Chapter Text
It was night and a blanket of mist was hanging closely over the ground, undisturbed if not for a girl that was running through the undergrowth pellmell. She was a slightly built girl, small for her age and her only notable features was her pale pink hair and dull green eyes. Her name was Sakura Haruno. Sakura's breathing was labored as she dodged past a tree, trying to keep from running in a straight line while keeping as low to the ground as possible. It paid off as she narrowly missed getting hit by a kunai.
She was lucky so far as the man stalking her through the wilderness was being lazy and simply toying with her so far. If the man were being serious, Sakura would be dead. She would've been dead long before now.
Sakura liked to think that she was talented for a genin, and she was. Thanks to her being a dedicated student, she had been the top kunoichi when she graduated the academy barely half a year ago. And if it weren't for the blatant favoritism, she had the sneaking suspicion she would have been rookie of the year as well.
Despite that, she was under no illusion about her odds. Her pursuer was a jonin, a former member of the ANBU, and a veteran of the previous Shinobi War, according to what limited information turned up in her research on her famous sensei. Her only hope was that Kakashi continued to underestimate her and that the one pursuing her was a kagebushin.
Please be a kagebushin, Sakura prayed in her mind as she silently switched out with one of her own illusionary bushin, a basic technique that she effortlessly mastered in her second year of the academy without telling anyone else.
She had been leading Kakashi around in circles for nearly two hours now, only able to do so because of how easy she was finding it to circulate her chakra throughout her whole body. She was also leading the chase in circles because she was trapped in genjutsu that causes their victims to go in circles, thinking that they were going in a straight line. That just went to show how much Sakura was being underestimated as it was the same exact genjutsu that Kakashi had trapped her in during the fateful bell test when she tried to assist Naruto. This time she recognized it almost right away.
But rather than extract herself from the illusion, she used it to her advantage. If the one pursuing her really was a kagebushin it wouldn't have as much chakra as the original did and maintaining genjutsu for significant periods of time was very taxing on chakra so if he was kagebushin then he wouldn't be able to do it for much longer, plus his attention would be divided severely.
All that were just some of the reasons why genjutsu was preferred for ambushes rather than extended fights. With all the limitations it was no wonder that ninja seldom specialized in it, Sakura thought to herself.
With all that and since it night time and foggy, the odds for her survival were looking better than abysmal. Plus Kakashi was unlikely to use his hidden Sharingan or his dog summons, even if the one pursuing her was the real deal, partly because he was still recovering from the battle on the Great Naruto Bridge and partly because she wasn't being taken seriously.
She was beginning to entertain the hope that she would live through the night, but that hope died a quick death when she felt the genjutsu lift. And in front of her appeared Kakashi in a swirl of leaves, as cool as you please. At first she thought he had gotten bored, until she took a closer look at the white-haired man in front of her.
There was no doubt in her mind now that he was in fact a kagebushin, further he was looking a bit pale and sweaty. It was a sure sign that he was nearing the useful limits of his chakra.
Her hope began to stir again.
"I must applaud you, Sakura. You lasted longer than I thought you would, certainly longer than Sasuke and Naruto did. We reacquired them almost right away. And that business with swapping in and out with your bushin was truly inspired. I almost didn't catch on to it," Kakashi said, obviously trying to take her off guard with the praise. But Sakura wasn't falling for it, neither was Inner.
"It was nothing special, I merely used my environment to my advantage," Sakura replied, not sure if Kakashi was telling the truth about her teammates' capture.
However, she knew her teammates. Both of those two thickheaded boys were the type to face their own pursuers head on and their enemies were all at least ANBU level threats. She could easily imagine the boys getting themselves recaptured, although she could also imagine Naruto escaping as he had experience eluding ANBU back at Konoha, although she was fairly certain that they weren't giving their all at the time. Sasuke, on the other hand, had a real bad habit of overestimating himself and underestimating pretty much everyone else.
Then again Kakashi could be lying. But even if he weren't, Sasuke and Naruto weren't in any immediate danger. Sasuke was wanted since he had the Sharingan, possibly as breeding stock, and Naruto supposedly had the Kyuubi sealed in his naval. At least according to the bandaged man that seemed to be calling the shots, although that certainly explained a lot.
As for Sakura, she was worthless in the big scheme of things. She didn't come from any notable clans, had no major bloodline that she was aware of, and she didn't have any secret techniques. If she was lucky she'd simply be killed, otherwise she would be reduced to a brood mare to produce more Sharingan users.
Neither possibility was worth considering, she had to make good her own escape and hope that the boys had gotten away.
"Yes, that is the right way to look at it. How often have I tried to impart such wisdom on you three? Well, I'm glad my teachings have been taken in by at least one of you."
"As if! Name one thing that he has ever taught us!" Inner demanded. And Sakura couldn't help but agree with the sentiment, Kakashi hadn't taught Team Seven anything at all especially not her.
Everything she had learned she had been largely taught by the academy. Even the tree climbing exercise, which Kakashi had assigned to the team a week ago, she learned out of the student handbook which had long became something of a bible to her. It had taken her less than five minutes to completely master the technique because she found it so easy to apply, and both of the boys on her team took the whole week to even get good at it. It was enough to make her doubt that either one of them even bothered to read the handbook.
She wanted to correct the slowly approaching jonin, but she couldn't afford to unnecessarily provoke him just now. Instead she had to ask something that was on her mind, "If I'm about to die anyway, do you mind telling me what I'm to die for?"
"Honestly speaking, it's nothing personal. And there's no deep meaning to your death. But you see, things are going to change for Konoha and the weak must be cleansed to make way for the strong. So even if you were to be spared here you wouldn't be able to survive back at Konoha. So I'm really doing you a favor."
Sakura shook her head in response, "Funny, it doesn't feel like you're doing me any favors from where I'm standing."
"Really? Because at least this way you aren't living like you have a sword hanging over your head. The only other option, as I'm sure has crossed your mind, is to become breeding stock because of your gender. Which fate do you think is worse?"
"You're all heart, Kakashi," Sakura replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes. Apparently the jonin and his commander wanted to return Konoha to the days when women could only take on seduction missions.
And probably bloodline thefts, where they would send women at men with desirable major bloodlines to get impregnated by them. It was an unethical practice that had been banned since the early days of Konoha's existence. And also impractical because bloodlines don't always get passed down, that's why cadet branches existed in big clans that had major bloodlines (like the Uchiha did before it had been wiped out). And some bloodlines were passed down by women rather than men. Not that it was impossible for two women to bear children, what with some really impressive use of chakra and fuinjutsu, but it was enough to make it impractical to steal those bloodlines. It was also the kind of thing that lead to bloody conflicts in the past.
Sakura put her hands together, making the Ram Sign, for she sensed that the conversation has reached it's end. Now it was time to do or die, and she probably only had one shot to make her plan work.
Kakashi, for his part, didn't seem too bothered even though he undoubtedly knew that she was going to make one last attempt at defiance. "I know, aren't I just? Now, any last words?"
"Just the one..." Sakura replied, sending out a chakra web, hoping against hope that what she about to do would work. It caused Kakashi to hesitate in confusion, not that Sakura could blame him for being confused.
The chakra web technique wasn't typically considered a dangerous ability, after all, so there should have been no reason for her to use it in her current situation. She reached out with the chakra web for the explosive tags she had discarded when she had lead the kagebushin in circles. She had been able to set off tags using the chakra web before, but never had an opportunity to test it out on multiple tags before. "Not that there's any reason why this shouldn't work," Inner whispered to her, "we just have to worry about the explosion because it's going to be huge!"
So Sakura pooled just enough chakra that she could shunshin out of danger... Hopefully. "Katsu!"
The kagebushin hadn't been lying when it had said that Sasuke and Naruto had been quickly reacquired, the two hot headed boys had tried fighting the masked ROOT shinobi instead of trying to make good their escape like Sakura did. They had since required more than an hour to prepare the two boys to the secret ROOT base, an old hideout of the traitorous sanin Orochimaru, which was why they had not made it far from where the genin had first been caught. It was especially slow going because they needed to be kept under a low level genjutsu to keep the boys pacified.
Still, Danzo was pleased with the current progress. There was still just one lose end to tie up, "Any word back from your kagebushin?"
"No," Kakashi replied, "It appears that the kagebushin has yet to move in for the kill. I have to hand it to her though, she has been surviving for a lot longer than many higher level ninja I have killed in the same circumstances."
The heavily bandaged man nodded in reply as their party moved through the underbrush, it would be too much risk of exposure to take the main road, which slowed them down even more. He was about to say something when the silence of the night was interrupted by a huge explosion coming from the direction that he knew that the kunoichi was in. It lit up the night briefly and Danzo knew that it had to be quite the explosion up close and personal.
The explosion died down as suddenly as it had appeared and the echoes had barely silenced before Kakashi remarked, "Clever girl. She used the fact that she was in a trap to set a trap for the one hunting her." It was hard to miss the hint of respect in his voice.
"Did she survive?"
"It's possible, want me to check?" Kakashi replied, preparing to send another kagebushin to investigate.
"Don't bother, what can she do? Even if she's still alive, she's a scarcely trained genin. She has no resources, no incredible skills, no experience in the outside world, and no allies. She won't survive a week."
Kakashi had to admit that it seemed unlikely that she would, so he concurred and the group started moving again...
[To Be Continued...]