(FFML)Suiren, Chapter Seven: Breath…

BREATH…

“…Gai?”

“Hmm?”

“What exactly did you mean, when you told Sakura to ‘remember her training’?”

“Haha! Have you noticed something interesting, Kakashi?” Absently kicking his current enemy across the gallery, the bushy browed jounin looked over his shoulder at his comrade. “While I admit that the progress of your other students is truly impressive, you were foolish to ignore adorable little Sakura-chan!”

Though his tone bore only mild reproach, Gai finished with a self-satisfied smile that seemed to say, ‘Haha! You are a worthy opponent, my eternal rival, but today, victory is mine!’ Pausing, the mightiest taijutsu master of Konoha faced forward and motioned boldly at a pair of Sound nins that were circling just out of reach.

“You left your forgotten subordinate in quite a bind, you know,” he continued, countering the attacks of the two hostiles with effortless ease as he lectured the gray-haired shinobi. “They say a maiden’s heart burns like a beacon for the man she loves, but a kunochi is a warrior as well as a woman. Even if those boys shine brighter, that is no excuse for letting Sakura-chan’s flame go untended.”

Noticing that his rival was barely paying attention, Gai pressed on with a bit of a swagger, refusing to be defeated by Kakashi’s hip, unconcerned attitude. “It is fortunate that she came to me for help. If it were neglected any longer, the determination in her heart might have simply burned out-”

“Hah!” Fading into view behind Gai’s opponents just as the first one fell, Anko reached around and grabbed the remaining sound nin under the chin, spinning him like a top as she ripped out his throat. “I think I’m more worried about the way the she keeps sticking her hand in the fire!” she quipped, leering like a maniac and licking the blood from her fingers.

*She- she _stole_ my metaphor! And before Kakashi could even react to it!* Trembling at the indignity, but still impressed by the brunette’s ironic timing, Gai was reluctantly forced to call this match with Kakashi a draw on account of interference.

That didn’t mean that he would be denied a victory, however. “That reminds me of a child I once knew,” he mused wistfully, sizing up the younger woman. “I can remember how she used to come home with burned fingers and lumps on her head after trying to steal sweet chestnuts from street vendors…”

Anko’s expression soured for a moment, but she recovered quickly. “Well, if we’re talking ancient history here, I can remember a few things too, fuzzy,” the kunoichi purred with a predatory grin. “I doubt _anyone_ could forget the time you-”

“Ahem, did you want something, Anko?” Kakashi interjected, clearing his throat. The copy-ninja’s expression of inquiry was for the examiner alone; it was as if Gai wasn’t even there.

*Such- such style!* It was all Gai could do to keep from crying in frustration. Kakashi’s tone had struck the perfect balance between disinterest and impatience; he had completely taken command of the conversation, and now _Gai_ owed _him_ for that conveniently timed save!

*The battle rages on! I must not fail in my next attack!* Clenching his fist in determination, then planting it firmly in an unfortunate Sand nin’s face, Gai valiantly sallied back into the fray. “Indeed, Mitarashi! What business do you have here? Shouldn’t you be attending to your emergency duties?”

“I was on my way there when I saw you and broom-head here talking to those kids,” Anko replied testily, flicking a couple needles over Gai’s shoulder.

She was forced to shout her next question over screams of pain, as a sound ninja with her needles sticking out of his eye sockets stumbled past them and fell through the hole Gai had punched in the wall. “Y’mind telling me what the hell you’re doing, sending my clone off on some errand in the middle of a battle?”

*Clone?* Gai had no idea what Anko was talking about. Looking to the masked jounin provided no revelations; Kakashi had trained his face to a strategically sound, ‘You don’t need to know that,’ expression. *Cool under fire as always, Kakashi!*

Still, armed as he was with a wit mighty enough to ferret out even the most elusive truth, the Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha didn’t need any support to face the wild woman’s inquiry. “I think you’re mistaken, Mitarashi. This is the first time I’ve spoken to you today,” he declared incredulously.

Anko’s reaction wasn’t the whiny denial or chastened sulkiness that he expected of her, however. “You mean you didn’t know?” Grinning even wider than before, she shook with some barely contained emotion.

A glance at Kakashi’s impassive face only seemed to strain her control further, until finally the dam burst before a torrent of mocking laughter. “_NEITHER_ of you noticed that Sakura-chan was a clone? HAHAHAH! That’s fucking hilarious!”

Reeling as the banshee’s wail mercilessly castrated his ego, Gai nearly missed the fractional widening of Kakashi’s eyes that indicated the gray-haired ninja had also taken a mortal wound. *Only now do you understand, Kakashi, the venomous bite of disdain.* Feeling a new camaraderie with his life-long rival, Gai rallied his spirits anew to face their cackling foe.

“What would you know of it, Mitarashi?” he demanded, graciously taking point in their counterattack. When the laughing woman had spoken Sakura’s name, the battle of words had unexpectedly come full circle, and _his_ time had finally arrived. “Though I am a fair man, and know better than to drink from the poisoned spring of gossip, even my wonderful, pure-hearted Lee has had his ears sullied by the rumors circulating about you and my precious new student- and now this! It just seems too coincidental!”

Standing back to back with Kakashi to show the righteous solidarity of platonic teacher’s love, Gai pointed an accusing finger at the examiner. “If the girl who was here just a moment ago was truly a clone, then tell me, what have you done with my darling Sakura-chan?”

§

*Shit, we’ve gotta be getting close to Sasuke by now! It’s now or never!*

Trying not to fall out of the canopy as she split her focus, Sakura strung together the seals to form a single, slightly unusual bunshin. Thanks to her genjutsu, she was reasonably sure the team of Hidden Sound nins she was shadowing hadn’t noticed her, but one of them was bound to sense her hostile intent sooner or later.

To keep her mind clear in the moments it took to catch up, Sakura concentrated on adjusting the weapons she had hidden in her kimono. The ones she’d be counting on the most were a tad slippery, but she didn’t have time to worry about it now. Clamping down on her pre-fight jitters until they rattled around like knife-edged dice in her stomach, Sakura threw herself into the fray.

Invisibly overtaking the trackers as they maneuvered around a wide break in the tree cover, Sakura jumped straight through the middle of the clearing and sent her clone leaping high into the sky above. When her enemies looked up in surprise, she and her doppelganger reached into their sleeves and pulled out twin handfuls of wetly glistening needles, fanning them in a deadly spray to either side.

Two of the four chose to parry the projectiles with kunai, rather than dodge. While they had little trouble intercepting the illusory needles raining from above, neither noticed Sakura’s ’shadow’ attacks. One of them had enough time to stagger to the ground before the paralytic poison took effect, but the other took a needle in the side of the neck and dropped like a stone.

Landing lightly, Sakura nearly fainted in relief when she saw that her remaining targets were ignoring her as they warily scanned the battlefield; her real attack had been hidden cleanly. Sakura turned her gaze skyward to see her badly damaged bunshin falling toward her.

The clone had been completely dismembered and white smoke bled lazily from nearly a dozen holes in its body, but it was dissolving much more slowly than normal- perfect. Moving into position, Sakura formed a series of seals and prayed. *STABILIZE!*

The effect was immediate. Springing back to ‘life,’ the clone flipped in midair to land on its newly reformed feet. Smoke streaming in to fill its wounds, the illusory ‘ANBU’ grabbed his katana and rushed one of the remaining Sound nins, who didn’t seem to know what to make of this startling development.

Pacing the clone as close as she dared, Sakura drew her own sword and grabbed a few more needles from her sleeve, moving in for the kill. The sound nin reacted in time to block her decoy’s first slash, and Sakura simultaneously launched her own strike to land at the exact same spot, making it feel like the clone’s attack had been real.

The startled look in her opponent’s eyes was encouraging; he’d reacted out of caution, and wasn’t expecting the blow to be solid. Adjusting his stance, he gave the clone a greater measure of his attention, exactly as planned. Sakura’s best chance at remaining undiscovered was to keep them too confused to realize she was there.

Sensing an attack from behind, Sakura twisted out of the way as the Sound nin perched in the trees hurled a kunai at her bunshin’s back. The weapon passed clean through without resistance, leaving a smoldering gash in the clone’s shoulder and forcing his comrade to dodge as well.

Her nearer opponent’s sword dug a cross-wise gash in the bunshin’s chest with as he spun aside, but the fox-masked man counterattacked like the wound was nothing. Sakura was close enough to read the disbelief in her enemy’s eyes as swing after swing landed with the weight of steel, even as the ANBU slowly disintegrated.

Finding an opening that her more distant foe wouldn’t be able to see, Sakura ducked under the arm of her ‘dance partner,’ her left hand darting out with the speed of a striking viper. Standing behind her victim, the green-haired girl folded the needles back into her sleeve as he crumpled, two small holes hidden in the crook of his armpit; the serpent’s venomous bite.

Planting her sword, Sakura performed the bunshin restoration jutsu once more. *Three down, one to go!* she affirmed with new confidence. The young kunoichi was then forced to hurl herself to the side as a veritable cloud of shuriken passed through the space where she was standing.

Sakura’s heart pounded in her throat as she rounded on her remaining foe; had he seen her? A glance found him scanning the clearing warily, even though she was still out in the open, so her genjutsu hadn’t been broken. Looking back at where her bunshin still stood, Sakura nearly groaned at her own stupidity as the blade of her sword, stuck upright in the ground, glinted at her tauntingly.

After she’d kept still for several seconds the Sound nin growled an oath and reached into his thigh holster, pulling out what appeared to be a smoke canister. Ducking back into the cover of the trees, he tossed it into the center of the clearing, where it proceeded to puff out a thick, but not completely opaque fog.

*Poison gas?* It didn’t seem likely, with his teammates down, but Sakura grabbed a treated cloth out of her gear just in case. Covering her nose and mouth with the smoke filter, the green-haired girl pulled her fox mask down over top of it.

While she was adjusting the ties to keep the cloth snug against her face, a faint whistling sound caught her ear. Sakura looked to her right just in time to see a few leaves on the ground leap into the air as if they were alive, before a glistening, half-seen ribbon of light shredded them to pieces- razor wire! *FUCK!*

As the whistling sound approached again, Sakura made a desperate lunge for her sword. She grabbed it just in time to parry a pair of kunai that flashed out of the gloom, coming straight at her. He’d definitely seen her that time, she observed, trying not to panic as she ducked to roll under the hair-fine blade that sliced through the air a moment later.

Drawing up short as another kunai thudded into the ground in front of her, Sakura’s eyes widened as she noticed how the smoke swirled around it, almost tracing its path. _That_ was how he was tracking her! *I’ve gotta get out of this smoke!*

Her opponent didn’t seem willing to cooperate, however. Between the singing coils of wire that kept her diving out of the way and the sharp bits of metal that came flying at her every time she tried to move faster than a crawl, he was doing a pretty good job of boxing her in.

Because he kept attacking, however, the quick-thinking kunoichi was able to follow her opponent’s movements as well. By the way he was leaning on wire sweeps and creeping toward one of his downed teammates, Sakura guessed he was out of ammunition. Now was the time to finish this, before he had a chance to re-arm.Unfortunately, though the wire disturbed the cloud enough that Sakura could see it coming, he was getting better at anticipating which way she would dodge. His attacks changed directions faster and more accurately each time he forced her to move, and she’d already had a few close calls, including a long, shallow cut on her upper thigh.

Deciding to gamble one more, Sakura pulled off her kimono and wrapped it around the sheath of her sword. Having her bunshin run down the imaginary line she’d drawn between herself and her tormentor, she tossed the bundle behind the decoy, disturbing the smoke.

Whistling toward her, the wire immediately dropped to ankle height. He’d realized that she had to be touching the ground to change directions quickly during a charge.

The grim-faced kunoichi was counting on that. Jamming the sword into the earth at an angle, she hopped up to balance on the hilt. She felt the sword vibrate as it caught the whip-like blade and wrapped it around. Drawing a kunai in one hand and two poisoned needles in the other, Sakura launched herself toward her target, shadowing the bunshin and sprinting as fast and as low to the ground as she could.

The edge of the clearing approached almost too quickly; it hadn’t seemed nearly so close when she was stuck on the defensive. Surging up the tree that she’d pinpointed as the sniper’s nest, Sakura was greeted by a foe with wild eyes and a ready sword. *Crap! Too tight!*

There wasn’t any room to move in the branches of the tree her opponent had chosen, limiting her avenues of attack to a single path; one which the sound nin charged down sword first, straight through the gutted bunshin. Then, at the last moment, his attack faltered mid-lunge, allowing her to twist out of the way unscathed.

Parrying his textbook follow-up slash, she planted a needle firmly in the side of his neck and flipped back out of reach. Sakura waited to make sure he was truly paralyzed before liberating his short sword and moving to a safer position.

Visually locating all of her prey in the rapidly thinning haze, Sakura grew very still, straining her senses for any sign of hidden enemies. She was surprised when she found one almost immediately- and so close! She was practically on top of him!

*Dammit, I’m sure there were only four of them! Did they call for reinforcements?* Shifting carefully, Sakura focused on a patch of underbrush where she’d caught a hint of motion.

The subject of her scrutiny must have felt her hostility, for he immediately rose to his feet, revealing the familiar, brush-headed visage of a former classmate. “Genin, Team 8, Aburame Shino” he announced without emotion or ceremony, not looking her way.

*Shino?* What the hell was Shino doing out here? It was possible that he was following Sasuke as well, but it was just as likely to be a trap. She’d be damned if she was going to fall for such a simple ploy after the fight she’d just had; she had make sure he was real, somehow.

A glance at her bedraggled bunshin revealed it to be in the final stages of disintegration, but it might still be salvageable. Carefully lowering herself to the ground and circling the suspect ninja, Sakura performed the restoration technique once more, holding the kodachi under her arm this time.

The copy of her up in the trees stirred without fail, slowly rising to his feet to face this new threat. “Prove it,” the fake ANBU answered cautiously, sheathing his blade.

“You’re not very trusting,” Shino observed, stepping out of the bushes.

The clone tilted his head skeptically. “Should I be?”

“Of course not.”

*Above!* Momentarily distracted as she turned her gaze skyward, Sakura was surprised again when ‘Shino’ suddenly melted into a writhing mountain of bugs. Flowing across the ground like a living wave, the swarm retreated back toward the cover of the underbrush.

“Satisfied?” the taciturn boy queried from his perch on a nearby branch. He was looking in her direction warily, but Sakura could tell that he still wasn’t sure where she was.

Breathing a tired sigh, Sakura relaxed, laying her sword over her shoulder. “Alright, I’m satisfied. I’ve heard of the bug-using Aburame Clan,” she admitted, releasing her genjutsu.

A tiny thrill of satisfaction coursed through Sakura as Shino flinched, ever so slightly. He’d been looking right at her without even realizing it. Then the true reason for his surprise reared its ugly head. “…A girl,” he observed intelligently, his gaze lowering by a fraction.

“Eh?” Glancing down, Sakura realized that her tattered gray t-shirt was flayed open diagonally in front, and the loose binding she’d tied over her breasts had been neatly bisected as well. Apparently she hadn’t escaped the Sound nin’s last attack _completely_ unscathed.

“Aaaaah!” Blushing to her shoulders, the masked kunoichi favored her ogler with a murderous glare. “Wh-what are you looking at?! Turn around!” she screeched, punctuating the command with the point of her sword. Surprisingly, Shino complied without argument, allowing Sakura run over and retrieve her kimono.

“How long have you been watching?” she asked as she smoothed out the garment and inspected the damage, her anger temporarily pushed aside as she remembered the odd way that Sound nin had hesitated. Going over it in her mind, Sakura realized that his body language had showed all the signs of being paralyzed in fear, just for an instant.

“I noticed the smoke, and arrived shortly before you defeated that last one,” Shino answered candidly. From the sound of his voice, Sakura could tell he was still looking the other way.

So it was possible Shino had aided her; the green-haired girl couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. “He seemed distracted. Was that your doing?”

“Unlikely: your final technique was… impressive.” For a moment, Sakura almost thought Shino sounded a little uncomfortable. “Even if I’d tried to divert his attention, I doubt I would have succeeded,” he added.

*Huh? Final technique?* Sakura failed to see how making a suicidal dash at a prepared opponent could be considered good strategy. *I guess maybe Naruto might think that, but he’s an idiot.* Still, the revelation that Shino hadn’t helped her made her feel slightly better. She didn’t need anyone to protect her.

Taking off her scarf, Sakura tied it around her waist to hold the kimono closed and retrieved her katana. Then, lifting the fox mask slightly, she pulled the poison filter out from under it and put it away. “Okay, you can look now,” she declared, crossing her arms over her chest.

Stepping into the clearing, Shino favored her with a flat look of appraisal, lingering for a moment on her mask. “You sound familiar,” he declared without inflection; it was a statement of fact, rather than an insinuation.

*He didn’t even apologize for staring!* Sakura fumed, bristling in irritation. “We’ve spoken before,” she replied dryly. She didn’t have time to explain her situation right now, but the tanned girl vowed that, one day, she would show him the error of his ways.

When Shino nodded in understanding, she turned to go. “If you’ll excuse me,” she concluded impatiently, “I have a job to do.”

“You’re following Uchiha Sasuke?”

This frank observation gave team seven’s kunoichi a moment of pause. “And if I am?” she ventured warily.

The bug boy didn’t answer immediately; he probably didn’t have a legitimate mission of his own. “I overheard a conversation between the Hidden Sand genin before Nara’s fight,” he offered after a moment. “They have some plan that cannot proceed without Uchiha Sasuke’s presence. I don’t believe Shiranui-san was aware of this when he ordered Sasuke to chase them. I’m attempting to intercept Sasuke before he catches them.”

“I have no objections to that,” Sakura allowed, trying not to sound too eager. Even though she’d resolved to protect Sasuke all by herself, if necessary, she was grateful to discover that she wasn’t alone. “We shouldn’t waste any more time,” she suggested urgently. “I was shadowing these ninja because they were tracking him, but it’s going to take some time to find the trail they were following.”

“That won’t be necessary; I can follow them by scent,” Shino corrected in the same matter-of-fact tone he always used.

“Eh? How?” Could bugs do that? Sakura supposed it made a certain amount of sense. Scent was the most primitive of the senses; even the simplest creatures could ’smell’ the chemicals in their environment. She’d never heard of bugs finding people that way, though.

The sunglass-clad boy motioned for her to follow. “I will explain while we move.”

§

“This scent!”

“What now? The shampoo again?”

“A fight, kid,” Pakkun grumbled testily. “The ninja following Sasuke got into a fight.”

“Huh?” Pausing before his next leap, Naruto turned to give Kakashi’s weird pet an angry, impatient look. “Did they catch up with Sasuke?”

The dog shook his head. “No, one of the five fought and defeated the other four, and then left with… something else that arrived afterward.” The pug-faced mutt grimaced, and Naruto was proven wrong; he actually _could_ get uglier. “Those two are still following Sasuke.”

That seemed like an awful lot of information to find out with just your nose, the blond boy thought- and what did it matter if the folks chasing Sasuke beat each other up? “How do ya know there was a fight?” he prodded, bounding to another branch to keep up with the pink-haired girl ahead of them.

Sighing, the summoned beast elaborated. “All of them smell like blood, and the four that stayed behind stink of poison.” He sniffed the air thoughtfully. “To be more specific, the poison is a neurotoxin made out of vines that grow only in the Forest of Death; it’s commonly used by Konoha ninja.”

“Konoha? He’s on our side, then, right- the one that won?” Naruto pointed out, his irritation fading.

“We can’t know that,” Pakkun cautioned with a grave frown- or maybe that was just his regular face, but he certainly _sounded_ serious. “They were traveling close, but it’s impossible to say if they were together, of if the fifth ninja was following the others. If they were together, that one could be a traitor for either side-”

“No, the one that used the poison is definitely an ally,” Sakura cut in mysteriously, not taking her eyes off of the trees ahead. The only thing readable in her voice was the absolute certainty that she was right. “What about the last one?”

*Sakura-chan…* Naruto was starting to worry about his teammate. She’d looked half-ready to kill the stupid dog when he’d asked about her shampoo, and she’d grown eerily quiet since then. *Well, at least she ain’t mad now,* he mused uncertainly.

Pakkun’s manner again grew uncomfortable. “That one’s even more worrying,” he explained hesitantly. There was definitely a frown on his ugly mug this time. “It’s not even human…”

§

Crouching low, the dark-skinned girl squinted at the branch in front of her critically. “And they’re sure this is _exactly_ what the notes look like?” she asked, turning to her partner.

“Positive,” Shino confirmed. “Destruction bugs do not completely understand the concept of ‘color,’ but they can tell from the ‘taste’ of the paper where the different kinds of ink are.”

A pair of fine green eyebrows furrowed behind Sakura’s mask as she resumed scrutinizing the two distinct patterns before her. One of them was most likely written in invisible ink and the other in regular ink, to hide the secret of the note’s trigger. If that was the case… “Alright, I think I know what we’re dealing with,” she proclaimed. “Good work.”

As inscriptions dissolved into a swarm of bugs and began insinuating themselves back into Shino’s clothes, the tall boy cocked his head to the side. “You must be quite experienced with traps, for I remain uncertain of how this one functions.”

*Damn straight! I was the top of my class in traps!* Sakura congratulated herself, but she couldn’t fault Shino for not catching this one. It seemed to function in a way that she’d never heard of before.

“It’s a motion sensing trap, but the wires aren’t really tripwires in the traditional sense. Instead they’re tuned to produce sound at particular frequency when they vibrate, which will trigger the notes near them. They’re under high tension, so just landing near them should be enough to set them off.”

The sword-wielding girl stood, glancing around and mentally pinpointing where Shino’s bugs had located the notes. “Unlike our perimeter wards, a bunshin couldn’t set them off. Our notes react to chakra entering within a specific range,” she elaborated. “It should be possible to disable them, but it will take some time.”

“Then perhaps we ought to set them off. The lead we’ve gained on Sasuke won’t be great,” Shino pointed out. According to Shino’s scent tracking, the Sand nins had made a hard turn somewhere, probably to throw off pursuit. When Sakura had caught their physical trail again, the signs indicated that Sasuke hadn’t passed yet, so he’d probably been delayed by a false trail.

“There may be more of these we haven’t found, and setting them off should serve as a warning to proceed cautiously,” Shino added, looking in the direction that Sasuke would be approaching from.

After a moment’s thought, Sakura nodded in agreement. “Indeed. Better safe than sorry.”

“A kunai near one of the anchor points of the wire should do it,” the bug-boy predicted, reaching into his coat.

“Yeah- wait!” Frowning, Sakura went over the pattern of the traps in her head once more. “There’s a narrow path left open for observation; the one that set these might still be here watching. Let’s do this another way.” Making room beside her, Sakura created a pair of clones.

“You stated that a bunshin would be unable to trigger them,” Shino observed flatly.

“Not with motion, no, but there is a way.” One of the clones continued talking for her as Sakura raised her concealment genjutsu again. “I’m betting we can draw out our watcher at the same time.”

She was about to explain her strategy, but Shino was already looking at the cluster of trees where they would find their would-be ambusher. “Sasuke may change direction when he hears the explosions. If he does, should I attempt to intercept him?” the serious boy asked.

Sakura couldn’t think of any reason to argue. “Sounds like a plan, just give me some warning first. You go clockwise?” At Shino’s nod, the masked girl drew her stolen kodachi in one hand and her last poisoned needle in the other. “Okay, ready? Here we go…”

Taking a calming breath, the green-haired girl and her chosen doppelganger began circling the danger zone to the right, leaving the other clone behind while Shino vanished into the forest on the left. The traps didn’t cover a large area, and Sakura had to remind herself not to rush, since Shino wouldn’t be able to move as quickly or stealthily as she could. The aim was a pincer attack, so coordination was important.

Their distraction began right on time, and Sakura slowed to allow her personal decoy to find cover. Starting quietly but quickly growing in volume, the bunshin she’d left at their original position was singing. In theory, if she hit the right pitch, she could start a sympathetic vibration in the wires and trigger the explosion notes.

Beginning low and climbing the scale steadily, the false Sakura’s voice echoed clear and strong through trees, easily marking her location. Hopefully, their prey would take the bait, or at least be distracted for a moment. Positioning herself, Sakura prepared to pounce, but as the wordless song entered the high registers that they’d practiced endlessly in kunoichi training, all hell broke loose- literally.

Dropping her poisoned needle, the kimono-clad ninja clung desperately to the branch she’d just landed on as the forest to the left of her erupted in a deafening wall of fire. “HOLY FUCK!” Sakura didn’t even hear the sound of her own voice as she swore; she hadn’t expected the explosion to be nearly that big.

Ducking behind the tree trunk for shelter against flying debris, the startled girl almost missed her cue as a familiar Hidden Sand genin jumped backwards out of a hiding place close to the edge of the inferno and flipped away, her eyes closed against the intense heat.

*Now!* Dashing in to intercept, Sakura attempted to knock the giant fan out of Temari’s hands. To her surprise, the blonde girl flinched as she drew close, twisting away at the last moment. Opening her fan as she landed, Temari glanced around warily, adopting a defensive stance and searching for the source of the attack. Sakura then realized that her decoy bunshin had been blown away by the explosion. *Dammit! Shino, where are you?!*

As if summoned by Sakura’s thoughts, a pair of kunai whipped past Temari. Leaning to the side for a retaliatory strike, the older girl presented Sakura with her back once more. Bounding forward to knock the blonde out with a single blow to the base of the skull, Sakura was frustrated again when Temari seemed to sense her right at the moment of truth.

Cancelling her windup into a block, the Sand nin hopped away, releasing a Kamaitachi in Sakura’s general direction. The wind attack was blunt, but blanketed a wide area, and Sakura found herself blown back several yards before she managed to regain control.

While she was finding her bearings, the unmistakable deadpan of Aburame Shino echoed from Temari’s other side. “Plan B,” he declared, his voice growing distant even as he spoke.

*That jerk!* Even if this was what they’d agreed upon, he could have stuck around long enough to do more than throw a couple kunai! *Dammit, he’d better keep Sasuke safe, or I’m gonna introduce that jackass to Mom’s favorite family-sized can of Raid!* Returning her attention to Temari, Sakura found that her opponent had also been affected by Shino’s proclamation.

“Gaara!” Her eyes widening in realization, the blonde made as if to follow the sound of the retreating voice, but was brought up short when a handful of small projectiles whistled across her path.

Mentally berating herself for not preparing more poisoned needles when she’d had the chance, Sakura came up quickly on Temari’s left to cut the blonde off if she tried to chase Shino again. With her back to the fire, Sakura blazed through the bunshin seals in record time, creating a ring of fox-masked ninja to surround the other girl.

“No you don’t!” one of the decoys snarled, while Sakura began closing to melee range once more.

Frowning, Temari responded by whipping her fan around in a cutting arc that annihilated half of Sakura’s clones in one go. “I don’t have time to deal with you!” she snapped, attempting to run through the opening she’d created.

Sweeping in low and unseen, Sakura finally managed to connect with tripping kick, sending the other kunoichi tumbling into the branches below. Still, Temari had almost dodged that time as well; she’d reacted to the attack only a moment too late.

As she jumped down after her prey, Sakura frantically tried to piece together what was happening. The Kamaitachi that had taken out her clones hadn’t even been close to hitting her, so Temari couldn’t see her _all_ the time, but whenever she closed to strike, Temari seemed to know exactly where her attacks would come from. This told her that the Sand nin’s ability to pierce her genjutsu had a limited range- perhaps a few yards.

Sakura was immediately forced to revise this assessment when a blast of wind scythed over her head as she dropped down into the lower canopy. Temari was staring in her general direction now; the lack of a follow-up attack indicated that blonde still couldn’t see her, but that had been too close.

Looking around, the green-haired girl noticed the smoke from the nearby fire rising through the gaps in the leaf-cover, and suddenly understood; the motion of the smoke had given her away again.

Moving out of the thickest part of the haze, Sakura reappraised her opponent. At a distance, she couldn’t touch Temari; when she threw needles, the cloaking effect on them faded fast if she didn’t use a ’shadow’ ruse, giving Temari plenty of time to dodge and counter with a wind blast.If she closed to melee range, however, she would be totally exposed, and she didn’t like her odds in that situation; Temari was looking a lot fresher than she felt after, fighting those Sound nins. Striking with ranged attacks from just outside of Temari’s ‘zone’ was probably her best bet, but first she had to find out how close she could get before Temari could sense her.

Approaching warily as her remaining five clones circled like jackals, Sakura readied a handful of needles and a kunai while the copies drew both katana and kodachi instead. It was a thin ruse, but every little bit helped. Forty feet dwindled into thirty, then twenty.

At ten, Temari bolted for it, clearing the path with a small swipe of her fan. The blonde had probably swung at random, as Sakura wasn’t in the path of her attack, but when the green-haired girl moved to follow, Temari pivoted and released another Kamaitachi behind her.

Having seen this knock-back technique before, Sakura regained control of her flight quickly, but still couldn’t avoid the blast. Catching hold of a passing branch as she fell, the young kunoichi growled in frustration; she’s walked right into that one. With scowl, Sakura swung back to her feet and leapt off in pursuit.

§

*Damn, this guy is better than I thought. Looks like we’re gonna have to get serious.* Shifting to hide his left hand from the bug-user, Kankuro paused to test the wind. It appeared the weather was on his side this time; he was upwind of his opponent, so using a poison gas bomb wouldn’t be a problem. *Alright, let’s finish this quick, Karasu!*

“Kankuro!”

Not daring to take their eyes off of each other for more than a moment, both Sand and Leaf nonetheless glanced down as Temari burst out of the trees and landed on the branch between them, next to the black-clad ninja’s anxiously twitching puppet. The blonde girl was watching behind her warily, but spared her teammate an angry, worried look. “Kankuro, where’s Gaara?!” she demanded.

In spite of himself, Kankuro felt a rush of relief at his older sister’s return. “It took you long enough,” he chastised with a grim smile. Turning his body slightly, the Kugutsu user began explaining the distance and direction of their teammate in sign. “I’ve got this guy, but the- AAAAH!”

Nearly falling from his perch in shock, Kankuro leapt away, staring down at his hands; he now had a large needle driven cleanly through the center of each palm. “Shit!” Glancing around for his attacker, the puppet master felt a peculiar sense of foreboding as he found a trio of masked, sword-wielding ninja bounding up through the trees after him.

“Damn, a Hunter?” Landing on the vertical face of a tree-trunk so he’d have something solid at his back, Kankuro began removing one of the needles with his teeth. Controlling Karasu with the other hand, he slowly drew the puppet back to his side. It was painful and awkward, but there was no way he could face a trained ninja-killer without full use of his hands.

To make matters worse, it appeared that the bug-boy had used the distraction to hide again. At least his green haired assailants were keeping their distance for the moment, circling like vultures about twenty feet away.

“Don’t stop moving!” Temari commanded, coming as close to panic as Kankuro had ever seen her when Gaara wasn’t concerned. “She’s using some kind of cloaking technique!”

*Aw, crap!*  Doubling over, Kankuro launched himself between two of the circling clones. The sudden jolt nearly stabbed the needle through the roof of his mouth, but he kept pulling. He was dead meat if he couldn’t use his hands, but he was a sitting duck if he stood still. Unfortunately, he couldn’t evade and control Karasu at the same time, which rendered his best weapons useless.

When he landed, Kankuro was mildly surprised to find Temari rushing to his side; had he not gotten the message out fast enough? “Get Gaara and go!” he urged. “If that Uchiha brat finds him-”

“You won’t be able to watch my back like that,” his sister replied curtly, placing herself back-to-back with him on the branch. “Move when I move, but concentrate on tending your hands. Afterward, you go and get Gaara. I’ll deal with them.”

*Temari…* Unsatisfied, but feeling it unwise to argue in the middle of battle, the Kugutsu user continued prying the needle from his right palm. It was hard to ignore the clones, though, as they caught up and began circling again; something about this situation was hauntingly familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

Abruptly, Temari shifted her weight and began turning left. As he adjusted his footing to mirror her, Kankuro heard the clang of steel on steel, and felt his sister’s arm jerk.

*Heh, it’s hard to sneak up on someone who knows everything there is to know about how the air moves.* He was no slouch himself, but Temari had always fared better than he when confronted with concealed enemies; her training had made her highly attuned to her environment.

Finally yanking the needle free, Kankuro barely managed to whip Karasu around to block when a kunai flew out of the tree cover below, clattering noisily off of the puppet’s armored shell. It seemed the bug-user was back, and he was full taking advantage of the fact that Temari couldn’t defend him from ranged attacks.

As he scanned the trees for this new threat, something caught his eye. Watching the bunshin carefully as they hopped from branch to branch, Kankuro noted how the leaves vibrated slightly when a particular ‘clone’ landed. “Temari, the one coming around this time is physical; she must have dropped her cloak,” he whispered.

Nodding in acknowledgement, Temari set herself to receive, but still kept her stance loose, just in case the ANBU was trying for a bait and switch. If the enemy swapped places with a bunshin using kawarimi, the attack could still come from an unexpected angle.

Almost too predictably, it was the strange ‘clone’ that charged in this time, leaping high for an overhead slash. Waiting until the last possible moment to be sure that the one she was fighting was real, Temari raised her fan to arrest the green-haired girl’s descent with a jab to the ribs.

She was rewarded by firm contact and a pained, hacking cough. “Enough games,” the blonde murmured in satisfaction. “Hurry up and go! This one’s almost done, but watch out for the other,” she ordered.

Before he could reply Kankuro felt Temari’s shoulders tense violently against his back, and the shadow of the girl above them began to ripple and warp. Looking up, the last thing he saw was a sky-blackening curtain of crawling, chittering bugs descending upon him. *Aaaaw, fuck me…*

§

Holding his arms out to his sides, Shino waited patiently for his message to be relayed through the swarm. Moving in waves, the bugs returned to him, crawling up his legs and into his clothes until the writhing black mound at his feet melted away to reveal the motionless form of Kankuro.

Shino had allowed the bugs to feed just long enough to ensure that this opponent wouldn’t be able to cause them problems in the future, but it was past time to move on. Unlike her teammate, Temari hadn’t foolishly fallen to her knees and attempted to scrape the destruction bugs off with her bare hands.

Instead she had run, and the ANBU had given chase. There had been no sign of them since, but the swarm told him that the his unexpected ally had stopped moving away, so they were likely fighting again.

After a moment of consideration, the Aburame Clan heir decided it would be prudent to ensure that the green-haired girl won before continuing his pursuit of Sasuke. She was formidable, but probably only chuunin level, and Temari had displayed skills equal to those of a chuunin, in his estimation.

Leaving the unconscious puppet-user where he lay, Shino leapt off, listening carefully as his tiny companions told him which direction his quarry had fled. It wasn’t long before the musty perfume of the forest thinned, dissolving into a cool, fresh breeze, the murmur of moving water replacing the rustling, creaking voice of the wood.

*Ah, there was a river in this direction. Not a poor tactical choice,* Shino observed thoughtfully. Submerging herself in water would be far more effective than attempting to manually remove the bugs, but that plan could also easily backfire. Shino’s speculations were realized when the trees parted and he caught sight of the ANBU dragging an unmoving body away from the riverside.Landing and alerting the fox-masked ninja to his presence, Shino nodded in greeting. The girl gave him only a cursory glance of acknowledgement. She spared another knowing look at the bugs streaming toward him from Temari’s body before continuing her examination of the blonde.

“Is she dead?” he inquired cautiously.

“She’s stopped breathing, but she still has a weak pulse,” the ANBU replied in a hopeful rush. “Come over here and hold her arms in case she struggles,” she commanded, gesturing him forward.

Shino quirked an eyebrow in inquiry, but obeyed. Moving around to straddle the Sand nin’s legs and grab her wrists, he watched his puzzling companion kneel beside Temari and tilt her head back to clear the airway. “It may be too late to revive her. If she was weakened enough to drown, her body may not have sufficient chakra to resume normal respiration,” he observed clinically. “Why-”

“Her heart’s still beating,” the green-haired girl countered, pulling off her mask to reveal a defiant scowl. “If she lives, maybe we can use her to force Gaara give up without a fight- unless _you_ want to fight that monster?”

Reaching into the sleeve of her dripping kimono, she extracted a small leather pouch. “If I grind a Soldier Pill, she can absorb enough of the drug sublingually for at least a small adrenaline boost.” Popping one of the pills, she bit down with an audible crunch.

Shino only half-heard this explanation, however, so busy was he staring at her face. Now he understood why her voice had seemed so familiar before. “Haruno…?” he wondered confusedly, bushy brows riding high on his forehead.

“I’ll explain later,” Sakura snapped. Sticking a finger in her mouth, the industrious kunoichi extracted a glob of unpleasant-looking red paste. Grimacing in disgust, she grabbed Temari’s jaw with her free hand and proceeded to smear the pulverized Soldier Pill under the Sand nin’s tongue. Then, taking a deep breath, Sakura covered Temari’s mouth with her own.

Temari seemed to react as soon as their lips touched. Shino had to hastily adjust his grip on the tall girl’s arms as she convulsed, coughing up two mouthfuls of water before she managed to suck in her first greedy gasp of air. “Haah! Huh? Wha-?”

Opening her eyes, Temari stared around dazedly until her gaze fell upon Sakura. “What the he-” Temari’s face contorted in shock as she lapsed into another fit of wet coughs.

“No…” Paling, Sakura recoiled. “Not again! I didn’t even do the stupid seals this time!” she cried, shaking her head in denial. “This can’t-”

“Like hell it can’t!” Temari rasped, trying to sit up. “I know- eh?” Noticing that Shino was still restraining her, Temari heaved sigh of exasperation and looked away, pinning Sakura with a hood-eyed glare. “I know ya felt it! Ya think _you_ got a problem with this? I’m the one _in_ the fuckin’ bitch!”

Fresh horror bloomed in Sakura’s violet eyes as her face tightened into a mask of barely contained panic. “Wait! It happened slowly last time; if we hurry-”

“JUST DO IT!” Temari snapped impatiently.

Wincing, the green-haired girl gave a jerky nod. Then, before Shino even had a chance to ask what was going on, Sakura lifted Temari’s head and leaned down to kiss the blonde kunoichi once more.

§

Taken off guard by the torrent of longing that flowed through her as their lips met, it was several seconds before Sakura realized that something was wrong. *It wasn’t like this before.*

Last time, her copy’s memories had crashed over her like a tsunami; she’d barely been able to keep her head above water. This time, it was like she was standing on a low cliff above the sea; she could taste the salt on the wind and feel the spray on her face, but- *It’s not happening.*

Moving to disengage, Sakura was surprised when Temari surged forward to deepen the kiss. The desperation in her partner’s eyes made Sakura hesitate, but after almost a minute of fruitless groping the green-haired girl reluctantly broke contact and pushed Temari away. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she gave the blonde a worried frown. “It didn’t work.”

“No shit? I never would’a noticed if ya hadn’t fuckin’ told me,” Temari growled, her voice thick with sarcasm.

*Well, at least I know she still ‘me,’* Sakura mused ruefully. The abrasive attitude could have been Temari’s influence, but that tongue was definitely familiar.

Sakura bit back a retaliatory barb when she noticed the tears of frustration dripping down Temari’s cheeks. “I… look, I don’t think there’s anything seriously wrong. You probably just don’t have enough chakra right now,” she murmured consolingly, wiping the moisture from the older girl’s face.

Blinking at Sakura’s touch, Temari reddened, her expression softening with embarrassment. “Yeah, I figured that’s what it was,” she conceded with a heavy sigh. “I mean, I could feel ya, like ya were reachin’ out ta me, but-”

Sharing a sympathetic look with her strange reflection, Sakura lowered Temari head to the ground and crossed her arms. A deep furrow creased her brow as she pondered this unpleasant development. “we’ll just have to try again after you’ve recovered a bit,” she concluded. “Hopefully it won’t be too long. How are you holding up? Is she-?”

“What’s going on here?” Shino interrupted in a hard monotone, reminding them that he was there. Still straddling Temari’s legs, he gave the pair with a wary look.

“Uuuuuh…?” Sakura peered uncertainly at Shino, then cast the prone girl a questioning glance. *What should I say?*

“Don’t look at me, I’m the one flat on my back with some pervert holdin’ me down,” Temari spat. “Speakin’a which, if yer gonna hump my leg, would’ja mind movin’ that thing a bit lower, lover-boy? I know that ain’t a fuckin’ scroll in yer pocket.” The blonde wiggled her hips for emphasis.

Laughing out loud when Shino fairly sprang off of her to land a few feet away, Temari sat up and rubbed her wrists. “Heh, guess ya picked that up from Kiba, huh?” she teased, giving Shino a nasty grin. “You guys close like that, or what? C’mon, be honest; I won’t tell anyone.”

Not rising from his defensive crouch (probably for one rather prominent reason that Sakura had no trouble discerning), the tall boy shuffled uncomfortably, blushing to the tips of his ears, but remained silent.

“She’s me!” Sakura blurted, standing up and getting between them before her double’s behavior could cause further confusion. “I used a technique that implanted a copy of me in her mind- a weird, perverted copy! I can’t believe you just did that!” she hissed, blushing furiously as she turned to glare at the foul-mouthed kunoichi.

“How am I the pervert? _He’s_ the one with a hard-on!”

“And you rubbed up against it!”

“He started it! And it made ‘im stop bonin’ my thigh, didn’t it?” Grimacing, Temari stiffly getting to her feet, the glanced down in disgust. “Fuck!”

Jumping at the blonde’s curse, Sakura glanced around warily. “What?”

“She doesn’t wear ‘em either! How the hell can they stand it?” Temari demanded, gingerly picking at the bottom of her sodden dress. “No wonder she’s such a bitch; she walks around with a fuckin’ fish net crawlin’ up her ass.” Lifting hem of her skirt almost to her waist, she proceeded to tug at the offending mesh body stocking.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Sakura shrieked, her dark skin turning almost maroon. “Stop that!”

“What? It’s a fuckin’ pain,” Temari whined unconvincingly. A naughty smirk graced her lips as she finished up and smoothed down her skirt. “…See somethin’ nice?” she wondered, casting a sly glance at Shino.

“W-what the fuck is your problem?!” Sakura sputtered, a crimson haze creeping around the edges of her vision. If her ‘copy’ didn’t stop acting like a total freak she was either going to die of embarrassment or fly into a murderous rage; her face felt like it might burst into flame at any moment.

“Ah, c’mon, I’m just teasin’!” Temari took a step back, holding up her hands in submission. “I mean, look at ‘im; he’s like a fuckin’ tomato in sunglasses an’ a dorky overcoat!”

Glancing over at the sole witness to her shame, Sakura had to admit that Shino did look pretty funny. His gaze was still locked at the level of Temari’s crotch, and though he’d hunched his shoulders a bit to hide behind the high collar of his coat, Sakura still noticed a thin line of red trailing down from his nose.

*At least look somewhere else, pervert!* Sakura scolded with her eyes, following her own advice when she found her attention drifting toward bulge in Shino’s shorts that had sparked this entire stupid incident.

Instead, she turned to examine the opposite river bank, waiting for her blood to cool. Halfway through her second, slow ten-count, Sakura pricked up her ears as a familiar sound echoed through the depths of the forest: the thunder a hundred identical, irritating voices, screaming in unison. “Naruto?”

§

Flipping away to land unsteadily on a nearby branch, Uzumaki Naruto watched as a geyser of sand tore through the main body of his clone army. *What now?!* Even after his super-ultimate best new attack had been defeated, the pillar of flowing stone just kept rising, and it was getting thicker too. where the hell was it all coming from? There was no way Gaara’s stupid gourd could hold that much.

As Naruto looked on in disbelief, the sandstorm started to solidify. A pair of massive arms and lumpy limb that might’ve been a tail split off from the main body, and a swarm of obscure blue markings started crawling down from the tip of the tail to spread over the entire horrific mass. They seemed to calm the twisting chaos wherever they encroached, until finally the air settled once more.

“T-that’s the monster inside him?” the orange-clad boy wondered in awe, staring up at the mountainous creature before him. *Man, he’s even uglier than the stupid fox.* Naruto supposed it sort of looked like a tanuki, but it was all lumpy and deformed- and it didn’t even have feet! It was like a giant mashed-potato monster!

As if he’d been offended by Naruto’s unspoken comment, Gaara lowered his freakish, lantern-like gaze to glare at the blond boy in contempt. Frowning at Naruto like he was disappointed with how puny his enemy had become, the demon raised one malformed claw and started closing his fingers. It took Naruto a moment to recognize the gesture for what it was: Gaara was using the Desert Coffin technique.

Naruto began backing away, but a single panicked glance around revealed that he was already trapped. Like dancing vipers, tendrils of sand swirled around him weightless menace. They moved slowly, but deliberately; Gaara was taking his time, savoring Naruto’s death rather than going for a quick kill, as he had with Lee.

*Dammit! Why the hell’d he get so big if he’s just gonna use the same cheap tricks?!* The most galling part was that the he was too drained to escape even this half-assed excuse for an attack. “Pasty-faced bastard! Come down and fight me for real!” Naruto sneered, trying to goad Gaara into giving him some more ‘personal’ attention.

As the sand drew closer individual strands started to merge into a suffocating cocoon. *At least he didn’t get Sakura-chan,* Naruto mused nervously, praying that the pink-haired girl wouldn’t reveal herself. There was no way she could rescue him now.

“Don’t move. I’ll get you out of here.”

“Sakura-chan!” Naruto started to turn around but a slender arm snaked under his shoulder, reaching up to clamp a hand over his mouth. A second arm then wrapped around his waist, tightening until he felt a body pressing firmly against his back. Two small bits of topography coupled with the sound of her voice told Naruto who his captor was, and for a brief moment he was too stunned to react.

“Settle down and don’t move around or stare at him too much,” the kunoichi behind him purred calmingly. “He might notice us if he senses your killing intent.”

It was then that Naruto realized the fingers of the Desert Coffin were no longer closing. Still more than a yard away, the stalking sands twisted and writhed aimlessly, as though they’d forgotten what came next. *Wh-what the hell?! How’d she-*

“Good boy,” Sakura congratulated him brightly, sending a shiver of pride down his spine even as he felt a strange stab of annoyance. “Okay, here we go!” The blonde boy felt the grip around his waist tighten and suddenly they were flying through the air, bounding from tree to tree, away from Gaara.

*Why doesn’t he attack?* Rather than sending the grasping sand after them, the ridiculous-looking beast was still staring at where they had just been, and Naruto could swear that the giant tanuki’s mouth was hanging open in an almost comical look of confusion.

Sakura didn’t stop moving until they could no longer see the huge clearing that Gaara’s transformation had created. Making for a shady hollow nestled between the roots of a massive, ancient tree, she released him the moment they landed. “I’ve got Naruto,” she whispered into shadows of the undergrowth.

The first thing Naruto discovered when he was able to move again was that he’d been mistaken about his rescuer’s identity. When he turned around, it was not the face of a pink-haired angel that greeted him, but instead a slant-eyed animal mask framed by a wild green mane.

“ANBU?” he guessed, backing away. She was tiny, not much taller than he was, and she was wearing some sort of funky punk getup instead of armor, but the mask was the important part, right?

“This everyone?” another vaguely familiar female voice murmured from over his shoulder.

Spinning on his heel, Naruto found Shino and Temari standing behind him. Between them, they supported the stumbling, half-dead form of Sasuke. The Uchiha heir didn’t seem to know who most deserved his dark, suspicious glare, so he was giving everyone an equal share.

“Sakura-chan!” Naruto blurted, barely remembering to keep is voice down as he looked around frantically. The final member of Team 7 was nowhere in evidence. “Sakura-chan’s still back there!” he hissed, taking a step toward the battlefield. “We gotta find ‘er before Gaara does!”

Stiffening, Shino turned to peer sharply at the ANBU. The tall boy said nothing, but it was clear that he was having some sort of silent conversation with the fox-masked kunoichi as the two of them exchanged a long, piercing stare.

“I’ll go find her. The rest of you should get back to the village as fast as possible,” the green-haired girl finally decided, her voice firm and unreadable.

“But-”

“UUUUZUUUMAAAAKIIII NAAARUUUTOOOOOOOOO!” Naruto reflexively braced himself as the sound of splintering wood and crumbling stone vibrated through the ground beneath his feet. Gaara’s horrifically distorted voice filled the air, shaking the trees with the sheer force of his rage. “DON’T RUN! COME OUT AND FIGHT ME!”

“…It’s difficult enough conceal just one person other than myself, so it would be best if I went alone,” the ANBU explained, looking down to check her weapons.

“What about Gaara?” Naruto protested vainly. He knew that Sakura would be in good hands with one of Konoha’s elite security ninja, but it felt like he had unfinished business with the brooding Sand nin.

Pausing, the ANBU turned to put a comforting hand his shoulder. “You’ve done enough; everyone here is tired. Don’t worry, I’ll find her. Just get back to the village and leave the rest to the professionals.” With that, she turned and leapt back up into the branches above, disappearing from view almost immediately.

“There’s a fuckin’ _excellent_ explanation fer this, just so ya know,” Temari drawled, looking past Sasuke to give Shino a sarcastic smirk. “But that can wait. Fer now, I think we should listen ta the woman an’ get our asses outta here.”

With seeming reluctance, Shino nodded, shifting his stance to indicate that he could handle Sasuke by himself. When Temari let go of Sasuke and moved to depart, the bug-user finally broke his silence. “Are you really ANBU?” he asked confusedly.

“Her, ANBU? Ain’t she from the Sand?” Despite the fact that these two actually used words when they spoke, Naruto still had no idea what they were talking about. “Wait, why the hell are ya helpin’ us?” he demanded, suddenly remembering that the blonde girl was supposed to be his enemy.

Frowning, Temari made a cutting motion near her throat. “Fuckin’ keep it down!” she hissed, impatiently turning to leave. “It’d take too long ta explain, let’s just go! I’ll get someone ta put it inta monkey-speak for ya when we get back-”

“Hey!” Reaching for Temari’s trailing hand, Naruto felt the bottom fall out of his stomach when a bone-chilling female scream cut the air. “Sakura-chan!” Not thinking twice, the orange-clad genin bolted in the direction of the cry. *Wait for me, Sakura-chan!*

§

Moving away from the group, Sakura changed directions as soon as she was out of sight; she wasn’t getting any closer to that monster than she had to. *What he hell is with that, anyway?* She’d have to review her clone’s memories carefully once they returned to her.

Rolling up her sleeve, Sakura examined the character for “evil” on her arm. Anko had told her that the technique would end when she ‘defaced’ the seal, but her so-called ‘teacher’ had never explained to her how she was supposed to do that.

Vainly, Sakura tried to recall any useful information about this technique that might have accidentally leaked into her brain. *Why does she always have to be such a fucking victim in her dreams?* If her ‘Anko persona’ ever bothered to try and defend herself from Orochimaru’s nightly advances, Sakura was confident that she’d be able to remember any techniques she used. If only-

“Ah!” In a flash, a simple set of seals flickered across her mind’s eye. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but Sakura was _positive_ they were related to the ‘Oketsu Bunshin’ technique, and they weren’t the same ones Anko had used to create the clone. *Damn, that’s nice; I wonder if I can remember anything else.*

Practicing the motions a couple times, Sakura took a deep breath and focused, letting her body move on its own. It was hard to trade her normally perfect chakra control for the uncertainty of raw instinct, but there was a feeling of ‘rightness’ about the way the power moved down the pathways opened by her seals. As she reached the end of the technique, Sakura lifted her mask and bit her thumb, wiping a smear of blood across the mark on her arm.

At first nothing seemed to happen, but then she felt a presence nearby. Looking up, she saw her doppelganger land on a branch a few yards away. Crumbling where she fell, the pink-haired girl clutched the tree beneath her and started trembling like a leaf.

“Hey!” Sakura called softly, waving to the clone. “Are you okay? What’s wr-”

“…uuuuaaaAAAAGGH!” Emitting a barely human scream of agony, the bunshin tensed up like she was having a seizure and then suddenly _exploded_ into a fountain of steaming red blood and black serpentine forms.

“S-Snakes?!” Drawing her swords in an instant, Sakura knew she was already too late. She managed to knock a few of them out of the air, but was quickly overwhelmed by the cloud of slick, squirming bodies. Reeking of iron and decay, the snakes lashed out at anything within reach, including each other. Sakura was bitten over a dozen times before she managed to cut herself free and spring away.

Her escape was timely in more ways than one; as she landed, Sakura was forced to grab the tree trunk beside her when a wall of sand plowed through the space where her clone had expired. The blast missed her by only a hair, leveling the trees in front of her in a path as wide as a road and miles long.

*Gaara!* Even if he couldn’t see her, she was dead for sure if she caught one of those! Before Sakura could reposition herself, however, a familiar sensation began to build in the back of her mind, like a towering wave looming over her.

*Not now, dammit!* Bracing herself, Sakura fought to maintain her concealment jutsu as the clone’s memories poured into her, hours of experience and sensation compressed into the blink of an eye.

She nearly wet herself as the pain came- agony beyond imagining, like her insides were tearing themselves apart and trying to escape. Reaching a terrible crescendo with her ‘death,’ the torture only intensified as her perception then seemed to shatter into a million pieces like a broken funhouse mirror.

The pain and confusion multiplied horribly as she realized she was seeing through the eyes of the snakes. Hunger and bloodlust filled her, driving her to kill and be killed over and over again, consuming her own flesh in a mad, suicidal frenzy.

Quickly slipping beneath this unrelenting stream of torment, Sakura barely noticed when deep shadow fell upon her, but in the moments before the unconsciousness finally claimed her, she looked up to see a great, sandy claw descending, and then she saw no more…

§

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