The journey back to the village is tense between the former members of Team 7.
Naruto is still glaring at Sakura even if Gaara has been resurrected by Elder Chiyo, Kakashi looks at Sakura like he has never seen her before and Sakura is fed up by Naruto's glares and Kakashi's stares.
Instead of acting upon her growing murderous thoughts, she uses the time to catch up with Team Gai.
"so, how have you all been ?"
"I am at the peak of my Youth, youthful petal ! Thank you for asking !" Gai smiles his thousand watts smile
"I upgraded my weights and never once collapsed ! All thanks to the Power of Youth !" Lee beams
"I've been fine, Sakura. Lady Hinata asked me for help in training" Neji admits with a nearly invisible smile
"as for me, I found 2 new weapons at the shop ! They're called chakram and I love them" Tenten sighs with stars in her eyes
Sakura chuckles "indeed" she smiles "I'm glad you're all doing fine, we should go out once we're back it's been too long since the whole gang reunited"
"Yosh ! You're absolutely right ! If we don't meet, I'll do 2000 push-ups on one finger !"
"Lee !"
"Gai-sensei !"
"Lee !"
"Gai-sensei !"
Seeing them interact together, Sakura smiles softly. Maybe she should ask for a few days off once in a while.
She has never been more happy to see the gates of the village than she is now. She was seriously considering killing Naruto.
The gatekeepers, Izumo and Kotetsu, smile when they recognize Sakura.
"Sakura ! It's good to see you"
"hello boys, how are you ? Did something interesting happen while I was away ?"
"we're good" Izumo says and take her ID "I heard that Lady Tsunade broke another desk yesterday but nothing that'll interest you sadly"
"well, Genma is in the village" Kotetsu adds "I think the others are here too if you want to see them"
"thank you Kotetsu" she kisses his cheek "I'll be sure to go say Hi. When are you off duty ?"
Izumo gives her her ID back and squeezes her shoulder lightly "tomorrow, do you plan on going out ?"
"yep, I've been busy with missions and I think it's time I take a few days off. What do you think ? Wanna go out and drink with the others ?"
"you know us too well, Sakura" Kotetsu grins "Say 9pm ?"
"perfect ! I'll see you boys tomorrow, don't hesitate to inform the others if you see them"
"will do !" they salute
She laughs then turns to her teammates "Gai ?"
"I'll be there youthful petal !" he says "I'll beat you and Asuma this time !"
"we'll see" she smirks "I'm going ahead"
"so that's what happened ?"
"yes Hokage-sama" she nods
"thank you for your report. Also, congratulations on your new technique" the Hokage smiles
"thank you Hokage-sama, it took time but I finally did it"
"don't think I didn't notice your use of my technique" the Hokage smirks "how did you do it ? I never taught you" there's only curiosity in her eyes
"well, I'd say boredom is a good explanation" Sakura smiles
"boredom ?"
"yes, I've spent a lot of time in your office Hokage-sama and you use your strength a lot. I simply took notice of how your chakra moves when you are going to use it. When I was sure of how and when to release my chakra I tried in the training ground"
the Hokage stares at her with disbelief clear on her face "you replicated my strength based on how I move my chakra"
"yes"
"..." then she bursts out laughing "you, Sakura, are incredible. If I could give you an award or a promotion I would"
Sakura blinks at the compliment "...thank you"
"don't forget to collect Deidara's bounty before going home, you're dismissed" still laughing, the Hokage dismisses her
"Sakura ! Here !"
"Yugao !" she hugs the older woman "how are you ?"
"I'm good"
"no problem with the baby ?"
"what ?"
"come on, Yu" she smirks "did you really think you could keep it a secret from me ?"
"I tried" she pouts "how did you know ?" she sits Sakura between Genma and her
"really ?" she deadpans "last time we went out you didn't drink then I saw you off the missions roster. I have an IQ of 174, I can add two and two together"
"damn, I forgot. I wanted to tell you in person" she looks at her fiance who nods "well then, Sakura, would you do us the honor of being our child godmother ?"
Her brain stops working.
What ? They want her ?
Her, the godmother of a child ? Her best friend’s child ?
Her, the half functioning human with more trauma than half the population ? They want her to take care of their child ?
"Sakura ?"
she blinks "yes ? Wait, you want me to be the godmother ?"
"of course !"
"me ? I can barely function half the time ! How do you want me to take care of a child ?!"
"hey, you have to stop putting yourself down. You should give yourself more credit. We choose you because we know you can do it, I choose you because I know that no matter what, you'll do your best to protect them" Yugao pokes her in the forehead "Now, stop panicking and remove all the dumb thoughts out of your head and think for a moment. Do you or do you not want to be the godmother ?"
"...I do"
"great !" she claps her hands and beams "let's the night begin !"
"ugh..." Sakura groans
"good morning sunshine"
"shut up Gen, I'm trying to die here..."
he chuckles "no can do, how are you feeling ?"
"like I drunk all the alcohol in the village"
he hums "well, you did drink more than usual"
she grunts "how come we're in the same bed ?"
"well, I had to take you home because you couldn't walk and when I tried to put you down on your bed you refused to let go of me. So I slept here"
"sorry Gen..." she finally lifts her head off the pillow
"it's nothing" he pats her head "do you need something before I go ?"
"water and probably some painkillers" she buries her head back in the pillow
"don't stay in bed all day"
"hai hai..."
"for real ?" ANBU Cheetah sighs and lets the hawk perch on her arm "what's the problem this time ?"
"are you alright captain ?" ANBU Eagle asks
"yes, I just have a déjà vu. Last time I received a hawk during a mission I had to leave the mission to someone else to do another one"
"so ? What does it say ?" ANBU Horse asks
"damnit !" Cheetah curses "Bear, Fox you are staying here until another team arrives, keep an eye on the situation and relay the information to the squad's captain"
"hai"
"Bat, Horse, Eagle, you are coming with me. We don't have a lot of time but this is the information we have: Hidan and Kakuzu, two Akatsuki members, have targeted the Fire Temple and killed Chiriku, a member of the Twelve Guardian. Team 10 composed of Sarutobi Asuma, Akimichi Choji, Nara Shikamaru, Yamanaka Ino, Kamizuki Izumo, Hagane Kotetsu, Aoba Yamashiro and Namiashi Raido are in their pursuit. Our job is to dispose of the Akatsuki members if possible or to evacuate Team 10. Understood ?"
"hai Taicho !"
"then let's go"
"Bat, remove Nara from the fight. He's a liability and we can't protect him. Horse you free Hagane from Kakuzu and remove him from the fight. Eagle, see what's wrong with Sarutobi and if possible treat his wounds. I'll try to keep Hidan out of the way. Go !"
The four ANBUs jump in action, Bat shunshins next to Nara then shunshins to the roof of the bounty office, Horse cuts the tendrils connecting Kakuzu's hand to his arm and jumps with Hagane next to Bat and Eagle blocks Hidan's scythe before shunshining in the forest with Asuma.
Cheetah shunshins in front of Hidan and kicks him away from his ritual circle then she stomps on the ground to destroy the circle. The man curses at Cheetah.
She creates a shadow clones to occupy the two S-Class missing-nins and takes the opportunity to check on Asuma "Eagle, report"
"his injuries look self-inflicted but the good new is that we got here before he got a serious injury"
"they're probably because of Hidan's ritual circle but I have no idea how it works" she tchs
"probably" Eagle agrees
"are the burn a danger to his health for now ?"
"no, disinfecting and covering them should be good enough until we're back in the village"
"very well, do it and be ready to transport him to the village. Yamanaka, Akimichi, Aoba and Namiashi should be nearby. You have orders to make them follow you back to the village, Hagane, Kamizuki and Nara will follow to cover your back. Bat, Horse and I are going to stall them for as long as possible and if we didn't get rid of them, I'll check that you are far away enough from them to stop them from pursuing you before making our retreat"
"understood"
"can you make a clone to inform the others ?" at her subordinate nod she clasps his shoulder "may we come back alive, you have three minutes to go" with a last parting nod, she shunshins back in the fight
"are you sure we should have left the ANBU behind ?" Izumo asks his partner
"no, but it was a direct order. Plus we have a mission too, guard Asuma's back until we enter the village gates" Kotetsu answers with a frown
"I hope we didn't cause their death"
"me too"
"Asuma-sensei !" Ino rushes to Eagle's side when he appears next to them "what happened to him ?"
"he has burn on half his body as well as a few non-lethal stabs wounds" the ANBU informs the four shinobis
"what about the others ? Are they alright ?" Choji asks when he sees Ino's busy using the little Iryo-ninjutsu she know to heal their sensei
"Nara-san, Hagane-san and Kamizuki-san are behind us, they should catch up in a few minutes. Once they're here, we're going straight to the village. No" he stops the protests from the two older shinobis "your new orders are to go bad to the village with me while my team takes care of the missing-nins. End of discussion. Doing anything else will be taken as trahison" his mask turns to the older mens faces "understood ?"
It's with great reluctance than they agree.
It's not the first time Sakura curses her lack of chakra and it certainly won't be the last but having more chakra would have been a life saver in this particular situation.
She may be great with a sword but it's not particularly powerful against a guy who can't really die even with his head chopped off and a guy with tendrils sprouting out of his body, who can detach his body parts and still control them and who fights with all 5 chakra natures. To be honest, she doesn't know how they'll get out of here alive but she'll do her best to save her comrades' lives, even if she has to stay behind.
She concentrates chakra in her fists and shunshins behind Kakuzu, it's not really behind more on his left at the same time, as she casts a discreet Genjutsu to make it seems like she shunshined on his other side. By some miracles, her fist hits its intended target. Kakuzu is thrown back and leaves a medium sized crater where his body collided with the hard ground. She doesn't pull her punches, it's not a spar and if she doesn't put her all she's going to die here for sure.
"well well well, you have monstrous strength as well" Kakuzu says when he gets back on his feet "is it a jutsu only known by Konoha's ninjas or only the kunoichis ?"
She stays silent, ANBU are shadows and shadows don't speak. She ducks under a Katon then she's forced to shunshin from her spot or she would have been crushed by the closing Doton jutsu or electrocuted by the Raiton one.
She casts an auditory Genjutsu on her teammates to tell them her plan without alerting their enemies.
The plan is simple, from what she determined Hidan isn't that powerful without his circle and they just have to cut him into pieces to beat him, the real problem is Kakuzu. So she tells her teammates to cut Hidan into pieces and to go back to the village while she distracts Kakuzu. She knows they don't like her plan but they'll obey and it's all that matters.
She traps Kakuzu in two discreet Genjutsu, it will make her appear more tired and hurt than she is and it will make him keep his attention on her. He doesn't notice anything and begins monologuing about how once he killed her, he'll collect her bounty because he knows she has a bounty as ANBUs often have bounty. From the corner of her eye, she sees that her plan went well as her two subordinates shunshined away with the pieces of Hidan. Now comes the hard part, escaping with her life intact.
The group separate at the gates, the ANBU and Ino run to the hospital with Asuma and the others have to show their identifications then report to the Hokage. They're not happy with that but orders are orders so they run to the Tower. Tsunade let them in immediately.
"report !" she barks at them
"Tsunade-sama" Izumo speaks "we were going to the Fire Temple for our mission but when we arrived, some parts of the Temple were destroyed and monks killed. We were informed that the men who did this wore black cloaks with red clouds and they took Chiriku with them to collect his bounty. We sent a message to inform you of the situation then we went after them. We were separated in two groups, Asuma, Shikamaru, Kotetsu and me and Ino, Choji, Raido and Yamashiro. We found them and engaged combat..."
He tells everything that happened from how they were losing to the ANBU team. At the end of his report, three ANBUs drop from the ceiling.
"ANBUs, where is the rest of your team ?" the Hokage demands
"Hokage-sama" the one with the eagle mask says "Taicho received a message telling us to evacuate Team 10 and take care of two Akatsuki's members if possible. Taicho ordered Bear and Fox to stay where we were until another squad came to finish the mission and the rest of us went after Team 10. When we arrived, Taicho told me to remove Sarutobi from the fight, I found the rest of Team 10 and we ran back to the village. Nara, Hagane and Kamizuki followed after me. Taicho, Bat and Horse stayed to fight Hidan and Kakuzu. Taicho thought of a plan, Bat and Horse cut Hidan into pieces and left Taicho behind with Kakuzu. Hidan is in T&I with Morino as we speak"
"Cheetah stayed behind ?" she asks to be sure
"yes"
"very well, if they aren't back by midnight they'll be considered as KIA" she sighs "write your reports and submit them before tonight. You're all dismissed"
The ANBUs shunshin out of the office while Team 10 leaves either by jumping out of the window or by walking out of the door. Tsunade takes a bottle of Sake out of a drawer and with a sigh, she downs it all in one go.
"come back Sakura" she whispers
She is in a lot of pain by the time she manages to slip away from Kakuzu. He stopped playing around when he noticed his partner missing. The only reason she escaped with her life intact is thanks to a lot of Genjutsus, her Kenjutsu technique, Kage Bunshins and nearly all of her chakra.
She thinks her ankle is broken but she doesn't have time to stop and check, she has to go back to the village before he catches up to her. So with the skills she developed in her childhood and perfected in ANBU, she blocks the pain and runs. She runs and doesn't stop even when the blood loss is making her vision blurry. She stumbles to a stop when she comes across an ANBU team patrolling the forest.
"Cheetah, taicho of team Capri" she blinks her eyes, trying to clear her blurry eyesight "as the sun disappears, the Fire guides us to safety" she recites the identification code
"and when safety has been reached, the Fire warms us and keeps us grounded" the captain of the team answers back "where's your team ?"
she leans against a tree trunk to keep herself steady "they should've been back hours ago, they were escorting team 10 and Hidan of the Akatsuki" she has to catch herself when she feels her body slipping from the branch "I stayed behind to occupy Kakuzu, his partner and I escaped by sheer luck"
"I see that" the taicho snorts "you look like shit Cheetah"
"I feel like shit Snake"
"come on, let's get you back to the village" he puts one of her arms over his shoulder and one of his around her waist then he tells his team "continue to patrol, I'll catch up to you later" his team nod and disappears into the trees
They reach HQ without too much trouble, she's still a shinobi even with a broken ankle and blood loss clouding her vision. Snake helps her sit down on one of the beds inside the infirmary then he leaves after telling her they should catch up when they have time.
She stays still under the probing hands of the medic, she hisses when they set her ankle right. She's surprised by the results of the diagnostic scan, she was right her ankle was really broken as well as her left hand and shoulder, they probably broke when she didn't quite manage to dodge a doton jutsu. She has two holes in the thigh and she's missing a chunk of her right side as well as a part of the junction between the shoulder and the neck. Kakuzu's tendrils are sharp, they went right through her body like a knife through butter. She has been lucky to tilt her head when she did or it would have gone straight through her throat.
She also suffers from chakra exhaustion and a multitude of cuts and burns made by lightning, fire, wind, sharp earth jutsus and the tendrils. All in all, she came out of the fight in pretty good shape. Kakuzu is rumored to have tried to assassinate the first Hokage and came out of the attempt alive !
The medic heals her broken bones, closes the cuts and holes and reduces the red burns to pink scars that he wraps in bandages. She is banned from training for at least a week and a half and from missions for 3 and she'll have to do some re-education because of the holes, it'll take a bit of time to get used to the missing part of her side hence the 3 weeks ban.
She thanks him for his work then limps out of the infirmary to the commander office, she has a report to do.
Maybe she should sleep ? She does have chakra exhaustion and the blood replenishing pills can only do so much...
Nah, she'll sleep after.
Sakura has one hour to report back before Tsunade has to declare her KIA, she's becoming worried. Her team and team 10 came back hours ago and there's still no trace of Sakura.
She checks the clock once more with a sigh, she doesn't want to add Sakura on the memorial stone. Her thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the office door.
"enter" she calls without looking, she gulps down half of her sake bottle before she puts it down with another sigh. She looks up when someone clears their throat "Cheetah !" she exclaims in surprise and relief. She gets up to assess the state Cheetah's in, there are holes in her pants, she's covered in bandages and a part of her vest is missing, probably more than her vest is missing if all the blood is any indication "what happened ?"
"I'm sorry for not kneeling, Hokage-sama but the medic told me not to strain my leg too much" she said apologetically
"don't worry about time" Tsunade waves her apology away with a huff "what happened to you ?"
"well, after Bat and Horse left with Hidan in pieces I was left with Kakuzu. If rumors are correct, he's older than 100 years old and knows a lot of jutsus. He can use the five chakra natures with an ease rarely seen, he doesn't visibly appear to struggle or expand more chakra than what is necessary and he either has a Kekkei Genkai or uses a forbidden technique. He can shoot tendrils out of his body like another part of his body and he can also detach his limbs and control them with said tendrils. They are incredibly sharp" she points to the missing part of her vest, the holes in her pants and her neck "they cut through my armor and me like it was paper, it's terrifying" she admits "but it's not even the worst thing about him, he doesn't die either. I poisoned him 2 times and he was hit by my special technique and he didn't stay dead. Instead, some sort of mask fell and he stood back up. That's when he really became angry, he was annoyed before because we took Hidan but when these masks fell ? He shot his tendrils at my neck and really tried to kill me" she shifts on her good leg, the other is aching "I think they are the reason he's still alive today, he started talking about taking my heart in replacement and he didn't use lightning, water or wind natures after that"
Tsunade looks at her contemplating "how did you escape ?"
"I used a Kage bunshin and put Kakuzu in a layered Genjutsu, he saw himself finally killing me and getting my heart. I used the opportunity to flee into the earth with a doton technique and when I didn't have enough chakra to keep using it, I went back to the surface and ran until I came across a patrol. I was escorted to the infirmary and the medic healed my injuries, I'm banned from missions for 3 weeks"
Tsunade drops into her seat with a loud sigh "thank you for coming back alive Cheetah" she smiles genuinely "your written report can wait until tomorrow, go home and rest. I want everything you can remember on Kakuzu in your written report, no matter how trivial it is. Alright ?" at Cheetah's nod she takes her sake and finishes it in one gulp "Dismissed"
Going home is a challenge, she'll admit it without shame.
After she left the office, she went back to HQ to change because even if she wants to shower at home she can't. Not with her bloody uniform still on her at least. Normally she'd cloak herself in a Genjutsu but- chakra exhaustion. So she has to change clothes then walk home. She has to stop a few times because of the pain and it's well past 12pm when she opens the front door.
She limps to the couch and carefully lies down, no way in hell she's climbing the stairs.
She must have fallen asleep because she's shaken awake by the curses leaving Genma's lips as he rushes to her side. She groans in pain.
"damn it Sakura !" he helps her sit up "when did you come back and what happened to you ? You weren't supposed to be back for 2 more weeks"
"hi..." she exhales and rests her head on the back of the couch " 't was past 12pm, I think ? M'not sure, I think the blood loss' messing with my head"
"blood loss ? Why aren't you in the hospital ?" he frets
"medic cleared me"
"which one ? HQ or hospital ?"
"HQ"
he shakes his head and purses his lips "you should go to the hospital"
"no, the medic told me I needed rest an' not to over do it 'cause even if it's closed I had two holes 'n my thigh and 'm missin' a bit of my side an' my neck. I can't train or go on missions for weeks !" she whines and closes her eyes "I think he told me t'stay 'n bed ? M'not sur 'bout that one..."
"I'm sorry what ? You have HOLES in your thigh and you LOST some parts of your side AND your neck ?" he tousles his hair a bit too roughly "by the Sage, what happened ?! Let me get you to bed first"
She doesn't protest when he lifts her in his arms even if the scars on her neck pull painfully, she simply rests her head on his shoulder and lets him go up the stairs. He sits her down on her bed.
"alright" he tousles his hair "alright, you need to shower" he nods to himself "do you think you can do it by yourself ?"
she huffs "no, can barely move ‘n my ow’ "
"are you alright with me helping you or do you want me to go fetch Yugao ?"
"you's fine. S'not the first time you've seen me naked"
"it's different because you are a woman now, Sakura" he rolls his eyes but helps her remove her clothes and bandages
He winces when he sees the state of her body, she has a fuck ton of scars and the new pink scars aren't doing anything to rassure him that's she alright. She narrowly escaped a death blow from the position of the scar on her neck, a bit more center and it was the end. He exhales harshly and helps her wash her body. They reached an accord without even speaking, no bath. She's going straight to bed once she's clean. He has to shake her awake so she can slide her arms through the holes of her t-shirt and he gives up making her wear shorts when she falls back asleep right after.
"stupid chakra exhaustion" he curses "next time you come back like that, I'll ground your ass"
He puts her to bed and leaves a shadow clone with her when he leaves the house, he still has to work today. He'll have to alert Hayate and Yugao so they can check on her.
"finally !"
"mmh ?"
"I'm free from this torture !" she cries out
"stop being dramatic" Genma rolls his eyes
"you'd be too if you had to stay a month in the village without doing anything ! The re-education was hell too" she groans and covers her eyes with her hand "at least I got to see Yugao and Kurenai, it's like they choose to be pregnant nearly at the same time. Only 3 months before Yugao gives birth and 5 for Kurenai" she snickers "I pity Asuma and Hayate, poor guys will not be sleeping much and I know the girls are going to curse them to hell during labor"
"yeah yeah, laugh all you want but you'll have to babysit Hayate's brat too" he smirks at her "you are the godmother after all"
"I'll babysit once the baby's at least one" she shudders "no way I'm changing their diaper every two hours"
"we'll see how long Yugao'll accept that before she tracks you down and leave you with the baby"
"ugh ! I'm doomed"
"there there" he pats her back
She wasn't prepared for someone to drop down from nowhere in the middle of the street while she was patrolling the village. She was even less so to be ejected several meters away into a building without any prior notice.
She gets up with a wince, her back hit the corner of the building and it hurts like hell. She's pretty sure she has a few ribs broken. She looks around to observe the situation, her teammates are lying around in various states of injuries while the orange-haired man wearing an Akatsuki cloak is looking around stoically.
The civilians are already fleeing so that's something less to worry about, she thinks.
She expends her senses to feel her teammates' chakras, one's missing but she sees Frog with her eyes. She knows what it means and it hurts but she doesn't have time to mourn because there's an enemy in the village and it's her job to take care of him. She shushins in his path to kick him away from Spider but he holds out his hand and she's ejected away. Horse sends shurikens from behind and they're sent back to him too fast for him to jump away, one of them goes through his throat and the others stick to his arms.
She punches the ground like Tsunade and takes advantage of the man's distraction to cast a vertigo Genjutsu. Spider kawarimis with a rock behind him, sword poised for the kill only to be kicked away. The man kicked her without even looking at her ! What the hell ?
She makes a shadow clone and with a nod, they attack at the same time she casts an auditory Genjutsu on Eagle and Spider to relay her orders.
Spider melts in the ground and is waiting for the missing-nin to be focused on Cheetah and Eagle to strike from under him while Eagle joins Cheetah in close combat.
"pathetic" he sighs, it's like he didn't feel the Genjutsu "Almighty push" everything in a proximity of 10 meters is blown away, her clone pops and she doesn't land on a building this time. She falls on top of a broken metal rod that pierces her stomach.
"what is your purpose here ?" she spits out blood inside her mask
"I'm looking for the Jinchuriki"
Spider bursts from the ground only to be grabbed by the throat.
"where is it ?"
"fuck off !" the guy breaks her neck without missing a beat, he tosses her aside and holds out his hand, Eagle lands in it "tell me, where is it ?"
"no ideas" he wheezes
"you are useless to me then" he crushes Eagle's throat "what about you ?" he looks at her when she stands up with a glowing hand on her stomach to stop the bleeding, Genma is going to kill her and she was recently cleared for active duty too !
She quickly makes the hand signs for earth spikes and follows with wind blades, she's not winning this fight in close quarters so Kenjutsu is out. Genjutsu seems useless with how fast he shook it off, if it even affected him, plus his eyes look like a Dojutsu so it's game over for her favourite techniques. What does it leave her to fight him ? Ninjutsu, poisons and Bukijutsu.
He'll likely send her poisoned needles and her weapons back at her like he did with Horse so it only really leaves her with Ninjutsu, which is not her speciality damnit !
All she can do at this point with all of her teammates dead and a really small arsenal of jutsus, is buy time for reinforcements to arrive.
He blasts her attacks away and sends one back, black rods fly in her direction faster than anything she ever dodged and by chance only one pierces her hand, she actually managed to avoid five of the six rods ! If the situation wasn't so dire, she'd be proud of herself alas her joy is cut short when he holds out his hand once more. She sticks her leg out as she soars in his direction to hopefully (read desperately) kick him but he closes his hand and she crashes head first on a pile of rubbles. Ow...
Her mask cracks in two at the impact so she releases the tiny amount of chakra holding it in place. She loses her breath when he kicks her side, she lands on her back harshly.
Fuck, she's not gonna make it is she ?
Even if she miraculously manages to defeat him, unless a very good medic is close by she's gonna die. At least one of her broken ribs punctured her lunge if the blood in her mouth and her difficulties to breath are any indication. The hole in her stomach doesn't look good either. She wheezes and spits blood when he stomps on her. She lifts her arms to grab his ankle with glowing green hands, ready to cut it off with a chakra scalpel but he pins her arms to the ground with his black rods.
"where is the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki ?"
she scoffs and spits the blood out of her mouth "as if I'd tell you"
"very well" he flicks his wrist
By the time reinforcements arrived on the scene, Pain was already gone. The shinobis look at the destroyed street with confusion, what happened to leave in such a state ? Half of the buildings are crumbled, the ground is cracked and the trees have been uprooted.
Izumo is the first to spot one of the ANBU already there when Pain attacked.
"guys ! I found one of them !" he runs to the ANBU with the spider mask but once he's next to them he closes his eyes, the snapped neck is all he needs to know "it's already too late..."
The other shinobis with him walk further in the destroyed street to check for the rest of the team, they deserve to be removed from the middle of the street. Kotetsu finds the one with a horse mask, dead too. Anko stumbles upon Frog and Daikoku kneels next to Eagle, crushed throat, he shakes his head in sorrow.
"guys ?" Iruka calls out from where he's kneeling "there's one missing" he lifts the cracked mask "and they were badly hurt if the blood surrounding the area is any indication
"there's blood on this pole" Anko says "it probably went through our missing guy because not one of them has a hole in them"
It's Genma who stumbles upon the missing ANBU, they're hidden behind fallen rumbles and they have black sticks embedded in their body "I found them !" he walk cautiously over the rumbles with a sad face that suddenly turns into horror when he's close enough to see their face "Sakura !" he shouts in anguish, he slides to his knees next to her "Sakura ?" he pats her cheek gently "Sakura, please, open your eyes" he rests his forehead on hers as tears gather in his eyes "damn it, you promised-!"
Izumo and Kotetsu hold each other hand with tears running down their cheeks, to know that their friend is part of the ANBU team that saved their lives is a surprise but the horror of seeing her still body clutched to Genma's chest replace any shock they may have. Iruka and Anko lower their eyes, they may not be friends with the pink-haired girl but they still knew her or in Iruka's case, he taught her and watched her grow into a young woman. It's hard to know he outlived one of his own students.
Raido walks to his old friend's side, he puts a hand on his shoulders to separate him from Sakura "come on Gen, we have to leave. We're still under attack" he says softly "let's put her and the rest of her team somewhere safe. She gave her life to protect the civilians, it's our turn to protect them"
He nods with a sniff, he puts Sakura down to remove the black things holding her down then he picks her up and follows the others to the Hokage's mountain. He kisses her forehead before he lays her down, not caring about the blood soaking his clothes.
He has a man to kill.
When Pain levels the village, Genma is suddenly glad that he moved Sakura to the Hokage mountain otherwise he wouldn't have anything to bury.
When the Uzumaki brat beats the man, he doesn't know what to feel.
On one hand, he wanted to make the man pay for what he did to Sakura. On the other, he's thankful because he wasn't strong enough to do it himself. Should he feel sad ? Angry ? Jealous ? Happy ?
No, not happy, Sakura's dead after all.
Sakura, the girl he took under his wing when Hatake refused to help her survive. The girl who makes him worry like no others but makes him smile without even trying. The girl he watched and helped grow into a beautiful and strong woman. The girl he’s not sureif he sees as his little sister or his daughter.
And she's dead when he isn't.
Tiredly, she forces her eyelids to open. It takes a moment for her eyesight to clear and she can't for the life of her remember what happened. Why is she so tired and more importantly, why is she lying in the sun, still in her uniform if the wind brushing against her shoulders isn't part of her imagination, without her mask ?
She doesn't have time to think more about it because as soon as she sits up, arms wrap around her and she's pulled into a warm chest. She goes for a kunai until the familiar chakra registers in her head. Instead, she wraps her arms around Genma and hugs him tight. She doesn't realize she's crying until he wipes her tears with his thumbs. She looks up at him.
"Sakura..." he holds back his own tears "I thought I'd lost you" he buries his head in her hair
His words are like a cold shower to her. Her breath hitches as the memories of the attack play on repeat behind her eyes, she's too weak to push them out of her mind and it's like she's there again, bleeding out and too weak to protect her teammates, too weak to fight the Akatsuki-nin, too weak to keep her promise.
She flinches when a hand lands gently on her head, she blinks only to be facing Genma instead of the enemy.
"Sakura ? You're back with me ?" she nods hesitantly "good, I was worried"
"I'm sorry" she doesn't specify what she's apologizing for, there's no need
"I know little petal" he murmurs in her hair "I'm glad you're back"
"I am too" she whispers. Content with the knowledge that Genma will protect her, she lets the exhaustion take over and falls into oblivion