A/N: And, the chapter you've been waiting for…
Ranma are small panels, usually built into the wall above shoji or fusuma, which are designed to let in light. Amado are storm shutters designed to protect a house during storms or hold in heat. They can be open or closed and wrap around the engawa. In Japanese culture, their fireplaces/hearths (used for heating a home or cooking) are sunken into the floor in the center of a room instead of built into the wall. When cooking on them, there is a special hook that hangs from the ceiling to suspend pots over the fire.
After finishing up the now even more bitter sweet bottle of sake, Sakura led Nobu back to her room at the inn. He waited patiently in the lobby of the hotel while she stored the remainder of her things scattered across her room in her storage scroll and tucked everything neatly into her obi.
The medic slyly utilized a technique which Tsunade had taught her once, while her mentor had been blackout drunk, to filter the alcohol from her blood by speeding up the activity of her liver. A technique that she had been far too inebriated to use before but one she was more than capable of using now.
Sakura knew she needed to function at her full capacity not only to heal her newest patient but in case this mission was a trap. This man seemed genuine enough but she had been tricked by enough people to always be cautious. At least she had been cognizant enough to walk in a straight line on the icy roads back to her inn.
Meeting with her newest client, Sakura thanked the kind old innkeeper who had helped her to her room just a few short days ago. The woman had tried to refund her the money Sakura had remaining from all the days she had already paid for. The medic simply told her to offer the remaining days to anyone who needed them and earned a pleased smile from both the innkeeper and Nobu.
When Sakura and Nobu finally reached the edge of trade city, where the filthy brown snow turned to pristine white, she asked, "Okay, which way are we going?"
"We'll be heading towards the south-southeast. It will be a four day long trek, but if we hurry, we may be able to make it in two," the blond explained, a determined look on his rounded face.
A nearly week long trek was unacceptable if his sister was in such dire straits the last time he saw her. Not to mention how bone achingly cold it was and how incredibly unwilling Sakura was to sleep in the gods forsaken snow. She was miserable enough without adding sleeping in the freezing snow to the mix.
She briefly considered summoning one of her felines but knew that Hyo the leopard, despite being the fastest cat summons alive, would be upset at being lowered to a beast of burden. Not only that, she couldn't afford to waste the chakra when she needed to store what she could for whatever laid ahead.
Sakura promptly knelt on one knee and put her hands back with a demand of, "Alright, get on."
Nobu's face contorted in horror before he glanced around, checking to see if anyone was watching them. He stared at her in disbelief, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment, and Sakura returned his stare with one of agitation.
"I... It... That would hardly be proper... Lady Sakura," he sputtered, looking anywhere but at her as he searched for an excuse to avoid being given a piggyback ride by a woman half a foot shorter than him and wearing a crimson winter kimono.
Sakura sighed. "You said you weren't even sure if your sister was still alive, right? Do you really want to waste time walking when I could get us there in less than a day?"
Nobu wrung his hands nervously but considered her words. He looked back up to her, his lips pressed in a thin line and his cheeks bright red, before taking a hesitant step forward. He paused.
"But I'm so much bigger than you… Can you really carry me?"
"Trust me. It's either this or I summon one of my cats and he won't be happy about having to carry someone."
The man's expression morphed into one of terror at the thought of being carried by one of Sakura's now well-known summons, let alone one that was displeased. He finally walked forward and planted his feet on either side of her awkwardly. She wrapped her arms around his knees and stood, using a minuscule amount of chakra to heft the man onto her back. Nobu's arms immediately wrapped around her shoulders and he yelped in surprise.
"Hang on. And don't forget to show me where I'm going," Sakura directed as she adjusted the uncomfortable man on her back.
When she leapt into the snowy treetops and began her run, she nearly laughed aloud at the high pitched, terrified screeches coming from Nobu, his cries of alarm scattering a flock of birds.
A moment of joy to break up the months of suffering.
With Sakura being able to sprint through the trees and with a still terrified Nobu shakily pointing out directions as he clung to her for dear life, they reached the man's village by sunset. She watched the snowy terrain slowly transform into freezing forests as she made her way farther south.
The thick forest of pine and bare oak trees parted to reveal a few dozen homes and businesses built atop a large, grassy clearing. A slow moving river ran along the edge of the town and the setting sun lit up the small village in brilliant shades of red and orange. Smoke lazily drifted up from the houses, no doubt from hearths used to warm homes in the colder months.
Sakura leapt down from the icy canopy of trees and deposited Nobu onto the ground. He released a dramatic sigh of relief as his feet touched solid land for the first time in nearly hours.
They began their walk towards the village and, as they drew closer, Sakura noticed five individuals dressed in silver and black painted armor run out to the perimeter of the town. They all drew their weapons and fell into defensive positions as she and Nobu approached.
A stern eyed woman with cherry colored hair piled on top of her head in a utilitarian bun stepped out in front of the group of armored men and women, openly scowling at Sakura.
Tension built within Sakura at the sight before her even though the kunoichi portrayed a calm front. While it appeared that this was no ambush, this scenario could go very poorly if allowed to escalate.
"Lady Akane!" Nobu yelled in greeting, a wide smile spread across his lips.
"Nobu?" the red head questioned, her face pinched in confusion as her sharp eyes flicked between Sakura and the male.
"I've succeeded in my journey!" the blond man cheered as he ran forward to greet the stern faced woman, "I have returned with The Angel of Kiso and she's agreed to help Nozomi!"
"The Angel of Kiso? A lofty title and a false one, I'm sure," Akane scoffed before leveling Sakura with a venomous glare, "How can we trust some stranger you picked up off of the street?"
"I can assure you that I'm not here to cause you any harm. I'm just here to help Nobu's sister," Sakura spoke, holding out her hands in a placating manner.
"It's true! I spoke to a few people in the villages I traveled to and they all told me about her kindness. While she may be the kunoichi Lady Sakura-" Akane shot Nobu an alarmed glance at that, finally breaking eye contact with Sakura, "-she is also a woman who performs miracles. She has even helped the destitute for nothing."
"You bring her here to our home?" Akane snarled, glancing at Sakura with an expression of panic, "Are you daft? She will kill us all!"
"I'm not here to cause trouble, I promise. If you've heard of me, you know that I've never hurt anyone who hasn't tried to hurt my friends. I'm only here to help," the medic tried, her patience quickly waning with the sensation of despair from losing her first patient still digging into the back of her mind.
"Oh? And what of the Taiyo and the Hogosha clans? You murdered them all in cold blood!" the fiery woman accused, taking a menacing step forward. The guards behind her tensed, falling farther into their defensive positions, weapons still raised.
"I was dragged into that fight! I wanted nothing to do with them and they attacked me when I was passing through!" Sakura finally snapped, returning Akane's glare.
"Lady Akane, please! She has agreed to help us. Would you let my sister die just because you don't trust Lady Sakura? If she is as powerful as you say, she could have easily attacked us already but she hasn't," Nobu argued, stepping between his kin and the medic defensively.
Akane scoffed loudly before staring at Sakura for a long, tense moment. She grimaced before sheathing her sword and glaring at the male. "The burden of our deaths falls upon you should she betray us, Nobu."
The blond relaxed considerably as the other guards sheathed their weapons and turned to enter the village without another word, the unconditional trust they held in the red head more than apparent. Akane remained, crossing her arms over her armored chest and glaring at the kunoichi, obviously staying to watch over her.
"Come with me, Lady Sakura. I'll take you to my sister," the man declared, waving her forward with a hopeful smile.
The woman who Sakura was taken to was without a doubt at death's door.
Even in unconsciousness, cold sweat ran down the blonde woman's face and her body trembled. Her cheeks were flushed, starkly contrasting against her sickly pale skin, and her breathing was uneven and labored. The medic could tell that, even though the woman's body was covered in a thick comforter, she was severely emaciated.
"Oh, gods, she is so much worse than I thought…" Nobu whispered in horror, dropping to his knees at his sister's side and grasping her clammy hand.
As Sakura knelt down beside the sickly blonde, Akane, who insisted on shadowing her every movement, eyed her warily with her hand resting on the hilt of her katana. Sakura ignored the red head as she gently pulled back the blanket and placed her glowing hands on the unconscious woman's stomach,
"How did this start?" Sakura questioned as she began her initial scan of her patient.
"She tripped and cut her hand on a fence... It seemed like nothing but, a week later, she became sick. It slowly got worse from there until she was unable to walk. Last time I saw her though, she was still awake…" Nobu explained in a low voice, his terrified expression shooting between the medic's glowing hands and Nozomi's face.
Sakura grimaced as her scan substantiated what Nobu had told her. This woman, Nozomi, had been inoculated with a bacteria which her body had been unable to fight off. The colony of invaders had grown and spread through her blood until it had become systemic.
It was a miracle she was still alive at all. It would take more than a miracle to bring her back.
"Nobu, I… I'll try my best to help her but… She has a severe infection that has progressed very far. I'm not sure if I can save her," Sakura informed bleakly, wincing at the broken look the man shot her.
She quickly looked away, forcing down the lump building in her throat.
"Please, I'm begging you... Do what you can to help my sister. She's the most precious person in the world to me and I-I don't… I don't know what I'd do without her…" the man begged, his trembling hands clutching Nozomi's limp hand.
Akane looked away from the scene before her, her expression twisted in misery and her hands fisting at her sides.
Sakura's eyebrows came together in concern as her eyes returned to the dying woman before her. Her mind flashed back to just the previous night when she had looked down upon Yoshima, unconscious and dying with her deceased child killing her from within. Her heart ached as she thought of the mourning mother and the sorrow the woman had felt at losing her baby.
Sakura thought of how ashamed she felt at not being able to help Yoshima save the life of her child. She thought of how much of a failure she felt for not being able to save the day for the first time in her life. She was a healer, a savior. She knew it was ridiculous to think that she could save every patient but...
She thought of how broken Nobu would be if he lost his sister.
Sakura knew it was ridiculous to think that she could save every patient but, Gods, she needed to try.
Her expression hardened with determination as she steeled her resolve. She wouldn't lose another patient. She couldn't...
"I'll do my best."
Five hours.
The procedure took five grueling hours. Sakura had almost lost Nozomi briefly during the heart of the healing but had just barely been able to bring her back from the brink.
She had spent the first couple hours tearing apart thousands of the microscopic bacteria, hoping that the woman's complement system would take advantage of the released antigens. She noticed when a few of her antigen presenting cells processed the dead bits of bacteria and began to interact with her T-cells, kick starting her immune system's reaction to the invaders.
Sakura nearly sighed with relief when she had noticed, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before Nozomi's body could fight off the infection on her own. With that part done, she began healing the damage already done to her internal organs and keeping her blood pressure stable.
Nobu had fallen asleep on the floor next to his sister, having refused to leave her side. Sakura allowed him to stay, but only if he remained quiet. He had been true to his word and remained silent even in sleep. The guard Akane, having apparently been satisfied with Sakura's lack of aggression, had retired from the room.
Hours later, Sakura felt as the numerous phagocytes she helped produce began to swarm the bacteria invading Nozomi's body. When they did, however, her inflammation reaction was so severe that her blood pressure plummeted from the sudden and intense vasodilation of her capillaries.
It was then that Sakura nearly lost her patient to shock. The medic had poured so much chakra into the woman's capillaries to calm the inflammation reaction that she considered activating the seal on her forehead to continue.
Nozomi's blood pressure had risen just in time to avert her death, something that had Sakura sighing in relief. She wiped the sweat from her brow before continuing onward. She wouldn't lose this patient. Death would have to appear in the flesh and fight her if he wanted to take Nozomi away.
Hours later, the warm bedroom long shrouded in the darkness of night, Sakura finally withdrew her hands and breathed deeply as victory coursed through her veins. She finally allowed herself to smile as her eyes fell upon Nozomi, now breathing evenly with a healthy flush to her skin.
As Sakura sat there, exhaustion weighing her down, she absentmindedly pondered the creation of a new jutsu. One that would put her patient in a kind of stasis to allow her to work on them without them actively dying. One that could avert a situation like this from even happening again.
As she considered how she would go about creating such a jutsu, and what seals she would need to bind her patient to in order to accomplish it, Nobu stirred. He sat up abruptly, his eyes falling upon his still unconscious sister.
"Lady Sakura… Is-is she…?" he began, his urgent gaze not leaving his peacefully sleeping sister's face.
Sakura nodded , exhausted, as she smiled at him. "She'll recover."
Nobu's face twisted as he attempted to control the tears that built in his eyes. He fisted his hands around the fabric of his pants as he folded over, attempting to hide his sudden and harsh sobs. He wiped the tears now streaming down his face with the palms of his hands.
His gaze finally reached hers and, even through his tears, he cried, "Thank you… Thank you, Lady Sakura. Thank you so-so much…"
"No… bu…" a soft, feminine voice whispered from below them, "Why are you crying…?"
Nobu and Sakura's gaze shot to the blonde lying down on the bedroll, having been awoken by the sound of her brother's sobbing. While she looked unbelievably exhausted, she was cognisant.
"Nozomi…?" the male muttered brokenly, staring at his now conscious sister in awe, tears still slipping down his cheeks.
Nozomi smiled wearily in response and Nobu collapsed upon her, wrapping her up in his arms. "You're awake… Thank the gods, you're awake…"
Sakura took this as her cue to leave, standing and quietly exiting the room to give the siblings their privacy.
As she gently closed the fusuma behind her and walked out into the moonlight, Akane strode up to her. The redhead harshly glared at Sakura for a long moment, her body as taut as a bow string, before her expression reluctantly softened into one resembling respect.
Sakura was shocked when the woman held out her hand and she smiled widely as she shook it.
When Nozomi had fully awakened later that night and after she had eaten her first meal in weeks, Sakura was called back into her room. The woman remained in her futon but sat up fully, a healthy glow to her face that was only brightened by her smile. Nobu, who wore a overjoyed grin that he just couldn't shake, immediately introduced the two.
"Sister. This is Lady Sakura, the woman who saved your life," Nobu introduced, the young woman smiling and nodding in greeting, "And Lady Sakura. This is Nozomi Nakano. She's my sister and the leader of our family."
"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Lady Nozomi," Sakura greeted with a respectful bow.
"Please, no pleasantries. You undoubtedly saved my life. Just call me Nozomi," the blonde laughed, smiling warmly.
Sakura couldn't help but smile in return, already knowing that she would like this woman. "Of course, Nozomi. And please, call me Sakura. I'm glad to see you're doing well."
"All thanks to you. Now, as for your payment. I was told that my brother offered quite a reward for your help, but I would like to offer you something more. You must be exhausted from carrying my brother this whole way..." Nobu grimaced in embarrassment, drawing a wider grin from Nozomi. "And from working on me for so long. I would like to offer you a room in my home so that you may rest and so we may provide you with a warm bath and some food."
"That sounds amazing. Thank you for your offer," Sakura returned, overjoyed at the prospect of rest and some good food.
"Wonderful. I'll let you get your rest then. We'll speak tomorrow. Nobu? Would you be so kind as to show her to our guest rooms?"
"It would be my pleasure," Nobu chirped with an overjoyed grin stretched across his face as he immediately shot to his feet.
Akane, despite having been spying on the kunoichi healing Nozomi for most of the night, refused to abandon her duties as the guard captain and refused to allow her family to be put in danger. She walked her route along the perimeter of her town, diligently looking out for any trouble that may come along in the village's weakened state.
After being taken in by the Nakano family following her defection from the Uzumaki clan, Akane would do anything to protect her new family. Even if that promise now left her feeling a deep sense of guilt. It had been her decisions that had nearly lead to Nozomi's death. If it hadn't been for Nobu, she would have been lost...
She had thought she had done the right thing by demanding Nobu stay in the village, by ordering him to not seek out help for Nozomi when it had become apparent she was becoming gravely ill. The order had broken her heart, the runaway Uzumaki having wanted to do anything to save the life of her lady. The life of the woman she loved.
Akane knew how shinobi worked while Nobu did not. She knew what they were capable of after spending her childhood being raised by the Uzumaki. Even now, so many years later, she still had nightmares. Nightmares of the feeling of warm blood on her hands, the sounds of the dying, the smell of the remants of massacres, the strench of rot and death burned into her mind forever.
Shinobi were monsters. They could scent blood in the air like animals on the hunt and she had thought that, if anyone caught wind of the Nakano family being weakened due to Nobu's frantic search for a doctor, that the wolves would be at their door. So Akane had tried to prevent Nobu from leaving the village.
She thought that Nozomi would want it this way, that she would want to keep her illness a secret to keep her family safe. Akane had gone against what she wanted, disregarded what her own heart begged for, and had ordered Nobu to stay.
When he had disappeared in the dead of night, she had warred with herself. Part of her was furious that Nobu had disregarded her warnings and her knowledge of shinobi to instead go on his desperate search. She was livid that he was willing to put every member of his family in danger, especially his own, for his gamble. More than anything, however, she prayed he would come home with help.
Even though her prayers had come true, Akane had been horrified when Nobu had returned with a kunoichi in tow. After all of her suffering at the hands of ninja, she had never thought that a kunoichi would be the one to save Nozomi's life. Even more, she never imagined that a kunoichi would earn her respect.
Akane allowed herself a smile as she continued on her patrol only for her expression of joy to be interrupted by the harsh cry of a messenger hawk above her. Her gaze snapped up to the sky, quickly spotting the erratically flying bird, and she released a piercing whistle, calling it to her.
The bird plummeted from the sky, correcting it's descent just in time to perch on Akane's armored forearm. The red head's eyes widened as she noticed that the hawk was injured and that the piece of paper wrapped around its leg was splattered with blood.
She removed the note from the hawk's offered leg and quickly read it through, her eyes widening in alarm at it's contents. She held up her arm, the hawk taking the cue and flying off to it's perch at the village's aviary, before Akane took off running to her lady's room.
The red head briskly knocked on the door and was greeted with Nozomi's comforting voice calling her fourth. She opened the sliding door and entered, immediately falling to one knee at her leader's bedside.
"Akane? What's wrong?" Nozomi asked, her expression pinched in concern.
"We have trouble. I just received word from one of our scouts in the forest. The Senju are mobilizing outside of our borders, preparing for an attack. They have more than likely been hired by our rivals," she informed quickly, watching as Nozomi's eyes widened with the information.
Akane watched, silently amazed by her strength, as Nozomi's expression hardened with determination and as she threw off her blankets. She shakily stood from her bed and approached her desk, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen to jolt down a note. She returned to Akane, handing her the still drying letter.
"Please go to the aviary and send this note to the Uchiha. Use our fastest messenger hawk. We have little time if those curs hired the Senju," the blonde explained.
"Right away," Akane replied as she reached out to take the letter from Nozomi's hands, her heart beginning to race as she thought of the battle that waited her.
She should have never allowed Nobu to leave. She should have done anything to keep him for revealing to the world how weak they were. She could have prevented this. It was her fault that they were going to be attacked. It was her selfishness that would lead to their deaths at the hands of the Senju, a clan even more depraved than her own blood.
The wolves were coming and there was nothing she could do to stop them.
Akane started in surprise when Nozomi placed her soft hand over hers, her eyes snapping up to meet the warm gaze of the Nakano matriarch.
"Breathe, Akane," Nozomi whispered with a smile, her thumb brushing across the back of her hand in soothing circles, "Everything will be okay."
Akane felt as her anxiety began to ebb in the face of her gentle words. She paused, obeying her matriarch and dropping her head. She took a deep breath, allowing her thoughts to slow in their frantic racing and for her heart to calm in it's thunderous beating in her chest.
When her gaze returned to Nozomi, Akane was finally able to return her smile. "It will be okay."
The Uchiha clan leader donned his armor with practiced ease, strapping the layered, red leather dou, kusazuri, and sode over his high collared, long sleeved shirt in preparation for the nighttime battle that would soon ensue.
He could hear his strike force gathering outside, the footsteps of a dozen men and women being the only sound so late at night.
The Uchiha had received an urgent message from the Nakano family, a wealthy family of merchants, late that night. His clan had been hired by the merchant family a handful of times, usually for bodyguard missions and assaults on their rival's holdings, but apparently the Nakano's rival family had finally gathered the funds to hire the Uchiha's sworn enemy: the Senju.
The Nakano paid well and always held up their end of their arrangements, so the loss of their small village would be a loss of a good customer.
Although he, and undoubtedly his brother, was excited to test his mettle against his enemies, he was concerned for the other members of his family which would be coming along. Most were young and fairly new to the battlefield as more than a dozen of his more hardened family members had been struck down in the battle at Biei just a few months prior. Even more had been crippled, some deigning to take their own lives rather than be demoted to a life of service outside of combat, the blow to their honor too severe to bear.
Not just that but two of the more skilled shinobi in his family, two siblings around his own age, had been badly poisoned during an assassination mission gone wrong. Even now, they suffered. Their clan produced no healers and the minimal first aid that they knew was nowhere near enough to tend to an ail as complex as the poison his family members were struggling against.
Without a doubt, they would be dead come morning.
The thought of losing more of his family members to protect another family with which the only tie they shared was payment sat poorly with him.
Shrugging off his concern and strengthening his resolve, Madara secured his gunbai and kama to his back and strode out to meet those already gathered.
He nodded to Izuna who was already waiting outside, his sharingan eyes sharp in the moonlight. They shared a moment of silent communication before his younger brother nodded in return and the entire strike force, made up of a dozen Uchiha, took to the trees surrounding the outskirts of their village.
They had to hurry.
Sakura was startled awake by the sounds of yelling.
Her eyes shot open immediately, alarmed by the panicked voices shouting nearby. As she absorbed her surroundings, shaking off the fogginess of sleep, she realized that it was the dead of night. The only light that entered her room was the soft glow of the waning moon drifting in through the ranma lining the tops of the walls.
As the urgent voices reached her ears once again, she bolted to her feet and threw on the crimson winter kimono she had worn the day before. She dragged her socks and sandals onto her feet and jammed her storage scroll into her obi before bolting out the door. When she entered the frigid night air, three guards she didn't recognize sprinted passed her.
The Sakura's eyes narrowed in suspicion and she immediately followed, disconcerted by whatever had the armored men and women in such a panic.
"Come on, we have to hurry! They're already here!" one of the guards yelled as she sprinted towards the perimeter of the village.
As Sakura was trailing behind them on silent feet, she had a front row seat of the armored guards being skewered by a sudden and powerful earth jutsu which shot spikes of stone.
When the jutsu passed by her, missing her by just a few feet and taking the now dead guards with it, a burst of adrenaline flooded her system. As time slowed down around her, her gaze slowly turned towards the source of the jutsu, a stone faced brunet with his palms pressed flat onto the ground.
Sakura acted without thinking, overcome with rage at the senseless death of the family of the people she now thought of as friends. Forcing chakra into her feet, she leapt in a high arc, descending upon the man with an scream of unbridled fury.
The shinobi had just enough time to shoot to his feet and prepare to block her strike when she landed on him. In the face of her chakra fueled axe kick, his guard crumpled like wet paper. She followed through with her strike, her foot slamming through the man in an explosion of gore, before connecting with the earth beneath him in a riotous explosion of rock and dirt.
The ground beneath her burst open with a resounding boom, massive hunks of earth, grass, and stone exploding all around her. As rocks and dirt rained down from above, Sakura caught sight of a woman, similar in appearance to the man she had just killed, rocket forward in an attempt to skewer her with her tanto.
Sakura raised her hands to parry the stranger's blow, flooding her palm with chakra so the woman's blade wouldn't slice open her hand. The stranger hadn't been expecting her strategy of smoothly deflecting the blade with her hand, and ran into her oncoming fist.
Her punch, made even more deadly by her fury, landed square in the brunette's chest. She felt her sternum shatter under her strike and followed through, launching her body outwards into the field surrounding the village. Her corpse tumbled, boneless, along the ground before skidding to a halt.
Before Sakura could even absorb what had happened in the past five seconds, three unknown shinobi were upon her. She leapt out of the way of their harmonized strike just in time. The group adjusted perfectly for her dodge, rapidly sprinting towards where she was going to land.
The second the medic landed, she spun and kicked one of the boulders that had been unearthed by her earlier strike, rocketing it towards the oncoming group. While two of the shinobi dodged her attack by a thin margin, the third was caught head on by the rapidly oncoming hunk of rock. He was immediately crushed beneath the makeshift weapon, a violent burst of red exploding from beneath the stone.
The two remaining shinobi were upon her with a rapidness she hadn't seen since the last time she sparred with Kakashi. She dodged their blows by a hair but had no time between their flawlessly executed strikes to get in a hit of her own.
She backflipped out of the way of their synchronized slices and, as she was upside down, caught sight of two more enemy shinobi coming at her from behind. She filled her feet with chakra and when they hit the ground at the end of her backflip, the earth once again exploded under her strength. The tremor and the violently shifting ground that resulted from her move threw her opponents off just enough for her to rocket forward, landing a deadly kick against one enemy kunoichi which launched her across the field.
Sakura's three remaining opponents stayed back this time, keeping their distance from her. They studied her movements critically as they circled around her like a pack of wolves.
It was then that Sakura caught sight of something that stole the breath from her lungs. Having finally slowed down enough to fully observe her opponents, she noticed the moonlight glint across the armor one of the women wore.
Branded into her metal chest plate, right above her heart, was the Senju clan crest.
In her distracted state, she failed to notice the chakra signatures of two more shinobi in the ground beneath her. They emerged in a burst of dirt, their swords already raised.
The feeling of being impaled in the midsection from two different directions was one of the oddest sensations of Sakura's life. The tugging sensation was immediate but, in her shock, the pain took a millisecond to grab hold. When it did, however, the agony was excruciating.
She cried out as the two shinobi who had emerged from the ground buried their katanas to their hilts in her abdomen. They released the blades as they both whipped passed her, joining the group of three who surrounded her.
Sakura immediately collapsed to her knees, drawing in a ragged breath as the shock of having been skewered took hold. She heard one of the men chuckle as he moved in to land a final blow on her, his steps slow and measured.
"Didn't take as much as I thought to take down the infamous Lady Sakura…" he taunted, closing in on her.
"I'm not done yet," Sakura hissed through her teeth as the Senju stopped before her, raising his katana into the air to deliver a killing blow.
"From where I'm standing-" was all her opponent got out before Sakura released the seal on her forehead.
The sudden access to the reservoir of chakra she had built up felt like a fresh burst of adrenaline. The flood of unbridled energy which poured into her was erratic and overwhelming due to her activating her seal before it was complete but she knew she had no other choice. The explosion of power which burned through her veins was everything she needed to defend herself.
Before the thick black lines which ran down her face even reached her neck, her fist shot out and connected with the man's exposed middle. The explosion of gore that burst forth from her striking at his fleshy middle coated the ground behind him. She had put too much strength into that punch, her fist shooting through his body and out the other side without moving him in the slightest.
The pain of jostling the blades buried deep in her abdomen was hellish and dragged a whimper from her lips but she had to make the strike before he finished her. As his body fell to the ground, her trembling fist making a wet squelching noise as it was pulled free from his chest, the black tendrils finished their path to the ends of her limbs.
With a cry of agony, Sakura slammed her hands together, forming the tiger seal.
"Creation Rebirth!" she howled, the pain from her midsection immediately washing away as her cells multiplied and repaired themselves around the blades. She still felt a dull tugging sensation, the two katana still buried inside of her midsection, but she ignored it.
As her remaining opponents leapt back and dropped into defensive stances, she flew through a string of handsigns and ran her thumb across her stab wound, gathering some of her own blood. She slammed her palm into the ground below her.
"Summoning Jutsu!" Sakura screamed, a seal of concentric circles depicting kanji erupting on the ground around her hand.
A great burst of smoke erupted around her, obscuring her and the summon she had called forth in the immense smokescreen.
Tora, the gargantuan tigress, shot out from the smoke with a booming roar that thundered across the battlefield like the crack from a bolt of lightning. She ate up the space between Sakura and one of the kunoichi across the field in an instant. She batted the started Senju, the woman tearing to bits instantly as Tora's claws ripped through her like rice paper. Her blood, flesh, and viscera coated a thirty foot stretch of land.
The other shinobi had little time to react before Tora was on to the next ninja, tearing her claws through him in the same way as the first, her vicious snarls ripping through the air. The two remaining shinobi drew back immediately, already weaving hand signs for jutsu to defend themselves from the boss summon before them.
Sakura stood tall as the massive tiger pounced upon one of the Senju just before he got off his jutsu. The man was crushed beneath her paws, the ground trembling so violently under her weight that the other shinobi lost control of her own jutsu.
The remaining opponent released a lightning bolt that missed Tora by a hair. Instead of the tiger descending upon the jutsu user, however, she shot out into the forest. Trees bent and snapped as she ran, following some unknown lead.
Sakura used the chaos to charge at the remaining kunoichi who had used the lightning jutsu. The tidal wave of chakra that rushed from her seal allowed her to move exponentially quicker than in her normal state, even with the swords still trapped in her body, and she was upon her enemy immediately.
True to the nature of the jutsu she had just used, the woman was as fast as lightning. The Senju dodged her deadly blows, having learned from watching her that even a single one of her strikes spelled death. With Sakura's increased speed, however, she was able to prevent the brunette from weaving hand signs.
Tiring of her lack of connection, Sakura stomped the ground beneath her. The earth exploded outward, making the woman lose her footing on the shifting ground. She shot forward, taking advantage of her imbalance, to land a punch across her face.
The woman's skull disseminated under the force of Sakura's blow, gore splattering the ground behind her foe. The brunette's corpse tumbled backwards before slamming into a distant tree, her limbs splayed out unnaturally.
With shouts of alarm, five more Senju burst from the forest. Tora, hot on their tails, herded them towards Sakura, refusing to allow them to retreat. Any time one tried to enter the forest once again, presumably to flee, the tiger was upon them and forcing them back into the clearing with a resounding snarl that reverberated in Sakura's chest.
While the feline summons batted at the Senju flitting around her, letting loose vicious growls and intimidating roars as she did, Sakura sprinted to the nearby treeline.
One of the enemy kunoichi was able to let loose a powerful water jutsu which shot bullets of water towards Tora. The massive summons leapt out of the way of the majority of the jutsu but snarled as a few of the water bullets pierced her leg. She landed roughly with her injured limb, a harsh tremor running through the ground.
Four of the five remaining Senju rushed forward to land a finishing blow on the injured feline. They leapt high into the air as they weaved their hand signs, only for two of them to immediately be struck to the ground by a oak tree which rocketed through the air, thrown by a furious Sakura.
Sakura, already armed with another oak tree, poured chakra into her feet and shot into the air with a burst of speed to meet the other airborne ninja.
One of the men shot her a terrified look even as he finished his jutsu, letting loose a burst of flames which engulfed both Sakura and her tree.
Sakura emerged from the other side of the flames, as unphased by his jutsu as she was by the blades still piercing her stomach, and batted him with the flaming tree she still had clutched in her hands. The man shot towards the ground at an unbelievable speed and hit the earth with a dramatic splatter.
The other airborne shinobi continued with his assault on Tora, releasing a wind jutsu that Sakura suspected was meant to feed the other shinobi's fire jutsu. Tora, however, overpowered the cutting gale to slice the wind user with her claws. The man was cut in half by the her strike midair, gore raining down upon the battlefield.
Sakura landed gracefully, tossing the burning tree to the side carelessly and quickly patting out the flames scorching her ruined kimono. She looked back to Tora, checking to make sure she was okay, before looking towards the final Senju, the one who had used the water jutsu, just as she finished a summoning jutsu of her own.
From the concealing smoke rushed a brown bear, nearly as large as Sakura's own summons. It barreled into Tora, knocking her to the ground briefly before she rapidly rolled over and they engaged in brutal combat. They both came up onto their hind legs, slicing each other with their claws as their thunderous roars shook the air. When their front paws hit the ground in between strikes, tremors rattled the earth.
Sakura rocketed forward to attack the Senju who had summoned the bear. The woman, as if anticipating her attack, disappeared beneath the ground. Sakura, ready to finish this fight, immediately stomped the ground on top of the spot she had disappeared from. Her chakra enhanced kick formed a monstrous crater than spanned a hundred yards. The ground crushed down, compressing the earth the Senju had hid in so quickly that there was no way she had survived the pressure.
Tora, far more powerful than even the great bear that had been summoned, made quick work of the opposing summon. With a harsh bat of her claws, one so incredible that Sakura could feel the blow reverberate through the air like an explosion, the tiger put an end to the bear she battled. The summoned creature disappeared with a cry of agony and a great burst of smoke.
As she stood tall, her sharp eyes scanning the battlefield, she heard a wet, hacking cough and turned to face the noise. She noticed that one of the men who she had knocked out of the sky with the tree still lived, even though he clutched his bloody, crushed chest with a clearly broken arm.
Sakura leapt out of the crater and strode confidently, even with the swords still embedded in her abdomen, towards the undoubtedly dying man lying prone on the battlefield. Tora, growling deeply, prowling to flank her summoner and knowing that Sakura was to make the final kill.
The other members of Madara and Izuna's strike force had nearly been knocked off their feet multiple times by the earthquakes that rocked the ground beneath their feet.
Madara could hear what sounded like roars in the distance and had quickened his pace towards the Nakano village. As he approached, the sounds of a battle already being waged met his ears. He scowled, wondering if they were too late.
It was the sudden silence that followed the chaos, however, that concerned him most of all.
The group emerged from the trees which surrounded the village to come across a scene which shocked them all. The elder Uchiha came to an immediate stop on the outskirts of the clearing and gazed out at the battlefield before him, a sight made especially crisp by his Sharingan.
The scene laid out before Madara was one of absolute carnage. He had seen carnage many times in his life; he had been the cause of it for the majority of those times. This battlefield, however, was a completely different kind of destruction than he was used to. Instead of fire razing everything in it's path, the heat and chaos being something he was not only familiar with but reveled in, it appeared as if a great calamity had struck this place. The field was decimated.
Barely recognizable corpses of Senju littered the clearing, their crushed and tattered forms carelessly tossed about like ragdolls. Blood and viscera bloomed around the bodies and in dramatic splashes across the entire field.
The ground was completely upheavaled, massive fissures large enough to swallow a man spider webbing across the field and craters scarring the ground. Boulders were strewn about as if harvested from the earth itself, one leaking crimson from beneath its massive weight.
Trees as wide as he was tall had been uprooted from the ground and carelessly tossed aside, their roots still clinging to the dirt they had held onto since they were saplings. One was decorated with dark splotches which shined in the light from the waning moon while another was charred black.
At the center of it all stood the most otherworldly woman Madara had ever seen in his life, flanked by a summoned tiger taller than the forest surrounding them.
The woman was the only one still standing on the field, her vicious presence and flood of chakra a beacon drawing in the entirety of his attention. Time stood still as he took in her brilliant stance, menacingly hovering over the last remaining Senju with her fist raised high and her face the picture of rage. Even with her body splattered with blood, her dainty fists completely coated with gore, and two swords protruding from her abdomen, she looked mythical. Like a spirit of battle sent from the other side. Like a goddess of war.
Abruptly, her fist came down. The blow she leveled on her prone enemy resulted in an explosion of gore and produced an explosion which rained dirt and stone upon the battlefield. He felt the shockwave from her blow from where he stood some distance away, rattling him down to his bones.
When her eyes shot up to his, her viridian orbs radiating her fury, Madara's jaw relaxed in surprise. From here he could see thick black lines running from the center of her forehead and down her blood splattered face, framing her intense eyes. The killing intent coming off of her was palpable and it was obvious that if she deemed them a threat, she would attack them with the same viciousness she had treated the broken corpse at her feet with.
Her eyes bored into him without any trace of fear as she removed her fist from the man's chest cavity with a wet squelch. Her intense stare, and the destruction that surrounded her, had Madara's heart racing.
She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
The kunoichi kept her keen eyes on them even as she stood to her full height and pulled out the swords piercing her abdomen with nary a wince. He, and the rest of his platoon, watched in muted awe as her torn skin knitted itself back together, a trail of steam emerging from her wound before it sealed. She dropped the blood soaked blades to the ground like trash, the weapons making a muted clang as they hit the dirt.
The overwhelmingly massive tiger which stood behind her protectively waited for her order, it's deep, warning growl reverberating through the air and rattling in his chest.
Madara had never found himself so enthralled by a woman before in his life.
Here she was… A pink haired woman, who probably wouldn't even come up to his collarbone if they stood face to face, who had single-handedly demolished a strike force of at least a dozen Senju.
A woman dressed in a crimson winter kimono who stood in the center of a battlefield that she had destroyed with her own two, deceptively delicate looking hands. A woman who had not only survived two fatal wounds to the abdomen, but who had healed them instantly after removing the blades from herself without batting an eye. A woman who counted one of the most threatening summoned animals he had ever seen in his life as her ally.
A woman who stared into his eyes unflinchingly, her gore soaked fists raised defensively, fully prepared to kill him should she decide he was a threat...
The Uchiha clan leader knew he should say something to calm her but struggled to find the words for a long moment. He was overwhelmed by her presence and her gaze, his mind coming up with nothing but the thought that she was so unbelievably, undeniably, violently beautiful.
Madara felt rather than saw Izuna's gaze on him and it was under that prompting that that he found his voice. Despite his inner thoughts and feeling oddly as if he was addressing a goddess of war instead of a strange, bloodied woman, his voice was still authoritative and strong.
"We were called upon to defend this village but it appears our assistance was unneeded."
A/N: Akane means "brilliant red", due to her hair. Nozomi means "faith" which goes along with her brother Nobu's name which means "hope". After Akane fled the Uzumaki and came across the Nakano village when she was still very young, her and Nozomi became very close and eventually became lovers.
A tanto is basically a dagger. A dou is a chest plate made up of iron and or leather plates of various sizes and shapes. Kusazuri are made from iron or leather plates hanging from the front and back of the dou (dō) to protect the lower body and upper leg. Sode are large rectangular shoulder protection made from iron and or leather plates. These are the names of the main pieces that make up Madara's (and Hashirama's and Tobirama's) armor.