บท 114: The Honeytrap

"Help! Please, somebody, anybody!" Sakura shouted in a deadpan voice. "Won't someone save meeeeee…?" She then turned to Karin, adding, "So, what did you think of my performance?"

"You were very convincing, onee-sama!" said Karin admiringly. "I could barely hold myself back from…" She stopped just short of finishing her sentence, hugging her sides and squealing, "Kyaaa!"

Sakura frowned; that wasn't the reception she'd been quite hoping for. The plan was for her to look like a vulnerable damsel in distress— not an actress from a badly acted porno.

"Please don't scream in my ears," said Neji irritably, as he finished binding Sakura's wrists in front of her with a length of twine he had found at the hideout. "I can barely see what I'm doing, and this is embarrassing enough for me as it is…"

The wooden suspension bridge creaked ominously as it swayed with the morning breeze, far above the red waters of the Valley of Hell that leisurely flowed below. Sakura gulped— if she fell, it would be a long way down…

"Why do I have to play the bait?" Sakura grumbled to herself. "This isn't fair…"

How on earth had things turned out this way?

Well, to find out how, one would have to rewind the clock by twenty-four hours, when Operation Rescue Hinata 2 had still been a mere twinkle in Sakura's eye…

…

"So, do you have a plan?" Tsunade had asked them. "Or are you just planning on rushing to the Hidden Cloud like headless chickens?"

"Does that mean you're sanctioning our operation?" Neji said in surprise. "We have permission to go ahead?"

"Depends on what you have to say," Tsunade replied sternly. "Well? I'm listening."

Tsunade put her hands on her hips and scowled at them, so Sakura began explaining their plan.

Karin would sneak into the Hidden Cloud, using her unique ability to mask her chakra signature to cross the sensing barrier without getting detected. She would take with her a dagger that would allow Tenten to teleport the rest of them in, therefore bypassing the barrier altogether.

"That's… That's a pretty good plan, actually," Tsunade had to admit. "So, there's finally someone in the village who's managed to master granduncle Tobirama's Flying Thunder God Jutsu after the Lord Fourth?"

Tenten had only told Sakura about the dagger without specifically stating which specific Space-Time Ninjutsu she'd use, but it was fairly obvious to Sakura that Tenten had already learned the Flying Raijin before returning to the past— which meant that she had only used her puppet gimmick during the Chūnin exams in order to try and gain the right to use it in front of others.

'That'll come in useful as blackmail material,' Inner Sakura cackled. 'How are you going to explain to the village that you know the Leaf's number 1 top secret Jutsu, Little Miss Girl Who Leapt Through Time?'

"The only problem is that this big idiot over here tore up the summoning scroll," Karin drawled, pointing at Neji. "We've lost our teleporter."

No Tenten, no Flying Thunder God Jutsu.

In theory, Space-Time Ninjutsu was capable of taking one anywhere else in the world and outside of it… as long as it was within one's sensing range. To teleport somewhere, the Flying Thunder God user had to be able to sense their Jutsu Formulas— which meant that it was only good for short distances. Since the Hidden Leaf Village was one and a half countries away, Tenten wouldn't be able to catch up to them, even if she had marked them with her Jutsu formula…

"There might still be a way," Tsunade said slowly, looking pensive. "But you'd have to go in through the front door, though— but first, one of you would have to act as bait…!"

Sakura, Karin and Neji looked at each other, before raising their right fists.

"First goes rock!" they chanted. "Jan, Ken, Pon!"

"You're going to play Rock-Paper-Scissors for it?" Tsunade said incredulously.

…

Which brings our story back to the present.

"Is it really necessary to do this over the Valley of Hell?" Sakura asked nervously. "I think I'm beginning to develop a fear of heights…"

When Tsunade and Shizune had dined at the cultists' ryokan, a few hours before Sakura herself had arrived, they had overheard some bodyguards chatting with each other over some alcohol. They were guarding an unimportant nobleman from the south of the Land of Hot Water and his family, and they would all be attending a certain wedding ceremony in the Hidden Cloud Village.

Apparently, they had specifically come this way to sightsee at the Valley of Hell before continuing northwards…

"Don't worry, we'll be hiding close by, onee-sama," said Karin, licking her lips. "Should I tear up your clothes a bit? I think it'd make you look even more convincing…"

A lone hawk's cry resounded through the valley.

"That's Neji's signal!" Sakura whispered. "Karin, stop messing with my clothes and go hide!"

Shriiip!

"That was my favourite dress!" Sakura hissed. "Karin, if I weren't tied to the guardrail, I'd…"

Karin carefully adjusted Sakura's clothes so that nothing too important was exposed, before scarpering off to the northern end of the bridge. In case something unexpected happened, Neji and Karin would be able to perform a pincer manoeuvre to prevent their prey from escaping, since there were only two ways off a bridge… unless you counted plummeting to your death.

And now, Sakura could only wait. When he focused his vision in one direction, Neji could see for kilometres, so it was going to take some time for the nobles to arrive.

'This is really uncomfortable,' Inner Sakura grumbled. 'Did Neji have to tie these knots so tightly?'

Half an hour later, an owl's hoot sounded a single time— Neji's signal to proceed with the mission as planned. And a few minutes after that, the nobleman's procession finally came into view— a palanquin carried by four servants, half a dozen guards, and…

"Who are you?" a man's deep voice sounded, as an old and wrinkly shinobi flickered in front of Sakura. "What happened to you?"

"Eek!" cried Sakura, pretending to be scared.

This old man was the only shinobi in the nobleman's entourage— a single owl's hoot meant a single ninja guard. And he was a weakling, too— his Body Flicker was so slow that Sakura had almost yawned when she had seen him coming towards her.

"What's the holdup?" came a man's voice from the palanquin— only much higher-pitched.

"Please, you have to help me!" Sakura sobbed loudly enough for the noble inside to hear. "They kept doing this and that to me— I can hardly take any more of this cruel treatment!"

Intrigued, the nobleman pushed aside the palanquin's drapes and poked his head outside to behold the crying Sakura, whose enormous breasts were squeezed together due to the alluring way in which Neji had tied her wrists together in front of her.

"This and that, you say?" said the nobleman, licking his lips in anticipation. "Ninja, I order you to bring this girl to me— I wish to hear more of her tale…"

"Dear!" cried his wife in a scandalized voice.