I don't own any of the characters within this work of fiction, they all belong to Masashi Kishimoto. :)

The trio are in their early twenties, hovering somewhere around 22 years old. This, of course, makes Kakashi's age somewhere around 36.

I have obviously taken some creative liberties within this story, so it's not going to be 100% accurate to the anime or the manga.

**Please read the below note**

There is a significant amount of violence and gore in this chapter. There's also some mild mention of assault in reference to how enemy shinobi treat captured kunoichi. However, there is nothing detailed written about it. You've been given a fair warning.

Leave a review if you'd like. Enjoy!

One moment Sakura had been sprinting through the trees, and the next she was plummeting to the ground. She extended a chakra-enhanced hand, snagging herself a handhold in a thick branch. She swung her body up and over her current handhold and landed lightly on top.

Shit!

The movement of her body sent a wave of agonizing pain along the left side of her chest, leaving her breathing shallow and ragged. Whatever had exploded behind her head had seared the back of her neck and a good portion of her hair, as well as left her ears ringing incessantly. Sakura could feel her left ear draining fluid, the warmth of the liquid running down her neck and settling into the clothes on her shoulder.

She willed half of her chakra into searching for danger, and the other half to quickly search for injuries. Second-degree burns graced the skin along the back of her neck, a ruptured eardrum, three fractured ribs, and other small abrasions. From what Sakura could sense, Naruto and Sasuke were still fighting viciously with enemy shinobi, battered, but still faring well. The tang of burnt hair filled her nose and sent her stomach spinning.

And Kakashi was… Sakura's eyes widened and then narrowed as she absorbed the incoming information. Kakashi had been thrown quite a way into the forest and was injured. She yanked a kunai out of her weapons pouch and set to hacking at her charred hair while simultaneously healing the more serious injuries she sustained.

Every severe injury Sakura had acquired from the explosion was resolved with swift precision. Although, she didn't bother wasting chakra on the minor scrapes and bruises. Sakura's scorched pink locks were now strewn about her feet on the tree branch, the once waist-length strands now a chaotic collarbone length. She didn't care. Not a single one of those things mattered more than locating her teammates, her wounded captain in particular.

Sakura flared her chakra again, searching for any indication of unfamiliar chakra signatures. It appeared as though the crowd surrounding the boys consisted of a significant number of malicious chakra signatures, the largest one, in particular, was considerably nasty. She clenched her jaw and restrained herself from sprinting off in Sasuke's and Naruto's direction.

Distantly to her left, Kakashi's chakra signature flared. Sakura was too far away to be completely certain, but her intuition told her that the disruption of chakra was due to pain instead of danger. Which was precisely the circumstance that Sakura found herself in. She sunk her body into the tree branch she was perched on, assessing the chakra signatures of the approaching shinobi.

Three nukenin were closing in on her, their chakra signatures radiating sheer malice. They were too close for Sakura to run off into the surrounding trees, so, instead, she pushed chakra to the soles of her feet and silently moved up the body of the tree she was in. Sakura settled herself into the foliage of a tree branch about 10 yards above her original position and waited.

She didn't have to wait long. Three enemy shinobi body flickered onto the very branch Sakura had just been inhabiting.

"Just missed the bitch."

Growled one of the shinobi, kicking what remained of her discarded hair to the forest floor. The ninja standing next to his disgruntled partner placed a hand on the man's shoulder.

"Calm down, we'll catch her soon enough. And when we do…"

Both men broke into wide, sinister smiles. The third of the group finally spoke.

"Before you idiots get too eager, we've gotta catch 'er first. An' don't get yer hopes up – Boss is lookin' fer a new toy ta play with."

Sakura didn't flinch at his words; she already knew from her days at the academy how enemy shinobi treated kunoichi. Plus, Tsunade-Samma had described, in excruciatingly great detail, exactly what captured med nins went through - especially the female ones.

Sakura pulled her face into a sneer as she dug in her left chest pocket and wrapped her fingers around two small spheres.

Like I'd let that happen.

Maneuvering her body into a squatting position gave Sakura a clearer angle for her projectiles. She pulled her arm back, flinging, first, the black bomb into the group of men, and watched it explode into a cloud of pitch-black smoke. She then flung the purple bomb, it too exploding into colored smoke.

She could hear the men coughing, and the noticeable thud of one of their bodies hitting the forest floor. Sakura took a quick moment to visually inspect the body. The shinobi's face was a scarlet purple, and blood gushed from his nose and mouth as he gasped with all his might to take in a breath. Sakura found a satisfied grin spreading across her lips. She was proud to see that all her time spent in the research lab at the hospital was finally paying off.

Sakura promptly homed in on Kakashi's chakra, ready to take to the trees again, when an ominous chuckle reached her ears. She glanced down. Two of the three nukenin were undoubtedly dead, their bodies sporting signs of the aftermath of her newly concocted poison. But the third, the one who had spoken last, had managed to encase himself in a bubble of water. Sakura snarled at the sight.

"Mah, come now sweet 'eart, why don't ya come on out? Eh? I jus wanna talk."

The man's voice was soft and gentle, but the smile on his face was unsettling. A spine-chilling tingle ran down Sakura's spine, prompting her to let loose a cloud of shuriken and kunai to rain down on the man. The enemy dodged her attack deftly, the ninja tools scattered along the branch he stood on. Lazily, the man toed a kunai that was impaled in the bark in front of him.

"'An wha, exactly, was dat suppose' ta do?"

Sakura grinned wide and deviously before cupping her hands over her ears.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

Two beats of her heart was all it took before the tree branch erupted.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

Two more beats of her heart found Sakura flying through the trees, each forward push of her legs enhanced with chakra. She knew that her explosive tag stunt wasn't enough to take the shinobi down (which was why she was high tailing it through the forest canopy), but she also knew that it had caught the nin off guard. She just hoped it was enough to give her the time she needed to put a good amount of distance between them.

Sakura picked up Kakashi's chakra signature, took an abrupt left turn, then continued bounding through the trees at a high speed. Her captain was injured, on the move, and seemed to be slinking his way through the underbrush. She stuck to the trees until she was about a yard from him, and then slipped silently to the ground. She knew she'd never find Kakashi visually if he didn't want to be found, and instead followed the traces of his chakra.

The problem, though, was that the white-haired shinobi had a knack for "throwing his chakra signature", kind of like how some nin can throw their voice. Which meant that Sakura, or any other sensory shinobi, could find Kakashi's general vicinity but not his precise location. It was an ingenious technique that had proven useful on many of their previous missions together. However, it was moments like this, when Sakura was slowly snaking her way through the bushes, searching for any potential sign of Kakashi, that she cursed his ingenuity.

As Naruto had expected, the battle was pure chaos. A multitude of his orange-clad clones were engaged in scuffles with the woman's lackeys, while he and Sasuke ferociously battled it out with the woman herself.

Now, the woman wasn't particularly strong or physically overpowering but it was taking everything Naruto and Sasuke had to fight her. And that was because the purple aura she had been emitting earlier was, in fact, a poison mist. The Jutsu affected the senses, leaving the victims dull and slow-moving.

Naruto's head was foggy, and it was extremely difficult for him to continue to focus on the fight at hand. Not to mention the fact that his vision was doubled and blurry, his ears could only produce an incessant ringing, his skin was on fire, and something was very, very wrong with his chakra network. The only thing that Naruto could feel was a persistent and agonizing burning sensation that consumed his entire body like his blood was boiling right there in his veins. Yet still, he fought on. He had to, he had to keep fighting until there was an opportunity for him and Sasuke to escape from the crazy kunoichi.

Next to him, Sasuke was panting heavily and covered in a multitude of shallow lacerations. He was holding his own against the woman's attacks thanks to his Sharingan, but Naruto could tell from the blood running from his eyes that the constant use in his current state was wearing on the Uchiha. The blaze of Sasuke's chakra enhanced chokutō flashed off the blades of incoming shuriken, sending the projectiles skittering in a smattering of different directions.

"Naruto! Wake! Up!"

Sasuke's voice, irritated and distressed, cut through the ringing in Naruto's ears just in time for him to brace the wild swing of the woman's katana with the kunai in his hands. Disoriented, Naruto's movements were a bit too slow, allowing the tip of the katana to bite into his skin. Searing pain erupted from his hip to his waist, and he could feel the flow of his blood soaking into his clothes. Naruto pushed back on the offending weapon with all his strength, determined not to end up with his guts strewn about. As quickly as it had appeared, the katana was gone.

Uncontrollable rage rumbled deep in his core, awakening his Biju – the Nine-Tailed Fox, Kurama. The Biju's voice echoed in his head.

Oy, brat, what's going on?

Naruto groaned although he wasn't sure if it was in his head or not.

Kurama… something's wrong with… chakra network.

The fox's growl reverberated throughout Naruto's body.

Something's forcing its way into our combined chakra and upsetting the flow.

Poison mist? Offered Naruto.

Another growl bounced around Naruto's already pounding head, causing him to flinch in pain.

There hasn't been a poison mist user for hundreds of years. But…

The booming voice paused, and Naruto could feel the Biju's agitation bubbling to the surface.

Kurama, what's going on?

The fox's agitation was quickly turning to irritation, his anger further exacerbating the issue with their chakra network. When he spoke again, Kurama's voice was strained.

This mist… Naruto, you've got to get away from it. NOW.

What do you think I'm trying to do here? Hah? He replied, exasperated.

You fool! It was Kurama's turn to quip out an angry retort. If you don't get away from the mist, RIGHT NOW, it'll pull our unstable chakra to the surface, and it will TAKE YOU OVER. You won't know reason, only rage and destruction – just like before we became one.

Naruto pulled himself out of his own mind and tried to focus enough to figure out how to get the hell away from this woman and her stupid mist Jutsu. He clutched at his side in vain, his blood flowing freely through the gaps in his fingers. He hissed through his clenched jaw at the growing pain, glaring at the woman as she and Sasuke traded blows with their blades. Naruto's heart hammered in his chest and under his left hand, his breathing became erratic and ragged, and kami he was pissed off.

And it was right at that very moment when Naruto was struggling with all he had to keep ahold of his rage and the violent chakra, that the woman managed to land a decent strike on his partner. He watched in horror as Sasuke stumbled back a few steps, gasping for air, and clutching the gushing wound across his chest. And when the woman slammed the heel of her boot into Sasuke's chest, causing him to double over and cough up blood, Naruto lost all control.

Using the point of a kunai, Kakashi widened the torn fabric around the projectile stubbornly sticking out of the side of his upper thigh. The skin underneath was irritated and angry, with the most significant discoloration affecting the jagged skin of the wound that was still spilling crimson. Throwing his head back, Kakashi spewed a string of curses and squeezed his eyes shut.

He was running through options in his head of how best to proceed forward. He could put the Sharingan away and conserve chakra while he doctored himself up but scratched that idea as soon as it entered his mind. It left him too exposed to potential threats. Option two, he could keep the Sharingan open and search for threats while dealing with his leg, but he knew splitting his concentration would make his suture work slow and sloppy. Kakashi tossed that idea as well. Grumbling, he placed his hand into his pooling blood, flared his chakra, and called on his ninken.

"Yo."

Kakashi offered the little dog a greeting when he appeared out of a puff of smoke. Pakkun was tucked into the branches of the bush, the expression on his face a mixture of slight irritation and concern.

"Boss, what did you- "

Kakashi cut him off, speaking a bit breathlessly through his mask.

"Long story, Pakkun…" The ninken grunted but didn't interrupt any further.

"I need you to keep an ear out for danger while I deal with this," Kakashi idly gestured to the chunk of tree still logged in his leg, "and then I need to find the rest of my team."

The little dog eyed Kakashi stubbornly and then let out a long sigh before speaking again.

"Call the rest of the pack. Looks like you'll need all the help you can get, pup."

Kakashi grunted in agreement and called on the remaining seven of his pack, all of them appearing in a cloud of smoke. Pakkun explained the situation and sent all but himself and Bull into strategic defensive positions around Kakashi's location. With his pack on the lookout, Kakashi felt a sense of calm wash over him as he returned his attention to the matter at hand.

Reexamining the jagged wound that held the projectile, Kakashi realized, with a sinking feeling, that the fabric of his pants wasn't the only potential hindrance to the removal of the shard of tree. Unless he wanted to cause more trauma to the muscles in his leg (which, of course, he didn't), Kakashi would have to widen the edges of the wound itself.

"You can't be fucking serious." He hissed at no one in particular.

Kakashi found himself, again, digging in the pockets of his flak jacket. He knew he had a lighter somewhere on his person and he was determined to find it. Buried under a pile of makibishi and a roll of wire string, in the fifth pocket from the top on the left side of his chest, was where Kakashi found it. He let out a satisfied grunt, placing the lighter and wire string with the suture material he had set aside earlier on a spare mask.

He had a decent plan of approach. He'd use the lighter to heat the tip of the kunai and the suture needle, aiming to disinfect the objects as much as possible. While the metal of the kunai was cooling, Kakashi would take a section of the wire string, tie it above the wound, and use it as a makeshift tourniquet. By that point, he'd be able to widen the edges of the wound, pull the damn chunk of tree from his leg, rinse the wound with a small water Jutsu, suture it all closed, and then wrap it in a bandage. Simple and foolproof.

Kakashi didn't let himself linger on the considerable gaps in his plan. He knew that they were there but there was nothing he could do to eliminate them or the possible issues that they could cause. He grit his teeth resigned to his plan of action and set to disinfecting the kunai and suture needle.

Balanced on Kakashi's left hip, the heated end pointing away from his body, the kunai cooled. He yanked wire from the spool, gathering a little less than a yard of wire string before snapping it off and tossing what remained of the spool with the rest of his makeshift med kit. He passed the wire under his right knee and shimmied it up under his thigh. About a hand length above the wound Kakashi began to wind the wire around his leg, crossing the two ends over the front and back of his leg. With each pass he pulled the wire tight, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he did so to keep the curses dangling on his tongue from tumbling out of his mouth.

Kakashi yanked the wire down one last time, trapping a kunai in between the wire in a way that hung the ring of the pommel just off the inside of his thigh. He gave the kunai a 360-degree twist, groaning through his clenched jaw as the wire tightened even further, and secured the object in place by shoving a bo-shuriken through the ring and into the ground. He panted heavily, his chest rising and falling at a rapid pace, as he watched the blood flow from the wound slowly begin to lessen.

The ninken hadn't alerted him to any potential threats, but he still scanned his immediate surroundings with his Sharingan. The kunai still balancing on his hip had cooled significantly and was now ready to use.

Kakashi held his "surgical tool" in his right hand, the pointed tip hovering over the exposed skin of his leg. He drew in a breath, expanding his lungs to their full capacity before slowly letting it out. Hastily, before he could second guess himself, Kakashi took the pointed end of the kunai in his hand, placed it at an angle on the edge of the wound, and wrenched outward.

He bit into his bottom lip to stop himself from yelling out, the burning in his leg extremely unpleasant. Even faster than before, Kakashi moved the kunai to the opposite side of the wound and slashed outward. Bits of blood danced on his tongue, the consequence of the abuse his teeth were bestowing upon his bottom lip.

Kakashi's self-mutilation only produced a small trickle of blood from the wound edges. He was panting even harder now, but he was more than thankful that his makeshift tourniquet was doing its job. He glared at the tree shrapnel still stuck in his leg, steeling his nerves before ripping it from his body. But, just as Kakashi was reaching for the foreign object, a small light brown head full of pointed teeth grabbed the offending material and tore it from its resting place.

Sharp, intense pain shot up and down Kakashi's leg and it took everything he had not to shout profanities at the little ninken.

"Hurry up. It's a ways off, but there's movement headed our way."

Kakashi glared at Pakkun but didn't dare speak, he still had too many choice words rolling around his mouth. Instead, he pulled at the moisture in the air with his chakra and flew through the hand signs for uo tsuba – a very toned-down water jet technique. Kakashi kept the stream of small water flowing until he was absolutely certain that he had rinsed out a significant amount of debris from the hole in his leg.

His tourniquet continued to hold as he shoved the needle and suture through the ragged edges of the skin on his thigh. Kakashi swiftly flew through the first layer of suture. The closure was unsightly, the jagged edges of the wound overlapping each other, and he just knew that Sakura would be appalled with his finished product. Kakashi gave a slightly perturbed chuckle and then added a second and third layer of suture as reinforcement.

He yanked the bo-shuriken out of the ground and ring of the kunai and used it to slice through the wire wrapped around his upper thigh. The return of unhindered blood flow had his leg feeling as if it had its own heartbeat, the sensation making him feel uneasy as he watched the suture line for excessive seepage. Satisfied with the minimal amount of blood trickling from the suture line, Kakashi hastily wrapped bandages around the wound. He let out a low-frequency whistle, calling out to his pack without alerting any potential threats that were nearby.

All eight ninken appeared, seemingly, from nowhere in particular. One moment Kakashi was, relatively, alone and the next his entire pack was crammed into his small hiding space. Each of the ninken's eyes were trained on Kakashi, awaiting orders, but he knew they were still on high alert by the twitching of their ears and noses.

He moved his body into a squatting posture, grunting when the layers of suture pulled at his inflamed skin. Kakashi realized that he'd have to send chakra to that area on his leg if he wanted to move efficiently and effectively through the forest.

"Akino, Guruko, Shiba – find Naruto and Sasuke. Last I saw them they were headed to a small stream. Urushi, Bull, Ūhei, Bisuke – I need you guys as decoys. You're covered in my chakra signature, use that to throw off enemy sensory shinobi. Take anyone down you perceive as a threat."

The moment he finished giving them orders his pack was gone, save for the smallest ninken of the eight.

"Pakkun, you're with me."

The ninken nodded his head in agreement. "Figured as much, Boss."

He watched Pakkun sniff at the air, turning his little head in a multitude of directions before firmly settling on a route.

"She's this way."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow at the ninken, questioning him without verbally doing so.

"That's who we're findin' right? The pink one? The female that makes your pheromones all wacky?"

Heat flooded through Kakashi as he rubbed at the back of his neck and stammered out an unintelligible reply. Pakkun's only response was a grunt and a shake of his head before he turned around and took off in a sprint. Kakashi followed a step or two behind while the ninken tracked Sakura and Kakashi scanned their surroundings with his Sharingan.

Abruptly, Kakashi snagged the little dog by the shirt on his back and yanked him up into a tree, hiding them both in the shadow of the leaves. Two figures came into view.

"Why'd we get stuck chasin' the Copy Ninja, huh?"

The man kicked at a rock in his path before continuing his complaining.

"I mean, we're screwed no matter what we do. Either we find him, and he kills us. Or we don't find him, and she kills us."

The man's companion remained silent but nodded in agreement. Kakashi was just about to sneak off when he heard the nukenin mention Sakura.

"Why couldn't we have gotten sent after the girl?"

The silent man grunted and nodded. Hidden in the tree above the two shinobi, Kakashi was trying to control the anger bubbling in his stomach.

"I mean, did you see her? Even in that Kohona uniform, she was hot! And that pink hair! What I wouldn't do to have my hands wrapped all up in it."

Kakashi's blood boiled, and a deadly growl hummed deep in his chest.

"She looked like a fighter; those are my favor- "

The man didn't finish his sentence, he was too busy choking on the blood pouring from the hole Kakashi had opened in his neck. He dropped his hold on the dying ninja, letting the man's body thud to the ground. Snarling under his mask, Kakashi advanced on the remaining shinobi. The man produced a pair of kunai, holding them defensively in front of him. They did nothing to stop Kakashi's chakra-enhanced tantō as it slipped between the man's ribs and sunk into his chest up to the hilt. Viciously, Kakashi yanked the weapon out of his victim's body, causing further damage to the man's already punctured lung. This man too fell to the forest floor with a thump, wheezing and sputtering up bloody foam.

Both men were still alive, barely hanging on by a thread, and Kakashi didn't finish either one off. Instead, he wiped the blade of his tantō clean with the sleeve of the second man's shirt and replaced the blade in its scabbard between his shoulder blades. He stared at the two men, both struggling against all hope, and found it fitting for scum like them to drown in their own blood.

Kakashi hopped back into the tree where he left Pakkun. Neither shinobi nor ninken spoke for several seconds, both parties coming to terms with the brutality of the attack that just occurred. It was Kakashi who spoke first.

"Pakkun."

That was the only word that left Kakashi's lips, but the tenor of his own voice shocked even him. It was devoid of emotion, just as dead as the men he left under the tree.

"Let's go."