Illusory
Chapter1: Illusory
D.A. Nico
"You're cheating! Sakura he's cheating!"
"I'm not cheating dobe, you're just a moron."
An audible almost animalistic whine emitted from between Naruto's lips, Sakura could see his arms flailing helpless in her peripheral vision, she could feel his eyes boring into her forehead expectantly. Deciding to patiently finish the paragraph she'd reread three times now she soaked in the small amount of research before thumbing the corner of the page and finally glancing at her two teammates.
Naruto sat hunched over pouting in her direction, hoping in some sort of way that she could referee his way out of this obvious loss. His lip jutted a little bit further, a defeated sag in his shoulders and brow crinkling towards his nose was an almost comical sight at Sakura glanced between them again. Classic yin to his yang there sat Sasuke, sitting upright and proud just like his formal family upbringing had trained into him, double checking the Shoji board to confirm his win. After a millisecond he turned to stare smugly at Naruto and patiently started to replace the pieces to restart another game.
"I'm sorry Naruto but I really wasn't paying attention. However... I am hoping that the Great and Noble Uchiha Sasuke would never cheat on a board game." She drawled.
"Never," Sasuke returned simply.
Sakura raised a suspicious eyebrow and then returned to reading the extremely advanced medical textbook that lay daunting in her lap.
"I'm not playing again, I can't think when I'm hungry." Naruto barked out as he shoved the corner of the Shoji board to rattle the pieces around. As if on a trained cue his stomach rumbled out an ungodly loud gurgling noise.
"Seriously," Sakura sighed before admitting defeat and shutting the book. She knew all to well that once Naruto became hungry, bored or any other general thought that isn't sleep no one got any peace until he was appeased. "You ate like an hour ago when we first got here."
"Yeah... an hour ago and it was a small bowl!" He exclaimed in return.
Rolling her eyes she glanced towards the hotel's clock, "I suppose we could get some food, it's basically dinner time."
Naruto leapt to his feet victoriously, "I saw a food stand when we came into the city, let's got there."
Sakura stood as well, "Leave Kakashi-sensei a note then so he knows where to find us once he drops off the ambassador."
In a flurry of movement all three of them set towards the goal of getting ready. Going to the bathroom, writing the note, changing into cleaner clothing, finding shoes that had been discarded and putting all the Shoji pieces back in the box.
Sakura packed her book back into her pack carefully. They'd been traveling slowly for nearly a week now to return a very shy ambassador back to her home in a small city just north of the much larger Iwagakure. She'd been the picture perfect mission; hard working, easygoing and for the most part politely quiet. The journey itself had gone as smooth as possible, no rogue bandits to put a thorn in her side, no spiteful shinobi from neighboring countries, not even a feral animal to scare off. Though she wasn't complaining about the lack of danger Sakura would openly admit that even she had grown a little bored on this escort mission. Thankfully they were spending the night here and then were headed out, at a much quicker pace, to return home.
"Let's go already!" The King of impatience rang out already halfway out the door to their shared room.
Sakura slid her shoes on quickly before following after, giving Sasuke a quick and appreciative nod as he waited for her to pass through the door before sliding it shut and locking it behind all three of them.
The walk to the food stand was only a couple blocks. The city folk were welcoming and openly appreciative. When they'd first arrived it had been obvious that they adored and cherished their ambassador which wasn't surprising since she was likely the open link between her cities thriving existence and the politics of the rest of the country.
"Do you think they'll have Ramen here?" Naruto questioned, leading the way.
"I'm sure if it isn't specifically Ramen they'll have a noodle dish of some kind." Sakura answered back simply her eyes trailing through the city street watching the people go about their business. A sudden warmth in her hand made a smile tug at the corner of her lips, she didn't need to look down to know that Sasuke had unnoticeably and smoothly slid his hand into hers as he closed the distance between them.
As they arrived a familiar silver head popped up from across the large square bar. His hand rose in a single wave as a smile crinkled at the corner of his one visible eye, "Yo!"
Naruto sputtered out a noise, "Not even an invite Kaka-sensei?!" he cried out feigning a heartbroken demeanor.
"I thought you would have all eaten when we first got here while I was tying up all the loose ends."
They all took a seat next to him at the bar, put their food order in and settled into enjoying the evening amongst family.
"Okay you two, straight to bed so hopefully you can at least get a couple hours before we're on the rode..." Sakura drawled and hitched Naruto's arm a little higher around her shoulder, supporting what she was positive was his full weight. She knew behind her that Sasuke was mirroring her exact predicament with Kakashi's almost catatonic form.
"S'ok Saku... I'm fine!" Naruto rumbled, his nose pressing against the bottom of her ear as she shuffled him over to his pallet on the floor. A hand shot out grabbing the collar of Naruto's shirt and accelerated him to lie down.
"Sas...kay... I wasn't doin' thing!" Naruto groaned already half asleep and instinctively stripping his shirt off for comfort.
"Hn, nose to yourself." Sasuke seemed to reiterate even though they were both aware Naruto would never remember the threat in the morning.
Sakura smiled affectionately at the blonde haired boy splayed across the ground, a snore emitting from his open mouth. She turned to throw a blanket over their less then graceful sensei before turning the light to the room off. Somehow in the midst of deciding sleeping arrangements she and Kakashi had lucked out with the two beds in the hotel room while the boys got homemade pallets on the ground.
Twenty minutes after falling into her own temporary bed she heard the floor creek. Predictably the mattress behind her sank indicating Sasuke had decided to abandon his own pallet to share the comfier bed with her. The added warmth of the second blanket he'd drug with him was comforting as well. Settling down a little further into her pillow she sighed out loud and drifted off to sleep, her last conscious thought was of Sasuke's arm wrapping around her waist and dragging her back tightly against his chest, his breath hot against the back of her neck.
Sakura wasn't sure she could ever have imagined a more beautiful day to travel on. They'd made absolutely amazing time. The sky was blue, with a dappling of enough clouds to blot out the sun when the temperature of Sakura's skin was getting a little to hot and the occasional light breeze drifted through to top off the idealistic climate. They'd set out early that morning to the chorus of hungover complaints from the obvious two on the team of four. Sakura still smirked listening to their listless cries for medical help.
"Sakura-chan..." Naruto huffed out for the fifth time, "Please, can't you just make this go away?"
"I could, but then how would you learn your lesson about drinking on the job?" She asked back.
"We were done with the job, celebrating our success." Kakashi inputed.
"The mission isn't over until the Hokage gets that scroll of completion. Shame on you Kakashi, I would have expected better." Sakura chastised with an obvious playful tilt to her hypothetical finger wagging.
Before anyone could reply a shockingly familiar sound of metal zipping by her ear registered in her head. The adrenaline that automatically spiked through her system made her hyper sensitive to the sting of the cut on her arm. Sasuke immediately flipped around to place his back against hers and even hungover Kakashi and Naruto were moving quickly to take up a defensive position.
"Are you alright Sakura-chan?" Naruto called over.
She nodded an affirmative, "Yeah, just a small nick." She muttered and let her eyes travel down to her arm to make sure there wasn't anything too damaged. She wasn't prepared to see the very deep gash across her bicep, but what unsettled her even more was that the wound itself was completely dry, no blood was seeping from between the split skin.
Reacting immediately she grabbed at it with her other hand and let out a shocked sound. The cut was deep, through the muscle tissue and probably only a short distance from the actual bone. Scientifically there was no logical answer for why she shouldn't be covered in red by now.
"Sakura what's wrong, are you sure you're alright?" Naruto asked running over to her, a look of worry in his cerulean eyes.
Sakura held up her left hand as if to show him the lack of blood but he didn't seem to catch on, he just gave her a confused look. She opened her mouth to say something to him but not a sound came out, like her vocal cords had never been trained to make noise, her body rejecting something that usually came so natural. She retracted her hand and rubbed at the base of her neck, panic quickly setting in. She double checked her wound before turning to Sasuke, she watched his lips move but absolutely no sound came out. Eyebrows drawing together she spun back around to face Naruto again, his voice was coming back to her as a muffled noise, as if she were trying to listen to him from underwater.
Placing both of her hands against either side of her head she shook it as the world around her started to change from color to black and white and the edges of every object and person around her started to blur out. She didn't feel dizzy and the three boys on her team were starting to go about their business as if they didn't even notice her freaking out. Falling to her knees in an act of confusion she desperately tried to open her mouth and make any sort of noise possible but only silence was her answer. Clenching her eyes closed as tight as she could she leaned forward almost to the point where her nose was touching the dirt and she took a couple deep breathes before leaning back up and opening her eyes.
"Ah Sakura, so nice of you to finally join me... again."
Sakura jolted as the scene she'd just been apart of was completely gone to be replaced by an all to familiar and heartbreaking one. The incessant and annoying sound of dripping water somewhere behind her was becoming a constant against her nerve endings. The familiar feeling of rough wooden boards against her skin pinched uncomfortably and yet reassured her that for once she was back in reality. She was tilted upright but all four of her appendages were anchored to the makeshift gurney, a similar belt clasped firmly around her waist.
The cave she was letting her eyes adjust to was becoming less and less appealing every time she looked around at it. This particular room was a decently large cavern, but she was almost positive from past observations that it was branched off from another portion. There were temporary chakra lanterns strung up randomly but most of the light centered around one corner of the room where a dirty laboratory setting sat ominously.
"Still having trouble figuring out what's real and what's an illusion?"
The voice came from her left and she turned her eyes, squinting more out of irritation then lack of sight at the grey haired man smiling back at her. His glasses were cracked from the last time he'd gotten to close to her and she'd managed to viciously head butt him, it did however look like he'd healed his black eye and broken nose.
"Screw you Kabuto," she snarled back.
"Oh Sakura, the attitude is starting to get old!" Kabuto huffed out and walked in front of her, "If you just agreed to help I wouldn't have to put you through all of this." He gestured to her current immovable situation. "It's been weeks, you really are stubborn!"
Glaring right at him she strained forward quickly against her restraints and to her satisfaction Kabuto flinched backward. To rub his sissiness in a little deeper she smirked mockingly at him, "You already know the answer. There's no way in Hell I'm helping you with anything." She would never openly admit that Kabuto's supposed form of torture was a bit different but it was thoroughly mentally exhausting. Between bouncing from actual memories, to man-made Kabuto illusions and then back to this terrible reality she was starting to lose control of what was actually real and what wasn't.
"Such a bummer that you want this to be the hard way, you'd be such an asset if you were more willing..." the dark medic turned on his heel and slowly shuffled off towards the work station. She watched him rummage around before extracting a large syringe from the pile of tools, "I could make you so powerful... with the right servitude of course."
Sakura rolled her eyes thinking that she could probably mouth off every single word that the man was saying since it was becoming a repetitive spiel. Her eyes traveled down towards the shackle holding her right wrist down and she tugged at it. Whatever Kabuto had been injecting her with during her delirious moments was draining her chakra.
"Anyways, eventually I'm sure you won't know the difference between helping Sasuke-kun in a dream and helping me in reality so it won't be a problem." He purred out finally.
Sakura looked towards him confusedly and she watched him fill the syringe with the very familiar looking liquid. She was sure the concoction had more of a gelatinous texture to it by the gauge of the needle he had been using. Her only saving grace was that the glass container that housed the mixture was now only half full.
Moving towards her with a sinister grin across his features she could feel nausea wrack her stomach and her body involuntarily shirking away from him and the large needle. The color of the liquid seemed to be a glowing beacon in the darkness, and she definitely wasn't exaggerating when she thought of it as glowing. It was a bright, but deep pink that seemed to be emitting a toxic radiance that had lime green edges to it. She knew mentally it seemed like a strange color but at this point she wouldn't put anything past this twisted man. She just couldn't muddle through her brain for any known poison, serum or drug that could possibly make that color.
Reaching forward with his free hand he let his thumb trail her jawline, "Let's take a bet on whether or not this is a dream or illusion shall we?"
Sakura yanked her head away from his touch, her skin immediately crawling at the idea that he even laid one finger on her. Instead of answering him she bit her lip and turned her gaze away. The only answer she received in return was a small laugh and the bite against her skin that told her he'd inserted the needle into the side of neck. It was by sheer stubbornness that she'd managed not to flinch or make one single noise at the injection.
His back was the last thing she saw of him before he disappeared between an archway in the far corner. She knew she had exactly five minutes before her consciousness literally switched over to whatever was about to come and she also knew there was absolutely no way she could prepare or forewarn herself about the coming process. Shifting uneasily she had nothing to do but sit helplessly while the white hot burning sensation of the drug started to kick in and travel along her circulatory system and chakra lines.