When every single puppet in the room suddenly shot skywards, the two Narutos turned to Sakura with a look that quite plainly said, are you kidding me, bruv?
"I'm sorry, okay?" Sakura spluttered. "It's just that I've been under a lot of stress lately!"
What with being hurled twenty years into the past, and the constant anxiety about upending the timeline as she knew it pressing on her mind, Sakura had grown rather high-strung as of late, though there was more to it than that.
In retrospect, Sakura could have perhaps selected a better time to begin her NNN challenge. Obtaining Six-Paths Senjutsu was all well and good, but not if it was going to get her killed.
Indeed, it had been four days since she had stopped indulging her carnal urges for the sake of unlocking Philosopher Mode, and it was already killing her inside. She was constantly hot and bothered; on the outside, her skin was flushed, and on the inside, she was literally squirming. And worst of all, she had just absorbed a brand-new pair of breasts, driving her sensitivity through the roof.
With no outlet and no chance to release her pent‑up energy, sexual frustration had begun to gnaw at her, leaving her irritable and unfocused, and it was already taking a toll on her performance as a kunoichi. She couldn't help but be reminded of the stray cats that wailed outside her window at night. They were always in heat, yowling and mewling so plaintively that, if she hadn't known better, she might have thought they were in pain.
And that was rather how Sakura felt just now: like some poor cat whose careless owner had never had her spayed and had then locked her indoors to keep her from mating with strays— only in her case, indoors was her own body, and she really did need to focus on the fight!
"SHA!" Sakura shouted, driving her fist into the first puppet that soared over the ledge.
With a loud bang, Sakura's fist imprinted itself in the puppet's chest piece, and the puppet shattered, its head, arms and legs flying apart as it hurtled back where it had come from, tangling the other puppets surging up towards them in its chakra threads.
"I'll go cut off the puppets' strings at the source!" Sakura shouted. "You two, protect the civilians! And make sure not to touch each other!"
The two Narutos might not have been able to see the chakra threads until they were close enough, but to Sakura's eyes, the bundle of cords spewing from the furnace-like contraption at the centre of the factory was clear as day. Every thread was linked to a puppet; if she could shut the machine down, the whole lot would collapse at once, just like in Star Wars Episode I!
Sword flashing, Sakura sprang from the pipe they were standing on and drove her heel into the next puppet that shot up towards her, using its head as a springboard to reach the next, slashing at every chakra thread she caught sight of as she bounded from puppet to puppet towards the centre of the room.
That is, until the puppet master figured out what she was attempting to do.
"Eh?" Sakura blurted out.
The next puppet she'd meant to use as a foothold suddenly veered aside, and the rest scattered to give her a wide berth… and before she knew it, she was treading on empty air. Gravity reclaimed her, and she fell, landing lightly on the factory floor as a veritable tidal wave of puppets crashed down upon her.
"Sakura-chan!" the two Narutos cried out in unison, upon seeing her buried under a mass of puppets. "Hang on, we're coming!"
Summoning a few Shadow Clones to help, Darkest Timeline Naruto and Sacred Timeline Naruto started fighting their way towards Sakura, using their special kunai to slice the chakra threads of all the puppets that got in their way.
"Eight Trigrams Palms: Revolving Heaven!"
The mountain of puppets burst apart, sending bits of armour, screws, springs, and bolts raining across the factory floor, while Anrokuzan's slaves shrieked and ducked beneath the conveyor belts they were chained to for cover.
"Isn't that Neji's move?" said Naruto in astonishment, watching as Sakura doubled over, dry-heaving, the instant she stopped spinning. "You know?"
Shaking off the dizziness, Sakura sprang onto the side of the furnace and raised her sword to her lips, breathing pale green, wind-natured chakra along the blade before swinging at the knot of chakra cords spilling from one of the machine's ports, slicing through it cleanly at the base.
All at once, the puppets froze, then toppled over in a cacophony of clangs.
"Awright!" Naruto shouted. "Fist bump!"
"Let's goooo!" the other Naruto cheered. "Bring it here, me!"
"Get away from each other, you idiots!" Sakura shrieked, jumping down to separate them. "You'll fuse together!"
The two Narutos moved to bump fists, but just as their knuckles were about to meet, one vanished in a puff of smoke. The remaining Naruto burst out laughing, while Sakura could only stare at him, utterly bewildered.
"You should see the look on your face, ya know!" Naruto guffawed. "Priceless! Ha!"
The other Naruto dismissed his own Shadow Clones, before landing beside them.
"That was just a Shadow Clone!" he choked out, wiping a mirthful tear from his cheek. "We're not that stupid, ya know! You don't have to keep nagging at us!"
Sakura glowered at them, and Naruto Prime, who had initiated the prank, cringed back in fright.
Those two identically idiotic numbskulls had nearly given her a heart attack. Honestly, what did she ever see in those immature fools? She breathed out a long, tremulous sigh of relief. They were unharmed, so perhaps there was no real harm done after all. Maybe they'd noticed how distraught she'd been lately, and this was their dim‑witted idea of cheering her up.
"Honestly, Naruto," Sakura pouted, planting her hands on her hips. "There's a time and a place for your stupid pranks, you know?"
Naruto Prime released a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding when it became clear she wasn't going to hit him. Phew! This Sakura‑chan was surprisingly easy‑going; his own Sakura would have knocked him flat without a second thought.
"Sorry about that, Sakura-chan," Dark Naruto said sheepishly. "We were just trying to…"
And that's precisely when everything went wrong.
The chakra cords Sakura had severed suddenly snaked back to their respective puppets, reattaching in an instant. Sakura reacted immediately… but all three of them were now standing right at the epicentre of the puppet explosion she'd created earlier with her palm rotation; they were in the heart of a volcano built from splintered puppet parts.
There was no time to think.
Sakura gave the two Narutos an almighty shove just as the puppet fragments came hurtling towards them, flinging the pair clear of the danger even as the pieces closed in around her, sealing her within as they knit themselves back together into a colossal puppet.
"Well, well, well…" came a voice from above. "If it isn't the rats who've been scurrying about my grand city of late…"