Sakura can't even breathe. She can't- She can't wrap her head around this. "What- What are you doing here?" she asks, a half-crazed laugh curling in the back of her throat, but she swallows it.
Hinata doesn't turn to face her, keeping her eyes on the enemy ninja even as she sets the squirrel down on the ground. The two boys on the team are hanging back, and the girl is coughing, gingerly shoving herself to her feet. "There… There was an exploding tag on… on the squirrel… So I… I investigated…"
Oh. That explained a lot – and also made Sakura feel a little better. She hadn't given them away by driving the squirrel away from a trap, but that also didn't… "But you're the enemy," she protests.
For a moment, Sakura doesn't think the girl will answer – they probably shouldn't be talking like this, probably shouldn't be given the bandaged boy time to reassess, reevaluate, but she can't help it. "…Wouldn't… Wouldn't you help me, Sakura?" she asks, and it's like a punch to the gut.
"Yes," she says immediately, ashamed of herself for even asking that, now, her good hand curling around her kunai. "I would." Hinata nods, simple as that.
The bandaged one rolls his eyes. "Well, isn't this a touching display of Konoha solidarity," he snarks, tossing his scroll to the other male. "Zaku, you take care of Sasuke." Zaku. That's the one with the metal on his face, Sakura files away. "I'll take care of them."
"Dosu, let me handle this bitch," the girl says, snarling in Hinata's direction. She looks pissed, and Sakura doesn't blame her - that looked like it hurt.
"No," says the one named Dosu, the leader. "Stay back, Kin."
And then he takes off. He's not terrifyingly fast, but he's still far faster than Sakura can move, and her shoulders tense up. Hinata cannot dodge, not unless she wants to leave Sakura and her team exposed, and the pink-haired girl doesn't think she'll move. Terrified terrified terrified, Sakura flings her kunai, but Dosu just dodges it easily.
Hinata doesn't even move.
She stands there, ready to fight, ready to take him on, but doesn't move forward, doesn't push to engage, and Sakura can't breathe can't do anything is completely useless-
Something hurtles into Dosu from the side.
It's- It's a tornado, a sideways tornado, hurtling into the sound genin and sending him flying, and Sakura has only a moment to think Holy shit, I want to learn that jutsu, when the whirling stops, and it's Kiba, standing above Dosu and panting heavily. That-
She had no idea Kiba could do that. Dosu is smashed in a crater in the ground, and definitely has at least one broken rib, from how hard that impact was. This is crazy.
Zaku swears. "Shit, she's got teammates," he says, and then the clearing explodes into movement.
Shino shoots from the trees, appearing out of nowhere just as fast as Kiba had, leaping straight for Zaku and nimbly dodging a spout of air he shoots from his arms. Hinata lunges forward, striking at the girl, Kin, with an open palm and slipping to the side to avoid a senbon, which comes to a halt barely a foot in front of Sakura.
Sakura has no idea where to look. Zaku and Shino seem evenly matched. Hinata looks like she'll be winning, though, and Kiba…
Kiba's standing guard over Dosu, but he's not looking at him – rather, his teammates. Sakura doesn't blame him. She remembers Wave, and she deeply understands that it's hard, it's so hard to stay and not fight when everyone else is, even when that's the tactical decision, but-
Dosu is moving.
"Kiba!" she screams, grabbing another kunai from her pouch, but it's too late. Dosu flings his arm out, connecting with Kiba's leg, and she has no idea what kind of attack it is, but Kiba collapses.
The thought of another Oboro has her up and running before she's even consciously realized it.
Sakura flings her kunai at Dosu, embedding it in his shoulder as he rises, and bodily shoves her entire self into him, knocking him back down before he's even fully gotten back up. She cries out in pain, her arm on fire, every one of her muscles screaming at her to stop stop STOP, but Sakura pushes past it, desperately forcing herself up and off the other. She doesn't, desperately doesn't want him to hit her with whatever he got Kiba with. It even sent Akamaru down, too, sent the puppy twitching to the ground and she's so, so scared she'll get the same.
He doesn't need to.
Something locks in her hair, yanking and pulling. Tears spring to her eyes as she struggles, but she's dragged up into a sitting position- and freezes, as a kunai hovers right in front of her throat.
"Stop moving, or the girl gets it!" Dosu yells from behind her, and Shino and Hinata. Stop moving. Hinata jumps back first, putting some distance in between her and Kin, and even from here, Sakura can see the panic in her vision, the ways her eyes dart between Sakura and Kiba, lying unconscious but breathing, definitely breathing, at her feet. Shino stays exactly where he is.
Sakura can't see the ninja's face behind her, but he yanks on her hair again and she gasps in pain. "Good, good, just like that," he says. He sounds delighted with himself. "Drop your weapons."
Neither of them move, and Dosu gives another yank to her hair, enjoying her pain. "Drop them, or the girl dies."
Shino is the one to speak – Sakura can't remember the last time she heard him say something out loud. "I can move faster than you," he says, and the girl feels terror settling in her bones. Yes, Shino is fast. She saw that. But-
From behind Shino, out of his peripheral vision, Zaku aims both arms at Shino and blows.
Well, that's what's supposed to happen – instead, Zaku's arms blow up. She can see the crackle of chakra around his arms as the sound genin yells in pain.
But that's where she stops paying attention to him, because she sees her chance.
Dosu gasps at the sight of his teammate, and his hand shifts, just a little, just a little upwards, and it's enough. Sakura bites him. He yelps and she doesn't let go, doesn't release her teeth even though she can taste the coppery sting of blood in her mouth and it's disgusting.
Her free hand palms a kunai from her pouch and reaches up and slices through her hair.
She doesn't give herself a second to mourn. Not a single second to think about it. Shino is there in a matter of seconds, scooping up Kiba, and she drops the kunai, grabbing Akamaru with her free hand and bolting with him.
Zaku is collapsed to the ground, panting and struggling for air. Hinata has Kin pinned to the ground, kunai to her neck and other hand grabbing Kin's arm – no jutsus for her. "S… Stop," Hinata says, as Shino lays Kiba gently on the ground and Sakura holds Akamaru cradled to her chest. "If you m-move, I'll… I'll kill her."
There's terror in Kin's face, and Sakura feels sympathetic, remembering her fear, but she does nothing. Hinata won't kill her, she won't, but- but they don't know that.
Dosu, though? Dosu just laughs, tilting his head to the side and looking like some sort of bandaged, deranged puppet. He's injured, bleeding from the arm and breathing heavily and painfully, but if all he has to do is touch one of them to knock them out, the three of them may still have a fight on their hands. "Go ahead," he says, and Sakura stops breathing. "Kill her, for all I care. She means nothing to me."
Sakura can't help herself. "But she's your teammate!" How- How- How can he say that!?
He laughs again. "You're so naïve. What-"
Two kunai embed themselves in the ground in front of him, and he stops talking. They all do – because none of them threw those.
Out of the trees come two genin, and Sakura's brain. Just. Stops. They're wearing yellow jumpsuits- yellow jumpsuits just like- just like-
Just like Oboro.
Their words only confirm her frantically racing thoughts. "Sorry to bust in on your… meeting," one of them says, glancing around. "But we're looking for our third teammate."
The second one, slightly shorter, glances over to meet Sakura's eyes. "He was following your team. Any idea what happened to him?"
She wonders, for one hysterical moment, what their relationship is. Sakura would jump into a bunch of enemies for Sasuke, or for Naruto, she knows she would (now, she knows she would – she didn't before). Any member of Team 8 would. The sound team… wouldn't.
But how does she even begin to explain what happened?
"He… I…" She stumbles over her words, gently petting Akamaru. He's comforting. Shino and Hinata trade confused glances, and Sakura tries to steel herself, tries to say it.
But Dosu laughs again, and it's a chilling sound. "You killed him, didn't you?"
Sakura blanches, even as the Ame genin start. "N-No! Your boss killed him!"
He smiles behind his bandages, evidenced only by the crinkling of his eye. It's something familiar to see on Kakashi – it's terrifying to see on him. "Then why do you have his body in your hideout?"
She bursts into tears, trembling and shaking and half-burying her face in Akamaru's fur. "I c-couldn't leave him!" Sakura wails, and the entire clearing stares at her. "I couldn't- Oboro t-tried to help us escape from Orochimaru, and th-then the snake k-killed him, snapped his n-neck and- and- and-" She can't finish, desperately sucking in air.
"He's… he's really dead?" whispers the shorter Ame genin, and Sakura nods miserably.
"Orochimaru- You mean the Sannin?" asks the other one, horrified, and even though she can see the growing disbelief on Hinata and Shino's faces, Sakura nods again.
"And you-" The shorter one growls, whipping around to glare at Dosu, who takes a step back. "You work for him!?"
Dosu smirks. He's cocky, cocky even though he's the last one of his team, and Sakura wants to reach out and smack that sorry face of his, but she just cries.
"Sakura," says Shino from right next to her. "What's that?"
There's a purple chakra rising from the tree where she left her teammates and Oboro. Slowly, everyone turns to look at once. Sasuke pushes himself up from the ground, and for one sheer moment, all Sakura can feel is relief. "Sasuke!" she cries, "You're-"
And then it hits her.
It's the teeming essence of wrong, of corruption, of Orochimaru that's surrounding Sasuke and choking the air around them. Chakra usually isn't visible, not like this, but it whips and spirals around him, a sickening purple color that seems to coat every inch of his body. As he steps into view, however, steps out of the shade, she realizes that's not the case.
There are little tattooed flames covering his body. They spread down his left arm and across the left side of his face, and Sakura knows with terrifying, heartbreaking clarity that they must come from the seal. No wonder they feel of corruption and of the sannin – whatever this is, whatever's infected Sasuke, it's from him!
Sasuke takes another step forward, and his red, Sharingan eyes meet hers. She quakes. She's- She's never been scared of Sasuke, not ever, but she finds herself shaking, so, so scared of what he's going to do. This isn't him. This isn't her teammate, this isn't the boy she's come to know as her friend, and it's both heartwrenching and the most frightening thing she's ever seen.
"Sakura," he says, and he doesn't look away. Neither does she. "Who did this to you?"