Cherry Blossoms and Chakra Strings: A Forest Steeped in Mist

The forests in the Land of Waves were different from those in the Land of Fire. They were damper, darker almost, with low hanging banks of must that drove away the heat and hid all sorts of creatures in their clutches. Sakura's clothes stuck uncomfortably to her skin in a way they normally would after a harsh workout, and she had to keep herself from pulling the clinging cloth away knowing that it would accomplish nothing.

Her teammate didn't seem to notice the difference from the norm. Tsu seemed to be embracing the change in temperature, practically skipping through the mist alongside her faithful partner without a care. Tadao ran in and out of the fog, chasing after things only he could see or sense and making a spectacle of himself that unfortunately did little to distract Sakura from her discomfort.

At least she wasn't completely alone. The genin turned her eyes towards the other member of their little group. Ami’s gait was unchanged, but her grimacing face and constant adjustment of the hair sticking to her forehead and neck were big indicators of how she was feeling. Clearly the humid climate agreed with her just as much as it did with Sakura.

As Iwabi and Kakashi deliberated on what to do now that Team 3 had arrived, the two squads had decided to make themselves scarce and scout out the area a bit. Tsunami had been worried about some of Gato's thugs lurking in the forest around their property so to put her at ease, the six genin had put themselves to the task of making sure the area was safe.

They split into two teams of three: Naruto, Sasuke, and Hikari on one team, and Sakura, Ami, and Tsu on the other. Ami was sick of her teammates’ shenanigans and Hikari was magnanimous enough to take her place in the lineup, effectively mixing the teams.

Though it hadn't been thought of at the time, in hindsight, it turned out to be a pretty smart decision. With Hikari's Byakugan alongside Tsu and Tadao's noses, they'd be able to find anyone who was hiding around the forest without any issue. They hadn't found anyone yet but they weren't exactly being quiet, strolling through the forest without any of the subtlety usually inherent with their titles. If any of Gato's men were still around with all of the noise they were making then they'd find them eventually.

As they walked, Sakura cast another sidelong glance towards Ami and received a small smile of acknowledgement in return. Throughout the Academy, the two of them hadn't been anything close to friends, with Ami’s constant bullying attempts and Sakura's general disdain for the girl driving away any possibility of friendship between them. She hadn't seen hide nor hair of the girl after they graduated and didn't really want to, knowing exactly how a conversation between the two of them would go.

Or at least she thought she did. Sakura had changed quite a bit since she had graduated and it seemed like she wasn't the only one. The memory of the girl pulling her aside after dinner was still fresh in her mind, alongside all of the confusing feelings that came alongside it.

Sakura had been preparing to join her team in scouting out the area around the bridge, just in case any of Gato’s men decided to lay traps for the bridge builder and his unsuspecting crew, but Ami had stopped her before she could leave, resting a hand on her shoulder and giving her a hesitant look that seemed extremely out of place on the caustic girl’s face.

“Hey, Sakura,” She had said, her voice quiet so as not to be overheard by the others nearby, “can we talk?”

Sakura, of course, had been wary of having anything to do with Ami, remembering just how mean and otherwise just downright rude the girl had been to her just a few short months ago, but something in her eyes gave the pinkette pause and made her reconsider. Normally all that was present in those purple orbs was anger and childish annoyance, but all Sakura could see right then was sincerity and… regret?

Spurred by curiosity, Sakura nodded against her better judgement, “Alright. What is it?”

Ami’s eyes lightened at Sakura’s agreement. She let go of Sakura’s shoulder and seemed to gather herself, averting her eyes to the floor as a frown crossed over her lips, “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. For how I treated you while we were at the Academy. I shouldn’t have picked on you all the time.”

Sakura blinked. She hadn’t expected this, or anything close to it really. Ami’s apology was sincere and her face was regretful. She really meant it, which was confusing for several reasons. One, because she could never see Ami having an apologetic bone in her entire body, especially when it came to her prepubescent bullying, and two, after she left the Academy, the girl’s treatment of her literally hadn’t crossed her mind a single time. It felt unimportant, like an annoying buzz in the background of her training or other things she was really focused on. Apparently not for Ami though, especially if the girl was so torn up about it she sought Sakura out to apologize at literally the first opportunity.

“Uh… apology accepted, I guess?” Sakura said, her face shifting unsurely as the other girl’s eyes lit up, “Honestly you didn’t make that much of an impact; so much has happened in the past few months that stuff that happened in the Academy feels like forever ago.”

Ami looked past Sakura towards her team and a strange flash emotion crossed her face, “Yeah… I guess you’re right. After you get out of the Academy, it’s like everything that happened back then doesn’t really matter at all, doesn’t it? When you’re worried about whether you’re gonna drop dead from training or an enemy nin… pulling someone’s hair and calling them names doesn’t really even register anymore.”

She shook her head, “Still, I wanted to apologize. I saw you and everything just came rushing back and… I was kind of a bitch, wasn't I?”

“As much as the rest of the girls our age.” Sakura shrugged, “I didn't really pay attention to all of that; I was busy training.”

“Yeah, I noticed that. I think that's why I went after you specifically. You just seemed to not care about anything and that pissed me off I guess.”

“I cared about a lot of stuff, but the Academy wasn't really one of them.” Sakura giggled and Ami smiled alongside her as she did, relieved that her apology had been accepted.

After that, things were different between the two of them. They weren't best friends or anything, but Sakura no longer had to worry about ribbing or ridicule that wasn't coming. A refreshing change of pace around the girl.

Back in the present, Sakura stopped in her tracks as Tsu came to a halt in front of her, raising her nose high into the air and inhaling deeply. Beside her, Tadao was doing the same as his master, catching a scent in the air that the rest of them couldn't even detect.

Ai looked at Sakura in confusion and the girl shook her head, her expression serious as she watched Tsu try and sniff out the disturbance. After a moment, the Inuzuka opened her eyes, pointing her nose just off to the side of the trail they were walking.

“Come out!” She called to the bushes, her voice a rough growl as her hand crept to her sword, “You can't hide from my nose.”

There was a tense moment where nothing happened before the bushes around them rustled and several figures stepped into the light. Sakura stepped backwards, one hand coming to her hip where her puppet's scroll lay as six rough looking men made themselves known. They were wearing an assortment of tattered, scavenged armor and each of them were brandishing smirks as jagged as their disheveled weaponry.

“You've got pretty good eyes, kid. We were hidden pretty well.” One of them, a balding man with devilish eyes, spoke. He had a tattered bandana around his head and his clothes looked cleaner than the rest, perhaps as some mark of status amongst the rest of the unwashed mercenaries.

“You can't hide from my nose. Your smell is stinking up the entire forest.” Tsu retorted. Her hand dropped back down to her side as she saw the clearly civilian men, “Why are you skulking around here in the empty forest? Did Gato send you?”

The man looked around at his companions, shrugging his shoulders. Every movement was filled with smug confidence. He didn't think they were a threat.

“No, of course not. Me and my boys were just out hunting. It's been a tough world to live in recently, you know? Markets are dry, prices are high; you gotta make ends meet somehow, am I right?”

His smarmy grin did nothing to endear any of the genin to him. Tsu sneered, “If you're going to hunt, do it somewhere else. There's miles of country around to fuck off to that wouldn't get you on our shit-list. Go there.”

The man frowned at Tsu's confidence, glancing back at the men around him and then back to her, suddenly unsure, “Look kid, I don't think you know what you're up against here. You're one of them ninjas, ain't you? Mercenaries like us?”

“No, we’re nothing like you. We work to protect people, not just for money.”

The man chuckled, “Kid, one day you'll figure out that there ain't much difference. We're all trying to live out here, but most of us don't have that fancy chakra you folk in the village are born with. We gotta make due with numbers.”

He looked around at his men to back him up and received cheers and sinister smiles all around. Sakura looked at the group, taking in their number and the weapons among them, before a shadow in the treeline caught her eye.

She strayed a bit closer to Ami as Tsu threatened the leading bandit, leaning in close to the girl, “There's an archer in the tree. Two o’clock.”

Ami's eyes followed her direction, locking onto the man she had seen after just a moment. He was well camouflaged for a civilian, but they had been trained to spot such a thing and he wasn't doing a thing to hide the glint of the blade on his hip or the arrows in his threadbare quiver.

“When things kick off, I need you to take care of him.” Sakura said, keeping her voice low. In front of her, there was a subtle flare of chakra and Tsu's nails lengthened as she activated her clan's signature technique, a sign that she was preparing for things to come.

Ami’s head twitched in her direction but the girl didn't turn to look at her, “Me? Why can't you do it?”

“I'm gonna take care of their weapons. They aren't much of a threat, but it's better not to take any chances just in case.” Sakura tensed as the lead bandit shouted angrily in response to something Tsu said, “Get ready. Here they come.”

The bandit leader raised a hand and a sharp whistle came from his pursed lips. There was a twang and a burst of movement from the treeline behind him as the archer fired on signal, and that's when everyone burst into action.

Ami's kunai met the arrow in mid-air, knocking off course and sending it careening out of the sky. As Tsu rushed forward alongside Tadao, Sakura jumped into the air and sent her threads forth towards the group. The glowing bands of chakra flew through the air, latching onto the bandits’ weapons and holding fast as Sakura yanked her arms backwards, pulling the weapons from their grips with the barest effort.

Suddenly finding themselves without their swords, the men had no defence against Tsu and Tadao's claws as the Inuzuka and her partner tore their way through their ranks. Bloody shreds of clothing fell to the forest floor alongside the morning dew as screams of pain shook the trees above them. Tsu held nothing back, tearing through flesh and muscle alike with her nails. She and Tadao made quick work of the entire group, so quick in fact that by the time Ami had dealt with the archer with another well-placed kunai, the rest of the bandits were dead or dying on the forest floor.

As the archer fell out of the tree to join his comrades, Tsu used a dead bandits' clothes to wipe the blood off of her hands, “That was quick and easy. Ugh, but I hate when their skin gets under my nails. It takes forever to pick it all out.”

“You wouldn't have to if you just used your sword or a kunai.” Sakura chastised, pulling a senbon from her pouch as she made her way over to the fallen bandits. Tsu tore most of their throats out but a few of them were still clinging to life, suffering needlessly as they tried to crawl away.

The Inuzuka shook her head as Sakura stuck her poison senbon into the first bandit's neck, “That’d be such a waste of energy. There were only like eight of them.”

“Six.” Sakura corrected, kicking a bandit's hand as he tried to grab her ankle to stop her from sticking him, “Well, seven. There was an archer in the tree. Ami got him while I took care of the weapons.”

Tsu looked up from her nails in slight surprise, “Really?” Sakura nodded and she turned a grin Ami's way, “I thought you got that one, Sakura. Good shit, Ami.”

“T-thanks.” Ami stuttered, staring at the gruesome sight before her, as it suddenly occurred to Sakura that this might be the first time the girl had ever seen someone die. At the very least, it was definitely her first kill.

Tadao trotted up to his master, chewing happily on something wet and fleshy, and Sakura watched as Ami’s pale face became even more pallid and the girl turned away, holding a hand to her mouth in an effort to keep her lunch down. Yeah, it was definitely her first time.

Sakura abandoned her task of granting a swift end to the remaining bandits, leaving them to bleed out naturally as she walked over and put a hand on Ami's shoulder, leading her away from the dead bandits, “Give us a minute, Tsu. Can you send a clone back to the house to tell sensei what happened?”

“Sure thing, Sakura.” Tsu’s voice was understanding as she watched the pinkette lead the other girl away, “I'll clean up over here. Take as long as you need.”

“Thanks.” Sakura pulled Ami with her, putting a couple dozen yards worth of forest between them and the blood and gore.

They stopped in a clearing a little ways away, the smell of iron wafted away on a breeze smelling of morning dew and hydrangeas growing through the bushes and grass around them.

Ami’s hands shook as she stared off into space, barely breathing as she reconciled with the fact that she had taken her first life. Sakura wished she could commiserate with the girl in her trauma, but she knew she was a special case when it came to her peers. She wasn't spurred on by tales of rescuing princesses or being the hero who defeated the bad guy and saved the day. Lady Chiyo made sure she knew exactly what she was getting into when she took her on as her disciple.

But Ami didn't have that luxury. And so Sakura waited. She waited until the girl's hands stopped shaking and her breathing returned to normal, and only when Ami’s eyes moved downwards to watch a beetle climb onto the thick leaf of a weed, did Sakura finally break the silence.

“Are you okay?” She asked, her voice soft and understanding. Ami didn't answer at first but after a moment, she nodded her head, purple strands brushing pale skin with the movement.

“Yeah. I'm okay. I'm just…” She swallowed, “Yeah.”

Sakura patted her on the shoulder, “You were going to have to do it eventually. At least this way you can deal with it on your own time instead of having to compartmentalize it in the heat of the moment. Ninja therapists are a different kind of expensive.”

Sakura’s joke fell flat as Ami laughed humorlessly, her lips making an attempt to rise into a smile but ultimately falling down into a line as the girl's flat laughter petered off. There was another long moment of silence before she looked at Sakura.

“How'd you deal with it?” She asked quietly, “You've already had your first kill, right? Did you regret it?”

“No.” Sakura said honestly, “The people I killed were preying on people like my parents. Merchants just trying to make a living. I did a good thing ridding the world of people like them, just like you did a good thing helping us kill those bandits or mercenaries or whatever they were. If they were willing to work for someone like Gato, especially after seeing what he did to this country, then they weren't good people, end of story.”

Ami seemed a bit shocked at Sakura’s rationale. Salura guessed that she was having trouble imagining that the girl she bullied in the Academy had taken so well to the more gruesome aspects of their profession.

The pinkette stepped forward, replacing her hand on the girl's shoulder, “Look, I came to terms with all this a long time ago. My sensei beat it into my head when I first started training, but Iruka-sensei didn't really focus on what being a ninja really meant. You should talk with your sensei when you get the chance and definitely see someone when we get back to Konoha. I'm not exactly a licensed therapist.”

Ami gave her a crooked smirk, showing a bit of her usual fire as she regarded her friend, “You're really not. But thanks anyway. I'm not sure why but… this helped. I feel a lot better now.”

“Talking always helps, even if what you're talking about isn't really–uh, helpful." Sakura giggled as she glanced back the way they came. She mentally checked the time, calculating how long they had been away, “Tsu's probably still cleaning up back there so if you want, you can go back to the house. Without my scrolls, she'll have to do it the old fashion way and I doubt you want to see that.”

To her surprise, Ami shook her head, “No, it's fine. I'm gonna have to do it eventually, right? Might as well knock out two firsts while I'm out here.”

She grinned, her eyes lighting up as she thought of something, “Naruto and Sasuke-kun are going to be surprised when they learn I'm the one to get her first kill. I'm gonna rub it in their faces so hard when we get back–”

Ami's speech cut off with an abrupt jerk and the sound of something soft being struck through. As Sakura watched, the girl's eyes drooped before rolling into the back of her head. Her limbs went slack and her knees buckled before she suddenly pitched forward, falling towards the ground as she lost consciousness.

Sakura was underneath her before she could hit the ground, wrapping her arms around d the girl automatically, “Ami!? What happened!?”

As she turned the girl's head, her eyes caught on the two, gleaming lengths of metal hitting from the side of her friend's neck. Her eyes widened, her mind whirling behind her eyes as she stared in shock at the cause of her friend's apparent death.

No, not dead. Sakura realized instantly, years worth of training and preparation to properly utilize her chosen art revealing the truth of the situation. She studied the art of senbon when she was a child and knew about what a carefully applied one could do to the human body. There were all sorts of pressure points that could only be hit with the thinnest needle, ones that could induce strokes, aneurysms, and even temporarily stop your heart if you were careful or skilled enough. Ami wasn't dead, at least not truly, but she was close enough to it that the point would be moot unless Sakura could get her some help.

Unfortunately, she had more pressing matters. Sakura’s eyes caught a flicker of movement behind Ami's head, a glint in the canopy of fresh leaves that wasn't just shifting dew. Her arms wrapped around Ami's waist as she launched them both away, narrowly avoiding the six, expertly thrown senbon that slammed into the ground in their wake.

Sakura threw Ami behind her as she landed, silently apologizing to the girl as she shielded her with her own body, interposing herself between the girl and their mysterious assailant. A glance in the direction the senbon had come from revealed nothing and sharp emerald eyes scanned the forest around them, catching on every errant leaf and broken branch as Sakura searched for them in the trees surrounding her.

A flash of white made Sakura's eye twitch. Her hand blurred as she sent a handful of shuriken spinning through the air towards the only thing that didn't fit in her picturesque surroundings. Sparks and molten metal shavings reflected off the morning mist as her shurikens were intercepted by several senbon. The hardened needles sent the metal stars spinning sporadically into the forest around her, but Sakura had her target now. They had revealed themselves in their counterattack.

Sakura sent more shuriken towards them while her other hand started towards Teashi's scroll to combat this new threat. She would show this enemy in that they had made a mistake hurting her friend!

Unfortunately, just before Sakura could retrieve her creation, the enemy acted first. Pain, white-hot and all-consuming, flared from the tips of her fingers to the curve of her shoulder as several senbon shot from the foliage faster than she could even see and pierced her cleanly and thoroughly, sinking into the meat of her arm and even the bone itself. One of them even slotted neatly in her wrist, sliding directly in the joint made by the bones of her hand and forearm, pushing them apart in the process.

The precision was almost surgical, even from such a great distance, and Sakura’s fingers twitched as she clutched her forearm in heart-stopping pain. The nerves in her wrist had been severed, at least most of the important ones, and the act of even trying to move her thumb proved to be an agonizingly futile action.

Somewhere in the back of Sakura’s mind, a deep seed of horror was laid. Her hand, one of the most important tools in a puppet user's arsenal, was basically ruined. She had maybe an hour or two before the severed nerves in her fingers died completely, and after that even medical ninjutsu wouldn't be able to save them. Unless she managed to find Hikari or someone else with healing capabilities, she would be crippled forever, forced to use only a single hand instead of the two she had known her whole life.

It was a fate worse than death for someone like her, so reliant on her hands that they may as well have been a vital organ.

A figure burst from the foliage, landing in a tree just across from Sakura as the pinkette took in deep, heaving breaths.She was wearing a green haori over a pinstripe outfit with baggy pants. A white mask emblazoned with red stripes and a Kirigakure symbol etched into the forehead was worn proudly on her face, slitted eyes staring at Sakura as she kneeled in the canopy of the tree.

Sakura bared her teeth, trying to look intimidating despite the tears rolling down her face. The figure was unimpressed.

“Please do not struggle.” The masked nin said in a cool voice, brandishing three glistening senbon between her knuckles, “The end outcome is inevitable either way. You are coming with me.”