The prison master's office was deserted by the time Sakura emerged from the secret passage hidden behind the bookcase, having climbed several long flights of stairs from the Box of Paradise's underground storage room.
It was hardly surprising that the members of the Zodiac Four and Kazan hadn't lingered in Mui's office— she'd lost track of time since Mui had struck her unconscious by activating her cursed seal. Judging by the morning light spilling into the room, several hours must have passed.
The woman in the monkey mask and Kazan were long gone.
Shivering slightly, Sakura seized one of Mui's ornate cloaks and drew it tightly around her bare torso. It was still winter, and far colder here in the northern reaches than back home in the Land of Fire, especially on a prison island as breezy as this one.
"Home…" Sakura muttered to herself.
Sakura realised that she still subconsciously thought of the Hidden Leaf as her home. She didn't owe the village anything, so why was she going this far, even though the village had rejected her? The faces of her friends, of Naruto's eager young disciples, and even of Tsunade flickered before her mind's eye.
"For those who come after…" Sakura groaned. "The Will of Fire really got to me, eh?"
…
For all its issues, war-torn past and rotten roots, the Hidden Leaf of today was not the Hidden Leaf of yesteryear.
A shinobi is a political tool, nothing more, nothing less.
Sakura had often wondered which path she would choose if her duty to her village ever forced her to act against her conscience, but she now realised it was precisely because she lived in the Hidden Leaf that she had never been made to face such hard choices.
When Sakura thought of the Hidden Leaf, she didn't think of the Land of Fire's rich capitalists who tossed money about to keep shinobi in their service, preserving a status quo that oppressed those below them; nor did she think of the corrupt nobility or the Daimyō, who upheld an antiquated order that stifled progress even as the age of technology began to dawn.
Everyone's Will of Fire was different.
When Sakura thought of the Hidden Leaf, she saw a bulwark against those who would mould the world in their twisted image, a shining beacon of hope for the future. The village had its issues that would inevitably have to be addressed sooner or later, but it was still something to believe in. Naruto himself was living proof of that.
The Hidden Leaf who stood for her ideals was Sakura's real home.
…
That being said, Sakura couldn't find anything in the papers on Mui's desk that shed light on Kusagakure's plans. Monthly expenditure reports, casualty lists, records of the movements of some organisation called the 'Grass Flower Faction', whatever that was… but nothing useful.
"Come on, think, Sakura…"
Even though she had technically regressed, thanks to Shion's Dōjutsu, so few memories had travelled back across the river of time with her soul that Sakura remained much the same person she had been before. She knew she ought to remember where Kazan had struck first; the knowledge remained maddeningly just out of reach, yet she simply couldn't recall…
"Hang on," Sakura thought out loud. "Furin!"
There was a good chance the woman in the monkey mask might have shown Kazan his daughter to 'motivate' him, and there was a small chance Furin might have learned her father's first destination. Navigating her way to the male detention cells through a sea of prison guards with her chakra sealed was going to be tricky, but…
At that very moment, an alarm horn began to blare, giving Sakura quite a scare.
She ran to the balcony, where she saw green-uniformed prison guards milling about like ants below, assembling in the courtyard. For a moment, she feared that the guards had discovered that she wasn't in her cell any more… until she caught sight of the hundreds of ships sailing across the lake towards Hōzuki Castle.
Sakura swore.
By the looks of it, it was full-scale invasion of the island prison; matchlock rifles were being distributed to the guards, but she doubted they'd be of any real help against Kumo-nin; ninja were fast enough to dodge point-blank gunfire. Ordinary humans were no match for Genin, let alone elite shinobi from the second-strongest hidden village.
But perhaps there was a silver lining to all this.
With the invasion force on the horizon commanding the wardens' attention, there would be no one left to watch the prisoners. The instant Sakura realised this, she raced down the stairs, through the castle keep to the ground floor where the men's cells were, encountering no resistance along the way. She paid no heed to the catcalling as she skidded to a halt in the male detention area, her eyes sweeping the hall in search of Furin…
…and that was when she realised not one of the prisoners was in their cells. Maroi must have freed a few of his fellow inmates before leaving to secure the Box of Paradise, probably to cause a commotion and draw the guards' attention away from him… and those prisoners had freed all of their friends in turn.
"Well, well, what do we have here?" a hulking man chuckled amidst an eruption of hooting. "Look at what just dropped into our laps, lads…"
"The taste of a woman's not the worst," another muttered grudgingly. "Every now and then."
Sakura's face turned as white as a sheet.
…and in an instant, they were upon her, and Sakura found herself punching and kicking and kneeing and elbowing and biting, lashing out violently at anything that came too close. Some of her would-be attackers, woman-starved, got too excited and accidentally activated their Celestial Prison Seals, self-destructing before they could even get the slightest touch.
"Hold her still!" the man bellowed above the din. "I'll not have anyone's sloppy seconds!"
One man slipped behind Sakura, hooking his arms beneath her armpits in a full nelson. Dozens of hands clawed and groped at her, and a shudder of revulsion rippled through her body. Feeling as if she would be sick, she jerked back, the back of her head cracking into her attacker's nose; there was a crunch and a howl. His grip faltered. In an instant, she twisted free and hurled him into the others, sending them tumbling like skittles.
Sakura turned and ran.
"After her!"