"Gah!" Sasuke let out a sharp, muffled grunt of pain as his boots hit the wood, the impact vibrating up through his legs.
Mini-Sasuke let out a small, pained whimper, his face buried in the older Sasuke's yukata. The air had been knocked out of his lungs, and he trembled from the shock of the landing.
The shopkeeper stood frozen, his eyes bulging and his mouth hanging open. Then, his face turned a violent shade of purple.
"AGAIN?!" the vendor shrieked, his voice reaching a pitch that could shatter glass. "Are you people raining from the sky?! My shop! My vegetables! My life's work! You monster in yukata! I'll have your heads!"
He began waving a broken piece of a wooden crate in the air, looking like he was about to have a heart attack, while the rest of the group landed in heaps around the snowy street.
The market street was a masterpiece of total disaster. The pale morning light, still trapped behind the thick grey clouds, shone down on a scene of pure, high-stakes comedy and chaos.
The vegetable vendor had finally reached his breaking point. His face was no longer just purple—it was a deep, dangerous shade of beet-red. He grabbed a jagged, broken piece of a wooden crate and began swinging it wildly like a club.
"You sky-demons! You falling nightmares!" he shrieked, charging toward Sasuke, who was still lying flat on his back in the middle of a sea of crushed cabbages.
Sasuke let out a heavy, rattled breath and opened his arms wide. Mini-Sasuke, who had been tucked safely against his chest, scrambled up.
The boy was shaky and wide-eyed, his small hands covered in green vegetable juice, but he was unhurt.
As the shopkeeper brought the wooden plank down for a massive, vengeful strike, the air seemed to shimmer. Zip! In a blur of movement that the human eye couldn't even follow, Sasuke used the Body Flicker Technique.
One second he was a target on the ground; the next, he was a shadow standing directly behind the old man.
With a swift, surgical strike to a vital point on the neck, Sasuke knocked the wind out of the vendor. The man crumpled into his own pile of mashed greens, snoring before he even hit the floor.
"Annoying," Sasuke muttered, wiping a bit of cabbage from his yukata.
Meanwhile, a few yards away, Neji was having a much less graceful morning. Since he was the first to dive from the fifth floor, the impact had been... significant.
He was currently face-down in a massive, fluffy snowbank. His long, dark hair was fanned out like a wet mop, and his traditional yukata was bunched up around his waist.
A group of elderly village women, wrapped in thick wool shawls, quickly surrounded him. They leaned in close, their wrinkled faces full of gossip and concern.
"Oh, the poor dear," one whispered, poking Neji's shoulder with her walking stick. "Is he dead? Or just very, very tired?"
"Look at those fancy clothes," another whispered, her eyes narrowing. "Do you think he was trying to commit suicide over a broken heart? Such a handsome boy, what a waste of a good yukata."
"Maybe he's being targeted by debt collectors!" a third suggested, nodding wisely "They always fall from the sky in Tetsu no Kuni this time of year."
Neji's eyes snapped open beneath the snow. His face was beet-red—not from the cold, but from pure, unadulterated embarrassment.
He couldn't stand the whispering for another second. With a sudden explosion of snow, he vaulted to his feet, scattering the old women like startled pigeons.
Without looking back, and without even checking where he was going, Neji bolted. He ran in a completely blind direction, his yukata fluttering in the wind as he tried to put as much distance as possible between himself and the 'suicide' rumors.
While the boys were busy with vegetable vendors and gossiping grandmothers, the girls were dealing with the painful reality of a five-story drop.
The snowy ground might have looked soft, but underneath the powder was the rock-hard, frozen ice of Tetsu no Kuni.
Sakura sat on the ground, her teeth clenched and her face pale. She had landed hard on her side, and a nasty, purple bruise was already blooming across her leg where she hit a patch of solid ice. She tried to stand, but her leg buckled, sending a sharp sting of pain through her body.
"Stay down, Sakura!" Ino shouted, skidding across the snow to reach her friend's side. Ino didn't even stop to brush the snow off her own clothes. Her hands immediately began to glow with a soft, steady green light as she hovered them over Sakura's bruised leg.
"I'm fine, Ino... we need to move," Sakura whispered, though her eyes were watering from the ache.
"You're not moving anywhere until I heal this up," Ino replied, her voice firm despite the panic in her eyes. "That was a five-story jump, not a hop over a fence!"
She didn't have the time or the stillness to perform a deep heal; she just focused on numbing the sharp sting and reducing the swelling so Sakura could at least stand.
"I'm just going to dull the pain for now, okay? We have to get out of here before those guards reach the street!"
A few feet away, Karin was on her hands and knees, desperately patting the snow like a panicked kitten.
"My glasses! Where are they?! I can't sense a single chakra signature because I am distracted!" she wailed.
Her fingers brushed against something cold and metallic buried in a drift.
With a cry of relief, she pulled her glasses out. They were slightly bent and covered in slush, but they weren't broken.
She wiped them quickly on her sleeve and jammed them onto her face. The world snapped back into focus—and the first thing she saw was the glowing green light of Ino's medical ninjutsu.
Karin rushed over to join them, her boots crunching loudly on the ice.
"Ino-san, is she alright?" Karin asked urgently, her voice full of genuine worry as she hovered nearby. "I can feel the Samurais' chakra closing in. We don't have much longer!"
"She'll be able to move, but she shouldn't put too much weight on it," Ino replied, wiping sweat from her forehead despite the freezing air. She helped Sakura up, letting her lean on her shoulder for a moment.
Sakura tested her leg, wincing slightly and she looked from Ino to Karin, a small, tired smile touching her lips despite the danger. "Thanks, guys," she whispered.
The market remained a whirlwind of noise and confusion. The heavy silence that usually gripped the frozen city was gone, replaced by the loud, whistling wind that whipped through the stalls and the angry shouting of the locals.
"Look at the mess!" a woman yelled, pointing at the shattered wood and scattered greens.
People were coming out of their shops, pointing at the shattered cartons and the strange group of youngsters who had just rained down from the heavens.
A man in a thick, fur-lined coat stood over a pile of crushed cabbages, his face twisted in suspicion.
"Look at them!" he shouted to his neighbors. "There are no ninjas in Tetsu no Kuni—but only Samurai. They must be travelers in disguise! Their only motive is to destroy our peaceful environment with this reckless behavior!"
A second man, leaning out of a nearby window, narrowed his eyes at Sakura and Ino. "Don't tell me..." his voice trailed off into a low, fearful whisper.
"Don't tell me they are the children about whom the rumors were speaking... the ones from Ko..?"
"Children?" a third man cut, crossing his arms and glaring at the group with pure hatred.
"Children these days are nothing but demons in small skin. Look at the destruction they've caused without a second thought!"
In the middle of this rising heat, Karin didn't let the insults distract her. She looked at Sakura's bruised leg and then at the crowd that was slowly circling them.
"Ino-san, stop," she said firmly. She pulled up her sleeve. "Sakura-san, bite my arm. It's the fastest way to get you moving properly."
Sakura didn't hesitate. She knew they couldn't stay in the middle of this scene much longer. She bit into Karin's arm, and a sudden, hot surge of chakra flooded her system. It felt like a spark of lightning hitting her injury.
Almost instantly, the dark bruise on her leg dissolved into nothing. The skin returned to its healthy color, and the sharp pain was replaced by a feeling of total strength.
Sakura stood up and took a firm step. Her leg felt perfect—not a single trace of the fall remained. "Thanks, Karin," she said, her voice steady.
"Let's hurry now," Karin replied, quickly pulling her sleeve down and readjusting her glasses as she scanned the chaotic market.
The locals continued to shout and point, their voices rising over the howling wind. Even without the sound of Samurai, the market felt like a trap that was slowly closing in on them.
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📊 BATTLE REPORT: 66-IRON 📊
LOSER: Hyuga Neji ⚪
SNEAK PEEK LINES 💬
"Sakura! Move!"
"Mommy... the birds broke."
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—With love, one forehead poke away from collapse,
Sakura Shinomiya 💫
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