During her fight with the sound ninja in the forest

Sakura stood against three Sound Ninjas. Sasuke was asleep. Naruto was asleep. Lee was defeated and lying on the ground. She was alone.

Except for the Sound Ninjas Dosu, Zaku, and Kin. And judging by the situation she was in, it looked like those three would stay with her for the rest of her short, short life.

"Let's get this over with and kill Sasuke already," Zaku said. "We might have all day, but we don't have all week."

"Quite right," the team leader, Dosu said. "The longer we wait here, the greater chance we have that some other fool will try to intervene."

"And lucky you," Kin said from behind her. The plain, long haired girl held a fistful of Sakura's pink locks painfully in one hand and a knife in the other. "You get to outlive everyone on your team. By a few minutes."

Sakura felt **** tears well up in her eyes. She always liked to think that she was a valued member of the team, but the truth was that she was useless, weak. She couldn't run, not if that meant leaving her teammates to die, and she couldn't fight, not when there were three of them and one of her, but there had to be something she could do!

There was, she realized. She steeled herself and decided to …