The warning had come a fraction of a second too late.
The masks covering the Box of Ultimate Bliss's sides fell to the ground in a series of loud clangs, revealing the reliefs of four grimacing faces in the metal. All at once, the Box's four pairs of eyes began to glow with an ominous crimson light, while its mouths yawned open into gaping maws that emitted a powerful attractive force… sucking air, dirt, debris and anyone unfortunate enough to be standing nearby into the black void within!
"NO!" Sakura shouted as she knocked down the wall with a punch.
The grating, metallic sound of unwinding razor wire rang out as several shuriken flashed past her nose, winding around a nearby lamppost before pulling taut, the wires trailing behind them forming a net that caught several Leaf shinobi as they tumbled uncontrollably sideways through the air towards the Box of Ultimate Bliss.
"Sasuke!" Sakura exclaimed, spotting him aura farming on the roof overlooking the inner courtyard. She flashed him a thumbs up. "Nice assist!"
A series of loud pops rang out as row after row of Naruto's Shadow Clones emerged from pillars of white smoke, saving their stunned comrades from the wire net and carrying them to safety. Furious at having lost its prey, the Box's facial features seemed to contort and twist into a mask of a wrathful Asura, and it redoubled its suction, causing even Sakura to begin slipping towards it.
"These shitty complimentary hotel slippers!!"
Sakura really was not dressed for a fight; at this rate, she was going to lose her battle to keep her top up before she lost the war with the Box of Ultimate Bliss!
"IT'S A NIGHT RAID!" someone shouted as an alarm started to blare. "THE ENEMY IS COMING!"
It seemed the Box was only the vanguard, sent ahead to soften up the Hidden Leaf's headquarters to buy time for the main body of the Cloud's and Stone's army to rush over and take advantage of the chaos… but little did they know, Sakura had a little trick up her sleeve!
"System!" Sakura shouted inwardly. "Give me the code!"
The System's translucent panel appeared before her eyes, its usual display replaced by lines of binary code recorded from the Limited Tsukuyomi world.
"01000101 01000011 01001110 01000101 01010101 01010001 01000101 01010011 00100000 01001110 01010111 01001111 01000100 01010100 01010101 01001000 01010011 00100000 01000101 01010100 01000001 01001001 01010100 01001001 01001110 01001001 00100000 01000101 01000100 01001001 01010010 01010010 01000101 01010110 01001111 00100000 01000101 01001101 01001001 01010010 01010000 00100000 01000001 01001000 01010000 01001100 01000001!!!"
Sakura held her breath in anticipation, watching carefully as the Box of Ultimate Bliss shuddered. The red glare spilling from its eye holes flickered, briefly turning blue, but just as Sakura believed the battle to be won, the light reverted to its previous bloody hue.
"It's not working?" Sakura gasped, stating the obvious. "Why isn't it working!? Did I make a mistake?"
[Beep! Analysing code… this may take some time.]
At this point, Sakura had two choices: either she made her stand here and hoped for the missing Orochimaru to return with his dispersed forces, or she abandoned this forward operating base and retreated further into the Land of Fire to regroup and form a new defensive line.
Either way, the Hidden Leaf would take massive casualties.
Aside from a few makeshift mud walls and wooden palisades, the hot spring resort's fortifications were non-existent, and to make matters worse, the Box was rampaging through their base, so to stay would be suicide. Fleeing was not much better; a routed army was easy pickings for a pursuing force, and even if the Leaf's various squads dispersed to avoid annihilation, it would take time for them to regroup and reorganise.
"Support the Hokage!"
"FIGHT!"
"NO! WE'RE ABANDONING THE FRONT LINE! DISPERSE AND REGROUP IN SHUKUBA TOWN!" Sakura roared. "TEAM SEVEN, WITH ME! WE'RE COVERING THE RETREAT!"
Shukuba Town was only a hop and a skip away from the Hidden Leaf, and if the village fell, it was all over. Although the Leaf shinobi were loath to abandon their beloved Hokage, they knew the situation was dire, and what's more…
"Shukuba Town, eh?" Kakashi said as he and Sasuke flickered to Sakura's and Naruto's side. "Does that mean we're doing that already?"
"Yeah," Sakura said grimly. "Operation: Sacrifice an Arm to Kill the Dog is a go."
This was the strategy Sakura and Shikamaru had jointly developed to capitalise on the Lightning Style: Rasenchakram's special ability to generate EMPs and disable enemy wireless communications.
Basically, the Hidden Leaf's forces would pretend to be routed to lure the enemy deep into their territory. Filled with bloodlust at the sight of easy prey and with their comms jammed, preventing their tacticians from warning them not to overextend, the enemy would pursue them deep into the Land of Fire, at which point the Hidden Leaf would spring its trap. Leaf-nin would then converge upon the invaders, eliminating them all in one fell swoop.
It would only work once, but once was more than enough!
Of course, the only difference between the plan and reality was that in this case, they would not be pretending to run away, but actually fleeing. In Sakura's opinion, that would only make the performance all the more convincing... but for the plan to work, she first had to ensure her troops actually survived the next few hours.
"Kakashi-sensei, can you still use Kamui?" Sakura asked.
Kamui was a cheat-level ninjutsu that ignored defences by warping space itself, which meant its damage could not be mitigated, only avoided. Since the Box did not appear to have any legs, Sakura wagered it would be fairly difficult to miss.
"As long as you don't mind carrying me back to the village, Milady," Kakashi said sardonically as he raised his forehead protector, revealing his scarlet left eye, its three tomoe converging into a Beyblade-like pattern. "Kamui!"
Faint spirals appeared in midair before the Box of Ultimate Bliss as space-time tore apart, but just as the supposedly indestructible box began to twist itself into a knot, a pale shadow flitted from one of its mouths.
Exhausted, Kakashi stumbled backwards into Naruto's arms and lowered his forehead protector over his eye.
"A man…?" Sasuke said, frowning. "No, that chakra isn't human…"
Before it completely collapsed in on itself, the Box had spat out a young man with long, coarse hair and unnaturally pale skin. Obviously, he had not seen the light of day in quite a while…