The young woman called Sakura Haruno cursed her best friend Ino Yamanaka with every fibre of her being. She should have never agreed to this! Trust Ino to turn a book hunt into something else. Though she couldn't fault the girl entirely, she was the one who had gone along with her plan and encouraged her. She cursed herself and her ancestors over and over again for her stupidity as she ripped through several dimensions so fast she didn't recognize any.
When she finally stopped, she felt like she had run to the moon and back. Her chakra reserves were empty and if it weren't for her seal, she was 100% positive that she'd have died due to the sheer amount of chakra that the jutsu required. She was also surprised that she could move given how she felt so...dead.
Everything was dark despite using chakra to enhance her sight. She moved her body and felt very hard sticks beneath her. She also felt that she was quickly losing oxygen as she was suddenly feeling light headed. The kunoichi felt around her, there was compact soil everywhere. Pressing her hands to the surface, Sakura pushed. Grains of gravel began to drop on her face but she was insistent otherwise she would suffocate to death, quite an unbecoming way to die for a ninja of her caliber.
Pushing chakra to her hands, Sakura pressed until the soil exploded up at her super strength before coming down in a rain of gravel. The kunoichi was already out by then. She peered back into the hole she had come out of, noticing that the very hard sticks were in fact, bones. Human bones to be precise, her mind supplied as she stared at the skeletal structure. "Was this a grave?" she thought out loud. There was a thick stick which caught her eye, she took it and inspected it. The kanji was unfamiliar but she knew the language, Tsunade had taught her. It was from the Western side, the name read Yun. She wondered how long the stick had been there and why the markings were still in place after so long. She ran chakra through and unsurprisingly there was a stream of chakra embedded in the stick.
Pocketing the stick, the kunoichi looked around and discovered that she was under a peach tree which was in full bloom. Several kilometers from where she was, she saw the outline of a city. She first took stock of her belongings; several kunai and shuriken, exploding tags, sealing scrolls, soldier pills. Her medic pack was filled to the brim. Better to enter in an unknown territory prepared than not.
It took her close to three hours to arrive at the city. If she could cross through a country in merely three days, what was a bunch of kilometers to compare? It was almost dusk when she walked through the large metallic gates. She tried to ignore the curios glances of the guards as she made her way through the gates. She was almost successful however one of the gatesman decided to intercept her. He was dressed in green clothing and had metallic plates of amour on his shoulders and around his waist. If Ino was there, she would've squealed in delight because it looked cool for a gatesman.
"State your name and purpose of visit."
The way he barked at her would've been menacing but she didn't get tutored by the infamous Slug Sannin to be scared by that.
"My name is Sakura. I'm a travelling doctor," she replied as she schooled on her best look.
The gatesman gave her a once-over, eyes staring too long at her exposed legs and thighs. She internally scoffed, he could've been at least subtle about it.
After Sakura entered the gates, it turned out that people stared at her way too long, women mostly in envy and men in lust. 'Okay, I don't really know why people are gawking at me as if it's there first time seeing a person like,' she mused to herself as she walked through the streets. She discovered she couldn't fault them as everyone either had brown or black hair, she had pink. Women were more covered up than in Konoha that she actually felt as if she was walking naked. She thought to disguise her appearance using a henge but thought better of it. She didn't know which dimension she has ended up in hence she wanted to be known as she was.
It was almost midnight, after walking aimlessly but intentionally around the city of Ba Sing Se, that she had her first conversation with a native. She wouldn't exactly call it a conversation as it was mostly her fists talking but it counted.
The kunoichi saw a young boy, almost her age with a bulky frame being bullied by a bunch of drunks. Several vegetables were strewn across the ground and the boy glared at the drunks hatefully. She hid in the shadows and enhanced her hearing so that she could get a grasp of what was going on.
"I told you the last time, I don't have any money on me. Haven't you had enough? I have to take care of my grandma," the boy spat.
"We don't care whether or not that you have to take care of an old pussy. We want our money!" one of the men yelled.
"Yeah, rumors say that your cousins are friends with the Avatar. Why don't you ask them for some money? Or did they forget that you exist?" another sneered.
Sakura had heard enough. She walked loudly into the clearing, the streets lamps providing enough light that they could see each other clearly.
"Oh, would you like at that. It's the pink bitch, she doesn't mind walking around naked for the whole world to see," the first man said as he turned to face her. She could see the boy behind them looking at her in alarm, no doubt fearing for her safety.
"Though I wouldn't mind tasting some of that ass," he added as an afterthought, trying but failing to appear seductive. "What do you think Kisu?" the first man spoke. "I wouldn't mind either Vito. Say pinky, does the curtain really match the drapes?" Kisu said with a laugh.
"Why don't you have a bite of my knuckle sandwich?"
Sakura crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye and slammed her fist into Vito's face, sending him flying into the wall. She made sure not to use too much strength as she didn't want to kill the man. She turned to Kisu but the man had his hands covered entirely in rock. She darted to the left, avoiding a rock spike. She ducked low as the man swiped at her and she struck out her leg, sweeping the older man off his feet.
A stone hit her head and she turned to see a large slab of stone headed towards her. She didn't have enough time to jump away and the stone slammed into her, sending her flying backwards. Before she get up, a stone prison had formed around her, locking her in a kneeling position on the ground. Only her head remained.
"Damn, the bitch can pack a good punch," Vito spat out a bloody tooth. "Seems there's more to her than just a pretty face," Kisu remarked distastefully. Sakura only glared at them. What manner of ninjutsu was this? To be able to use earth so freely? They didn't go through any hand seals yet the earth moved to their will.
"You wanna know why little Tu can't fight back at us? We'll gladly show you." Vito closed his fist.
The stone prison started to cave inwards crushing her and the kunoichi cried out in pain. She was starting to feel dizzy and she could see dots forming in her eyesight. 'Am I really being taken down by a bunch of drunks?' she thought.
Like a pin prick in the back of her mind, she felt two foreign chakra signatures manifest inside her to be specific. The sound of Vito and Kisu's laughs drowned out to her as her subconscious shut down. Suddenly she was seeing through her eyes but not in possession of her body. It felt painfully foreign not to be in possession of her body. She looked around her subconscious which was eerily dark expect the light from seeing through her eyes. She could the shocked faces of Vito and Kisu staring back at her.
'What the-'
The two immediately cried out in pain as their limbs started twisting at inhumane positions. She could almost feel their pain as their arms were pulled back. 'Am I doing all this?'
She could see her arms moving in front of her, controlling Kisu and Vito like puppets, just as Chiyo did to her all those years ago.
"You should know better than to hurt a pretty face like me," she heard herself say though it sounded foreign to her.
"Please have mercy!" Vito begged as tears streamed down his face. "Should I?" she said. The duo cried again as their bones crunched loudly in the clearing.
Sakura began shouting in her mind. 'Give me back my body whoever you are!' she screamed as she fought against the mental shackles. She couldn't let herself be cold blooded to that extent. She raged and punched the screen in front of her in fury.
She suddenly found herself back in possession of her body with a severe migraine. Kisu and Vito were scrambling away from her in fear as she sighed heavily. "Get lost and never bully anyone otherwise it'll be more than just that," she told them in her tough persona. The duo scurried away as quickly as their crippled hands could allow them.
She turned to Tu who was gaping at her in fear and shock. "Hey-" he took an involuntary step back as he began to shake uncontrollably. "I'm here to help. I won't do anything bad," she said with a comforting smile as she took a cautious step forward, hands held up in surrender. The bulky boy watched her warily then nodded. Sakura closed the distance between. "Did they hurt you?" she asked, her inner medic kicking in. His face was bruised in several places and he had a purple eye which was bleeding. "Yeah, crappy bashtards chjey are," he mumbled out.
Sakura set to work to heal his displaced jaw. After mending the broken bones, she healed the cut beneath his eye and finished with his face. "Is there anything else that hurts?" she asked. Tu felt around his face and pinched his side. "No, I had a bad toothache last week and it's gone," he said in bewilderment.
Tu had insisted that she meet his grandmother. She helped him carry the vegetables back to their house and was grateful that Yin was a pleasant woman unlike the cranky old ladies she had encountered the majority of her life. Yin offered her to stay at their home whilst she looked for work. Sakura greedily obliged seeing she had no other option.
It was almost a week in this new dimension that Sakura finally had answers for all her questions.
"The swamp benders say there hasn't been any disturbances, both physically and spiritually," Korra commented as she gazed at the ground thoughtfully. "What about Toph?" Asami asked. "She said the same thing," the water bender replied. "So what now? We haven't encountered any of the Bending Shinobi, perhaps it was a false trail," the Sato heiress spoke. "Mako and Bolin are at the Kyoshi Island. Let's regroup with them and go over our plans. We work better together than separate," the Avatar remarked. "What about Sakura? Don't you think something's weird about her?" Asami asked as the two began heading to the port. "Everything about her is weird, from her hair color to her skills. Yet at the same time, she seems to be telling the truth. Everything she has said so far has evidence to back it up," Korra replied.
"For your information, my butler says he doesn't remember having that conversation with us that day and everything that we talked about. Also, he didn't have a cough and doesn't know anything about what Sakura said. So I'm really curious as to what happened that day? Who did we talk to? How were they able to impersonate him like that? What was their agenda? How are they connected to Sakura?" Asami began ticking off her fingers.
"I wish I had answers but I don't," Korra groaned as she pulled at her hair. "Have you managed to talk to your past lives yet?" the green-eyed beauty asked. "I haven't, what will I ask them? I haven't really tried ever since Raava was taken out of me. I don't remember if I talked to my past lives since then," the Avatar sighed. "Maybe going to Kyoshi Island might help with the connection. I read in the history books that when Avatar Aang visited Kyoshi Island for the first time, Avatar Kyoshi appeared and everyone saw her when they doubted that Aang was the Avatar," Asami told her.
"I guess, we'll see when we get there. I haven't seen Bolin in a long time. I'd love to hear him coo about Opal for an hour," Korea spoke with a chuckle. The two were quite for awhile before Asami spoke again. "You don't think that something bad is gonna happen and we don't know it."
It was an understatement.
Something terrible was definitely going to happen. And she didn't have clue about what it was.
Hope you enjoy the chapter. So that's what happened when Sakura first arrived in LOK. More will be revealed in the upcoming chapters.
Tozoonana
AfricanFire
