Things got hazy after that.
It took precious seconds for Sakura to realise the haziness wasn't just shellshock from whatever had burst out of Gaara's body, but a genjutsu that was trying to lull her into a deep sleep.
"Kai." Reality snapped back immediately, along with the terrible realisation that they were under attack. There were distant cries and muffled booms coming from outside the stadium. Inside it was comparatively quiet, but just as unsettling: ANBU agents, like the one who had healed Ino earlier, were the only people moving. Everyone else was quiet, heads bowed as if in prayer.
"Ino." She turned, already forming another rat seal, but Kakashi reached out to stop her.
"Don't." He placed his gloved hands over hers. "She'll just be dead weight."
Her relief at seeing him awake evaporated as quickly as it came. "Dead weight?" She wrenched her hands free from his grasp.
"Quiet." He kept low, pointing "Look."
Others in jounin fatigues were starting to pop up from different places in the stands; but instead of joining forces, the ANBU were attacking them.
"The ANBU are the ones doing this," Sakura concluded grimly. Whether they were imposters or this was the start of a coup, the outcome would be the same. "We have to stop them."
She tried to rise in her seat, but Kakashi forced her back down.
"Listen to me, Sakura." His expression was more serious than she had ever seen it. "You have to go after Gaara."
"Gaara?" She looked back at the arena. Aside from a whole lot of disturbed earth, there was no sign of either boy.
Kakashi nodded. "He's…it's tricky to explain, but as of right now he's the bigger threat to Konoha. His siblings rushed him out of here once things kicked off, but Lee and our boys were hot on their heels. I need you to go support them. Pakkun can help you catch up."
"What about you?" The thought of Naruto and Sasuke (and Lee, of course) rushing off after some strange enemy was terrifying; but so was the thought of leaving hundreds of sleeping people to their fates.
"As a jounin, I'm needed here." His words were emphasised by a stray kunai that he deflected before it could pierce his normal eye.
The kunai clattered somewhere in the crowd, and Pakkun whined quietly; it seemed he was only pretending to be asleep. Sakura scratched his ear gently.
"Then I'm needed here too." Her official rank might be genin, but she was better than any jounin in a fight.
He shook his head firmly. "You have your mission. Go."
He scooted partway down the aisle before springing into the fray without so much as a goodbye.
I wished for this, she thought miserably, watching him go.
"Come on, girly." Pakkun seemed resigned to their orders, but Sakura stood firm. She wasn't Kakashi's pet. She wasn't even his student anymore, really.
"Kai." She tapped Ino's forehead, and after a moment the girl's pale eyes fluttered open.
"What…?"
"I'll explain on the way," she said, biting the inside of her cheek until she felt a chunk of flesh tear free.
She formed the necessary seals for a blood clone, finishing by spitting the bloody glob onto the ground.
"Ew, Sakura!" Ino squealed, and Pakkun pressed his paws to her mouth.
"Quiet, blondie!"
After a moment, the flesh and spit bubbled and seemed to grow until an identical Sakura was kneeling in the narrow gap between rows.
"Okay," it said, nodding at Pakkun and Ino. "Let's go."
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Block, stab, step forward, repeat. If Kakashi thought about anything more than the immediate future, he'd end up worrying. And if he started to worry, he would get distracted. And if he got distracted right now, he might just die.
As her handler, Sakura technically should have stayed with him; but the writing was on the wall, and Konoha was about to become a bloodbath. He hadn't mentioned it to her, but he had seen the Kazekage rip off his face and grab the Third Hokage a few seconds before the arena went to hell. Orochimaru had made his move at last, and he wanted his team as far away from it as possible.
With the Third fighting, Kakashi's job was to regroup with the other jounin and get to the far roof to back him up. If they managed to accomplish this task in time, maybe he could still catch up with Team Seven before they got into their own fight.
Unrealistic, he chided himself immediately. Even if he escaped the arena and saved the Third, Orochimaru would have enough contingencies to keep them all tied up for ages. His team - two twelve year olds, a feral kunoichi, and a pug - were far beyond his reach now.
Or so he thought. He caught a flash of pink in his peripherals that could only be the feral kunoichi herself, heading into the heart of the battle.
His current opponent took advantage of his momentary distraction to rake a blade down his left arm, and Sakura's words came back to haunt him.
I guess it makes sense that you'd have a blind spot…
He killed that agent with maybe a little more force than necessary, and then got himself into a more defensible position.
Now that he could scan his wider surroundings without getting murdered, he could see Sakura clearly.
She was also scanning the arena, clearly searching for something specific. Him? No; she sighted on one masked man, and her change in demeanour was like a hound scenting a rabbit. He wasn't her closest enemy, nor was he the biggest threat: where others were cycling through a variety of attacks, this man was just holding the ram seal and trying to look inconspicuous. Kakashi had assumed he was the genjutsu user and dismissed him from the original threat assessment when it was clear he wasn't going to be able to do anything else for the remainder of the fight.
But now Sakura was engaging, cutting down the other enemies who materialised to defend him. He broke his hold on the genjutsu, and had just enough time to reach for a kunai before she ran him through.
"Shit," Kakashi muttered under his breath. Sakura probably thought she was helping the civilians, but if they woke up now it would only create a panic.
But the damage was done; the haze fell from the stands, and suddenly there was movement all around as people began to stir.
"Sakura!" Kakashi waved to her urgently. "Come here!"
The least he could do was keep her close, and safe, before this chaotic fight got even more chaotic. But Sakura, Mistress of Chaos, looked right at him and shook her head.
"That's an order, Haruno!" Frustration forced him to use his Captain Voice; but instead of snapping to, she started forming the seals for a jutsu.
The shimmery haze of genjutsu began to fall over the stands once more. Kakashi went to dispel himself out of reflex, but then he heard Sakura speak.
"Attention," she said, and her voice sounded amplified like she was talking through a speaker. "The chunin exam is now over. Please leave the stadium in an orderly fashion."
The crowds paused for a moment, still half-waking. And then, as one, they obediently made their way to the exits.
Now it was Sakura who was forced to hold a jutsu; but unlike the enemy genjutsu user, she wasn't trying to hide. In fact, she stepped right up to the edge of the inner ring of stands, still repeating her message to evacuate, and then leapt down into the fighting circle.
"Is she insane?" Genma, who had been adjudicating the chunin exam's battles when the real fight broke out, landed next to Kakashi. "She's a sitting duck down there."
It was true. She was still walking, heading toward the middle of the arena and making no attempts to hide the fact that she was the one thwarting the enemy's plans.
"That's the point," Kakashi realised. He turned to Genma urgently. "She's drawing fire away from the civilians, buying them time."
Genma's eyes widened. "So she is insane," he murmured, but Kakashi could tell he was impressed. "Let's help her out."
They weren't the only jounin who willingly leapt down into the killing bowl once the enemy started converging on Sakura. Either the others had figured out what she was doing and wanted to help, or else they just couldn't bear to watch someone so helplessly outnumbered.
In any case, the outcome was that the ring of enemy shinobi surrounding Sakura were suddenly being kettled in by an outer ring of jounin.
Despite the tactical advantage this gave them, Kakashi's heart was in his mouth as he tried to push through the wall of fake ANBU agents to reach the centre. If they didn't kill Sakura outright, her own allies would end up crushing her before long.
Her voice was still unnaturally amplified, but it was starting to grow thin. "Attention…The chunin exam is…over. Please..."
"Sakura!" He shouted, clawing at the masked figures like they were rocks at a cave-in. "Drop the genjutsu! The civilians are all out!" He actually had no idea if that was true, but if there were a few stragglers then they weren't going to be anyone's priority at this point.
The bodies were no longer falling to the ground but remained standing, propped up by their desperate allies, until Kakashi was surrounded by a forest of dead men.
The voice had gone silent.
"Sakura!" He yelled again, hand reaching, reaching, until it wrapped around a wrist.
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A hand closed around her wrist, tugging her free from the centre of the crush and away, toward the exit tunnel at the edge of the fighting circle. She fell against her saviour, and they dragged her along until there was enough fresh air and personal space that she could once again stand on her own.
"Thank-"
She stopped. It wasn't an ally who had rescued her, but a masked ANBU agent. She assessed him warily.
"You're that man from before. The one who healed Ino."
"Oh, Sakura." The man spoke, and tears sprang to her eyes before her conscious mind could even process what it was hearing. He removed his mask. "I'm so much more to you than that."
"Sensei?" She fell into the man's arms, all thoughts of self-preservation or natural suspicion forgotten at the sight of her lost friend. "You're here! You're Outside! You're…" she paused, taking a closer look. "Very young."
Sensei smiled down at her with the wrinkle-free face she had seen in his photograph. "Just a cosmetic jutsu. Explaining everything to my comrades would have been tedious."
She had tried a similar thing with her parents, though Sensei's disguise was far better than a mere henge. But more importantly than that: "by comrades, do you mean the people attacking Konoha?" She placed a hand over his heart automatically.
"Do you think I'm going to lie to you?" He looked at her with disappointment, but made no move to remove her hand. "Yes, these people work for my old boss, and I pretended to join back up so I could help them infiltrate Konoha. But I'm only here for you, Sakura." His face turned wry. "Now, is that a lie?"
"No." She could feel his pulse and all the other telltale signs, and Sensei was telling the truth. "Where are the Others? Are they alive?" So much time had passed, it hardly seemed possible to hope.
He nodded. "Alive, but still Inside. The Watcher seems to have changed the ratio between Inside and Outside time, so we're on a similar schedule to them now."
She made a sobbing noise, and the hand that wasn't on Sensei's heart wrapped around his shoulder and squeezed gently. It wasn't too late. She could still save them. "We have to get them out."
"We will," Sensei assured her. "You just have to come with me."
"What?" She blinked. "Come where?"
"North, to The Hidden Sound Village. My former Master controls it. If you come to Sound, the Others can get free."
"I don't understand." He still wasn't lying, but what he was saying didn't make any sense. "Listen, we can get them out here in Konoha. The Watcher's real name is Uchiha Obito, and you were right: Inside is some sort of sharingan jutsu." She tugged gently on his shoulder, willing him to understand. "We can get the Others out the same way I got out."
"No." Sensei shook his head urgently. You have to come with me. It's the only way."
"But why?" The battle was dying down now, and it would only be a matter of time before whoever survived came to investigate. "How did you escape?" Had Kakashi's jutsu worked after all?
Sensei readjusted his glasses slowly, taking his time before speaking. "My old master," he finally said, "Orochimaru…he's a brilliant man, with knowledge of a great many things."
"Orochimaru." The name didn't mean anything to Sakura. "So he can help?"
"You have to come with me now, Sakura." Kabuto grabbed her suddenly, dark eyes desperate. "Please."
"Sakura!"
That was all the warning they got before Kakashi slammed into Sensei; but as two people who spent most of their life training Inside, it was more than enough time for them both.
Sensei used the split second to draw a long, thin blade and aim it at Kakashi's heart. Sakura used the split second to grab Sensei's wrist and yank both arm and blade up into the air, then twist her own body into Kakashi's path.
Kakashi slammed into her instead, knocking her back into Sensei. She wheezed as the breath was once again forced from her lungs; but at least she had avoided a worse outcome.
"Kakashi," she coughed, fighting for enough oxygen to explain the misunderstanding. "It's Sensei."
Kakashi stepped away so that he was no longer crushing her between them, but he dragged her back with him. "Get away from her," he growled at the other man.
"Sakura." Sensei continued like they had never been interrupted. "Please, I need you."
"Hey!" More people were coming over now, more Konoha jounin who would only see things in black and white.
Sensei seemed to understand the situation. "You know what you need to do," he told Sakura, dark eyes boring into hers, before turning and sprinting down the dark hallway.
"Don't!" she cried, straining against Kakashi's arms. "Don't leave!"
"It's a trap," Kakashi told her, voice low. "He's lying."
"He's not lying!" She knew better than anyone when Sensei was lying, and even without her hand on his heart she knew his desperation was real. She twisted to face Kakashi. "He said I still have time to save the Others." That, at least, had to be true. The alternative was unthinkable.
Kakahsi's arms tightened around her, and under other circumstances their closeness might have registered as intimate. Now, it felt like a cage. "Sakura, he's the enemy."
"He's not!" She considered biting him to make him let her go, but he was so stubborn he'd probably just stand there and let her. "He's…" How to make him understand? "He's one of my people."
"What about me?" Kakashi shook her, gently. The other jounin had caught up and were now pouring into the tunnel after Sensei. "Aren't I one of your people too?"
"I…" She knew he was just manipulating her, disrupting her emotions long enough to make catching up to Sensei impossible. But…
"Yes." Of course he was. So were Naruto and Sasuke, and Ino, and her parents, and everyone in Konoha. Of course they were her people too. "But they need me."
"We need you too," Kakashi assured her, and she scoffed.
"I've caused nothing but problems since I arrived." She was still causing problems, forcing him to hold her back from high treason instead of helping save Konoha from whatever was happening right now. "I should have stayed los-"
Pain, or the memory of it, lanced through her body like a razor wire. She screamed, but possibly that was also just a memory, and then doubled over, twitching, until both memory and pain faded into something bearable.
"What's wrong?" Kakashi hadn't quite loosened his grip on her, probably too suspicious of a ruse. "What just happened?"
"I died." She gingerly scanned her new memories. "My blood clone just got poisoned by that puppet boy, Kankuro." She grimaced. "Definitely something worse than Paulinus."
"And the others?" Kakashi prompted, but Sakura shook her head.
"We hadn't caught up to the boys yet, but Ino and Pakkun went on ahead, and I bought them several minutes before my organs got liquidated." Hopefully she hadn't made the wrong call, sending them the clone instead of the original. They were already several clicks outside the village, and so, like Sensei, there was no chance of catching up to them now.
"Ino?" Kakashi frowned for a moment, but perhaps he was too relieved she wasn't dying because he didn't fight her about it. Instead, he gave her a stern look. "If I let you go, are you going to behave?"
It was all a little too intense for Sakura, who wasn't used to extended eye contact (especially while being bear-hugged by the person in question), but she nodded obediently. "Yes."
"Good." He released her. "Because this day isn't over yet."
As if in response to this statement, there came a low roar from somewhere outside the stadium, followed by a booming crash and a chorus of screams.
Sakura wasn't religious by nature, but she still sent a silent prayer on behalf of the growing number of people beyond her reach.
Just stay alive, she pleaded, following Kakashi back into the fray. I'm coming as fast as I can.