Kakashi's Mission (Kakasak

22 : 巨人 Kyojin

Sakura finally caught up with Kakashi, accompanying him closely was the capsule puppet.

"Kakashi!" Sakura called out.

Kakashi stopped abruptly from leaping from the branches of trees and turned to face her. His good eye was lidded, expression placid.

"Snap out of it!" Sakura pleaded, which obviously fell onto deaf ears.

Kakashi started to move towards her at an incredible speed with his purple lightning in one hand. If Sakura had not been quick to evade that, she would have suffered the same fate as the branch of the tree that she was standing on. It disintegrated into a million pieces upon contact with the purple lightning.

.......

"We've got company babe." Sakura spoke softly to Kakashi.

Kakashi nodded and stopped in his tracks,  he turned to face a woman whose face was hidden under an ANBU mask. The genjutsu that Hiroko planted on Kakashi disabled him to view Sakura, instead, he could only see her, veiled under an ANBU mask while the vision of Hiroko's genjutsu had taken the form of Sakura.

Kakashi could not even hear the real Sakura speaking to him, he could only hear Hiroko's voice in his head, masking behind Sakura's voice.

"She is trying to separate us, Kakashi. Destroy her." The voice of Sakura in his head spoke.

...

"LOOK AT ME! I AM REAL!" Sakura yelled at Kakashi but to no avail.

He was charging after Sakura at full speed, using different techniques to injure Sakura. She had to evade quickly, his movements were deadly, if that wasn't bad enough, the freaking capsule puppet was also trying to kill her simultaneously. Sakura did a few back flips before she punched the ground hard, it cracked all the way towards the puppet and Kakashi, almost swallowing them while.

"Katon..!" Kakashi yelled, "Gyuukaku.."

Sakura barely had time to evade his movements this time, just as she was about to manoeuvre her body to the right to get away from being burn into a crisp, the capsule puppet gained in on her, it opened up its jaws, trying to swallow her up into its dark confines, however, the puppet was blown off course, Sakura looked where the force was coming from and found Neji in his Shin Hakke Rokujūyon Shō stance. He was heaving relentlessly as he spoke, "Kakashi-Sensei is unable listen to you, his chakra flow isn't the same as it used to be. From what I can see, he had consumed something, it's slowly taking over his body."

Sakura's eyes widened as she heard that, "Neji! Can you give me an estimated percentage?" Sakura had to evade another purple lightning cut from Kakashi.

"40%, the intake of that potion has changed about 40%.. It doesn't look too good Sakura.." Neji exclaimed as he fought off the capsule puppet that came back from wherever it was thrown to.

Sakura knew Kakashi needed her help and the only way to help him, was to defeat him. She quickly snapped out of it and did what she always did in a fight, observe her opponents' moves and figure out the best offense to weaken their defences.

"Water mist.. mud wall.. purple lightning.." Sakura managed to evade them all before she came to a realisation. Kakashi was not using any of the techniques that required the usage of his hidden sharingan. But of course! Activating the sharingan could most possibly counter the genjutsu he was in, it might not be as effective if the potion has taken over him completely though. Sakura needed Kakashi to activate his lone sharingan. Since he was unable to do it at will; she needed to somehow pull off his damn hitae-ate that was covering his sharingan.

Sakura pulled an enormous Boulder from the ground and threw it towards Kakashi, who evaded it at the nick of time. The Boulder did however, land onto the unsuspecting capsule puppet that was engaged in a battle with Neji; a few feet behind Kakashi, Sakura's actual target. She needed to get rid of it so Neji could help her.

"Neji!" Sakura yelled at the proud Hyuuga.

"Haruno, that boulder missed me by an inch." Neji retorted angrily.

"Listen! Can you tell when Kakashi isn't seeing me as a different person? You mentioned that his vision was sometimes of me and at times of Hiroko." Sakura asked as she distracted Kakashi by throwing more heavy objects towards him.

"Yes. His chakra levels will turn less erratic if he manages to see through the genjutsu. But that that will take only a few seconds before it changes back to what he is currently seeing.." Neji explained.

"That's all I need!" Sakura spoke as she evaded another water mist jutsu.

...

Naruto watched as Hiroko now turned into a giant puppet.

Hiroko's laughter filled the forest clearing as she looked down on them. "Fools. Do you really think you can defeat me?"
She spat out an array of arrows and shot them rapidly towards the four of them.

Tenten, Kiba and Asuma retreated back and huddled up in a single file next to Naruto. They looked at the arrows that came out of her mouth, it was slowly melting down the ground beneath them.

"Acid." Kiba muttered as he sniffed it from where he stood, "She seems to enjoy concocting her special brew of potions. This one is similar to acid, if it gets in contact with your skin, it would tear up your skin painfully."

"Okay. Here's the plan. We use Kiba and Akamaru as bait. Lure her away from us, give me a little bit of time and wham! Rasenshuriken to the heart. That's where her lifeline is right?!" Naruto explained, proud of his quick witted thinking.

"That WOULD be an AMAZING plan, just that Kiba and Akamaru can't run that fast after their chakras have pretty much depleted from fighting off a hundred puppets earlier.." Asuma explained to the eccentric blonde.

"You guys are weak.." Naruto muttered.

"Our chakra reserves aren't as huge as yours, you doofus!" Tenten sighed out agitatedly, if Naruto was in her team, she and Neji might have already intentionally left him in some deserted island. The same island where they would leave Gai and Lee.

"Why don't you summon Gamakichi? Let him do the distraction, we will help him out and buy you time to prepare yourself for the final blow, okay?" Asuma suggested wearily.

Naruto nodded knowingly as he spoke, "That's similar to my original plan Asuma-Sensei."

Tenten had already given up as she sighed out loud while Kiba narrowed his eyes distastefully at the ramen lover.