"Commander this is an S-rank mission." Sakura said, bursting into the man's office and brandishing the scroll she'd just been handed.
"I am aware." The man deadpanned, not looking up from the paperwork he was signing.
"With all due respect, commander, I am nowhere near ready for an S-rank mission."
"Sparrow." The man said, leaning forward to lock beady black eye holes with beady black eye holes. "You were assigned that mission due to your specific skillset. Yes, the mission is S-rank, but that is due to the location and level of infiltration and stealth required, both aspects you excel at. I would not have signed off on the order if I did not think you capable."
The confidence in the man's voice made her straighten subconsciously.
"Understood, commander!" She said heading out the door.
Just before Sakura closed it she heard a mumbled "Of course our usual specialist is in hospital and everyone else is out of the village."
After a week long crash course in accent training (a Yamanaka jutsu could give her consonants the softened sound typical of regional areas in Lightning, but she needed training to mimic the typical word choice common to such areas) Sakura headed for the land of Lightning. She travelled non-stop until she hit the shore of the Land of Hot Water, at which point she changed and left behind everything shinobi-related but a single, very (very) well hidden storage scroll.
Dressed in a basic, hardy kimono typical of rural communities, with her features changed (black hair, brown eyes and coffee coloured skin) and carrying a small sack with extra changes of clothes and civilian travelling rations; Sakura activated full stealth and headed across the water, intending to skip the Land of Frost and arrive in Lightning near a small fishing village.
Once in Lightning she moved entirely at civilian pace, taking three days to reach the Northern coastline- quicker than she'd expected as she was able to hitch a ride on a wagon with a gullible old couple- and settled into a cheap inn for the week.
The festival started the next day and would last for five, Sakura's mission was to kill her target- the Leader of the town- as he made a speech on the fourth night. Until then, she was nothing more than a country civilian, enjoying the wonder of such a large, cliffside port town.
Unsurprisingly, it was extremely boring.
Sakura spent her days walking the town, making friendly with some locals and generally spreading her fake backstory. Her nights were spent enjoying the festival, a bright, loud affair that gave her a headache after a half hour but she had to continue playing her role for far longer. She often went to bed queasy and woke up feeling hungover. She would have to figure out some way around that when she got home.
It was on the third night of the festival that everything started going to shit. There were plenty of Kumo shinobi around the town, acting as security for the high profile festival, but with her chakra imitating an untrained system and acting suitably civilian Sakura didn't garner any suspicion. It was almost certainly why she had been chosen for the mission, unlike other shinobi she had the ability to blend in essentially anywhere on the fly. She didn't require expensive, complex seals to hide her signature and as such her infiltration missions were far more flexible.
Of course, she also couldn't act at all like a shinobi, so when a pair of civilian hands dragged her into a darkened alleyway, one clamped over her mouth to muffle her screams, she had to let it happen. She struggled, of course, but there was only so much she could do without blowing her cover.
Against the three large, leering men surrounding her in the dark the civilian Sakura was impersonating had less than zero chance of getting away. One of them pushed her wrist against a wall and they all began taunting her. A hand pushed her kimono aside to rub at her admittedly meagre chest. She put on a good show of shaking and screaming in fear, though the hand clamped on her mouth muffled it.
Internally, she sighed in mild annoyance. Her mind whirling as she tried to figure out what to do.
Not only did she not particularly want to get raped, but she couldn't get raped without likely blowing her cover. Currently in her vaginal cavity was a specifically designed scroll the size of a pinky finger within which was sealed the gear she required for tomorrow night. She could kawarimi without detection but there was a high chance the group would report a 'civilian' that randomly disappeared before their eyes. She wasn't competent enough at genjutsu to use it without spiking her chakra, which would alert any nearby Kumo shinobi, and making a clone to switch places with would create a similar problem.
Her only real choice was to 'miraculously' escape, lure them to somewhere less populated and take them down with taijutsu.
She shifted her weight and opened her mouth under the hand covering it, preparing to bite.
She didn't need to, the men were ripped away and knocked unconscious with the unmistakable speed of a shinobi.
Sakura stared and backed up against the wall, holding her kimono closed in a white knuckle grip and swirling her chakra behind her eyes to create tears. They rolled down her face in molten hot tracks, blurring her vision as her breathing stuttered. A very angry looking Kumo shinobi stood in the middle of the pile, staring down at the men with an expression of distaste.
"Th-th-thank you, shi-hinobi-san." Sakura stuttered out between sobs, sinking into a crouch and pressing her face into her hands. A hand fell onto her shoulder and rubbed soothing circles. Sakura wanted to burn it off.
"It's alright, you'll be fine, they're gone now." The shinobi murmured under his breath and she made a show of collecting herself, wiping away the tears and snot and drawing herself back up to standing.
"Thank you." She said, bowing to the teenager. "I-I will head back now."
"I'll walk you there, make sure you get back alright." He said and she swore internally. "Where are you staying?"
"The cool rock inn, and that's not necessary shinobi-san, you've already helped more than enough." She said, already walking in the inn's direction.
"Call me Omoi." He replied, falling into step with her. "And I could hardly let a pretty girl like you walk through the dark, I mean what if in your distress you tripped on a banner, knocking over a vender and setting off a cascade of falling buildings that caused the cliff to collapse and sent the whole town into the sea." The man looked more and more panicked as he talked and Sakura's brow furrowed.
Wh-what?
"I… see." She replied but the teen didn't even seem to hear her, instead launching straight into describing another ridiculous train of 'possible' events.
This continued the entire way back to the inn. It wasn't far, just a few streets from the festival- hence why she was staying there- but it was far enough and the theories were insane enough that her head felt like it was spinning by the end of it.
"Thank you for taking care of me, shinobi-san." Sakura said, sinking into a bow, at the building's door, cutting off a rant about how the rise of wheat prices could bring about the total collapse of the economy and lead to the world reverting back to the warring era politics. "I owe you a debt." When she raised herself back to standing he was rubbing bashfully at the back of his head and blushing.
Oh no.
"Stay safe." The teen said before abruptly disappearing. Sakura faked a civilian style jolt of surprise before hurrying into the inn and up to her room.
She had a terrible, terrible feeling about this.
When Sakura left the inn the next morning, intending to buy something from the docks for breakfast, the Kumo shinobi jumped off the building's roof and landed next to her. She 'startled' and pressed a hand over her chest.
"You… returned." She said and he smiled.
"I realised I never got your name!" He cheerily stated, running a hand through his hair and strolling next to her. "What if the depth of my rudeness caused you to fall into a depression and commit suicide?!"
"It's Aiko." She deadpanned. "And I can assure you that would never happen."
"But it could have!" He protested. "I couldn't just leave you to die!"
"You have very a strange way of thinking, shinobi-san." She gave her best, fuck-off eye smile in her repertoire. The teen did not seem at all deterred.
"You know my name, Aiko-chan!"
"'M afraid I forgot shinobi-san."
"It's Omoi! Omoi!"
"Not a very fitting name for an idiot."
"Yeah it's- HEY!"
Sakura smiled at the food vender and took the pair of boxes. She shoved one into the chest of the shinobi and he took it automatically. "Now we're even, shinobi-san. Please stop bothering me." She said with her cheeriest smile and girliest voice.
"A box of fish isn't equivalent for saving your life!"
"Then what do you want in return, shinobi-san?"
"A date." He said with a 'charming' smile. It took effort to hold down the victorious smirk and instead glower at the fool. This smelt like an opportunity.
"Let me get this straight." Her tone was poisonous and the shinobi's face fell. "You save a girl from getting taken advantage of, and you use that fact to take advantage of her and force her on a date with you?"
"Wait no, I-I didn't"
"That's disgusting, yah pervert!" Sakura stormed off, ignoring the horrified expression on the shinobi's face, breathing a sigh of relief when he didn't follow her.
Hopefully that would be the last she saw of the teen.
(It was not)
Sakura spent the rest of the day preparing for the kill. She met up with one of her summons inside a small park, feeding it caterpillars in exchange for a viable location. Then, she headed to the location, an abandoned building, taking the risk to activate her transparency jutsu and slip through an open window.
There she pulled out the scroll, unsealing the contents and laying them out.
A bucket of water, a change of clothes, a naginata, a red oni mask, her chokutō and four paper tags. She set out the tags in the four cardinal directions around a small area of flooring. The seal went up with a tiny flicker of chakra, hopefully little enough to go unnoticed.
It was a fairly simple barrier but effective, working as a gentle notice-me-not on the area. Sakura, knowing the stuff was there and wanting to see it, was unaffected but anyone who just so happened to enter the abandoned building would find their senses just skipping over the space. It also had a mild chakra dampening affect, so when Sakura entered the space and formed a water clone- shaped to look how she would later that night- it shouldn't have been sensed. She left the gear laid out, slipped back out the window, and waited until she was a few blocks away to disable the transparency jutsu.
She spent the rest of the day in her room, well within range to maintain the water clone. That night, she dressed in one of her fancier, but still simple, kimonos. As would be expected of a civilian on the most important night of the festival.
The streets that night where strung with red paper lanterns. It bathed the entire scene in an eerie red glow. The complete lack of moon and haphazard distribution of the lanterns leaving harsh shadows that emphasised the often lopsided and cramped nature of the stalls lining the streets.
The streets themselves were packed. Couples competed in games for small prizes, drunken groups of men with the distinctive reek of fisherman hung out on every corner and children wearing oni masks of all manor of colours and shapes darted between people's legs. Where the previous nights had been lively, tonight was sheer, unadulterated chaos. The humidity of the air seemed to hum with the combined excitement of the townspeople.
A few hours into the night, an unfortunately familiar presence hoped off the roof and landed next to her. Sakura flinched and levelled a glare at the sheepish looking teen.
"I'm not here to bother you, I just wanted to apologise." He said and handed her a small pouch. Sakura hesitated for a half second before taking it. She was a civilian. He had no reason to try and kill her and she had no reason to display suspicions of tampering.
It was a brooch. With delicate gold wiring and strategically placed rubies, it was a beautiful piece. Sakura's frustrations rose exponentially, even as she made sure to look suitably awed. Something like this?
Extremely expensive.
So expensive that the country hick civilian Aiko would likely have never seen something so expensive in her life. So expensive that most shinobi wouldn't have been able to afford it, let alone splurge it on a girl they'd only known for a day. It could be that the Kumo shinobi just felt that bad for how he'd treated her but it was far more likely the shinobi was an extremely wealthy one, instead.
Almost definitely jōnin level, then. Shinobi-san was dangerous.
"It doesn't go with my kimono at all." She said and in a stroke of luck it really didn't, the green and the red clashed horrendously. She tucked it in an inside fold of her obi, out of site from the ensemble. "But I'll carry it with me."
"So, am I forgiven?" The teen said. Humour bubbled up Sakura's throat, making her fight down laughter as she breathed. It wasn't like she could say no. The shinobi had quite effectively cornered her, entirely inadvertently. Sakura's persona wouldn't, no couldn't, say no to a gesture as large as this one.
"I suppose so, Omoi-kun." She conceded and the teens entire face lit up in a smile.
"Oh, man, I was really worried you were going to tell everyone horrible things about me and then it would spread throughout the entirety of Lightning and even my family and friends would hate me and I'd just become a bum living in the streets!"
"…right. Shinobi-san." She said, inwardly despairing.
"Hey! Don't pretend you don't know my name after you just said it?"
"Your name? Was I told such a thing?"
"It's Omoi! Omoi!"
"Are you sure? It doesn't fit you at all."
"Hey!"
They wandered towards the centre of the festivities with the rest of the crowd, taking up a pace before the small stage that had been set up. Their bickering dying out to silence as dancers took the stage.
Sakura waited. The transition would be perfectly seamless, but she didn't want to take any risks. So she waited until the shinobi had become absorbed in the performance. His eyes stopping their constant scanning for entrances, exits, threats, and watching the dancer's movements with undisguised fascination.
An intensely careful twist of the practically nonexistent strong connecting her with her clone and her chakra caught. She abruptly found herself inside the warehouse and started stripping. A few efficient motions and she was dressed in unadorned black, her hair and skin changed to match. Her eyes went a bloody red as she settled the mask over her face, the weight of it a relief after spending so long in enemy territory exposed as she was. Her chokutō was strapped across her back and the naginata settled in one hand.
Everything else was sealed back into the tiny scroll and a series of hand signs later it was destroyed. Nothing left behind but a small pile of ash. No one really knew where sealed items went, though it was commonly accepted that the seals created some kind of pocket dimension, but there was no known way to get them back once the seal was destroyed. Burning the scroll was effectively burning the contents.
She wouldn't come back, after tonight there would be too much scrutiny to stay as Aiko. She would slip past the guards during the chaos caused by her kill.
Sakura activated the transparency jutsu and slipped out a window, taking to the rooftops. She took a position behind the stage and set the naginata down gently.
The town leader shuffled to the front, beginning the speech to an enraptured audience. Sakura raised one hand in a seal above her head as the other formed a seal over her heart.
The mist rolled in ever so slowly, looking natural at first until it gained more and more momentum. She heard the barked orders of the surrounding shinobi guard and she threw out a wall of killing intent, sending the crowd into a panic and massively reducing the enemy shinobi's ability to effectively work. She made the mist rapidly thicken until it was almost entirely opaque.
Her transparency jutsu still activated, Sakura picked up the naginata and streaked towards the stage, smashing the bladed tip through the heart of the leader and hefting the spear upwards, burying the butt into the wood. The mist dissipated. Her jutsu dropped.
The crowd had just enough time see the red of the mask and glowing red eyes behind it leering around the bleeding, suspended body of their leader before she'd shunshined away. She aimed for her maximum distance and slammed herself back into full stealth mode the moment her surroundings stopped blurring. Behind her she could hear the panicked cries of the crowd, the confused orders of the shinobi.
The client's request had been a touch melodramatic.
Then, she heard something that sent ice through her veins.
"Aiko-chan!" The Kumo shinobi crooned from behind her. Sakura abruptly realised that in her haste she hadn't noticed the clone melt into water. She hadn't stopped the jutsu. It had been popped. The teen caught up to her, latching onto the slight distortion in the surroundings that gave away her position and swiping at her with an abnormally long katana. Sakura rolled under the hit and kawarimi'd forward desperately. The man's eyes searched for a half second before landing on her, basically ignoring that she was all but was dangerous.
Sometimes she hated being right.
She growled and undid the jutsu. At this point it was just a worthless drain on her chakra. He laughed and sped towards her, catching up despite her best efforts.
"It was so rude to ditch me for a water clone!" He taunted and slashed with his sword. Sakura met it with the blade of her chokutō, slamming a kick into his ribs as she did and sending him flying.
She ran desperately, slipping past the village defences and into the mountains.
Just when she thought she'd lost him he launched from around a rock, streaking towards her side. She twisted and met blade with blade, slashing and ducking and dodging each hit even as the back of her mind sent out strings as far as her chakra would go.
"How did you even know?!" She demanded incredulously, panting from the speed of the fight.
"The brooch was infused with my chakra!" He replied, a delighted grin on his face. "I knew the moment the swap had happened."
His strikes were furiously strong, each time their blades met it sent shockwaves through her arms and sent pins and needles through the limbs. If she wasn't careful and blocked the wrong way they'd be dislocated.
"I went home and I started thinking what if she was an enemy shinobi, and the entire scene was just a show to get close to me and gain super secret Kumogakure information? So I infused my apology present and planned to use it track you after you assassinated my kage!"
But Sakura was faster. He slashed from above and she blocked it one handed, ignoring the strain from her arm as she slammed a palm into his stomach. She didn't have enough time to build up the chakra required to blow him to pieces, but the hit sent him flying.
Sakura kawarimi'd thrice, appearing over a kilometre away from where she'd been a moment ago and she ran, reactivating the transparency jutsu as she went.
The shinobi caught up to her just as she was hitting the Southern shoreline.
Sakura sprinted full pelt towards Kiri, rolling under a kick and jumping over the waves. He descended on her in a flurry of large, sweeping attacks and she jumped and ducked and rolled through them. She made it out to the open water before the katana caught the edge of her mask, ripping it off her face, and she was forced to block with her chokutō.
"Pretty and a talented kenjutsu user?" The shinobi said, smiling at her as he stabbed forwards and she twisted to slash at his wrists. "Where have you been all my life, Aiko-chan!"
She snarled and pumped chakra into her blade, twisting in waves of electric blue over the water and forcing the shinobi on the defensive. His expression was pure surprise but she ignored it, instead working on pushing forward in a dizzying barrage of attacks.
"You're an idiot."
His stance shifted and his own sword lit up with lighting. His movements dramatically increased speed.
Sakura panicked. She threw more and more chakra into the blade, trying to simply slice through the shinobi's own, until it was dripping around her arms in swirls of electric blue. Pulsing in and out of her skin. The muscles in her arms became stronger, their movements faster.
Her smile turned feral.
She slammed his katana up and slashed across his rib cage, leaving a bright line of red through his grey jacket. She followed the attack up with rushed a chakra boosted kick, sending him soaring, again, to the shoreline.
The wound unfortunately wouldn't be fatal, but it should stop him from following her at the very least.
She shunshined out to the water as far as she could, activated the transparency jutsu and ran towards Kiri until the land disappeared over the horizon, at which point she changed direction towards her stash in the Land of Hot Water, periodically dipping under the water and out again to erase her scent.
She arrived to a very (very) hefty pay check and a very relieved pat on the back from the commander.