Sakura woke to cluttering and hissed curses.
"Well done, Dickless."
"Shut up, Sai," Naruto snarled. She opened her eyes and saw him crouched, picking kunai off the floor.
"Hey Sakura, hope I didn't wake you." He smiled sheepishly, kicking the bag of kunai behind him.
"If she can sleep through your snoring, she can sleep through anything." Sai goaded.
"I DON'T SNORE." Naruto thundered.
"You do. It's like sleeping with a chimney."
"Go to Hell."
"It's probably quieter there."
"You didn't," Sakura interrupted, "Wake me up, I mean." She stood up and fished her toothbrush from her bag. "Where are Kakashi-sensei and Captain Yamato?" She squirted water from her bottle, before squeezing out the toothpaste.
"They already left, since they have the most ground to cover. In fact, we were about to leave now," Sai replied.
Sakura realised that Naruto already had his cloak on.
"Yeah, I was supposed to leave before Sai, but he said he'd carry me part of the way me on one of his ink birds, if I waited," He beamed. (It's a wonder he didn't get whiplash from how quickly his emotions changed.)
She nodded and went to wash up at the lake. It was still raining, but the sun peeking through the clouds made it less miserable than it had felt the night before. Her hair had dried awkwardly as she slept, but it wouldn't matter. The rain had already molded it to her head. Tying it back, Sakura spat out the toothpaste. It had been almost half a day since she'd eaten anything, yet there was a persistent nausea she couldn't shake.
"See you later, Sakura!" Naruto bellowed. He was already getting ready to swing one foot over a massive, ink bird.
"Wait!" Her voice was was warbled by the drumming of the rain. "Wait, Naruto!!" She ran at him.
"Sakura, wha--?" She squashed him in a hug. Naruto hugged her back, like a reflex, and he didn't question it, either (girls were too confusing to try and figure out, anyway). It was over almost as soon as it had begun.
"Just be careful," She began, "I have a feeling." She squeezed his shoulders reassuringly.
He stared at her suspiciously. "If this is you declaring your love for me - I'm sorry to say that I'm a taken man. And that ship sailed age--"
"For God's sake, Naruto!" She punched his arm and he recoiled. "Don't be reckless, okay?" She glared at him, as if willing him to listen - just this once. If anything happened to Naruto, she wouldn't be able to cope. The world would end.
"Fine." He rubbed his arm. "Jeez, Sakura. Learn to take a joke."
"You too, Sai." He looked up from his canvas. The inky lines were smeared all over it by the rain, but he didn't seem to notice.
"You say something?" he smiled.
┗━•❃°•°❀°•°❃•━┛
She watched the two, white birds fly away. Despite the reassurances, she felt they were still unprepared. Kakashi and Yamato were long gone - who knows what sort of things they've encountered already?
The journey was condescendingly short. Not even an hour later, and she was standing knee-deep in dense foliage, in front of a mossy stone. Since there was no one in there, she didn't think there was a point to wait till nightfall. She touched its surface. Judging by the plant growth, it had been left undisturbed for decades, at the least. However, she had noticed snapped twigs and unnatural growth patterns of the leaves - as if someone had hacked away at them as they approached. It could still be a coincidence. She was just looking for signs that weren't there. However, Sakura wasn't stupid enough to think being scared was a liability. It meant she was smart. She just hoped Naruto was being smart, too.
The stone was so unremarkable, that were she anyone else, she would doubt the accuracy of her coordinates. She fiddled with her necklace, like she always did when she was thinking. She could do this the hard way, or the easy way. Standing back, she slipped on her leather gloves.
The easy way, it is.
Concentrating chakra in her right fist, she tried to calibrate it the best she could. She only wanted to shatter the stone. It wouldn't do her any good if she collapsed the whole hideout, too. With a yell, she smashed her fist to the rock. Debris exploded in a million different directions as Sakura shielded her face. After the smoke and dust dissipated, she saw there was a wooden, trap door in the ground.
So definitely the right place, then.
Without hesitation, Sakura crouched and went for the steel knocker. As her gloved fingers touched it, an electricity simmered through her body. She froze. It dispersed, but she still felt it there, like a shadow. Dread from the night before, pooled in her gut - but it was stronger now. It was like every part of her was screaming to get out and run the other way. Except she couldn't move. Her mind clung to flashbacks at the Forest of Death, when Orochimaru paralysed her with his 'killing intent'. To this day, she had yet to encounter chakra as blood-curdling as his.
How did Sasuke stomach three years with the guy?
She swallowed the fear, because fear was anticipation. Fear, meant something was going to happen. The cursed may be mad with bloodlust, and closer to animals than humans, but that meant they were acting on instinct - and their instincts were telling them to leave this place alone, for a reason. Sakura yanked the door open in the face of every protesting feeling. There was no creak or groan of disuse. It was still possible that what she had opened, was simply a well-constructed, well-oiled, abandoned trap door. Though, more likely, someone had indeed stepped on the twigs, slashed through the leaves, moved the boulder, and gone through the hole. She stared at the abyss.
"'And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you'," she recited, under her breath.
Least dangerous assignment my foot.
The pit in the ground was pitch black, and she couldn't see the bottom. Perfect place for a trap, and definitely a place she should avoid. She stood and went to a tree. Snapping off a thick , 'club-like', branch she wrapped the tip in dry fabric, she had saved in her pack. If she had to face an enemy, she might as well see it coming.
Sakura didn't give herself a chance to hesitate, and fell through the hole in one bound. It wasn't deep enough where she thought she might have injured herself, but it knocked the breath from her. With a few hand-signs, and an exhale, she illuminated her branch with a small flame. Her fire-style wasn't very proficient, but she didn't need much.
She flailed the torch around her, but the light didn't reach far enough to see any walls, and she wasn't particularly inclined to explore. She picked a direction, and walked until she reached a wall. Sakura gasped. There was artwork on the walls - a lot of artwork. Every surface was covered in shades of browns, yellows, and reds. The walls themselves were sandstone, no doubt a lot older than trapdoor. Wherever she was, was here long time before Orochimaru got his slimy snakes on it.
The depictions were all different, but the same. They were all of people: people eating; people fishing; people dancing. Sakura smiled. These people used to be happy, she was sure of it. She dragged her fingers across the bare rock, and imagined the ancient hands moving along with her. She looked closer, and frowned. In every group of people painted in a dark red, there was someone drawn in yellow. It didn't seem like a king or a leader - there was no crown or symbol for the acknowledgement of power. Sakura followed the yellow man from depiction to depiction. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was a story behind him.
Sakura hadn't even noticed she had broken into a run. She had to find him. Where had he come from? Where did he go? She gasped as she reached the entrance of a long hallway. Her knees threatened to give out, as her hands shot to her face to suppress a sob. Despair, unlike she ever felt before, drowned her. The depiction above the entrance, was the biggest one she had encountered. An effort to use every colour had been made, even in the places where it looked more unnatural, than anything. Even pigments that were had to find organically, like blues and purples, were used in excess.
It was a drawing of a ritual - a sacrificial ritual. The yellow man was skewered in the middle of a large circle of dark-red men. Crimson paint spilled out of him, and the men around him danced. She didn't know how she knew this, but Sakura couldn't help but feel that the yellow man absolutely didn't deserve it. Her eyes widened at the realisation.
She was in a fucking crypt.
Sakura began to sweat. What kind of 'sick-in-the-head' monster builds a hideout in a crypt?
Orochimaru, obviously.
She compartmentalised. It wouldn't do her any good to freak out about a stupid drawing. That's all it was - just a drawing. It reassured her, that the corridor looked different; like it was built more recently. The rock was darker, and harder, and completely absent of any artistic license.
She sighed. There was no way to tell how long the corridor went for, and how long she'd be there. Still, she felt something pulling her to keep going - a thread. So, she kept running. As her footfalls echoed down the walls, she became conscious of the slanted floor, luring her further underground. She had no reason to believe she was heading for something dangerous. She had no reason she was heading for anything at all. Yet, Sakura still felt she was about to find something utterly monumental.
After a while, she finally approached a door. Her torch was was sputtering out, but it didn't matter. There was bright, artificial light shining through the gap above the floor. Grey and heavy metal, the door was predictably uninviting - like it wanted to keep people out.
Or keep them in.
She would have looked through the small, plastic window, except that it was opaque with built-up dirt and grim. Swallowing her disgust, Sakura braced herself for the shock that would come. But, when her fingers grazed the handle, she felt an agonizing, nothing. The feeling of nausea from that morning returned, and she had to concentrate for a moment, not to release the contents of her stomach.
It became even harder when she opened the door, and the stench wafted onto her face. She was in the doorway of a suspiciously, clean laboratory. The walls were such a sickening white, that she couldn't stomach to look at them for long, and the awful smell of antiseptic mixed with something morbid, left her pinching her nose. The guise of cleanliness became even clearer, when she noticed dark brown patches in between the floor tiles, that weren't quite washed off. She swallowed, and stepped in further. The operating tables, were bare, but each one had shackles at the hands and feet. Ghosts of tortured people haunted this place, and Sakura could almost hear the phantom screams.
Kabuto.
She was angry again. They were sycophants - the lot of them! For the first time, she regretted that Orochimaru was already dead, because it meant she couldn't be the one to kill him. For the first time, she glimpsed an understanding of Sasuke's drive for revenge. She was a walking contradiction. She'd sworn a Hippocratic Oath, for God's sake - 'Thou shall do no harm'.
She didn't care. All those men, women, children. Orochimaru deserved to rot. Kabuto, along with him. All of a sudden, it became easier to understand how Sasuke managed to change so much in so little time. She didn't think she could live with Orochimaru, and stay the same person.
She released her nose, as it became easier to stomach the smell. Sakura didn't want to spend anymore time here than she had to. She would have left then, if she hadn't realised what the morbid smell, the antiseptic was trying to hide. She had spent enough time with to last for a lifetime. Horror struck her in the stomach.
Blood.
A lot of blood.
Somewhere, in the den of vipers, there was fresh blood.
She wasted no time. Cringing through the smell, she followed it to where it was the strongest - past the shackles and the brown stains and the humming lights. It led her to the back of the lab, to a stairwell. The smell was so strong and repulsive there, she started to cough. She wasted no time waiting for it to pass, though. She could already see the granite floor of the next room, at the bottom of the stairs, and whoever was bleeding wouldn't have a lot of time. They could be dead already.
There were no lights as she descended, this time. All she had to work with, were the remnants from above, that diminished with every step. Her muscles began to tremble when she began feeling the slick, wet texture of the steps. She would have fallen over, if she wasn't holding the railing, when she realised that the granite floor, wasn't granite floor at all - but a puddle of seeping, crimson, blood.
She followed it to its source, and doubled over, her boots leaving footprints in the pool.
Sakura Haruno had never been more terrified in her life, than when she saw Sasuke Uchiha lying motionless, on the floor of Orochimaru's laboratory.
She stopped herself hyperventilating through willpower, alone.
Reflexively, she dived for him. She couldn't control the tears, or her shaking fingers as she checked his pulse. There wasn't a pulse. Wait, maybe there was? Was it a pulse, or just the blood rushing through her head? Why was he so cold? It was hard to find skin that wasn't smeared, in what was undeniably, his own blood. Her healer instinct instantly zeroed in on the enormous hole in his abdomen where, she ascertained, most of the liquid was oozing from. There was crude splotching of blue, black, and purple, blooming across his ribs - no doubt a punctured lung. He could drown in his own blood.
He could drown!
Sakura ordered her fingers to still, and the rushing blood to silence. She splayed a hand on his chest, and laid her ear on top of it, commanding his heart to pump.
Please! Please, I'll do anything. Just make him not be dead. Anything but that.
She almost cried again, when she felt it. Perhaps the slowest, lightest heartbeat she had ever heard - but it was still there. Sakura got to work, immediately. It was easier to disassociate when she knew he was alive. Heal the lung first, then repair the rib that punctured it. Then, alternate between closing the abdomen and draining the lung. She began to sweat as she realised his heartbeat wasn't getting faster, and his skin, beneath all the blood, was an ugly, sickly colour. He lost too much blood - at least half of his total percentage. At this rate, he was going to die before she finished. He should already be dead.
Unless...
She ripped of her chain, and looped off the pendant. It was little, gold rhombus, that she placed on Sasuke's chest. She performed three hand-signs, and concentrated. She wasn't sure it would work on another person - it was designed for only her - but she hoped against hope, that it would. She pushed her chakra at the pendant, screeching with the effort. Pain blasted out her temples, unlike she had ever felt before. Her forehead fell on top of his chest, but she kept going - kept pushing through the splintering assault in her mind. When she saw snaking black lines emerging from the rhombus, she knew it was working.
Sakura had created a working, portable, Byakugou seal. She could only use it once, but she only needed it to work once. She thought she could use it on Naruto, if he ever tapped in to the Nine-Tails chakra too far, and be of use, before she could manifest her own seal. She had never been more thankful for her past-self, than she was now.
As she persisted, the pain became more bearable. No longer an agonizing torture, but a resounding pounding. The lines wrapped around his abdomen, arms, and legs. She cringed at the crisp cracks of bones re-inserting themselves. There would be injuries she would have to manually fix herself, but at least like this, he wouldn't be on the verge of death. She hadn't realised how much that notion relieved her, until she saw tears streaking down his chest.
She sat up, and the lines retracted. The pendant wasn't shiny anymore, and when Sakura collected it, it felt lighter than before. She took Sasuke's bloody hand, and held the palm to her cheek. It was warmer, and the colour was returning. She then felt the pulse on his wrist, and cried with relief, when she registered the steady beat. If she got him out of here, he would be okay.
Sasuke would be okay.
She let herself bask in that thought. She had stopped him from dying, when, by all signs, he should have been dead already. What an idiot, she had been, ogling at the pretty, creepy pictures. She had been so close to leaving, so many times; it was a miracle she kept going. If she hadn't - her biggest, most haunting fear would have come true.
Then it posed the question, what was he doing down there? Who had beat him within an inch of his life? Is this where he had been, the last three weeks? Is that why sightings stopped? He didn't have a shirt on, and she couldn't see one anywhere, which seemed purposeful. It had to be torture, then.
Sakura ripped off a chunk of her skirt and began wiping the blood of his face. It had dried up in his skin, and the crevices in his skin. She wiped it off his mouth, ears, and forehead. Her stomach dropped when she started for his eyelashes. Sakura realised, why there was so much blood on his face, despite bleeding from his abdomen. It was a haunting realisation, but it was undeniable.
Sasuke's eyes were gone.
Someone had transplanted them, probably while he was passed out. The work was crude, and un-precise - nothing like she would have done - but it was a procedure, nonetheless. Whoever had done this, had intended to maintain the eyes.
Sakura's first thought, was of Sasuke's reaction. He would surely be devastated. He had always been proud (too proud for his own good). This would be a breaking point for him. She didn't want to think what his eyes would be capable of, in the wrong hands. If someone was cruel enough to do this to him, she dreaded to think what they might do with a Sharingan.
She stood, deciding it would be unsafe to delay there for long. She didn't doubt she could fight of most attackers, but if they had managed to incapacitate Sasuke, Sakura didn't think she'd stand a chance. There was also the question of her mental stability - not even five minutes ago, she was sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. It might affect her fighting.
She wrapped one of his arms around her shoulders, and heaved him up. It was more awkward, than difficult - Sakura could easily lift his weight but she couldn't do anything about his limbs being longer than hers. His head sunk forwards and his hair jutted out at odd angles. She couldn't do anything about his bare feet dragging each step, as she carried them up the stairs and the rest of the way, out of the lab.
The discarded branch was useless. It was pouring so heavily outside, that there was no way it had dried by then, and the fabric she had no more dry fabric left. She braved the darkness. She knew there was nothing there, anyway. However, she underestimated how uncertain, complete darkness, made the journey back. The further she got from the waning lights of the laboratory, the more unsure each step became. She only needed to walk straight, yet it felt like walking aimlessly. She felt the side of the wall, with one hand, letting it guide her out. Eventually, she knew she was in the crypt again, when she felt the wall run out.
She looked in the direction, that she thought was 'up', for the shaft of sunlight let in by the open, trap-door. She couldn't see it. Sakura looked in the other directions. Maybe she had actually gone crazy, and forgot which way was up anymore? Her heart skipped a beat. If there wasn't sunlight, it meant someone had purposefully closed the trap-door, after her. Someone had buried her, in this godforsaken crypt, with no way out. But there was no way she had been followed - Sakura had been careful.
Unless, the stone she destroyed had some sort of security jutsu, and alerted the caster? But then, how did they get here so quickly? And why didn't they pursue her? - she was obviously alone and unaware.
She felt Sasuke shift his head on her shoulder.
He was waking up.
The Byakugou healing must have sped up the recovery time, otherwise it would have been impossible. Sakura's idea grew, like a seed, until it formed into a plan.
God, it would be a long shot.
She searched frantically, for a soldier pill. She thought she had at least three with her. She found two, in her left pocket, and the third in her pouch. She shoved all three into Sasuke's mouth. He spluttered, and would have spat them out, had she not clamped his jaw shut. (She guessed she should be thankful he hadn't bit her.) Her fire release was nowhere near strong enough for what they needed. But Sasuke's was an entirely different matter.
"Sasuke. Sasuke, I need you to swallow them." Sakura pleaded with him. She wasn't sure if he could hear her, but she kept trying.
"Sasuke, they're just soldier pills. It's to replenish your chakra." It was deranged to ask someone so hurt, to perform a jutsu, but there was no other choice. Besides, she figured Sasuke owed her.
She saw him swallow, albeit very slowly.
"Okay, that's good. So good." She couldn't hide the relief in her voice, except the real test, would be what came next. She was almost sure he couldn't manage it. He was barely conscious - yet she had to try.
"I need you to do the hand-signs for Katon. You can use one of my hands, but it has to be your jutsu. "
He didn't move. She would have screamed with frustration, if it wasn't already completely unreasonable to be asking him anything more than to breath. She took the hand not around her shoulder, in her own, and made the first hand-sign.
"Sasuke, come on. I need you to do it, too. Snake. It's snake first." she urged.
His fingers twitched.
"Yes! Keep going." she yelped, as he made one half of the snake sign. "Good. Good, now ram."
She led him through each of the signs, fingers intertwined in each half. She knew combined hand-signs weren't practical. It hardly ever occurred in combat, because the manipulation of energy required immense chakra control, so it was almost impossible to utilise. But, she could utilise it now. If she were a believer, she would have thought it was the product of Divine intervention, that hers was precise enough for both of them. Sakura didn't believe in a God - she believed in people. Now, she had to believe in Sasuke.
"Okay, now before we make the last one, you need to be ready. It doesn't have to be big, but make it as big as you can."
She thought she felt him nod. It struck her how completely mad the idea was. For God's sake, she was the only thing keeping him upright - he couldn't even keep his head up.
Let's hope he looks worse than he feels.
Sakura braced herself. "Now!" she yelled. They formed the tiger sign, as she waited for something to happen. It didn't - at first. But after a few seconds, she heard the familiar inhale. It was shallower than she'd like, and there was a faint rattling from his lungs, but he was trying.
She expected a decently-sized fireball, but bright enough to light up a section of the room. That would have been more than he should have been capable of - but Sakura learned not to underestimate Uchiha.
Obviously, she hadn't fully grasped that, yet.
Sasuke, who had lost over half his blood supply, had been unconscious not five minutes ago, and was leaning on his teammate for support, exhaled a fireball bigger than anything Sakura had seen him produce during their genin years. She had to shield her face from the heat, as the fire engulfed and illuminated the room. She saw the all the drawings at once, flickered to life by the flames. It burned longer than any flame she could ever hope to produce, hotter, and brighter.
Eventually, it dispersed and the crypt was no longer alive. Sasuke slumped his head on her shoulder - no doubt, passed out again. It didn't matter. The fireball had served its purpose. She knew where the trap door was now, and how to get to it.
Positioning herself directly beneath it, she performed Earth style, and stone pillar surged out of the ground, lifting them up.
Seeing sunlight after being trapped underground so long, was like finding water in a desert. The rain was still pouring, but less intensely than before, and without the rumbling of thunder. Soon, it would stop.
┗━•❃°•°❀°•°❃•━┛
Sakura laid him down by the bank. In the light of the sun, he looked a lot worse than he did underground. She couldn't imagine how awful he must have seemed when she first found him. Probably it was for the best - she wasn't sure she could've kept it together, had he looked any worse. Still, the rain had washed a lot of the blood away, alleviating the ghoulish cadaver disposition.
She performed a medical scan. The Byakugou pendant had taken are of any immediate danger, but she would have to properly close the abdomen wound, and drain the remaining blood in his lung. She also had to re-break a few bones in his feet, that had healed awkwardly.
Good thing he's passed out.
She wasn't thinking about what she did. Break a bone, then mend it. Stitch, knot, cut. She avoided the damage to his eye sockets, because of the way it made her stomach drop thinking about it.
Eventually, she couldn't leave it for any longer. Placing two fingers on each temple, she funnelled her chakra, feeling the mutilation. It was just as Sakura predicted. The work was rushed and efficient - not at all concerned about scarring and internal damage. It wasn't anything she couldn't fix, but transplanting the eyes back would be difficult.
If he ever does.
It was an awful thought, but how could they possibly hope to get his Sharingan back? Whoever took them, was probably long gone like dust in the wind. No clues and no signs. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
She found herself missing his eyes. They were always her favourite feature of his. They were dark and bottomless, and she always felt a thrill when the red would stare her down. Whenever he tried to hide what he was feeling under a mask of indifference, she could always see the real emotion in his eyes. Sakura felt a misery wash over her.
She finished healing his injuries, down to the last cut. Dipping a cloth in the water, she washed off the remaining blood, that had dried. There was only a little. In the crevice of his arms and in between his fingers - the rain had washed most of it away. Sakura poured cold water from her bottle, into his hair, and scrubbed the blood from his scalp.
Finally, she wrapped the part of his face below his eyebrows, with bandages. It would be less of a shock when he woke up, if there was already something there. She wrapped the parts of him that had been especially traumatised: his abdomen, the shoulder that had been dislocated, and the snapped ankle. She noticed his left shoulder was unnaturally bare.
When had he got rid of the the curse mark? Had it disappeared when Orochimaru died?
Sakura let out a sigh of relief. He was better of without it.
It would be dark soon. She had spent longer than she thought in the crypt, and Sai could be back soon. She wasn't sure what she'd say when he came back. Was Sasuke her patient or her prisoner? Both? Neither?
She dragged his body to their shelter inside the boulder, and laid him on Naruto's mat. Returning to the lake, she filled up a bucket with the clear, rainwater, and glimpsed her reflection. She looked almost as bad as Sasuke. His blood was caked on her neck and arms, and her hair was wet with rain and sweat.
The important thing was, they were alive. Dishevelled, but alive.
Inside, she sat beside him, took one of his hands in both of hers, and scrubbed at the blood and grime caked on his nail-beds and under his fingernails. She was hit with nostalgia. How many times had they been in this exact position? - Sasuke and Naruto unconscious, and Sakura, frantic, keeping watch. There were some differences. Sasuke's fingers were longer, and she actually knew what she was doing. But, essentially, they were the same.
She was, all of a sudden, happy that, despite bruised and battered, Sakura had found Sasuke.
RECONSTRUCTED: 07/05/2024