Shades of Grey

Chapter 49

"Damn it, Naruto cover Sai." Kakashi yelled across the battlefield when he saw the artist take a hard fall from one of his ink birds.

Kakashi's attention was quickly returned to his own fight when the Sound shinobi that he was facing launched several kunai with exploding tags his way. Shit this was not good. Team 7 had been returning from a mission when they were ambushed. Already low on chakra these eight former test subjects of Orochimaru were proving to be pests. None of his team was without injury and they had only managed to disable two of the enemy nins. This was going to be a hard-won fight. Retreat was not an option; they would not be able to outrun them for long. Their only choice was to fight like hell.

Suddenly then Copy-nin felt a huge surge of chakra that was both foreign and familiar at the same time; there was no denying who it had come from. Somehow Sakura had stumbled upon them, and her message was clear. She would be there; just hold on. Kakashi sighed, they would survive this fight. Now he just had to worry about whether his team would make it through what he was sure would happen afterwards. Nothing could have ever prepared him for the sight when Sakura came out of the trees.

There was no denying that it was their teammate her pink hair and jade eyes screamed as much, but she was not the same kunoichi who had left them. She was a touch thinner than she had been, Sakura had always had a lithe form, but now you could see more definition to her. She had hardened and not just her body, but everything about her. The woman before them had been affected by her life on the run, just as Kakashi had feared she would be.

The clearing was now filled with a rushing wind caused by the ferocity of the violet chakra that enshrouded her and made the form of a twitching tail. Sakura's face was calm, a mask more effective than the one he wore, but her eyes were a different story. The glowed as though lit from within, yet still managed to look as cold as ice. They held a quiet rage and an assurance that she would survive this fight. She took only a second to survey the battlefield before giving a smirk so wicked that it would make Ibiki cringe; all hell followed. She looked like a creature that had been released from its cage; none of her teammates would have ever expected the carnage that she dealt out.

Sakura reached the clearing and saw that all her teammates had been injured, but they would live long enough for her to be able to heal them. She had been right to come here in this form. This would take no time and use only a small amount of her chakra saving the rest for her to be able to tend to her team. She had better finish this fast she smirked before turning to the shinobi that Kakashi was facing.

She judged him to be the strongest; he needed to be taken out first. A flick of her wrist sent a kunai straight through his jugular. Her attention was quickly drawn to a shinobi launching some sort of sound based jutsu straight at Naruto who was covering an injured Sai. She called on one of the new water jutsu that Kisame had taught her trapping not only him but also his closest comrade in a sphere of spinning water. Next, she raced in Sasuke's direction seeing that Kakashi had disabled the other kunoichi who had been facing him. She sent a poisoned senbon into the arm of the nin whose katana was pressed against Sasuke's. She continued another few feet before grabbing a kunai from her pouch and launching it into the head of the last remaining shinobi who was preparing to attack Sasuke from behind. There it was over; she withdrew the Kyuubi's chakra and for a moment the world stood still.

"Sakura why did you kill them all like that?" Naruto asked with a note of sadness in his voice.

"They would have only kept coming after Sasuke if I didn't." She borrowed a page from Itachi's book and kept her face carefully blank. She could not let them see everything that was going on inside of her right now. She had to heal them and find Itachi in the hopes that she had not messed things up too bad.