the branch in front of the stunned kunoichi, and in a blink of an eye had her hands tied together with a chakra string. As swiftly as he could, he threw her over his shoulder and took to the air again, leaping from branch to branch as fast as his tired legs could carry him.
Coming to her senses Sakura began to struggle violently. She needed to get to Shikamaru quickly, and then somehow she needed to get herself and her team the hell out of there. She had no idea why Akatsuki were here, but she wasn't planning on sticking around to find out. A second later her plan of escaping went down the this-sucks creek when she felt, with the dwindling remains of her chakra, a number of large...very large chakra signatures converge upon herself and her captor.
There was a swoosh of air, some ruffling of fabric, and suddenly Kabuto came to a stop. It was quiet for a moment. Sakura could feel the spastic pounding of Kabuto's heart, up there with her own. She didn't want to look up and see what she knew was already there, but being a shinobi for a few years had taught her that the best way to live life, and the only way to survive a battle, was to face your troubles head on.
Sakura lifted her head, and peered through the curtain of her thick hair. She counted two red cloud-cloaked figures a few feet in front of her. She couldn't see who they were from her limited view thrown over Kabuto's shoulder, but she supposed that at the moment their exact identities didn't really matter – she was screwed either way. She could easily tell that there were two other Akatsuki behind her, facing Kabuto.
Suddenly Sakura's fear and confusion doubled when she heard a silky voice intone calmly, "give us the girl."
XXXXXXXXXX
Finally got this chapter done! Wahoo!
Thanks again to the greatest reviewers in the world:
Punk And Lovin It
-Blood of the cherry blossom-
Lady Nagome of the West
Kurisutii-chan
freakhorrorchick
LaLa
snowygirl55
Cybernetic
Hasi
LittleFoxDemon
SleepyGirl
Please review, it inspires me to write faster!
-JustALittleTwisted
