The prey was cunning.

He had been shadowing the Suna group for hours now, as best he could without using shadow clones. Even if he had been physically able to, his quarry was too cagey for such brute force tactics. They were vigilant and even a few bunshin would set off more warnings than he could afford.

How many ninja had been defeated before a single blow was exchanged for underestimating, or not understanding, the power of the Kugutsu no Jutsu that Suna puppeteers used? How many young men and women had confidently leapt to their deaths following the textbook notion that a puppet user was always behind their puppet, or that a puppeteer was otherwise useless outside of a fight?

Sarutobi Hiruzen had lived long enough to learn the actual lesson - puppeteers were incredibly dangerous opponents. He had fought Suna in three different wars, across as many different countries, across as many generations, even, and knew precisely what dangers he faced. But the young generations, they didn't know. The Academy didn't even teach specific village techniques, instead leaving that sort of thing up to their jounin-sensei.

Because it was too political to train their children how to properly kill their neighbors.

Because they were supposed to be the children of a better world, where there were no more great wars.

Because it was distasteful.

Because no one wanted to think about it.

Because we are all cowards, Sarutobi thought as he crawled along the floor of some burned-out building. A little civilian clothing shop, if he had to guess. The fake marble tiles were cool against his belly, and he slid easily across them, pushing aside stylish jackets that had been thrown from their clothing racks. Where was this store's owner? Evacuated? Dead? Sarutobi didn't know. Didn't want to know. Knew it was foolish to think about it right at this moment.

He let out a quiet huff of air, halfway between a sigh and a hiss. What Shinobi Rule was it that spoke about keeping the mind clear of distracting thoughts? Who had even created those stupid rules in the first place? Probably some retired chunin who thought to make a quick ryo selling a textbook to the academy. As if you could codify the million little things that made you an effective killer.

But then, how many of his Academy teachers had actually taken a life? They were all career chunin.

The smell of burned flesh finally reached Sarutobi's nose. Well, that solved the mystery of the owners, then. The lifeless face of a small child, half-burnt under a heap of clothes in the corner of the room, stared back at him. It'd been there so long the smell had already started to clear.

We were not ready for this war.

The old hokage finally reached his destination - the corner of the building that had gotten blown away by an explosion, giving him an excellent view of the adjacent road. Of course, he didn't have such a location to himself - there was a two-man Suna team a floor above him, looking the other way, down the secondary artery leading into the center of the village. Sarutobi wasn't worried about them; they were chunin, jounin at best, and the Third had faith in the techniques his former student had taught him when it came to remaining undetected.

A few hundred feet away was the one thing he was worried about, though. He could only just see the back of her head as she rested against a crumbling wall, listening to some report another ninja was giving her. Sarutobi couldn't read lips at this range, but he could guess what was being discussed was likely the destruction of his home.

Suna was losing. For all their ferocity and guile, their invasion wasn't a success. Konoha, though undeniably a shadow of what it had been, was still strong enough to fight off a half-dead village like Sunagakure. This one military force wouldn't be the final dagger in Konoha's heart.

But… it was probably the first. Konoha was now a softened target, a juicy target, and the other Kage hadn't let their fangs dull like he had. Iwa, Kiri, Kumo - all of them eclipsed Konoha in sheer military strength and they would all take meaty chunks out of his village until there was nothing left but the gristle; then the entire Land of Fire would become a battleground for another war. A playground of nations. A place to have their fights, but not track the blood and gore back to their own homes. Suna would carve off its piece later, when it had time to reap the rewards of an era without a strong neighbor. It was a brilliant plan and Sarutobi wondered who had originally pitched it, Rasa or Orochimaru. Rasa was clever, but this had the telltale taste of a bitter pill dreamed up by his former student.

Despite himself, despite everything, Sarutobi had to smile. I would bet ryo that this is all some plan of that student of mine that ballooned too large even for his spindly fingers to grasp.

Ah, well. The die was cast either way, now. All that was left was to reap the whirlwind and save what could be saved.

And that meant killing Chiyo.

A mop of pink hair crossed his line of sight - unmistakable in all the village, that hair was. Sarutobi had forgotten the girl almost as soon as she'd left his office, all those months ago. It was a necessary sacrifice in his position, because he personally met every new graduate, at least for a few moments, when they came for their official registration. It was a ridiculously wasteful use of his time; Tobirama-sensei would have scolded him and even Hashirama-sensei would have given him that fatherly smile he used when one of his little villagers was being especially precocious - the hokage meeting every little kid to make it out of the academy, how cute - but that was the part of the job that Sarutobi loved the most. He loved meeting the people he led, talking to them. Not having to think the worst of them. Not having to look for enemies in every shadow.

Coward, coward, coward.

Haruno Sakura. Or, at least, the creature that had taken her last body. He had seen it a half-dozen times now, following Chiyo's mobile headquarters. It was wearing a Suna Chunin vest, it had a weapons pouch, it went through the motions of being a ninja - but it wasn't. It wasn't anything. Sarutobi was offended by its very existence. It was some sort of monster wearing a human face, going through human motions. Mocking them all with its very existence.

"Tobi" - that's what the girls had called it. It had called itself the "Will of Madara", whatever that meant. The name had shaken Sarutobi when he heard it fall from that Yamanaka child's lips. He had thought, naively, that the village had moved past that monster. That Danzo had buried all of it under a stack of dead bodies twenty feet deep. But, like a twisted, murderous tree it had sprouted through those bodies and was crawling back into the daylight.

It had been over three years since Uchiha Itachi had been in contact with the village. That was the nature of his mission, his exile. They had already asked so much of him that no one had the right to demand more, least of all Sarutobi himself, but he wished that there had been some indication that the stranger calling himself Uchiha Madara was once again moving. If all this was another scheme of the "Madara" that had helped eliminate the Uchiha, that had likely been involved with the Kyuubi attack that had taken the lives of the Fourth and his wife, then there was no telling what would happen if the Shukaku was fully under his power. The Fourth was dead, after all; there was no one left in the village that could match a biju or a fully capable jinchuriki.

Sarutobi desperately hoped that the thing wearing the skin of Haruno Sakura wasn't a jinchuriki. Sabaku no Gaara, the Kazekage's son, had largely been a failure. Konoha had known about him for years; had known about the flawed sealing that left him unable to sleep without rampaging out of control. So far, the creature wearing Haruno's face hadn't slept. Or eaten. Or spoken to anyone. It just followed, staring off into the distance at nothing. More often than not sitting, when it could.

Always on the dirt or grass, too. Never sitting on a bench or a chair, even when they'd been readily available. Sarutobi didn't know what to make of that. Chiyo, though a frightfully talented shinobi, was not from Uzushiogakure. Her sealing methods were different. Inferior. Suna had declined a tailed beast from the Shodai Hokage and thus also a sealing method from Whirlpool. As was often with the Land of Wind, they went their own way. Developed their own jutsu.

It's too much to ask that something went wrong with the transfer, Sarutobi told himself. Though, if something had gone wrong, it might explain why Chiyo had yet to retreat from the village. She could be scouring the village for a better sealing method or studying Orochimaru's old laboratories. If she was trying to fix the thing, did that mean she was set on using it to destroy Konoha? Would she actually go to such lengths?

And that brought up an even deeper question - what could Rasa have offered her, to get that woman to involve herself with the world of shinobi again? Had he appealed to her patriotism? Sarutobi didn't think Chiyo had a patriotic bone in her body, but when was the last time they'd spoken at length? Decades? Things could have changed.

But then, Sarutobi remembered the woman's promise during the first real battle of the Second War. How she had promised all of them all death, as calm and serious as you please, because Hatake Sakumo had killed her son. Denied that by Sakumo's suicide, she had taken her rage out on hundreds of Konoha-nin and thousands of Land of Fire civilians. Even decades after her last appearance on the battlefield, Sarutobi had always had the last say on sending Kakashi anywhere near Suna, just so he could weigh the benefits of the mission versus the tiny chance Chiyo could finally get her clutches on her enemy's son.

Could revenge really be the reason? Surely, she knew that Sakumo was dead? But what other slab of meat could Rasa have dangled in front of her to make that crone jump?

Questions for later, Sarutobi thought - right now, Chiyo was back on the move.

The Hokage had already decided that an ambush was the ideal plan of attack. Things being what they were, Sarutobi knew that he could not fight a protracted battle of attrition with the woman. In addition to being the most talented puppeteer in the world, Chiyo was also one its foremost poisoners. Without Tsunade, or even Orochimaru, at hand Sarutobi had no illusions about his chances of survival were he to take a hit - and at his age, he would take hits. He had to kill Chiyo quickly, within the opening moments of a fight, to have any hope of walking away afterward… but the woman was wary.

Footsteps inside the room. Sarutobi stilled his breath, even his heartbeat, and trusted in the Transparent Escape Jutsu that Jiraiya had taught him. By how much noise the sentry was making, he wasn't anything more than a Chunin, but even a Chunin could sound an alarm if Sarutobi was unlucky.

"The hell are we doing here?" the man muttered, stepping around the store in a mockery of a traditional sweeping pattern. Sarutobi heard him thumbing through racks of clothes and nudging boxes around with his feet, the telltale signs of a lax ninja dissatisfied with his assignment.

But he was still drawing nearer to where Sarutobi was laying. There was a possibility that he already knew the old man was there, due to some inborn ability, and was about to call for aid. That would set the Hokage back by hours. It was a small chance, but a chance nonetheless.

There was no helping it. Sarutobi was quick and professional when he quickly twisted the man's neck around, making the death instant and painless. The impulse to make it a lingering, painful death was there, nagging the old man in the back of his mind, but he ignored it as always. This man had invaded his home, killed his precious family members, but he had only done so because his own home had asked it of him. Everyone was fighting their own battles; Sarutobi didn't wish to make those battles any bloodier than they had to be.

Now, though… now he was on a clock. The scout was dead. That set things into motion. Sarutobi knew from his shadowing of the group that they didn't use radio transmitters, but instead physically checked in with their superiors. That would work in his favor.

The Hokage gently laid the body out and studied the man's face, his body, and his limbs. Looked at the soles of his feet to see how his sandals were worn so he could mimic the man's style of walking. After a quick henge, Sarutobi gave himself a few moments to get used to his new center of gravity and practice his walk and posture. Relaxed in his posture, but twitchy in his movements. Restless.

"The leaves of the tree are lush in the spring," Sarutobi recited, trying to mimic the sound of the Suna-nin's voice. It was supremely fortunate that the man had spoken to himself; it made things easier. Sarutobi, the excellent mimic that he was, felt he had the gist of it after a few minutes.

The burnt clothes were another godsent. He folded the dead man up as much as he could and hid him under the heap of clothes where the child had tried to hide from the smoke and flames. The smells would mingle, making it hard for anyone to pick out the new corpse. "Forgive me, little one," Sarutobi murmured as he gently moved the other corpse around to make room for the new one, "but you will have to share your grave for a while."

Someone waved to him from the Suna camp a few minutes later, after he casually walked out into the open gap in the wall. Lazily, Sarutobi waved back and tried a few Suna hand signals he'd learned: Want me to come down?

Yes, the figure signed back. We're moving. Already other ninja scattered around the area were converging on the camp in the center. They would pick up stakes, just like they had the last half-dozen times in as many hours, and go to another part of the village still under their control. Then they would wait while Chiyo fussed over her science experiment. Then it would repeat.

Time to find out what was really going on in his village - and head it off as best he could.

Loyalty Chapter 48

Sakura was sneaking out of the tower.

Well, sneaking wasn't the best word for it, she thought, because there was an ANBU tailing her. They hadn't even been trying to stay sneaky - Sakura had spotted them standing on a tree branch ten minutes ago, just staring down at her in that creepy eagle mask. Okuda, or so Anko had called him the day before. She'd waved at him, trying to show that 'no, I'm not deserting the village again' and he'd disappeared. Sakura assumed she was in the clear.

It wasn't like she was too far away. She'd just needed some space. Ino had locked the bunk room they'd been sharing, so Sakura figured that putting some space between them was for the best. Anko had given her the afternoon off too, because Sakura had been wiped out by the testing; three soldier pills and all those shinra tensei shots had taken their toll.

"I don't need you collapsing on me today," Anko had told her that morning, when she'd found Sakura sleeping on the break room sofa. "Go find a new bedroom or something and be ready for tomorrow morning."

The woman had been distracted. Sakura had lost all of her physical training, but she hadn't lost the experience from being a spy; Anko wasn't difficult to read when she wasn't on her guard, either. Something was happening in the tower, something that had everyone preoccupied, so Sakura had taken the chance to work on her own side project.

Not that it was going very well, though.

Sakura frowned down at her hands. "I know it was Dragon, Tiger, and Hare." The girl forced her fingers into the complicated positions for each seal, carefully making adjustments when she needed to. These new hands were completely novice when it came to seals; her fingers didn't want to bend and often cramped up when she tried to do a jutsu.

At least the setting was pleasant. Sakura had found a small creek almost immediately and followed it a short way out, a half-mile at most. Here the giant trees of the forest had smothered almost all the undergrowth and created a perfect open space for practicing. They also blocked a lot of sounds, which would be a great thing - if she could get this jutsu to work.

It seemed like a great idea at first. Sakura had a photographic memory and remembered the powerful suiton Kurotsuchi had used against her in River, right down to the teen's posture and seals. There were only three, so Sakura had assumed it was a simple jutsu. It wasn't. Not by a long shot. The chakra in Sakura's stomach squirmed like a basket of snakes when she reached for it.

The jutsu failed, just like the last few times Sakura had tried. The circuit collapsed in her chest and the chakra she'd been molding slithered away. Exhausted and disheartened, the girl collapsed on the creek bank. She wished Anko were here. Whatever was distracting the tower couldn't be more important than her training, could it? The only thing Sakura could think of was the war not going the village's way, but surely someone would have mentioned the village losing ground?

"Maybe they wouldn't mention it?" Sakura wondered aloud. Bad news could be a distraction, and the eagle-masked ANBU seemed to be under strict information blackout orders. Maybe Danzo didn't believe in the Sage of Six Paths, but it was clear he didn't want Sakura learning anything she could pass back to Orochimaru; Sakura was pretty sure war details fell under that umbrella.

Sakura dipped her hand into the creek, paddling through it with her fingers. The water was cool on her skin, especially compared with the muggy fall weather of the forest. It was surreal to think that there was a war going on just a few miles away. That the village she'd grown up in, the only one she'd known her entire life, was burning. She couldn't really connect it, in her head, the memory of the ruins she'd traveled through alongside Shikamaru with her older memories of Konoha. The pictures refused to overlap.

Shinobi Rule 25: A shinobi must never show tears during a mission. Sakura splashed her face with the creek water. She'd come to resent all those stupid rules she'd learned at the Academy, but sometimes they were still helpful.

Sakura got back to her feet. If she wanted to help the village, she had to expand her catalog of jutsu past one unreliable, unknown dojutsu power and a water clone - Kurotsuchi's jutsu was the perfect new addition, if she could master it. Sakura forced her fingers through dragon, tiger, hare again and reached for her chakra.

"You're pulling too harshly."

For the first time since she'd left the tower, Eagle had decided to say something. She didn't bother looking for the lanky ANBU because Sakura knew she'd never spot him. Instead, she took the advice at face-value; she slowed her breathing, relaxed her muscles, and just tried to passively gather chakra, which went against everything she'd ever been taught or learned.

Nothing was happening. Sakura was holding the chakra circuit in her chest, but her chakra wasn't rushing into it. She tried her best to mimic the feel when she used the mizu bunshin, but that didn't work either. Whatever made this jutsu work was much different than putting water-natured chakra into existing water.

Sakura was mildly surprised she could sense the ANBU as he appeared a few feet away from her (which was probably politeness on his part). His mop of brown hair shook as his head cocked to the side, reminding Sakura very much of a bird studying a worm right before the peck.

"It's an advanced jutsu," he told her. "I recognize it. Suiton: Mizurappa - the water trumpet. You should have started smaller."

Sakura clenched her teeth. It was hard to concentrate and carry on a conversation with this weird, new chakra. "I did start smaller. I can use the mizu bunshin already, and I remembered the seals to this one."

The spindly man nodded. "Fair enough. Remember that the water you want to use for your jutsu doesn't want to condense out of the air, because that's not its natural state right now. And think about how much water you need for the jutsu. It's more water than probably flows in that stream in ten minutes. That's a lot of water. You can't force it with just the little bit of chakra you have available to you, so you have to find another method that plays to your personal strengths."

Her "own personal strengths"? Sakura wanted to snap that she didn't have any personal strengths anymore. That all of that was gone now and she was back to being just an Academy student in almost every way. "Do you even remember what you were like as a kid?" Sakura hissed instead, frustrated.

She didn't expect an answer, and Okuda didn't give her one, but the longer the silence stretched out the more embarrassed Sakura got at her outburst. Anko would have been up for a round of insults after that - the woman would have made a game of it - but the eagle-masked man didn't say a thing. He just stared at her with that mask of his, making it almost impossible for Sakura to focus on the jutsu.

With a ragged, annoyed sigh Sakura let the chakra disperse. She wasn't going to get this jutsu today. It was another reminder that she wasn't the same person she used to be, where she could get a random doton scroll, go out into the woods, and then keep throwing her body at the problem until she learned the trick.

"Giving up?" the man asked. There wasn't even a hint of emotion in his voice, but Sakura imagined she could hear the challenge there. If Okuda thought he could goad her, though, he had another thing coming. She wasn't Ino.

Sakura sniffed. "I'm tired and I don't want to hurt myself. Anko-sensei will make me get up to train tomorrow morning whether I'm feeling rested or not." Sakura gathered up her things and started walking back down the stream, toward the tower, but the ANBU suddenly appeared, blocking her way.

"We're taking a detour," he told her. "We're short-handed at the tower and there's new personnel that need to be guided in from the north gate. I volunteered us."

Because of course he did. Sakura looked longingly through the trees, where she could see the narrow little path leading her back to a warm shower, a soft bed (probably, if Sakura could find one), and lunch. "Can't I go back with one of the other ANBU?" she asked.

"I'm the only one assigned to you at the moment," he told her. "Part of the reason why you leaving this morning was originally an issue for us, but Tenzo decided that you should be allowed to roam."

Tenzo decided? Probably wanted me out of Ino's way so they could train more, Sakura bitterly thought. And just a single ANBU watching her? What would happen if Suna attacked the forest? Could one single ANBU protect her? Especially one that didn't seem to want her back to the safety of the tower as soon as possible.

"Who are we getting?" Sakura asked. Demanded. "I want to know."

"You don't need to know."

The girl crossed her arms. "Then I'm not going. I was told to stay at the tower by the hokage."

"You were told to stay in the forest," Okuda countered, voice still neutral. "And you will stay in the forest. We're only going to the outer edge. Now come along, or I'll carry you."

Sakura actually thought about digging in her heels so much that the man would have to physically take her to wherever it was they were going, but she decided that she could be the bigger person here. Really, she was only being so bratty because of how unhelpful the man's advice had been with her training. It wasn't fair - he wasn't her teacher - and he'd tried to give her advice. Maybe not especially good or clear advice, but advice nonetheless.

So, the girl sighed and walked over to the ANBU. "I still have to concentrate a lot to use chakra for climbing," she warned him, "so I'm not fast."

"Just follow as best you can. I won't let you get lost."

'As best as she could' turned out to be a workout Sakura was not physically ready for. True to his word, Okuda never got so far ahead that Sakura didn't know where he was, but his pace was backbreaking. Sakura had only recently gotten comfortable trusting her significantly lessened chakra pool to hold her up on a short wall or tree, but Eagle had taken straight to the canopy, forcing Sakura to crawl and climb her way to the tops of the massive trees.

From the ground the trees had been impressive; among the treetops, the branches and trunks were mind-boggling. They twisted and twined with each other, creating "roads" as wide as Sakura was tall, which made running and jumping easy - if you ignored how far up you were. How long have these things been growing? Sakura wondered. Nothing growing in the village was nearly so large. Even in the Land of Rivers, deep in swamps no human had probably traversed in years, nothing grew like these trees.

With a start, Sakura realized that she wasn't even paying attention to her jumps anymore; her mind was just going on autopilot. It was a small thing, but it was definitely a step in the right direction! Grinning, Sakura put more chakra into her legs, thrilling at the way it responded. Her suiton might not work correctly, but physical strengthening was like slipping on a well-worn glove... albeit one that had less 'leather' than she was used to. Her chakra reserves were nothing compared with the fake body's, and she had to be precise with each pump of the legs, but she could increase her speed and jumping distance as long as she had the chakra for it.

Which wasn't very long. Thirty minutes of running and jumping at even Okuda's casual pace had Sakura panting. When the man finally held up his hand for a stop, Sakura could have collapsed. She killed half her water skin in a few gulps. "How… how far is…"

"Another kilometer, but I'm going first." Okuda passed over his own water skin, which was almost full. Sakura hadn't seen him drink out of it. "Make a camouflage blind."

Only wobbling slightly when she stood up, Sakura began gathering branches and limbs for a good hiding spot. The Academy had taught all sorts of concealment techniques, and Sakura had taught herself more than a few over the last year, so she was careful not to cut any living limbs with her kunai and broke the ones she did need in a believable way that wouldn't look too suspicious.

She gathered everything up on one of the smaller trees, one that would probably break the canopy in another few decades. Its top was scraggly-but-leafy, which was perfect for blending. Sakura carefully twined herself into the branches and constructed a tiny, form-fitting space just big enough for her to contort herself into.

Okuda made a few adjustments from the outside, but he didn't have to do much. "Very serviceable," he praised. "Wait here for me. If you need assistance, fire a flare. You have one with you?" Sakura said she did, because she didn't really have the space to nod.

"I'll return when I can." That was it - no goodbyes, no last-minute advice, no lingering; he just vanished as he moved faster than Sakura could track.

The next few minutes went by very slowly. Sakura kept her breathing suppressed, didn't mold even the tiniest speck of chakra, and didn't dare move. Even when ants started crawling over her leg she didn't try and dislodge them (and also because she knew that there weren't any stinging tree-dwelling ants in Konoha - thank you, Iruka-sensei).

All around her the forest seemed to make all kinds of noises. Sakura recognized the calls of no less than a dozen different bird species, three of which she could do very good mimics of, and all manner of insects and things that she couldn't exactly place. She even spotted a striped tree scorpion which, if it had gotten any closer, she would have had to deal with as it was extremely territorial and venomous.

Clack, Clack.

Sakura's ears perked up. That sounded close, whatever it was. Was her tree not as stable as she'd thought? There wasn't much wind this deep down into the forest, but maybe her added weight was too much for the willowy trunk to take?

Clack, Clack.

But… that didn't sound like cracking wood. Sakura strained to listen and decided that, no, it wasn't wood breaking, but instead wood hitting another piece of wood. Like two branches clunking into each other in the wind.

It would take a lot of wind to make that happen, though…

Clack, Clack.

And it was moving. Slowly, methodically, but undeniably growing closer and closer to Sakura's hiding spot. This close, the little nuances in the sound were more distinguishable, like the dead, hollow tone in the different clacks.

Like wooden sandals.

Clack, Clack, Clack.

A white-haired giant walked across Sakura's vision. Two trees over and far to the left Sakura spotted him - a man taller than Okuda and broader at the shoulders than anyone the girl had ever seen. Ibiki, from Sakura's vague memories of the man, had been tall, and huge, but this white-haired man might be even bigger, because his bulk wasn't hidden under a trench coat. And his hair, which fell down his back like a cloak, made him seem even more massive. He lumbered among the branches, quiet as a cat except for the clacking of his wooden geta sandals.

He seemed undisturbed, but it was clear, as his head turned back and forth, that he was searching for something.

He's still pretty far away, Sakura thought. I can get the flare up, but he'd find me instantly. He didn't look like someone Sakura could fight. And he'd gotten past Okuda, which either meant the ANBU had been avoided or that he was dead. Neither one was appealing, but if Okuda was alive the flare would be the best option. Maybe even if Okuda had been killed, because a flare would definitely be seen by the other ANBU in the tower.

It all came down to whether or not Sakura could avoid being captured or killed in the span of time it would take someone to get to her. The man was big, and he looked strong, but how fast was he? How agile, in the thick twist of branches a few dozen feet below her, could he be?

Sakura eased her hand down to her pouch, taking pains not to rub against the wood or make any noise. When she reached the flap, though, her heartbeat sped up - she'd left it pinned shut. Lazy. Stupid. A million other insults went through Sakura's head as she dared to try and snap it open without any noise.

One little click of the snap fastener and she'd have the flare. She opened it. Barely a sound escaped; she watched the big man for any signs that he'd heard. Heartbeats and muffled breaths stretched out like thread being pulled tight from both ends, but the man didn't make any sudden moves. He just kept walking around the trees, searching, his geta clacking against the branches.

Sakura waited for him to step behind a tree trunk before she ripped the flare out of her pouch. She broke out of her blind, raised the rocket to the air, and pulled the string!

A blinding flash of light, then the high whine of the powder burning. She felt the heat of the rocket and was already dropping down to the lower branches when something caught the back of her shirt and yanked her back up.

With one hand the giant man held Sakura in place; with the other, he held the flare, plucked out the air like a fly. It sputtered uselessly in his hand until the last of its powder burnt out.

"Oh-ho. Almost got me," he said, crushing the smoldering flare in his massive hand. Sakura bent her body up to kick at his face, but he just held her out at arms-length. He was that big. "Got some real fire in you, huh? Want to fight a bit?"

He dropped her like it was nothing. Sakura jumped off the spindly little tree she'd been hiding in and back onto the thick branches of the bigger trees. The man followed, but he stayed a few feet away, taking a loose boxing stance. He gave the air a few jabs, grinning. "Come on, let's see if you're worth all the trouble!" he laughed.

There wasn't any escape. He'd moved so fast that Sakura hadn't even felt the air move around her when he'd caught her flare. This was not someone she could fight or run from. But he hadn't managed to stop all its noise. There was a chance help was coming.

If she could keep him occupied.

He laughed again when Sakura ran at him, brandishing a kunai. He easily parried her thrusts with chops, ducking and dodging her kicks with all the grace of a housecat. It was uncanny how quick the man was for his size. He was moving so fluidly that even his absurdly long hair didn't get hit, and Sakura tried more than once to get a fistful.

But he wasn't attacking and that gave Sakura more latitude. She jumped and tried to hit him with a wild heel drop. He dodged, of course, but the motion of it let Sakura reach into her pouch without him seeing. She swapped her kunai over to her other hand, sticking the explosive tag she'd palmed on its hilt as she did.

Sakura lunged at the man. He was having a great time toying with her and leaping back to make her stumble was just part of his game, but it did leave him dangerously close to the trunk of the tree they were fighting on. When Sakura righted herself, she threw the kunai at his head, just a little off-center so that he would dodge instead of catch it.

He did. Sakura grinned when it sank into the wood right behind the man's head. He grinned back at her, but there was a flicker of confusion and uncertainty on his lips - then, he heard the hissing of the tag.

Sakura was already running when he spun around. The single explosion tag wasn't enough to topple the tree, but surely the man wasn't in a condition to follow her. He had at least been crippled, if not outright maimed, right?

"Almost got me!"

Sakura couldn't stop the scared quiver of her jaw. The big man was hunched over, his hair spreading over his whole back like some kind of spiky shell. Bits of charred wood were implanted in sharp clumps of hair, and some strands were even bent or smoking, but he was alive. Whole and unharmed, even. His hair started moving, shrinking in size, until it was back into the enormous ponytail it'd originally been.

He stood. Stretched. Rolled his neck, worked out the kinks. Then he dropped down off that branch and onto Sakura's new one, sending the whole thing wobbling dangerously.

And that grin was back. "Anything else?" he asked. "I'll give you one more shot. I won't move. We can even drop down to the ground if you want to use those doton I've heard so much about."

He didn't know. Not Suna, then. Sakura's mind raced, eyes flitting around the man, trying to pick out any details. No village symbol on his forehead; only a headband with the kanji for 'oil' on it. What did that mean? Was there some kind of oil village out there that Sakura had never heard of? And that big scroll across his back, what was that? He hadn't used it even once.

Too many questions. Too many unknowns. Too powerful. Too quick. Sakura only had one chance left, and it relied on the man being just that cocky.

"You move and you're a coward," she growled. The big man grinned and dropped back into his lazy boxing stance.

Sakura raised her hand. He was a dozen feet away - she couldn't miss. Her breath came out in little puffs as she tried to reign in her fear. He didn't know about her new jutsu. She spread her fingers, putting the grinning man right between her index and middle.

Everything she had into one shot.

Her chakra swelled. "Shinra Tensei!"

The chakra poured out of her all at once. She saw the moment realization hit on the man's face that he'd made a mistake when the wave hit him. As he was blasted off his feet, his wild mane of hair grew again, this time covering his whole body like a cloak, but the push was irresistible. He flew back and slammed into the trunk of the big tree, and then further into the wood like a finger being pushed into wet sand. The bark around him buckled, then cracked; the branch they were standing on snapped and bowed all the way back until it broke into two more pieces, then six, then nothing but a storm of splinters that shredded everything in their path.

When the jutsu tapered off a heartbeat later, the entire tree lurched back over. It had been too much strain for such an ancient thing, though. A terrific, deafening crack thundered through the wood as the sheer weight of the tree made its recovery impossible. When it swung back a jagged crack wider than a grown man split it from crown to root.

Sakura had tried to run when she heard the first crack. She had tried, and failed, because the bow shock of the tree righting itself made certain that the massive thing was going to fall right on her. The shadow of it was enormous - too big for her to avoid, even if she had the energy. A shower of bark and limbs fell on her, the prelude to something much worse, but she still ran.

ClackClackClackClack

It was the man, jogging alongside her. Sakura looked over her shoulder at where the man had been a moment before and only saw a lingering cloud of smoke in the deformed crater of the tree. Kage bunshin!

But there was no time to be shocked. The tree was coming down. "Color me impressed with you!" the man shouted over the cacophony of noise. He held out his hand, which spread out looked as big as a dinner plate. "Want me to get you out of his mess?"

Sakura opened her mouth to ask who he was, or what village he belonged to, but she was running out of both time and branch. Judging by the shadow covering as far forward as Sakura could see, this whole area was about to be flattened.

Any where's better than here.

She nodded - furiously - and all but jumped into his arms. Anywhere, even the middle of a Suna camp, was better than being squashed!

"Thought so! Hold on tight!"

They disappeared right before the tree crashed through the canopy.

AN: And here we are! Sorry it took so long, guys - I've moved across the country, started college for my masters, and moved *again* locally. But, hey, all the main characters are now in one place! That's a big step to finishing this thing! Maybe I can keep my original goal of finishing it this year, huh?