TO GIVE OR TAKE A LIFE

CHAPTER 3

She and that seal, in one single move, shifted everything. A casual loop which she doubted could be repeated or undone. The measuring tape of time took a detour and Sakura's poor fleshy body was along for the ride, pulled by the seal on her wrist.

A body wasn't meant to travel 30 years in a moment. It pulled, tugged, warped, pressurized, and almost froze her. The physical transportation put her systems into failure. Her heart, lungs, and brain suffered most. All of it eased as the seal on her forehead kept her alive. Byakugō no In fed her chakra and kept her heart pumping.

When that man cut off the Byakugō her whole chakra network stuttered at its sudden loss. Those tissues and organs she'd been trying to rebuild and stabilize floundered. Inner Sakura ended up using herself.

"I have enough energy stored for this. Just hold on."

There was a moment she might have passed out. Inner was still talking when she came back.

"Sakura dear stay present."

Sakura felt the weight of her hair over her arms. They'd been raised and tied to the furniture. She shifted and found herself tightly bound. Her muscles and bones ached, symptoms of a system almost drained.

She sensed four people leave. One presence remained. Sakura heard the Toad Sannin walking away farther into the brothel. His boisterous, booming voice still loud from the hallway. An old telephone clattered and rang from somewhere in the building. The bustling claps and stomps of mid-century music hummed from the lower floors. A moan from a room nearby and a high pitched giggle.

She sensed Jiraiya's chakra fade as he left. The man she'd known would never have left his comrade alone with an unknown ANBU. This one still had an almost juvenile hopefulness. Was he even the toad Sannin yet?

"Focus," Her Inner chanted. Inner Sakura sounded so much closer than usual. Almost as if they weren't separate at all but shared a single thought process.

Inner continued, "This place, it isn't ours. You have to focus. Just remain calm. He'll ask a few questions and then-"

"This Hatake isn't nearly as nice as Sensei. You think this one is just going to let us go?"

Her throat tightened. Sakura kept her eyes closed, heard the man move in the room around her. He stopped by her once, leaned close and she had to do everything in her medical power to keep her nervous system unresponsive. His warm breath smelled of sake and kanabisu.

"Shouldn't have drank the bottle."

He moved away. The smell of musk and drying sweat faded when a window opened. She heard them move, felt the floor creaking as they crossed to the far side of this room and returned. Her eyes remained shut.

The sound of waterproof fabric and a bag unzipping. He pulled out something before tossing the bag on the bed. Sakura's pulse ticked and she forcibly controlled it. Her chakra was so low and sluggish it wasn't hard. When he started sharpening the blade its metal ground against a fine grained stone. Sakura knew another Hatake who cared for their weapons in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, she didn't know if she'd ever see Kakashi again. Sakura wished this was her Hatake with her.

She kept her breathing light, kept taking stock of how unhealthily low her chakra was. Sakura estimated just how much she could use, just what she could do before her body would quit. She was better than most, but she had a limit. Sakura wouldn't cross it. Thankfully scalpels and strength took almost nothing greater than a flick of her hands.

The current Jōnin Hanchō still sat across the room. The danger he presented remained a tang in her mouth. The blood leaked from her nose and gums. From how he'd used the Yamanaka mind walk so she couldn't fight back. The depleted chakra, the jutsu, and restraints she almost couldn't break. A lesser ANBU might have panicked. Yet knowing exactly what she was dealing with always had worked for her.

A man more dangerous than Sasori, less dangerous than Madara, but she faced him with almost no chakra and no backup. He was drunk and proved he still dominated in a jutsu fight. Her post-war ANBU directives made it clear what happened to prisoners taken. She couldn't afford to be here any longer. She couldn't stay with the men who'd wanted her dead. Even if one was Jiraiya. It wasn't her Jiraiya.

Sakura already shifted the existence of all the people she knew and loved, she couldn't allow these strangers to kill her. Baby Naruto would need her. Chibi Itachi might not be so angry at the world if he had an adult in his corner. She would live for them. The place she came from might not have 78 war orphans if she saved their parents. The nameless Chūnin. The overwhelmed Genin Corps who were slaughtered protecting the village gate. She had to live.

Her chakra scalpels formed from her wrists. They were thin as she could make them and wicked sharp. They sliced through her tough ties as easy as skin and suddenly her wrists were free. She left them where they'd been tied to the couch. Blood rushed back to her hands. Feeling returned to numb fingers. She shifted her free wrists, tested them, then slit her eyes towards the man across the room.

She waited till he looked away. His face deep in thought. The furrow in his brow the same one Kakashi got when he glared down an opponent. This one leveled that look on the tantō he sharpened. The room's single lamp dim and a swath of moonlight bright in contrast.

She popped up. Her muscles held her and her fist tightened, her arm rose back in a practiced motion. Sakura swung at the floor. An opening which cracked, spread outward, and exploded wooden support beams with the force. She only glanced up then. That look of surprise on the asshole's face gratified the ache in the pit of her stomach.

The bed frame caught for the briefest moment. Its blankets and pillows seemed to float. Before it tipped through the hole. Moonlight streaked across his face as he fell. His large hand gripped a tantō tight and it began to shine white.

Planks creaked under the weight from above, unsupported, till they and everything they'd been holding came crashing down. With her reverberating strike the side of the building creaked and bulged. The walls shuddered and barely held under this sudden crushing weight, weak without that support beam she'd just accidentally shattered. Oops.

"Oops?"

Inner Sakura was both exasperated and amused. The figment's feelings which always felt indistinct and distant now felt much closer. They and Inner herself were much more real. Her picture even had color and form as if she'd been a real person once.

Inner, seemingly hearing this thought, snorted in response and huffed her imaginary breath. Before drawling, "I was real once. You dolt. How do you think you travelled through time now if it hadn't happened before? Though I didn't make the mess you are making."

Inner occupied herself digging through their mind space.

"You know when I went back I didn't do anything worthy of destroying my own mind. Apparently traveling back in time and changing things have a physical effect." A sardonic mutter, "Really bad timing."

Sakura blinked. The world around her was slower or maybe her mind was just moving twice as fast. Inner's mind seemed to be adding to hers, not just her feelings. Her mind moved faster. Sakura stayed silent on this. She was too disconcerted by what was happening in her mind and by the external, very real, man sizing her up. The figment of her imagination, that woman who she'd never realized might have been real once, watched the Jōnin Commander as he finished his assessment.

They weren't on the fourth floor long. The combined weight of all the furniture falling cracked through that one too. Boom, crack, boom. The sound of floor and then the pipes bursting. When they fell it was through a spray of water. He made a funny expression when the water hit him full in the face. Then, dripping, naked, and furious he stood on the bed.

"He's not in a good mood. Not at all," Inner carried on with her advice. "You know, if you'd wanted to ever see your friends and family again you probably shouldn't have enacted property damage. You could have talked your way out of this."

The man decided which weapon to use. The chakra slithered down metal with meticulous skill. It was artful, if it wasn't such a practiced move with a blade she would have enjoyed it. Her mind was too well tuned from the Fourth Shinobi War not to recognize S-Rank when she saw it.

Sakura disagreed with Inner. She didn't think that man was going to let her go. A man who by all rights should have been dead by the time she entered the academy. Inner seemed momentarily distracted between the fracturing mind and the man chasing them. His teeth glinted. He pushed his feet against one of the larger beams still standing and swung at them. The third floor was empty, the space covered in the mess of everything which fell from above. Dust and wood splinters floated everywhere. He was still wet. Still moving this way.

She was too close to the wall. Unable to move back Sakura punched the floor again. She fell just as he was jumping up. His eyes tracked her, half lidded and feral. They followed her as she and the furniture disappeared down into the second level.

"I think you made him mad. He doesn't look prepared to forget this."

"I couldn't just sit there."

Her own memories of organizing searching parties for their ANBU they'd lost. People they'd never found. A different kind of bad from the bodies they did find during the war. Memories of the cold and stiff limbs she'd pulled from battlefields so they could load them on a cart and send them off for proper burial.

A sound had her looking up. Careening from the third floor the crazy canine man bared his maw as if he intended to use her like a chew toy. Even as he fell he moved towards her. Sakura threw herself back.

Inner seemed to sigh and with it her mind shifted. The other woman was so close. So real and soft and comforting like Sakura had never experienced before. Inner seemed to lean in and drape her warmth around her in a hug.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Maybe if I'd done better that war of yours wouldn't have been so bad."

She sniffed and blithely continued, "What's done is done. Ain't no way we're rewinding time and getting that fifth floor back. Or the fourth. Or the third. I'd think you had something against this place for how quick you were to try and tear it apart."

"It was the best choice."

"If you say so."

"I might have some unresolved trauma." Sakura really hadn't thought of alternatives. Inner was right. The other woman graciously stepped back, the warmth of the hug lingered for a moment longer before it slipped further away in her brain.

"You've never been much for infiltration anyways," Inner's side note barely touched her. "You probably couldn't look unthreatening and weak if you tried. The best way to escape an interrogation, if you're interested, is to act too dumb to understand the direction of their questions. Give true answers, but inconsequential ones. They always get bored."

She continued, "He's a pretty face. You could have acted like a ditz, gone through some torture, and then been sent free with a slap on the wrist and a stern letter to whatever kage you wanted to claim. Preferably a kage on the fence, a potential ally in that war they're about to fight. Konoha wouldn't have exterminated you, not when tensions are so high."

The world around them still seemed sluggish and slow, as if her brain was able to process more frames and more motion in the same span of time. Everything went twice at its usual rate in her mind. As it cracked Inner was closer than ever. Their conversation happened so fast compared to everything else.

Their conversation continued almost leisurely. Inner's commentary came not as a separate entity but almost as her own thoughts. If there wasn't an angry looking man after them she would have been curious about that. She wished he'd put on clothes. He looked more intimidating like this. Chakra crackled around him, charging from the air itself.

"Maybe he's mad you ruined his room. Paying for the night on the top floor can't be cheap."

"Shut up."

"You think they have fifth floor insurance or you think that's coming out of his pocket?"

"Inner."

She could die here today, in this place so far removed from her own. He might win, but it wouldn't come easy. All any nin could ask for was a good go. Sakura just didn't want hers to end.

These may be her last moments but the memories slipping through her cracked mindscape weren't hers. Rather, they showcased another's life. Many scenes of a reed thin woman whose impractical high heel shoes clicked loud with each step down the street, through the nurse's station, the shoes clicked as she crossed her legs while on dates with civilian men in fancy clothes. Men who spoke on and on about the most boring hobbies.

These memories slipped into her head. Featured a Konoha with more buildings and people and brightly painted walls. The woman looked like Inner but her figure was real, walking around, and interacting. The memories spilled into her mind.

Inner Sakura tutted, "That's a bad sign."

"What?"

"Hm. You see my life."

Sakura didn't respond. Apparently Inner didn't need it.

"When I went back in time I didn't break anything. I didn't attract notice from two military leaders. I was a very good infiltration specialist."

Too fast, too close, his tantō swiped at her. It almost got her as white chakra extended from its sharp edge. Sakura leaned back. The burning white chakra sliced her sleeve.

The red couch had fallen with them. Those ornate cushions were sliced when the White Fang extended his chakra and tried to take her arm off. The couch split in half. Feathers burst from it as it hit the floor of the second story. Into a lavish room which wasn't empty.

Patrons below were almost squashed. A noblewoman in rich clothes was pulled out of the way by the woman who'd been lapping between her legs. The worker shrieked. Her terrified face scorched Sakura. The very staff members who should have been getting healed by Konoha's ANBU. Her heart bled and her double mind cracked.

Inner spoke, "Ya this is fucked. I don't think I can fix this. Bodies aren't supposed to go back in time and drastically change history."

"It hurts. My head feels like a hole has been drilled through it and parts are slipping out."

"I'll try to help as I can. I'm just a figment though."

Moments of Inner Sakura's past life rushed through, full of feelings and things she'd never expressed.

"Survive him and I'll try everything I can to make sure you survive the night."

Sakura launched herself towards the brothel's outermost wall. Her fist collided against the wood. Aware of the people behind her, she made the effort to make this just large enough. The wall again shook but held. It made just enough of a gaping hole to fit her body through. Sakura's arms scraped as she pulled herself into the jagged opening, pulled her waist and then legs through before pushing off. The top shelf of the cliff cut a steep angle below.

As she jumped a kunai shot passed. It soared by her face and into the air beyond. The next blade caught her. Its weight sliced through her flesh and lodged deep in her shoulder blade. She had just enough time to grab it, feel how compromised her left shoulder was, and send the barest pulse of healing chakra. The wind tugged at her as she dropped. It forced salty air in her mouth.

Not two seconds later wood snapped. Sakura heard his big frame crashed through the wall. So much for the small, precise hole she'd made. A last ditch effort to save the remains of the building, because the more her head hurt the more she was beginning to believe Inner. That maybe she shouldn't have tried to destroy things and bring the attention of major military leaders down on her. Cuz Kakashi's dad wasn't supposed to ever catch a pink haired ANBU along the war torn beach of Uzu. That would have been mentioned in all those operations summaries she'd studied and they most certainly hadn't recorded anything of the sort.

Maybe, just maybe, she could get away from these cliffs and away from this brothel. The legends would return home and get distracted enough to forget about her. As the saline wind whipped past her and tore at her hair she almost believed it.

That part of Sakura which expected the worst and was prepared to claw her way out of it. This grim one was fast calculating the exact motion her muscles would have to make in order to put 10 meters between them. The worst part of her which roamed when she slept. Those horrors of muscle steaming around shards of bone, warmer than the chill battlefield around it and heating the field. Chakra expended for one last time and the people who wouldn't let you go, who wouldn't risk enemies coming back another day with knowledge of the best moves. That was the part which took over.

Down, down she plummeted, one foot having to kick off the cliff face as she went. Till she arched her back and shot off. Her muscles shifted, not a single ounce of effort wasted. She couldn't afford to, not with her reserves drained and him on her tail.

Pads of her op boots barely hit the shards of metal and seashells mixed in at the base of the cliff. Washout from a ruined civilization. The large Uzu military post not a kilometer away, the loss of which crippled their defenses. The rocky shore held a series of steep slopes. She dropped to the biggest ledge. The waves crashed far below. Their roar dulled by the oncoming storm above. Clouds and mist sweeping in. They hung low over the cool sea shelf and moved to obscure the last lights of those few Uzushiogakure hamlets. Remnants of a once great people. On this side of the water moon reflected bright and full above.

Wind whipped her hair. She pushed it out of her face. Sakura would never again cut her hair just because someone grabbed it. The last opponent who tried got an arm torn off. Even dangerously low on chakra, she could go four more hours like this if she paced herself. 30 minutes if she had to fight. Sakura shifted herself to optimize her movements along the jagged ledge. Each motion calculated and expended just to the degree needed.

From the top of this cliff's edge she could make out the ocean's sandier waterline. A thin line far below. No she wouldn't go there. She wouldn't cross the water, not unless she had to. Sakura cut a sharp path towards the treeline. Her comfort. Not her fire country, but the same environment she'd trained in. If she got far enough inland the dense forest would swallow her up, obscure her scent, and force Konoha's hunters to search much harder if they wanted to follow. The one sprinting after her stumbled on the uncertain surfaces. He slipped on the worst of the shrapnel and debris. She looked back in time to see him teeter and level out on the wide ledge she picked.

The dipshit hadn't fired anything at her. He had a wide field and an advantage. He hadn't seemed to realize yet. By the way she'd seen his body react she'd say he had a moderately high blood alcohol content. If his drunk ass didn't think to get a jutsu out she'd outpace him by the time she hit the treeline.

Sakura ran faster. Her feet barely touched the rough rock before her precise control directed her muscles and powered them into the next motion. Little puffs of dark dust exploded under each impact. Each propelled her mass to a higher speed. Chakra control was her saving grace and even on an empty supply she was the operator of operators. Sakura flew.

Then he seemed to wake up. She'd gotten halfway to the treeline. The long shadows of the forested hills stretched above. Perhaps he realized what that meant for he sent a volley of earth spikes. They popped up, each as tall as a building, the first one launched her back to the open cliff edge. The next few shot up to keep her there, their sharp points erupted where she'd been about to step.

In front of her she saw water raise up. It started as a wave reaching incredibly high, then turned into a mishapen beast. The mouth aimed her way. It bit down and missed by a meter. His water dragon rose again and stumbled like it was as drunk as its maker. This didn't diminish it's enormous size. It didn't stop the next volley of earth spikes from blocking her path to the trees. Her loose hair covered her face as he spun a wind jutsu. It kicked up sand around her and she felt elemental chakra as he sent kunai flying in the middle of the sand storm.

One kunai struck. She hissed as it cut hard and deep. Her chakra too low to waste on healing. She kept the kunai lodged there and tried not to move where the blade severed her muscles. How it scraped bone and sliced the edge of her kidney. One nicked her arm. She sent just the barest blockage, like an unnatural clot to keep the blood loss to a minimum.

When she avoided the next kunai, caught it, and hurled it back at her assailant with fluidity she caught the light flicker in his eyes. The interest. The raging intent and for the first time all evening Sakura realized he hadn't been taking her seriously. He'd been annoyed, but had been giving half his attention. His pupils dilated, his vision focused on the corded muscle in her throwing arm.

Sakura finally had his attention. She'd really rather not.

Maybe he would have let her go if she hadn't been interesting. Not as if she had much of a choice now. He threw another kunai, tested her. Then he wasn't throwing earth spikes, but raising huge earthen walls. She jumped over the first and tried to scale the next. Only then he trapped her foot and the next wall rose significantly higher. She watched it rise and rise. His trap twisted her to face him.

Killing intent saturated the air. An extension of the thoughts moving him towards her like a typhoon. He was terrifying.

The demon of a sage had intent strong enough to flood her overtaxed system.

It spiked at her and stabbed, a wholly new sensation, one she hadn't really felt since she'd grown strong enough to protect herself.

Her breath caught. Killing intent transformed into nature's energy. It crackled and leapt, too hot to stay still. She didn't have the advanced chakra she'd built up to block it. It hit her. So painful, so raw and her chakra network didn't respond. It was overwhelming as the men loomed over her.

Sakura didn't want to kill Kakashi's dad. She didn't want to be the reason her friend grew up without a parent. Sakura didn't know what she wanted.

"World peace," Came Inner's sardonic reply.

She grit her teeth and muttered aloud to Inner, "Not helping."

He watched her struggle in his earth hold and she felt like a piece on a Nara's game board. A motivated genius was a shit enemy. Maybe Inner was right. Maybe she could de-escalate this.

Only she was trained under the least subtle nin to grace Konoha's last generations. De-escalation wasn't one of her strengths.

"Convince him you're not interesting. Or pretend to die."

Before Inner could sway her, the obsessive and much too insistent man was on her again. Sakura pulled her foot free just in time to avoid his close swing. For a terrible moment she was too slow. He almost got her and snarled. The volume made her flinch. Instinctive, Sakura raised her shoulders and arms in a block as if she could stop him from biting her.

The white, lightening hot chakra of his attack hit her block. A deadly sharp white fang clashed against green scalpels. They flared. He wasn't even close to her, but shot out like a whip of changing length. It was running her twice as hard as any normal fight. Unfortunately, Sakura didn't have the reserves for this. Her scalpels wavered. Her throat dry and tight with dehydration, her arms began to shake as he pushed her back.

Followed by a set of blades thrown so fast if she hadn't felt the chakra behind them she wouldn't have been able to see or avoid them. The kunai thudded. The sort of attack Tenten would have used. Sakura slid out of the way. Her bloody leg and back taking the brunt of her evasion.

As her experience here on this wide cliff's ledge got worse she bled and slid across wet rocks to dodge the next barrage of projectiles. The hard ground scraped at her, where normally she'd use chakra this wasn't a fight for excess. She rolled on her side, two kunai thudded and reverberated the ground. Her bones seemed to ring with them.

"Don't you feel it? He's pulling energy from the cliff."

He rose above her, looking like an extension of the clouds rushing from the ocean.

"I should have convinced you to train for these sort of fights. I knew they were more common in the past, but I didn't think. Oh well." Inner lamented, "If I'd have known maybe we could have avoided this one entirely."

Sakura scrambled back. More kunai hit where she'd just been. Their hilts stuck out of her bloody smeared path. Rock vibrated as they landed, white chakra coated the blades and they sunk through what would bounce normal metal.

"I think he likes us."

"Shut up."

The killer intent following her leant a rather dark cast as Inner laughed inside her head. Another kunai clipped her side. Sakura hissed.

"Well are you going to take that?" Her Inner challenged. Inner, grim and thinking gory thoughts stated, "You have people to live for. People who need you. Are you going to die on a beach?"

"No," The word huffed out between clenched teeth.

Sakura was getting increasingly woozy. The world was beginning to swim around her. Her huff of breath alarmingly light. Her chakra dangerously low. She needed to put distance between them. She needed to get away before this could be prolonged.

She rolled just in time. The white glowing tantō shot a sharp line of chakra out, an extension she barely avoided. Her fingers clawed against the sharp rocks. This level of the beach was a middle shelf. It was another 60 meters down to the waters edge.

His following swings forced her into the salty breeze and closer to the edge. The damn white chakra extension changed length unpredictably. One caught her in the arm. A bad cut, much deeper and more damaging placement than the others. Her artery spurted.

The tantō cut her calf next. She snarled. Next it swung at her back and she lurched around just in time to block it with the metal guarding her hand, her own chakra laced there to fend his blade off. The strength behind it was almost more than her shaking muscles could handle. It knocked her aside. Weak and clumsy Sakura lost her footing. She had to baby her left, taking all his weight onto her remaining good side. Her arm trembled under each block of that oni wrought blade.

He kept coming. The jutsu of an unfamiliar earth release forming in his fingers. The rock beneath her sunk until she was on the edge of a hole. A kick to the side of her head knocked her back. She fell down the slope, skidded against rocks and dropped into his trap.

The cliffs gleamed in mist and the moonlight. Waves crashed below and it made Sakumo's blood rush. He loved a good arena. It made everything else worthwhile. To be able to step away. To move and act on instinct made him feel alive in a way desk work and side stepping counsel members never could. There was something about a beautiful arena, how it brought everything out of him. His chakra jumped to his limbs and down the blade.

He warned her and it came out with a feral sound. A girl, an interesting enough girl who'd decided to run. His swipe with his tantō almost took off her arm, but she shrugged off the gushing wound as if it were a paper cut. She was strong, just as he'd thought. His cheeks stretched wider, the facsimile of happiness. His village wouldn't let him release her. Their position demanded he, as their Commander, control the field. He should enjoy what he could of this. In the end he would tie her up again or cut her down.

He used dotun earth release to wall her in. He always had liked trapping his opponents. Even naked and half drunk he came to crouch on the walls above her. Her wild hair spun around as she realized he was there. Her eyes glowed faintly in the darkness, outlasting the dim moonlight in the pit he'd made.

She wavered on her feet, looking exhausted and about to give up whether by choice or a simple knock against her head. A normal kunoichi wouldn't have gotten out of his ties the first time, let alone wreck the place on her way out. Now those ties dangled from her wrists. She looked up at the high walls of his new trap. That drive seemed to flicker, leaving nothing but a helpless girl.

How many times had he'd been tasked with killing someone similar. The blood of the helpless followed his footsteps and bled more with each directive he sent their Jōnin. In this moment she wasn't the strongest on the field. She was a girl in his trap. Someone needing protecting. The medic tattoo on her shoulder, which he'd untied and revealed, a mockery of the Konoha ANBU symbol beneath.

He jumped down and she backed away. Although the hole was small and he boxed her in. Grabbed her arms, the one slick with blood. Those ties around her wrists, he used them against her, held them behind her in a tight hold. He spun them till she couldn't move. Her fingers tied tight and incapable of forming jutsu. She was in his trap. Her arms locked in his much larger hands. Her sweat heavy in the air, it mixed with the salt. He pushed her against the wall.

Only then he saw how she'd released herself the first time. It sliced his fingers. He'd never seen anyone who could form construct's from their arms. Sakumo hadn't expected it, not with her fingers newly bound and immobile. Yet the girl did it.

Glowing, knife-like chakra constructs lengthened from her wrists and nearly cut him again. A snarl escaped her lips. Its sound echoed off the walls he'd made to trap her. The bindings fell away from her and when she turned it was slow. He jumped out of his trap, it disengaged as he abandoned it, and she followed.

They whipped past his face as he dodged a punch. The last one had fractured his ribs. That kind of fighting this low on chakra she must have incredible control. A precision perhaps surpassing his blonde princess of a friend. He'd never seen anyone come close to, let alone surpass 'Ade. This girl was the exception, the sort of control he hadn't thought humanly attainable. It was the last time he thought of her as a girl. When she clipped the side of his face with her other knuckles he had to admit this shinobi hit harder than anyone who'd ever laid a strike on him. It pushed him back 5 meters and he only stopped himself with chakra grabbing onto layers of gravel as he slid. He stopped, crouched and fingers cut from where he'd tried to grab onto the rock to avoid falling over the edge.

She stood there, one knee bent and hand still extended. Her eyes burned into him.

"I am not your enemy Hatake. I will only be here as long as I have to."

"You've trespassed in Konoha protected lands." Spy. "How many people have you killed selling your information?"

She stiffened. Drunk and more entertained than he should be, he let the corner of his mouth tilt. It was, he'd later reflect, a mistake to provoke her. Sakumo for all his strengths rarely met his match. Those times he had he'd the information and forethought to prep the battlefield to his advantage. This was a sleepy, half intoxicated scuffle on a pile of rocks. If he'd been in his right mind he might have realized his mistake sooner. This taunt reduced whatever restraint she'd had.

In a move reminiscent of the 9 gates, one moment she was 5 meters away. The next she was within his space and he was in the air. Then she was in the air above him and he slammed down hard, propelled by an unstoppable force.

Rocks slammed hard into his back. He did fall off the cliff then. Bumped off the first ledge and slowed himself with a chakra coated hand on the second. He let himself drop in a mostly controlled tumble to the narrow beach below. His knees hit the jagged little pebbles and shards first. They dug in, but it was the sharp hand against his lower spinal tenketsu which had him sucking in a sharp breath. His teeth clenched and his legs collapsed. On his side her glowing figure towered above him.

Her lips pursed and a strangled whistle escaped. In pity. In sorrow. Perhaps she hadn't wanted to kill him, wanted to avoid leaving a body trail, wanted to just get in and out with her information. Well he'd messed that up. He shouldn't have played with her, shouldn't have treated her as a half competent shoji partner. He should have put more effort into insuring she wouldn't wake up till he had her in custody.

Itai, itai, his head hurt where she'd clipped him. His cheek bone shifted as it had been reduced to pieces. He felt every step reverberate through the injury and shoot deep into his skull. The pink hair wept in the wind. Through slotted eyes he watched her close in. Her intent curled around him in a smothering, suffocating embrace. Could something be so merciful and mercurial, getting too close would poison?

By the look on her face she regretted this almost as much as he did. He'd made a mistake. He'd never make it again, not this one, not with her.

His left hand went for the handle of his blade but instead curled around broken seashells mixed with shards of steel. It was then he saw the tantō stuck in the cliff above them. Sakumo hadn't realized how sure of himself he'd been, how much he assumed about his opponents based on their looks, till this pink haired woman disarmed him and dumped him off a cliff.

Her next blow made his eyes water. The sharp sand dug into him as she dropped him. She stopped, hand raised with two fingers about to curl into a fist. The pain from where she'd cut off the function of his legs reminiscent of a Hyuuga. Another secret technique, one no outsider should have known, prevented by the curse seal which would activate before the Hyuuga could volunteer or be tortured for the information. A seal to destroy their valuable biological material. Better dead than in enemy hands. Some facts of his village rubbed his honor so raw there were days he wondered if he had any at all.

Her breath came short and fast, they disrupted the moonlit strands around her face. She was a goddess of death or as well as. Haruno Sakura could have finished him three times over since paralyzing him. Sakumo swore he'd never underestimate someone so badly again.

She looked truly pained, "I'm sorry."

Pain exploded in his neck. Then she was gone. Her fist rose from his throat as fast as it'd stabbed, those two fingers were sharp, quick, and they severed. His neck popped. His throat convulsed where she struck. A gurgled whine escaped.

He couldn't breathe. He needed help. His blood trickled down his arm and with a burst of chakra two massive wolves appeared in a diaspora of grey smoke. Their growls drowned out the crash of waves. Water lapped at his useless legs. Iron-rich liquid filled his mouth, the wetness spilled out as he gasped.

"Get Jiraiya. Follow her."

As he lay there his own blood filled between pebbles and pooled into dark seafoam. Its smell strong enough to make the air sting. That medical jutsu Tsunade forced every member of her age group to learn sputtered in his hand. Slow, so slow and shaky, he raised his palm to his throat. This green the exact color her eyes had glowed when she struck him.

Spread eagle he decided Tsunade had been absolutely right. They needed a medic on every team. No one should be promoted to Jōnin without proving basic competency. No Chūnin should enter their first exam without being able to stop their own bleeding. He still could hardly breathe, but when his hand fell back to the rocks he wasn't drowning in his own blood anymore.

He closed his eyes and finalized the thought, "Medics."

Jiraiya found him 12 minutes later. Still intoxicated, but the large man cut a mostly straight line as he ran across the rocks.

"What happened to you? Where's the girl?"

"Not-a-girl," He was so winded and raspy.

His throat thick with liquid he wasn't skilled enough to clear and heal. The fact he'd stopped it flowing didn't reassure him. He'd fucked up. In a way the counsel of elders would publicly vilify and declaim him for. Hiruzen's nepotistic power balance whom Sakumo wouldn't trust Konoha's best asset or worst enemy. Whichever Haruno Sakura was didn't matter. She'd slipped from their control.

The fact he'd have to go after her made his world dim, his heart wanted to break. "I'm not your enemy," she'd said. Yet his people and his leaders wouldn't accept anything but fanatic loyalty. To the point of being stupid in the name of an idea, regardless of how it plays out. Regardless of a village who allows black op missions without oversight and destabilizing other governments. He was their Commander. To hold all of the responsibility and none of the decision making power. Sometimes he hated his life.

Maybe if he followed her, maybe if he found her first no one else would get to her.