With Sasuke retrieved and Sakura's chakra-control training complete, Team 7 had accomplished its chief aims on this first outing. Time still remained before the deadline to return to the Hidden Leaf Village, so Sakura elected to stay in the field, offering her medical services at a temporary encampment alongside the support staff while they waited for the other search groups to make contact with the missing villagers who had been outside when the village was sealed.
"Quit it, that tickles!" Sakura giggled as Naruto nuzzled her nape. "I'm serious, mou~, Sasuke's looking this way~!"
She had been expecting Sasuke to freak out when he learned she had been seeing Naruto behind his back, but to her surprise, he had taken the news with surprising maturity. She had anticipated him challenging Naruto to an all-out, no-holds-barred duel to the death with her as the prize, but no such thing had happened. His reaction had been rather lacklustre, and his attitude one of begrudging, even subdued acceptance…
"Let him look," Naruto said mischievously, just loud enough for their teammates to hear. "In fact, I want him to see, ya know~?"
He mockingly stuck out his tongue at Sasuke behind her back.
To be perfectly honest, Sakura was relieved, though she couldn't help but feel somewhat disappointed. Had Sasuke's previous declarations of love for her meant so little to him, she wondered? It wasn't as though she had got together with Naruto because she wanted to make Sasuke jealous, but would it have killed him to show a little of that trademarked Uchiha fieriness…?
Perhaps Sasuke had never cared that much about her to begin with, Sakura thought to herself glumly as Naruto covered her neck in kisses. Oh well, his loss.
"News from the eastern front, Milady!"
Sakura instantly switched from giggling teenager mode to Hokage mode, shoving Naruto aside as a woman with a hawk on her arm came running towards them. The falconer carefully removed the tiny scroll attached to the bird's thin leg and handed it to Sakura, who quickly unfurled it.
Unfortunately, one of the first things the four enemy elemental nations had done upon invading the Land of Fire was to knock down all its utility poles, bringing down the electrical telegraph network; so, the Hidden Leaf was back to relying mostly on the Konoha Aviary's messenger hawks for long-distance communications… for now.
"What's it say?" Naruto asked curiously, peeking over Sakura's shoulder.
"It says the defenders of the eastern front sank Kirigakure's fleet and repelled the main landing force in Hoho Port!" Sakura exclaimed in astonishment. "Literally, how!? There were barely a thousand scattered men defending the entire eastern coast! They were just supposed to help with the evacuation of VIPs and perform sabotage, if possible, but they just went ahead and sank the entire Kiri navy!"
No wonder the pressure had been so light on the eastern side of Konoha during the siege; Kiri's main force had never arrived, leaving Terumī Mei's southern attack force high and dry… What in the world could have happened there? Had a divine wind blown in and whipped up a few typhoons that gobbled up their ships, or something!?
"Oh, there's also news about our friends," Sakura went on, further unfurling the scroll. "It says to prepare medical treatment for Team 3 and Team 8… Shino suffered severe frostbite, Akamaru's been stuck full of needles, Lee-chan needs a blood transfusion and an IV drip, and Tenten got hit in the head, or something, they're not sure…"
The Hidden Leaf's temporary encampment soon became a blur of activity as the support and medical staff began preparing for multiple surgeries. Soon enough, Naruto, Sasuke and Kakashi found themselves pushed to the outskirts to avoid getting in the medics' way… when some time later, a man dressed as a monk appeared down the road, strolling steadily towards their secret camp.
"Excuse me…" the man said politely, lifting the brim of his straw hat as Kakashi stepped into his way. "I was told this was a place to receive medical attention?"
"Who told you to come here?" Kakashi said, frowning. "Are you from the Fire Temple?"
The medical encampment was located in a rather remote area of the countryside, halfway up one of the Land of Fire's many forested hills. It was well concealed, so it was doubtful that some random citizen could just happen to stumble upon it. No patrol had radioed in to say they had directed a civilian to this place, either; so, while the man's arrival was not completely out of the realm of possibility, it was still rather suspicious.
"I'm afraid I cannot claim to be one of the vaunted martial monks of the Fire Temple, Benefactor," the monk said, bowing slightly. "I am but a travelling monk, roaming these war-torn lands to offer some much-needed comfort with my prayers. One of your patrols directed me here, the, ah… the one with the rather rotund fellow, the straw-haired woman, and the boy with the lazy eyes…"
The monk did not appear to be a ninja, though he was quite well built. He certainly acted and carried himself like a travelling monk, though there was something somewhat off-putting about the stiffness of his expressions when he spoke.
"Chōji, Ino and Shikamaru, eh?" Naruto said casually. "Sounds like them, they probably thought it was a drag to call in, ya know?"
"You don't seem hurt, so I'm assuming you didn't come to obtain treatment?" Kakashi said critically. "Well, if you were hoping to offer solace to the dying, I'm afraid you're in the wrong place… we can send you off with a bit of food, but this really isn't the kind of place for a monk to be…"
The monk bowed his head and uttered a short blessing before turning on his heel and returning the way he'd come, the long ponytail poking out from under his straw hat swishing to and fro as he strode away.
"That was one weird monk," Naruto whispered. "Kinda gave me the creeps, ya know?"
Kakashi opened his mouth to reply when the monk abruptly stopped in his tracks.
"One last thing," he said. "You should tell your female friend over there to beware the shadows."
"Okay, stop right there," Kakashi said, flipping a kunai into his hand as he prepared to flicker to his side. "Who are you really—"
Kakashi abruptly broke off as the mysterious stranger vanished before his very eyes, without even the faintest flickering of chakra; but Team 7 had little time to dwell on the monk's vanishing act when they sensed a tremendously powerful chakra signature in the distance.
Boom.
Startled, Kakashi quickly scrambled up a tree for a better view, his eyes widening in shock as he saw what looked like a comet, tracing a trail of cyan chakra as it streaked through the blue sky towards them at an impossible speed…