Please remember that this story is NOT cannon-compliant.

Chapter Seven

Part Two

The second day of guard duty started off okay - she and Naruto were partnered to accompany Kakashi to the bridge while Sasuke stayed back at the house - but it quickly turned sour once they reached the work-site.

Sakura was flipping though her Bingo Book for the fiftieth time when her teammates suddenly stopped walking. She glanced over her shoulder at them.

"Naruto? Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi didn't respond, dark eye fixed firmly behind her and low growl rubbling through his chest, but Naruto raised a trembling hand to point. His usually-bright irises had almost disappeared behind fear-blow pupils. Heart in her mouth, she turned back around.

Her breathing stopped.

There was a body. Or at least the better part of one, laying at the foot of one of the cranes. It's head was impaled on the chain's hook and swaying like a macabre flag in the wind.

She could hear the sounds of Tazuna's retching breaking the quiet stillness of the morning.

"Sakura. Naruto. Stay close to Tazuna."

Kakashi's clipped tone shook her out of her stupor. She armed herself with a handful of kunai and senbon. Naruto also slipped out his weapons and went around to cover the bridge build's other side.

Their sensei's lean form slipped away, his back tense and guard up. He crouched first by the headless body and rolled it over onto its back. Sakura's stomach lurched as the corpse's hand flopped limply to the side, but Kakashi apparently did not share in her squeamishness and picked up the arm to test the stiffness of the elbow joint.

Rigor mortis, Inner helpfully provided. He's trying to determine how long the poor bastard's been dead. And if we should be concerned about his killer still lurking around.

The jonin bent closely to examine the neck where the head had been removed, then he stood and walked over to the puddle of blood that had collected under the swinging appendage. He dipped two fingers in and rubbed the blood between them. Kakashi's mask wrinkled as his mouth twisted into a scowl and he quickly made his way back to them.

"We need to-"

Whatever he was about to say was cut off as Zabuza's massive blade cut through group.

Sakura grabbed Tazuna and leaped towards the edge of the bridge and Naruto sprung back in the opposite direction. Kakashi was already moving forward to intercept the rouge-nin before he could try to engage either of the genin.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Kakashi. I see you still have your little brats tagging along." The ex-Kiri-nin's voice turned her blood to ice.

Too soon! It's too soon! Sakura mentally screamed as Naruto frantically scrambled to light a flare. We were supposed to have another day at least for him to recover enough to fight!

That damn fake-Hunter-nin must have some medical skills, because he sure as fuck is here now!

A thick fog rolled over the group and Kakashi and Zabuza's writhing forms disappeared from view, though the clashing of steel reverberated through her eardrums. She could barely see a meter is any direction and only the bright flash of the flare gave her an indication that Naruto was still somewhere to her right hand side.

Sakura jerked back as a senbon flew by centimeters from her face. The masked accomplice suddenly appeared out of the mist and was charging right at her. Her mouth formed a soundless snarl as she rushed forward, their senbon and kunai grating together harshly.

He jumped back quickly, apparently surprised that she had met his attack so willingly. Sakura bared her teeth as she ducked to avoid more senbon being thrown her way.

Nice try dickhead, but I've been dodging senbon for the last three weeks. Genma and Kakashi have much better aim.

She darted forward as he reached back to reequip and, with a sharp roundhouse kick that would have made Lee cry tears of joy, sent him flying into the white mist. She retreated back to stand guard in front of Tazuna, unwilling to leave him unprotected for more than a few seconds.

Her worry at leaving the foreign shinobi to prowl through the fog unchallenged was washed away as a streak of blue and white rushed past her crouched form.

Thank Kami-sama for hotheaded Uchihas and their willingness to run head-first into battle. It'd be a crying shame if the bridge builder lost his head while we were busy fighting the mini-psychopath.

Sakura nodded in agreement.

She strained her ears to try and pinpoint where the swordsman and her sensei were, but the lack of audible sounds of fighting chilled her to the bone. She could just make out Naruto's shouting and gathered he had gone to assist Sasuke, but she couldn't locate the jonin pair.

Where are they?!

"Ah, poor little pup. Left all by your lonesome. Don't worry, you won't live much longer to miss your teammates."

Zabuza's voice echoed around her and the fait sound of Kakashi's shout of anger came from off to her left.

Oh fuck, oh fuck, where is he?!

Sakura desperately threw out her chakra, hoping to catch which direction the missing-nin was coming at her from.

Behind us.

She snatched up Tazuna and flooded her muscles with chakra as she tried to make a run for it.

If she hadn't been bearing the bridge builder's weight, she might have escaped.

Too slow, too slow, too slow, too slow.

Sakura had twisted her head around at the last second and regretting it when her wide eyes met Zabuza's crazed gaze as he swung his massive sword.

Too slow, too slow, too slow-

A scream was ripped from her throat as his blade made contact.

"Sakura!"

Her legs buckled and she crashed to the ground, knees and elbows scraping against the rough concrete. But the brief flash of pain of the impact was no comparison to the fire blazing along her back.

A white-hot slice ran from her temple down to her knee, warm blood rolling in rivulets across her skin.

She struggled to stay conscious as the edges of her vision darkened and the agony - oh Kami-sama, how could something hurt so much? - eclipsed almost all of her other senses.

Howls of rage shook the bridge. She peeled back her eyelids - when had those closed? - to see Tazuna gaping off to the side, eyes wide in terror. Sakura dragged her wavering gaze to follow his line of sight and spotted the swordsman pinned into place by the multi-colored bodies of Kakashi's ninken pack. Her sensei's signature jutsu set the world around them ablaze and his eyes - one darkened to near-black and the other a fiery red - were locked onto his opponent's immobilized form.

Chidori's frenzied chirping split the air as he flashed forward with killing intent.

Sakura felt a distant wave of satisfaction - fucker deserves it - until Kakashi was forward momentum was cut off by the slender figure of Zabuza's associate.

The Copy-Nin halted, staring in horror at his arm buried in the young boy's chest.

No. No, he has to die! Kakashi can't freeze now! He'll escape - he'll kill us all - Sasuke and Naruto - oh Kami — I'm too young to die! No, no, no, no!

Then do something!

Sakura didn't pause to think of the consequences. Her panic blinded her. There was only the thought of he must die spinning wildly through her head. Pain and adrenaline thundered through her veins. The muscles of her right leg had been severed and wouldn't support her body, so she redistributed the weight.

Can't stop, can't stop, not now.

She rushed forward, uncaring of the waves of agony flaring with every step, and scrambled up the swordsman's back - yanking his head back by the hair. A kunai was in her hand.

It was only when she had dropped back down to the ground, left leg fighting to support her and hot blood coating her hands that her brain finally caught up with her actions.

She had slit his throat.

And not just slit it. Her blade had rasped against bone as the force she put behind her strike nearly severed his head from his shoulders.

The ninken released their hold as his body went limp and he dropped dead to the ground.

She pulled her eyes from the corpse and up to meet Kakashi's shocked gaze.

"Sumimasen, sensei," the words fell numbly from her lips. "I seem to have accidentally made my first kill."

Total Word Count - Part One & Part Two: 4,199

Whoo, that was fun. ^_^

Please remember to follow, favorite, and review! The emails popping up in my inbox every time FF .net sends me a notification feeds my fickle muse. :3

Much love,

Mistress-Kakashi

Dobbyhasnomastr - LOL, it's been a struggle to balance the humor and adventure aspects of this fic, so I'm excited that you're still amused! Hopefully this update didn't veer too far into the angst zone. Next one will be pretty dark too, just a heads up. ^_^" Thank you for another lovely review!

Cruisegirl86 - Of course, I'm always happy to respond to reviewers! You guys are amazing and I love our interactions! LOL, Kakashi is lucky he's already silver-haired or it would be *very* obvious how stressed he is by his little devils. Sakura has water and lightning natured chakra, please reference Chapter Two for the testing scene. ^_^ Summons may or may not be a thing she gets in the future, so stay tuned! Yay! I'm so happy to make you smile! Thank you for another lovely review!

Guest #2 - I'm so very happy you're enjoying the story and my Sakura so far! Request granted, here's another chapter! ^_^ Thank you for the review!

EatsBooks - Yay! Glad you're liking it! Thank you for the review!

Gremlin Jack - One of my absolute favorite sayings is "Knowledge is power, power corrupts. Study hard, be evil". I'm a Slytherin, what can I say. ^_^" Sakura won't be stumbling down the villain path in this fic, but I'm happy to support her character development with as much bookworm-ness as I can cram in! Thank you for another lovely review!

Guest #1 - A.K.A. A Slightly Sakura Fanboy - I'm glad your enjoying my version of Sakura! And her relationship with Genma is so fun to write, so you'll be seeing more of that in the future! IMH, the Boruto franchise is a sign that Kishimoto-sama is going senile. It's absolute garbage and I only watched two episodes before saying "f*ck that". ^_^ Thank you for the kind review and I hope to see you pop up again!

Suzululu4moe - LOL, that was totally an intentional thing I did! I want(ed) readers to have an OMG moment when trying to figure out what book she was reading. *evil cackle* Kakashi is uber-parnoid in my mind, so I don't doubt he has weapons hidden in places our little genin wouldn't dare search. The explosive-tags-hidden-in-his-mask is an awesome idea and totally on point with his personality! Thank you for another lovely review!