Neji used his Eight Trigram Palms Revolving Heaven, where an immense amount of chakra are released from the user's chakra points to block any attacks from the outside. To put it simply, it's a rotation of the user's chakra which acts as a shield. The insects of the man from the Aburame clan were tossed away when they came close to the shield. Although his efforts were futile, he knew the heir of the Hyūga clan had to stop in one way or another. It was impossible to keep up with the technique for a long period of time.
Suddenly, the rogue ninjas started to evacuate which caused confusion within the group. The team from Konoha gathered right after the shinobis retreat, but what they found later was terrifying.
Sakura was missing, but Sumire was still here.
"Where's Sakura?" Neji asked in panic with his Byakugan quickly scanning the venue. They were alarmed and immediately searched the area.
"She's kidnapped!" Shikamaru concluded. "They wouldn't have left otherwise."
Sumire roared and even though they could not understand animal language, they could feel her worry. They felt the same way, and furious.
Sasuke grunted, "We have to save her!" He began to head towards the rogue ninjas were heading and the white tigress followed suit.
"Stop, Sasuke! Sumire!" Kakashi ordered.
They looked back at the silverette with cold glares.
"They are too strong and this is a serious matter. We must report this to the Hokage." He explained, but they wouldn't accept it.
"As much as I would like to save Sakura, they truly are prodigies and we would need reinforcements to beat them." Shikamaru added.
Sasuke was about to protest, but Neji stood behind him and stopped him. "Alright."
The Uchiha widened his eyes at his teammate, bewildered by his agreement. He growled, "How could you?"
When Neji turned his head to the ravenette, he seemed to understood everything and calmed down. They efforts in working on their teamwork was not for nothing.
Sasuke heaved a breath and whispered, "Fine."
While Kakashi and Shikamaru took the lead, the other two followed behind. Both of them did a shadow clone and masked their chakra; then, they quickly followed the traces of the rogue ninjas in silence, not wanting to alarm their mentor and the brainiac. The tiger-nins followed the real bodies of the adolescents.
Once they were a far distance away, they picked up their pace and sped faster toward the pinkette's captors. It was near sunset when they spotted a cave made out of large stones piled on top of each other. They expected to see some ninjas guarding the location, but none was seen and none was sensed. Perhaps it was their excitement or finally retrieving the girl of the Trio Prodigies that made them careless. It was their obsession that became their biggest flaw, and it worked very well for the heirs who were circling the area.
They carefully slipped inside the cave through the little cracks and made sure not to make a single sound. The rogue ninjas were gathered in an open area, but it was not big enough to fit all of them, so it was cramped. Sasuke and Neji were on the so called 'roof' of the cave, but really they were just huge rocks supported by more rocks. On top of them were thinner rocks that hid the cave from plain sight. Those rocks were covered in moss and had plants growing over them which camouflaged with the greeneries around the cave.
In the middle of the crowd and where the leader of the pack was standing in front of sat the pinkette they were looking for. Sakura's expression was completely blank. Of course, her teammates could not see properly from above, but she did not look unconscious to them, so it was rather weird that she did not show any sign of fighting back.
Both of them activated their kekkei genkai and Sasuke used a hand signal to inform Neji that she was under a genjutsu. The Hyuga nodded and did a twirl with his finger and pointed to himself; then, he pointed a finger to Sasuke which then directed to Sakura. He was ordering Sasuke to save Sakura while he distract the ninjas. The Uchiha understood and nodded.
Neji turned to the tiger-nins who were standing above the thin rocks in their cub size. He motioned for them to come to him and jumped into the open space.
His appearance startled each and every one of them.
The cubs had already transformed and started to attack the rogue ninjas, careful not to harm Sakura. Sumire shot her crystals while Aka made several spots explode which ultimately caused the cave to become unstable. The surprise attack certainly did not give the rogue ninjas any time to think or prepare, so they were a mess.
"Sumire!" Neji called while unsheathing his katanas.
She headed for his direction and trapped the ninjas who were in front of him in her crystals; although, some of them managed to escape.
"Water Release: Water Slicer!"
He moved his katana in quick motions, almost like a dance. Thin layers of water formed on it in a larger size and sliced his opponents cleanly.
Admist all that chaos, Sasuke landed in front of Sakura.
"Release."
Her eyes came back to life as she was taken back to reality. She groaned in pain and grabbed her throbbing head. When she looked up, she saw a blur figure but it slowly cleared up to show an Uchiha standing in front of her with a worried face.
He bent down and placed a gentle hand on her head, "Are you okay?"
"Yes, thank you for saving me." She smiled and looked around, but it quickly faltered when she saw her teammate fought in exhaustion.
Sakura's hand reached to her back to grab her sword, but it wasn't there. She looked around and finally found it right next to her, on the floor. Chakra flowed into the sword and made it spark in electricity.
A hand grabbed her arm and pulled her away. It was Sasuke. A ninja tried to trap her in his shadow jutsu, but the Uchiha heir was quick to notice it. Sakura nodded at him in appreciation and started to swing her large sword at the rogue ninjas.
Sasuke took out his katana and fire emitted from it. The bright flames would stretch like a whip at his will and burn his opponents like barbecue.
Compared to the fight from before, this was more serious. The boys had suffered the fear of losing the pinkette even though it was just for awhile, but it managed to charge their determination while the heiress was motivated by their aggressiveness. Even their tiger-nins could feel their burning emotions and fought harder along their side.
==
Dedicated to Saku-chan715 for your active votes!
Ugh.. Boring chapter. I'm sorry. I'm trying not to change too much from the previous version, only changing and adding very necessary parts to make them not too ooc, filling up the plot hole and giving a preview of the second season.
Remember to leave a comment! It really makes my day no matter how short it is. Even just a simple "hahaha" would make me happy.
I love to hear your responses on the story!
~Joelle
Published: December 2014
Rewritten: 3 June 2018