Sakura yawns.
She should get going. She really should get going, before people start missing her. Like Hajime … who's busy watching the matches. Or her teammates, whom …
She frowns to herself, her mind feeling unusually fuzzy.
Her teammates, who ..?
Blonde hair and blue eyes flashes before her inner mind. Dark hair and eyes - so handsome. Silvery hair, like a gravity defying mop, and a masked face with only one visible eye.
Her teammates, who haven't missed her for a whole month.
Who she hasn't - but no. To say that she hasn't missed them at all would be a lie. She has missed them. Just not the constant arguing and fighting and bickering. She just -
Yawning again, Sakura stretches this time. Her muscles are tired. Probably from training last night. Hajime and Tomomi have been pushing her especially hard lately, and last night had basically turned into an all-against-Sakura game of tag. Which she'd lost, of course, but not without leading them on a merry chase around the training ground.
Maybe she should give herself a rest after all? Between work and training she's been working really hard the last few weeks, after all. She could just lie down on one of the empty beds and fall asleep for a little bit, not having to deal with teammates and family that doesn't want her.
That sounds really nice.
But Ino will kill her if she misses Shikamaru's match.
"I should get going," she says at last, suppressing another yawn and forcing herself back into the present. "Will you be alright?"
When she looks down at Hinata she notices, to her surprise, that the other girl has fallen asleep. Well, maybe it's not that strange. She must be tired after her match, after all, and the medic said that there was internal damage.
"Lee?"
Looking over she notices that he too is sleeping. Frowning, she stands. Something doesn't feel right about this. It's not strange for either of the other two to be sleeping; they are injured and in the infirmary for a reason after all. However, for them both to fall asleep within such a short timespan seems strange.
But they seem so peaceful, sleeping like that. Maybe she should lie down too? Just for a little bit-
No! some internal part of her shouts, startling her out of the trance. This isn't right! Something strange is going on!
"Kai!"
Her chakra flares, like a gust of fresh air in a closed room, and suddenly she can breathe easier. She takes a deep breath, noticing that her arms and legs feel noticeably lighter. When did they get heavier?
Then she realises that everything is quiet.
Too quiet.
Not just the noise of the arena muted by the thick, stone walls kind of silence.
Not the kind of silence that indicates that the Exams are over, that there has been a winner, and she has somehow lost track of time. .
This is an unnatural silence.
Sakura takes a deep breath, the sound seeming abnormally loud in the uncanny silence.
The hair on her arms stand on end. For a moment she has the surreal impression of being absolutely alone in the world.
That impression is abruptly shattered by the sound of running feet. Two pairs of them, she realises. Getting closer.
She swivels around just before the door to the infirmary, left ajar after the medics when they left with the boy with both his arms blown off, is slammed open and she comes face to face with two foreign shinobi. They come to a halt just inside, staring at her as if they're as surprised by her presence as she is by theirs.
For a fleeting moment she thinks that they must be here for the poor armless boy, and automatically she starts to smile and moves to explain that the medics have taken him away. Her eyes flicker to their forehead protectors. They're both from Kumogakure. Hidden Cloud village.
Her smile falters.
Both men are dressed in the grey standard shinobi uniform of Kumo and, to her unease, they've both got flak jackets - indicating that they're at least chunin in rank.
"What do you want?" Her voice comes out tense and a little bit hoarse, but she's proud to notice that it doesn't waver. Internally she winces, because she must come across as terribly rude, but her body is still positively thrumming with the feeling that something is terribly wrong.
Now that the door is fully open she can distantly hear the clang of weapons, of kunai clashing against kunai. Or perhaps that's just her imagination. Regardless, that does not change the fact that she was somehow placed under a genjutsu. Was it these two that cast it? That would explain why they appear so surprised by the sight of her.
"Nothing concerning you, Pinky," one of the men says, lips twisting into a cruel smile. He's short and stout, with a bald head and a large nose. "Step aside and we'll deal with the Hyuga ourselves."
Sakura glances down at the bed next to her, where Hinata is still sleeping. Still under the grasp of the genjutsu - and injured from her match earlier, besides. The conversation she overheard comes to mind. Do you not think that rumour of this will spread to the other hidden villages? To Kumogakure?
It cannot be a coincidence that they were worried about Kumo specifically, and here are two Kumo shinobi after Hinata. Clearly, the Hyuga clan and Kumo have a history.
Just as clearly, Sakura is in way over her head. If these people have somehow managed to silence the whole arena - cast it all under a genjutsu? Is that even possible? - they cannot be working alone. And if they by some miracle are working alone, they're both still at least chunin, compared to her genin rank.
Still. As a genin, Sakura is a shinobi of Konoha. It's her duty to protect Konoha, even at the cost of her own life. It's in the rules - one of those rules that sound almost romantic when learning about it, but which she's quickly learning is not nearly as glamorous in reality.
"No."
Heart throbbing wildly somewhere that seems much to close to her throat she forces herself to move, to take a defensive stance that places her more clearly between them and Hinata.
"Do as we say, or we will hurt you," the other man says, his voice calm and rational and convincing. He's taller than his companion, with brown hair and dark eyes that give her a commanding look. "This does not concern you."
She swallows, her throat suddenly painfully tight. She's alone. The walls of the infirmary seem to lean inwards, making the already small space feel positively claustrophobic. And the men, the two enemies, just give her that demanding look that says that they can and will hurt her if she decides not to cooperate with them.
At the back of her mind Sakura sends a longing thought back to when she was facing down those bandits. At least they'd been mostly civilians, and their shinobi only ranked genin. At least she'd known help was arriving soon. She still doesn't know what is going on outside, but she doubts she can expect anyone to come looking for her anytime soon.
"I'm a Konoha kunoichi." With a distant sense of pride she notes that her hands aren't even shaking, despite her fear. "Identify yourselves and your business, or I will have to take you into custody."
They scoff at her in reply.
"We don't have time to waste on losers like you."
Despite being ready, anticipating the attack, Sakura is still taken by surprise by the sheer speed of the shorter man. One moment he's in front of her, giving her an angry glare, the next moment he's behind her, striking out. She goes flying through the air, crashing ungracefully to the floor and taking a bunk with her. Her head explodes in pain.
"Grab the girl and let's get out of here!"
Through a herculean effort she manages not to lose to the stars dancing before her eyes, but her body won't obey her. She can't see, her arms and legs won't move like she wants them to, her head is quite possibly split in half - at least judging from the pain.
There's ruffling, something - or rather someone, as in Hinata, Sakura thinks grimly - being picked up, followed by quickly retreating footsteps.
Sakura wants to cry with her own helplessness but that would do nobody any good. Instead she grits her teeth and pushes past the pain - and there might still be some tears, because her head is in agony and her cheeks are suspiciously wet, but if so there's no time to dwell on that - and finally, finally, her limbs obey her and she manages to pull herself upright. Stumbling, she heads for the door, catching herself on the doorframe as stars still dance before her eyes and her stomach threatens to empty itself.
Blindly she stumbles forward, the stars retreating in the dark corridor, until suddenly the world explodes with light and she finds herself outside again. It takes her a moment to orient herself. She's on the outside of the arena, on the staircase that leads down to the streets below. However, the two men aren't running down the steps. Instead they have simply jumped the railing and are now running over the rooftops.
Sakura's stomach twists uncomfortably as she jumps for the nearest rooftop. She stumbles, almost falling but catching herself just in time, hissing as the sharp clay tiles cut through the skin of her right hand. A moment later cool, soothing chakra washes through her, chasing away the worst of the pain and sickness, clearing her gaze and leaving behind a deep but tolerable ache at the back of her head.
Get a grip, she tells herself. Her chakra control is better than this!
With chakra pumping through her body she continues the chase, thankfully spotting the two Kumo shinobi quickly. They're fast, and she struggles to even keep up with them, nevermind actually catching up.
In her peripheral vision she can see smoke and dust rising from a residential area, and the head of an impossibly large snake towering above the buildings. The village is under attack then, she concludes. Somehow Kumo has used the Chunin Exams as an opportunity to invade, and now two of their chunin are getting away with Hinata.
The Genin Corps' main duty in case of an invasion is to lead civilians and non-combatants to safety. Not to engage the enemy, nor to run after kidnappers. She can't just leave and let Hinata be kidnapped though, and try as she might she cannot spot a superior in the general chaos that is the streets of Konoha. In the time it would take her to find someone to report Hinata's kidnapping to, the two men would be able to get away, not to mention that there's no guarantee that they would be able to do anything to stop the kidnapping either. Judging from the scale of the invasion, the kidnapping of Hinata cannot possibly be the main goal.
No, something else must be going on. Something bigger - and Sakura shudders at the thought of what might be more important than the heiress of one of Konoha's biggest shinobi clans getting kidnapped.
No one else will have time to deal with this right now, which means that Sakura has no choice but to try her best to keep up and slow them down.
If she's lucky, they'll run past someone more experienced than her and she can alert them to the situation.
It doesn't look like she'll be that lucky though. They seem to be heading for the north gate, away from the fighting and chaos that is sure to draw every available shinobi towards it.
Please let the guards still be in place, Sakura prays mentally. Please, please, pleasepleaseplease!
Even when circulating chakra through her legs she struggles to keep up with them, so she focuses on keeping her eyes on them, gritting her teeth against the continuous throbbing in her head.
The shorter of the two is carrying Hinata, carelessly slung under one arm like she's just a bag of rice, while the taller one keeps looking around. As Sakura watches, he looks over his shoulder, spots her and visibly curses. Sakura can't hear the words, but she curses too.
The two of them speed up, and suddenly there are two shapes rapidly approaching her. Wolves! her mind screams in a mixture of fear and pure surprise.
There isn't time for her to stop and fight them - not that she really wants to anyway - and so she jumps, wincing a little as the roof breaks under her feet with the force of it. The snarling, mud-like wolves jump after her, but her chakra-enhanced jump is simply too high and long for them to be able to reach her. Instead they take up the chase, effortlessly following her across the rooftops. And like the two Kumo-shinobi, the wolves are fast!
Suddenly they've caught up to her, lounging at her from behind in mid jump. With the weight of the mud-wolf on top of her Sakura falls towards the roof, instinctively managing to crawl into a ball even as sharp mud-jaws narrowly miss her neck. She manages to turn the fall into a roll, using the momentum to crush one of the wolves beneath her. The force as she slams it against the sharp shingles is enough to make it evaporate with a snarl.
Her head is spinning again and there is something wet in her hair. Blood, probably. Or mud-wolf drool. Sakura doesn't have the time to stop and worry about it, the second wolf still hot on her heels as she stumbles to her feet again and keeps running, struggling to locate the foreign shinobi.
There! They're further ahead of her now, almost by the gate, and against her prayers it seems to have been abandoned. No guards step out to stop them as they pass through, and Sakura viciously thinks that she'll be having words with whoever will listen later, reporting whichever shinobi that are meant to be on guard duty today to every superior she can find until they have their bloody headbands taken away!
As Sakura too passes through the gates she hurries to slam both of the heavy doors shut behind her, her feet digging into the ground with the force of it as she has to use more chakra to be able to even move them. Behind the gates, the second mud-wolf snarls angrily, caught on the other side.
With a grim smile Sakura heads for the trees again. She's lost sight of the two shinobi, but considering everything she'll assume that they're heading straight for the nearest border. Reaching the border should still take them a couple of days, even running at this speed, but the further from the village they get the harder they'll be to track.
Sakura aims for the very top of the trees, where the branches are smaller but closer, leaving a lot less room for running shinobi. It does however provide coverage, making her more difficult to spot, and because of her smaller size she's still able to keep up her speed. Mostly, at least. A branch slaps against her head and she winces, instinctively reaching out to soothe the pain. Her hand comes away bloody.
Sakura wipes the blood away on her leg and continues running, praying that she's not too late.
Praying that she's actually on the right track and the Kumo shinobi haven't decided to change course to outmanoeuvre any potential pursuers. If they have, she's already lost. Sakura isn't a tracker, especially not under conditions like these.
She sends a longing thought to Tomomi, who's the best tracker on her makeshift team on the Genin Corps. Frankly, Sakura would take any of her teammates' company though; Hajime, Aimi, Takeshi … even Naruto or Sasuke-kun.
"I still can't believe it! A war suddenly breaking out like that!"
The words drift back to her and she doubles her efforts of moving soundlessly, so as to not alert them to her presence. If she's caught up already that means they're relaxing, probably slowing down a little from their earlier sprint. If she startles them they'll speed up again, and this time she might just lose them entirely.
"So much for the alliance between Konoha and Suna."
Suna?! Sakura swallows a gasp, clenching her hands tightly at the feeling of betrayal coursing through her. Konoha and Suna have been allied for most of her life. It doesn't make sense for them to suddenly just turn against Konoha, does it?
"Regardless, it was indeed a golden opportunity for us!"
"Is that girl gone?"
"Yes, my wolves took care of her."
They continue to move in a straight line, further proving to her that the enemy is heading straight for the border. She needs to do something. At least to slow them down, because despite her increased training lately she still doesn't have the stamina to keep up with them at this speed for too long.
Her mind spins, her head aches, as she desperately tries to come up with a plan. Any plan! If only she'd spent her time learning more jutsu. Despite her recent growth she doesn't really know anything but the Academy three and the Commander's chakra string jutsu, which is essentially useless right now. She doesn't have the precision required to catch either of them in it, and they are both too far ahead besides.
But she can't think like that. She can't think about how little she knows, or that she's just a genin while they are at least chunin, possibly even jonin, and how regardless of their rank she's in way over her head. She has to think about what she does know. If all she has is the Academy three -
Well, it's not much of a plan but it's a course of action. And it's not like she has much of a choice. If she continues to pursue them she'll eventually be too tired to fight properly, and she'll be even less of a challenge to them. Her fingers run through familiar hand signs; tiger, boar, ox, dog and snake and she tries to take aim, focusing all of her attention on one goal.
The body replacement technique is always an unpleasant sensation, the world spinning as her body is replaced with a block of wood or, in this case, a particular branch of a tree. Yes! she thinks as she suddenly appears just above the two, head still spinning from the jutsu. She has just enough time to take aim at the one carrying Hinata before she gracelessly lands on top of him, making all three of them tumble to the ground below.
It is a rough landing but she does what little she can to prevent Hinata from getting hurt, curling herself around the other girl even as she tries to tug her away from her kidnapper. In the confusion of the fall and their impact to the ground she does manage to pull Hinata away.
"Oh, no you don't Pinky!" a roar comes from above.
With a firm grip of Hinata's collar she runs her free hand through the signs again; tiger, boar, ox, dog, snake! Pain pierces through her shoulder as she finishes the last sign and the world spins again, tugging both her and Hinata away.
She appears again in the trees above them, legs already running as she desperately tries to create some distance between herself and them. She throws Hinata over her shoulders, mentally apologising to the girl for the rough handling. Her shoulder feels as if it is on fire and she's definitely bleeding.
"Don't think you can trick us by using such simple jutsu, little girl!"
Between the fear and her spinning head she stumbles over her own feet, falling forward. Two shuriken cut the tips of her hair off as she falls. Behind her the two shinobi curses but she doesn't have time to turn around and look how close they are. Her feet find leverage on another branch and she's running again, pumping as much chakra through her legs as she dares. Some of the branches creek dangerously below her feet.
Snarling mud-wolves appear before her, a whole pack of them this time. They're standing on the branches, surrounding her. She's caught; wolves ahead of her and on her sides, the two shinobi at her back.
"Give up, little girl, and we might even let you live!"
She tightens her grip on Hinata's arms and legs and jumps. Her heart flops in her chest as the ground rapidly approaches. Wolves snarl above her, already leaping after her. She doesn't allow herself to think about that: there is no time to linger in fear, only for her to act and get away. Or try to, at least.
As soon as she lands on the ground she's pushing off again, this time with as much force as she can possibly manage. A tree branch would have broken immediately; the earth beneath her feet groans, rocks in the ground shatter and the earth gets packed a lot tighter, but ultimately it more or less holds its original form. Instead she shoots upwards, colliding with a mud-wolf mid-jump and evaporating it in the process.
Behind her the shinobi curses as her jump takes her far past and above the circle of wolves. Her heart is beating hard in her chest and she's panting with the effort of keeping running with Hinata on her shoulders as well as the pain from the wound in her shoulder.
She needs to buy herself some time! With a grunt of pain she brings her hands together, trying to use her forearms to keep Hinata in place: tiger, boar, ox, dog, snake!
This time when her body is replaced she stays as still and quiet as she can, crouching behind a bush. Her hands come together again and form three new signs: Ram, snake, tiger! A clone of herself and Hinata appears on a tree branch a bit away and immediately begins running again. Then she stays frozen in place, perfectly still while waiting to see if they will take the bait.
The wolves run past her, chasing the clones without so much as a glance towards her bush. She breathes a small sigh of relief.
"Did you really think you could trick us using a basic clone technique?"
Oh no! Throwing herself away she only just manages to dodge as another round of mud-wolves throw themselves over the bush that is her hiding place. Hinata and her tumble around on the ground and Sakura loses her grip, crying out in pain as her wounded shoulder for a moment takes the weight of her own body.
Once more she's surrounded; wolves all around her and the two shinobi ahead of her. Hinata's still unconscious body lies in between them, closer to her than them but still out of easy reach. Her shoulder is throbbing with pain and the arm on that side no longer quite wants to obey her. On top of that is the injury to her head, the pain sharper again now, pounding like the worst headache she has ever had, yet paling in comparison to the pain in her shoulder.
"You've lost, girl."
The wolves attack from the sides, forcing her to retreat further away from Hinata. Herding her away. She jumps into the trees to avoid them but they follow. Before her eyes, the two men easily move in and pick up Hinata.
No!
She can't let them take her.
She dodges the attack by the next wolf, watching as the two shinobi disappear with Hinata. As the wolves continue to herd her away from the two Kumo shinobi, who are quickly disappearing out of sight between the trees, Sakura makes a decision.
Jumping, her hands are already moving, her hand seals sloppy because of her injured shoulder but thankfully working. There is a reason that these particular jutsu are taught in the Academy, after all. They're hard to get wrong. Tiger, boar, ox, dog, snake!
Her feet touch the ground just as the substitution jutsu swaps her away, and in the next moment she's already palming a kunai and thrusting blindly. She feels it hit and cut, deeply. The man now carrying her grunts and stumbles, no doubt surprised to find her in his arms instead of Hinata.
No doubt surprised to find her kunai buried in his side.
Then they're falling again. Sakura tugs at her kunai, a memory of a bandit with a stomach wound flashing before her eyes. It's not enough to stop a shinobi. She lets go of the kunai with one hand, reaching for another, and then she's thrusting again, both kunai together now as she desperately tries to cause whatever damage she can past the flak jacket.
They're separated when they hit the ground, Sakura tumbling further away than him but she can see that he's bleeding heavily. Probably too heavily. The other one, the taller one, lands on the ground as well a moment later, looking in horror at his wounded comrade. He kneels down and presses his fingers against his neck, searching for a pulse.
Sakura takes a moment to orient herself, taking stock of her body and her surroundings again. Miraculously, she's still more or less intact.
For a moment the whole forest seems quiet.
"You'll pay for this, girl!" The taller Kumo shinobi stands, glaring angrily at her and pulling a kunai of his own.
Sakura tries to move but only gets to her knees. Her wounded shoulder won't obey her at all anymore, her head feels like it is about to explode and there are white lights dancing at the edges of her vision.
He's fast. She tries to dodge the attack but is only partly successful. The kunai buries in her uninjured arm instead of her chest and then she's flying through the air, breath knocked out of her by the pure force of the blow to her stomach.
She's going to die.
He's going to kill her and then get away with Hinata and her death will have been for nothing.
Sakura grits her teeth and forces the hand that will still obey her somewhat into a snake-seal, feels her chakra obeying, and then flicks her wrist in a well-practised move.
Her back and then her head collides with the trunk of a tree, and then the lights take over and the whole world goes dark around her.
To be clear, Kakashi does not particularly like Hyuga Hiashi. The Hyuga in general, and the clan head in particular, are stuck up and pretentious and only mildly more tolerable than the Uchiha clan used to be. Both clans, of course, hate - or in the Uchiha clan's case, used to hate - the fact that Kakashi has a sharingan. It's not his, they think. Obito had no business giving Kakashi his eye, and Kakashi had no right to keep it. He's a dojutsu thief, and while it used to be personal with the Uchiha, the Hyuga generally just hate Kakashi on principle.
So when Hyuga Hiashi asks for Kakashi's help, the answer is simple.
"No."
Because Kakashi is just petty like that.
"My daughter is missing!"
"I'm sorry for your worry. I hope she'll be fine."
That time he's even sincere. The girl is no older than Naruto or Sasuke, and losing her would be sad. Kakashi can sympathise. He almost lost his own students today.
He looks at Sasuke, knocked out on the ground next to the Sand-jinchuriki, both breathing steadily and not sporting any fatal injuries. Naruto is conscious but looking uncharacteristically worn where he sits leaning heavily against the arena-wall. They're lucky that things did not turn into a full-fledged battle of jinchuriki; that neither of them were able to fully transform.
Speaking of which, someone should really get on to make sure that the Sand Jinchuriki won't be able to transform again when he wakes up. Probably him, considering he's the only one semi-capable of in fuinjutsu present. You know, unless you count Hyuga Hiashi, but then a seal capable of containing a jinchuriki will probably be quite different from the cursed seal used by the Hyuga.
"Cut it Hatake! You're a tracker, track her down!"
"You're the one with the see-all eyes. Why don't you just look around until you find her?"
"I can't find her!"
"Well, then I'm afraid I have some bad news for you," Kakashi says, eyeing the large pile of rubble that was once the arena wall and the infirmary. Most of the battle has calmed down around them, the Sound and Sand shinobi retreating from the arena.
"She's not there!"
Kakashi is about to make a comment about how the precious Byakugan might not be so amazing after all, when Gai's female student pipes up;
"Hyuga-sama is right, Kakashi-sensei. When I got to the infirmary Lee was the only one there, but there were signs of fighting and even blood on the floor."
"And it's not just Hinata that's missing. Sakura-san is missing too," Lee interjects.
Kakashi's insides suddenly go cold. He glances up at the premium balcony, where he'd last seen Sakura. It's empty now, the Daimyo and the nobles and everyone else already evacuated. He'd assumed that she was safe, that she was being evacuated and maybe doing the Genin Corps' thing and aiding in the evacuation.
"Sakura was in the infirmary?" he asks hollowly.
Lee nods.
"She came to the infirmary shortly after Hyuga-sama left, and the last thing I remember before being caught in the genjutsu is Sakura-san sitting at Hinata's bedside."
"Now will you help! It's entirely possible that whoever took my daughter also took your student, Hatake."
Kakashi takes a deep breath, mentally shaking the dread that had momentarily overtaken him. Wordlessly he runs through the hand seals for the summoning jutsu, and a moment later Pakkun sits before him on the ground.
"Wait, Kaka-sensei, I'll come-"
Naruto stumbles to his feet, only to land face first a moment later as his legs give out.
"You stay here, Naruto," Kakashi orders briskly.
He exchanges a couple of words with Gai, Asuma and Kurenai, ensuring himself that they've got the situation under control and that they'll get someone to deal with the Sand jinchuriki. Overhead, the two Kage are still battling, protected by the sealing barrier. Several ANBU-agents are surrounding it though, so there's not much else Kakashi can do at the moment. He's not a barrier breaker.
He's a tracker - among other things.
Luckily Pakkun is able to quickly pick up on a promising trail in the remains of the infirmary, leading Kakashi and Hiashi through the remains of a corridor. Kakashi can only pray that the dripples of blood he sees aren't Sakura's.
Then again, that'd probably mean that it's the Hyuga-girl that's bleeding, which probably isn't very good either.
Pakkun leads them to the arena exit and then to the rooftops.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" Kakashi asks. Sakura, to his knowledge, isn't able to run across the roofs.
"'Course I am!"
Pakkuns answer is a gruff bark, and he sends Kakashi a death-glare for doubting his abilities. Kakashi can only make a placating gesture, hoping that Sakura hasn't been kidnapped. First her relatives locking her in and starving her, then that pretend-merchant going after her and now this.
He really hopes that Tsushima Kazemi hasn't somehow gotten to Sakura.
"There's two of them - adult, male, probably shinobi - and a pursuer. She smells nice. Smart girl, uses Floral Green. Does wonder for your coat, it does."
Kakashi swallows around the urge to groan at Pakkun's unnecessary commentary.
"Hinata does not use that shampoo," Hiashi comments, frowning.
Which means that it's Sakura pursuing, Kakashi deduces, stomach twisting dangerously.
As they continue to rush across the rooftops they come across signs of fighting. Shingles that have been crushed, roofs that will need tending. The muddy remains of some sort of earth jutsu. And, worryingly, a continuous dribble of blood.
"Can you tell who's bleeding?"
"That'd be Floral Green."
Kakashi grits his teeth at the worry that stabs through him.
"How much blood has she lost?"
"Not enough that you need to worry Boss. Not yet at least."
They find the northern gate abandoned and closed, but not locked, and a pile of mud just inside. Another sign of earth jutsu. Kakashi makes a mental note to report the guards to the Hokage for abandoning their posts.
Pakkun then heads for the very tops of the trees, forcing Hiashi and Kakashi to follow beneath him.
"The two of them ran where you're running," Pakkun tells them. "Floral Green kept up here."
Kakashi can only watch the treetops. Pakkun is small enough that he's able to run up there with little to no problems, but for someone of even Sakura's size it must've been difficult - requiring enough mastery of running through the trees that she would've been able to keep most of her attention on not getting hit by branches and finding the people she was pursuing.
She's grown.
Improved.
Without him.
There's a peculiar kind of ache in his chest. First Naruto, growing so much and being such a perfect fit with Jiraiya as a sensei, and now Sakura too. Both of them, technically his, yet growing so much when away from him.
He's failed them both, hasn't he?
"Uh oh."
Pakkun's quiet exclamation breaks Kakashi's reverie. They're far outside the village now, and now that he's paying attention he can pick up the sound of fighting in the distance.
"Replacement jutsu," Pakkun tells them. "She used it to get above them, and then she attacked."
She attacked?! Kakashi growls with a mixture of worry and anger. What was she thinking, engaging multiple enemies this far outside of Konoha?
"Down they went. And now there's a fourth scent too. Female, same age as Floral Green probably."
"Hinata," Hiashi whispers.
"Wrestling. She's injured. Losing more blood. Using another replacement jutsu to get away."
The sounds of fighting grow stronger as Pakkun leads them through the trees, continuing his quiet commentary.
"They use some sort of earth-jutsu."
Beneath them, on the ground, there's a small crater where someone has clearly kicked off with a lot of force. Kakashi cannot help but be a little impressed at the thought that slender little Sakura might have done that.
"Smart kid, using another replacement technique to confuse them."
Pakkun doesn't actually have to search for the track, because they can now clearly hear from where the fighting is coming from. There's a patch of blood on the ground, and signs of two little girls tumbling on the ground. Kakashi flexes his hands worriedly.
"Hinata!" Hiashi rushes forward, finding Hinata behind a couple of trees and bushes.
The poor girl is unconscious.
Not pausing to wait for Hiashi, Kakashi rushes forward. There's a loud cry, wet and garbled and mixed with an unmistakable metallic scent.
Blood.
Lots of it.
Kakashi is already growling as he finally spots them, just in time to see Sakura being stabbed by a much taller man, before being thrown back with dangerous force. He's moving on instinct, one hand reaching to pull up his headband, freeing his sharingan, the other one already gathering chakra. He won't be in time to catch her, but he can kill her enemy, he can-
Sakura makes a snake-seal with her hand and tosses out a chakra string, ripping a kunai loose from the other enemy - dead, Kakashi realises - and then flick her wrist. She hits the tree a moment later, falling unconscious to the ground, but the kunai has already been set in motion, and a moment later it pierces the remaining enemy's throat.
With a wet gurgle he goes down, throat cut.
Leaving Kakashi standing in the middle of nowhere, with two dead enemies - Kumo shinobi, a glance at their headbands tells him - and a hopefully just unconscious Sakura. And the realisation that Sakura has just killed two Kumo chunin on her own.
What the fuck has Kichiro done with the delicate little Sakura Kakashi remembers from just a month ago?