SasuSaku - Past Selves

Chapter 3 - Surprises!

At Team Taka's Hideout

"Juugo! You're back already!" exclaimed Suigetsu, "I was losing my mind alone with this woman, Sasuke has not left his room."

"You were losing your mind? I WAS LOSING MY MIND! You are an abomination." Hissed Karin.

"Quit it guys," sighed Juugo. "Yes, my mission turned out to be quite simple. You see, it was quite easy to gather intel on the best medical ninja. The answer was unanimous! Whoever I asked gave the same answer, so it made my life much easier. And you wouldn't believe it... it's a girl!"

"Ooh, a girl?" whispered Suigetsu, "Our mission just got much easier, just how hard can it be to kidnap some girl?"

*Damn, another girl on the team...* thought Karin. "What is her name, and where can we find her?"

"Her name is Sakura Haruno." Answered Juugo. "Actually, everyone who knew her spoke so highly of her, she sounds very pleasant. I pretended to have a friend with a terminal disease, so people were eager to direct me to the best medic around. She apparently essentially runs a hospital in Konoha, where Sasuke is from! Which means, she may be hard to approach, as her disappearance will ring many alarms."

"Oh, she sounds more exciting by the minute!" Smirked Suigetsu. "Let's get going, Karin."

"Yeah whatever, let's go get this over with."

Somewhere in the woods, four days later

"So, what do we do?" Asked Suigetsu. "We need a plan. We can't just snatch her from the hospital."

"I know, you dimwit!" Groaned Karin. "We need to draw her out in the woods somehow. We know her schedule by now, we have been spying on her for two days. Seems like every morning, she brings some food to the guards at the gates of the village. That's our best chance. I will go and pretend my friend is injured and bleeding out. She won't refuse help, so I will bring her to a more secluded area, where we can attack her and knock her out."

"Hmm, not bad for a musty bitch!"

"Suigetsu, nothing will bring me greater joy than killing you the second Sasuke-kun accomplishes his goal. Now, I will get going, she should be at the gates within the hour. You wait here, and be ready!"

To keep things short, Sakura did indeed bring some cookies to the guards - she knew how tiring the watch could be during the hot summer days, so she always brought some leftovers for lunch. The Anbu guards loved her for it. And, as planned, a very distressed Karin appeared before Sakura, convincing her to go save her friend. Well, it did not need much convincing, Sakura rushed to help the "injured".

Karin felt uneasy the whole way. See, Sakura was beautiful, as much as Karin hated to admit it. Not only did she have the rarest pink hair, and shiny emerald eyes, but she also had the nicest body Karin had seen. It made her insanely jealous, the thought of Sasuke having to be around a woman like that. Naturally, she had a huge crush on Sasuke. Who didn't? *Focus, Karin!* she thought. *We will deal with this later.*

"It seems like we have stopped," said Sakura calmly. "You can tell your accomplice to come out". She took a kunai out of her pocket.

"What? H-How did you know?!" mumbled Karin.

Sakura chuckled. "An injured comrade? Yeah, right. Then why don't you have any blood on your clothes or hands? What kind of friend doesn't try to stop the bleeding? Nice try, lady. I played along to draw the threat away from the village. Now, show yourself!" - she threw the kunai behind a random bush, from where Suigetsu slowly emerged, looking embarrassed.

"Great plan, Karin! Can't believe you missed such an obvious flaw."

"So did you, you asshole!" - yelled Karin. "Whatever, proceed with the plan! Attack!"

*I don't know what their deal is, but I guess I have to face them both*, thought Sakura, getting in position.

10 minutes later

"Shit, Karin! Are you okay?" yelled Suigetsu, pain from his four broken ribs blurring his vision, coughing up blood.

"Mhm....." mumbled Karin, collapsing on the ground.

"Is this all you've got?" Yelled Sakura angrily, not a scratch on her. Well, she had healed them all. She was panting, this was taking longer than she had anticipated. She readjusted her gloves, and prepared for another attack on her opponents.

"Shit, we have to get out of here.... This next blow could kill us!!!" Suigetsu ran to Karin, picked her up, and jumped in the nearby river, disappearing into the water.

"Ugh! They got away!" sighed Sakura, defeated. I did not expect that dude to turn into water... Wonder who they were? Were they after the village? Or after me? I should have dragged one of them back for intel. Dammit!" She punched the ground, leaving a massive hole in it.

"I dare them to come back, next time I will for sure get them both. They were strong, but luckily I was able to heal myself in time after all their blows. That guy's sword was pretty nasty, easily could have killed someone less trained...", she mumbled to herself, as she went back to the village to report the incident.

After hearing about the incident, Tsunade strengthened the guard of the village, and sent out additional Anbu members for a lookout.

At the Taka hideout

"...and that's when we made our exit.." mumbled Karin.

"We are so sorry, Sasuke, but I am telling you, this woman is no joke! Every hit I landed on her was gone after a couple minutes! We can not capture her with our jutsu... Maybe we need to find someone else, it's much more likely that-", said Suigetsu pacing back and forth, before getting cut off by Sasuke -

"Enough. You both are useless. I can not believe some girl from Konoha messed both of you up so badly. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Another failure, and I will dispose of both of you. Lucky for you, I have regained most of my strength since Danzo, so I have been looking anxious to get some battle action myself," smirked Sasuke. "I will go bring this girl here myself. She must be exciting, since she manhandled both of you losers."

*Can't believe I have to go back near Konoha for this, damn that place.*, thought Sasuke. "What is her name anyway? I will head out in a bit."

"Her name is Sakura Haruno," responded Karin, looking away embarrassed.