DISCLAIMER: Naruto is property of Masashi Kishimoto

Edited 20/03/2021.

The Leaves of the Tree

8.

If the Forest of Death was the stuff of nightmares in daytime, then at night it seemed to Sakura like hell on earth. The trees, the ground, the very air all felt vile, evil, corrupted to the point of no return. And yet, none of it could compare to those yellow eyes.

Even hours later, as Sakura dragged her unconscious teammates to someplace she could better protect, cold sweat still run down her face. Their encounter with that… thing was brief, faster than the time it took Naruto to wolf down a bowl of miso-ramen, but it permanently engraved itself onto Sakura's psych and she sincerely doubted the fear of it would ever fully leave her.

It shouldn't be like this.

Danger was expected in the exams, especially when they involved volatile territories such as Training Ground 44, but to be singled out and hunted down like rabbits less than twenty minutes into the second task?

They haven't even seen the hunter yet, but the sheer killing intent was enough to drive all three of them close to the breaking point. Sasuke's sharingan was spinning frantically, trying and failing to locate the threat. Naruto was growling and Sakura could've sworn his canines elongated, if only slightly, making it quite obvious the fox inside him wasn't feeling great either. Both boys kept Sakura firmly between them, Sasuke armed to the teeth with anything sharp and Naruto stationed to unleash the horrors in his sealing scroll.

Normally Sakura would be offended. She could go hand-to-hand with both her teammates, simultaneously, and she was perfectly capable of outsmarting anyone even a little bit less sharp than Shikamaru. But now? Now, her legs shook so bad she could barely stand. She was covered in cold sweat, her heart hammered in her chest much too quickly and breathing was becoming difficult. She couldn't feel her chakra. Couldn't think anything more complicated than 'run, run, run'.

Even Inner Sakura was silent, hiding somewhere in the depths of Sakura's mind where nobody, Sakura included, could find her.

Then they came.

Two kicked Naruto and Sasuke apart, the third somehow slithered behind Sakura and flipped her onto the ground. In a matter of seconds she was down, arms bent backwards harshly and a foot at the center of her back pressing her chest into the mud, her knees digging harshly into the earth and her hips stiking up awkwardly. Naruto lasted twenty seconds longer, but was eventually wrestled into a tight headlock. Then Sasuke was kicked to his knees, kept in place by two kunai, one at his neck and the other too close to his right eye for comfort.

"What the fuck?!" Naruto growled, "who the hell are you?"

"None of ya business," The one holding him hissed.

"This is boring," The one above Sakura complained. "Why are they special again?"

"They ain't," the one behind Sasuke drawled. "Them pretty red eyes are."

"Hands off, cretin," Sasuke growled.

Instead, he got the kunai at his neck moving and promptly hissed in pain as a thin red line appeared. Naruto roared, kicked the guy restraining him in the knee and almost broke free – almost, except the guy holding Sakura suddenly pulled on her arms roughly and she screamed, more out of surprise than pain.

It worked like magic.

Both Sasuke and Naruto stopped struggling and looked over, as if they just now realised Sakura was also unable to move. As if they'd forgotten she was there.

'No, Naruto wouldn't forget,' Sakura thought, as his wide blue eyes settled on her. 'He thought I ran. To get help.'

Like she was supposed to do.

Those were their orders from Kakashi-sensei, given after the Naruto Bridge. Should they ever find themselves obviously outclassed, and death a very real possibility, they were to haul ass out of the situation. If they couldn't, Naruto and Sasuke were to hold any attack off to the best of their abilities – advanced beyond the average chunin – while Sakura was to escape and get help.

But Sakura didn't have the time to escape.

Naruto and Sasuke couldn't even put up a fight.

And now, the guy above her started stomping his foot while he pulled on her arms and cackled.

"So we only need that red-eyed one?" he guffawed, "you mean, I can play with this one?"

"Seriously?" the guy behind Naruto sounded disgusted. "She's a kid."

"Not with an ass like that, she isn't."

Sakura felt her heart stop at that.

She saw clearly how Sasuke's eyes widened, how he paled and then tensed and began looking for any escape route with open panic – panic she'd never seen in him before. It would've been touching, that Sasuke actually cared for her, finally, but at the moment all she felt was stone cold horror.

Naruto caught on last, just as the man above her moved his foot from her back and shoved it between Sakura's legs.

Red chakra exploded everywhere, and Naruto lunged.

He tossed the shinobi behind him straight at the one holding Sasuke and then dived, snarling and spitting, at the one who had threatened the only girl on Team 7. Naruto's bright blue eyes were an angry red, his familiar whisker-like marks jagged and angry, and if Sakura had bothered to concentrate at all she would've considered that the bubbling red chakra around him formed a pair of ears on Naruto's messy blonde head and two long tails. But Sakura wasn't concentrating. Sakura regressed into sheer survival mode.

She'd scrambled to her feet, made it to the stunned, gaping Sasuke, grabbed his hand and hauled him off in a random direction.

"Oi! That usuratonkachi –"

"It's fine!" Sakura yelled, "pump your chakra in your legs!"

"What –"

"Listen to me!" she shrieked, her tone obnoxiously hysterical, as she pumped every shred of chakra she could grasp through her leg muscles, desperate for speed. "We need to outrun it!"

"Outrun what?" Sasuke demanded, but he listened to Sakura's desperate instructions. He was in the lead now, with his stronger chakra gaining better results, even if his control over it was lacking still. "What the hell is going on? What happened to the dead last?"

"He's not dead last," Sakura grumbled immediately, her new response whenever Naruto was mocked. "He's going to be our best Hokage, I tell you!"

"Sakura!" Sasuke snapped.

"Later!" she pleaded, "we need to make it –"

"Tsk. Annoying," Sasuke pulled on Sakura's arm and threw her over his shoulder, like a sack of laundry. "Watch my back!" he ordered, and then their speed doubled.

Sakura swallowed back her indignation, kept her sight focused and slapped a hand over Sasuke's spine. Her chakra promptly joined his, as little a stream as she could make it, solely there to fine-tune Sasuke's flimsy control over his own. They'd practiced this before – well, Sakura and Naruto practiced. Sasuke flat out forbade anyone to touch him. But he didn't have a choice now, and though he swore angrily, he didn't drop her.

Their entire exchange lasted less than three minutes.

They'd been running for a total of seven when something smacked Sasuke's speeding body aside. Sakura crashed back first onto a tree and before she could even gasp in surprise Sasuke slammed into her front, knocking all breath out of her lungs and bruising her already abused ribs further.

'When did he get so heavy, goddammit?!' she thought spitefully, and then wondered how she had any spite remaining in this hellish place.

She couldn't hold on to her spite or surprise for long, because at that moment an overwhelming amount of killing intent washed over her.

A pair of unnatural yellow eyes, with snake-like slits for pupils, appeared in the dark of the trees and Sakura was paralysed, stuck in place like helpless prey, petrified, immobile – useless.

Before Sakura's horrified eyes, Sasuke managed to get up and he attacked, but as quickly as he stood he was flung aside like the Last Uchiha was nothing. Then he was smacked around, as if for fun, before the monstrous creature opened its jaw and bit down on the juncture between Sasuke's neck and shoulder. Sasuke screamed and Sakura would've screamed, too, but she couldn't find her voice.

Then Naruto, still engulfed in that angry red chakra, flew into the fight, snarling and spitting. For a moment, their assailant seemed surprised, and Sakura would've sworn she'd seen apprehension flash in those yellow pits of hatred, but then Naruto was down – down before he could land a hit, down in less than a minute, sprawled on the ground by Sasuke's panting form.

"Well then," That thing spoke in a slithering, slimy voice, and patted Sasuke's face with it's foot. "Don't disappoint me, hmm?"

Then it left.

Without sparing Sakura a single glance.

'I'm not useless!' Sakura thought with a vicious sort of denial, as she finished tying together her makeshift hammock, spun out of flexible green branches, thin iron cords and Sakura's sacrificed shirt. She made sure the entire contraption was sturdy before swiftly climbing down from the tree where she'd hidden it and towards her still unconscious teammates. First, Sakura hauled Sasuke up and settled him in the hammock, then she brought up Naruto and their equipment – as Naruto weighed less than the Uchiha, a fact Sakura learned earlier that day, the hard way.

With uncharacteristic gentleness, Sakura tucked her teammates in, made sure they were entirely secure and wouldn't fall off, and then began to layer all hiding genjutsu in her arsenal over them with single-minded dedication only an A-type, anal-retentive instructor like Kakashi-sensei could foster.

Once her boys were safe, their heaven and earth scrolls divided between them, Sakura got down from the tree. She found two leaves, picked the most defendable spot in the little clearing and channeled chakra to create Kakashi-sensei's favorite brand of clone: when imbued into living things, chakra could circulate independently which made clones created by transforming leaves, or branched, or human bodies, less of a hassle. Leaves required little to no chakra, which was perfect in Sakura's situation.

Soon enough, Sakura's two clones obediently took on the guises of Naruto and Sasuke, and laid down on the ground in a dead-faint. Sakura herself picked out another tree, with an unsettlingly thin trunk but thick foliage, and hid herself amongst it's branches.

Thirty nerve-wrecking minutes later, Sakura had finished carefully laying genjutsu over the whole area, merged seamlessly with her physical traps. Should anyone find them, they'd think Sakura was crouched protectively over her fallen teammates, her whole body shaking but alert. Only a sharingan would be able to tell there was a clump of genjutsu hiding something in one of the rickety trees.

And there Sakura crouched in wait.

Waiting for her boys to wake up.

Waiting for her unfortunate prey.

'If anyone tries to take Team 7 from me, I'll use my genjutsu and I'll break them.'