Fate's Allotter Part 2
Ch 11: Speed
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The last Uchiha had finally located his target, but this time there were no jokes or half-smiles.
"Hey dobe."
Naruto didn't respond and continued quietly meditating. There had been a long history of violence between them, and at least one of them would have had their hands covered in a former teammate's blood had someone else not stepped in the way. Sometimes, Sasuke thought, this is why genin teams were composed of three.
"Did she send you here?" the blond asked, his voice deceptively calm.
Sasuke grunted. "You know she's much too stubborn for that."
"How did you even find me?"
Sasuke shrugged. "If you meant for it to be a challenge, then don't leave a trail of expired ramen cups."
"Heh," Naruto smiled, "as if I'd let ramen expire."
There was a moment of quiet peace between them as if they hadn't tried to kill each other half a dozen times. It was one of those hopeful moments, as if they could be, well not comrades, but at least on the same side. Of course, these moments never last, and as was typical, it was Sasuke who broke the quiet truce.
"She's gone."
Naruto slowly spun around to face him, the blue of his eyes boiling over into crimson. "What do you mean, she's gone?"
Sasuke had never been the type to beat around the bush or attempt to soften the blow. "It happened just like that old toad said it would. She went back to Konoha, and he grabbed her."
Naruto's shoulders started shaking, no convulsing, as an unmatched fury rolled into his expression. "Why didn't you stop her?!"
Power rolled over him in waves, as the kyubi's chakra seeped from the seal. The air buzzed with electricity as an unforgiving red energy pulsed around Naruto's hands.
Sasuke didn't so much as bat an eyelash. "The real question is why didn't you?"
With a demonic snarl, Naruto lunged.
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"You're not using enough chakra," Sakura chided, "It doesn't go deep enough to reach the internal injuries which means the wounds are more likely to reopen. Try focusing the same amount into a smaller area. It will take longer, but it won't wear on your reserves as much."
"Hai," Rin said with a look of concentration as she redoubled her efforts. After a minute or two, Sakura could feel Rin's chakra reaching the deeper layers of her back.
"That's much better," she encouraged, "Let me know when you start to feel a strain though, and we'll stop."
The brunet nodded as her hands slowly traveled across Sakura's upper back. Her shoulders had taken the worst punishment during the cave-in, and it was the part of her body that Sakura was most eager to have healed. Once she could move her shoulders without opening any wounds, she could help Rin heal her lower back.
Though by the look of things, it shouldn't be too much longer before they reached Konoha. Sakura couldn't wait; the quicker they got to the hospital, the sooner she could stop being a burden on her team.
She didn't quite know what to make of Minato, he was quiet and held himself in a way that suggested he was ready to spring at the slightest hint of trouble yet had this forced kind of nonchalance about him, as if he didn't want to worry them or something.
She wondered what had happened with the masked man, what words had been exchanged that had the blond shinobi constantly on alert, looking over his shoulder. Whenever they weren't moving the blond shinobi kept his fingers pressed to the ground as though he were trying to sense vibrations through the earth.
Sakura kept an eye on him while Rin worked on her back. Tense, ready, waiting.
But then it was like someone flicked a switch, and Minato exhaled, his hand retreating back to rest on his knee. The subtle tightness of his posture loosened, and he relaxed, almost smiling in relief.
Catching the change in his body language, there seemed to be a collective release of air amongst the rest of the team. Kakashi stopped sharpening his kunai, and Obito's frantic pacing slowed. Sakura could feel the tension drain out of Rin as her arms relaxed, the looser muscles easing the flow of chakra.
Blue eyes flickered over to her, watching her watch him, and Sakura realized that she had been staring. Rather than ducking her head and averting her eyes like an ashamed schoolgirl, she held his gaze for a moment before letting it naturally wander away to a point over his shoulder.
As though she had only happened to be looking in his direction when their eyes met.
Five heads tilted upward as a shadow rolled across the clearing. A small bird with something tied to its leg. Obito was about to move to intercept it—as messenger birds, especially those in enemy territory, could hold very valuable information—but then the bird swooped, circling back around.
Sakura reacted on an old habit, holding out her arm for the bird to land on. Talons dug into her forearm, scraping through skin, and in the flurry of feathers, Rin stepped back with a look of surprise.
Sakura smothered a smile. They truly were green chunin if they had never received a messenger hawk before. The beautiful golden-brown bird pecked at her fingers as though it were looking for food, finding none, it shrieked in her ears, golden eyes fierce and demanding.
"Fine, fine, hang on," she dug through her pack. There wasn't much that would interest a bird of his size: food pills and the like, but eventually her hands found some beef jerky. The hawk didn't look particularly pleased at her measly offerings, but gulped them down just the same.
Giving her another glare that seemed to say, 'you better do better next time,' he finally held out his leg. While Sakura unwound the green scroll, the three chunin hovered around the giant bird, eyeing it with various degrees of curiosity.
"I've never seen one of these birds up close before," Obito admitted with an almost reverent tone.
"Work in the field long enough," Sakura grunted as she struggled one-handed with a particularly frustrating knot, "and this is all you'll see."
She shifted trying to get a better angle when suddenly another pair of hands appeared next to her.
"I'll get it."
The hawk's head swiveled around, and it screeched irritably at Minato for the intrusion of space. Sakura stood stock-still.
It felt like electric, white-hot sparks, running down her arm where his fingers brushed against her skin, and she couldn't decide if the jolting sensation was painful…or exciting. Warm air brushed against her shoulder as he breathed, and this tingling sensation ran from the bottom of her spine upward to her neck. She felt tense and off-centered as she shoved those fingers away.
"I don't need your help." She didn't mean for it to come out bitter and angry, but she was tired of people trying to "help" her, trying to dictate the course of her life. She was fine thank-you-very-much so why couldn't everyone get the hell out of her way.
In shock more than anything, Minato let her push his hands out of the way, letting them fall uselessly to his side. As she went back to her one-handed struggle, he started at her bewildered as she struggled on alone. Fighting. Always fighting.
Her fingers tingled, and she blamed it on the hawk's tight grip on her arm. When she finally got the scroll free, the large bird shifted up to her bicep so her other hand was free to open the scroll. Sakura winced as the sharp claws dug into her arm, but she worked to keep her arm steady, hoping the hawk wouldn't keep shifting around.
Opening the scroll, she stared at the message blankly. It was an old code, naturally, so it took her a few minutes to recall the deciphering key, but when she did, her eye immediately darted over to Minato, wide in shock.
It was a suicide mission.
Numbly, she felt him take the scroll from her fingers, reading it for himself.
Minato Namikaze.
It was a suicide mission, and it had his name on it.
Minato kept reading and re-reading the paper, and she felt the chunin shifting uncomfortably, eyes darting between the two of them. Obito shifted from foot to foot while Rin rung her hands. Kakashi's gaze was particularly scathing as his one eye sharpened, demanding answers.
Minato sighed, rolling back up the scroll. "Well, that's that."
Without a second thought, he moved away from the other four, dropping the scroll in the fire as he went. Sakura's eyes chased after him as he closed up his pack, pulling the strap taut.
"You're not…" she struggled to voice her thoughts, "You're not actually going to accept it are you?"
He shrugged, almost nonchalantly. "Orders are orders."
Fury rose through her throat, choking off common sense. She didn't remember crossing the clearing, but suddenly she was there in his face, arm raised as if to slap him. He caught her hand, but she twisted it around, wrenching it free.
She was screaming at him, the exact words lost, but the message clear. Suicide mission, his name on it, his accepting it, and she was yelling at the top of her lungs while he stared back at her blandly, calm and collected.
The chunin were shocked, at a loss for words. The hawk, however was beyond irritated and kept pecking painfully at her ear, shrieking as she threw it off-balance. It nipped at her earring, claws digging harshly into her shoulder, but she didn't so much as flinch, too lost in her blind anger.
"—I'm not going to let you—throwing your life away!—You stupid, moronic bastard!—and you'll think I'll just—"
He abruptly grabbed her arms, and she stopped mid-sentence. It was not so much that he had grabbed her, but the way his fingers wrapped around her arm. The shock of electricity is what cut her words short, and she could feel it racing down her nerves, leaving her skin tingling and this inexplicable raw feeling.
She tried to shake it off, to power through the feeling, but suddenly she realized how close they were standing, and the way his arms were sliding up her biceps to her shoulders left her mind utterly and completely blank.
Fear, she felt it acutely, but the source was harder to pinpoint now. She was afraid for him, but terrified of how close they suddenly were and how his fingers were brushing against her face, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Keep an eye on my team will you? Don't worry, I'll be back soon."
It was like she had malfunctioned, like someone had short-circuited her hard-drive and didn't bother rebooting the program. So she was just left fumbling on autopilot, overwhelmed and not sure how to wiggle out of her current situation.
Stop him! Stop him! Her brain chanted, but she just stood there immobile, watching him sling his pack over his shoulder as if he did this every day.
"You better come back," she found herself saying, hands balled into fists.
He smiled at her warmly as if he wasn't afraid in the slightest. "I always do."
She wanted to scream, wanted to latch onto him, hold him down and keep him safe. She wanted to knock some sense into his head and drag him somewhere far away from death sentences and S-class missions.
Minato Namizaze.
She didn't want him to go, didn't want him to die, and she didn't want to see his name on the memorial stone.
She struggled against herself, but her feet stayed rooted to the spot. Her shoulders were tense, hands clenched, as she watched him walk away. She waited until he was out of her sight, then waited some more, not trusting herself to move.
She waited until Rin put a hand on her arm, as soft smile meant to comfort. "It's like he says," the short girl assured her, "Minato-sensei always comes back."
Sakura chewed on her bottom lip nervously all too aware of the statistical likelihood of such a thing, and guilt gnawed at her stomach at how she just stood there, letting him walk to his death.
Don't be silly. It's you that will be saving him.
"Are you alright?" Obito asked coming up to her side.
"It's nothing," she shook her head almost mechanically as if she was trying to prove something to herself. Obito looked at Rin and saw his concern reflected through her. Then he looked back at Kakashi.
Kakashi stood stiffly off to the side, quietly evaluating the situation. His gaze lingered on a particular spot, and Obito found himself following his line of sight. It led to Sakura's pack or, more specifically, the pocket that would hang off her right hip. There was a somewhat bulky shape present.
Eyes widening in recognition, he looked back at Kakashi hoping he could explain it, but the silver-haired boy only shrugged as if he didn't get it either.
"It's just that," Sakura mumbled mostly to herself, "I never did pay him back."
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The atmosphere was greatly subdued as the team crossed back into the borders of fire country. Kakashi took point, while the other three fell into a stead pace behind him. It was a long time before another word was spoken as grim reality held them in cold, contemplative silence.
Please let him come back.
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Minato shuddered. It was a massacre, a blood bath, where the groans of the dying would have to go unanswered. There was no help for them. The "help" was dead. There was no more back up, just him, alone, armed with only half a dozen kunai.
Against the might of the Iwagakure army.
They hadn't seen him yet from where he balanced preciously on the edge of a branch, and he only had enough time to calm his breathing. Drawing on his courage, he remembered a place far from this.
He pictured himself sitting on the top of a mountain overlooking a thriving village. A place where his boyhood self had spent many an afternoon overlooking the simplistic beauty of the village hidden in the leaves. Wind rustled through his hair while his legs dangled over the edge. Under that blue sky, he had smiled recklessly and unafraid, proud of his home. It was the day he decided to become a shinobi, the day he decided to protect his home no matter what the costs.
Faces and friends flashed before him, a group of children playing in the park, a young woman smiling as she bathed in the sunlight. He saw his team practicing, saw them growing up and realizing what being a shinobi meant.
He would protect them with his life. He would carry any burden. He would fight so they wouldn't have to, he would let his own hands be drenched in blood so no one else would have to worry if their parents, friends, comrades, family would make it home. No more wars or sacrifices or meaningless deaths. He would do everything within his power to make it so. No more orphans, no more broken families.
It was a promise. A promise of a lifetime.
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Tatewake Kuno was a subpar jounin. The fact of the matter was that he shouldn't have been promoted in the first place given his woefully lacking taijutsu skill. Yet, times of war had this way of lowering the standard requirements necessary for promotion, which is how the young Kuno found himself on the frontlines of the Third Shinobi War at the ripe age of seventeen.
Despite what could be said about his taijutsu skills, youth, and relative inexperience, out of all the Iwa shinobi gathered on the ridge that morning, Tatewake Kuno was the first one to spot the leaf shinobi approaching their base camp.
Protocol dictated that he was to sound the alarm with efficiency and speed, but dropping his plate full of eggs and giving a short yelp of surprise seemed equally effective in catching his teammates' attention. The sounds of clinking utensils and general breakfast commotion ceased. It started with his platoon, but others quickly followed as a wave of silence rolled over the stone army.
Kuno squinted at the blond haired shinobi trying to understand what gave him such a presence, how one person could quiet an entire army of ninja.
His captain's hand fell heavily on his shoulder, and Kuno flinched at the surprising contact. The commander, however, was not looking at his youngest recruit, his eyes directed only on the leaf shinobi.
"That's Minato Namikaze," the captain said. Although his voice was quiet, his words seem to carry over the whole platoon. "This man is very likely to be the end of us."
A shudder ran through Kuno's body when suddenly the blond shinobi turned his head and electric blue eyes shot right through the young teen. Kuno felt himself shrink under that gaze; it was not one of anger or hate but resignation and…pity.
"Don't think of backing out on me now boys," his captain commanded them, "There is a time to take counsel of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear.
"No matter what skills a man may possess, there is no such thing as a sure fight, a clenching victory. There is only luck, timing, and opportunity. May Kami bless you with all three."
As his comrades unsheathed their weapons, their faces set in grim determination, Kuno was the last one to pull out his blade. It was not a reluctance born strictly of fear, but the intense desire to escape his captain's firm grip.
The blond man was still staring at him with a look of pity. Then, in less time than it took Kuno to blink, the man was gone.
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They had taken a roundabout path, checking in at the patrol stations as they went.
It was partially to ensure that they were never completely without backup (given that they had to watch out for a wounded teammate) but mostly to make sure that no enemy forces found an avenue to slip through. Usually this was a job for more experienced chunin, but since they were already in the area, they might as well check in, deliver a few messages, and do some quick border patrol.
On some of the larger stations, they could stay for the night. The quarters were cramped and the food wasn't the greatest, but all four agreed that after weeks of camping and surviving on rations, it was nice to have a roof over their heads.
The smaller towers had been stripped down to their bare bones. Manned by the minimum two sleepy-eyed chunin, they didn't have the room or supplies to assist the passing shinobi. The smaller towers were more of a chore than anything. Every person had to have their identity checked by the two chunin guards, and the two guards had to have their IDs checked in turn.
Once everyone confirmed that everyone else was who they claimed to be, the foursome could go on their merry way, and the chunin not on guard could finally go back to bed.
Given the amount of hassle involved, whenever they got to one of the smaller outposts, Sakura would usually send one of her teammates ahead to get the formalities over with. Kakashi, being the fastest, typically elected himself to make the quick trip to check-in at the patrol station. This gave Rin time to work on Sakura's back while Obito, who had a keen eye for plants, scoured the area for something edible.
It was a good system, and so far, everything had been going smoothly, but somewhere in the middle of their second week, the trio found themselves waiting longer than usual for Kakashi to finish his run. It was a rough terrain so it wasn't entirely surprising, but given that this was Kakashi who was a stickler for arriving on time (a fact Sakura still found deliciously ironic), it made the group somewhat antsy.
The pinket could understand a short delay as the teen had been pushing himself a good deal these past few days, but running thirty minutes behind schedule was pushing it, rough terrain or not.
"Obito," Sakura called over her shoulder, "I want you to get some traps set up."
The boy paused from where he had been nervously sorting through an array of nuts. Sakura could almost see the wheels turning in his mind, and just as his mouth opened to ask the cursed why question, something clicked behind those vibrant orange goggles. Oh.
"R-Right!"
Rin watched him vanish into the trees, biting her lower lip in unease. "It has been a while hasn't it?"
"Don't worry yet," Sakura tried to assure her, "How does my right shoulder look?"
"Good, but it'll probably be sore for a while."
"That's fine." Sore she could work with, immobility and internal bleeding less so. Rolling her shoulder experimentally, Sakura decided it was good enough.
"How are your reserves doing?" she asked Rin as she reached over her own shoulder to expedite the healing process.
"Sixty percent," Rin murmured quietly, "but I have two soldier pills in my pack."
Sakura digested that for a moment, internally debating the best options, but before she could settle on anything, Obito's shrill whistle alerted them to incoming ninja. Sakura's senses flared as she picked up four chakra signatures, only three of which were unique: two genin, one clone, and a jounin.
No Kakashi.
Making a snap decision, she barked at Rin, "Find Obito. If it looks like I can handle it, then the two of you will track down Kakashi—discretely."
The girl nodded looking determined. As she disappeared into the trees, Sakura felt Rin's chakra signature vanish as if it were swallowed into the very shadows. Clever girl.
The pinket stood alone in the clearing. Waiting. Her arm was still pressing into her shoulder while soft green chakra steeped into the shrinking wound. She must have been a sight indeed to the three ninja: strange pink hair, a shinny brand new leaf hitiate, raggedy peasants clothes, bandages up to her torso, and a careless stance that was neither aggressive nor defensive. As though she had no idea someone was watching her.
In the corner of her eye, she saw the two genin move to flank her while Obito adjust his position so that he was at a better angle to intercept them.
"I always thought that Iwa ninja hated hiding in trees," Sakura called trying to grab the foreign shinobi's attention. She didn't want her team to get involved unless absolutely necessary. Someone had to find Kakashi.
A large insect flew towards her, and Sakura caught it by the wings. She blinked in surprise. A bee?
No, its body was far too large to be an ordinary bee and this was not the right habitat for them anyways. As Sakura inspected the insect closer, she noted that the stinger was a good deal longer than any normal bee's would have been and a thickened exoskeleton that was built for battle.
Her face hardened in sudden recognition. These were the same "bees" that had nearly blinded Hinata-chan years ago and had very nearly cost Kiba his life in his attempt to rescue his teammate. Oh yes, she recognized these pests.
'So,' Sakura thought as she crushed the insect between her thumb and forefinger, 'It looks like I'll be doing another round with the Kamizuru clan and their giant hornets.'
In her time, the Kamizuru clan was nearly extinct with only one surviving member that she was aware of. In a way, they were similar to Konoha's Aburame clan in that they summoned insects (hornets in this case) into battle, but their relationship with their insects was less symbiotic and more along the lines of forced partnership. Unlike the Abruame, the Kamizuru did not feed their insects' chakra or let them infest their bodies. Their control over their hornets was believed to be more due to pheromones than a genuine connection.
Despite this, Sakura would have to approach this team with caution as the hornets were particularly troublesome for close range physical attacks since they released some kind of sticky substance that, in enough quantity, could potentially immobilize her.
As she estimated the amount of force it took to separate her thumb and finger from the sticky goo left behind by the crushed insect, she began calculating how many "hits" of this concoction she could take before her mobility was significantly impacted.
The amount of resistance she was facing was somewhat surprising, but with a bit of chakra, the sticky goo seemed to melt right off. It was a shame she had not mastered more water techniques since, undoubtedly, they would have come in handy here.
Yet it was the stings that worried her the most. While the goo would just reduce her mobility, enough stings were toxic. Small doses weren't particularly dangerous, producing mild hallucinations at the worst, but given that there were so few of these hornets in her time, she didn't have good data on the toxicity doses.
She knew enough about medicine to realize that, given a large enough concentration, anything was poisonous. The Kamizuru clan wouldn't have been so famed if their insects weren't shinobi grade weapons.
It would be interesting to fight a member of the clan back when they were at their peak.
Sakura pulled out eight kunai, one between each of her fingers. Too bad she didn't have any of Naruto's infamous stink pellets with her, she thought with a smile. Those things were potent enough to confuse even Shino's bugs.
A large swarm of hornets exploded from the trees to her left—time to dance—and she became a whirl of motion and flying pink hair.
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The two chunin had loitered behind, concerned about Sakura taking on so many opponents solo. She still had a plethora of bandages wrapped around her torso that marked her as injured. An easy target, and if age indicated rank, then she could be a very valuable source of information.
Rin studied Sakura's stance carefully. While Kakashi was easily the best tactician on the team, Rin was the best scout. She was quiet and unassuming, and picked up things others may have easily missed.
After a long minute of careful observation, she tugged on Obito's arm. "Let's go. Sakura-san can handle them."
The dark haired boy's head swiveled to look at her. "Huh? How do you know?"
"She's smiling," the kunoichi pointed out, "but if you're still worried, you can leave a clone behind to spring the traps in case she gets in a tight spot."
"Fine," Obito groaned as he formed the necessary hand seals, "Let's go find the bastard."
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As part of her training as a medic nin, Tsunade had considered dodging to be the most crucial aspect of that field. So much so in fact, that she refused to teach Sakura anything higher than mystic palm technique until the pinket had mastered this element of taijutsu. On one afternoon when her sensei had a particularly gruesome hangover, Tsunade had taken to throwing wasp nests at her apprentice instead of the usual baseballs.
There wasn't a single soul in the village that day who didn't see the screaming pink banshee sprinting through the streets as a cloud of angry buzzing wasps followed in hot pursuit. Ino, who had been tucked safely inside her flower shop, had laughed her head off when she saw Sakura's swollen face and teased her about 'finally growing into that massive forehead.'
It wasn't a total loss though. Even though the experience was beyond traumatizing—and Sakura began doubting her sensei's sanity—it was the first time she had discovered that she could use chakra as a weapon. Ino hadn't been able to tell under all of that swollen skin, but deep down, Sakura had been smiling. Finally. She had finally done something right, something that made her feel like a real ninja.
And now, as she spun and dodged and sliced through the hive, she had never felt more alive. Her heart racing, adrenaline burning through her veins, her eyes wide and bright, it was just like the time she had faced Sasori of the Red sand. Confidence surged through her because even though the battle was far from over, even though her opponent was highly skilled, she would win. There was not a cell in her body that doubted that.
Sticky sap splattered on her arms and torso as she wove through the crowd of flying needles, and her target—the funny-smelling jounin—looked absolutely shocked when she landed on the tree branch above him.
'Oops, overshot it.'
An exploding tag whizzed by her ear, a gift from one of the genin. She almost felt bad for the kid when she did a quick replacement jutsu with the jounin sensei before letting go of the branch and allowing gravity to carry her out of the blast radius.
Boom!
Sakura grimaced. It shouldn't have been that easy, like grocery shopping; she could have just shun-shinned away. The kid who threw the explosion tag appeared stunned so Sakura turned her attention to the other boy who was rapidly forming earth clones.
Earth clones were a bit tricky because they felt somewhat real and they didn't immediately die once you hit something vital. In Sakura's experience the only good way to take care of them was outright decapitation, but even that was a bit brutal for her standards. Besides, genin were much more valuable alive. While they weren't necessary the wells of information that jounin or chunin were, they were much easier to convince.
She spun on her heel, facing him with an icy glare. For a moment, the genin stumbled, his hand seals slowing while the earth clone production came to a screeching halt. He looked beyond terrified to have her complete attention.
"Surrender," she demanded, "and I won't kill you,"
Ninja honor meant that almost no one took up that offer, but let it never be said that the pinket never gave it. True to tradition, the Iwa genin's expression shifted into one of grim determination. He didn't reply her directly, but as a rocky clone emerged from the ground, its fierce glare at her was answer enough.
You killed my sensei. I will never surrender to the likes of you.
"Fireball no jutsu!" a voice interrupted the stare down—Obito—as a giant wall of fire rained down of the genin and his earth clones. Not waiting to see the end result, Sakura moved back to the previously stunned genin and quickly knocked him out with a blow to the head. Hearing the sound of kunai clashing, she hurriedly dragged the unconscious boy over to the clearing.
"Surrender," she ordered for a second time, "or I will be forced to kill your teammate." She held a kunai up to the boy's neck, her eyes firm and unyielding.
The sounds of struggle stopped before Obito was seen leading the other boy into the clearing. His Sharingan was activated, and he looked beyond furious.
"We should kill them Sakura," Obito said coldly, "after what they did to Kakashi…"
Sakura's blood ran cold. "What did they do to Kakashi?" she asked dangerously.
But Obito didn't have to answer because just then Rin entered the clearing looking for the world as though her heart had been stabbed. Kakashi, slumped on her back, looked very much like Sasuke had after his battle with Haku: bloody and broken and looking very much as though he would never breathe again.
.
"Tie them up," Sakura said firmly.
"But—"
"I said tie them up!"
Obito looked as though she had slapped him and called his mother a harlot, but Sakura didn't care. His glare bounced right off her as she dumped the unconscious genin on the ground before rushing over and lifting Kakashi off of Rin's back.
Her eyes scanned over the wounds, diagnosing the damage and calculating the amount of blood loss. There were some superficial scrapes here and there, some bruising along his jaw, but the most significant injury was easily pinpointed to his back.
Rolling him on his stomach, a kunai sliced open Kakashi's shirt without a second thought. As she scanned through the bloody mess with a quick wave of diagnostic chakra, she bit her lip to keep from screaming. His spleen had been punctured, and he was bleeding internally.
That wasn't something she could heal barehanded and performing an open surgery in the middle of the wilderness was just asking for trouble. Time was of the essence, each second critical. She didn't like her options, but she already knew which one she would make, which one she would always make.
"Rin, do you have any blood replenishing pills or soldier pills?"
'Hai, two of each."
Sakura did a quick calculation in her head and nodded. "Out of the three of us, I'm probably the fastest."
Obito, who had just finished tying up the second genin, protested instantly, "There is no way! Your back is still bleeding."
Sakura ignored him holding her hand out for the soldier pills. Rin, still crying, held on to them reluctantly.
"I've got the most chakra left," Obito argued, "I'll carry the baka."
"Can you get him there in three hours?" Sakura demanded of him, her voice fierce and deadly, "because one minute longer than that and He. Will. Die."
Obito stood stock still, his eyes wide and his Sharingan spinning. They both knew he couldn't do it. At best, his top speed would be within four hours. Rin whimpered before dumping the four pills into Sakura's palm.
"You can't, you're hurt," Obito protested weakly seeming to realize it was useless.
"If I don't do this, then Kakashi will die, and I never let my teammates die before me." Her lower back was bleeding again, but it didn't seem to be bothering her much as she quickly added an extra roll of bandages over the injury. "Arguing is just wasting time that we don't have so help me get Kakashi situated."
Rin moved to help her, gently settling Kakashi over her shoulders. Sakura adjusted her grip minutely, and when she was sure he wouldn't fall, she stood.
Before she took off, she left the remaining teammates with one last standing order. "Get these two back to Konoha by nightfall. If you aren't back by sunset than gods help me I will drag my corpse out after you."
Obito frowned. "We'll be there."
She nodded once, a quick acknowledgement, before racing off in a flurry of dust, her cargo pressed carefully between her shoulders.
.
The trip back of Konoha was nothing short of a nightmare. After the first hour, it became pretty apparent from her hazy vision and mild hallucinations that she had been poisoned. Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to afford a basic medic kit, and didn't really know the hornet's toxins well enough to know what plants might help counteract it. Instead she chewed on a daisy, one of the flowers most known for its healing properties, and hoped for the best.
Her visual limitations kept her to the ground, which was fine if just a touch slower, but after an hour of travel, a soldier pill for her and a blood replenishing pill for Kakashi, she ran into another problem. She was still bleeding. Whether it was an effect of the toxin or due to some combination with the soldier pill, the reopened injury on her back was refusing to clot and close properly. The best she could do was press Kakashi more firmly against her back so the wounds only seeped rather than roll down her back. There was only one blood pill left, and she had already firmly reserved it for Kakashi.
She simply focused on moving as quickly as she could.
Thirty minutes later, she thought she saw the high walls of the village, but when she rushed forward, it became apparent that she had been hallucinating again. She almost cried. She wanted to cry, wanted to scream and shout, but instead, she adjusted her load and kept moving. The second time it happened, she stomped the ground and nearly collapsed into the self-made crater.
After the fourth time, she stopped caring. What did it matter if she thought she saw the village walls? She saw a lot of things. She saw an adult Kakashi taunting her with a pair of bells. She saw Sasuke and Orchimaru hold an extensive discussion about gardening and the benefits of using gnomes. She just kept running and running past all these fake images and impossible creatures.
When she staggered through the walls of Konoha for the eighth time that she could count, she was already half-convinced she was still hallucinating. She didn't mean to ignore the chunin at the gate, and since all Sakura could see was a giant flower that was shouting at her, she didn't pay him any attention.
Somehow, her feet led her all the way to the hospital before she ran into someone that she thought might be the hokage—if the hokage was made out of lettuce and cottage cheese that is. She blinked at him in incomprehension as other lettuce creatures buzzed around her, lifting the boy from her back.
She whimpered in protest, dazed and confused. She struggled to get back over to her charge, to get him back from the strange green creatures. A hand landed on her shoulder, halting her in place, and the cottage-cheese hokage said something to her.
She stared at him a moment, watching the pipe melt off his face. She opened her mouth, making this odd guttural noise as she wavered on her feet. The world spun sickeningly, colors blending and bleeding together until darkness crept across her vision, black dominating the array of colors as she collapsed.
…
A/N: I hate to cut off Minato's big fight scene, but I didn't want to cut off Sakura's section either. We'll be checking in on him next chapter though, I pinky swear. Unfortunately, it will probably be three weeks before I can post the next chapter since I won't have much free time next week and a half to work on it. Sadness, I know, but at least you find out preemptively.
Bonus point to anyone who can pick up the anime reference I made at some point in this chapter. Hint: Ranma ½ is the series.
Thanks everyone! Have a great weekend!