The Way Through Stone Village (Naruto)

102: Search Party vs. Bandits

[OP: "Torches"--The Oh Hellos]

Ami caught Bones on the way down so he didn't bash his nose in.

"He's out cold," she assured Sakura. "Nice trick. I should learn medical ninjutsu so I can do things like that."

"That was just me hitting him," Sakura said, rubbing her hand. That small motion had sent throbbing pain up her arms. "I'm getting weaker... Can you get me out of this? If I don't stop this soon, I'm going to faint."

"Would another food pill help?" Ami asked.

"It might, but I also could burn myself out if I take too much of that while I'm doing things." Sakura recalled what had happened to Choji when he'd done that. "So...last resort..."

"You're a very brave young woman," Ami said, moving towards the stone thing, but then she said, "I'm not sure my technique is up to this. It's too solid... Precision takes more control..."

"What?" Sakura said.

"Perhaps we should get out of here first," Ami suggested. "I can work on it longer outside than I can here, waiting for them to come back. Or you could break it yourself."

Sakura doubted she could do that, but she sighed. "Fine, but it's pretty heavy, and I can't muster all my strength right now."

"I'll help you move it," Ami said. "Just walk fast."

She took Sakura's arm and stood up. "No one is going out this way if they can help it. Too exposed to the Village--but we'll have to take the chance. Let's go."

She moved the weight stone easily enough.

Sakura shuffled along as well as she could with one leg nearly totally held stiff by the restraints.

Ami wove more hand signs, and then the tunnel opened upward to the outside, a very small hole.

"Almost there," she said encouragingly. "You're doing splendidly."

It was nice to have anyone tell her that--but Sakura felt it was a bit ridiculous to say it when they were slowly going along with a wooden leg and broken arms.

Then Ami tensed.

"I think the others may have just come back," she said, tapping the earth. "We have to run--but we can't run!"

We're dead, Sakura thought to herself. We got so close and we're dead. I can't believe I almost had it, and I lost it again. Why am I like this? Why am I never able to save myself?

And, sure enough, though Ami had started to pull her the rest of the way out of the hole, it was only a split second later that it opened again and Scorpion came out, looking in a fury.

"I knew it when I found Bones," he said. "The idiot. I'll kill him later for this, mark my words. And Badger? What are you doing?"

Ami looked at Sakura and then said, "She forced me to bring her out here. She had chakra blades! I wasn't fast enough to stop her."

While Sakura knew that Ami maintaining her innocence would probably help her more in the long run, if she survived this, she hated her at the moment for it.

Scorpion didn't think much of Ami's skills, because he decided to bury it. "Well, step away from her now. I think she needed another lesson in how good prisoners should act." He pulled out a sharp blade that looked like a pincer almost. Like how he got his code name.

It really hurt too. It had a serrated edge that dug into your skin and bone. Sakura didn't want that one to be the one she got "taught" with.

She would not cry, though. Not in front of this goon.