"Man, she kicked your asses." A voice turned team seven around. A group emerged from the trees moving towards the leaf shinobi.
"Dawn?" Carver said seeing Sakura's second and third commanders inside the large gathering crowd.
"Where the fuck was you!?" Raiden glared holding his arms out.
"Um...being smart?" Dawn smirked.
"Huh?"
"Sakura doesn't remember placing Diem or I as her Commanders."
"Oh yeah..." Raiden muttered not having realized this would have been a thing.
"Where are you four going?" Diem stepped in.
"Um..." Sasuke looked between the two commanders. "Home?"
"Giving up so soon?"
"Well I don't see you two doing anything?" Carver crossed his arms over his chest.
"What is there for us to do?" Diem countered crossing his arms, "We can't take her on."
"And we can?"
"You have a better shot than we do." Diem rolled his eyes.
"Your first attempt failed, so you're going to give up and forget about Sakura?" Dawn questioned.
"How long did it take you to get that Uchiha back?" Diem asked Naruto, "He was a stubborn fuck, but you never gave up so why are you now?"
"How do you know-" Sasuke muttered,
"Sakura always kept tabs on the Leaf Village." Dawn answered, as a young girl no older than thirteen moved past the two commanders. Naruto remembered this girl to be Annistyn, Sakura's fallen first second in commander's daughter.
"Why are you leaving?" Annistyn asked crossed her small arms over her chest.
"What do you mean?" Naruto muttered more to himself.
"Who are you?" Annistyn ignored Naruto's question.
"What?" Sasuke asked.
"I heard you barged into Kaguya's office and demanded she give Sakura her memory back." Annistyn spoke to team seven. "Are you going to fix her or what?" She asked, her bluntness reminded Naruto a lot of Sakura.
"Fix?" Naruto trailed off.
"That isn't Sakura." Annistyn's voice was strong but hollow. "That is not the woman who took me in after my mother died. She is not the person who trained and took care of me. She doesn't even remember my mom who was her second in command! Sakura is the only family I have left, and she doesn't know who I am! What has happened to her?" Annistyn demanded to know.
"It is a long story..." Naruto muttered.
"Why are you guys leaving?" The young girl lectured them,
"Annistyn." Dawn sighed, Annistyn looked down at the ground feeling in trouble as Dawn walked up to the young girl and patted her head. "She is right-" Dawn said, "-that is not the Commander I agreed to follow. I don't understand what Kaguya has done to her and frankly I don't care. We simply just need to fix her before things here get completely out of our control."
"Do you four have any idea how to reverse what Kaguya has done?" Diem questioned team seven. "We need to fix Haruno before she revives Purgatory." The four men were taken back by the hundreds of soldiers who had collected all around them.
"That is not my Commander!" Voices called out,
"We want our Commander back!" They cheered, Naruto was stunned seeing how many people loved Sakura, she was a fantastic leader and it showed here today.
"So." Diem said snapping Naruto out of his amazement, "How do we get her back?"
"We don't know..." Carver said honestly. "...but we will figure it out."
"Well hurry up and figure out what to do because we can't do anything here without her knowing we are up to something." Diem explained, "We will be here waiting, and we will do our best to keep Sakura contained and to keep Purgatory in the ground."
"Thank you." Raiden breathed, team seven turned and was about to start their long way home before a voice called out. Naruto turned seeing Annistyn running after them, she was keeping up to them well for her age. Could Naruto expect anything less from the little girl Sakura took under her wing?
"Who-Who are you." She breathed, "How can I trust you to really fix Sakura? How do you even know her, I have never seen you around here before?" She quickly questioned; Naruto smiled seeing a lot of Sakura inside this young girl.
"I grew up with her." Naruto whispered in the red heads ear, he stood hearing Annistyn gasp. She then looked up at his head band. The origin of Sakura, the Reaper of Reapers had always been the deepest mystery around the waterfall village and other parts. "Shh..." Naruto whispered with a wink and smile. She nodded knowing that it was a secret, "I promise you Annistyn-" Naruto said, "-I will bring Sakura back."
"I am trusting you-" Annistyn yelled after him, "-and you better not let me down!" Naruto chuckled, Annistyn was almost the spinning image of Sakura's straight forward attitude.
----
"No way!" Naruto smiled wide seeing an instant ramen cup in Teuchi's hands.
"Yes." He nodded, "In a month we will be selling instant ramen in stores."
"That is awesome!" Naruto laughed, "I am going to have them for breakfast, lunch and dinner!"
"Well I hope I will continue on seeing you here."
"You can count on it!" Naruto said as he slurped the broth from his third ramen bowl, Teuchi laughed as Naruto looked up about to place his fourth order for the day, he was treating himself since the past two weeks he and his team had been doing nothing but researching on how to reverse what Kaguya has done to Sakura, but every lead they think they have picked up on they always come to a dead end...Naruto sighed, setting his bowl on his forming stack in front of him as he leaned against the counter feeling depressed.
"When I crawl into your village in the middle of the night, I am going to string your little leaf friends up by their necks-"
Sakura's threat circled around his head again, her haunting words did more than just spook him that day...her cold tone terrorized his dreams and always made him wake up out of breath and feeling miserable. Naruto couldn't turn to his sensei, Kakashi's flowing silver hair flashed through his mind again, he was no longer here to offer his wisdom. Naruto didn't have Hinata to comfort him either and his teammates were just as rattled as he was, they were on the lookout for Sakura which terrified Naruto right down into his core.
Carver and Raiden lost a lot of sleep standing watch at night praying they didn't see Sakura march her way towards them with her army of ready to kill soldiers behind her. They talked about how it was only just a matter of time before Purgatory gets out of control and comes to them.
Naruto sighed waiting for his food as he rested his head on the bar, no one has heard anything from the waterfall village or from Commander Haruno. Naruto wasn't sure if this was a good thing or just the calm before the storm. Naruto offend tried to imagine with Kakashi or Jiraiya would say right about now but everything he came up felt unwise and just plain sappy, how did Naruto expect to become the next Hokage if he couldn't conjure up advice in times like these?
"Naruto would you-" Teuchi said coming into view but his voice was cut short by the loud siren screaming through the village, breaking the afternoon peace. Naruto quickly sat up looking outside the store into the street, as his stomach sunk into his stomach he jumped to his feet.
"I promise I will pay later!" Naruto called as he scrambled into the out to see what was going on. Naruto prayed to the heavens he wouldn't get to the action and see pink hair leading an army this way, he wouldn't-couldn't go up against her, he promised Kakashi...
Naruto didn't get far before he was slammed against the nearby brick building. He gritted his teeth as he turned anger roaring to life in his chest as he kicked away the masked man holding him down. Naruto shook his head as bits of debris fell from his hair, he turned glaring onto the man who rose to his feet.
"Not this time." Naruto spat at the masked Reaper pulling a kunai from his leg, Sakura always warned the leaf village that the reapers wanted something from their village, it looked like it had finally come time for them to collect.
The group known as the Reapers pooled into the leaf village from the direction of the cemetery like a broken faucet. The leaf villagers ran towards the underground tunnels as Kiba, Shikamaru, and multiple other trained shinobi defended them from the invaders.
Tsunade cursed under her breath as she ran out of the Hokage Tower seeing smoke from building being sat on fire, she could hear the snickers from the reapers who had set the houses and businesses a blaze.
"You think this is funny?!" She yelled running full force towards them. "I'll give you something to laugh about!"
Carver, Raiden, Sasuke and Naruto stood around each other as they took on the masked men who flew into their village. Naruto couldn't tell them apart, they all wore the same uniform and mask, it hurt his head trying to keep his eye on one opponent!
Sasuke grunted as he was flipped onto his back, the wind getting knocked out of him for a moment. He leaped onto his feet locking eyes onto the woman who had a smile under her mask,
"Alright." Sasuke said rotating his left shoulder, he was done playing parlor tricks. "You're in luck-" Sasuke smirked deepening his glare as he moved forward. "-I have had a really bad week, and daddy needs to express some range-"
"Ah!" Carver laughed catching those words in his ear, pointing to Sasuke ignoring his opponent in front of him. "You do call yourself that!"
"Hahaha!" Raiden laughed recalling when Ino accidentally gave away his secret nickname when she was drunk, Sasuke's eye twitched glaring back at the two who were laughing their asses off and not taking the fact their village was under attack seriously!
"This is not the time!" Sasuke called trying to get the attention off him.
"Oh, I think it should be though!" Carver laughed turning to the reaper in front of him. "Don't you think so?" The masked man was taken back a moment as he blinked a few times, he didn't understand if this is how relaxed the leaf village was how was it so hard to take down?!
Raiden jumped over a large man, he stepped on his shoulder using him as a step stool to get out of the way of this sword. Raiden laughed seeing the mixed expression of confusion and annoyance of the reapers face. The Reaper charged forward, extending his leg out to get Raiden on his back so he could plunge his sword through his chest and move on to the next leaf shinobi.
Raiden knew this trick all too well, due to Sakura and it being one of her moves. Raiden easily spun around the Reaper's body avoiding getting tripped up. Raiden quickly gasped, jumping away having been a little too close for comfort to the large man.
"Hey-Hey-!" Raiden yelled pointing at the man, "You got a fucking boner!?"
"So what!?" The Reaper yelled shrugging his shoulder as if it wasn't a big deal. But under his mask his face was blushed as got as Raiden's hard eyes looked at him, Raiden was a handsome man "It's a perfectly natural reaction to the adrenaline of combat!"
"No-No-No-No-No!" Raiden said shaking his head and waving his finger, "That's not cool man-!" The Reaper rolled his eyes at Raiden's flushed face and went forward trying to attack him mid-sentence, but Raiden jumped back. "No-!" He yelled running away from the Reaper, "-I don't want to fight no more with you!" The large Reaper ran after him trying to keep on fighting Raiden who was not having it.
"Carver!" Raiden yelled running to his teammate.
"Huh?" Carver raise an eyebrow as he felt Raiden hide behind him. "What the hell-?"
"That guy has a boner!" Raiden pointed causing the crowd of fighting shinobi to stop and turn their attention onto him.
"I-It is a natural response to the adrenaline of combat!" The large reaper defended with a light stomp of his foot.
"Uh..." Carver said looking at Naruto. "N-No it isn't."
"Yes, it is-"
"Anyone else have a boner?" Carver called looking around, leaf shinobi and reapers all looked around at each other. Sasuke looked around at the stunned battle confused.
"No."
"See?" Carver shrugged.
"Shut up!" The reaper charged towards Carver who sliced the man down with ease.
"You really shouldn't go too far from us." Carver said turning to Raiden. "Creeps like this one could be-"
"There are people trying to kill you-!" Sasuke yelled, "-worry about that right now and the people who get turned on fighting with Raiden later!"
"No!" Raiden yelled childlike turning to Sasuke. "I don't want anyone looking at my no no square!"
"Can someone kill me now?!" Sasuke turned away from his teammate as his head throbbed in with pain.
Carver spun feeling a familiar chakra as did Naruto, they watched from behind them as a large circle glowed in the dirt. Team seven's stomach soured seeing her seal.
"She-She..." Naruto breathed as his chest tightened as his heart ducked for cover.
"What the fuck are we going to do?" Raiden turned to Carver, they couldn't possibly defend the village and take her on at the same time.
"Uh-Um." Carver shook his head wind collected around the circles glowing on the ground, they were running out of time. "Run?"
"Really?" Raiden stated, blocking kunai with a masked reaper. "That is the best you got!?"
"I don't see you coming up with any other ideas!" Carver defended as he kicked a reaper a foot away as well as sending a kunai to chase after her. The feeling of the wind breaking behind him sent chills along his neck, Carver quickly spun around his heart pounding inside his chest only for it to drop in his stomach.
"It's just you?" Raiden tilted his head seeing Dawn and Diem, Carver breathed a sigh of relief.
"So nice to see you too." Diem walked forward pulling his black blade from behind his back.
"What are you-" Naruto was cut off getting kicked in the gut, he landed on his back as a large chakra presence entered the arena.
"We are here to help you not die." Diem replied sarcastically.
"But how-" Raiden wanted to know getting knocked back out of ear shot.
"It doesn't matter!" Carver yelled annoyed, "All that matters is we need to figure out what they want from this village and then keep them from getting it!"
"We already know what they want." Dawn said.
"What!" Raiden popped up.
"-and they already got it." Diem added.
"What!?" Carver and Naruto were shocked.
"Turns out-" Dawn said, slicing three masked men down. "-even though she had been a brutal bitch, Sakura has been very productive these past few months."
"Cut to the point!" Raiden yelled throwing his hands in the air, "I can't believe I have to express this, we are in the fight you are talking about! We need the that information to not die!"
"Sakura learned a lot while on her war path, the Reapers wanted this village because they already had weapons buried inside here." Dawn said. The members of team seven turned to look at each other.
"Can you-" Carver laughed rubbing his forehead, "-Can you run that past me one more time?"
"Sure-" Dawn shrugged, grabbing the arm of another reaper snapping it in half as she threw him into an incoming man impaling the broken armed man on his blade. She pulled a kunai and killed that man who stared at his friend on his sword looking confused. "-the only reason the Reapers wanted to get into this village is because they already had their weapons to bring this place down placed inside here."
"And what would that be!?" Raiden yelled with his hands still in the air, Naruto quickly threw two kunai taking the oncoming reaper who Raiden couldn't see. Raiden turned watching the masked man drop.
"These fuckers all look the same!" Raiden laughed. "It's fucking annoying!"
"What are the weapons?" Carver turned to Dawn. Naruto got kicked, he flew back a few feet landing onto his back. Coughing for air Naruto turned onto his side seeing a tall man walking into sight.
"Fuck." Carver and Dawn breathed seeing the same tall man with long blond hair, brown eyes with a pale complexion. He went by Malachite; he was the leader of the reapers.
"Perfect-" Malachite breathed closing his chocolate eyes for a moment, "-timing as always." Naruto didn't understand until he felt himself getting lifted by his shirt. His large blue eyes widened seeing a large blade sticking into the ground where he was just lying. Where...Where had that come from?!
Naruto turned his large eyes seeing her hair strands as she dropped him on the ground next to Carver and Raiden. Naruto sat up on his ass looking at Sakura as she blocked the sun from his eyes. She ignored his presence as she was completely focused on Malachite. Naruto couldn't breathe as he stared at her hard face and her glowing Christmas wreath eyes.
"I am going to make your Hokage and your precious Iruka sensei into human scarecrows."
Sakura's sickening words pounding inside Naruto's head as she took steps forward, Naruto should have been more focused on the group who just invaded his home, but he turned to Carver. Sakura just saved him from being killed, she was here responding to the reapers. What did this mean!? Was she only here because of them?
"The Reaper of Reapers." Malachite grinned at the pink haired soldier gripping her blade tightly. "It just wouldn't be a party without you here."
"Sorry-" Her voice called out; Naruto turned looking at her back, her voice sounded like he remembered Naruto scrambled to his feet. "-did I keep you waiting?"
"What are their weapons?" Carver whispered to Dawn, "Could we get to them and destroy them before-"
"You're not going to want to do that." Dawn whispered back.
"What-" Carver didn't understand until he heard smoke, he turned his head seeing large crates being summoned. Carver gulped, what the fuck was inside those things!? The fronts of the three crates slowly fell open. Naruto's mouth dropped open as his stomach bile almost flew out into the open seeing her long dark blue hair flowing in the light breeze.
"That is their weapons." Dawn said as three people stepped into sight.
"Those are-" Raiden shook his head.
"They are not clones." Diem informed loud enough for everyone to hear, "Do not aim to kill!"
"But-" Naruto shook his head as he felt tears form in his eyes. "-h-how?!"
"It's their trademark." Dawn breathed turning to look into Carvers eyes. "We learned so much more about them than we could have ever imagined."
"Their trademark?" Sasuke asked looking at the three people moving out of the crates.
"Yes." Dawn nodded, "That annoying fucking poison that won't let you be healed by chakra, that was just their key. We will explain more after all this is over, but do not kill them they are just under the Reapers control."
"Under their control?" Naruto muttered turning to see the blank look in Hinata's face, her eyes were a glowing shade of red as she stared into an abyss of nothingness. TenTen and Lee stood beside her with the same look on their face and glowing red eyes. "How do we free them!?" Naruto turned to Dawn feeling a fire ignite inside his stomach. Hinata was alive! Hinata was standing just a few yards away from him! After all these months of missing her to the point he was in tears sitting inside his shower, there she was!
"No idea." Dawn said.
"Wh-What!?"
"We didn't get that far." Diem answered.
"No matter." Naruto shook his head turning to lock eyes on Hinata, he didn't give a damn what it took; he was going to free her.
Sakura moved forward her eyes locked onto Malachite; this was ending today. Sakura didn't give a damn if today was the day she lost her life; the age of the reapers will end even if it costed her her last breath. Reapers scattered to get away from her and the rage reflecting off her orbs.
"It's been a while Reaper." Malachite watched in amazement as she marched her way to kill him.
"Way to long." Sakura agreed tightening her grip on her sword, she had been itching for this moment for years, nothing was going to stop from her pulling Malachite's heart out of his rib cage and crushing it inside her hand!
"Do you think this is a tea party!?" Malachite snapped at his reapers standing behind him away from Commander Haruno. "You don't need an invitation! Bring this village to its knees!"
"Not going to happen." Sakura darkly smiled.
"Isn't it?" Malachite countered.
"I can promise you-" Sakura snapped her mouth shut, turning her attention to the three-leaf shinobi who she thought had died. She wrapped them inside a dome before Malachite could activate them, ordering them to attack the leaf shinobi which would pull her attention off Malachite letting him get away with the real prize of today. Hinata, Lee and TenTen were just simple distractions.
"Very smart Reaper-" Malachite chuckled.
"You're not as clever as you think you are."
"So, you have figured out the main purpose for our wonderful poison-"
"I am not interested in talking with something like you." Sakura glared, "I just want to get to the part where I tare you to pieces." She sneered.
"I am afraid that isn't on the agenda today, I am just here to-"
"I don't give a damn." Sakura shrugged, "I am putting it on your schedule."
Sakura pushed herself on her right leg, shooting towards Malachite with her blade ready, she spotted a shadow on the dry ground. Sakura lifted her sword over her head colliding with Malachite's guard dog. She should have been smarter than this and known he would have had something waiting inside the shadows.
Sakura's eyes widened seeing the silver hair and masked face as she pushed him back. Sakura flipped backwards a few feet quickly turning as her lungs forgot how to pull oxygen into her body and her heart dropped its rhythm.
"Kakashi." Sakura breathed the bitter tasting letters of his name.