TH: Look, action!

Going Sideways

Chapter Thirty-eight

Theme:: Slip

"This isn't a difficult mission," Sakura told Itachi. "We're just going to head east until we hit the Himura River, and then follow that north. Many ninja will treat their blades with an anticoagulant, which makes our job as medic-nin more difficult because patients can bleed out before we even see them. That's why there are pro-coagulant pills in the Small Aid Packs all active ninja carry on missions. If they get hit by a poisoned blade, they can take the pill and hopefully make it to a medic for proper treatment. Anyway, these pills are made from a substance naturally produced in certain plants, which we know grow along the Himura. It's our mission to harvest a few kilos for the hospital."

Itachi nodded understanding. He had a daypack on his back, loaded with containers for the harvested plants, rations, the aforementioned SAPs, inclement weather gear and a few other odds and ends that were common issue for day-long missions. A few of the items were a bit overkill for such a short, simple mission, but it was the general motto of the suppliers (and most of Konoha's ninja) that one could never know what might happen and that one should therefore be prepared for anything.

"Alright, then. We're set. Let's go!"

The Himura River was ideal for Brownstripe, the plant they were looking for, because of its silty banks and bed. The rush-like plant grew well in such soil. It was unfortunate that the closer Naka River had a rocky bottom unsuited for Brownstripe, but the Himura was close enough to not be overly inconvenient.

Sakura and Itachi arrived at the river midmorning, having traveled at three-quarters speed. The work of finding and harvesting the plant was not very labor intensive—it was easily pulled out of the soft soil, and it didn't grow too deep into the river because the water had low light penetrance—so they could afford to push themselves a bit in travelling. They found the first patch of Brownstripe a little over an hour after they hit the river.

…Two hours after that, the ninja found them.

Sakura's ears caught the slight rustlings and the sudden silence of birdsong that heralded human presence, just as Itachi stiffened and stood up from the Brownstripe containers. She shunshin'd over to him. "Don't worry," she whispered. "Follow my lead."

The unknown ninja emerged from the nearby forest, and Sakura immediately noted their headbands. Kirigakure. What were they doing this far into Fire Country?

Remembering a bit of her history, Sakura's hackles rose. :Shit. Isn't this about the time the Yondaime Mizukage was in power? The one that was a puppet-kage controlled by Madara? Shit!:

"Oh," sighed one of the Kiri-nin putting a hand to his cheek in mock distress. "How unfortunate! We're not supposed to be seen by anybody, and look at this. A boy and his dog…"

Sakura forced her gaze cold and her bearing calm as the four enemy ninja scanned first Itachi, then her, their eyes tracing from her tail to her Leaf hitai-ate, tied around her neck like a collar, to her pointed face. They focused their attention back on Itachi, dismissing her.

"Master," she said to Itachi, but loud enough that they could hear her as well, "I smell poison on their weapons."

"Thank you," Itachi said coolly, following her cue. He stepped toward them one measured pace. "You are trespassing on Konoha-controlled lands, and your bearing suggests that this is without permit. Surrender yourselves into Leaf custody, or suffer the consequences."

Two of the four laughed nastily at this, the other two spitting to the side and flashing sunlight off the edge of a kunai, respectively. "Boy," said the one who seemed to be the spokesman for the group, "you can't hope to stop us from doing whatever we want."

With the last word, he hurled a kunai of his own at them, and Sakura and Itachi dodged. She heard the rasp of Itachi drawing a handful of his own kunai, and the rapid clang cling clang of parried blows.

She knew he could take care of himself, so she slipped into the undergrowth, evading the Kiri kunoichi who'd lunged after her. Hidden under the broad leaves of a low bush, Sakura concentrated chakra toward her paws, and sent it writhing in great ropes under the soil. The Kiri-nin shrieked as three dragons of soil and rock erupted from the ground around her.

Sakura bounded away, searching for a new opponent. He found her first. Yelping, she dodged and ran and jumped away from the reaching tendrils of animate water that were presumably trying to grab her and drag her into the river. The shinobi directing them was smirking, eyes narrowed with bloodlust, his fingers twitching as he sent the water whipping toward her again and again.

She stomped the ground, sending shockwaves out to him. He staggered, his jutsu breaking, then rallied right away. He used a technique Sakura remembered from Team Seven's fight with Zabuza: the hidden mist jutsu. Thick, obscuring mist boiled up from the river and the ground itself, decreasing visibility sharply.

Also distressingly sharp were the senbon that came winging out of the mist toward Sakura. One clipped her, and she felt the burn of poison in the wound, but a flick of her chakra burned it away almost immediately. Then the shinobi burst through the mist in front of her, and she was forced to execute some acrobatics to evade his attacks.

He was fast. He kicked her, and Sakura felt a rib or two snap as she hit a tree trunk. He followed up by grabbing her and lifting her as if he would dash her against the ground. In pain and furious, she twisted in his grip, snarling wordlessly, and savaged his hands with her sharp teeth. He cursed and dropped her, blood splattering the ground from his wounds.

Sakura spat out one of his fingers and growled, low and menacing. The adrenaline and the taste of blood were like stimulants, heating her blood and heightening her senses. The fox instincts inherent to her body were howling at her to finish the hunt, to protect her kit. Her human mind was saying much the same thing, though its plans were far more detailed and bloody.

She skulked through the mist, following the sound of the shinobi's fervent curses and the bloodtrail from his ruined hands. When she knew she was close enough, she broke the ground, and he fell hard, with a cry of pain as he automatically tried to catch himself and landed heavily on his wounds. Sakura leaped over him, lashing with a paw equipped with chakra scalpels. He died with a gurgle, and the mist lessened appreciably, though it didn't dissipate completely.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no jutsu!" Itachi said somewhere in the fog. There was a roar, and the largest fireball Sakura had ever seen blazed through the remaining mist. The Kiri-nin Itachi was fighting dodged and rolled to his feet.

"Going to have to do better than that, little sapling," he mocked. Sakura saw Itachi's jaw set and his eyes bleed red. The Kiri-nin hooted with laughter. "Well what do we have here? You've been holding out on me! You're a little baby Uchiha!"

He charged, and Itachi rushed to meet him, and there was a blur of movement too fast for Sakura's eyes to follow. But they parted again, with the Kiri ninja clutching one shoulder, blood oozing over his fingers from a deep wound across his deltoid muscle. He bared his teeth at Itachi. Sakura felt a chill of premonition and staggered to her feet, broken ribs twinging.

"Brat," the shinobi snarled, and rushed Itachi with purpose. At the same time, a wave rose from the river, arching over Itachi head; the young Uchiha moved to avoid that, because once the Kiri ninja got him in the water—in the Kiri ninja's element—it would be over. So Itachi chose the other option, meeting the enemy head on… which was exactly what the Kiri shinobi expected. His kunai was angled to take Itachi right in the gut.

But he didn't expect to be staring straight into Itachi's whirling crimson eyes, as the young boy launched himself into the air, putting himself right face-to-face with the enemy. Itachi landed on the other side of the Kiri shinobi, who had frozen in place, his gaze unfocused.

Genjutsu. Itachi had used his Sharingan to trap his enemy in a strong genjutsu, immobilizing him. Sakura let out a breath of relief, and stepped out toward Itachi.

Her apprentice stood still, his hand pressed to his side. He wobbled, and peeled the hand away, red with blood. Sakura's heart leapt into her throat. He'd been hit! And then her heart nearly stopped as she saw the ground under his feet shift, at the same time the Kiri shinobi twitched and started to turn around…

"Itachi!" she shouted, and her chakra rushed up like a tsunami or an avalanche…

The kawarimi replaced Itachi with Sakura, whose pink hair fluttered around her waist, unbound.

It had taken her weeks (and a certain amount of help from Minato) to work out how to henge, but to see the shock on her enemies' faces it was well worth the trouble. It was still hideously difficult for her to change her appearance—it actually necessitated that she use natural energy to combat whatever the Kyuubi's natural chakra had done, a feat that took a good deal of her own chakra and was frustratingly difficult—but in this instance it was the better plan. The kunoichi Sakura had gotten with the earth dragons at the beginning of the fight had come back; clearly the jutsu had not finished her as Sakura had thought. The wretch had come back, and gone after Itachi, tunneling under him in preparation for an assassination technique. Sakura had replaced Itachi with herself so that she'd be in the position to end this fresh wave of assault, but she'd needed her human hands to catch the kunoichi's kunai-wielding fist. However difficult it was, henge did that for her.

Sakura had taken a page from Naruto and Minato's books when she'd crafted the transformation, so she appeared clad in a long loose jacket that blew out around her with satisfying drama. It was black where Naruto's had been red and Minato's white, with white mountain stripes along the hem instead of flames. A stylized white cherry blossom was emblazoned between her shoulder blades.

Intimidation was an important tool in the ninja arsenal. Holding the Kiri kunoichi's wrist in one hand, the other propped on one hip, her jacket flaring out behind her, Sakura felt quite thoroughly badass.

That feeling was perhaps diminished by the fact that her head was spinning from the drain of all her recent jutsu and the strain of holding the henge, but she also had a good amount of pure, white-hot fury running through her veins, which set her stance as stone and steadied her against the beginnings of chakra exhaustion.

Letting that fury drive her, Sakura lifted her free hand and casually used it and the precise application of her chakra scalpels to tear out the kunoichi's throat. Dropping the body, Sakura stared at the remaining Kiri shinobi, the one who had been fighting Itachi.

He'd completed his turn just in time to see Sakura dispatch his last comrade, and the shock was just fading from his face.

"Bitch!" he said, low and angry. Sakura shook her hair back and retorted:

"Fool."

His face was pale from the bloodloss from the injury Itachi had inflicted, and it seemed the genjutsu had left him slightly disoriented. He swayed as he set himself into a stance and started forming handseals.

Sakura ran at him as he went through them as fast as he could. She leapt at him just as he said: "Suiton: Rekkuu Suigeki!"

Letting go of her henge in-flight displaced her slightly in her trajectory, and made her a smaller target, so the ice spears whistled past her harmlessly. Sakura's front paws connected with his forehead, and she quickly channeled a jolt of chakra into him.

He dropped like a rock. Sakura herself landed less than gracefully, hurt and tired and nearly completely out of chakra. Yet the first thing she did was look for Itachi.

He was coming toward her, moving with tender care toward his wound. Sakura asked wearily: "You alright?"

"Yes," he said, reaching her. "I was able to partially heal myself with what you've taught me so far. Are you alright, sensei?"

"I may need you to carry me back. And take me to the Inuzuka; I am injured and I don't have the chakra to heal myself." Itachi didn't know fox anatomy, so wouldn't be able to do so either. "But first, set a genjutsu around this area; we don't want just anyone stumbling upon this. Once we get to Konoha we'll need to send a team to retrieve the bodies. And Interrogation will want to have a chat with him."

She nodded at the last Kiri ninja, insensate nearby.

"Understood," Itachi said.

"Good," Sakura said, and passed out.