Another First Time

Chapter 16: The Petals Fall

Sakura's fist just went through someone's nose, and in the split second that her knuckles were embedding themselves in the man's nose, she remembered.

Ah, she candidly thought, as she felt the cartilage of his nose compress and finally break apart under the pressure of her fist, this is how it feels like.

I remember now.

How long has it been since I've punched someone like this? Was it that time when Genma touched my butt? No, Sasuke wasn't even back then, and he would have been the one to punch Genma. Was it that time Kakashi forgot to feed my rabbit and it died? No wait, I think Ino was the one who forgot to feed my poor rabbit; I punched Kakashi because he had the nerve to announce to the whole pub that I had four different STDs and was pregnant on top of that.

Oh, pregnancy, how you evade me now!

Hey, hey, it isn't time to be melodramatic now!

Anyways, maybe it was that time when Naruto kissed me, right in front of Sasuke. Hmm, Hinata was still with Kiba at that time, wasn't she? And I think Sai said that the kiss was artistically horrifying.

Wait a second. Maybe it was Sai that I punched.

And then that split second passed, Sakura's fist retracted itself, and things moved rapidly again.

Punch. Duck. Kick. Spin. Duck. Backhand. Growl. Kick. Punch twice. Twist. Duck. Evade. Uppercut. Kick. Growl.

Observe.

Of the three men she was simultaneously trying to fight, it was obvious early on that one was much stronger than the other two.

The two weaker ones, whom she had already dubbed "Thick" and "Thicker" for reasons soon to be made clear, were probably high chuunins or possibly a very, very new jounin. They reminded her of the shinobi of the Akimichi clan. Except the ones from the Akimichi clan were a lot nicer-looking than these two – these ones looked like they came from the street corners that civilian mothers were always telling their young, delicate daughters to avoid.

You know, those corners.

Either way, these men were stout and heavily muscled; one had a shiny burn mark on his left forearm. The shorter, stouter one had thick, brown eyebrows. Sakura would have shaken her head in distaste if it wasn't for the fact that doing so would have caused her hair to fall into her eyes, and that would block her vision, and she definitely couldn't have her vision obscured now.

The stronger one was probably an elite jounin, or close to it. He didn't seem to be fighting at his fullest potential, something that worried Sakura because three-on-one was bad enough, but her chakra reserves weren't as vast as Naruto's and would be prone to running out if too much time passed. If any one of them were alone, she was absolutely positive that she would be able to take them on, even the strongest one, but now, the three of them were slowly sapping at her chakra reserves and she was certain that when the time was right, the stronger one would no doubt show his true potential and take advantage of her weakened state to kill her.

Or worse, but Sakura preferred to think positively.

"Junko-san, are you sure this is a good time to leave?" The man speaking was obviously worried and just about out of breath from running.

"Actually, it's probably the worse time I could have picked," Junko admitted, squeezing the hand within hers tighter. "But it was an opportunity, a time when I was just about completely unwatched. I couldn't let it go."

"Junko…" Tatsuya began, hesitating. "When daimyo-sama finds out you've gone off with me, he'll be so angry. You'll be disowned for sure. Are you positive that-"

"Questioning my sincerity already?" Junko interrupted, glancing back briefly at the man running along slightly behind her.

He looked alarmed and shook his other hand wildly, saying, "Not at all, not at all!" His blue eyes softened as he continued. "I just want you to clearly think about what you're doing, Junko. This is the rest of your life that we're talking about. I don't want you to regret anything. It would kill me if you become unhappy now."

She smiled.

"This has got to be the best choice I've ever made, Tatsuya-kun," she softly said. "And it's the only choice that I've ever made for myself."

Looking past her shoulder at Tatsuya once again, Junko laughed and said, "So don't you go questioning this choice of mine, okay?"

He returned the smile, running with more vigor.

"Okay."

Sai could notbelieve how quickly the situation had unraveled on him. He just could not believe it. This had to go down in the history of moments-that-are-best-not-remembered, because he could not remember the last time his meticulously planned strategies had been ruined,just like that, by a young and air-headed eighteen-year-old woman.

Well, fine. They weren't only his meticulously planned strategies – Sakura hadn't graduated at the top of her class for nothing and her quick thinking was prized almost as much as Shikamaru's undeniable genius. And Junko was certainly a young, eighteen-year-old woman, but she was definitely not air-headed.

In fact, if Sai were to be truly honest to himself, he knew that Junko had chosen a very good time to run away with her lover. It was just because of the fact that Junko had chosen a good time for herself that it made things troublesome for him.

It didn't help things that the enemy nin he was chasing was already very much out of sight and Sai could only navigate through the thick underbrush by picking up the man's chakra signature.

And to top things off, Sai couldn't help but feel a little worried about Sakura. True, she was a fabulous kunoichi, but three-on-one battle wasn't exactly something she had done before. She was a jounin in her own right, but missions were always completed in three-man cells and she spent most of her time in the hospital anyway. Only ANBU did solitary missions, and Sakura hadn't been officially instated into ANBU yet. Of course, she had beaten up Naruto, Kakashi, and himself simultaneously on more than one occasion, but that didn't really count, since it was all in good fun. Most of the time.

Fighting to keep the expression on his face neutral, Sai began to piece together a new plan.

He needed to locate Junko and her man, hopefully before the other nin did. If he got lucky and found them first, they would hightail back to the estate and then he would capture the other shinobi for questioning.

Without breaking his fast pace, Sai reached into his pouch and whipped out an empty scroll and a brush.

With things deteriorating this fast, it would be best to get word out to the real daimyo in Konoha before he heard the news from another source.

The thing about fighting someone you have never fought against is that you can't depend on the fighting style that you usually use.

Sakura fought one way with Tsunade, another way with Naruto, yet another with Kakashi, another with Sasuke, and another with Sai. Because each of them were so different from each other, it made sense to adapt her fighting style to maximize any advantages she might have had over them and minimize any disadvantages on her own part.

But this adaptation took time. A lot of it. It wasn't exactly something Sakura could do while there were three kicks, three fists and two kunai from three different people coming at her from three different directions all at the same time.

She had always been an observant one, but with only one pair of eyes and three rapidly moving targets, things got a little hairy.

There's no other way around it, Sakura thought grimly, her mouth set in a determined line. I've got to take one out at a time. Let's start with Thick.

It would be reasonably easy to take him out, Sakura knew. Even with the other two raining down blows at her, it should be alright. None of them had used any ninjutsu yet, which certainly implied that they were either not very proficient at it or they were conserving their attacks and waiting for her to reveal her own skills first.

Well, Sakura thought, if they're waiting for me to start the ninjutsu, they're gonna be a little disappointed.

Ninjutsu had never been her strong point. But she was a solid taijutsu master.

In a second she had turned all her attacks on the shorter guy with the thick brows. The man appeared very surprised and was obviously struggling, trying to keep up with her chakra-enhanced speed and strength. It was clear that all three men were surprised that such a small woman could be the source of so much hidden strength. The other two men continued to launch themselves at her, but Sakura managed to deftly steer her main fight into the way of the other two – the taller men couldn't get a clear hit on her unless they were willing to risk also injuring their comrade, and it seemed to her that they were not willing to do so.

Ha, that's what you get for messing with Haruno Sakura, she gleefully thought, as a chakra-enhanced fist went into his nose for a second time, knocking the man clear off his feet and into the opposite wall. He actually went through the wall and into the next room, crashing into who-knows-what. When no other noise was heard, Sakura assumed he was knocked out.

One down, two to go, Sakura mentally cheered herself on.

The taller man with a shiny burn on his arm roared and launched himself even more furiously at her, enraged by the fact that this small woman had easily defeated his teammate.

Sakura smirked – this was turning to work out nicely. She had learned early on that while being emotional while fighting could lend a ninja extra power through adrenaline, it also tended to blind a ninja from seeing the larger picture of a situation. If this kept up, his man would undoubtedly start making mistakes, giving her more openings to attack cleanly.

The elite enemy jounin's attacks had also seemed to slow down and falter – Sakura assumed this was because he had finally seen what she was capable of and wanted to conserve his energy to fight her one-on-one later. She couldn't see how this would benefit him, but then again, perhaps he thought her current fight would tire her out enough that regardless if she won or lost, he would be able to take her out easily when he entered the fray again.

Sakura had no intention of letting the fight drag on. And she had no intention of losing either.

Haruno Sakura had already lost a lot in her life. Trivial things, important things, things that caused her to change – if there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was losing. So there was no way in hell she was going to lose this fight.

Looking back, Junko remembers that everything happened really fast. One moment, she and Tatsuya were running towards freedom, and then all of a sudden the world seemed to cave in upon itself and all she could do was watch as trees crumbled and birds screeched and Tatsuya groaned and fell.

And her confused mind couldn't comprehend anything that was going on, because it seemed as if reality itself had been warped and she was a helpless bystander.

She vaguely remembered muscled arms roughly hauling her up by the waist and then fast, fast sprinting.

But the thing that stood out the most to her was the image of Tatsuya's blue eyes looking up at her from the mossy forest ground, unable to do anything but watch as his love got forcibly taken right in front of him.

And then Junko's world went black.

Tatsuya, on the other hand, will tell you of the sheer terror that coursed through his body as he watched the burly ninja run off with Junko. The blue-eyed man might have been a strong man, being a commoner and used to heavy work, but he knew the difference between being strong and being a shinobi – ninja were trained to kill without batting an eyelash, while he was trained to…build houses.

It was an entire chasm that he couldn't span across. There was no way he could have aided in the situation at all. Of course, that was already assuming he wasn't rooted to the ground in his position, like he had been. The genjutsu that the enemy ninja had weaved had been near flawless, leaving him nearly writhing on the ground in pain while Junko, his true target, had been swiftly taken away. While the pain wasn't strong enough to knock him out or leave him screaming, it was definitely enough to paralyze him, if only for a short while.

The next thing Tatsuya will tell you is that the genjutsu began to wear off after half a minute – which is a true testament to exactly how fast everything had happened, how fast every thought had raced through the lovers' minds as the events had unfolded.

He was soon up on his feet again, cringing slightly when the aftershocks of the pain continued to course through his body, but otherwise relatively unharmed. But though he could still stand, could still move, he had no idea where the man had taken Junko. He had no directional sense to speak of, and his eyes had been trained solely on Junko's frightened ones when he was on the ground, so he hadn't gotten a clear sense of which direction they headed off in.

It was then that Sai finally broke through the underbrush, seeing only the slumped form of Tatsuya, and no Junko.

He sighed mentally – this complicated things beyond what he had liked. Sai stopped near Tatsuya, and quietly asked, "Did you get overrun by an enemy shinobi?"

The poor man could only nod in silence, still deeply shocked at what had just happened.

Sai opened his mouth to ask another question, but just a glance at the man's dilated pupils told him that it would be futile to try to extract information from him – he was too deeply in shock to comprehend anything at this point.

He turned to leave in the direction of the traces of chakra that the other shinobi had left behind, but suddenly remembered some words that Sakura had just about yelled at him during their last fight.

"And you just expect me to lay around and let her get hurt? That's just as bad as the man who calls himself her brother."

"What would your brother say if he heard what you just said?"

Sai snorted internally. Protect the innocents, huh? That's what she was always going on and on about, wasn't she?

He cursed his developing conscience, seeing as that annoying little voice (which began to sound more and more like Sakura as the days with her went on) now insisted it would be terrible to leave Tatsuya alone like this.

Sai made an ink clone and turned to the blue-eyed man.

"Listen here. This clone will take you back to your house safely, alright? Just follow him and you'll be fine."

When he was met with a blank stare as a response, Sai resisted the urge to slap his forehead. Turning to his clone, he said, "Just carry him on your back. His family runs that small building company; I've checked it out before, so you should know where it is."

With a quick salute, the clone swiftly hefted the man onto its back and disappeared in a flash, racing through the trees.

Right, time to get back on track, Sai thought, as he concentrated on finding the last remaining traces of the chakra trail he had been following.

He would follow them, defeat the ninja, get Junko back, and return to Sakura with a clean conscience.

And then they would talk. Sai would make sure of that.

Two down, one to go! Sakura crowed silently, as the man she had been fighting with received a beautiful and well-aimed punch to the end, causing his eyes to cross and slowly close as he fell with a crash onto the table.

Hmm, he cracked that pretty pink china, Sakura absent-mindedly mused as she turned to the last man.

His arms were crossed and his sharp brown eyes were surveying her critically. Sakura raised a chin up and stated, "Haruno Sakura. And you are?"

The man smirked – after withdrawing and watching the fight rather than participating, he concluded that this petite female really was something. Something worth knowing his name and rank, at least.

"Ikuta Ken. Jounin." He emphasized the last word in a subtle threat, as if he was trying to get across to her how powerful he was.

Sakura snorted. Egotistical men like this Ikuta Ken were exactly the type of men she hated. In fact, the only egotistical men she tolerated were her boys, but that was only because they let her hit them when their antics went too far.

"Right. Got a motive for this?" Sakura breezily asked, gesturing with a gloved hand towards all the destroyed furniture and hangings in the main hall.

Ikuta laughed.

"That was all thanks to you, wasn't it?"

"It was because of you and your men that I had to resort to that," Sakura shrugged. "And you still haven't answered my question."

He looked at her like she was stupid. "Look, I don't know what kind of high-and-mighty village you might come from, but when you don't got no affiliation, you do anything to survive. And in this day and time, you need money to survive."

Everything came down to money now, didn't it? Sakura could have shaken her head at the sheer unfairness of the world, but then again, since when had things ever been fair?

"So you're not some pseudo-Akatsuki type who wants to take over the world, right?" Sakura tentatively asked – she wasn't sure whether this broke protocol or not, chatting so amiably with an enemy, but if this man's man nose was going to be broken by her fist sooner or later, she might as well get the last bit of information she could muster from him.

Ikuta laughed again – not a chilling, evil sound like something Orochimaru might have produced back in the day, but still enough for her to raise her figurative hackles.

"The Akatsuki were stupid," he growled. "Don't compare me with them."

Sakura beamed. "Excellent."

And then was no need for words, but a kunai whipped out to deflect three incoming shuriken, and Sakura launched herself into heated battle once again.
Junko's eyes opened slowly. Blearily she looked around and blinked, her mind still muddled from the genjutsu that had been placed upon her.

And then everything clicked.

"LET. ME. GO!" she roared, kicking desperately at her captor, who stumbled slightly in surprise. The woman had a magnificent set of lungs – but then again, women were generally able to expand upon their normal vocal functionalities when they were in dire situations. And this certainly counted as a dire situation.

"Shut up, stupid woman," he grunted, not breaking his run at all.

"I'm NOT stupid, you buffoon," Junko growled, indignant to the core.

The man rolled his eyes. "Well, I'm not a buffoon."

Junko ignored him and continued to struggle, but his arms were like steel bands, keeping her tightly in his grasp. After a short while she realized something was off about the way he was holding her.

"GET YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF MY BUTT!!!" she screeched, utterly horrified that she hadn't noticed it before.

"Hey, hey, my hands are clean!" It was the man's turn to be indignant.

Tears of anger and humiliation began to develop in her eyes. This was not the way things were supposed to turn out. Why did things have to turn out this way? Here she was, supposed to be happily running away from home with her love, but instead she was trapped in the filthy grasp of a pervert.

She was going to scream again when all of a sudden, her captor's grip loosened and he fell, sending Junko toppling onto the hard ground. Looking around frantically for the cause of his fall but finding nothing as of yet, her gaze fell to the man.

His eyes were rolled to the back of his head, showing only the whites, and he was frothing at the mouth; he seemed to be having a convulsion.

Junko shuddered in distaste. She was already feeling light-headed and she was certain that she would faint now.

"Hm. It worked better than I thought it would," a voice suddenly appeared to her left.

Junko shrieked in surprise and jumped up, adrenaline clearing her foggy mind in an instant.

Sai held up his hands. "It's just me. I'm here to help you."

"Oh," Junko breathed, dropping to the ground in relief. As she sat, Sai securely tied up the rogue nin and created another ink clone.

"Okay, take this guy back to Konoha and report to the Hokage for me. Tell her we'll be back shortly," Sai ordered. His clone did as he said, gone before Junko's breathing had returned to normal.

"Now," he began, turning towards the woman on the ground. "get on my back. We're going back."

Junko blanched. "B-but…Tatsuya-kun-"

"Is fine," Sai interrupted. "He's on his way home as we speak. I had another clone help him. He's in shock, but other than that he's fine. Now just do as I say and get on."

Junko huffed but did as she was told, climbing clumsily onto his back.

"Alright. Hold on."

And he sped off.

Sakura.

As she dodged five senbon, nimbly hanging onto to the crystal chandelier, Sakura wondered how angry the daimyo would be once he found out his house had been flooded, burned, and covered with a mudslide twice just about ten minutes ago. It was not a pleasant thought at all, but still – she didn't want this to come out of their paycheck.

Their fight had started with ninjutsu – not Sakura's best area of fighting, but since she had trained with Sai she could honestly say she was much, much better now.

Still, it became obvious soon that her opponent was a water-type user, so an earth-type user like herself was at a terrible disadvantage – any dirt she might hurl at him would soon get turned into mud and be used against her.

She still persevered, and to her luck, his chakra seemed to be running out. However, it was just her luck that her own chakra seemed to be reaching its limits as well. The two of them were down to fighting with steel and fists now, neither of them having enough chakra to risk trying to do ninjutsu or genjutsu.

"You," he panted, as he shied away from her iron fists, "were a lot better than I expected."

Sakura smirked, although her tiredness showed. "I could say the same for you."

Internally, her mind was racing to find a way to draw this battle to a close – the way things were going, both of them would drop down from chakra depletion before a clear conclusion could be achieved. They were just too evenly matched – even with Sakura's expertise in taijutsu, this ninja was simply too experienced to go down that easily.

Her thoughts wandered to two separate incidents – two different ninja who had had to fight an enemy who was on par with, or beyond their own skill level. Two separate incidents in which the odds were against those ninja. Two different situations, but one common solution.

She knew what to do now.

She let go of the chandelier.

His sword slid cleanly into her flesh; his face carried his shock at her sudden opening.

And then he was close enough for her to grab him by the shoulders, the sword tearing half the ligaments in her injured arm along the way, but he was finally close enough.

With a fist infused with her last remaining bit of chakra, she landed a sharp and deadly uppercut on him.

She heard a crack and he fell.

She smiled.

I won.

Her eyes closed; her body hit the ground hard, a sharp contrast to the way the sakura petals outside drifted lazily to the ground like a pink dream.

a/n: Yatta!!! I made it for the New Years' deadline that I had imposed upon myself!

And this was an EXTRA long chapter, to make up for my yucky lateness and such. Hmm, what to say...well, homework's being a pain, I've been away a lot, and I'm going to get fat from all the Christmas feasting. But it's all good. Again, this chapter is unbetaed (although I finally fixed up the last chapter :P), so please leave a comment and correct any mistakes I might have made!

And cookies to those who can figure out exactly which two shinobi Sakura was thinking about when she decided to resort to her last plan - allowing harm to come to oneself in order to reach your opponent. I was looking at two CANON events that happened PRE-TIMESKIP :) (big hint there!)

On another note, I have changed my homepage. I have created a new LiveJournal account dedicated solely to fanfiction - that's my new website, go to my profile to check it out. Again, I update there more regularly and more quickly, so be sure to check there first if you're impatient for something :D

Last thing: HAPPY NEW YEARS to everyone! I wish everyone a year full of happiness and personal success in anything and everything you might do!

Enjoy!