The trees shot past her, a blur of brown and green and it was still not fast enough. Her hair whipped around her, covering her eyes and she cursed her vanity. Naruto was screaming something incoherently and the view turned orange. The clones launched so many attacks at once, Sakura wouldn't have been surprised if the whole forest was destroyed. The sounds left her ears ringing and filled her mouth with smoke. She could sense Sasuke next to her, Sharingan activated and spinning.
The man who was chasing them, had attacked somewhere in the early morning before the sun had even peeked over the trees. They had been napping, switching guards after each two hours. The previous day had consisted of walking along the road Naruto remembered from going to the Ketsueki district. In the distance there had been some screams but nothing came close to the. They argued, exchanged some insults and decided to find some food and water. They failed at that and went to bed hungry, thirsty and tired.
When the attack started, Sasuke had been on guard. Later both Sakura and Naruto would blame his lack of vocal talents for their near death experience. An explosive tag landed between their bodies and it was only because of Naruto's heightened senses, that they managed to get away. The trio gathered as far away as possible and studied their opponent.
The opponent called them out in a silky voice, with long black hair waving behind him. The face was pale, with yellow eyes and a flat nose. He wanted Sasuke and the fact that he said it like that, made him even more creepy. The discussion had soon transformed to a fight, only for the Genin to discover that the man was way stronger than they were. Sakura doubted even Kakashi could take him on.
They fled as soon as the first hundred shadow clones filled the field, surprising the snake-man. Sakura's heart was in her throat. They had yet to find another scroll- the Earth scroll- and with this weirdo chasing them, they might never find it. She fumbled with her bracelet and found the right charm. The seal activated and produced three tiny balls; experiments that Sakura had never used before.
"Hold your breath." She panted to her teammates.
They grunted and she threw the balls behind her. The resulting wave of hot, scorching energy and perfume knocked all of them forward. As they landed on a gigantic branch, Sakura wondered why on earth she had used so much glitter. The forest behind them was covered in pink dust, with glitters all over the place. The prettiness was just a cover though, beneath it every plant and animal suffered large burns and had inhaled a- be it weak- poison that caused severe migraine and nausea.
"What was that?" Naruto panted.
Sakura shrugged, too out of breath to talk. Sasuke wiped his forehead "Let's keep movin-"
The man emerged from the distance, far too fast for them to react. He was pink, would be finding glitter in his hair after a decade and smelled like roses, but the burns on his face and chest were the most gruesome the trio had ever seen.
"That wasn't very nice." He grinned, with only half his face on.
He stretched his back and the bared sinews moved along. Naruto looked away. The man's mouth opened, and kept opening until his head was thrown backwards and still kept on opening. Sakura reached out to her teammates and they stumbled backwards at her pull, too stunned to actually flee.
"Guys..." She croaked, and shrieked when a hand shot out of the opened jaw. "Guys! We need to run!"
Startled out of their shock, the Genin turned on their heels and hightailed themselves out of there. Sakura turned midair, fought the bile rising up at the sight of a head appearing, and threw another bomb down. This one exploded in a blue powder. She didn't wait to see the results and just ran.
"Where are you going?" The effeminate voice stopped them all dead in their tracks.
The man smiled at them, completely healed as if there had never been any injury in the first place. The tips of his sleeves were blue but the poison apparently had no effect on him. Sakura felt her stomach turn and summoned her kunai to her hands. Sasuke gulped and clenched his fists. There was a scent in the air that caused a swarm of wasps to fly around in his stomach. Fear crippled him, made sweat pour down his neck. It was growing heavier with the second.
Stop it!
He reached for his kunai with shaking hands and forced the tip in the softest part of his thigh. The pain cleared the fear from his mind, kick-started his brain and stopped the trembling.
"Spread out." He hissed and the other two obeyed without a second word.
Now we are working together huh? Sakura thought wryly. She crouched vertically against a trunk and clutched her weapons. They had already decided that she should always stay above the battlefield and use the view to direct her more destructive teammates. Now, when she watched her teammates facing off against a fully grown shinobi with the ability to shed his skin, she hated her position.
One of the snakes spotted her and launched its purple body at her. Sakura wasn't sure if she was supposed to feel glad but she took her chance and tore its neck open with her kunai. Another one came and she was forced to go to the lower branch. Soon there was snake gore all over her clothes and hair and she wondered why she always wished for the wrong things.
Naruto and Sasuke took turns in attacking but it was as if they weren't even doing anything. The snake man dodged them or just deflected them with his hand. Naruto's clones were working closely with Sasuke, transforming themselves into weapons and creating distractions so that Sasuke could use his Fireball jutsu. Nothing worked.
The snake man instead formed a seal and the whole branch they were fighting on, started to shudder. Snakes appeared from every nook and cranny, purple and in every size. Sakura launched herself to a nearby tree and send out kunais and bombs. She was pretty sure that she needed some for the rest of the exams but right now they needed to survive.
Team 7 worked together to fight the snakes and also keep an eye on the man, but it proved to be a near impossible task. Naruto cried out and stumbled back, a large snake attached to his shoulder, covering most of his upper torso with its massive jaw. Sasuke would have been lying if he didn't feel his heart stop for a moment. Naruto was bend over as far as he could, his hand limp and the other one prying at the snake. As a result the snake only put more force in his bite.
A wave of heat washed over the ground. Naruto grabbed the snake and savagely tore it off. The fangs remained buried in his chest before he yanked them out. Blood spurted out and spattered down on the snakes. His upper lip curled up, his back curved and his eyes turned a bloody red. The stream of blood died down.
Naruto growled and charged at the man, destroying the snakes on his path with chakra alone. His teammates took a moment to recover from the shock and to adjust to the thick layer of Killer Intent before attacking again.
The snake man smiled widely as Naruto mindlessly started to fight. His chakra formed a dense coat around him, scorching everything near it. The man stopped defending and a well charged punch from Naruto hit him straight in the chest. The man grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and stretched his arms so that Naruto was hanging in front of him, far out of reach.
"Ah, the Jinchuriki. How nice to finally meet." He whispered excitedly and reached out to lift Naruto's shirt, revealing the seal now visible against the pale skin. He studied it for a moment, fixated on the black lines.
"Let's see," his free hand ignited with purple flames "this should do the trick!"
He put his hand against the seal and watched as a new seal formed over the previous one. Naruto gasped and struggled to flee but eventually fell limp and unconscious. The man tossed him aside, just as Sakura turned to look. Her horrified scream made Sasuke turn, and in that moment, the snake man shot up to him and grabbed the boy.
"No!"
Sakura charged at them but was stopped by the many snakes still squirming around. From the corner of her eye, she saw Sasuke struggling against the bigger man and then watched the man's neck stretch out and bite Sasuke. He too, fell down, unconscious and slowly slipping from the branch.
"I'll look forward to the results!" The snake man called sweetly and waved his hand. The snakes disappeared alongside him and Sakura was left with her two teammates and a whole lot of problems. She looked between them, wishing she could just wake up and start over. Her attention went to Sasuke who was steadily becoming more and more vertical. A snake corpse slide past him and plunged towards the ground.
Biting back her fear, she Flickered to Sasuke, pulled him back on the branch and hoisted him up on her shoulder. He was heavy, but now was not the time to be a weakling. Sakura quickly ran to Naruto and braced herself. With one arm she lifted his limp torso from the bark and pulled him on her free shoulder. She set off on weak knees, going northeast from their battlefield.
Her memory supplied her with an old map of the forest which she had seen in the library. Praying that it hadn't been outdated too much, she turned left and jumped until there were no more trees left and she came across a depression in the ground. By now there was a sharp pain in her chest and her lungs were on fire. Sweat gushed down her neck and her muscles were cramped. She jumped to the ground, nearly fell over, and went to inspect.
There was a formation of rocks scattered around the ground. Hoping to find shelter, she walked around some and discovered a small cave. Shaking from exhaustion, Sakura went to lay the boys down (it seemed more like she was throwing them down, but she could not be bothered) on the ground and carefully dragged them inside. The inside turned out to be much bigger then it seemed and soon the trio was set up in the camp.
Sakura's vision blurred as she tried to check Naruto's pulse. It was still there, strong and fast so she left him. Sasuke's neck was hot to touch and his pulse was too fast. She stumbled and had to support herself with her hands on the ground. Sweat dripped down, past her nose and mixed with drops of saliva. She felt sick, having had no time to eat or drink since they got into this forest yesterday. The fight and the tension that hung over the place like fog, had drained her reserves faster than she had counted on. Her arms trembled and she sat back on her knees, letting her head fall back.
She crawled to the wall and leaned against it, letting the coldness seep in and offer some relief to her heated body. Her fingers found her bracelet and she counted the charms until she reached the one she had added at the very last second. A red, film encased pill dropped in her hand. A soldier pill. The one Genin were not allowed to take because their bodies weren't developed enough.
Sakura popped it in her mouth and swallowed it dry. She had to defend her team. The pill had an almost instantaneous effect. It set her body on fire, made her muscles clench and her chakra flare. Her vision cleared, her heartbeat slowed and she felt ready to go for another round, or ten.
Easy to become addicted to these...Sakura wasn't ignorant to the side effects: sudden rage, less control over actions and emotions. She also knew that, once the pill was starting to wear off, she would collapse. That would be a concern for later, she decided, perhaps the boys would be awake by then.
With her energy restored, Sakura set out to make traps outside their camp. She needed to find water and some food as soon as possible. Thus she made some small traps near the bushes, hoping to catch a rabbit or something.
She climbed over the boulders above their cave and watched from the top. A meager breeze of cool air blew in her face, playing with her hair as she navigated down the rocks to where she saw a glimpse of water shimmering in the light. There was tiny stream of water crawling beneath the rocks. Sakura reached out and cupped her hands. She brought the muddy water to her lips and carefully tasted it. It was fresh, but far from clean. She took her water bottle from her pouch and filled it.
Her first two traps were still empty when she checked them, but the third contained a rabbit already choked to death by the wire around the neck. The pinkette gulped and went to retrieve the animal.
Eager to go back to the cave, she left in a hurry without checking her surroundings. The shadow high up in the trees remained unseen.
Back in the camp, nothing had changed. The boys remained still on their backs as Sakura made a fire and started boiling the water she had gathered in a metal pot, silently thanking Chi for helping her with the storage seals. Though Sakura could not use them as much as the other girl (they required a small amount of chakra each time they were activated), she decided that they were perfect for transporting cooking supplies and a medicine bag.
She busied herself with cooking and taking care of the two unconscious boys. When darkness fell over the forest, her nerves shot up. The sounds of the night were all around her. Nocturnal creatures called out to each other, walked out of their hiding places and began their hunts. Sakura's mind involuntarily went back to Kakashi's story.
How many monsters still live here?
She shivered and pulled the sleeves of her sweater over her hands in a futile attempt to feel cozy.
It's going to be a long night.
And it was. Sakura remained awake, staring at the pitch black hole that lead to the outside world. The soldier pill didn't wear out until the first rays of sun hit her feet and she felt her body shake. Forcing a piece of meat down her throat, she tried her best to stop gagging. Today she had to execute her plan, the plan that she created during the night. It was risky at best and she was sure that it would have never been allowed by Kakashi, but he wasn't here.
To be sure, she took a soldier pill and left it inside her mouth, in her left cheek. If she was discovered and it came to a fight, she would be able to take it easily and if it didn't come to a fight she could just spit it out. She wiped her hands on her shirt and rolled the sleeves up. Her hair stuck to her forehead and she swiped it up. The heat of the morning sun managed to pierce the forest even when the light had taken much longer.
When she stepped outside, she was met by silence. There were no birds that chirped happily in this place. The closest thing was a caw in the distance or a squeak of a mouse before it was killed. In this silence, Sakura could hear her own heart beating like a drum. Her hands twitched, her chakra was pushed to her extremities and not a moment to soon.
A weight pushed into her back and send her flying, away from the cave's entrance. Sakura recovered in the air and used the rock she landed on, to push back and charged at the intruder. It was a Genin dressed in gray bandages and a wicked grin. He dodged her fist and went for a back kick. Sakura flickered away and reappeared above him, fist ready to come down and crush his skull. Instead she hit his shoulder as he moved away.
They stood a few meters away from each other, poised to strike. He was clutching his shoulder, his arm hanging limp. Sakura had charged her fist with chakra and at the last moment, figured that she could poison his chakra with her own.
The effects were stunning. A long, dark line appeared from underneath his sleeve and drew a jagged mark all the way down his hand. His face grew pale and sweat beaded on his forehead. It was fascinating to Sakura.
"Damn you." The intruder hissed.
He looked her straight in the eyes and charged again. This time, Sakura was not fast enough to escape and had to take the full force of the attack. The foreign chakra, however, spread further and clawed its way up his neck. The boy skidded to a halt and fell to his knees. Sakura winced and glanced at the burn mark on her knuckles. She had no idea how much chakra she managed to send in his body, but it had not left her with enough.
Yes, I have enough!
Her eyes brightened and she clenched her fists. She knew that her blood was not of any use to herself, but now there was a bit of foreign blood inside her. Chi's blood. She called upon it, and was surprised at how easy it came to her. But as soon as it came up, Sakura wanted to push it down again.
She too fell down, hands in front of her. She watched in horror as her veins turned black. There was a coldness rising in her, as if she was being drowned in a cold pool of a heavy substance. The pool appeared around her, black and swirling. It took her breath away, pressed down on her skull as she sank in further and further. The darkness surrounded her now.
Leave me alone!
Her mouth filled with the substance. It tasted like iron.
Stop!
Her head was yanked backwards and the liquid fell away from her. Instead the overwhelming heat of the sun came back. She squinted up and realized that another intruder had appeared while she was fighting Chi's blood. A girl scoffed at her, one hand holding up a fistful of pink hair.
"Wow!" A little blonde girl ran up to her. "Your hair is so pretty."
Is it?
"So cool!"
It is bothering me now though...
The blonde multiplied and morphed. The group surrounded her, pointing at her.
"Look at that forehead! Hahahaha! So big!"
Yeah, I know. You told me many times.
"Are you sure you want to be a ninja?" Her mother stared at her, worry and disapproval in her eyes. Sakura wanted to nod, but her mother was already replaced by Chi.
Fierce and tall. Eyes forever changing colors. Hair always kept at a manageable shoulder length. That stone cold expression on her face.
" At least people realize I am a kunoichi when they see me."
Sakura gasped. Her head was still held back by the girl who was now calling her fallen teammate.
"Hurry up! What's with you?" She tapped on the floor impatiently. "I can't believe I had to come and save you from this." She looked down in disgust only to find Sakura's green eyes on her.
"Back on earth, princess?" She grinned.
Sakura summoned a kunai in both her hands.
"That is not going to save you." The Genin winked and looked back at her teammate.
Sakura's arm came up and cut her hair in one smooth move. She rotated on her knees and slashed the knees of the other girl, who came down with a yelp. Sakura didn't think, she pushed herself up and landed on top of the girl, her kunai buried in her chest. The other Genin gasped, tried to say something but the blood coming up her throat prevented that. Her eyes focused on Sakura for a second before turning glassy and her head fell back.
Sakura rolled off her, staring at the sky for a moment. There was a cry from the other side and she sat up. The boy was struggling to get back up. The lines on his arm were receding quickly.
I need to kill him too.
Sakura got up and walked to him. He saw her come closer and tried to flee. He wasn't fast enough. Sakura swallowed and closed her eyes as she jumped to him. Her weight pushed against his back and they both fell to the ground. He was dead before he touched the dirt, Sakura's kunai embedded in his neck. She remained on his back for some time, eyes firmly shut. The nature around them continued on its own.
She took a shivering breath and opened her eyes. The world had become a darker place and she realized that the effects of the soldier pill were now officially gone and she had even less energy than she started with. With a heavy heart, she swallowed the pill in her mouth. She was parched, she realized. The second pill took its time to activate but when it did, it took her breath away. She coughed, dry heaving and shivering. A blessed breeze found its way to her face and relieved some of her nausea.
Sakura got up, wiped the sweat and blood off her hands and gathered the bodies. As she moved the girl, her belt got stuck behind a rock. Sakura frowned and went to take it off. It was made of a rough sort of leather, no decorations and with a few hidden pockets on the inside. One of those pockets was bulging and most likely what had been caught behind the rock. She opened it and retrieved an Earth-scroll.
At least something good came out of it.
She pushed the two bodies together, emptied their pockets and tied them together with the belt. She dragged them up the rocks. The ground was treacherous here. For most parts it was quite even, but behind the highest of the rocks was nothing but a gaping descend into darkness. The ground was simply not there. The cliff ended in a river with a current so strong, it made the water look like it was boiling. She pushed them over the edge.
The rest of the day she cleaned up the signs of battle and tried to come up with solutions to her problem. Her problem because the guys weren't that involved at the moment. There was only one soldier pill left in her pouch and it would mean a hospital visit after that. Her body could barely handle the second one. She needed to get them all out of here before she would collapse.
A branch broke outside the cave, her trap had been triggered. Her hands stilled. Sakura spun around and carefully neared the exit. There was a hiss and the place flooded with coldness. Sakura stepped in the pool before she could stop herself. The darkness grabbed her and the current pulled her underwater.
She struggled to surface again and when she did, she saw a figure standing against the light. Panic flooded her system but she was pulled under again. This time the darkness nearly claimed her mind as well. A hand grabbed her arm and started pulling her upward. Sakura fought against it, trying to be free, but it was no use. She rose up from the pool, the liquid falling off her again. She gasped for air and found it. Her eyes were still shut against the light.
"Found you."
