Team 7 Escaped Certain Death, Hinata's Tenseigan Overwhelmed Gaara, Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion

Dusk over the Forest of Death was stained grayish-purple by smoke. The mingled stench of rotting leaves and battle fumes made Sakura's throat tighten.

Her Hokage forehead protector sat crooked at the back of her head. Half her sleeve had been slashed open by a wound deep enough to expose bone, and blood soaked the fabric, leaving dark red drops along the trail where she dragged her companions.

"Scrape, scrape..." Supporting both her teammates, Sakura gritted her teeth and struggled forward one step at a time.

"Ugh... ah..." Sasuke and Naruto were still unconscious. The bleeding bite marks on their necks had twisted into dark purple tomoe-shaped cursed seals. Chakra slithered around the edges like venomous snakes, making their bodies twitch in pain now and then.

"Sasuke... Naruto... hang on... we're almost there." Sakura clenched her teeth and hauled Naruto's heavy body higher onto her shoulder, her knuckles whitening with the effort.

Her arms had long since gone numb. Every step sent piercing pain through the cuts that branches had left on her soles, but she dared not stop—the lingering chakra of the Sunagakure trio clung to her like a relentless parasite. The grinding of Gaara's sand still seemed to echo in her ears.

"How did this happen?! How did this happen?!"

She remembered what had happened moments earlier: Gaara's Sand Binding Coffin had nearly crushed Naruto's arm, and Sasuke had been forced to awaken his cursed seal to protect him, only to be knocked unconscious by Shukaku's chakra;

Naruto had poured his last ounce of strength into a Rasengan, barely driving back the sand blades before collapsing from chakra exhaustion. In the end, she had carried them both, using the dense trees and vines for cover, and barely escaped the encirclement.

Misfortune never came alone.

First, they had encountered