As much as Sakura longed to renege on the bargain she'd struck with Orochimaru for help in designing the Celestial Lotus Seal, she had given him a heart-to-heart promise within her Breast Meditation inner world. Through the miracle of chakra, their spiritual energies had become momentarily linked on a fundamental level; which meant that, at the time, had she harboured even the faintest intent to break her word, Orochimaru's chakra imprint would have sensed it at once and refused to lift a finger on her behalf.
In exchange for the aid of Orochimaru's chakra imprint, Sakura had agreed to send him a letter from himself to himself warning him of the consequence of overusing her Kekkei Genkai, using Root's network of dead drops scattered across the village, which Danzō sometimes used to issue secret orders to his men.
Which is why, in the middle of her date with Karin, Sakura insisted that they visit a certain rubbish bin in Senju Park, much to Karin's confusion.
"Can you sense anyone watching us?" Sakura asked Karin, furtively looking right and left in search of masked men and women. "Like, say… the ANBU, for example?"
Now that Sakura had obtained Sage Mode, she could finally do her own sensing properly, instead of relying on poor imitations like the Area Scanning Jutsu, but senjutsu chakra didn't grow on trees, now, did it?
Karin closed her eyes. "Mind's Eye of the Kagura!"
Unlike regular sensing ninjutsu, Karin didn't need to mould any chakra to use her sensory gifts, though closing her eyes helped her to visualise distant chakra signatures and set them in their proper place around her. This meant her lie‑detection abilities were effectively always active, which was why Sakura made a deliberate effort never to lie to her.
"Civilians, civilians, one, two, three Genin, one monster…" Karin muttered. "Ah!"
"What is it, Karin?" Sakura asked urgently. "Are we being watched?"
Even though Karin was a living lie detector, that did not mean she was immune to romcom‑style misunderstandings. Though Sakura had named the ANBU, Karin chose to believe that her onee‑sama was actually referring to their stalkers: her distant cousin Naruto, and those three brats who followed him everywhere as if he were the Sage of Six Paths reborn. The four of them were hiding behind a tree nearby, doing a spectacularly poor job of not being seen.
Karin's eyes snapped open. At this rate, those four idiots were going to ruin their date!
"We're being spied on, onee-sama!" she cried out. "They're coming our way!"
The look of fear on Sakura's face told Karin everything she needed to know. To think onee-sama was this emotionally invested in the success of their date, she thought to herself gleefully! When in fact Sakura was terrified of being accused of sedition for trying to mail a letter to the Hidden Leaf's public enemy number one and going back to Hōzuki Castle… a prison that didn't even exist any more, mind you.
"Hold on tight, Karin!" Sakura growled. "We're running!"
To Karin's complete and utter shock, Sakura scooped her up into a princess carry and leapt away, bounding across the park like some sort of gigantic grasshopper. What little snow had fallen in December had already melted away, leaving muddy puddles everywhere in the grass, but Sakura barely left a ripple as she hopped lightly across them.
…
"Ah, kore!" Konohamaru yelled, jumping out from behind his hiding place. "That four-eyed hag is running away with Sakura-nee-chan! Quick, Naruto-nii-chan, we need to catch up!"
"But why?" said Naruto, who had no idea what he was doing here. Konohamaru had dragged him to the park without even explaining why, much to his annoyance. "Weren't they just having a girlfriends-only picnic, ya know?"
Konohamaru had long since accepted that Sakura would never see him as much more than a cute little puppy, so for him, the next best thing was for her to end up with his bro Naruto. As a rather sharp lad, he had noticed Sakura's lesbian tendencies from her unusual appreciation of his Harem no Jutsu, so for him, Karin ranked high on his list of threats to his bro's happy ending!
"Because, kore!" Konohamaru said desperately. "The boss lady, er… she needs your help, yeah, that's right! She's being tricked!"
After locking himself in the Hokage's office, following the Lord Third's funeral three years ago, Konohamaru had accidentally discovered under a loose floorboard his grandfather's super-secret stash of… scriptures. Yeah, that's right, scriptures.
A droplet of blood trickled out of Konohamaru's nose just thinking about them.
After countless hours poring over the depictions of those special, super-secret jutsu formulae, Konohamaru had derived from them the ultimate technique, but that was neither here nor there: what mattered now were the life lessons concealed within.
A good shinobi must always know how to read between the lines, after all!
In any case, Konohamaru had discovered that in one of the many parables depicted in his grandfather's scriptures, kunoichi would become afflicted with an overabundance of yin chakra. This would lead them down a pathway to many abilities some considered unnatural, but luckily, there existed a cure for such disorders: a swift infusion of yang chakra from a great shinobi hero's yang rod, usually to all of the afflicted kunoichi at the same time. The hero's unparalleled technique and the sheer girth of his yang rod would usually set the misguided ladies back on the right path!
Without warning, twin streams of blood violently spurted from Konohamaru's nostrils as he recalled the scriptures' contents in vivid detail through his mind's eye.
"Konohamaru!" shrieked his two teammates. "You're bleeding!"
"Ugh… she got me good, kore," Konohamaru groaned, falling to one knee and wiping his bloody nose with his sleeve. "I underestimate that four-eyed hag's powers… just… leave me behind… you two… Naruto-nii-chan… you have to save… Sakura-nee-chan… kore!"
Konohamaru's face turned pale, and with a strangled cry he toppled onto his back as his teammates rushed over and knelt at his side. Hot tears began slipping down Moegi and Udon's cheeks and dripping onto Konohamaru's face; though in Udon's case, it wasn't tears, but rather snot.
"Ewww, gross!" Konohamaru screamed, sitting up straight in a snap. "That's disgusting, kore!"
Naruto scratched the side of his head in confusion as he watched the puzzling scene playing out in front of him. Was he supposed to laugh or cry? Was this where he was supposed to applaud, or something?
"Konohamaru's gonna be okay," said little Moegi, flashing Naruto a Kakashi-style thumbs up. "You go on ahead of us and save Sakura-nee-chan!"
"O-okay?"