[OP: "Torches"--The Oh Hellos]

Ami caught Bones on the way down so he didn't bash his nose in.

"He's out cold," she assured Sakura. "Nice trick. I should learn medical ninjutsu so I can do things like that."

"That was just me hitting him," Sakura said, rubbing her hand. That small motion had sent throbbing pain up her arms. "I'm getting weaker... Can you get me out of this? If I don't stop this soon, I'm going to faint."

"Would another food pill help?" Ami asked.

"It might, but I also could burn myself out if I take too much of that while I'm doing things." Sakura recalled what had happened to Choji when he'd done that. "So...last resort..."

"You're a very brave young woman," Ami said, moving towards the stone thing, but then she said, "I'm not sure my technique is up to this. It's too solid... Precision takes more control..."

"What?" Sakura said.

"Perhaps we should get out of here first," Ami suggested. "I can work on it longer outside than I can here, waiting for them to come back. Or you could break it yourself."

Sakura doubted she could do that, but she sighed. "Fine, but it's pretty heavy, and I can't muster all my strength right now."

"I'll help you move it," Ami said. "Just walk fast."

She took Sakura's arm and stood up. "No one is going out this way if they can help it. Too exposed to the Village--but we'll have to take the chance. Let's go."

She moved the weight stone easily enough.

Sakura shuffled along as well as she could with one leg nearly totally held stiff by the restraints.

Ami wove more hand signs, and then the tunnel opened upward to the outside, a very small hole.

"Almost there," she said encouragingly. "You're doing splendidly."

It was nice to have anyone tell her that--but Sakura felt it was a bit ridiculous to say it when they were slowly going along with a wooden leg and broken arms.

Then Ami tensed.

"I think the others may have just come back," she said, tapping the earth. "We have to run--but we can't run!"

We're dead, Sakura thought to herself. We got so close and we're dead. I can't believe I almost had it, and I lost it again. Why am I like this? Why am I never able to save myself?

And, sure enough, though Ami had started to pull her the rest of the way out of the hole, it was only a split second later that it opened again and Scorpion came out, looking in a fury.

"I knew it when I found Bones," he said. "The idiot. I'll kill him later for this, mark my words. And Badger? What are you doing?"

Ami looked at Sakura and then said, "She forced me to bring her out here. She had chakra blades! I wasn't fast enough to stop her."

While Sakura knew that Ami maintaining her innocence would probably help her more in the long run, if she survived this, she hated her at the moment for it.

Scorpion didn't think much of Ami's skills, because he decided to bury it. "Well, step away from her now. I think she needed another lesson in how good prisoners should act." He pulled out a sharp blade that looked like a pincer almost. Like how he got his code name.

It really hurt too. It had a serrated edge that dug into your skin and bone. Sakura didn't want that one to be the one she got "taught" with.

She would not cry, though. Not in front of this goon.

She set her jaw. She had maybe thirty seconds to fight him off...but the others would be right behind him... This was not good.

Scorpoin swiped at her, and she started to duck, but her movements were slowed from the poison and sluggish, and she knew she wasn't fast enough.

He did cut her along her arm--which, again, hurt much more than it should have with the Regeneration Jutsu active.

"You little dog," he said. "Still trying to get away? I bet that whole thing back there was a lie. You're just making us look like fools."

Sakura realized she'd bit her own tongue when she'd tried to dodge, and she spat blood out of her mouth.

"You didn't need my help to look like a  fool," she said.

Which was a stupid thing to say, but she felt it was that or she'd cry, and she preferred to yell at him.

Soon she'd be shaking from how badly those blows hurt... She could sense the toxin was eating its way further into her body ,and she knew what that was going to do to her, and the thought was nauseating.

It was like Sakura to bother about this while she was supposed to be fighting, but she couldn't help it.

Ami watched all this like she was wondering whether to do something or not, and before she could, Firefly popped out of the hole that Scorpion had left open.

He had clearly figured out what was going on, and he looked at Sakura and smiled in an unsettling way.

Ami swallowed.

Sakura knew she wasn't getting away now.

She considered just knocking herself out on the rocks. She didn't think she could do it--it was nearly impossible to do that to yourself on purpose--but maybe she would do enough damage to make herself useless for them at least...probably what Leaf Village would say to do in this case.

But did she have the nerve?

She tried to form chakra blades in her arm, and that hurt too--so much that her eyes watered, though she wasn't crying.

"Are you gonna cry?" Scorpion asked her, jeering. "If you cry, maybe I'll go easy on you."

"You've never done that before," Ami finally spoke. 

He assumed it was just as banter or disinterested commentary, not a warning.

Ami felt guilty, but she didn't want to find out what would happen to her family if she tried to help Sakura and lost... No, she couldn't risk it, not for someone she barely knew, even if it was awful for her.

Sakura would have cursed her helper out if she'd had the time, though she would have known why Ami was hesitating if she thought about it.

But she had no time.

She thought Scorpion would try something a lot worse, maybe cut the her throat just to see her regeneration overcompensate for it too much..and the jutsu would time out, and who know they'd do to her once she couldn't heal herself...?

But before he could cut her again, something hit him into the ground.

It was one of Naruto's clones, using Rasengan.

Sakura gaped at it.

She knew it was a clone somehow... Maybe she was just used to seeing Naruto's energy up close.

Also the clone disappeared almost as soon as it finished, so there was that.

"What the h---?" Firefly finally spoke for the first time.

Electricity crackled over his fingers.

"Naruto?" Sakura called, hopefully.

A half dozen of his clones raced into the area.

Ami gaped at them.

Firefly let out lightning, and it shot over all of them, and it was stronger than expected. They were all fried and disappeared before they could attack.

Sakura's heart sank.

If Naruto was alone, then this wasn't going to work after all....

Then Firefly turned towards her, as if thinking that it was best to just put her out of her misery if the worst happened. He raised his hands again.

Sakura couldn't dodge, so she waited for either Naruto to show up or for her to get fried. Only two options now.

Instead, the last thing she expected happened:

The lightning shot out, but Sasuke, of all ninja, jumped suddenly in front of her and caught it on his sword.

Since he was Lightning Style, it just went around or through him without doing him any damage, and he shot it back at Firefly, who just ducked.

Ami, who must have known who Sasuke was, gasped and then actually cowered, putting her hands over her face.

Sakura thought she'd faint for real now.

"Nice save," Naruto (the real one, running from around a corner). "I thought for a second I wasn't going to be able to make enough clones for that guy."

"Watch the hole, Naruto," Sasuke said sharply.

"Huh? Why?" Naruto said.

But then he realized why about a second later, when Mole and Mandrake came running out of it. They'd come back and heard the sounds of commotion, all right.

They stared at Sasuke and then at Naruto.

Then Mole stomped, and a wave of dirt rose out of the ground and blasted both boys off their feet.

Sasuke was angry he'd been surprised that easily and started to get back up, but the earth began to fall and drag him down before he could jump to a rooftop.

Naruto was sinking in.

"Oh no," Sakura gasped.

She struggled to move herself. She was still slow. But she could help them.

She looked at Ami, hoping for help to do something, but Ami wasn't even looking at them. She was still cowering.

Then, suddenly, someone threw a surprise attack at Mole.

He looked up, moving to attempt to block it, and Hinata leapt from around a small wall and hit him in the shoulder.

He dropped an arm as that chakra point was blocked.

She hit him a few more times, and he fell over.

Mandrake backed up.

Firefly got up, looking angry now.

"It's an ambush" he said, unnecessarily. "They tracked her after all. But that doesn't explain how she got outside. She couldn't have moved that much either. Not like that." 

He turned to Ami.

"She made me!" Ami was still playing victim to defend herself. "She forced me."

"We're talking about that later," Firefly said.

Sasuke started to get to his feet. The ground was not moving now. 

"You're from the Land of Lightning," he said to Firefly.

"Yes," Firefly said coolly. "I'm not the type for loyalty, but I heard my land doesn't favor you too much, Uchiha. And I think I can share their grudge. Looks like lightning jutsu doesn't work on you. Drake?"

Mandrake nodded.

The next thing that happened made Sakura think she'd just hit her head and gotten tinnitus, since all she heard was a shrill sound like a sonic scream...

Ninja didn't often use that kind of thing, usually preferring stealth, and they weren't sure what it was.

But it seemed to get into their heads and try to turn them to putty.

[As sonic waves can do.]

The people closest to Mandrake--Ami, Naruto, and Hinata--all covered their ears and looked dizzy from that sound.

Sasuke was a bit farther away, but he still felt the sound itself was invading his mind...

His vision seemed to blur, and the sound made him angry, as if it was knocking on the inside of his skull.

He didn't know it, but his eyes turned red again, and then his subconscious began to form a  defense against it.

The others saw that the landscape started to turn red and black around them...

It wasn't the Mangekyo fully, or they'd all have been unable to move. It was as if Sasuke was constructing something that looked a lot like it, as if it was his mind's idea of torment, and he was spreading it all around them like a canvas.

Still, they all knew what would happen if he made it real.

Mandrake didn't stop what he was doing, as if getting this result was inconsequential--or maybe he couldn't stop...

Hinata had fallen once she'd heard the sound, and she now couldn't see the jutsu, but she could feel it starting to wrap around her mind.

Naruto was starting to move at Mandrake, but Mandrake just kicked him aside.

Hanabi and Eichi, who were watching this from around a wall--they'd been told to stay out of it unless they had no choice--were covering their ears too.

But Hanabi saw Eichi begin to snatch up some wet mud where a rain puddle had not fully dried--at least she hoped it was a rain puddle.

He shoved into his ears.

Hanabi saw his meaning, and she scooped some up also.

It felt awful, of course, but it did muffle the sonic waves considerably.

At least she could think again.

She didn't see the genjutsu; they weren't at the right angle or range for it.

Sasuke didn't even know he was doing it entirely. He knew he was generating something, but he was lashing out with his instincts like a wounded animal would lash out with its claws.

Sakura, who was the only one not affected as badly yet, and only was this close because of her resistance, thought he was not doing it on purpose.

Maybe if she just...got his attention, he'd stop...

It was a crazy idea, but she didn't have a nicer one, and if she didn't do anything, she was sure Mandrake would kill them or they'd be trapped in the Mangekyo for real.

She managed to jerk herself towards Sasuke, who was not that far from her, and, taking her courage in her hands, she grabbed his arm as hard as she could, with her fingers the way they were.

"Sasuke!" she tried to shout over the sound of the sonic scream. "Stop! Please!"

Sasuke didn't hear her.

He felt someone grabbing him, though, and shoved at her blindly, but it was a weak shove, as he didn't focus.

Sakura wasn't that put off by it, though it nearly knocked her over since she couldn't stand properly.

Then suddenly Eichi was there next to her, and he was hitting the chain that had the rock weight.

It split open inside like it was made of dough, and the chain dissolved from it.

Eichi nodded at Sakura, and then, taking out a kunai, he sliced through the chakra-binding cloth.

Chakra rushed down to her foot, to her relief, and she began to feel a bit more mobile.

Then she saw that Hanabi had snuck up behind Mandrake, who couldn't hear her because of his own attack.

How was she able to stand it? Sakura wondered, covering her own ears again. Her heart was pounding.

But Hanabi, though her ears hurt even then, jumped onto Mandrake's back while he was distracted and wrapped her arms around his throat and pulled.

Suddenly he choked, and the sound broke off.

It was a blessed silence for a second, but Mandrake began gasping and yanking at Hanabi's hands.

She held on tight. "Hurry!" she yelled. "Stop Sasuke!"

Sakura was tired of getting nowhere with this.

She couldn't break the genjutsu on Sasuke, so she made a fist and punched him to the ground.

The force knocked Sasuke out of the daze the sonic shock had put him in, and he blinked.

The genjutsu flickered, and Naruto began to look around.

"STOP IT!" Sakura shouted at Sasuke, not sure if he could hear her at all.

(And he really couldn't hear much; all their ears were ringing from the noise.)

Firefly had somehow been ready for this (maybe he'd had earplugs), and he began to charge up his attack.

Sasuke glanced toward him, and he stopped short, now afraid.

Mandrake backed himself into the wall, hard, to slam Hanabi off of him, and she gasped in pain.

But Hinata was up now, though she was dizzy, and she shoved at Mandrake before he could turn and try to kill her sister.

Mandrake grabbed Hinata, as she was still moving slowly, and flung her into the stone wall.

"Hey!" Naruto finally was ready. He had a Rasengan, and he slammed Mandrake with it, and the man was driven into the ground with a force unexpected.

Firefly started to attack, then suddenly a huge hand came around the corner and closed around him like he was a doll.

Choji had been powering up with snacks getting ready for this and when he'd seen his opening to intervene, he had taken it.

Electricity sizzled over his hand, but it was too big for it to do more than sting.

Firefly struggled until he seemed to run out of breath, and Choji continued squeezing until he passed out.

Choji dropped him.

There was a moment of silence.

"Are you all okay?" Naruto asked, too loudly.

Hanabi pulled mud out of her ears and gasped. "I'm okay..."

Sasuke surveyed the area and then alighted on Ami, who was just starting to look up again. He made a threatening step towards her.

Ami screamed.

Sakura, however, thrust herself in front of Sasuke before he could even think of an attack.

"Stop!" She held up her hands. "It's fine, she's with me...kind of..." She glanced at Ami. "You're with me, right?"

"Yes," Ami agreed hastily.

"Mom?" Eichi said.

Ami turned and stared. She hadn't seen him before from where she was, and now her whole face lit up. "Ei-chan?"

Eichi practically jumped to her, and she wrapped him in a hug at once, nearly taking him off his feet. "I didn't think you would be here..."

"What?" he asked, pulling the mud out of his ears.

"I can't hear you very well," Ami said.

"Mom, I really can't hear what you're saying," Eichi replied.

"Oh, that's your mom?" Hanabi sat up, grimacing. "You do kind of look alike... Ow...that jerk really hit me hard."

"Hinata, are you okay?" Naruto was helping her up.

She had a nice bruise on her back, she could feel, but other than that, she was okay.

"Yes, he just knocked the air out of me," she said.

"What?" Naruto said.

"Can you all wait to talk till you're recovered?" Sakura said loudly.

Her ears were getting a little better since she'd been farther away.

Sasuke too. He looked at her strangely. "You're sure this person was helping you? It looked like she was capturing you."

"Duh, so no one would suspect a thing," Sakura said, just as if she hadn't wanted to slap Ami a few minutes ago for bailing on her. "I promised her no one would hurt her if she helped me out, and she was trying to. How did you think I got outside?"

"I..." Sasuke had thought Sakura had just hit her way out.

"Yeah, exactly." Sakura didn't let him finish. "What was all that? And what took all of you so long? Do you know what--?" Suddenly she stopped and then put her hands together and released her Regeneration Jutsu.

She'd been about to pass out. Her head started spinning. "Oh no...I think I..."

She collapsed.

Sasuke didn't make any effort to catch her, just seemed surprised.

"Isn't that Uchiha?" Ami asked, loudly.

"He's okay." Hanabi gave her a thumbs up. "What's wrong with Sakura?"

Ami seemed to read her lips at least. "She did say she was going to time out of her jutsu if she didn't stop it soon. Maybe she did. Is she conscious?"

Naruto stumbled over to Sakura.

Sakura looked up weakly. She was pale. "Naruto?" she said in a quiet voice that he couldn't hear.

"I can't hear you," he said. "Sorry, that was something real bad with the screaming."

Sakura made some gesture of acknowledgement at Ami, and then she put her hand back down. "Can't...overdid it... Those...jerks..."

"I think she needs another medic," Hanabi said. "Karin is still in the tunnel, right?"

"If...whoever you just sai, is in the tunnel, I can help you get there," Ami said, still too loud.

Hanabi made a shushing motion. "Let's not talk till we move, all right? Come on, guys, let's go."

Naruto helped Sakura stand up. "It's no big, Sakura. We came right to find you once we got in the Village. Did they hurt you...? Hey, you're bleeding after all."

Sakura had been so focused on standing that her regeneration hadn't healed her new cut entirely...not that and the poison at the same time.

She looked at it like she was examining a rock. "Oh...that... It's fine...nothing too bad. But...wait, don't touch my blood!" She tried to dart forward, and that made her nearly fall back over, but Choji extended his arm and helped her stand.

"Don't touch it!" Sakura was alarmed. "It could infect you right now."

"What do you mean?" Sasuke finally felt his hearing was mostly back to normal, though things were a little tinny still.

Sakura thought she was more coherent than she was, but somehow she managed to babble this: "Before, they caught me, and they had tipped blades--with poison, I mean, and  it started--but I was holding it back, but now I'm tapped out... Those SOBs made me use all of my Regeneration on them and their stupid toxin. I can't believe they caught me! And they were awful! They made me heal myself a lot, so I'd use more chakra."

"They made you heal yourself?" Sasuke said, a little surprised. "How did they do that?"

Ami rubbed her ears, a little better now. 

"They injured her," she said. "It was beastly of them, I know. I couldn't stop it, I'm sorry. I had to play along, or they would have just killed me, and no one would have helped her escape from those scoundrels. They're all cold-hearted as the stones themselves."

"Mom, you were here the whole time?" Eichi said. "And I was helping Hanabi."

"Is this the friend you mentioned in your message?" Ami glanced at Hanabi.

"Yeah, yeah, you got it?"

"Of course I did. That's how I knew it would be okay to help Sakura," she said. "I wouldn't have dared to if I didn't know they were going to help us."

"So you did nothing while this was going on?" Sasuke insisted on this rather strongly, considering he wasn't one to stop fights himself.

"I couldn't." Ami was still frightened of him, and Eichi stepped in front of her a bit, though he looked afraid also.

Sasuke wasn't used to them staring at him with fear. He turned to Sakura.

She at least wasn't afraid, though she was kind of loopy still.

Probably why she had the nerve to say this: "Sasuke, leave them alone, for crying out loud. If anyone should be mad, it's me. You ditched me!"

Sasuke looked ashamed of himself for a second, to Hinata and Choji's surprise.

"I didn't intentionally," he began to say. "I didn't know they were attacking till I came back and it was too late."

Sakura didn't even care about his excuse, she was too wrung out. "That's still no excuse," she said aloud. "You should have paid more attention. What if they'd killed me on the spot? When are you going to learn not to run off while your teammates are fighting?"

"Ouch," Hanabi said, but she was loving this almost as much as Dabi would have...

Sasuke didn't know why Sakura was talking like that to him, didn't seem quite like her, but he didn't have any defense for his actions beyond, "I didn't think of it."

"As usual," Sakura murmured.

"I think she's not feeling right," Naruto said. He thought Sakura was being a bit weird too. "She's being meaner than usual."

Sasuke didn't care if Sakura was meaner than usual--he wondered if she had a point this time.

And aIso, hadn't he just nearly attacked them all there? Again...because of someone's attack...but...

Still, somehow ashamed of himself, he turned to Mandrake, who was still out cold.

"That man was a Sound ninja," he said. "There's no way he wasn't."

"A Sound ninja?" Ami said, then glanced at Mandrake. "Well, we don't wear our headbands anymore. I suppose he might have been."

"I thought there were none left," Sasuke said. "Most of them died after Orochimaru and Kabuto stopped coming to help them. Some I let go and never heard of again."

"If no one ever looked at them it's possible that one of them might have escaped and joined the bandits," Ami said. "Who else would take a Sound ninja into their midst? I'm sure it's a fair guess. You'd have to ask him."

"He's old for one of Orochimaru's," Sasuke said, warily. "I'm not sure he would have even recognized me."

"He seemed to know who you were," Hanabi said. "But then, everyone here does. Hey, no one likes you in the other Villages, Sasuke. Have you noticed that?"

She said this through carelessness more than malice, but Sasuke didn't like it.

He turned away.

"Sasuke failing at killing someone," Sakura grumbled, "or letting them go...that's a real surprise."

"Sakura, that's mean," Naruto said.

"Is it?" she said. "My head is killing me, Naruto. I don't really care how mean I am. You all should have shown up sooner. I would have been more useful if I didn't have to use that jutsu for so long. Why didn't you just...beam me out of there?"

"Shine didn't want to reveal her power to the bandits too soon," Choji supplied amiably, "so they wouldn't know to expect us. But we're moving in on them now, so it should be all right."

"Oh, great," Sakura said sardonically. "Now we are."

"Sakura certainly has gotten more sarcastic since she joined Team Zoe," Hinata noticed. "It must be catching. I don't think I will catch it, though."

"I can't tell if you being sarcastic, now, sister," Hanabi said.

Ami and Eichi were talking about this, and Ami had him by the arm like she thought he might disappear again.

"And you helped them all on your own," she said to him. "You're so brave. You're just like your father. I wish I could tell him... But no, I don't wish it, actually." She looked sad. 

"I can't believe that you were helping them," Eichi said. "I knew you would take their side, but not like that. It's pretty cool..."

"Literally the only time you're allowed to say your mom is cool," Hanabi said. "I'd feel unbelievably cringey to say it about my dad and my mom, but I guess if she's a bandit who is defecting, it's kind of cool."

Eichi shrugged. "If it's true, it's true. Can we go now?"

"We gotta catch up with the others and help them take down the leader of the bandits," Naruto said. "Sakura, are you up for it?"

"Sure," Sakura said flatly. "With some physical therapy and a lot of pain medication, I could take a whole battalion of them."

"Is that a no?" Naruto said.

"Even I thought that was obviously a no," Sasuke said. "And I don't pay attention to things like injuries, but hasn't anyone noticed?"

"Noticed what?" Naruto asked.

Sakaru grimaced as she tried to move her hands again... They'd gotten more and more stiff... She barely had the energy now.

She noticed that Sasuke had said nothing about her being captured being her own fault and her being weak or something. Was he not passing blame on that for once? Or was he just not thinking of it?

Probably the second one.

Sasuke no longer had the inclination at all to criticize Sakura for what had happened, after hearing how terrible the bandits were. He didn't think that anyone could have gotten out easily, and he wondered what he would have done if one of them had attacked him. Would he have killed them all without knowing he did it? Would he have gone down too easy?

And why was he still susceptible to the attack? It was as if none of his special powers mattered if he could just be attacked with the right jutsu.

[Which is kind of how it works. I think it was supposed to have checks and balances like the bending system of Avatar, but it's kind of a ruined later when everyone powers up so much who was a main character, and the others all kind of flattened out.]

He was so lost in his morbid thoughts that he didn't notice they'd found Karin again till Naruto said, "Sasuke? Are you listening?"

Sasuke suddenly realized they'd wandered back down the tunnel and Karin was there, straightening her glasses.

She gave him a weird look, then she said, "I think Gaara found Tsunade, based on what I'm picking up on. And I just go this."

She held up a note. "They found Onoki... Somehow he's still alive."

"Oh, lovely," Sakura said, wincing. 

"Sakura, are you okay?" Hinata asked her.

"No," Sakura said. "Now that my Regeneration isn't on, this hurts way more than it did before. Somehow I've never felt anything like this, and I have been stabbed a bunch of times before."

Sasuke couldn't help but think that was kind of what Camie would call a "boss" thing to say, if hadn't been coming from Sakura and she hadn't been losing every time she got stabbed--maybe barring the war.

"Oh my gosh, did you get poisoned?" Karin gaped at Sakura. "I knew something was off about your chakra...and why is it so low?"

"Shut up!" Sakura bit her head off.

Kari ignored it, however. "Well, I think you'll be glad to hear this. Shine and Ino did find a way to cure it, but it's very hard on the person's body. Apparently Ino picked it up from someone in Stone, and they got it out, but she almost fainted. You have to remove it with the chakra that it's attached to, and it could be a lot. And if you don't replenish the chakra, it makes the person really weak."

"I don't have enough chakra left to handle that then," Sakura said. "But this is going to make it hard to regenerate it... So what do I do?" She was starting to look afraid.

"Actually, I think I can solve that," Karin said. "If you're...uh...willing." She straightened her glasses again. "If you absorb my chakra really fast, it could be enough to counter it, if someone could cut out the infected chakra.... Hinata might. She did that before, on the Poison Mist Island.

"And so there's a counter to poison here because of Hinata's albilites?" Hanabi said. "That's kind of cool. My sister is anti-venom."

[That should be some kind of T-shirt for some cheesy superhero.]

"I could try to do it," Hinata said. "If you want to risk it, Sakura."

Sakura looked paler. "Honestly, I'd risk anything right now. This feels like rock is eating the inside of my body."

"Is that what it is?" Ami said, looking ill. "Oh...those poor people."

She pulled Eichi closer to her. "What have we done to this Village?"

"You don't really seem like a cold-hearted bandit," Choji remarked to her.

 He meant it to be a compliment, but Ami looked pained. "I didn't...want to be a bandit..."

"We'd better hurry if we're going to do this," Karin said to Hinata. "Sakura's only getting worse the longer we wait, and so are the others. If you're ready, just do it now."

She pulled up her sleeves. "My arms aren't very clean after the mudslide, but we're all just as dirty, so I hope you won't be squeamish about it, Sakura. This is the fastest way to infuse my chakra into you."

"What do you want me to do?" Sakura said warily.

"Bite me," Karin said.

"Literally?" Sakura said.

"Didn't you see me use this before?" Karin asked.

"If I did, I don't remember it." Sakura thought she'd have remembered someone mentioning something like that. "That's weird...and...what are all those scars? Just how many people have you done this with?"

Karin reddened in embarrassment. "It's the fastest way... Come on, Sasuke has done it before."

Sasuke wished very much she hadn't said that. The look Sakura gave him had so many accusations, he wasn't even sure which one she was really thinking.

"That looks like it hurts." Naruto was clueless, which was just as well for Karin.

"It doesn't hurt much," Karin said, uneasily. "We're wasting time. The jutsu first, Sakura."

"The dirt part isn't the part I find weird." Sakura was kind of pedantic about it. "Dirt really isn't that bad for you to ingest, actually. There's--"

"Sakura, maybe we should just hurry." Hinata had her lions ready. "We need to get to Tsunade. She must be running out of energy just like you are."

Well, that remark finally got Sakura to get over her chariness of the idea. She did as Karin said, though she still made a weird face.

Karin felt like this bothered her more than it had before...at least in a long time. She supposed there was a better way. Tsunade herself had said that the biting thing wasn't the best method.

But she could heal Sakura faster this way, and Sakura could feel chakra energy going into her.

Hinata focused her eyes and jutsu on Sakura's hands... She could see the chakra stopped up there, crystallizing, now that she looked.

It made her stomach twitch, but she pushed that aside, and once she thought it was long enough, she held her lions to it, and they did the same as before. It was like they were eating the contaminated chakra.

Sakura felt it getting sucked out of her hands like a scab getting taken off your skin--in that it hurt like heck and also felt kind of good, in a strange way.

Since she wasn't nearly as bad off as Onoki, she did not scream, but she did bite her lip.

But since it hadn't gotten far, it was over very quickly.

Hinata saw the contaminated chakra burn up...something that she knew she'd not have been able to do before.

"Wow," Hanabi said. "You told me about it, but that is wild... I could see it being dissolved...  Can I do that?"

"I don't know," Hinata said. "Maybe you can."

"Maybe you're immune to the plague then," Hanabi mused. "That would be nice."