Chapter Four
Pressure
The ambush came close to dawn. Sakura was attempting a stealthy scratch at the side of her nose when Kakashi's hand came out of nowhere to halt her movement. His head tilted almost imperceptibly to the camp and she blinked her understanding.
It was time.
She crouched lower on the branch, ready to spring off as soon as their attackers revealed themselves. Her muscles protested after the long night of inactivity but she ignored the aching and focussed her chakra, sending it to settle in anticipation at her hands and feet. The shadowed humps of their replaced forms lay innocent and untouched below them, but she knew it wouldn't be long now.
They struck.
A flicker betrayed the enemy's position, and she was off, ignoring Kakashi's startled, "Wait!"
Sure, she didn't know why they were here, but if their intentions were friendly, why hadn't they just made themselves known? Secrecy was duplicity, and Sakura had no intention of learning too late why the nin had followed them.
She shimmered from branch to branch, putting to practice the Kumokasumi Senko no Jutsu. Kakashi had yet to teach her its more advanced counterpart, the one he used to apparently teleport from place to place. He said she wasn't ready - and it did use a lot of chakra - but she was a little angry he didn't think she was up to it. I'll show him, she thought fiercely, touching down on the hard-packed earth just as the first of the other nin deigned to make an appearance.
----
Kakashi scowled after Sakura as she vanished, apparently too impatient to wait until after the other nin showed their hand. He'd planned for the two of them to bide their time until the enemy uncovered their log replacement bodies, and then strike in that second of astonishment while their guards were down.
Sakura had effectively ruined that plan, and he calculated alternatives as fast as he could. A few seconds and countless scenarios later, he sighed.
The new idea involved Sakura staying down there for a little longer. The other shinobi had been watching them all night and possibly longer; when they discovered she was fighting alone, they'd become distracted and unsettled, wondering when he'd appear to launch his own attack.
He liked them unsettled. An unsettled enemy was more susceptible to the Sharingan.
Slowly, he slid his forehead protector up from where it folded over his left eye. He blinked, then looked down at where Sakura had pressed against the bole of a giant oak. Shuriken winked from between her fingers, and he realised the sun had come up.
As if the light had been a signal, the first one appeared from its hiding place atop a neighbouring tree to Sakura's. They dropped soundlessly next to the rolled up "Kakashi", and using the momentum from their downward leap, drove a kunai into his "body" right where his heart would have been.
He winced in sympathy for his poor replacement, and noted with satisfaction that Sakura's attack coincided with the moment of understanding for the enemy-nin.
A low grunt - her shuriken had met their mark. The wounded shinobi retreated as Sakura moved hastily to another spot; now that her position was known, she'd make an easy target.
A fuuma shuriken thudded dully against the tree trunk where she had been standing, and he approved her quick thinking. A second later and she could have been seriously injured.
He waited for the rest of the group to show themselves. Now that their trick had been uncovered, neither side had the advantage. He was confident, however, and he had a strong feeling that what the others had expected to be an easy enough assassination was going to prove to be anything but.
----
That was close. Sakura fought to keep her breathing even as she moved quickly to a different hiding place. She snuck a look down and felt queasy when she saw the fuuma shuriken still reverberating slightly from impact.
And dammit, where was Kakashi? She hoped he wasn't deliberately allowing her to face them on her own just because she'd started without him. And maybe she should have bowed to his experience - he was a jounin and he had the Sharingan - but something rebellious inside of her had demanded she go down there and get ready for battle.
Now one was wounded, but Kakashi had said earlier that he could sense eight.
Where are the rest of you?
She was quite proud of her coded words from the night before. She'd been soothing one of her fingers after it had been burnt on the pot, washing it over with chakra, when something had brushed the edge of her senses. She'd stopped and strained for another touch, but none were forthcoming. Knowing her teacher's skill with looking under the underneath, she'd said the first thing she could think of, and miraculously he'd understood.
It was good she was here with Kakashi, because Naruto would have taken her words at face value and become depressed that their supplies were running low.
She spared a thought for her teammate while she waited breathlessly for the next attack. How was he? Where had Jiraiya taken him? Were they fighting enemy-nin as well, or was that a special privilege reserved only for Kakashi and herself?
Her vision blurred. Oh no you don't.
"Kai!" Her hands came together in a flurry of seals and she dismissed the weak genjutsu. No student of Kakashi's got very far without learning at least the basics of discerning mind attacks, and this one had been nowhere near as subtle as what she was used to facing.
A rustle from her left. Stupidly she looked towards the sound; it was her own fault when the shinobi appeared from her right, slicing down with a kunai. She pushed herself sideways off the branch, evading the strike by a hairsbreadth, and shoved off the tree trunk. Chakra boosted the jump and she made it to another tree, where a second nin was waiting.
Sakura dodged again, reaching into her hip pack for more shuriken. She flung them in all directions without really aiming, and took the moment they breached the air to glance about quickly for some sign of her teacher.
She spotted him a few trees down, where he was watching the scene unfold with apparent interest. Catching her look he lifted his hand in a lazy wave.
"Some help!" she ground out, shifting from one tree to another in an effort to shake the two nins from her tail.
He seemed about to answer when a ball of flame engulfed the tree from behind him, and he disappeared from sight as the branch he'd been perched on was reduced to ash.
At least we know they're serious, Sakura thought, readying herself for another set of seals. I guess that means I can be too.
----
Kakashi reappeared on the ground just as a high-pitched keening filled the air and he smiled grimly. Nice to see Sakura was using the techniques he'd taught her. The one she was doing now was a particularly nasty ninjutsu that used pockets of wind to beat an opponent senseless. The air was kept firm and hard-packed, so enemies were bruised and battered without ever being scratched, and he liked it because it was rather tidy as most attacks went.
She seemed to have things under control up above; he supposed it was up to him to take care of the ground below.
Leaning against a tree trunk, he feigned boredom. Sakura had two with her, which left six. He knew that one was injured, but to assume injuries eliminated an opponent was to welcome death with open arms.
Only eight nin. Whoever sent them had seriously underestimated them both.
He scanned the area surreptitiously with the Sharingan. There were four in his immediate vicinity, all of them tensed and poised for combat. He wondered what they were waiting for...unless...
He glanced casually at the ground.
Sun-bleached leaves littered the forest floor, edges crisp. There was seemingly no pattern to their layout, nothing too obvious that indicated he was standing in front of a trap...except that above, the tree branches twined together in a tightly woven canopy. No sun had reached this area in years.
He took a step forward and sensed their anticipation. Then he was watching from above as his body was riddled with shuriken.
The four enemy-nin burst from their hiding spots, ready to finish the kill. The smoke faded and he could imagine their chagrin at finding another log where his corpse should be.
Feeling rather sorry for them, he dropped down between a pair of them and slung an arm around each of their necks.
"Don't take it personally," he said, almost kindly, "but I'm pretty hard to kill."
Then he smashed their heads together and let their bodies plop to the ground.
He looked up at the other two. They seemed immobile, frozen with shock - or perhaps fear. The Sharingan burned, a crimson wheel that trapped them in its depths.
----
Above, Sakura was finding her pursuers to be nothing if not persistent. She'd checked to see how many Kakashi had on him, and had concluded there were two missing. She expected they'd allocate more ninja to the most powerful opponent, so it was probably safe to assume that two was all she was getting.
All the more reason to ditch these guys and go help Kakashi. Not that an elite jounin of Konoha village needed the help of a chuunin...but she felt a bit insulted that she'd been allocated a measly one-fourth of the enemy numbers, and now she wanted to teach them that they'd seriously underestimated Haruno Sakura.
"Bunshin no Jutsu!" An oldie, but a goodie. Naruto showed over and over that the simplest techniques were often the hardest to defend against. She was frugal with her chakra, creating only two clones, but they followed her mental directions and immediately rounded on the enemy, who in turn were forced to alter their movements.
The moment's surprise was enough - with the last of her shuriken she pinned them to opposite trees. Her shadow clones disappeared, their job of distraction done, and she landed on a nearby branch to survey her handiwork.
Yes, they were trapped quite effectively. But now, what to do with them? She could go and help Kakashi, but she rather doubted that shinobi forced to endure an all-night stakeout would have enough patience left over to just sit there and wait for her return.
On the other hand, however, she had no real way of obtaining information from them. She could probably threaten them till she was blue in the face and they still wouldn't talk.
But - oh well. Only one way to find out.
"So." She dimpled at them, wanting to appear cordial. Ino had always said that customers were more willing to spend money at the place with the friendliest shop assistants. As the Yamanakas boasted a monopoly on the floristry market, Sakura had never really been interested in her friend's observations, but she supposed it couldn't hurt to try.
"Which one of you wants to answer a few questions? It won't take too long - oh, unless you have somewhere else to be?"
Considering she had them pinned helplessly to a tree, Sakura wondered if that was perhaps a little too cruel. Then she decided she didn't care, since in all likelihood they'd been sent here to kill her.
Neither nin seemed very forthcoming, so she sighed dramatically, cracking her knuckles.
"I really don't want to hurt you, but I will if you make me. Or maybe you don't think I can?"
She took a deep breath and sent a silent apology to the tree she was standing next to. Then she readied her chakra and punched it as hard as she could.
The wood splintered. Veins of chakra spiralled up the trunk and burrowed through the timber, bark shredding and crumbling away in the wake of her power.
It was all rather impressive, and she stood back, admiring the show when an ominous creaking filled the air. She had enough time for her smug expression to change into one of horror before one section of the tree split entirely from the other, and she could only watch it fall in slow motion, moving as if through syrup.
She leapt aside, well clear of its path, and covered her face as it crashed to the ground, scraping along a tree opposite her. She breathed a sigh of relief when it finally settled among the brush, then lowered her hands.
All right, she was fine. Her little display hadn't gone entirely as planned, but hopefully her captured nins were quaking in their sandals. She turned to see how they'd taken it all --
-- only to find them both trapped under a big piece of tree.
Aw, man. She picked her way through the debris to check their condition - a quick inspection showed they were still breathing, merely unconscious. Her medical training led her to expect they'd be out of it for another couple of hours at least, and she took the time to remove their masks and see whom she was facing.
They wore no forehead protectors, but she hadn't expected they would. Attacking by stealth didn't generally call for allegiance to be displayed. Their faces were unremarkable with no particular racial characteristics - all in all, they looked like any nin she'd ever known. They could have come from Konoha itself, and she'd be none the wiser.
Leaving them splayed under the branch, she went to rejoin her teacher, mulling over the attack. On one hand, she thought she'd done quite well to disarm the nin in the first place...but on the other, she wasn't looking forward to explaining just how she'd managed to knock them both out.
----
Kakashi brushed the soil off his vest. Shinju Zanshu no Jutsu was an effective technique, but it was one that required him to get his hands - and clothes - rather dirty. It was a small price to pay for such a useful jutsu, and he employed it whenever he wanted answers fast, since the indignity (and discomfort) at being buried neck deep in the ground usually loosened enemy tongues.
He'd adjusted his forehead protector once again and was about to give them a bit of "encouragement" when Sakura came crashing through the undergrowth with all the stealth of a small elephant.
"Kakashi-sensei!" she cried upon seeing him, manuevering past the visible heads of his buried opponents without giving them a second glance. "I did it! You should have seen me, I got those nin so bad they didn't know what hit them."
"Good," he replied, wavering between pride and irritation. He was satisfied she'd been able to hold her own against the enemy-nin, but it was suddenly apparent Naruto's legacy lived on, if this was how Sakura acted after every successful battle.
Funny, he'd thought she'd become more mature these last couple of months. But then again, not everyone was like he'd been at seventeen - old and weary, angry at the world and what it dished out to those least deserving of it. He dismissed her sudden juvenile excitement as an extreme reaction; no doubt exhilaration at her win had made her forget their situation.
No matter, he'd talk to her about it after getting information from his captive audience. He moved to continue with his questioning only to be stopped again by Sakura, this time as she stepped forward and flung her arms around him.
He froze.
She pressed her face into the front of his vest, nosing in between the two sets of scroll pockets, then fisted her hands into the material at the back. She was trembling, her shoulders shaking, and it took him a while to get over the shock of this unexpected embrace to realise she was crying.
"I killed them," she whispered, a broken edge to her voice. "I killed them, and I wanted to make it all right, but it's not all right, they're dead and I killed them and it hurts!"
Her sobbing was louder now, and he understood belatedly she was unnerved from her first kill, and her emotions hadn't been able to decide how to deal with it. She was seesawing - at first, intense excitement; and now the harsh reality, heavy-hearted horror.
Awkwardly, Kakashi brought his hands up and returned the hug, patting the back of her head. Strands of her hair caught on his strangely sweaty palms. He stared at them so he'd have somewhere to look, because this was uncomfortable and unfamiliar and he almost really liked it.
And then none of it mattered because she'd pulled a kunai from her leg pack and stabbed him in the back.
She backflipped instantly, springing away almost before he knew what had happened. The wound felt both hot and cold and he had a dizzying suspicion the blade had been poisoned - his chakra was retreating from the point of contact and creeping back towards his core. Ignoring the pain, he forced his fingers to move sluggishly, creating a quick seal that he pressed over the entry point, stretching an arm with difficulty across his shoulder and onto his back. He blinked experimentally, but his eyesight seemed as yet untouched, then looked up, giving her a level stare.
"You're not Sakura." Obviously. It wasn't a question but he was curious as the Sharingan had betrayed nothing. Even now it whirred and deliberated, scanning her body. It saw her, and through her, and still it told him only what it felt was truth - that this was really Sakura.
She smirked, the gesture both familiar and alien. "Are you sure about that?"
He closed his left eye. "Yes."
Now she laughed, and it was Sakura's laugh. The sound caught at his chest and he was finally angry this person had managed to fool him, and it was all he could do to bite back a volley of questions. He settled for just one.
"How?"
It really should have been why but for once curiosity got the better of him - a genjutsu that had tricked his Sharingan was one to fear. The imposter smirked again before yawning loudly, as if his very existence bored her.
"Perhaps you've heard of Shoten no Jutsu?"
The name rang a bell, but he couldn't place it. Shrugging casually, he ignored the spreading pain in his shoulder. "Can't say that I have."
Her smile widened. "Oh, but that's even better. Why don't we leave it at that, then? It's always awkward to meet someone when you're wearing their face, and I can hear your little tagalong coming back now. She's almost pretty, isn't she?"
Appreciatively, she ran a hand over her chest and waist, then flicked out her hair. He bit his lip.
She eyed him speculatively. "Yes..." she murmured, almost to herself.
Then she seemed to remember something, and continued brightly. "But yes, I must be off now. Don't worry, I'll be taking my mess with me. Until we meet again, Hatake Kakashi. And I can assure you - we will meet again."
With a shimmer, she disappeared. He noted distantly that the two enemy-nin he'd put away for later had vanished as well.
The dizziness was stronger now - maybe it would be better if he wasn't so far off the ground. He knelt carefully, but it didn't seem to make much difference and he was puzzling out what benefits lying on the ground might bring him when Sakura landed beside him.
He heard her gasp as if from a great distance, and turned his strangely hazy vision in her direction.
"Is that you?" he heard himself asking. He didn't hear her answer, but he really hoped it was, because he didn't think he was up to fighting again.
Then a blessed numbness enveloped him and the world faded to black.
---------
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Notes on Jutsus:
Kumokasumi Senko no Jutsu: as mentioned previously, an original jutsu that allows the user to move faster than an enemy's perception, fooling their senses.
Bunshin no Jutsu: Replication Technique. A simple jutsu whereby the user creates one or more clones of themselves. In Sakura's case, used to surprise her pursuers. These clones cannot do any damage.
Kai: Dispel. The user can dismiss a genjutsu by focussing their chakra and breaking out of the illusion.
Shinju Zanshu no Jutsu: "Double Suicide Decapitation Technique" (Thanks, wikipedia!). Kakashi uses this to come up from the ground and swap places with his opponent, effectively trapping most of their body below ground.
Shoten no Jutsu: Shapeshifting Technique. Requiring the use of a sacrifice; the user can create a clone of another person that cannot be seen through by the Sharingan.
Thanks to everyone who's been following the story so far, I appreciate you taking the time to read, and I hope you're enjoying it. Comments and criticisms (especially spelling errors - I don't have Word and WordPad doesn't have spellcheck) are always appreciated, so drop me a line and let me know how you're finding it.
Special thanks to DarkenedSakura for having the patience to go through these chapters sometimes several times before release; and also to Magus, who knows nothing about Naruto but reads this anyway.