"Ah god dammit," Sakura cursed as she ripped apart her shirt arm. One hand went to a hole on the chest of a knocked out ninja she had been assigned with. The hole spouting out blood as if there were no tomorrow.
"What the hell are you watching me for, go get the enemy!"
Takai and Hakame stared at each other briefly, then left quickly. Sakura turned to the ninja whose chest now was soaked with his own blood. "Damn," Sakura thought as she tried to stop the bleeding by applying pressure upon the wound. Her hand, which had been bundled with the ripped cloth, pressed the wound as her other hand tried to fetch a pill inside her pill pouch.
After the difficulty had been gotten over with, Sakura pried open Satoshi's lips and pushed the pill down. Slowly then she began focusing her healing chakra on the wound, feeling the healing effect steadily repaired the slightly damaged organs and whatever that needed healing inside his body.
With a quick overview provided by her chakra she realised his wounds was not as bad as she had initially feared. No vital organs were severely damaged, but without proper care he could slip into danger. Sakura began focusing her chakra on her bundled hand.
"Satoshi, don't leave us…" Sakura chanted as she let her chakra flow freely inside his body. She closed her eyes, focusing even more until she felt almost faint. "Don't leave us yet…"
Now her chakra was sealing the small wounds that had pierced the stomach lining, and restoring and regenerating the cells around it. He had been plunged into a shock after the attack and didn't regain consciousness, which she had mistaken as dying. And –
She stopped thinking with a strangled gasp. Someone was behind her.
Even when she was healing the wounded Sakura never let her guard down, something she had learnt during her Chuunin Examination days and never forgot since. Sakura tried to think, as she felt the enemy was closing in very fast. In fact, the enemy was still far when she first detected him/her. The aura was undeniable: madness, bloodlust and deadly.
Her free hand quickly took out three kunai with explosive tags on them. She had to take a risk by throwing one blindly behind her. She did that, and somewhere between 10 to 15 feet away from her it exploded.
Sakura craned her head as far back as she could manage. There was nothing as far as she could see. But then they were in the middle of nowhere, or more exactly in the middle of the thick forests that bordered the Fire Country and the Earth Country. Led here by their quarry, a missing-nin named Kin, now their mission hanged by a thread by the look of situation.
Her eyes moved wildly about, trying to locate where the unseen enemy was while at the same time trying to stabilise her flow of chakra. A disruption in its flow could start an internal injury and would cost Sakura the life of her colleague. She must not move, her second ego told her. She must not move away from Satoshi or else the whole mission would be in vain.
Calling for Takai and Hakame would be pointless. She would give away her position and if those two would hear her at all, they would be too late and fall instead into a trap.
A hustle, then a blur came from her left. It rushed toward her with frightening speed. Sakura saw it though and she quickly lifted the second explosive kunai to throw it dead straight at the blur.
To her surprise it exploded before it even left her hands. Sakura was thrown back, but her bundled hand held onto Satoshi's chest in the last minute. She had a mere breath-take before she realised she was on her back beside Satoshi and looking up to a very sharp blade, hanging precariously not an inch from her forehead. She held her breath when she saw whose face seemingly was split by the deadly iron.
It was Kin, the missing-nin. He grinned down at her, his white teeth looked alarmingly white against his blood-drenched face. Some had flowed onto those teeth, colouring them red. He licked the blood and drew his face closer to Sakura's. His breath, which stank of rank blood, swept over her face.
"Ah… a beautiful creature. To what do I owe the pleasure of ripping your skin off your face?"
Sakura could feel her chakra flow failing. No! NO! DON'T FAIL NOW!! She closed her eyes when Kin was close enough for her to smell blood off his face. Those narrow, deadly eyes held no humanity, no shine. Only a dull sheen that mocked and laughed at her fear for him remained.
"Open your eyes," Kin was saying, then his fingers suddenly sought her eyelids. Sakura screwed them as tight as she could. "Open your GODDAMNED EYES!" Kin said, as his fingers again tried to open them. She only screwed them tighter.
"Playing hard to get, eh? Well, I know how to turn the tables." With that a moment's pause followed before a blinding white pain cut across her outstretched arm. Taken both by surprise and pain Sakura screamed aloud and her eyes opened.
"Ah, the lady finally acquiesced," Kin snarled, pushing his face close to hers. "So, what do you think of my performance today? Satisfying? Commendable?"
"Did you kill the children in the village down the stream?" Sakura asked, still trying to force her chakra flow although her arm was hurt. Two weeks ago, parents from the said village had come pleading to the Hokage for help. Their children had been massacred while the rest of the village were harvesting in the paddy fields. Preliminary investigation revealed Kin's identity.
"What if I did? Does it make any difference?"
Sakura looked at Kin in disgust. "You killed an entire generation of new hope."
"Oh, so you're only concerned of the children? What about them?"
Kin had been slinging a sack behind his head. Now he grabbed it and threw it onto the ground. The sackcloth fell open and two heads rolled out. Takai and Hakame. Their eyes weren't even closed. Sakura closed her eyes; something inside her twisted and grew thorns and pierced every part of her insides.
"Ah, so you know them, too! And what are you going to do now? Give your life up for them too? Or for your Hidden Village? I learnt a long time ago that nothing else worth living or dying for other than my own wonderful self."
"Then you go and destroy others'." Sakura shook her head. "You're wonderful all right. Wonderfully fucked in the head."
His face was still close to hers, which was a perfect opportunity for her to spit onto his face. With a cry Kin stood back and after wiping her saliva he let out another cry and lifted his dagger high. The dagger came plunging down at a terrible speed when suddenly something exploded and Kin was thrown back by the force.
Smoke rose and fell, and Sakura tried to sit up again, her hand still upon Satoshi's chest. She could feel that her chakra was fading but that was okay. Satoshi was fully healed, and her chakra chose a good time to run out.
Feebly she tried to see through the smoke and succeeded. Kin was lying on his back, with his dagger stuck in his throat. Sakura only now realised that the dagger was very wide. It in fact had not only pierced his throat, but it also caught his lower chin.
Sakura gave out a feeble laugh. Her chakra finally spent, she fell back upon the forest floor, her sight failing. Her left hand (the hand that was not on Satoshi's chest) reflexively curled in, and before Sakura fell into the comforting abyss she felt she was holding her explosive kunai in that palm, and a bright yellow flash coming toward her.
She fainted after that.
wake up
… we need to get her to the room…
I don't believe you still have that ribbon, Ino!
… hokage-sama, please help my daughter!!...
Of course I do! And now that we're on different paths, I think it's all the better I keep it.
What do you mean?
Oh, nothing... I know you're happy because you've gotten the jounin badge of Medical Nin!
Who told you that, Ino?!
Your mother, of course!
I told mum not to say a word. She just spoilt my biggest surprise! Ah, well. Ino, what about you?
I'm a member of the special force. Great, isn't it?
Well, at least you'll get to travel a lot. I'm a medic; I travel only around these parts.
Well, Sakura, that's not actually why I asked for this…
…
Sakura…?
…
Sakura…!
… go away, Ino. He's not coming back!!
"Sakura."
For the first time since eternity it seemed Sakura opened her eyes. The sunshine flooded her brain like some welcomed draught of fresh air into an old attic. For a while she could not associate anything in her sight. Then slowly she could.
Her mother was bending over her, trying her best not to burst into tears. Sakura tried to smile at her mother, and it was too much for the latter. She burst crying.
Later when she realised where she was and learnt of her team mates' fates, she was left alone to reflect on what had happened. From her mother she knew that it had been six days since the incident in the forests. Funeral service for Takai and Hakame had been held a day earlier. Satoshi meanwhile had been released two days before.
Sakura lifted her right hand and it stung, although it was wrapped inside a nice bandage. She closed her eyes, cursing her helplessness.
When her mother disappeared Sakura was left to her thoughts. Outside she could see the tiny lane that ran all the way down to the heart of the village. She let her thoughts take its own course, thinking about particularly nothing. Even her alter ego was quiet.
A knock at the door made her turn her head around. Satoshi was standing at the door with his left hand in a sling. His chest was bandaged, which explained why he wore only a jacket for modesty's sake. "Hi," he said, lifting his good hand. His torso moved graphically with that motion.
Sakura turned away. Satoshi looked down for a moment and walked toward her bed. He took a seat at her bedside and stared at her small face. Her expression was hard to read. The only indication was that of her chin. She held it defiantly high, although Satoshi could not think of any reason she should be.
"Sakura," he began.
"Thank me later, Satoshi, if you cared to. Right now I don't deserve any praises. I let my comrades die while I did nothing to help them."
He nodded as if expecting this from her. "You couldn't have helped them, Sakura. Kin was too strong even for all of us combined."
"Was he?" Sakura asked with an edge in her voice. "What did the special forces tell you? I want to hear it."
Satoshi carefully chose his words as he began: After he had woken up he realised that Kin was killed and Sakura was close to death due to chakra overuse. Satoshi could do nothing because his own chakra was close to none, and he did the only thing he could. He risked detection by unwanted companies by sending a flare message. He waited for hours, in which he fed Sakura healing pills he had found in her pockets, and sometimes attempted to heal her bit by bit.
Sakura did not say a word when he finished. She simply got off her bed and walked outside. After thinking a few seconds, Satoshi decided, against his better judgement, to follow her.
He found her atop the hospital. The topside was fenced securely after a few cases of suicides. She stood at the far end of the topside, sitting between two huge water tanks. It was noon, and the sun fortunately was not so blistering, covered by occasional clouds. The whole village seemed to have dropped into a lazy afternoon lull. Calm silence permeated from every angle, and Satoshi felt a bit better in the chest.
He heard Sakura's voice over the calm afternoon air. "Leave me alone."
Satoshi closed in, standing behind her. "It's an order."
"What, waiting on me?" Sakura asked, her voice laced with feigned amusement. "I don't realise I've become so important."
He shook his head and shrugged as he sat beside her. "I don't know. What I know is that the Hokage wants me to keep an eye on you. Indefinitely."
"This is outrageous," Sakura hissed.
"Look, Sakura," Satoshi suddenly raised his voice, "I know you're blaming yourself about what happened to Takai and Hakame. I would, too. But you need to remember that by becoming a jounin, danger and death is part and parcel of the A-class missions."
Sakura kept her silence.
"There's no use thinking too much about it. Takai and Hakame were killed in action, and that is the greatest honour anyone could give them, if there was any. It doesn't mean that I don't miss them. Hell, Sakura, they are – were – my friends! Don't you think I deserve to mourn worse than you? Yet here I am, trying to stop you from thinking too much."
Satoshi glanced at Sakura, whose demeanour seemed unaffected by his words. "Sakura, it's not that I want you to forget them – Takai and Hakame – but rather remember them the best you could. Honour their memory. I promise you'd feel better."
Sakura turned to him and gave Satoshi a brief smile. It was both sad and amused at the same time. "What?" he asked.
"You know, I forgot the last time someone promised to me."
Satoshi expected more was in the coming. "And…?" he cajoled her with a smile.
"You made me remember it," she nodded and stood up and began to leave.
"And…?" Satoshi called out at her. "What happened then?"
She paused at the door. "He didn't keep that promise. He couldn't." The last word was said with a strange mixture of disgust and hatred. With that she was gone, leaving Satoshi wondering to himself.
"Why did you call me here, again, Asuma?"
Kakashi leant against the bridge railing, an old copy of Come Come Paradise in one hand. Asuma sucked at the cigarette and threw it off the bridge. He turned to Kakashi. "Did you hear?"
"About what? Jiraiya's latest books? I think they're tasteless, He used to be good, but nowadays they were simply tasteless. Did I mention flat, too?"
Asuma sighed. With all the Paradise series Kakashi had read and collected, it was a wonder why this pervert jounin stayed single. With all the books and the level of explicit details they imparted, even a monk would become a ruthless rake. Kakashi, however, stayed as a mere pervert.
"The Anbu team who went to recover your ex-student discovered something rather unexpected." Asuma had heard this from Ino, who was in the retrieving team. The vivacious young girl had decided to become part of the Anbu and as this was her first assignment, she was understandably excited and in one sitting told every detail of the mission.
Asuma had wanted to warn her of the dangers of discussing one's mission or assignment even though it was completed when one part of her story caught his interest.
"And that was…?" asked Kakashi.
"You know that allegedly Sakura killed that infamous Kin the Slayer. Well, Ino's team mates thought otherwise." Kakashi's eye widened but Asuma shook his head quickly. "No: this time Kin was REALLY dead, unlike your encounter with Zabuza. His own dagger pierced him at the throat."
"He went mad because of that dagger, if I heard it correctly." Kakashi had followed the developments of this mission because a) Sakura was heading this mission, acting both as a medic and a leader; and b) Kin used to be a good guy, but after a mission in which he found the dagger he became a madman and began slaughtering men, women and kids – simply anything that came across his path. "So who killed him if Sakura didn't?"
Asuma lowered his head and whispered a name that shouldn't have been uttered in the village:
"Uzumaki Naruto."
A/N: After hours and hours of endless thesis fine-tuning, I think I'm through with writing. But here it is! Enjoy it, guys! And please do what any author would love: review! XP