Disclaimer: I do not own any of the content following this statement. All titles, names, and plots are owned by Masashi Kishimoto.
Warning: The following will contain material that some viewers may not find suitable. There will be smut, graphic explicit sex, lemons at random moments, character deaths, and multiple pairings. There will be no additional warning as without reading the smut what little plot there is will not make any sense. You have been warned.
Author Note: I had some free time and this is a small rewrite and merger of the old chapter
Talk and Walk…
With the light from the afternoon sun shining on her face, Sakura woke up with a yawn. Looking at her clock she decided it was time to get her ass out of bed and do something. Getting dressed in her now standard short red dress with no bra and orange panties took but a moment. Checking herself in the mirror by giving a spin she is happy that the hem of the dress that now ends 4 inches above the knee still doesn't flare out much.
Leaving her house she went around the side to see a black bra now hanging from a brush where she assumed that kid tossed it. Pulling it down while laughing at the whole situation took her to the back of the house where she put it in the trash. Ino would never wear it again she knew and it was useless for her.
Walking back to the front she headed toward one of the central parks, it being her day off she wanted to avoid any chance of picking up a mission.
Hot, it's one of those extra humid hot summer days Konohagakure is famous for, this isn't called the fire country for no reason, she thinks as she sits on the park bench watching the village children play ninja. Without thinking she grabs her hem and fans his legs with it. Hearing a surprised grasp, she sees a mother covering the eyes of a small boy who was staring wide-eyed up at her from a sandbox not 10 feet away.
Sorry, she mouths as she crosses her legs as her mother taught her to, she looks at her hands in her lap and brings one up looking at it in fascination. "How in the world did Ino?", thinking of this morning's adventure, wrapping her hand completely around her own wrist, "I guess it's smaller than Choji's from what she said".
"You can't get your hand around Naruto's", Ya your right, hay who said that", she frantically looks around, "You OK dear?", one of the nearby mothers asks as she holds her three-year-old back. "Who are you talking to?"
"Sorry, I got to go, bye", jumping to her feet she quickly walks down the garden path until she is alone. "Who are you?", "I am you, or should I say the you you want to be. "What! Is this some Genjutsu? Where are you."
Sakura looks around frantically putting her hands together and yelling "Chi", flaring her Chakra trying to break out of a Genjutsu.
Hearing laughter in the back of her head only causes her to try harder until she feels totally exhausted. "You done yet? You're going to drain yourself if you don't stop doing that." "what is going on!" Sakura yells and feeling dizzy lands on her butt in the grass. "if you don't stop talking out loud someone is going to think your crazy. I can hear you just fine".
Talking out loud, Oh no! With a sinking feeling, she remembers her mother telling her about a great-aunt. One of the few truly great Harumo shinobi from the last great ninja war. She used to have a "gift" they said that allowed her to use two Jutsu's at once but at a cost. A cost no one would talk about, but Sakura remembered a sweet old lady visiting her when she was 4 or 5.
The whole time she was in the house she kept having long conversations even when alone. This seemed strange and when Sakura asked her mother she said it was her great aunt's "gift". Being five at the time this was just one more strange thing about the world.
"Yes it was strange but do you remember what she said to you before she left?" said the voice that isn't her voice. Remember, remember, what did that crazy old bat say 10 years ago? Oh no, she said We see you have the family gift. How nice" and with a pat on the head, she was gone. At the time her mother seemed upset but didn't want to talk about it.
"FUCK you're the gift!", this time keeping her mouth shut but her thoughts loud.
"You could say that I like to think of myself as an essential member of our team."
"Team, what team."
"The team of us of course. I am you and you are me. We just see things a little differently."
"What do you mean differently?"
"I didn't wake up until we reached puberty and even then I wasn't paying much attention until we had our fun with Naruto. His Chakra really opened my eyes." Sakura groans at the images her inner self recalls. "So just think of me as you without all those stupid social norms I am your inner emotions, actual opinion, your true self as it were."
Sakura pulls her knees up and hugs them to herself. "I don't want to be crazy like my aunt", lowering her head wanting to cry.
"Sakura, thank Karma I found you, the Hokage wants to see us in her office immediately", an out-of-breath Ino says pulling Sakura to her feet. They run at full ninja speed to get to the Hokage tower. They find Hinata waiting for them at the base of the tower. Her Byakugan was active as they felt her full attention on them.
As they approached the slightly shorter girl with the classic Hyuga princess bob haircut, she turned and walked into the tower. "Seems we had someone looking for us," Ino joked, running up the stairs. Entering the Hokage's office, they saw Hinata and another girl, Tenten, standing at attention.
Quickly falling in line, they waited as Tsunade looked over some reports from her endless stack. With a muttered "Dammit" under her breath, the Fifth Hokage stood and looked them over.
"Around 10 pm last night, Sasuke Uchiha left the village to join Orochimaru and the Sound Village." Sakura felt the news like a gut punch, but she heard someone to her left say, "It figures." It sounded like Hinata, but she didn't dare to look as she locked eyes with her Hokage.
"This morning I asked Chunin Shikamaru Nara to form a team and go after him. His orders are to bring that traitor back alive if possible or dead if he has to." Sakura wanted to scream out no but for some reason, she didn't feel the emotions to do it. It was her logical side that wanted to speak out, not for undying love but only for returning the last Uchiha alive.
"Why are we here lady Tsunade?" Ask Tenten to Sakura's right.
"I was getting to that, the Nara requested Genin Choji, Chunin Neji, Genin Lee, Genin Kiba, and Genin Naruto as his team. They have been gone for nearly 9 hours with no report. As I have no other Chunin or Jonin I can spare in the village at this time I am sending you four to find them. You have all attended my basic medical training, and Shizune told me that Sakura here has a natural talent." The other girls look at her and she feels pride that her Hokage knows of all her hard work. Tsunade pulls out from behind her desk seven large red scrolls, each with a bright red ribbon long enough to go over a person's back.
"These are medical stasis scrolls, unlike a normal storage scroll that kills any living thing stored in them these scrolls will preserve a body in whatever current state it is in when sealed. They can only hold one person and can only be used once."
"I hope you don't have to use them but if you do, you will have 24 hours to return to the village before the chakra in the scrolls runs out and the person stored inside dies. Tenten as the oldest and most battle-tested, you are the team leader. " With that, she passes the scrolls across her desk for the girls to pick up.
Unrolling a map over the papers on her desk the Hokage points out the last known location of team Nara before they were completely out of sensor's range. Leaving the Hokage's office they find Shizune waiting for them with full mission bags. "Good Luck," She says as they throw on the backpacks and head out of the village at full speed.
It was a blur of trees and leaves without end as they followed Hinata with her Byakugan fully active and focused on the trail ahead. She would point out subtle signs team Nara left behind showing she was on the right track. "Figures Shikamaru would leave a marked trail", Says Ino leaping a step behind Hinata.
After an hour of frantic tree jumping the small Hyuga heiress stops on a large branch and waits for the others to join her. Using the standard hand signs she orders quit and then points to an area in the forest with several fresh trees lying down.
Motioning them close Hinata says in a low voice, "There was a fight there, I see two bodies but there is too much Chakra in the area for me to tell who."
Tenten while pulling out a large battle-ax from a scroll points to the others their angle of attack and jumps into the clearing. They all reach the area of destruction at the same time and see a large bloody mess that used to be a man. "oh thank God", says Hinata as she doesn't see any orange or a leaf Hitaiate.
Tenten stores her Ax as she sees the other body in the clearing and calls over to Ino, "Ino, over there I think he is one of yours." Pointing at Choji under some bushes, Ino runs over and lets out a shout. "Choji, Choji." with Sakura's help she pulls the not-so-large boy into the fading light.
Knowing what effect Choji's Jutsu does on him she pulls out an antidote pill and forces it into his mouth. Like any good Akimichi, he crews the pill without returning to consciousness. Blue Chakra covers her hands as Sakura scans his body from top to bottom shaking her head.
"I am not sure but I think he has internal bleeding, broken leg, broken arm, and cracked ribs." Holding her hands over his head once again she nods, "And one hell of a concussion."
Ino pulls the medical scroll from her back and unrolls it across Choji's body and with a series of hand signs inscribed on the scroll seals him in. Rolling the scroll up she sees a countdown in seconds. Throwing the scroll over her back she looked to Tenten who was looking over the remains. The sound of Hinata throwing up behind a tree gives a pungent backdrop to what they are doing.
Standing Tenten can see the countdown and says. "We are three hours out, when we reach the point of 15 hours out you will turn back to the village." Satisfied she turns to the trees and yells, "Come on Hyuga, stop fertilizing the forest we got heroes to find."
As Hinata comes out with a determined look on her face, Sakura softly says to Ino, "I have never heard of Uzine levels as high as Choji's are, you better tell them as soon as you get back."
"Let's go, ladies, the clock is ticketing", Yell Tenten as they take to the trees. Even as it gets dark Hinata can find the trail once again. Knowing now the danger their friends and teammates are in they push themselves to the limit and come across another battleground. Taking the lead Tenten once again jumps straight into the battlefield.
"Over Here!", yells Hinata, as she hugs Neji to a seated position. With tears running down her cheeks she holds him still as Tenten inspects the arrow in his back. With a start Neji opened his eyes, "It's OK Neji we are here to help", says Hinata in her soft voice.
"Don't move Neji I am going to break the arrow off so we can move you", a snap is heard and Sakura scans over Neji. "He has lost a lot of blood and he is almost out of Chakra," she informs the group.
Tenten helps Hinata lay Neji down and with a small kiss on the cheek tells him to be still. Rolling out the medical scroll and a couple of quick hand signs later a puff of smoke, Neji is gone.
"This isn't looking good, we have to keep moving." getting no opposition they once again race behind Hinata as she seems to find some inner strength.
Hours later they See a small fire in the distance, they split up to encircle it but Hinata breaks the formation and runs into the campsite. "Kiba, you're alive!" Throwing herself onto the wounded boy. Holding a crying Hinata he looks over at the other girls as they come into the firelight.
"So, they sent you guys after us?" says Kiba as he removes Hinata from around his neck with a sigh of relief.
"What happened to you, and where are the others.", Tenten looks around and seeing a movement in the bushes reaches for her weapons scroll, "Hold on!" Yells Kiba, "This guy saved my life." As Kankuro joins them with an arm full of firewood. Thanking the sand nin for his help Sakura bends down and checks on Kiba's wounds.
"Looks like Chakra exhaustion, one deep cut, and some bruises. Can you make it back to the village?", said Tenten over Sakura's shoulder.
"I was going to take him back once he got some rest," said Kankuro dropping his armload of firewood. His war-painted face was covered in a smirk as he looked the girls over.
Feeling the tension grow between the sand nin and Tenten, he points to his right and says, "Last thing I saw, Shikamaru was fighting some crazy redheaded bitch back there." As if to prove his point a deafening wind blew into their camp with the sound of hundreds of falling trees.
"That must be Temari, my team was sent to help deal with the runaway Uchiha." Putting more wood on the fire Kankuro sits down and pulls out his puppet to clean the blood out of it.
"What about Naruto and Lee," questions Tenten worrying about her overactive and impulsive teammate. Having just been released from the hospital she couldn't believe the Hokage let him go on such a mission.
With a shrug, Kiba said, "Naruto said he could smell Sasuke's tracks so they went ahead."
Hearing that Naruto was still out there fighting to find Sasuke, Hinata looked around and jumped into the trees, followed closely by the others hoping to not lose sight of her in the dark. Luckily for them, the full moon had come out and gave the forest an eerie dim light.
It took them 10 minutes to find Hinata only to see her standing over Shikamaru surprisingly yelling at him to tell her where Naruto was. Tenten moving between them asked for a report. Shikamaru recognizing this was a formal mission report request told them of the fight he had with Tayuya and how Temari saved him.
"Over here", Temari says "Dear god you guys don't know how to keep quiet. An enemy could walk right up behind you and you wouldn't even notice."
"What did you find", asked Shikamaru. "I think she is still alive but buried under all those trees I can't really tell."
Shikamaru looks to the surrounding girls and then down at his leg. "My legs broke in a couple of places so I can't help but if we can get her out and back to the village we could get a lot of information about the sound and what they have planned for Sasuke."
"Our orders are to bring your team back with the Uchiha." Says Tenten crossing her arms.
"It's dark, I know Naruto didn't leave any markers and Lee is Lee so if you want to wander around the forest in the dark go right ahead but I think if we can get her to tell you where they were taking Sasuke it would make your mission a lot simpler.."
"Dam it, OK where did you find her." With that Tenten lets Temari lead them over to a pile of fallen trees looking like a giant child's game of pickup sticks. Hinata looks down and points to where the redhead is trapped and using Tenten's battle ax and Sakura monster strength they uncover her.
Examining the unconscious girl Sakura says, "She has more broken bones than not, and with this concussion, I'm not sure she will ever wake up. "
"Fuck you, you pink bitch", moans out Tayuya. "I can still fight just give me a minute."
Seeing the broken flute still in her hand Temari pulls it away and crushes it under her foot. "Where are they taking Sasuke you redheaded whore." Shocked by Temari's interrogation approach the girls stand back to watch.
"Fuck you." groans out Tayuya. Pulling out a vial of greenish fluid from her hip pouch Temari forces open the redhead's mouth and pours it in. As she chokes and gags Temari stands up and watches.
"My bother likes to play with puppets a lot but he also is a master of poisons and truth serums." Tapping her foot and waiting for enough time to pass for the serum to work Temari standing next to Sakura looks at her pink hair.
"So is pink hair common in the leaf?" she asks seemingly to kill time.
Sakura looked up at the taller girl remembering the last time she saw her and those perfect breasts of hers turned a shade of red hoping it wouldn't show in the moonlight.
"No I am the only one, my mother said it was a gift from my father's side of the family." Turn back to the redhead squirming on the ground. Temari looks at her hand remembering that night at Naruto's and finding pink hair on her dress and under her fingernails. She wonders what it means, Naruto must know and she is going to find out.
Once the redhead stills Temari crouches down next to the hallucinating sound nin.
"Report Kunoichi, where is the team taking Sasuke," says Temari in her best male voice.
"To the valley of the end like you ordered us to master." Seeing Tayuya's eyes have rolled up into her head Temari looks over to Tenten. "That good enough for ya." getting a nod in response she walks over to Shikamaru.
"My mission is to save your ass so come on." Temari picks Shikamaru up by the back of his vest and starts heading to her brother's camp. It's cold and she wants to warm up. How can they call this the land of fire when it's this cold at night?
Tenten using one of the medical scrolls seals up the passed-out redhead and hands the scroll to Ino. Checking the timer on Ino's scroll she also hands the girl the scroll containing Neji. "Take these back to the village." She says to Ino. "Leave now, you will not have time to make it back if you wait for sun up."
Understanding her part of the mission is over she gives Sakura a weak smile and says good luck before jumping away.
Sitting down on a log Tenten pulls a map out of her pack along with some food bars. Chewing away she signals the other two to do the same as she reviews where they are and how best to get to the valley of the end.
"What do you think?" says Sakura with a mouth full of granola bar. Surprised at how hungry she was but did not want to stop for long.
"it's a ways and there is a mountain between us so the best route would be to follow this valley and then go up the river. There is some farmland about 5 miles north of us that we can cross, that should be faster than staying in the forest."
Packing their supplies back in their bags the three girls head off, now at a much slower pace, without trail makers to follow they had to watch out for ravines or dead drops. One misjudgment and they would fall to their deaths.
Exiting the forest at sunrise they are greeted by rolling farmlands for miles. Off in the distance, they can see an unnatural-looking hill that looks like a pile of sand with white sticks protruding in every direction. Running as fast as they can in the open field they come upon a hellish sight of human bones littering the sandy ground leading up to the hill.
Cautiously walking around the hill they find Lee not moving on the ground next to Gaara sitting on a chair made of sand. Tenten runs up to her fallen teammate and sees that he is breathing but seemingly knocked out, she motions for Sakura to come closer. Hinata was frozen in place once she looked at Gaara with her Byakugan active.
After checking on Lee and confirming he had no life-threatening wounds but only seemed passed out drunk of all things she asked Tenten what to do seeing that she was also frozen in place staring at Gaara.
"What the hell." she thought standing up and moving around Tenten to see what was so captivating. What she sees is Gaara on his sand thrown holding a human skull. He was using his sand to polish it clean so it gleamed white in the rising sun. There was no longer any sign of hair or even flesh visible. The total terror she felt came from waves of killer intent from the Chakra flowing about Gaara as he went about his gruesome task.
Unable to move nor take her eyes off that spinning skull she didn't know what to do.
"Oh this is ridiculous." said inner Sakura, "Let me handle this." Taking control inner walked up to Gaara and tapped him on the shoulder. Getting his full killer intent would knock over most Jonin but Inner was unfazed.
"What are you doing Gaara?" Inner asked in Sakura's voice she normally uses on Naruto when he is doing something really stupid.
Looking at her for one too many heartbeats Gaara turned back to the skull and said, "This man almost ended me. Do you understand why I am alive?"
Being asked such a profound question in the middle of this horror show of sand and bones Inner Sakura decided to give a Naruto answer.
"You are alive so that you can protect your family, your friends, and your village." As a look of understanding crossed Gaara's face and an unnerving smile appeared she continued.
"Now where is Naruto?" Pausing to look at her and then back at the skull, he seemed to come to a decision.
"I can feel the nine-tail chakra over there." pointing to the valley at the end of the river. There is another chakra, an evil chakra with him, one I haven't felt before. Mother says I need to kill it."
Feeling his killer intent dropping and releasing her friends she asks. "Can you show us, help us find Naruto?"
"I can not, the uzine in my body is burning me and I am too drained from my last battle." Not wanting to volunteer to help him with the uzine issue she turned to the other two girls who quickly shook their heads NO.
"We need to get Lee back to the village, we can do nothing but get in the way if Naruto is calling on the Nine-Tails chakra." Says Tenten pulling out a medical scroll to seal Lee in.
"No I will not give up.", said a determined Hinata as she walked past them heading in the direction of the valley of the end. Without giving it a second thought Sakura runs after her as inner gives back control to their body. As they entered the grass field, leaving behind the hellish sand and all that it contained Kakashi sensei appeared in a swirl of leaves.
"Ah, I found my cute little Genin." with a fake eye smile. "The Hokage has ordered me to return my team and for all of you to head back to the village."
"They are my teammates too, I am not leaving." an obstinate Sakura says, with Hinata showing her agreement.
"Sorry ladies but you're both going back." Lifting his Hitaiate they can't help but look into his luminous red eye, their minds filled with grass fields and puppy dogs waiting to play. Falling to the ground Kakashi waves Tenten over and orders her to place the two girls into the remaining medical scrolls and take them back to the village.
Wishing there had been another way but knowing how little time he has, he leaves Tenten to her task as he uses all the speed he has to reach the remaining members of his missing Genin team. Hoping against all hope to find them both alive.