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chapter six

"On a team, it's not the strength of the individual players, but it is the strength of the unit and how they all function together."

- Bill Belichick

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Sakura felt Yugito grab her by her shirt collar, lift her up, and throw her aside. Sakura hit the floor hard, the impact knocking the wind out of her. Kakashi was there immediately, feeling for broken bones. Sakura shook her head and sat up, and Sasuke also appeared at her side. He narrowed his eyes at her, and that's when Sakura realized just how far she'd been thrown. Kakashi and Sasuke up down a hill by a tree, a good eight meters away. Sakura was now laying down by their feet. Sakura's eyes widened as she saw the panther leap on top of Yugito, knocking the older girl over. She was just seventeen, and was apparently about to be overpowered by a cat.

Sasuke offered her a hand, and heaved her up, and Sakura leaned heavily on Kakashi and Sasuke, as she was having trouble breathing. She was still breathing, but she felt like her lungs had been shaken around inside her ribcage. She was going to bruise up big time from that landing. Sakura noticed Kakashi take out a kunai, and start running down the hill to the stump Sakura and Yugito were just sitting at, then stop. The panther and Yugito were wrestling on the floor, and Kakashi didn't have a clear shot.

"What are you doing, Kakashi? Help her!" Sasuke shouted. Sakura's breathing became shorter than it already was, thinking Yugito was already dead. At that point, Sasuke was basically carrying her.

Kakashi looked at them, and shook his head, pointing at them with his kunai. Sakura squinted, getting off Sasuke and stumbling closer to the scene. There didn't appear to be blood anywhere on the scene, and Yugito wasn't getting her face torn off. She was being licked. By the panther. It was licking her, and Yugito was laughing, not screaming.

"Tōketsu-sama!" Yugito shrieked, hugging the big animal by the neck. The panther let out a deep laugh, a female by the looks of it. It had a voice smoother than Yugito's, even, and deeper as well. "Get off me!"

The playful animal obliged, and Yugito sat up. When she saw the confused look, she laughed, pointing at the large animal. "This is Lady Tōketsu, she's the Queen's helper." The panther looked at them, blinking at the three intruders. "Lady Tōketsu, these are my friends, Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi."

The panther, who was apparently named Tōketsu, turned her head to Yugito. "You're friends with an Uchiha boy, a dog summoner, and a pink haired girl, Yugito-chan?" She asked. Sakura marveled at the beast of an animal.

Tōketsu-sama was a lean, muscled black cat. She wasn't unhealthily thin, but she hadn't a single bit of flesh on her. It was all pure muscle. She had deep blue eyes that one wouldn't normally find on a panther, and she was roughly twice Sakura's size. She was as tall as Kakashi's abdomen. One massive panther, she was. Her voice had an interesting accent, and it was rough. It reminded Sakura a little bit of Lady Tsunade. There was no weakness in her voice, no submissiveness. This cat was the man in charge. Well, she was a cat, but you get the idea. Sakura wasn't sure how she could tell, but there was a hint of playfulness in the panther's eyes that made her seem less threatening. Somehow Sakura knew that was a ruse. If she made one wrong move, the cat could tear her apart in seconds. She was no joke.

"Tōketsu-sama," Yugito whined. "We thought you were someone else, trying to attack us. I threw Sakura-chan because of you. How are you doing, by the way?" She asked the girl. Sakura shrugged. She wasn't doing bad, she'd begun self healing when she realized there was no threat.

"My apologies." Tōketsu dipped her head in Sakura's direction. "I wanted to make sure that really was Yugito-chan I smelled. When I discovered it was, I simply had to do this."