"Why did you let the girl go, Minato?" Chōza hissed under his breath. "You said it yourself! She's going to get herself killed!"
Minato, Shibi, and Chōza— the latter carrying the princess on his back— were creeping closer to the border, using the treeline for cover. Traditional Sensor-nin were easily identifiable by their chakra's quality, so Shibi had plotted a path between the Sand patrols that included them. Now, they were only waiting for Sakura's signal to charge into the Land of Wind…
"You don't understand, Chōza," Minato whispered. "That girl mastered perfect Sage Mode! Do you have any idea how long it takes me to do what she managed in one second?"
"What, that instant make-up trick?" said Chōza, startled. "That one you showed us once? What was it, about thirty minutes?"
"And that was with a toad helping me!" Minato insisted. "To gather that much senjutsu chakra, without assistance, I'd say she's at the very least as strong as Jiraiya-sensei!"
The ground trembled, and a few seconds later, alarm flares started shooting up into the sky one after the other, in quick succession.
"Six, seven… eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve," Shibi counted, a note of astonishment creeping into his voice. "She's drawn out twelve patrols almost simultaneously."
"We're breaking through the Sand's defensive line!" called Minato. "Let's go!"
…
Meanwhile, at the border between the Land of Wind and the Land of Rivers…
"BAHAHA!" roared the First Hokage, his boisterous laughter echoing from atop the gigantic, large-breasted wooden sculpture of a woman he was riding, as flares exploded around him like fireworks. "Bring it on, you Sunagakure whelps! Let this ancestor show you a thing or two about warfare!"
"Sage Art: Wood Style, Wood Oiran Jutsu!"
With each of the wooden titan's footfalls, life seemed to take root in the arid desert sand. Step by step, the Land of Rivers was quite literally invading the desert: blades of grass and flowers sprang up rapidly around the golem's toes, while trees burst from the sand around it like bamboo shoots, sending vines winding down to catch the Suna-nin as they fled like rats, snatching them by the ankle and binding them tightly in mid-air.
…
"Please help us, Lady Pakura!" one team leader screamed tearfully into his portable radio transceiver as he dodged the eerily writhing vines that were yanking his comrades up into the air one after the other. "The forest! The forest is alive! It's coming down the mountain!"
"Would you get a hold of yourself, man?" a woman's voice crackled in his ear. "What do you mean, the forest is coming down the mountain!?"
"It's the First Hokage!" the poor bloke cried in terror as the wooden sculpture bent down, its gigantic hand reaching for him. "He's come back from the dead— no! Stay back! Get away from me—!"
A shadow fell over the Suna-nin, and he cowered as a gigantic wooden hand closed around his body. The poor shinobi squealed in terror as the golem's fingers tightened about him, but just when he thought they would crush the life from his fragile frame, they stopped. He cracked open an eye, but there was nothing to see in the darkness; there was no escaping the Buddha's palm.
…
"There!" said Sakura in satisfaction, hopping down from the wooden woman's head to the moss-covered ground, as her Senju Hashirama guise vanished in a puff of white smoke. "Now, if anyone asks them what happened here, no one will believe their tale!"
The desert had become an extension of the Land of Rivers; a lush jungle where bound and gagged Sand-nin dangled from every branch of the newly grown trees, tightly wrapped up in vines, like some demented madman's idea of Christmas tree decorations.
"And now," Sakura told herself, patting her ninja tool bag, "I just need to wait for Naruto's dad to come pick me up, and if I'm lucky…"
If she was lucky, a certain Scorch Style user would drop by and very kindly remove all evidence of any Wood Style ninjutsu with her cleansing flames, and… speak of the devil!
Four figures flickered into view a few dozen metres away.
The first was an orange-haired kunoichi with green-tinted roots and generous curves, clad in a tight-fitting bodysuit that bared her back and shoulders; the other three wore beige Suna-style flak jackets with pointed shoulder pads, which meant they were at the very least Chūnin-level.
"You… you're nothing but a child," said Pakura slowly, looking Sakura up and down. "Are you the one responsible for all this?"
According to her Sensor-nin teammate, the busty, pink-haired girl in front of her had a kage-level chakra signature. It didn't seem like the girl had any companions, but even so, she would have to play this carefully, even if her Scorch Style countered Wood Style, Pakura thought to herself.
At least, fire countered wood, in theory.
"Me? No way, it was the First Hokage…" Sakura replied innocently, shrugging and shaking her head. "You just missed him, unfortunately…"
The tips of Sakura's fingers brushed against the jutsu formulae tattooed on her wrist, and her sword materialised in her hand amidst a puff of white smoke, its blade glinting in the sunlight that poured through the canopy. A pale, reddish-pink sheen traced the wave pattern along the blade's edge, lending it an illusory shimmer…
"Why couldn't I think of 'Benizakura' before?" Sakura grumbled under her breath. "Makoto, what a stupid name… Benizakura fits my pink aesthetic perfectly, too…"
Pakura glanced up at her precious comrades' bodies, writhing and wriggling to free themselves as they dangled upside down by their ankles from the branches above. To her surprise, they looked mostly unharmed, though their exposed faces were beginning to turn a rather interesting shade of purple, due to the blood pooling into their skulls.
"I am Konan," Sakura continued, settling into the Breast-Guarding Stance. "I would offer you my family name, but since the shinobi code forbids me from doing so, you'll have to forgive me if I don't… but even so, I would challenge you to a duel."
Pakura's teammates raised their kunai and stepped in front of her, adopting defensive stances, but she gave a slight shake of her head.
"Free our comrades," she whispered. "I can't go all out with them dangling about."
Since Pakura wanted to become the next Kazekage, she couldn't afford to lose her underlings— those who believed in her, supported her, and had fought alongside her through thick and thin.
"An honourable duel, eh? I accept," Pakura called, raising her voice as she glanced at Sakura's sword. "But before we begin, that longsword— your family hails from a samurai clan, I take it?"
Sakura frowned as Pakura's companions flickered away.
Evidently, Pakura was just buying time for her teammates to untie their other comrades, and trying to extract information about her techniques while she was at it… but Sakura was on a schedule. There was no telling when Minato would shake off his pursuers and teleport back for her; when he did, her chance to claim the Scorch Style Kekkei Genkai would vanish.
With a flourish, Sakura levelled her sword's tip at Pakura, who drew a kunai in response. Three incandescent orbs shimmered into being behind the woman, slowly orbiting around her body. Whatever she did, Sakura could not, under any circumstance, let those fireballs touch her…