Experiments and bruises
Kazuma glanced up when someone knocked smartly on the door, and was about to get up to answer it when Sakura called "It's open!" from the back of the apartment. The door opened smoothly, and a slender blonde woman stepped in. She caught sight of the group seated in the living room as she swung the door shut and froze, hand slipping from the knob as it clicked shut. She blinked dumbly at them for a moment, then shouted "The hell are you doing with ANBU in your apartment, Forehead-Girl?"
"I am ignoring them," the woman answered primly as she stepped out of the hall. She continued on to the desk beside the door and leaned over it, grabbing a set of keys from one of the cubbies. "They're from before the Siege, though; came in with Saru's group."
Ino eyed the ANBU unhappily, arms crossed and fingers twitching. "You are aware that one of them is Danzou?"
"Yes, Ino," Sakura confirmed. She straightened and glanced over at the men in question, a scowl twisting her features. "Why do you think I'm ignoring them?"
Ino tossed an unamused glance back at the pink-haired woman. Sakura caught it and grimaced. "If it makes you feel any better, they're all unarmed."
Though it certainly doesn't seem to make you feel any better, Kazuma observed silently, wondering if their discussion would reveal why the Rokudaime Hokage was so clearly uncomfortable in the presence of ANBU.
"Are you forgetting their vast repertoire of ninjutsu and genjutsu?" Ino challenged.
The look Sakura sent her way was flat. "Have you ever known me to miscalculate so badly in a situation like this?" she countered in an equally flat voice.
The blonde woman tilted her head, then quickly scanned the apartment. She snorted. "You've got this place covered in cancellation runes."
Sakura cocked a cheeky eyebrow at her guest. "Are you satisfied? They can still channel chakra, but it's not going anywhere unless it travels through flesh."
"What about taijutsu?" Ino was not to be dissuaded. "I'm sure at least one of them is a fair hand at hand-to-hand."
"There's someone in this room who can survive a taijutsu bout with me?" the hostess deadpanned.
Ino managed to look sheepish. "Well, you never know."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "I assure you, I've taken every precaution, and I'm not the slightest bit wary of sending them through a wall or two should they bother me." She glanced at the group of men one last time and let her face twist into another unhappy scowl. "Still, I'd rather not stay in the apartment with them for two long, so let's go."
"Right," Ino agreed, turning, and reopened the door.
It swung wide, and a kunai sprouted in her throat.
"INO!!!!"
The men launched to their feet as the stunned blonde began to fall, but they could only watch as the Rokudaime Hokage leapt to the defense of her closest friend.
Sakura's hands closed around Ino's neck, her left cupping the base of her head and giving stability while the right clamped down over the wound, the kunai clenched between her fingers. The two women continued to fall, in tandem now, and Sakura's left leg bent as her right snapped straight up, sending the blade of her foot into the throat of the ANBU-clad figure sprinting through the wide open door.
His head bounced off the floor mere seconds after the women did, his body flung up into the crossbeam of the door. Sakura grunted as her shoulder hit the carpet, and her foot shot up again, this time swinging to slam the ball of her foot into the face of a second intruder. His neck snapped as the force of her blow spun his head around a full 360 degrees, and the body dropped as Sakura's foot came down on the other side of Ino's body.
She bent her leg and rested her knee on the floor, flipped her body over Ino's, hands switching places on her neck, and swung her left leg up. Her heel smashed into the chin of a third ANBU just clearing the bodies of his companions, and his mask and jawbone went flying into the kitchen as he spun and dropped.
More ANBU were rushing in from the hall as Sakura nicked her left hand on the kunai still imbedded in her friend's throat, formed five quick seals, and muttered "Blood Freeze!" She ignored the threat on her flank, instead focusing her attention on the katana-wielding enemy lunging towards them through the door. She launched herself upwards and knocked his blade aside with her left forearm, smashing her right fist into his face and shattering porcelain and bone.
As he reeled back, she twisted her left arm, grabbed his weapon-arm, and yanked it backwards, plunging it into the chest of one of the ANBU inside the apartment. She spun clockwise and slammed her right elbow into his head, knocking him aside just in time to send her left fist flying into the face of his partner.
A flash out of the corner of her eye had her right hand chasing after the katana-impaled corpse. She dropped to a knee, yanked the katana out, and swung it around to block a sideways strike from a seventh attacker. The force of her block sent his katana flying through the door - narrowly missing Kari as she skidded to a stop outside - and Sakura continued the swing around the back of her body to bring the weapon slamming into the final enemy's katana as it came down on her.
They hit hard enough to shatter steel, and the momentum of her swing kept her arm going far enough for her to fling the sharp-edged hilt into the throat of her disarmed opponent. She snapped her body around, rose on her right foot and planted her right hand, and snapped her left heel into her final opponent's chin hard enough to send his teeth into his brain.
The woman's kick spun her back around to face Ino again, and by the time her left foot landed her hands were already on the frozen woman. Only then did Kazuma realize that the blonde had been placed into some sort of stasis.
But how is that possible? He wondered distantly, still recovering from watching his (several times great) successor so wantonly decimate her ANBU opponents in little less than ten seconds. She said that chakra couldn't be released through ninjutsu!
Kari pulled the mask off one of the intruders and scowled at the face revealed. Kazuma didn't recognize it - not that he would - but she clearly did, and she flung the mask across the room with a snarl as more people crowded into the door.
Sakura ignored the hubbub, whispering indistinctly as her hands moved delicately on Ino's throat. Her fingers glowed faintly green with chakra as she slowly pulled the kunai out, pressing gently yet firmly to stem the tide of blood. Once it was removed, she carelessly tossed it aside and pressed a blood-coated hand to the floor, murmuring yet again.
Her roommates and guests jumped when runes suddenly glowed into life all around the apartment, only to fizzle out almost instantly. The chakra around her fingers flared to engulf her hands entirely, and she muttered still more as she traced a pattern over Ino's throat.
Ino gasped suddenly, a gasp that turned quickly into a gurgle as the blood drained into her airways. Sakura shushed her quietly, easing healing chakra into the open wound as she did.
"There were four squads' worth of ANBU we were unable to account for," Hyuuga Neji said softly from the door.
Genma nodded beside him. "We assumed they were killed in the Siege."
Sakura's expression didn't change, but her voice rose in a snarl. "Apparently, we were wrong. Find them, and God damn it, Genma, bring me their heads!"
"Hai!" several voices confirmed, and the shinobi crowding the door vanished.
It's an AU setting of my AU story, and Kari's just a random person. Sakura and Kazuma, along with the other Hokages, are sharing an apartment (don't ask why, I don't know). The captains of the first four Hokages' ANBU units are visiting, and Sakura's avoiding them because her ANBU tried to kill her. Yes, the whole thing was conceiving solely for the fight. You'll never see it anywhere in the actual story. And it was such a good fight, too. Though I might post it on FF.N just to see what people think of it...
Anyway, night!
-Orvana
EDIT: I did end up posting it on FF.N, so if you want to swing over there and critique it...?