A/N – Wow, thank you all for your reviews. Thanks! Btw, I'm putting down some main boundaries for Sakura's powers. It's difficult I tell you. Maybe I should've though of an easier blood trait?
Please note I'm kind of bad with battle scenes so bare with me :P
Chapter 2 – Change in winds
The world whirled and Sakura felt like she was going to puke. But then it stopped. She was standing right where she stood before the whole "ghostly incident" happened. Everybody was still frozen. Sakura took in the sight. Dosu's knife was going towards Lee. She had to stop it. Suddenly her mind swirled again and memories started to float. Memories she didn't remember having.
Inner Sakura was running around her head, being chased my stray pictures of different events, battles and jutsus.
"Get them off me! Get them off me!" Her inner self screamed and well, it didn't actually help with her headache.
She also felt a power rush through her veins, but as that happened, she also felt hurting in the back of her head. Never mind that, she told herself, I have to get Lee away from that knife.
No sooner had she thought of that when suddenly everything sprang to life. The knife was speeding towards Lee and before Sakura even thought of it, she had jumped in front of him and caught the knife into her hand, without even cutting herself.
"WOHOO!" Her inner self screamed, "We're starting to finally kick butt here! In your face soundies!"
Surprised from her sudden show of incredible speed, Dosu stepped back. More and more memories started to appear in Sakura's mind and she felt really lightheaded and not very able to concentrate on the objective here.
Someone stumbled onto the ground. Without even turning, she knew that Ino had stopped herself from jumping to her aid, which meant she had probably fell head first onto the ground after turning back in the middle of a jump.
Sakura didn't have a good feeling about the whole "essence" thing. But she did have memories about using some really advanced techniques and she knew a lot more than before and for Sakura Haruno, that's saying something.
How could she trust the knowledge, if she had no idea if it was actually true and if it was trustable?
Even before her inner could comment, someone else spoke up.
"Sakura."
Sakura was dragged out of her thoughts. Lee was moaning her name and she felt that anger start rising in her again.
"You," she turned to the three ninjas from the sound village, "will pay for this. Mark my words!"
She hadn't slept in 48hours, staying up to study for exams and to guard her friends' sleep and all that, but the anger in her fuelled her enough for her to stop thinking altogether. She just acted.
Before the ninjas could even do something, Sakura had punched Dosu into his gut, sending him flying. Kin was soon to follow and Zaku backed by himself, not knowing it was exactly what Sakura wanted. All of them being hunched together.
"Ino," she said loud enough for her to hear, "Please take care of Lee, Sasuke and Naruto. I'll get rid of these three."
Ino's mouth fell open behind the bush. As Shikamaru nudged her, she yelled back, "Uh yeah, sure Sakura."
Shikamaru gave her the look. She shrugged. "We will have to help. She won't get rid of them all by herself. It's not humanly possible, not for a rookie anyways."
As she stood up and looked behind the bush, she knew how wrong she was. Sakura was getting lost from the sight, being surrounded by huge pillars of ice, which started to shape as mirrors. [If you don't know this jutsu… look up the Demonic Ice Mirrors – yah, I'll explain how this is happening later. Don't fret )
Sakura almost fell over when it actually worked. Her mind had started to put pieces together fast enough, but all this… It was unbelievable. She had memories of using the same jutsu at least couple of dozens of time, but yet, she had never used it. She didn't even believe it would work, but Effingo… She hadn't heard of it before, but now, she knew everything about it. While it was scary, it was exhilarating as well.
She had to do something and that jutsu was perfect. She had seen it and she knew how to use it firsthand. So, she just went for it.
As the mirrors surrounded her, she let her instincts and memories take over once again. She had to trust her memories like Sachiko had said, because well, they were the only things she had.
Behind the bushes, Ino's jaw was against the ground. "Wha… What is that?"
"Her jutsu, I'd say," Shikamaru replied, looking as he was bored. In the inside he was going through his knowledge to see if he could figure out WHAT jutsu was THAT.
"Lee's waking up," Choji noted, as he opened another pack of potato chips.
"Mhm, you kind of promised to look after those three," Shikamaru noted. Ino looked up. "Oh. Right. Uh, you go check on bushybrows, I'm going to wake those two. Funny jutsus or no, Sakura is going to need help."
"Troublesome," Shikamaru said as he walked towards Lee, while Ino and Choji went towards Naruto and Sasuke.
Deciding that it was safer to wake up Naruto, Ino started to shake him slightly. No results. She shaked him harder. Nothing. She practically shook him to the core, but he still didn't open his eyes. Then Choji brought up the stick he was holding and with a smack brought it down on Naruto's head.
"AH!" Naruto jumped up. "What the…"
He looked at Ino. Then he looked behind her. Naruto's mouth fell open. "Haku?" he asked and before Ino or Choji could react he passed out onto the ground.
"Whose Haku?" Choji asked, munching on his chips.
"No idea," Ino responded as she started to shake Naruto again. This time he woke to it. "What?" He blinked. "Ino?"
He jumped up, hoping that the last thing had only been a dream, but he wasn't that lucky. There they were. The mirrors that had almost killed him and Sasuke once. Suddenly they heard a woman scream. Naruto stopped breathing.
"Whose trapped in there?" he asked, afraid of the answer, since he couldn't see Sakura anywhere.
"Those three ninjas from the sound village," it wasn't Ino who replied, it was Lee, who using Shikamaru as support, came over them. "They attacked Sakura and wanted to get to Sasuke so they could kill him, but Sakura fought back." Lee coughed, "She hasn't slept in days I think. Watching after you and Sasuke."
Naruto nodded, still staring at the mirrors. "How did he survive?" he whispered.
"Who?" Ino asked.
"Haku."
"Whose Haku?" Choji asked again.
"The boy who brought up those mirrors," Naruto exclaimed as it was the most obvious thing in the world.
The four other genins shared a look. "Uh…." Ino started, but another scream interrupted her. That one was definitely male. They all turned to look at the mirrors, unaware about what was happening inside of them.
XxXxXxXxXx
Sakura, though her head felt like it was going to explode and all that chakra was starting to start a burning sensation in her skin, smiled. Dosu took a step back to the middle, where his two companions laid, both heavily hurt.
"I didn't aim for their vital spots," Sakura pointed out. "But moving is going to hurt like hell and they can forget using jutsus for about a week."
Dosu looked at the mirrors. She was in all of them and his sound attacks just bounced back at him when he tried to use them. "What are you?" He whispered, scared. Yes, he was scared of that young girl. A rookie to be even more exact. There was something about her that hadn't been there before. An air of strong aura was surrounding her and it was breathtaking.
"I'm the one who's going to make you regret for ever listening to that son of a Pippi Longstocking about coming after Sasuke. It's a mission you were destined to fail."
She sent more waterneedles at Dosu, who used his arm to deflect some of them, but a couple went through and hit him in the stomach. He groaned.
"You can't defend yourself forever," Sakura said from behind him. Dosu's eyes widened and he turned to see Sakura stand right behind him. As she sent the needles at him up close they were sure to hit. With a scream of pain, Dosu fell onto the ground, next to his team mates, who were conscious, but barely. It was their own fault that they lost. Maybe if they had given her a benefit of a doubt, they could've won, but they had underestimated her and now they were at then end of the road. He closed his eyes, sure that the final blow which will end his life was coming at him at any moment now.
XxXxXxXxXx
After the third yell, Shikamaru noted dryly, "Someone's going to be sore after this."
"Haku is strong," Naruto agreed, still pale, "Even too strong sometimes."
"Who the hell is Haku?" Ino asked.
Naruto stared at her, "I already told you."
"He's crazy," Shikamaru mouthed to Ino, who shrugged. "This is going to be a drag," Shikamaru said, sitting down.
"Naruto, wake up Sasuke," Ino said, "We need someone strong."
Naruto nodded, before he stopped in mid-motion. "I'm strong," he said.
Ino's face dropped, "Of course you are Naruto. But the more the merrier. Wake him up."
Ino, waiting for Naruto to know how to wake his team mate, almost fainted when Naruto grabbed the stick from Choji and hit Sasuke with it. Sasuke woke up almost immediately and everybody took a step back. His eyes glowed red for a moment and thin black lines appeared on his face.
He looked at the people in front of him. Recognizing them, he blinked a couple of times. His eyes went to normal and the black lines receded.
"What's going on?" he asked after a moment. Naruto opened his mouth to reply, but closed it as his eyes went into the size of plates. The ice mirrors were melting and well, they didn't reveal Haku. They revealed Sakura standing in front of the three very battered ninjas from the Village hidden in the Sound.
"Oh my sweet ramen," he whispered. Sasuke turned around slowly. He didn't see the mirrors, which had already melted. He didn't see the burning rage in Sakura's eyes, which had also receded by now. All he saw was a pink haired girl, her back to the six genins, staring at the three ninjas in front of her. All Sasuke could do was listen as they started to speak.
Sakura was feeling sorry for them. It was weird that she felt sorry for people who had practically tried to kill her and her friends and all, but she couldn't help it. Besides, she had never killed a man and she was not about to start now.
But before she could tell the three ninjas in front of her so, Dosu started to speak himself. He was hurting, it was clear, but he moved anyways and took the Earth scroll from Zaku who only groaned when they made contact.
"Please," he said, "We'll give you this scroll if you spare our lives." To prove his words, he threw the scroll at her feet, ignoring the pain it affected on hi s body.
Sakura picked it up. She looked at Dosu and asked in a distant voice "Now that I have this, what would stop me from doing the same you tried to do? What would stop me from carrying out my mission ruthlessly, like you would have? I told you that you might have a chance to live if you walked away, but did you do that? No. Instead you hurt my friend, who was willing to protect me. You announced that if I failed you will kill my team mate."
"So…" she started again. None of the three ninjas looked at her, either ashamed or afraid that making eye contact could be lethal right now. The second option was more likely.
She stopped once more and stared at the three people in front of her. They were trying to stand up, but it seemed to hurt, because it took them some big effort. They all knew it was coming. Or actually they didn't.
"So, I'm giving you one more chance to walk away from this battle."
The three ninjas looked at her straight on this time, disbelief written on their faces.
"I know this might be a mistake from my side and maybe one day you'll come seeking for revenge or something, but I haven't killed a human before this and I won't start today. BUT," she continued, "if you ever threaten me or my team mates again, I will start. I told you that I'll fight for my team mates and I'm going to keep that word."
"Go," She said shortly, "before I change my mind and while you're in the state you are now, think closely about working for Orochimaru. It will be the end of you someday, because not all ninjas are like me."
As the three ninjas slowly backed off, their faces towards Sakura, as waiting for her to kill them as soon as they turned their back towards her, the look on their faces was priceless. Though they'd never say it out loud, they were grateful and maybe even respected her to some level now. It was weird. Dosu barely respected ninjas in his age and rank, but right now… she had just let them walk away after what they had tried to do and it made him think about, well everything. Then she spoke again.
"There's a river about half a mile from here," Sakura said. She didn't yell, but they heard her anyways. "The cold water will stop the bleeding."
As soon as the three ninjas got away from the sight, Sakura fell onto her knees. Her breath started to come out in rapid gasps and she put her hands around her head. It was hurting as hell. A couple of tears fell from her eyes, but only a few.
The victory dance the inner Sakura was doing didn't help at all, but it cheered her up somehow. For the very first time she had stood up for herself like that and she had won with flying colours.
"YOU GO GIRL!" Her inner yelled and though the head ache was still there, Sakura smiled slightly.
"Sakura!"
Sakura's head lifted. She turned her head and saw Naruto hurrying towards her with such a speed, that he looked like he was flying towards her.
"Naruto," she said, "NARUTO!"
Naruto was already at her side, bombarding her with questions. Most of them were about that jutsu and how she was feeling. Sakura bit her lip and asked quietly, aware that the rest of the ninjas were walking towards her,
"Did Sasuke see that jutsu?"
Naruto fell quiet for a moment, probably confused about the question. He looked at her again, before shaking his head slowly.
"Don't tell him. Don't tell anyone. I have to figure it out myself."
Naruto went quiet, before he nodded solemnly.
"But you'll tell me about it, right?" Naruto asked, "I mean once you figure it out and all."
Sakura smiled and nodded as she tried to stand up, but fell back down.
"Sakura. Are you okay?" Naruto asked, concerned.
"Fine. I'm fine, just a bit tired," Sakura said yawning, "How are you guys?"
"Okay," Naruto answered with a shrug, "Just needed some rest."
Sasuke, who had joined her side, along with the rest of the genins, shrugged and replied, "Fine."
"I haven't seen you use that jutsu before," Ino pointed out, acting like she didn't care at all and was just stating the obvious. Actually she cared a lot, in the inside she was ripping her own hair out. When had forehead become so strong?!?
"Yeah, I just picked it up," Sakura replied, coolly.
"Sakura, thank you," Lee spoke as he walked over, looking like he was in minimum pain, "You probably saved my life."
"You probably saved mine first," Sakura responded, "I owed you one."
"You'll never owe me, Sakura. I promised to protect you always and I keep my youthful promises, but I was more of a burden today. Not even my secret, un-forbidden jutsu - the flying leaf shadow didn't work on them, but you, you beat them. Sakura, you're my hero now. I will train harder to reach your level and I won't lose in front of you ever again. I love you!"
"…"
Okay, Sakura was touched until the last part. She so hoped he was over that, but again he had those little hearts in his eyes and well, he was annoying her to no end. She had already declined him. Why wouldn't he take the hint? But she didn't say it out loud. He had come to her rescue and at least she could repay by being a bit nicer.
"Thank you, Lee," Sakura said, "But I couldn't have done it without you."
She had created a monster. She knew it as soon as the words left her mouth and the hearts in his eyes doubled in size and he started to jump up and down. Maybe he wasn't that much hurt after all.
"Lee."
Lee looked towards left where TenTen was standing. "What's going on? What was the talk about saving your life?"
Lee rubbed his head. This was going to be bad; he should've headed back to their meeting spot a long time ago. Nodding towards the rest of the group, he walked towards TenTen. They argued a bit and then Lee bid his goodbye and left. But Sakura could still feel someone's eyes on her. She looked closely and noticed Neji Hyuuga jump off the tree and join his team mates.
"Their chakras," he thought, "Both Haruno's and Uchiha's chakras have changed drastically." Their chakra's had reached a frightening level and Neji for one didn't want to be in the receiving end of their anger before he could figure things out. "What if…"
He didn't get to think farther, because he tripped behind a tree root which bulged out of the ground a bit and fell face down onto the dirt. He got up in super speed and looked around frantically to see if anyone saw that. Satisfied when he noticed nobody he cleaned himself up and then hurried up and joined his team mates, swearing to not think of anything serious around tree roots ever again.
About half a mile away, Hinata Hyuuga laughed quietly as she looked around for any possible teams carrying the Earth scroll using her Byakugan.
As Rock Lee's team walked away from the clearing, Naruto asked, "So, were camping here for a while?"
"Huh?" Sakura looked away from the retreating back of Neji.
"You're tired. We're all hungry and I'm dying of thirst," Naruto pointed out, "Taking a rest would be a good idea. By the way, why is all of the water gone?"
Sakura rubbed her aching head, "I used it to clean your cut and to reduce Sasuke's fever. I didn't have time to refill them."
"Oh."
"I'll go get food," Sasuke said standing up. He wouldn't admit it, but he agreed with Naruto this time. They weren't in the best condition to fight.
"I'll get wood for fire. I'll jump by the river and get water as well," Naruto said, jumping up, being as hyperactive as always. "And oh Sakura, thank for, you know, everything."
Sakura smiled, "No problem, but when you two get those things, what am I going to do?"
"Rest a bit," Naruto said, looking at Sasuke, "Sasuke, don't you want to say something?"
"Hn. No," the boy replied before walking away towards the river.
Naruto glared after him. "Really grateful brat he is. You should've let his fever burn him into a crisp."
"NARUTO!" Sakura yelled.
"Right, wood and water. I'm going, I'm going."
As the boys walked away, Ino, Shikamaru and Choji stared at Sakura. She started to cough.
Suddenly a bottle was thrust under her nose. She looked up to see Ino. After a moment she took the bottle and stared at it.
"It's not poisoned, you know," Ino said as she and her team sat down, Shikamaru complaining about wasting their time.
Sakura took a sip and another bigger one, before giving the bottle back. "Thanks," she said. Ino shrugged as she put the cap back on.
For a moment the four of them sat in silence, with the exception of Choji munching on his potato chips. About a minute passed, before Shikamaru leant over and whispered something to Ino.
"We're going to move on," Ino said after they stopped their whisper-conversation, "We're going to find a team weaker than us and take their scroll."
"Weaker than you?" Sakura asked with a laugh, "I don't think you'll find one." Though Shikamaru had said the same thing before, Ino still snapped back.
"Oh, shut up forehead."
"Make me, Ino-pig." Sakura said, meeting her eye.
The two of them stared at each other, until Ino cracked a smile of sorts. "Oh I will, but not now. We're in a hurry and like Shikamaru said, we're wasting our time here."
"You can fight us," a deep voice behind her said. She turned around to see Sasuke standing there.
She quickly started to shake her hands in front of her, "Oh, no, no, no. You have the wrong scroll you see and well we're in hurry and no reason to fight people who don't have the right scroll and… " she laughed nervously, "Got to go. Bye!"
The three of them scurried off. Sasuke shrugged and dropped six fish in front of Sakura.
"He's not back yet?" Sasuke asked, sitting down and leaning against the tree nearby.
"No," Sakura replied, knowing he was speaking of Naruto.
They fell quiet, both of them thinking their own thoughts. Sakura was battling with her headache and all those memories flying around in her head, was making her feel even worse. The fact that she hadn't slept for a while nor eaten didn't help along. But those memories were useful, she had to admit that. It's like she suddenly had all that information and all the possibilities in the world. If the pain would just stop.
She didn't know that it was because all that chakra in the body was starting to clog up her brain. She didn't know that the burning sensation in her skin meant that all the chakra was transferring into her body. She didn't know what would happen if her brain would really clog and if her body was unable to accept all the chakra. And right now, not knowing was a really good thing.
Sasuke was sneaking a look at Sakura every now and then. Something didn't match up. Alright, Sakura was smart and had amazing genjutsu abilities and a good chakra control, but physical strength was something she lacked. And those wounds on those ninjas had definitely been physical.
And Rock Lee. He had beaten Sasuke in a fight once and though Sasuke wouldn't want to admit it, it had been kind of fair and today Rock Lee said that his attacks hadn't even made a difference, but Sakura had managed to beat all three of them by herself? What was he missing here? He was about to ask when a big pile of twigs were dropped between the two of them. Naruto grinned at them and then disappeared in a puff of white smoke.
One more Naruto came and dropped more twigs onto the pile before disappearing and then another one and another one…
"Naruto," Sakura finally asked, when the real boy came in sight, carrying bottles of water, "What did you have them do? Take down a forest?"
"You moron," Sasuke only said to Naruto, who grinned at them. Sakura rolled her eyes. She then made a decent sized pile of twigs and then turned to Sasuke. She gestured at the fire and asked, "Could you?"
If she had tried hard enough, she might've done it herself, but it would've taken energy and chakra, neither of them she had to waste. Well, actually she had to waste some chakra, but she didn't know that. She thought that the reason her head hurt was because she had already used too much chakra… Well, she still was right about energy. She had none to waste in her state.
"Could he what?" Naruto asked, as he poked sticks through the fishes.
"Hn," Sasuke replied, before a huge fireball was sent at the pile lighting them in an instant.
"Oh," Naruto replied.
They fell into a comfortable silence again, Naruto humming as he put the fish on fire. He too glanced at Sakura every now and then, because honestly, the curiosity was killing him. He wasn't what people would call genius, but he did know that those mirrors were a blood trait and he also knew that blood traits weren't used by anyone outside of the bloodline. It didn't work that way.
Sasuke didn't know about the Ice Mirrors, but he could still tell that something was changed in Sakura. Though she looked tired and was a bit battered from the night before and the fight this morning, there was this air around her. Something that hadn't been there before.
Her head was starting to hurt bad and the burning sensation in her limbs and skin just kept getting stronger. She opened the bottle of water and gulped it down, hoping it would ease it even a bit. It did. For about a minute. Then she opened another bottle and gulped it down as well.
Naruto was giving her weird looks. She didn't care as long as it stopped the hurting.
Third bottle went down. By now, even Sasuke was starting to stare a bit. After all they were two litres each. She was panting as she finished the third bottle. In less than four minutes she had used up half of their water supplies.
"I'll go get more," Naruto offered.
"No," Sakura said quickly, "I'll go."
"I'll come with you," Naruto offered.
"No, you can't," she argued. When he looked at her, she said, "I didn't leave your side the whole night and this morning I didn't get a break because of the three sound ninjas." Naruto didn't get it. She added, "I just drank 6 litres of water."
Naruto stared at her for a moment, completely clueless, until his eyes widened, "OH! You could've said so. Go ahead, take a leak."
Sakura stared at him. Sometime the fifteen year old [see the A/N in first chappy if you argue with this boy was so childish!
"Mhmm," she replied as she took the three bottles. The burning sensation was starting again and Sakura felt like she'd catch fire any second now. She walked towards the river quickly and when she reached it she first drank a whole bunch of water, before filling the bottles again. As she started to leave, she had an idea. She put down the bottles and without any second though dived into the water. She was right; it was so much more cooling than drinking water.
"Wohoo," her inner self whooped, as she jumped into the imaginary water in Sakura's head. "Take that you stupid head ache."
Sakura splashed around for good five minutes before heading back to their camp before anyone started to worry.
As she walked onto their campsite, Sasuke's eyebrows rose and Naruto stared at her. Sakura looked at her dripping clothes, smiled slightly and said, "I needed a bath."
Naruto only grinned while Sasuke stared at her. "The password?"
Naruto looked up. "Come on. You can't expect for her to remember…"
"When does a ninja strike?" Sakura asked, "The answer is a ninja waits until the time is right. When the enemy sleeps and drops its guard, when its weapons lie forgotten in the stillness of the night. That is the moment for a ninja to strike."
Sasuke stared at her, "It was he not it."
"What? Can't the enemy be female? My enemies would be female," Sakura said. Sasuke stared a bit more and then said, "You're not Orochimaru, are you?"
"Huh? No," she replied, shaking her head, "And that's cross. Orochimaru as a cross dresser…"
Naruto grinned, but Sasuke still seemed to doubt. Sakura harrumphed at his glare, "Fine. Ask something."
Sasuke seemed in thought, "What's my dream?"
"I thought it wasn't a dream, because it was going to be reality," Sakura asked, quirking one eyebrow.
"Wow, good memory," Naruto said, "I only remembered that you said you hated me back then."
Sakura smiled slightly, "Who said that's changed?"
"Hey!"
Sasuke seemed to find her answer satisfying as he said, "Food's ready."
So the three of them started to dig in. Sakura had barely managed to eat half of it when Sasuke spoke,
"We need to get a new heavens scroll." His voice was completely free of emotions.
"Yeah, that bastard burnt ours," Naruto said, biting his fish with more force.
"He also ate one of the heavens scroll," Sakura pointed out [Let's pretend all together that it was the heavens scroll here – thank you
They fell silent once again until Sakura stopped eating. She could've sworn she head something hissing. She looked around, when she heard it again. Sasuke seemed to hear it as well as he looked up. He met Sakura's eyes who nodded. Before she could say to listen, she saw it. "RUN!"
Sasuke was up before she could even finish the word and Naruto managed to jump away just in time before a huge tail of a snake crashed into their camping fire. Naruto put on his backpack and joined his team mates.
"Is that?" he asked.
"Yes." Sasuke replied and soon enough Orochimaru stepped out of the snake. This time he didn't bother wearing a disguise. His pale face was terrifying and Sakura took a step back involuntarily.
"He's back." Naruto stated and to the three of them, that didn't mean much good.
XxXxXxXxXxA/N – R/R people. R/R! If you still haven't found out what effingo means – shame on you. I'm really trying to not make Sakura too damn powerful or something, but I want to make her powerful enough, if you catch my drift. You don't? Well… I don't either. I'm still working on that.
-Please review people :)
So was it long enough for your taste:P