Sakura: Vengeance
Sakura slept badly that night, the aftermath of killing the genin from Waterfall compounding with the confrontation with the rogue sannin and Sasuke's close brush with death to create an endless parade of nightmares. What woke her was the outer perimeter proximity seal, alerting her of three chakra presences entering the outer ring of her trap field. Probably not Leaf-nin then. I set up the standard marks to warn of a minefield carved in trees around the outer perimeter.
The pinkette sat up and washed her face with a wet rag, hair hanging down her back as the senbon securing it had come loose during the night. Finger-combing it back and retying her hitai-ite to keep the long tresses off her face, Sakura inverted her coat so the olive green was on the outside and put it back on, crawling out of the inner secure perimeter Naruto had set up before passing out to the command post she'd set up. Detonators and triggers to hand, the kunoichi waited for the intruders, patient as a spider.
Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly...
The squirrel was a bit of a let-down. Sakura's new-found dislike of the little rodents dictated however that she throw something at it. A handy pebble was sacrificed for the cause and it fled, revealing an exploding tag pasted to its back. Ooh, that's just nasty and unnecessary. That's it; whoever you are I'm going to hurt you, affiliation be damned.
One of the benefits her Inner granted her was the ability to focus on two senses at once. Sakura would concentrate on what she saw while hearing was delegated to her Inner. Naruto's example showing her how inferior most genjutsu were had encouraged her to hone her senses to the point she could discern and occasionally break a great many normal illusions simply by focusing on their inconsistencies.
For example, her senses were telling her that there were three people hiding in the bushes opposite her -coincidentally on top of a remotely triggered flash tag- one of whom was female and two of whom were much smaller than the third. Sakura guessed the array to be small-male, large-male, small-female, but she wasn't certain. Only one way to find out...
The pinkette absently triggered the tag concealed behind the bush the unknown genin team were using as cover, closing her eyes and protecting her eardrums with chakra against the explosion. The cries of pain and fear were music to her blocked ears; Sakura smiled the smile that had seasoned jounin backing cautiously away and shivering with dread.
"Good morning," she said politely as the scorched trio with musical note hitai-ite stumbled out into the open.
"You blew us up you bitch!" the boy on the left shouted, the burns on his legs oozing slightly and looking very painful.
"You must be Orochimaru's minions; he mentioned you," Sakura went on lightly as her Inner snarled at the memory of the sannin's gloating, eyes drifting over the bandaged hunchback who seemed to be wearing a haystack to the kunoichi who had lost at least a third of her hair and was cradling a scorched hand. "Do you know why he would put a poisoned seal on my team-mate?"
"You're asking us? After blowing us up?" the kunoichi hissed. "Are you retarded?"
"It's polite to ask before forcing the issue," the pinkette said absently, caressing another trigger tag. "Welcome to my minefield," she added as all the standard tags in a forty-foot radius went live. All three enemy genin froze, not daring to move.
"She's bluffing," the spiky haired one said after a long, tense pause. "There's no way she'd waste tags like that."
Sakura just went on smiling. My team-mate is a seal specialist.
"Look how the ground's disturbed; she's useless at hiding things," the bandaged haystack added, stepping forward to poke a loose clod of turf.
Since he had missed Kakashi-sensei's lesson on misdirection, his confidence in her incompetence led him to step on one of the shock tags Sakura had liberated from Sasuke. The other two Sound-nin froze as their team-mate screamed, electricity arcing over the metal gauntlet attached to his arm as the scent of burnt flesh intensified.
"Why are you still here?" Sakura inquired, the picture of innocent curiosity as the haystack's screams receded to a low moaning, casually flipping a kunai between her fingers. "It's not like you can beat me: my sensei is Hatake Kakashi and my jutsus even scare him."
"Orochimaru ordered us to test Sasuke," the Oto kunoichi bit out angrily.
"He's still asleep; you'll have to make do," the pinkette said laconically, channelling Kakashi-sensei.
"Fine. We'll kill you first," the spiky-haired male said furiously. "I don't need to move from here to kill you."
Sakura calmly snipped a wire and channelled chakra through another tag. "Neither do I," she murmured as a log crashed down on top of them, forcing them to move to unsecured ground or be squashed. The haystack didn't get far -being unable to mould chakra for the moment- rolling forward through two fire tags and into a wire snare which dragged him sideways across a patch of nettles and into an ants' nest. The kunoichi landed on a tree inside one of the resistance perimeters Naruto liked to catch Sensei in, which activated as soon as she used chakra to stick to the bark. So long as she was moulding chakra she would only be able to move very, very slowly; the only way to escape was to completely let go of her chakra and freefall to the ground.
The spiky-haired leader jumped straight up and landed on the log she'd used in her trap, which would have been smart had she not lined the inside of the chunk of wood with heavy impact explosive tags. The log detonated, spraying fragments everywhere and peppering every inch of his body from his feet to his stomach with high-speed and very sharp shards of wood. The genin screamed in agony, pointing his hand at her and shouting incoherently before curling into a foetal ball. Sakura ducked, air whistling ominously over her head. Wind user? Projectiles are useless then. Genjutsu it is. She carefully targeted his vagus nerve, making the prone genin convulse and throw up over himself. Score so far, Sakura six, Spiky and co. zero.
"Bitch," the kunoichi up the tree hissed through her teeth, unable to move a muscle. The Haystack in the bushes eventually escaped the snare and stumbled to his feet, still smouldering and twitching as the ants crawled all over him.
"Die," he intoned blackly, levelling his gauntlet at her. Sakura was about to roll back inside the secure perimeter to set up a truly lethal counter-attack when someone she hadn't sensed approaching dropped from the trees and kicked her would-be attacker across the clearing onto another of the overpowered flash tags, this time an impact triggered one.
Sakura was about to thank her would-be rescuer and tell him to bugger off -damnit she was having fun here- when the sight of green spandex and a shiny black bowlcut almost gave her a combat flashback. Taking several deep, calming breaths, she composed herself. He is too short to be the Green Beast. Calm, calm, calm.
"Ah, Rock Lee, isn't it? From team nine? You know Naruto?"
"Sakura-san, you are most Perceptive! Your Youthfulness knows no bounds!" the taijutsu fanatic gushed happily, eyes sparkling. "You are indeed the most Delicate Blossom of our generation and I shall keep my Youthful promise to you!"
"Delicate my arse," the vomit-covered pincushion in the middle of the clearing moaned lowly, agony straining his voice. "Pinky's a menace."
Sakura rapidly went back over her first meeting with Lee. It had been just after one of team seven's infamous survival exercises; Kakashi-sadist had been 'concerned' that they were tailoring their strategies to him specifically and had called in a green-spandex-clad, bowlcut, thick-eyebrowed lunatic who ambushed them whilst waxing lyrical about 'the power of Youth!' and pounded them into the ground with lightning-fast taijutsu. On their way home after their absolute destruction and defeat she and Naruto had encountered what appeared to be a shorter clone of the green nightmare who seemed to know her blond team-mate fairly well. Sakura had almost genjutsu'd the freak on principle; no-one should have eyebrows like that. Fortunately for him however she had already been on her last legs and had only been able to lean on Naruto while the miniature green menace had raved about how lovely she was at the top of his lungs and swore to defend her to the death of some such rot. The pinkette hadn't really been paying attention.
Since the older boy had apparently been serious she decided to let him do whatever. It wasn't like her team-mates weren't perfectly safe where they were.
"Lee?" she whispered.
"Hai, Sakura-san?" the taijutsu fanatic replied happily.
"The traps are chakra triggered. You won't set them off even if you step on them, so go wild," she told him softly. My good deed for the day.
Lee beamed, a twinkling sparkle appearing on his shiny white teeth. "Your Youth knows no bounds, Sakura-san! I thank you for this Generous opportunity to express my Youthful fire!"
The Haystack staggered to his feet again, facial bandages blackened and peeling and clothing scorched. "Shut. Up." He aimed his gauntlet at the green menace again.
The fight was brutal and short, ending in the Haystack landing face down on one of Naruto's experimental quicksand tags -she would have to tell him how effective they were- and Lee bleeding from his ears, his balance destroyed. From the egotistical monologuing and their hitai-ite Sakura deduced that all three enemy genin used sound in one form or the other when they fought. The Haystack used his 'melody arm' to attack the inner ear; Spiky Hair used high pressure air gusts. The kunoichi was however still an unknown.
Said kunoichi stalled up the tree finally worked out how to escape the trap field and dropped like a rock. Stumbling out of the underbrush, muscles twitching -there'd been another shock tag down there- she lunged for Sakura, pulling her out of the little hollow by the hair. "Gotcha. You're just another pathetic little civilian playing ninja aren't you? You spend more time on this pretty, silky hair than on your training. That's why you're relying on the trap field to take us out."
Sakura slashed a kunai through her pretty, silky hair, sacrificing it without a second thought as she channelled chakra though the special storage seals tattooed on the inside of her elbows. The gauntlets her team-mates had scavenged from the Demon Brothers materialised around her hands and forearms as she lunged for her assailant's throat. Despite being electrocuted the other girl moved just fast enough for the pinkette to miss her carotid artery, but Sakura still made a mangled mess of the kunoichi's left arm and right shoulder before the wounded Sound-nin regained her grasp on her chakra and kawarimi'd out of harm's way.
"Don't you just love the power of being underestimated," Sakura said conversationally, blood spattered over her from untidy hair to below her waist and dripping off the gauntlets' claws as she noticed the three new people who had entered the perimeter after she was pulled away from the alert tags. "You okay there Lee?"
"Sakura-san your Youth outshines the sun!" the green-clad genin said fervently as he wobbled to his feet.
"Come here so I can fix your ears," the pinkette said firmly, slipping into medic-made and resealing her gauntlets away so she could perform handseals, "And next time dodge faster."
"Hai! I will! And if I do not I will run around the forest of death one hundred times!" Lee declared exuberantly as Sakura carefully mended his abused eardrums.
"I know you and your team are over there, Ino;" Sakura added as she released Lee, "Piss off or I'll blow you up too. I'm not in the mood." Ino's childish persistence in crushing on Sasuke now irritated the pinkette almost as much as it did Sakura herself. Her former friend was just so... so undignified!
"Blow up, Bitch? I'll blow you up," Spiky Hair wheezed, having finally recovered enough to stumble to his feet. "You're going down."
Sakura smiled sweetly at him as team ten slipped closer and caught sight of her victims through the underbrush. Chouji seemed particularly intimidated; Ino herself seemed more disconcerted by the untidy haircut the pinkette had given herself and the blood spatter adorning her upper half.
"Sakura?" a very welcome voice rasped from behind her. "Are you hurt?"
It was Sasuke. His skin was even paler than normal, his hair hung limply around his face and he had dark shadows around his red, tri-comma eyes. The left side of his face and bare upper chest as well as most of his left arm were covered in deep red commas like the ones in the seal on his neck.
"Not seriously," Sakura admitted honestly. "I was just venting my frustrations on the Snake-bastard's minions."
Sasuke's sharingan eyes began to spin ominously. "Might I cut in, Sakura?"
"Feel free," Sakura said sweetly. "Just be mindful of our audience."
Sasuke glanced over at team ten, then up at the newly-arrived two-thirds of team nine who had probably come looking for Lee. "Hn."
"I'm gonna kill you, you bastard and make the pink bitch watch," Spiky Hair ranted, unmindful of his perforated lower half and the vomit stains which covered his entire front. "I'm gonna blast you with my arms' power-"
"You're very proud of those arms of yours," Sasuke interrupted coldly, stepping around Sakura as the pinkette deactivated the trap tags so the Uchiha wouldn't get blown sky-high by accident.
"Die!" the enemy genin screamed crazily, pointing both hands palm-out at Sasuke. Sakura ducked, dragging Lee down with her as the air above them exploded. There was a brief silence as the dust settled and everyone tried to see what had happened.
"Ha, ha, hahaha!" the genin laughed manically. "I got him!"
"Got who?" came Sasuke's chillingly precise tones from behind the sound nin as the Uchiha reached out to grip his opponent's upper arms. "I think I'll confiscate these for trying to harm my team-mate; I want you to bleed." He yanked hard. There was a pop, followed by a crunch and a brutal tearing sound. The genin screamed.
"Zaku!" the injured kunoichi cried from where she was crouched by the half-submerged Haystack.
There was a soft thud and Zaku fell forwards, revealing a barefoot, half-dressed Naruto with untidy shoulder length hair holding up an unconscious and blessedly normal-looking Sasuke. "Oops," the blond said nonchalantly. "Sorry about that. I didn't think he's be that homicidal first thing or I'd have put a leash on him. Any casualties?" He looked around, peering through his bangs, taking in the destroyed clearing and battered Oto ninja. "No-one I care about got hurt; cool. But since when is this a spectator sport?"
"We're leaving," Hyuuga Neji said at once, glancing at the kunoichi next to him with her hair in two buns. "Lee, come."
"We- we'll go too," Ino quavered nervously, eyes flicking between Sakura's gore-spattered form and the limp body of Sasuke in Naruto's arms.
"Need an Earth scroll?" Naruto asked. "This guy," he kicked the prone Zaku in the ribs, "has one."
"Er-"
"We've already got one so it's no problem," Sakura agreed, moving over to perform another diagnostic jutsu on Sasuke. "We're all Leaf-nin so why not?"
"We'll take it," Shikamaru agreed, eyes lingering on Naruto's unexpectedly long hair.
Naruto turned to where the haystack had finally escaped the quicksand. "You, big guy-"
"Dosu," the Haystack said nervously.
"-Dosu, you gonna take your team-mates and scram or do we have to slit your throats?"
The battered genin swallowed hard. "We'll leave," he agreed as Shikamaru retrieved and pocketed Zaku's Earth scroll.
"Good for you; don't come back," Sakura said flatly. "Naruto, you're going to have to carry Sasuke-kun from now on. Go get both of you dressed so we can move on."
"Sure, no problem; just let me eat something. You pack up while I'm sorting us out, will you? I don't want anyone stealing my tags," the blond said amiably, effortlessly bundling his taller team-mate over his shoulder and walking back into the tiny cave. "Oh, and I'll fix your hair if you can do something with mine!" he called back to her.
"Deal!" Sakura replied with a smile. She kind of wanted to see what Naruto would look like with his now much longer hair braided flat against his head...
A/N: And that's it for the forest of death. Sakura has had a chance to show of her brilliance to the public, Sasuke has gone on his short homicidal rampage and Naruto continues to fulfill his role as team leader. The Sound team, of course, gets creamed. They had it coming.
Review, please: I want to know what you think!