Amaru's village was situated near the Land of Fire's southern coast, lying a little to the east of the Land of Waves and a little to the west of the valley where the Gelel mine lay hidden. In short, it was tucked away in the middle of nowhere, nowhere near any place a rational person would ever choose to establish a town. No roads led to Amaru's village, nor was it marked on any of Sakura's official maps.
"This place is really out of the way," Sakura said nervously as she paddled her canoe along a lazily running river. "I wonder how the tax collectors ever manage to reach your village, Amaru— hang on, don't tell me your village is actually a bandit hideout!?"
At some point during their day-long journey, Sakura, Amaru and Doctor Shinnō had been obliged to rent a few makeshift canoes to reach their destination. Their destination lay far enough south that Land of Fire's dense forest had given way to lush jungle, threaded with a tangled network of rivers winding down from the mountainous Land of Rivers.
"As if!" retorted Amaru, shaking her oar angrily in Sakura's direction. "It's a normal place, I'll have you know! The villagers are a bit backwards, but they're mostly good people! Mostly!"
Amaru's and Shinnō's canoe rocked dangerously with her exaggerated motions, threatening to pitch them both overboard. Sakura glanced nervously over the side of her own vessel into the clear water, where fish with absurdly long, sharp, scary teeth swam along the sides of her boat.
Although, it was not the fish that frightened her, but rather what she couldn't see.
Once, during her training at the hospital, Sakura had been forced to operate on a Leaf ninja who had made the grievous mistake of taking a dip in the tropical waters of the southern reaches of the Land of Fire. Some sort of hookworm-like Kikaichū had burrowed into his flesh and laid its eggs there, causing his face to erupt in what she could only describe as flesh volcanoes, each one with its own wriggling inhabitant.
Sakura shuddered at the memory.
She did not know who had screamed more that day; the poor patient whose face was teeming with parasitic worms; Tsunade shouting at her to woman up and to pick up those forceps and get to pulling; or herself, crying with snot running down her face and desperately clinging to the doorframe, as her sensei tried to drag her by the ankles back into the operating theatre.
"It's a good thing Naruto isn't here," Sakura muttered to herself, gnawing at her fingernails. "There's no way he wouldn't find an excuse to tip us into the water just to make my top see-through…"
Neither Naruto nor Sasuke had been permitted to accompany her on this mission, under the pretext that the village couldn't be left undefended. In all likelihood, Sakura glumly thought, this was the end of Team 7 until Lady Tsunade woke up from her coma. There was no way Danzō was letting the village's tactical nuke (read: Naruto) wander around the countryside to go on wacky and zany adventures like before…
"…it's rather dull without Naruto around," Sakura was forced to admit to herself, sighing despondently. "I'd almost forgotten what it was like to hear my own thoughts, without him constantly yammering in my ears… and now I'm talking to myself out loud again."
Amaru cast an envious glance at Sakura's curvy silhouette, before lifting her collar and glancing down at her own, respectable set of breasts, hidden beneath her thick clothes. She sighed. Perhaps if she were as beautiful as that Leaf kunoichi, Shinnō-sensei might notice her at last… She usually bound her chest to be taken seriously as a female doctor, but perhaps that had been a mistake…
"Above us!" Shinnō suddenly shouted. "Quickly, get under the trees!"
Startled, Sakura looked up. There was a tiny yellow dot outside her sensing range in the sky, but that was no bird! It was one of the invaders' gliders, and judging by its flight path, its occupant was out on reconnaissance… which meant that Sakura and the others were getting dangerously close to the enemy's encampment.
Sakura gauged the distance between them with her thumb. The glider was within the Lorentz Gun Jutsu's range, but it was too small a target and moving too fast for her to have any chance of hitting it. She frantically paddled her makeshift canoe and drew alongside Shinnō's and Amaru's boat in the shade.
After a few seconds, Sakura let out a sigh of relief, as the fragile yellow glider disappeared into the distance, swallowed up by the endless blue sky. The flying shinobi had not spotted them, and yet… Sakura couldn't help but feel a certain sense of apprehension.
"Is it just me," said Sakura, sniffing at the air, "or do I smell smoke?"
As one, Sakura, Amaru and Shinnō-sensei looked up. There was a column of black smoke rising up above the leafy canopy.
"Amaru, wait!" roared Shinnō-sensei, as his disciple jumped onto the riverbank and sprinted into the jungle by herself. "Come back, the enemy might still be there!"
With surprising speed for a man of his age and size, the doctor leapt from his boat and vanished into the dank jungle after her. Slinging her medical supplies backpack onto her shoulders, Sakura followed after them… only to run straight into a gigantic cobweb.
"Blegh!" spat Sakura, sticking out her tongue with a look of pure revulsion on her face as she peeled the sticky strings from her skin. "Ugh, this is the worst! I hate this place! I hate the jungle! I hate things with too many legs!"
…
While Sakura was getting a surprise facial, Amaru was weaving between tree trunks, jumping over roots and ducking under vines, ignoring the sharp branches scratching against her skin. Before long, she emerged from the jungle into a clearing.
"No," she whispered in dismay, the roiling flames engulfing the houses before her reflected in her wide eyes. "This can't be happening…"
Amaru ran along the empty streets, hopping over bomb craters and ducking under flaming beams, the faint ember of hope that her fellow villagers might still be alive mouldering in her heart.
"Where are you!?" Amaru shouted desperately, cupping her hands in front of her mouth.
"Where is everyone!?"
Devastation was everywhere to be seen, but she hadn't seen any corpses yet, so maybe they had taken refuge in the jungle or in the temple?
The temple!
Amaru ran breathlessly up the stone steps of the Mayan-style temple at the heart of the village, shouting for her friends to reveal themselves. But as she reached the top, her ankle caught on something, and she reflexively looked down. She had just triggered a tripwire and activated a booby trap.
"Amaru!"
Time seemed to stretch to a crawl as Shinnō-sensei ran past her and shoved her aside, arms outstretched to shield his disciple from the kunai hurtling towards them.
"Oh no, you don't!" Sakura's voice rang out. "Eight Trigrams: Revolving Heaven!"
Shinnō's mouth opened in surprise as the young kunoichi flickered before him, spinning on the spot and deflecting the storm of kunai with a whirling bubble of chakra centred around herself. Caught off guard, the doctor stumbled backwards, tripping over his own feet. His arms flailed as he tried to regain his balance, but his feet met nothing but the void. He toppled head over heels down two flights of stone steps, his neck striking the last step with a sickening crunch.