Of course, turning to the size of a four-year-old again wasn't really what nineteen-year-old Sakura Hanuro had planned to do on a fairly routine B-ranked mission.
No, that was get in, get out, take the easy money, and sleep the rest of the day.
But things had apparently been going too well for her. And true to the ridiculousness that usually plagued her best friend, she had been reduced to suffer something impossible. Hell, she hadn't even conceived the thought, interesting as it was medically to think about, to condense a healthy nine-teen-year-old shinobi into a pint-sized version of herself. Yet here she was, scrambling out of her now too large boots as the man with the very interesting Kekkei Genkai rushed forward, strange kunai out and ready to do what he must have done a thousand times before.
Like, stab her straight through the chest in a single, terrifyingly swift move that she had barely even seen. And she trained with Lee-kun, for Konohona's sake.
She was surprised at how gentle the stab was.
It still hurt like hell, the thing had gone straight through her chest, but it had been a quick and soft blow as far as chest stabs go, and she would know from a lot of personal experience.
She hadn't expected him to shoot her these sad eyes either, or the faint tug at the center of her heart as he had made the thing go hilt deep. Pushing it deeper. Three prongs, even as sharp as they were, hurt like hell and she could feel her sternum crumpling, her lungs collapsing, her heart stuttering even as she forced it to steady itself and that was not pleasant.
"I am so sorry, but my mission must be done," he said, all sad and wistful.
She had wanted to say something along the lines of fuck you. But instead, as the day seemed intent on being all around the worst day of her life since the days of the Fourth Ninja War, she found herself falling away from the enemy shinobi, a light so bright that it gave her after-images coming from the seal-etched kunai.
When she blinked, the ninja was gone from the branch, and surprisingly, so were her boots. She didn't know why that was important as she kept falling, but as she crashed through the branches below her, and heard a startled shoot, it seemed to be. Because I like that pair and they were supposed to be there. Someone caught her, arms firm and warm through hazy vision full of black spots, she could see bright blue eyes. Ah. That was good. Great heroic timing as always. Ramen's on her. She'll even do some paperwork instead of tossing it at Shikamaru as she usually did.
Sakura knew those blue eyes.
Knew them better than her own green ones, she had seen them so much since she was a child.
"Naruto... You're... Late," she slurred, and as the startling blue eyes looked down at her, she could only think that the knucklehead she knew so well was going to do the impossible and set things right.
EDIT: 29, January 2021
