Chapter Five
Who the fuck does he think he is? Sakura thought belligerently. She hadn't done anything to warrant his hostility so there was no reason why he should treat her with such a hostile glare. That fucking pipsqueak. Wait till I give him a piece of my mind, she thought angrily.
As Sakura approached him to ask him what his problem was, she was interrupted by another man who was much taller than him with blond hair and blue eyes. As they conversed, Sakura couldn't help but note the stark contrast in mannerisms between the two. The shorter guy whose hair was pitch black reminded her of Sasuke in their genin days. He had a brow bone that was not too pronounced, but was made to look more exaggerated than it was due to the severe facial expression he wore. Even though his face wasn't as defined as his partner's and thereby making him look fairly young overall, his facial expression aged him badly. In short, he was an unsmiling and unfriendly jackass. Contrasted this with his blond-haired partner who, despite his hair manly features, betrayed no aura of hostility and instead made Sakura feel as if she could trust him. Their body language tells me that they are very familiar with each other. Maybe they are comrades? Regardless, Sakura needed answers and she didn't care who it came from.
Once the blond man finished addressing his comrade, he left, leaving Sakura with his insufferable counterpart. He leveled her with a glare she elected to ignore.
"Excuse me," she began, already seeing the man's face contort with disgust, "Where am I? Where is this place?"
"You think this is some kind of fucking joke?" He said, glaring at her. Sakura knew that she would not be able to effectively communicate with this man. When he turned to leave, Sakura reached out to grab his arm and he shrugged her off coolly. The last look he gave her made her feel tiny—like she was her genin self again and inconveniencing Sasuke with her affections.
Not wanting to attempt to ask others for help in fear of even greater retribution, Sakura walked through the throng of similarly-uniformed individuals towards the entrance of the wall opposite the one she climbed to enter the area. With each step, she felt herself growing more and more panicked at the possibility of never returning home to Konoha. Who could she turn to? She was a foreigner in a strange land and she is unable to talk to anyone.
Sakura's lamentations were interrupted by a large explosion coming from the direction of the wall behind her. As she turned towards that wall, for a split second she saw red before her vision was obscured by dust and debris. She couldn't see anything at street level, so she leapt onto the rooftop of a neighboring building to get a better look at what caused the explosion. What she saw made her blood run cold.
In the distance there was a red, muscled hand gripping the ridgeline of the wall, cracking it and creating fissures in the process. Connected to that hand was the head of what she assumed to be another giant humanoid creature.
As the dust settled around her, she could hear the civilians around her shout and yell and horror as they pointed at the colossal creature.
"Titan! The titans have breached the wall again!" they screamed. Suddenly, a large crowd of civilians were running in the direction of the opposite wall away from the colossal being. Evacuation was headed by the military individuals she saw earlier. Sakura watched from above as men, women, and children rushed to evacuate, and wondered if she should escape or stay and fight. I don't really know the capabilities of that thing. If I engage I could draw its attention away from the civilians to ensure that they evacuate safely. But, if I fight it I could possibly be at a disadvantage and get myself killed in the process. Or, I could win. Sakura decided that she would stay and fight the being. Innocent lives were at risk and she would not be able to live with herself knowing that she ran away without helping anyone. Naruto would be ashamed of me if I ever did that.
With that in mind, Sakura deposited her mission backpack somewhere safe and leapt towards the wall by rooftop. With each leap she took, she efficiently cycled chakra in her legs to give her the extra boost she needed to leap farther faster. When she reached the last row of houses before the entrance to the gate the colossal figure kicked in, she leapt from the edge of the house upwards and landed halfway up the wall and ran the rest of the distance, appearing only as a blur to the people who hung suspended from the side of the wall after the initial attack.
Landing on the ridge of the wall, Sakura adjusted her combat gloves and assumed a defensive position. Before she could leap off the wall and engage the titan, another figure rushed by her, sending a gust of wind that ruffled her hair.
"What are you doing? Get the fuck out of the way!" the person yelled at her. He turned back to yank her arm to get her to move and she did, but not without violently yanking her arm back from him. She didn't have time to properly scold the person as she had to run from the giant hand of the colossus that came down upon the ridge of the wall, knocking down the batteries that were strategically placed along its length. The figure that had accosted her earlier jumped from the wall and immediately engaged the titan. At this point, Sakura had out run the giant arm of the titan and was watching the battle ensue between the figure—a boy—and the colossal humanoid figure.
Landing on the wall, Sakura took a moment to assess the situation before her. This giant being was about as tall as the Hokage monument and was more massive than anything she had ever seen prior. The colossus had long vertical striations like the Hachibi, and the striations, she noted, were actually skeletal muscle fibers that, when grouped together, formed many of the muscle groups that she knew by heart thanks to her anatomy training that she received as an apprentice to her Shishou. From the sparse muscles that adorned the temple to the numerous ones that made up the face and neck, she knew every origin and insertion intimately like a lover knew the most erotic parts of their partner. It was like one of the diagrams in her anatomy textbook came to life, and luckily for Sakura (and unfortunately for the giant), she was a master at dissection. Finally, she thought, a battle where I don't have to be over powered like Naruto or Sasuke.
So, with this last thought, Sakura channeled chakra into her feet and leapt towards the colossal humanoid creature. As she descended, the titan did not notice that she moved as it was preoccupied with swatting away the other boy who had engaged it in battle. As the boy dodged the colossus' hand, he shot his grappling hook into the palm of the colossus. Sakura took this opportunity to run down the length of the being's arm while continually cycling chakra into her feet to maintain stability.
Arms swinging about wildly behind her, she masterfully formed a green chakra scalpel in her right hand as she approached the neck of the colossal titan and aimed for the group of muscle fibers that made up the muscles that connected the base of the skull to the clavicle of the being. If I aim for the sternocleidomastoid, the colossus won't be able to rotate its head effectively. At the conclusion of this thought, Sakura sliced her right hand laterally through the muscle with considerable amount of effort and immediately leapt directly above the cranium of the being.
That took more effort than I expected.
She watched as her handiwork caused the titan's head begin to droop to the side opposite her. Readying a chakra scalpel in her right heel at the apex of her flight, she positioned her leg out as if she were to perform a downward kick while swinging her upper body forwards with her arms tucked in, creating rotational motion and causing her to somersault in her descent. The faster her rotational motion, the more times the chakra scalpel could injure the being at high frequency. In short, she became a human sawblade. She figured that if the muscle was hard to cut, that the skull would be even more difficult to get through, so this move was necessary. At the same time she was somersaulting downwards, the other combatant in uniform aimed for the colossal figure's neck. Before the both could connect their attacks, the surface of the colossal being suddenly let out massive tons of steam—enough to temporarily obscure the vision of both.
"It burns!" Sakura guess that he was reacting to the sudden burst of steam. She too experienced pain from the sudden burst of steam, but luckily for her the pain was reduced, as she didn't have many areas of skin exposed and the rotational motion created from her somersaulting fanned the steam away from her. She could not and would not stop her assault, especially when there were innocent civilian lives on the line.
With that in mind, Sakura's attack connected with the colossus. As her foot connected with bone, her scalpel was driven further inside the cranium of the being. Sakura felt as her enhanced strength ruined the structural integrity of the bone on a physical level while her scalpel annihilated the bonds that held the cells of the bone together on a molecular level. One by one, her chakra rapaciously disrupted and weakened the molecular forces that held the bone together on a microscopic level, reaching further and deeper into the being's cranium and deadening everything in its wake.
As the titan began to fall forward, Sakura could see the boy she encountered earlier poised to deliver the final blow to the humanoid's neck. But before she could leap safely away, she saw something that made her hesitate. Moments after her attack the creature let off a burst of steam again, and this time vanishing in the process. Sakura made eye-contact with the boy before careening towards green pastures below.
Sakura landed on the ground, and in the process created an impact crater the length of her wingspan.
"Eren! Did you get it?" she heard someone call from above.
"No! It's the same as five years ago! He disappeared, just as suddenly as he appeared."
As the conversation faded, Sakura looked on ahead towards the rolling hills that she escaped from with an infant on horse not too long ago. As she rose from the impact crater, she felt herself falter once again at the sight before her.
Up ahead, there was a heard of humanoid beings charging towards the gaping hole in the wall.
And she was in their way.
thank you for the encouragement you all have shown me so far! i really appreciate it. i really do! :)
remember to R and R!
what did you like about this chapter? what did you hate about it? what is something that i could work on? (besides timely uploads lololol)
