"Go back to the village!" Sakura shouted at Kujaku. "The mission takes precedence; we'll go looking for materials later!"
The beautiful green-haired kunoichi's eyes narrowed, but she nodded and flickered a short distance away, pretending to follow Sakura's instructions. This was exactly what she'd been waiting for, so there was no way she was going back now!
"Come in, Hinata!" Kurenai urgently spoke into her transceiver. "What's going on, out there!?"
The crackle of static was her only reply.
"Kurenai, I'm assuming control of the squad," said Shizune briskly. "With her Sharingan, Sakura will lead a delta formation with you and Kiba towards the shore. I'll take Shino and skirt around the lake to the west. Prioritise rescuing Hinata."
"Understood!"
Strength in numbers held true, to a certain extent. But when faced with an unknown threat and the possibility of explosive booby traps, splitting up to divide and conquer was the safer strategy— don't put all your eggs in the same basket, and all that. And besides, Shizune knew very well that Sakura didn't do well with insects, so she was better off taking him with her.
Gathering chakra beneath her feet, Sakura flickered onto a high tree branch, hoping for a clearer view of the lake a few hundred metres away. Kurenai and Kiba joined her a fraction of a second later, Kiba riding Akamaru like a Goblin on a Warg's back.
Sakura peered at the lake in the distance.
Daylight was fading fast, which was quickly diminishing the value of having the Sharingan in the first place. Most shinobi could see reasonably well in low light, and while the Sharingan was certainly superior to ordinary eyes in the dark, it was nowhere near the Byakugan's perfect night vision.
But despite the gloom, Sakura's Sharingan could perceive that roiling mass of chakra by the lake as easily as if it were day. That rainbow of shifting colours concentrated into one spot was unmistakeable…
"There's a Tailed Beast down there!" Sakura shouted in stupefaction. "One, two… three tails!"
If a Tailed Beast was here, then the Akatsuki couldn't be too far!
A series of smaller explosions rang out in quick succession in a ring around the gigantic three-tailed turtle, causing it to roar in pain. It spun itself into a Sonic-like ball of spikes, attempting to roll backwards and dive back into the lake, but a massive pillar of pink crystals burst out of the water, flipping it helplessly onto its back.
Sakura's eyes widened.
Guren of the Crystal Style!
She sprang off her foothold and grabbed onto a lower branch, swinging herself towards the lake, followed closely by Kurenai, and Kiba and Akamaru.
500 metres…
400 metres …
300 metres …
200 metres …
Dark figures sprang out of the shadows between the trees and intercepted them mid-jump, forcing Sakura, Kurenai and Akamaru to land in front of them. Sakura instinctively reached for her sword, only to remember a heartbeat later that she no longer had one.
"Can't let you go any further," said the smug man at the head of the group, his white teeth gleaming in the semi-darkness. "There's a place at Orochimaru's side for us if we can stall you."
One, two, three, four, five... Sakura counted five enemies.
"Close your eyes," Kurenai whispered in Sakura's ear.
Sakura wasn't entirely sure what Kurenai was hoping to achieve in the dark, since all the Genjutsu at her disposal relied on sight as a medium for chakra transmission— meaning if the enemy couldn't see well, she was pretty much useless.
"Now!"
The enemy scattered as Kurenai flung a kunai at them, and despite her misgivings, Sakura screwed her eyes shut. The blade struck the ground, and with a sharp pop, the flash bomb tied to its pommel detonated— flooding the forest with searing light for a fraction of a second and turning the night into a tapestry of pure white and long, black shadows.
Peeping through her fingers, Sakura found the enemy holding their faces in pain.
"Bite 'em, Akamaru! Fang Over Fang!"
"Chakra Enhanced Strength!"
Sakura, Kurenai, Kiba and Akamaru surged forwards in a flash of fists, steel and fangs, and within seconds, the five nameless goons were dispatched.
"We've wasted too much time already!" cried Kurenai. "We need to hurry!"
Like nearly everyone in the Hidden Leaf— except for Sakura and Tenten— Kurenai had no idea what the Akatsuki truly hoped to gain by collecting the Tailed Beasts. All she knew was that such power couldn't be allowed to fall into the hands of terrorists.
Within seconds, Sakura and the others burst through the treeline and out onto the lakeshore. Across the water, black and white flames twisted with streaks of orange into a blazing tornado that had already scorched a wide swathe of forest to ash.
Four figures darted around the massive, seemingly paralysed Three-Tails, moving too fast in the dark to follow clearly as they clashed in showers of sparks. Overhead, a strange, cartoonish-looking bird moulded with white clay beat its wings in slow, exaggerated strokes, circling the battlefield.
Obito and Deidara… and Kabuto, Guren, and Uchiha Nanashi!
"Do you have eyes on Hinata?" asked Kurenai in concern.
But Sakura had just noticed something strange. The moon had risen overhead, casting its baleful glow upon the lake and revealing the familiar figure of a certain Takumi-nin.
"Is that Kujaku…?" Sakura muttered squinting her eyes. "What on earth is that woman thinking…!?"
The green-haired kunoichi was sprinting towards the danger, darting across the water and weaving between the pink crystal pillars jutting up from the lakebed. The Akatsuki duo and Orochimaru's team hadn't seen her yet, concealed as she was in the shadow of the turtle kaiju!
Sakura bit her lip, calculating how much chakra she could spare. At D-cup, she wasn't in much better shape than at B-cup, but neither Orochimaru nor the Akatsuki could be allowed to get their hands on the Tailed Beast.
But at the same time, if she acted now, she would likely draw both groups' attention…
Hmm… Should she risk it? She couldn't afford to face so many powerhouses at the same time in her current state— especially Obito, even if he was still in his silly Tobi phase.
"Hand me a kunai, please," said Sakura grimly, cracking her knuckles. "And prepare to run."
Her tomoe spun rapidly, locking onto the Three-Tails's exposed eye. Flipped helplessly onto its shell and paralysed by the Mangekyō Sharingan's parental controls lock, there was no way it would be able to dodge this!
Sakura began weaving a long sequence of hand signs. With each seal, she extracted more of her energies, kneaded them into chakra, then moulded the chakra into pure lightning…
"Eh?" Kiba blurted out.
The kunai he was holding out to Sakura, hooked by his finger through the ring on its pommel, was beginning to swing back and forth. Each time it swung, its amplitude grew wider, until it froze in place, pointing directly towards the lake.
"I'll be taking that, unless you want to lose that finger," said Sakura, snatching the kunai from Kiba's hand and taking aim. "Locking on…"
Lightning surged around Sakura, licking at the dry sand under her feet.
"Lightning Style: Lorentz Gun Jutsu!"
BOOM!
The kunai stretched into a streak of incandescent light as it crossed the lake in a fraction of a second, piercing the great chakra monster's unarmoured eye before burying itself inside its skull, scrambling its chakra brains and killing it instantly. A hush fell over the battlefield as the combatants on the far side of the lake stopped fighting and turned their gazes towards the source of the lance of molten steel.
"Now," said Sakura dizzily, feeling rather lightheaded from expending the near totality of her 1.7 KK potential chakra reserves, "would be a good time to run."