Sakura, Shizune and Lee were making their way across a nameless, rickety old rope bridge suspended over a ravine when, without warning, Shizune thrust her hand backwards. Sakura, who was walking behind her, stopped in her tracks. Shizune's fingers sank into something unspeakably soft, and a not unfamiliar, profound sense of having lost out as a woman pervaded her entire body, but she quickly got a grip on herself.
"Sakura, Lee…" Shizune said in a low voice, a faint wisp of mist escaping from her mouth.
Snow carpeted the landscape, muffling and dampening the noises of the world around them. The only sounds in the forest were the groaning of the bridge's wooden planks under their weight and the sound of their breathing as they quietly listened.
"I see them," Sakura said, her eyes flashing white briefly. "Hiding beneath the ice… one, two, three… four-man squad, genin and chūnin-level chakra signatures... but they've each got something nasty sealed inside them."
Assassins.
"Our itinerary might have been leaked to the enemy," Shizune said coldly. "Shall we engage? They might have backup."
Judging by their chakra signatures and their unimpressive builds, they obviously weren't the cream of the crop; a jōnin as skilled as Shizune could have somewhat easily handled them on her own. What was worrying was the pulsating black growths affixed to their backs, which reeked with stagnant nature energy…
"That's the Tsuchigumo clan's Fury Jutsu," Sakura said softly. "But they're just teenagers…"
Most jōnin were powerful enough to change the course of a war between non-shinobi all by themselves; they were strategic assets, and each village cherished the few they had. But between raising an elite jōnin and creating a suicide bomber who could take down one or more jōnin with their self-detonation, it was obvious which was more cost-effective.
Sakura had truly opened Pandora's box by recruiting the Tsuchigumo clan during the Fourth Shinobi World War, thereby giving them plenty of opportunities to test and improve their kinjutsu on the battlefield. However much she justified to herself that those measures had been necessary back then, it did not change the reality that their new and improved kinjutsu was still being used even after the war had ended.
CRACK!
Without warning, the surface of the frozen river below split, and four masked shinobi in unmarked flak jackets sprang out of the ravine, trailing icy water behind them as they landed on either side of Sakura and her bodyguards on the rope bridge.
From their perspective, the Sixth Hokage and her bodyguards had suddenly stopped midway across the bridge for seemingly no reason, which most likely meant they had noticed something was off about the location… forcing them to spring their ambush less than optimally, lest they allow their prey to escape!
"Whatever you do, stay close to me!" Sakura barked, thrusting a palm at the two assassins in front of her. "Almighty Push!"
The masked pair were lifted off their feet as what felt like an invisible lorry slammed into them, sending them hurtling backwards, clear across the rope bridge and into the forest beyond the ravine.
"But Sakura-chan, we are your bodyguards!" Lee-chan said plaintively. "How are we supposed to protect you like this!?"
"I just told you, they've been marked with the Fury Jutsu!" Sakura said angrily as she whirled around to handle the other two behind her. "If they decide to trigger the explosion, I won't be able to protect you if you're standing too far away from me!"
The two remaining attackers' eyes went wide as they realised their secret weapon had already been exposed, and they instinctively placed their hands together to begin performing seals. Only three hand signs were required to trigger the jutsu's release: Boar, Dog, and Sna—
Unfortunately for them, Sakura was faster. The instant her last hand sign was complete, Sakura reached out to the railings on both sides of the suspension bridge and grabbed the ropes tightly, channelling her chakra through the snow covering them.
"Ice Style: Chains of Earthen Ice!"
In an instant, an ethereal glow coursed down the length of the rope and emerged at the bridge's other end in the form of icy chains tipped with pointed ends, piercing the pair's wrists and forcefully drawing them apart before they could complete the sequence of hand signs that would have detonated their tumours.
Capture complete!
"Shizune, don't," Sakura said softly, resting a hand on the older woman's forearm as she aimed her poison dart launcher at them. Helplessly suspended between the railings by the icy chains buried in their wrists, there was no way they could possibly trigger their jutsu. "They're no longer a threat…"
Sakura's voice trailed off as a brilliant glare shone through their clothes. The Fury Jutsu had just been triggered, but not by these poorly trained teenagers… a third party had remotely activated their bombs, from somewhere close by!
"SHA!"
Sakura flipped her palm, and the icy chains retracted with a chorus of crystalline clinking noises, flinging the human bombs towards them, much to Shizune's horror. Having accomplished their task, the icy chains then twisted and coiled around the bridge, reinforcing its structure.
"Six Paths Art: Blocking Technique Absorption Seal!"
Sakura caught the two assassins by the throat mid-flight and slammed them down against the rickety bridge's floor. The Preta Path's power activated, and she began quickly draining the corrupted senjutsu chakra from their cancerous growths, entering Shikkotsu Forest Sage Mode as a result.
"The enemy is at nine o'clock," Sakura said calmly as she crystallised and broke off the useless Fury Jutsu tumours from their bodies. "Bring him back to me, Lee-chan."
"Right away!"
Rock Lee flickered away, before returning moments later with a nondescript man whose eyes had rolled back in his skull. He was frothing at the mouth, and a network of black veins spiderwebbed across his pale skin.
"He must have taken a poison pill," Shizune realised. "Quickly, Sakura-sama! Odds are, he knows something useful!"
Sakura could easily have saved the dying man's life with her purifying blade, but she did not feel obligated to do so for the kind of man who sent exploding teenagers to do his dirty work.
"Unfortunately for you, I don't need you to be alive in order to question you…" Sakura said coldly as she placed her hand on his head. Her ringed eyes glowed faintly. "Now… show me your soul!"