A/N: this is another guilty pleasure of mine that I've been itching to share. I hope you all enjoy it! I do not own Naruto.
The world is black, and then all of a sudden, the air escapes her with a silent scream. The wind hurts her face and Sakura watches as the world blurs in her peripheral, the ground rushing to meet her.
She twists mid-air, looking for some sort of leverage. There are tall structures she assumes are buildings but they are foreign to her. There is the ground, what she assumes is the ground but it is black and it's approaching fast, she has to find some way to stop her fall or she'll die, I can't die yet, no, Naruto needs me and what will Sai do, you have to focus Sakura!—when she hits something hard and her body crumples, her air stolen from her once again.
This time, she audibly screams, because whatever she is on, is made of some hard surface that ripples and caves and it is moving like it's alive— oh my god, it is alive and it's breathing— and it is still high in the air. She had grown up with Hashirama trees, she isn't afraid of flying, not when she has Sai, but this place is strange and she doesn't have her teammate to fall back into. A tall, humanoid creature appears from over the edge of it, and Sakura is horrified. A face made of bone and grinning menacingly greets her. Whatever it is, she recognises it as a threat. Sending a punch it's way, she watches as it flies off, and nearly gets knocked over when the creature she is riding smashes into one of the buildings nearby.
Taking her opportunity to escape, she jumps and clings to the side of the stone building, finally able to observe the world around her. Leaning out with two feet and one hand planted firmly on the reinforced steel, dodging pieces of debris, she can look.
It is unfamiliar, alien. People she assumes are civilians are screaming, running on like ants on the ground and there is a hole in the sky, a pocket into another dimension she assumes, and more creatures spilling out with each second.
She remembers Madara and his flashing red eyes, and then the sensation of falling. With growing dread, she takes another good look at the sky. She has a feeling whatever hit she took meant for Kakashi landed her somewhere far, far away.
The building shakes as the foundation begins to give, and from inside Sakura hears screams. Turning and looking into the glass windows, she is met with the terrified faces of three civilians in foreign clothes. She makes a split decision, one that should've been simple, after all she has no obligations here, and smashes the glass.
Rushing in, she goes to demand answers to her questions, when she is met with garbled speech. I can't understand.
That puts a whole new layer of dread in her, and it must show on her face.
"I don't understand you, I am sorry. But I am here to help."
Using her body as the universal language, she holds a hand out to them. Pointing, she motions three, and holds out her hand. A blonde woman nods and reaches out to her immediately, yelping when Sakura lifts her in one arm. The other two, another woman and man, are quickly lifted off the ground. She turns back to the window and ignores their cries of alarm, launching off the building with precise motions. They land safely on the roof of another building only to lift off again, this time landing on the ground. Placing them down gently, she smiles when it seems they thank her. She waves them off, tugging them on the direction she sees other civilians running.
"Go, be safe."
She observes the strange metal contraptions people are sitting in as they whiz by, and she jumps out of the way of one, only to come face to face with three more of those creatures. They snarl at her, towering over her petite frame and she lets out a battle cry, quickly dispatching them.
Green catches her attention from the corner of her eye and she notices quickly that a very large man, two times the size of Chōji, is roaring and smashing those humanoid creatures. Right behind him is a man who is dressed in blue and red, and another wielding some hammer. Realizing they are this world's shinobi, she rushes after them despite the danger.
She left one war so abruptly only to be tossed into another one, and what else is she to do but fight? After all, a small voice whispers to her, it's what Naruto would do, and she is the fiercest kunoichi in the Shinobi Nations.
Natasha notices her first. It's almost hard not to— she has rosy pink hair and is dressed in strange red clothing and white armor. She looks like she's ma cosplayer, not a warrior but her kick sends two Chitauri to the floor in a heap, unlikely to get back up.
"Hawkeye, who is that?"
There is a pause, where her partner notices, too.
"I don't know." There's a grunt from him as he fights off three aliens, twisting his body around to shoot down two aliens, restrings his bow and takes out another in the span of mere seconds.
"She appears to be on our side," she comments, wrangling two aliens in her grasp, knocking the heads of another pair together. Letting out a huff, she said, "Keep an eye out, but we can use all the help we can get."
Clint nods and takes out more of the Chitauri with his arrows.
"Come again?" Says Tony from somewhere high up in the air.
"Foreign soldier with pink hair, not with S.H.I.E.L.D. but doesn't seem to be a threat. Looks like she has a mean right hook," Hawkeye says almost blandly, and Tony seems to think for a moment.
There's a flash of pink to their left and they look momentarily, where cherry blossom petals have begun to float in the air around her. She makes a weird sign with her hands and before their very eyes, the beautiful petals burst into flames, taking out a dozen Chitauri with them in a blazing inferno.
"Well, shit," Clint said, unhelpfully.
"You know what, given today, I shouldn't be surprised. Pink hair. Perfect, the more the merrier," said Stark, either unaware or uncaring of the trick the foreign woman just pulled.
Clint reaches behind his back for more arrows, and realizes there are none. "Shit," he growls this time, thrusting his bow at an oncoming Chitauri. There are too many for him to fend off the distance he is at, given how close he has to get to fight them.
"Shannarō!" A feminine voice cries, and three Chitauri are thrown off their feet in front of him by the same woman who is now wielding a war hammer almost as big as her. Clint lets out a relieved sigh, one he didn't even know he was holding.
"Take these."
He is taken aback by her voice. It is high and melodic, but it is a language he has never heard of. Despite that, he understands what it is she tries to tell him, as she holds out wicked looking knives to him, handle-forward. Pleasantly surprised, he grunts out a "thank you," before they are twirling away from one another, a deadly dance once more.
"It's time to regroup!" Shouts the Captain, and Clint quickly grabs the girl's arm when she doesn't notice them retreating.
"What are you doing?" Whispers Natasha to him.
"Don't bother, she can't understand us anyway. She should come, she is fighting with us."
She is a stranger, yes, but there is something about her that Clint can't place yet, and it seems safe. Safety is what they all need when aliens are pouring out of the sky and everything is uncertain. Natasha, on the other hand is still skeptical.
She follows for a moment, before something catches her eyes. She lets out a sound, catching his attention, and motions to a civilian crouched on the sidewalk. She tells him something and Clint takes it as a dismissal, before he turns back around.
"So that is the warrior you spoke of," says Thor, watching the woman who cradles a young man nearly twice her size in her arms, dashing around the corner and out of sight. Barton nods and the group refocuses on the task at hand.
"We have to do something to close that portal!"
Tony can't breathe. The suit is no longer working, and the voice of JARVIS is not there to comfort him. He floats in space as the hole ahead of him closes foot by foot, and he prays, he prays to anyone out there, that he will make it out alive. He sees a flash of blue, the clear blue sky before he closes his eyes and falls.
The Hulk catches him and places him on the ground. He is still while everyone crowds around him, and for a moment, everyone is afraid. And then his mask comes up, Tony blinking the haze away from his open eyes. He sees the grey of the buildings and smoke, before something —or someone— obscures it.
Impossibly bright green eyes look down at him, as she lays a glowing hand on his now exposed chest. He is too tired to protest, rather he stares at her dirt covered face as if she is all he can see and the other Avengers don't seem worried. A warm feeling overcomes him as Cap says, "We won."
The first thing he says is, "Great, we won. Let's not come in tomorrow, we'll take the day off… I want shawarma. I don't know what it is, but I want to try it."
That admission has everyone relieved, because Tony will be Tony, and he seems relatively normal and unscathed, comparatively. They all chuckle, knowing he is dead serious.
Thor smiles. "There is still much to be done yet."
And they have shawarma. There is a lull the day of the attack; the citizens don't know when to return to the city and start rebuilding their lives, but that quickly goes away. The world can no longer deny the presence of the new group called the Avengers, and they struggle at first to get away, with all the news anchors hounding them for answers, and many, many people approaching the pink haired woman with tearing eyes and watery admissions of gratitude. Bruce calms down and Thor handles Loki, who seems to have had all the energy drained out of him, especially after a beating courtesy of the Hulk. Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. take control of the rest.
And they sit, silent in the restaurant, as a worker diligently mops the floor in the back of the store. Steve looks over at the stranger with pink hair as she holds the food in her hands, sitting next to Bruce and Clint, looking utterly lost. It's an expression that resonates with him, strangely enough, especially after being encased in ice for 70 years. She has not spoken a word to them yet.
It is quiet when she says something, something Tony is sure none of them can understand. And then, she begins to cry. Bruce, the closest to her, is alarmed, looking at everyone around the table.
"Aww, hey there, it's okay, cheer up," he tries, placing comforting hands on her shoulders and she leans into him, crying quietly.
"Where did you pick her up, Clint?" Asks Tony.
The man in question shrugs. "She appeared suddenly and started fighting, that's all I know."
Thor attempts to use his All-Speak, but it doesn't work. "She appeared during the fight, you say?"
Clint nods again, looking at the girl who has sagged into a very bewildered and slightly uncomfortable Bruce.
"Perhaps Loki's invasion weakened the barriers between worlds. There are nine realms and many worlds between. There is the chance she could be from any of them."
Tony, casting curious eyes her way, says, "Well, it looks like we'll be having one more guest."
A/N: Tell me your thoughts. Do you love it? Hate it? Leave a review and share!