New Territory: Chapter Two (27/07/17)

II: Giants

"Shit. Sakura-chan, hide!" Sakura scrambled up, her wide eyes quickly scanning the situation. The candlelight flickered in the dimly lit cave, revealing its few inhabitants that wore worn faces of surprise and despair. It was chaos, everyone running in panic.

Sakura found the blond Jinchūriki easily, but she gasped when she noticed the large gash on his arm. Her inner-medic yearned to help him despite the disarray around them.

"Naruto? What's going on? I'll heal you!"

"No! I said hide! He's here. He's already captured her! I don't want to lose you too!"

Her world froze, everything suddenly moving in slow motion. She felt dizzy, her heart beating a mile a minute. Her senses dulled, her mind reduced to broken thoughts that spoke one message.

There was only one other kunoichi in their group, and that was...

"... Her? S-Surely you don't mean..." She fell to the ground, hands shaking. Tears pooled up in the corners of her eyes, her vision blurring. "N-No, I saw her... I just, I-I spoke to her... No!" She slammed her fists on the ground, letting out a gut-wrenching sob that ricocheted off the cave walls. "No, you're lying! She was next to me! I-I, she, oh god. She's dead. She's dead."

Another one was captured. Another one was lost forever. But this time, it wasn't just anyone.

It was her best friend.

Yamanaka Ino.

"Sakura! Please get up!"

She didn't even know how she stumbled across the giant. She'd been casually strolling through the forest, still slightly disturbed by the corpse, when a large being thrice her size stumbled out in front of her from behind the thick trees without any warning.

She'd frozen, the sight of an impossibly tall giant stunning her into complete confusion and stillness. She stared at its glinting eyes for five tense seconds, apprehensively waiting for a reaction, but it didn't say anything, seemingly content at observing her. An uncomfortable feeling of unease crept into her stomach, her instincts telling her to run away but her feet wouldn't move.

Everything was silent, everything was still, and then a large grin stretched its wide cheeks.

Faintly, she noticed the dried red that was splattered on its chest. She saw its dirty blond hair that was soaked a disgusting crimson, and only then did Sakura finally snap back to reality. Her instincts kicked in, getting over the initial shock.

With a curse, she drew her kunai and shuriken. She twitched in anticipation, her hands itching to fight, waiting for it to make its attack. It slowly started to walk towards her, reaching out for her with pudgy pale fingers.

It's not quick, she didn't take long to realise, it's even slower than genin! And it's stupid. This shouldn't be hard.

All things considered, the prospect of a gender-less human triple her size didn't scare her so much as confuse her. She even spent a few minutes circling it, observing its behaviour out of sheer curiousity.

It was embarrassingly slow at processing information, taking a full ten seconds just to notice she'd gotten behind it. Not to mention it didn't seem to understand anything, learning absolutely nothing about her battle movements and patterns considering it kept uselessly trying to smash her into the ground.

A few minutes later, she grew tired.

"I should end this. Clearly I'm not getting anything from this thing."

She threw chakra-infused shuriken directly at its chest. They sliced through the air, easily embedding itself into the heart of the beast. Sakura slowed down, confident that it was dead when she saw the weapons tear through it's back and hit the tree behind it with a dull thud.

The force of the weapons made the 7-metre tall beast fall to the ground. It went completely still.

"It's dead," she nodded to herself. She relaxed a fraction and slightly moved closer, peering at it curiously.

What she didn't expect, though, was for its free hand to swipe at her side.

Pain erupted from her torso, and she winced, hissing. She didn't have time to inspect the injury so she could only hope it wasn't anything serious. Her eyes widened when she saw that the giant was pushing itself back upright.

"W-What...?"

She froze, staring at it with disbelief in her emerald eyes. Her heart pounded, hands clutching the kunai tight enough to turn her blood-stained knuckles white. She couldn't think. She couldn't breathe. She could only stare as it looked at her and gave her its signature toothy grin. The small hole in its chest evaporated until it looked as though she hadn't even touched it.

All carelessness left her in that single moment.

"That's not possible... Only Tsunade-sama and I can do something remotely close to that, but this thing doesn't even have any chakra!"

She didn't have time to theorise, barely avoiding the large hand that suddenly crushed the ground beside her. She flipped back, throwing the weapons in her hand, and ran around the small clearing to try get behind the beast.

For hours, she dodged, swerved and turned, hopelessly searching for a weakness. She wasn't even sure if the mindless giant had one, watching in horror as the deep gash on its thigh healed within seconds. Her simple curiousity took no time to escalate into sheer panic.

She pumped chakra into her fists and smashed the ground in hopes of stopping the giant in its tracks. She almost cried out in anger when it simply got back onto its feet, splinters of rocks dissolving, and went after her again.

It looked like a monster from a child's nightmares, beady eyes flashing a crimson red.

"Fuck," she swore, sparing a quick glance over her shoulder. There was no where to run, the open field behind her a terrible choice over the safety and mobility of the forest.

She'd used up all of her weapons too, a single kunai and shuriken in her thigh pockets that she didn't want to waste. Her jutsus weren't working either, whole limbs regenerating faster than she could obliterate them.

She clenched her teeth and debated running, but quickly scraped the idea. It was better to deal with the problem now than to regret it later, just in case there were more of these giants prowling around. The idea was still an option though, and it was looking more and more tempting as her patience dwindled.

The fact that worried her the most, though, was the lack of chakra it had. Every life-form, even plants and trees, contained traces of chakra whether big or small, and that included the come-alive shinobi during the war too.

Maybe that's why it refused to die, because without chakra it wasn't even alive in the first place. Or maybe she was still hazy from whatever happened the night before and couldn't pinpoint its chakra out of sheer tiredness. Either way, it was unsettling.

The giant came closer, forcing her to move back until she hit the edge of the forest where the trees were sparse and weak. She had no other choice than to retreat here, and could only hope that it wouldn't catch her.

Her breaths deepened, exhaustion finally catching up to her. She looked up, the sky already turning a dark orange. It was already dawn? She didn't even notice.

She closed her eyes and exhaled loudly, opening her eyes when she felt the tree sway dangerously. She grit her teeth, sticking onto the branches with the little pool of energy she had left. She was tired, dangerously so, and she knew that.

This is bad.

Suddenly, she heard a noise. It wasn't like the quiet rumbling of the giant, nor was it the subtle rustle of a bird making its way to its nest.

It sounded human.

She stretched out her chakra and lifted her eyebrows in worry when she could feel an unfamiliar chakra signature hum loudly behind the thick veil of trees, completely undeveloped and unconcealed. Sakura didn't know whether to be more amused or concerned at their pathetic attempt at hiding, but considering she was on the brink of complete and total chakra exhaustion, she reckoned the latter was more appropriate. She ignored her drowsiness and tensed, waiting for any attack.

The signature wavered, as though they didn't know whether to stay or leave, but soon the person was running away. Their chakra gradually faded into the distance, until she couldn't feel them any more.

Come back, she internally groaned, although rationally she knew that it would most likely be bad if they did. Who are you? Can you tell me where I am? Do you know what that giant is?

She wanted to chase after them, but knew that she wasn't in any condition to fight if they decided that she was an enemy. She was a little concerned though, hoping that the person didn't retreat in order to gather a group to ambush her. Or maybe they just left because she looked like she wasn't worth it, already half-dead. It would save them the trouble considering she wasn't planning on tracking them down any time soon.

She was so focused on the run-away that she hardly noticed her chakra grip on the branch slipping.

The kunoichi gasped, her foot slipping off the tree. She reached out, desperately trying to hold onto anything, anything, but her fingers missed the branches by a fraction of an inch. She didn't want to look down, clenching her eyes tightly as she imagined the large set of teeth beneath her, mouth wide with eagerness. She imagined the saliva and drool and blood that stained its mouth and felt chills run up her spine.

She'd realised it sometime during the fight. It didn't take her long to link the corpse with the giant, but she'd come close to throwing up when the situation had hit her. This thing wasn't just trying to kill her. It was trying to devour her.

And it was about to succeed.

Her senses suddenly felt amplified. The sound of the birds, the sight of the greenery, the wind whooshing through her ears in a surreal melody that was mocking her with its calmness. "I don't want to die..." She sobbed. Her heart pounded, her breaths coming out in short gasps.

I'm sorry Okaa-san, Otou-san. I'm sorry, Naruto. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

Author's Note: How do you like the story so far? What do you think happened to Sakura that made her come into this world? I can either be really cruel or merciful to Sakura in the next chapter. Thank you guys for the positive feedback that honestly makes me happy and love what I'm writing. I'm so so glad that I'm able to write a story that my readers enjoy! Thank you, again! :)