Sakura unconsciously took half a step back from the gigantic woman towering over her and gulped nervously. She suddenly felt hands against her back, shoving her towards the centre of the human ring she had found herself in upon stepping out of her cell. No wonder the guards had scampered away as fast as their legs could carry them after unlocking her cell door, this morning…
"So, you're the new girl…" the woman growled. "You often scream in the middle of the night, eh? You enjoy waking up people for no good reason?"
"We may have got off on the wrong foot," Sakura said pleasantly. "How about we start over?"
While Sakura had seen many big women during her career as a shinobi, those had mostly been Akimichi clan members, whose size was mostly pronounced along the horizontal plane. The so-called queen of the Garden of Lilies, the women's section of Hōzuki Castle, was a veritable mountain of muscles, and without relying on her chakra, Sakura wasn't sure she'd be able to beat her in a brawl without cheating.
"Tell you what," said the giantess, leaning forwards and looming over Sakura with a wide grin. "You're my type, so if you agree to be my prison wife, I'll forgive you. It's a good deal, I'll treat you real nice."
Sakura flinched. "And if I say no?"
"Then we do this the hard way," the giantess said, slamming her fist into her palm. "And you still end up in my harem."
To be perfectly honest, Sakura was tempted. Most kunoichi tended to be both fit and attractive, since their duties leaned less towards combat and gravitated more towards espionage, at least during peacetime. Sakura wouldn't have minded accepting the offer, if only for a roll in the hay with the musclebound woman-mountain's personal flower garden… but she had more pressing concerns.
"I'm very sorry," Sakura said, bowing low and nearly toppling over due to the ponderous masses hanging from her chest. "I'm afraid I can't accept your confession. I don't even know your name yet. Maybe we could start out as friends?"
"You can be friends with my fist!"
Sakura sidestepped the punch, but the swaying of her chest in the wake of her movement offered too tempting a target. Her opponent struck again in a flash, and this time, the blow landed true. Pain surged through her right breast as it absorbed the shock, sending waves rippling through her flesh and tearing a cry from her lips before she could stifle it.
"One-two punch? Boxing taijutsu, eh?" Sakura groaned, gingerly steadying the jiggling of her throbbing chest with her arm. "Ooh, that's going to hurt even more tomorrow…"
It had been too long since she'd fought without the support of the Sharingan's dynamic and insightful vision. Her reflexes were still as good as ever, but in her eyes, her opponent's movements were like a blur, erratic and unpredictable… and she wasn't even that fast.
"Closing your eyes?" scoffed the giantess. "Are you giving up already?"
If Sakura couldn't gauge her opponent's movements with her eyes, then she was better off without vision to distract her. She'd just have to use changes in the ambient electrical field surrounding her and other sensory context clues to dodge.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!" chanted the women surrounding them.
Egged on by her harem, the giantess lunged at Sakura, who struck a defensive pose.
In Sakura's mind's eye, a vast yin–yang moon unfurled within the ring beneath their feet, encircled by the eight trigrams… yet this was not the starting stance of the sixty-four palms. It was the technique Hinata had devised to counter strong-fist Taijutsu practitioners, which Sakura had adopted for herself, just as Naruto had created Uzumaki Barrage from Rock Lee's Front Lotus, and Sasuke had copied the Lion's Combo.
"The strong fist follows the Heaven Trigram, the great yang," Sakura murmured. "Reinforced by the immobile Mountain Trigram, yet weakened by the soft and yielding Earth Trigram, the Great Yin! That means I have to step… this way!"
Before, Sakura had only been repeating Hinata's steps, but with the knowledge she had gained so far, she could finally begin to see the reasoning and methods behind the techniques…
"Eh? Where did she goooooooo!?"
Sakura pivoted at the last moment, vanishing from her opponent's sight, her feet sliding across the smooth stone floor to catch the giantess off balance, breaking her connection to the earth. Like a reed bending in the wind, Sakura's arm pressed against her opponent's neck, while she jammed her foot against her heel, flipping the giantess and slamming the back of her head against the unforgiving ground.
"Miss Yamaguchi!"
"Are you okay?"
"We're here for you!"
But the giantess was made of sterner stuff; her bones were as sturdy as jade, tougher even than steel. It might not have looked that way at first glance, but she was shaken, yet with her harem cheering her on, she felt as though she could do anything.
She rubbed the back of her head and pushed herself to her feet.
"I can do this all day, if I have to!" the giantess, whose name was apparently Yamaguchi, growled. "Oi! Wait! Where do you think you're going, Top-Heavy? Are you stupid? That's a dead end!"
Sakura had just turned on her heel and barrelled through the women at her back, breaking out of the human ring and rushing into the safety of her… unlocked cell. She grinned at her opponent, hid one hand behind her back, and with the other, beckoned her to step closer, much like Rock Lee might.
"Come and have a go," Sakura said, grinning. "That is, if you think you're hard enough!"
Taunted, the giantess roared in fury and charged at Sakura like a bull— only to smash her head squarely against the wooden beam crowning the doorway with the full weight of her body behind her charge. Her eyes rolled back, and, like a tree felled by a woodsman, she toppled heavily onto her back, banging the back of her head against the stone tiles for a second time.
This time, she was well and truly out like a light. Sakura blew a sigh of relief and released the hand seal she had performed behind her back, allowing her arm to fall to her side.
"Demonic Illusion: False Surroundings Jutsu!"
Yamaguchi was so tall she had to stoop to keep from striking her head on the doorframe, so Sakura had stealthily worked a simple illusion, making it seem taller than it truly was. By goading her, Sakura had hoped her fury would blot out her reason, and luckily, she hadn't noticed the deception!
"She must have been too dizzy to notice…"
"I hope she's okay…"
"Good riddance, I hated that lez."
Judging by the chatter, it seemed the other inmates hadn't noticed Sakura's Genjutsu either—which meant her secret, that she could still command a fair portion of her chakra, was safe. To them, it merely looked as though she'd got lucky.
"Oi, what's all this commotion? Are you chicks brawling again!"
Led by Banga the warden, a small contingent of guards brandishing batons rushed into the women's sleeping quarters, delivering swift strikes to the kunoichi's bottoms to clear a path to Sakura's cell. The women scattered like chickens, leaving Sakura standing over Yamaguchi's unconscious body.
"Who did this?" Banga demanded to know. "Who's responsible for this?"
"She is!"
"The new girl!"
"It was all her!"
As one, Sakura's fellow inmates pointed at her.
"Troublemaker, eh?" Banga growled. He looked rather sickly to Sakura, which was to be expected, after he'd gulped down all of her birth control. "The rules are the rules: it's off to solitary confinement for you…"
"Oh, goody…" Sakura said glumly.
"You're dead meat when you get out, you hear me…?" groaned Yamaguchi at Sakura's feet, cracking open an eye. "Ugh… my head…"