Stupid trees…stupid chakra…stupid—ow!—Kakashi-sensei, Sakura thought to herself as she ran into yet another branch. Traveling by jumping from tree branch to tree branch might well be faster than taking the roads, but she would have been more than happy to forego the extra speed in exchange for not feeling quite so sore from running into branches and light-headed from constant chakra usage once they stopped for the evening. At least Team Seven would reach the farming settlement today, so she would hopefully be able to sleep on something more comfortable than the bare wooden boards that passed for cots in the travel shelters.
Neither she nor her teammates had been especially tired after the first day of travel, so they had all been enthusiastic when Kakashi had told them he was going to teach them how to use their chakra to cling to trees and jump between branches. In Fire Country, where the vast majority of the land was densely forested, this offered a swift and, more importantly, nearly undetectable means of travel, and they had all seen the benefits immediately. He had warned them that they probably wouldn't pick it up right away—perhaps not even in time to make use of it on the way to the settlement—but that had only made them all the more determined to master it as soon as possible.
Now, as she spat out a clump of leaves that had somehow found its way into her mouth and focused on Naruto, who was bounding from limb to limb just ahead of her like a demented blond squirrel, Sakura found herself wishing they hadn't been quite so enthusiastic. Granted, it meant that they would reach their destination nearly half a day ahead of schedule despite the time spent learning to tree-hop, but she wasn't sure any of the others realized how much of an effort this was for her; in a way, though, that was good, because she was determined not to be the one responsible for slowing her teammates down.
Hinata, surprisingly—or perhaps not—had been the first to master the new technique. She had simply used her byakugan to watch the flow of Kakashi's chakra through his coils as he demonstrated first how to use a small amount of chakra to cling to a tree, then "flare" it while jumping forward in order to gain extra speed and distance. Even without that natural advantage, though, Sakura had been pleased to find that she could manipulate her chakra well enough to walk up and down tree trunks and branches on her very first try, but it had taken her much longer to master the jumping aspect.
I just wish it didn't make me so uncomfortable, she thought unhappily, absently ducking below a low-hanging branch and leaping to the next tree. While the technique didn't precisely expend chakra, it did require a certain amount of effort to keep the chakra field stabilized and even more in order to jump properly—and the latter amount was very close to the maximum she could use without drawing too much from her reserves. When she tried to make the longer jumps, she felt a not-quite-painful sensation that warned her she was almost overextending herself, even though she wasn't actually using any of the chakra she had called up. On the positive side, though, at least Kakashi had said that the constant use would help increase the capacity of her reserves.
Naruto, of course, had no such problems. She couldn't quite bring herself to feel jealous of him, though, when she remembered how on his first attempted jump, he had flared his chakra too much and blown the branch he was standing on to sawdust—incidentally ending up with a great number of splinters in what looked like some very uncomfortable places. Fortunately, while painful, the wounds had proven to be minor, and he had been back up and practicing again barely an hour later. Needless to say, he had made certain not to repeat his prior mistake, and he was jumping between trees not long after Hinata managed it.
He did still have a tendency to overshoot his target, but Sakura couldn't fault him for that when she undershot hers even more frequently. It wasn't even that she couldn't make the jumps—she could, and she usually did—but something about drawing that much chakra from her reserves made her very uneasy. It was probably just another aftereffect of having completely drained herself during the bell test, she assumed, but knowing that didn't make her any more comfortable when she did it.
Is it just my imagination, or are these trees getting further apart? she wondered. She had almost missed her last few jumps despite exerting herself fully, and from what she could see, even Naruto was going more slowly now, presumably from having to judge the distances more carefully. From what she remembered of her wilderness survival classes, that meant that they were approaching the edge of the forest.
"Okay, everybody down," she heard Kakashi call out, confirming her speculation. It was bad form to frighten customers, he had told them that morning, and four ninja suddenly appearing from the trees certainly had the potential to do just that; as a result, they would travel the rest of the way to the settlement on foot in order to give the people living there time to see them coming. Personally, Sakura didn't see how three twelve-year-olds would be all that frightening regardless of the manner in which they arrived, but he had just shaken his head and said that she was too accustomed to thinking like a ninja—and more than that, like a resident of a hidden village where ninja were commonplace.
Shrugging, she dropped to the ground, barely stifling a groan of relief as she let her chakra flow back into her body. She would have a headache later on, she could tell, but it shouldn't be quite as bad as previous nights' had been. She wasn't certain whether that was simply because they hadn't been traveling for as long today or because she was getting used to the continuous strain, though she hoped it was the latter.
"Almost there!" Naruto exclaimed cheerfully as he dropped down to stand next to her on the packed earth of the road—really more of a trail, she thought, but this far away from the more populated parts of Fire Country, she supposed nothing more sophisticated was warranted. Hinata joined them a few moments later, looking relieved to be almost finished with the first part of the trip; she might have been the first to figure out Kakashi's tree-traveling technique, but she had admitted to her teammates that it was still rather tiring for her, if not nearly so much as it was for Sakura.
"We're about ten minutes out from the settlement," Kakashi said as he appeared in front of them from around a bend in the road. "According to the terms of the contract, we'll be staying in a hut near the largest of the communal fields. Some families have their own fields as well, but we won't have to worry about those. After we get things arranged at our hut, I'll go over the guard schedule with you."
All three genin nodded. From what Kakashi had told them along the way—not much, annoyingly—they would only be guarding the fields during the night, in order to ensure that nobody tried to damage the crops while everyone was sleeping. Several years ago, apparently a bandit gang had burned one of the fields down to the roots and threatened to do the same to the others, hence the reason why the community had hired ninja to guard them every year since then. The services of a team of Hidden Leaf ninja did not come cheaply, but they were less expensive than having to pay off bandits or suffer the loss of a year's harvest.
"Now, let's go," Kakashi said. "It's good that we're arriving early, since that will give us time to familiarize ourselves with the layout of the settlement before tonight." With that, he turned and began walking away, leaving Sakura and her teammates to follow after him.
- - -
Frowning pensively, Hinata watched Sakura unpack her supplies. The hut where Team Seven would be staying for the next two weeks only had two bedrooms, each only large enough for one person, so it was something of a relief when Kakashi had told them that they would be standing guard each night in pairs—one pair from sundown until midnight, and one from midnight to sunrise. They had drawn straws for their pairings, and since she had ended up with Naruto while Sakura would be with Kakashi, it only made sense for the two girls to share a room.
Not that we'll really be sharing it so much as both of us leaving our things here, she thought. Each pair would sleep during the other's shift, so she and Sakura would never actually be in the room at the same time. None of the genin were looking forward to the decreased amount of sleep they would be getting, but according to Kakashi, this sort of arrangement was fairly common for ninja on guard missions. They would still get to see each other during the day, so they would be able to train then. All in all, it would probably be rough for the first few days as they adjusted to their new schedules, but Hinata figured it would work out fine after that.
What had her frowning, though, was Sakura's attitude—or, more accurately, the cause of it. Her pink-haired teammate had been in a perpetually happy mood ever since they arrived at the farming settlement, a sharp contrast to how tired and grumpy she had been the past couple of days. Hinata could understand the grumpiness, as the unfamiliar exertion of traveling long distances had worn her out as well, but the shift in Sakura's mood had corresponded too closely to their team's welcome by the community elders to be a coincidence. The way they had treated her stood out in sharp contrast to the way the villagers back home seemed to feel, and it didn't say good things about the latter group.
Hinata loved her clan and her village. She was proud to be a Hyuuga, despite her family's flaws, and equally proud to be a citizen of the Hidden Leaf, but sometimes it was hard to remember that. Over the past several years, Sakura had become one of her closest friends, and it bothered Hinata to see not just how she was treated by nearly everyone in the village but especially how she seemed to be resigned to that fact. Here, though, the elders had treated Sakura no differently than they had Hinata or Naruto, and the pleasure evident on her face when she noticed that had been almost painful for Hinata to watch.
"Um…Hinata-chan, is there something wrong?" Sakura asked, startling her. She realized she must have been staring at her friend for quite a while, as all of Sakura's belongings were neatly laid out on the narrow shelves that passed for storage space in the room.
Hinata blushed slightly. "No, sorry. I was just…thinking. What are those?" she asked, noticing that Sakura was still holding something—several somethings, actually—in her hands.
"Let's go get Naruto, and I'll show you," Sakura said, apparently trying for a mysterious expression—though that was ruined when she grinned widely and opened the door, then practically skipped out into the hallway.
Curious now, Hinata followed her into the room where Naruto and Kakashi would be sleeping, though only Naruto was there at the moment. It looked exactly the same as their own room, if she discounted the rather less neatly arranged personal items on the shelves. Apparently, Sakura had just woken Naruto up—and how he had managed to fall asleep in the last ten minutes was beyond her, though she supposed she should be used to that peculiar quirk of his by now. In any event, she wanted to know what Sakura was holding and what it had to do with her and Naruto.
"Before we left, I looked up the seal that medic-nins use to monitor patients' vital signs," Sakura began unceremoniously, leaning against one wall while Hinata sat beside Naruto on his bed, "and I want to put one on both of you so that I'll know if you get in trouble while you're on guard duty. That way I'll be able to alert Kakashi-sensei so he can help you. I already asked him, and he said he thought it was a good idea, too."
Naruto looked puzzled. "But what if you get in trouble?" he asked. "Besides, I thought the Hokage said that there weren't any enemies around here anyways."
"Well, I'll be with Kakashi-sensei in the first place, so it doesn't really matter if I don't have one," Sakura said, shrugging. "It's just a precaution, really. Plus…well, I haven't ever tried forming this kind of seal, so it would be good practice for me. You don't have to if you don't want to, though."
Hinata had grown skilled at seeing past people's facades, and she could tell that despite her words, this was important to her friend for some reason. She wasn't sure why—she agreed with Naruto that there didn't seem to be much point when the worst they would likely encounter while on guard would be stiff muscles from standing out in the cold for too long—but at the moment that didn't matter. Perhaps Sakura simply needed to know that someone trusted her enough to let her practice this seal on them.
"Okay," she said, giving her friend a smile. "You aren't going to tattoo it on me or anything, though, right? I know my father wouldn't appreciate that very much, and I don't think I would either."
Sakura shook her head and laughed, holding up the objects in her hand, which Hinata could now see were a vial of some sort of ink and a thin, delicate brush. "No," she said, "I brought some waterproof ink with me. I'll probably need to redo the seals after about a week, but we should be able to take baths or get rained on without messing them up. Now, I need to put your half of the seal on the back of your neck, so could you…?"
She trailed off, motioning with one hand for Hinata to stand up and turn around. Hinata was grateful that she had short hair, as she wouldn't have to hold it out of the way while Sakura did…whatever it was she needed to do. Behind her, she could hear Sakura humming softly, and she flinched slightly as she felt something cold and wet touch the nape of her neck. Forcing herself to relax, she fought to keep from giggling; the brush was tickling her, and she didn't want to move and ruin the seal.
"There, done," Sakura said after a few minutes, satisfaction evident in her voice. "Now I just have to do my half." Turning to her, Hinata saw she was drawing something on the inside of her left wrist. Apparently, that seal was less complex, as she finished in much less time than she had spent on Hinata's.
"And finally, activating them." At first somewhat hesitantly, then with greater confidence, Sakura formed a lengthy series of hand seals before touching her wrist to the back of Hinata's neck. After one final seal—one-handed, Hinata was somewhat surprised to see—the design on her wrist seemed to glitter a pale green before fading back to black. At the same instant, Hinata felt a cool tingling sensation where she knew the seal had been drawn on her neck, almost like an ice cube had been placed there momentarily.
Naruto looked surprised. "That's it?" he asked. "I thought it would be something complicated."
"Oh, like you could have done it," Sakura shot back playfully, sticking out her tongue at him. Hinata was relieved; she didn't know that much about sealing techniques, but she did know that medical techniques in general were far from simple, and she wouldn't have blamed Sakura if she had gotten upset at Naruto. He was the best friend anyone could ever wish for, but he wasn't always exactly tactful, and he had a tendency to underestimate the amount of effort other people put into things—not because of any unkindness but simply because he himself was so talented that he didn't quite grasp that not everyone found them as easy as he did.
She had a feeling, though, that in this area he had more than met his match. "Sakura-chan," she asked casually, playing a hunch, "do you remember what rank this technique is?"
Sakura shook her head. "No," she said, though her embarrassed blush was a sure sign she was lying. It was at least C-rank, then, Hinata suspected. She gave Naruto a significant glance and, upon seeing his slightly shamefaced expression, could tell that he realized he had been rather tactless even by his standards.
"Sorry, Sakura-chan," he apologized. "It's just that all this doesn't seem very hard compared to stuff like ninjutsu or genjutsu. I know you've been studying it for a long time, though, so I guess you just make it look really easy."
Bad start, but a fairly decent save at the end, Hinata thought, rolling her eyes and giving him a shove off the bed.
"Your turn now," she said, stretching out lazily as she half-closed her eyes. After the past few days of travel, the thin mattress felt heavenly, and for once she could understand how Naruto had fallen asleep so quickly.
Several minutes later, it was her turn to be pushed off the bed, and she muttered indignantly from her position on the floor as she opened her eyes. To her surprise, she saw Naruto helping Sakura lie down. Placing a finger to his lips, he caught her arm and pulled her out into the hallway, closing the door behind them.
"I think that technique must use a lot of chakra—well, for her, at least," Naruto said, shaking his head. "She was already tired from the trip here, and then she did that…whatever it was, twice in a row. We don't have guard duty for another few hours, and we have the first shift anyways, so she'll have time to sleep for a while. We can just ask Kakashi-sensei to sleep in your room tonight."
Hinata nodded, though she suspected that Sakura was more tired physically than from chakra usage. She had noticed that her friend had a tendency to make short jumps much of the time while tree-hopping, with the inevitable result being that she had to take more jumps to cover the same amount of distance. That would be enough to wear anyone out, and Naruto was right as well; performing a fairly complicated technique—twice, even—couldn't have helped matters.
"Well, let's go find Kakashi-sensei and then do some exploring," she said, smiling at him and walking towards the hut's front door. "If we're going to be here for two whole weeks, we might as well scout things out. Also…I wanted to ask if you had noticed anything unusual about Sakura since we started this mission."
- - -
Sakura sometimes wondered if her friends really realized how observant she was. She knew they appreciated it from a practical perspective during the exercises and drills they had been doing, but she wasn't sure they noticed that she paid attention to them, too. It was something of an unconscious habit for her, a relic of the time when she hadn't been able to trust anyone except the Hokage, and she had never quite outgrown it.
Now, she was almost flattered by Naruto and Hinata's attention, though she was a bit disappointed in them as well. She knew they were worried she would decide to leave the village, and she would be lying if she said she had never even considered it, especially since beginning this mission. The people here were polite, even friendly when they managed to forget that she was one of the ninja sent to guard them, and, in general, were everything the villagers back home were not—at least to her. Leaving the Hidden Leaf would mean abandoning the Hokage, though, and her friends. She would not—could not—do that; they had risked their own reputations and more simply by associating with her, and she knew in her heart that she would sooner die than betray their loyalty and friendship.
Sakura could understand why her friends might be worried, though. For years, they had seen first-hand how she was treated, and if not for them, she would have been sorely tempted by the prospect of leaving now that she was in a position to do so. Eventually, she might have to do so regardless of what she wished, for once the Hokage finished teaching her all he knew of fuuinjutsu, she would have to either seek out another master or continue her studies by herself—and she knew she wasn't ready for the latter, not yet.
Pushing aside such thoughts for the moment, she closed her eyes and smiled as she felt the cool night wind brush past her, setting an errant strand of hair to tickling her nose. She suppressed a sneeze and tucked the offending lock back into her braid, shaking her head as she did so. Over the past week, she had learned that guard duty was, if nothing else, terribly boring, and she was quickly running out of ways to keep awake and watchful. At least Kakashi would be back soon, giving her the opportunity to move around a bit as she made her rounds of the outer fields.
Her jounin-sensei still confused her, despite the amount of time he had spent with her and her teammates during this mission. He was obviously intelligent—he had given her several useful bits of advice on using various types of seals to set ambushes and traps—yet he seemed so lazy and undisciplined most of the time. While they were on guard duty, though, he was like a different person: cold, focused, and above all efficient. The transformation was startling and more than slightly intimidating; at those times, she could see why he was considered one of the Leaf's deadliest ninja.
He was also a good teacher, at least when he could be bothered to teach. That still wasn't as often as she, Hinata, and especially Naruto would have liked, but Sakura couldn't deny that she was learning quite a lot from him. Much to her dismay, though, he had insisted that she bring her taijutsu skills up to a reasonable level by his standards before he would start teaching her any genjutsu. She could see the sense in that, she supposed, as neither genjutsu nor fuuinjutsu worked well in isolation, and she knew she would be grateful if and when she ever had a solo mission. Right now, though, she wished she could just focus on learning how to set up opponents for Hinata and Naruto to finish off.
"The northern and western fields are clear. Go check the southern and eastern ones; I'll stand watch here."
Speak of the devil, Sakura thought, nodding once as Kakashi seemed to melt out of the darkness to stand next to her. He had decided that this central storehouse was important enough to warrant a full-time guard, so they switched off periodically to patrol the fields themselves. At first, she had felt very exposed and nervous while she was out on her own in the outlying fields, but that had gradually faded as she grew more accustomed to the area. Now, she actually enjoyed her patrol time, as at least it was a welcome break from the monotony of standing watch.
She coiled up her braid and pulled a dark hood over her hair, sighing inaudibly as she shook her head a few times to make sure it wouldn't come loose. Not for the first time, she seriously considered dyeing it black or dark brown when she got back to the village; pink simply wasn't a good color for a ninja who had to worry about someone possibly spotting her in the darkness. Despite its distinctiveness, though, she had to admit she liked her hair, and she couldn't quite bring herself to abandon one of her few vanities.
Padding out along the path leading to the first field, she kept a careful watch out for anything unusual. Since coming to this community, she had gained a new appreciation for just how much these crops meant to the people living here and how devastating it would be if something were to happen to them. The Hokage might have said that the intelligence reports for this area showed no signs of enemy activity, but those reports were several months old. Nothing then did not necessarily imply nothing now, and bandits had been known to live in this area before. More than that, she—or, more accurately, Hinata—had thought Kakashi seemed uncomfortable with how close they were to the border with Rice Field Country, though she didn't know much about that area, as it wasn't one of the five major countries.
Right before Sakura passed the first marker at the edge of the field, she caught a glimpse of something shining in the full moonlight—just the barest flash of reflected light, but it was enough to catch her attention. It was likely nothing, only a drink can or some other bit of trash left behind by one of the farmers, but it was still something out of the ordinary. As she walked over to where she had seen the object, though, she noticed something else out of place.
Tracks, the realization struck her. They were light, barely indenting the wet ground, and looked to have been hastily smoothed over as well. Tomorrow, after the farmers in their heavy boots trampled over the area, they would have disappeared completely, and she would never have noticed them in the darkness if not for the glint of metal nearby—which, as she looked closer, did not come from a harmless can or foil wrapping as she had at first assumed. Lying just beside the field marker, near enough that it was probably knocked free of its holster when its owner brushed against the post, was a black-finished kunai. Only a scratch in the matte finish betrayed its presence, and she couldn't help but shudder at what it implied.
More quickly than she had dreamed she was capable of moving, she ran back to the central storehouse to get Kakashi.
- - -
"Wait…so Kakashi-sensei just left us to go chase after whoever made those tracks?" Naruto asked. Desperate to talk to someone, Sakura had woken him and Hinata up immediately after Kakashi left, and now the three genin were squashed together sitting on the bed in the girls' room.
She nodded. "Yeah," she said, unable to keep from frowning at the memory. "He took the kunai with him too, but I got a better look at it before he did, and it wasn't scratched after all. There was some sort of symbol etched onto the blade. I couldn't tell what it was, though."
"So he thinks there are ninja—enemy ninja—nearby?" Hinata asked, sounding worried. "But why would they come here? There's nothing important for them to steal, and nobody important lives here either."
Sakura knew the answer to her friend's question; she knew she did, but she couldn't quite think of it. It's something about…oh, what's the use of memorizing all that stuff if I can't remember it when I need it?
"Oh!" she exclaimed suddenly, startling her friends so much that they practically jumped off the bed. "Um…sorry," she added, blushing at the reaction she had caused. "I just realized why ninja might have come through here, though. If they're trying to get to Lightning Country without having to go by the main road, there's a small trade route starting a little bit north of here that cuts through the northwest border of Rice Field Country and then along the coast over into Lightning. It's mostly used by merchant caravans to get to some of the northern ports, but this is the wrong season for that, so it would probably be completely deserted now."
"And Kakashi-sensei must be trying to track them down before they cross the border," Hinata said, frowning thoughtfully. "That's why he didn't take us along, then. We're not fast enough to keep up with him yet, if he's going as quickly as he can in order to catch them."
Sakura thought, but did not say, that Kakashi was probably more concerned with their safety than his own speed. If the unknown ninja were from Hidden Cloud, she very much doubted that they would be genin, and perhaps not even chuunin; unlike the Leaf, Cloud had not suffered a massive depopulation of its senior ranks, and so they had chuunin and jounin to spare. A deep-insertion espionage—sabotage? assassination?—mission within Fire Country, still arguably the strongest of the five major countries despite the Leaf ninja not having fully recovered yet from the Nine-Tails' attack a decade ago, would practically necessitate using the best ninja available.
At least, that was how she would look at the situation if she were responsible for planning such a mission. It seemed likely that she was missing something, though, since she wouldn't have thought that elite ninja would be clumsy enough to leave the sort of evidence of their passing that she had discovered earlier that morning. In any event, Kakashi had left them all behind for whatever reason, and he hadn't even said when he thought he might return.
"What are we going to do until he gets back?" Naruto moaned, echoing her own thoughts. "He was just starting to teach us stuff, too. Does this mean we still have to do guard duty if he's still gone tonight?"
"I guess we ought to," Hinata said, though she didn't sound happy about the prospect at all. "Since there are only three of us, we'll have to all stay up the whole night, too. Otherwise one of us would have to be by ourselves."
Sakura shivered, and by the looks on her friends' faces, they didn't find that prospect any more appealing than she did. She had gone without sleep before, and one night wouldn't hurt if it came to that. Kakashi wouldn't be gone much longer than a day or so, as the enemy ninja couldn't have been that far ahead of him. The tracks had been fresh enough that they must have been made at some point between the time Naruto or Hinata checked that field and when she checked it, giving them only a few hours' lead time at best.
"I still need to calm down some," she admitted. "We've got the whole day to practice since Kakashi-sensei isn't here to show us anything new, so I think I'm going to meditate for a while. Then maybe we can spar after lunch?"
Naruto nodded. "Sure," he said. "Hinata-chan, do you want to go work on your ninjutsu for a while?"
"I'd rather work on your taijutsu," Hinata muttered. "Why do I have to be the one getting beaten up today?" She didn't look entirely unhappy, though; Sakura knew that her reluctance to learn ninjutsu was more for show than anything else, as though she felt she had to live up to the Hyuuga ideal of needing no techniques but the jyuuken.
"Come on, let's get out of here so Sakura-chan can meditate," Naruto said, laughing as he grabbed Hinata's hand, pulling her off the bed and out of the room. "We'll be right outside if you need anything!" he called over his shoulder before closing the door behind him.
Sakura smiled at her friends' actions before settling into a half-lotus position and closing her eyes. As she slowed her breathing and began the now nearly-automatic process of visualizing the chakra flows in her body, she was annoyed by a twinge of cold from the seal on her right wrist—Naruto's. That had been one aspect of the diagnostic seals she hadn't considered at first; since they had been designed for medical use, they were so sensitive that even minor injuries from sparring could trigger a mild reaction from them, and it had taken her several days to get used to the occasional sensations they produced.
Still, if anything she figured the experience was helpful overall, as learning to ignore distractions was an important part of meditation. Recentering herself, she continued to build her frame of reference, layering the visualized chakra flows one over the other with each flowing into the major and minor tenketsu. Another, stronger chill shot through Naruto's seal after a little while, and the part of her mind not occupied with maintaining the image mentally congratulated Hinata on landing a good hit, though at the same time she began to feel a detached sense of uneasiness. Pushing it aside as best as she could, she focused on her meditation again.
When Hinata's seal suddenly became so cold it felt like an icicle was being hammered through her left wrist, though, her eyes flew open and she flung open her door, racing outside. That couldn't have been produced by a minor sparring accident, she knew; only a critical—perhaps even deadly—wound would cause the seal to react so violently, and she felt as though her heart was stuck in her throat when she pictured Hinata lying on the ground with a broken neck or worse. Just as she reached the hut's front door, a matching frozen spike seemed to pierce her right wrist, and her panic developed into full-blown terror at what that implied.
As she had half-suspected, half-dreaded, Sakura opened the door to a tableau that she knew would haunt her nightmares for years if she survived this day: Hinata and Naruto lying in crumpled, boneless heaps on the grass while a short, black-clad ninja stood close to them holding a kunai streaked with blood and something else. One thought ran through her petrified mind, looping over and over until she felt sure she would scream: this was her fault. She had been the one to find the tracks—a diversion, she now suspected—and if not for that discovery, Kakashi would have been here and her friends would still be safe.
Why, though? she begged to know. Why go to this much trouble just to kill a team of genin? Hinata was the Hyuuga heir; killing her was tantamount to a declaration of war against the Hyuuga, and by extension the rest of the clans of the Hidden Leaf. Was she witnessing the start of the next Great Ninja War?
Part of her was appalled that she was able to reduce the lifeless bodies of her friends to pawns in a political maneuver, but it was either that or break down screaming and sobbing, and the part of her that was a ninja of the Leaf refused to give their killer that satisfaction. She would die in the next few moments, she was certain—if he had killed Naruto and Hinata, she could never hope to stand against him—but she would honor them by dying on her feet.
When the enemy ninja spoke, she was astonished. "Why so surprised, little flower?" he asked. "You don't think I would kill such valuable merchandise, do you?" She was unable to see his expression, as his face was covered by a mask similar to Kakashi's, but the oily satisfaction in his voice made her want to vomit—so much so that at first she failed to comprehend his words.
They're…not dead? she thought, a wave of relief sweeping through her so strongly that it almost literally brought her to her knees. As the numbing panic began to recede a bit from her mind, she realized that she was still feeling a throbbing frozen sensation in her wrists coming from the diagnostic seals; if her friends really were dead, she wouldn't feel a thing from them any more. That thought calmed her down enough to begin considering the enemy ninja's words, and the only conclusion she could come up with made her wonder if it might not have been better if he had killed them.
"You're a slaver," she said flatly. Surprisingly, the man shook his head in response.
"Hardly," he added a moment later. "My lord will reward me handsomely for bringing these two to him, though. I'm sure he'll be most interested in experimenting with two of the few byakugan in existence not protected by the infamous branch seal, and I imagine the Cloud would be willing to make a deal to learn anything he discovers. His interest in the boy is more…personal, though the Rock would doubtless pay well for whatever is left of him after my lord is finished."
Sakura found herself too horrified by his words to speak. This man—or his lord—wanted to experiment on Hinata, to cut out her eyes and sell their secrets to the same country that tried to kidnap her when she was barely more than a toddler. Hinata had confessed, once, that she still had nightmares about that incident. And Naruto…the man's intentions for her blond friend were obvious too: torture, and if he survived that, delivery to people who would kill him for the crime of being his father's son.
"Why?" she whispered, once she had regained some sense of equilibrium. "You have to know how the Leaf will respond, so what could you possibly hope to gain?"
The man shrugged. "And who would they blame?" he asked rhetorically, gesturing to his forehead protector, which was made conspicuous by its smooth, unmarked surface. "Finding such…notable young genin here was purest chance, and the Copy-Ninja's departure even more so. The ninja he's chasing have nothing to do with me or my mission here, even if their timing was most helpful."
Sakura's heart sank as she realized he was right. Nobody would be coming to help, and nobody would even know what had happened to them. Judging by his words, he was planning on killing her, and if he destroyed her body afterwards then it would appear as though the three genin had simply vanished.
"What about me?" she asked, hoping that if she could keep him talking long enough, then maybe—just maybe—Kakashi might return. She knew it was a foolish hope, but it was the only one she had.
The enemy ninja laughed. "My lord knows all about you, demon-child," he said. "You would make an excellent bargaining chip for his former associates, but unfortunately for you, he's judged you too dangerous to be allowed anywhere near him."
That was it, then. A slow rage began to build in her, kindled not by the danger to herself—she hadn't expected anything else, especially if he knew about the Nine-Tails—but at the thought of what he wanted to do with her friends. Earlier, she had thought that she would die for them, and now it seemed as though she would have to make good on that promise even if it would make no difference in the end. It should have scared her, she knew, but she found herself unable to feel anything but hatred for the man in front of her.
A crazy, impossible idea came to Sakura as she remembered Naruto's accident with the branch the first time he had tried to tree-hop. Slowly, so as not to give herself away, she began drawing on her chakra. As it flowed out of her reserves and into her feet and legs, she felt a familiar, almost-painful pressure begin to build behind her eyes. Siphoning out more than she had ever dared before, tears of frustration welled in her eyes as she realized that even if she drained herself completely, she wasn't powerful enough to duplicate what he had done.
I need more! she thought desperately. Almost-pain became real as a headache blossomed in her skull, and it throbbed in time with the last few, weak pulses of chakra she was able to draw from herself. It still wasn't enough. Ruthlessly, she pressed herself even harder, but she seemed to have hit a limit that no amount of need alone could allow her to surpass. Refusing to give up, she hurled herself against it one final time—
—and broke through.
Pain. If she had hurt before, she was enveloped in purest agony now. Liquid flames burned a path through her body, and her skin felt as though she had been dipped in oil and set alight. Every breath caught fire in her throat and seared her lungs as tears of blazing magma leaked from the corners of her eyes, shut for fear that they would boil from their sockets. Her chakra coils screeched like overstressed harp strings, only a moment away from snapping and being consumed by the fierce, raw power coursing through them. She could not move, could not scream, could not even think through the inferno that burned to ash every impulse as soon as it arose in her mind. She could still hear, though.
"Aww, what's the matter?" came a—familiar? no, but known…and hated? yes, definitely—voice. "Scared to die, little flower? Trust me, your teammates will wish they had been so lucky."
The words meant nothing to her at first, mere scraps of thought and memory to be consumed like tinder by the firestorm within her. Some stubborn fraction of her refused to let them go, though, clinging to their meanings while the words themselves burned away. Over the course of what seemed like endless ages to her tortured mind, memories and instincts began to collect around them, slowly at first, then with greater speed even as the all-consuming flames licked hungrily at the emerging thought-construct.
Teammates…friends… A kaleidoscope of memory-fragments, scorched around the edges, whirled past her mind's eye: Naruto squatting down in front of her and grinning at her, Hinata smiling patiently as the dark-haired girl led her through an intermediate taijutsu form, Naruto insisting that she take the first piece of their shared birthday cake, Hinata holding her as she sobbed out the story of her mother's death—those and what seemed like an infinity of others, not all good, but none that she would be willing to give up. As if in response, the flames drew back even more, and despite the continuing pain so strong it made her wish for death, she found herself able to reason once more…in a way.
The creature in front of her wanted to take her friends away from her—not just that, but take them to be tortured, eventually killed. It enjoyed the thought of them helpless and suffering, and it expected to be rewarded for its vile actions. She would make it scream for that, before she killed it.
And at that thought, Haruno Sakura, vessel of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, opened her crimson eyes.
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Author's Notes: Um...please don't hate me for ending the chapter there? My thanks to all of you who reviewed the previous chapter, and I hope everyone enjoyed this one!