Disclaimer: I own nothing but the story itself.

Warnings: This is a VERY DARK FIC overall, and this chapter includes some rather violent sex. I trust everyone here is responsible enough to know if they can handle that or not. This story takes place right after the latest story arc.

Finding Sakura
Chapter One

By Michiru's Mirror

It wasn't that Sakura was acting particularly different than usual. When Naruto made a joke, she would giggle. When Kakashi scolded her for acting willful, she would hang her head and nod along before doing whatever she wanted to anyway. When Sai would draw a picture she would go out of her way to compliment it and try to coax a few words out of the silent shinobi.

It wasn't that she looked any different either. Her pink hair was still bouncy and perfectly groomed, her training clothes kept immaculate. The smile on her face was as radiant as ever, her skin as smooth as before. To all appearances Sakura was the same sickeningly cheerful girl she'd always been.

Still, though Kakashi did not know what it was, something was wrong. He did not know how he knew, since Sakura was acting exactly as she always did. But whenever he looked at his former student he knew down to his very bones that something was amiss, so much so that it was hurting her on a level deeper than he could see with his eyes. It was just little things. Sometimes he would show her a new maneuver only to find that she hadn't taken in a single word he'd said. Occasionally she'd be doing something as simple as tree climbing and mess it up. Other times he would glance at her when she thought he wasn't looking and notice an expression of such raw sadness in her eyes that the Copy Ninja found himself uncharacteristically wanting to go and give her a hug. Or a puppy. Or a vacation. Anything to get that look off of her face. But then the look would be gone so quickly Kakashi would start to wonder if he'd imagined it

If he weren't an unusually intelligent man, and if he didn't know Sakura as well as he did, Kakashi wouldn't have noticed the signs. But he was, and he did, and he had to do something about it.

He started by asking Naruto and Sai if they knew anything. This was a mistake. Naruto, who had noticed nothing, immediately got worried enough at the mere suggestion that his Sakura-chan was having a problem that Kakashi had to restrain the blond from running to her side to pester her with questions. If Sakura was trying to hide the fact that she had a problem from her teammates, cornering and harassing her was not going to help.

Sai had a less dramatic reaction but was still no help at all: he knew nothing.

Kakashi's next act (along with his new sidekick, Naruto) was to pay his Hokage a visit in her office and ask if she had noticed anything. She allowed Naruto to ramble on a moment while she thought ("Well? Have you noticed anything? Anything at all? 'Cause I really haven't, and I think that's strange 'cause it's me and Sakura-chan and how is it that I wouldn't notice? I notice everything. Once, we were out doing this training in the woods—we being me and Sakura-chan and Sai—and Sai painted this cheetah running towards us and it had this one back claw missing, and guess who noticed it? Me! Well actually Sakura-chan noticed and pointed it out, but then I saw it really quickly.") before leaning forward from behind her desk. Naruto fell silent immediately and pressed his lips together tightly as he bounced on the balls of his feet. This was important.

"Her chakra levels are low," Tsunade said.

Kakashi did not look up from his inspection of the Icha Icha Special Guide he'd found peeking out from underneath a dozen healing jutsu scrolls. His Hokage, a hidden pervert. There was hope for her yet. "She's been working really hard, so that's normal isn't it?"

"No it isn't," said Tsunade flatly. "It's not that her chakra is low at the end of the day after she's been working really hard, it's that it's low when she comes into work. That means she's doing something during the night that's draining her chakra."

Naruto pondered what a person might be doing at night to drain their energy levels and said, "maybe she's training."

"Maybe," said Tsunade, "but I doubt it. She works really hard, but Sakura isn't the type to murder herself with training the way you are."

"Besides," said Kakashi, "why would Sakura try to hide that she's training?"

"Maybe 'cause she's ashamed of being. You know. Weaker." Said Naruto.

"Tactful as always." Tsunade rolled her eyes. "But Sakura is always very vocal about the hard work she's putting into training because she's so ashamed of being…um…not quite as full of energy as you. If she were doing extra exercises to pull herself up she'd probably make absolutely sure we knew about it."

"Well if she's not training, then what the hell is she doing?"

"I have no idea," said Tsunade, "and frankly I don't think it's our business as long as it's not interfering with her work. Her chakra levels have been a bit low, but it's hardly anything dangerous. Maybe she's got a sick friend she's been healing."

"Hokage-sama, I wish I could believe that," said Kakashi hesitantly. He was now tapping the Icha Icha book absentmindedly as he stared out the filthy window at Tsunade's back. "Believe me, I don't make a habit out of butting into my teammates lives."

Naruto thought of Kakashi tying Sasuke to a tree to try and talk the Uchiha out of revenge and rolled his eyes.

"But all my instincts are telling me this is really serious. I've got no proof, but something is wrong with that girl, and it's not just going to get better by itself." Kakashi was looking his Hokage directly in the eyes now, trying to convey that he wasn't joking.

Tsunade looked back for a moment, leaving Naruto to stare from one to the other, wishing he was perceptive enough to understand the communication between them. It was the woman who broke eye contact finally, perhaps because she so disliked what she said next. "I believe you. And…I agree. I've felt it too. Sometimes when she thinks I'm not looking at her, her face just…" Tsunade trailed off. She had no word to describe the look of intense pain she saw on her student's face.

"But the fact remains that Sakura's private life is her private life," the Hokage continued, straightening up and schooling her features into a stern expression. "Until she asks for help, there isn't much we can do, is there?"

Naruto gaped at Tsunade, unable to believe what he was hearing. As far as he was concerned, there was no problem that was unsolvable with some meddling by loved ones. "But, but Sakura-chan is in trouble! We left Sasuke alone and look what happened to him!"

"No," said Tsunade, "you butted into Sasuke's affairs constantly and gave him more advice than he ever wanted and he still chose to go his own way. People make their own decisions, Naruto, and you can't always change their minds!"

Naruto opened his mouth to speak again, but Tsunade raised a hand for silence. "Now I'm not denying the problem. I fully encourage both of you to keep an eye on her, and if Sakura goes to you for help you have my full support in doing whatever you think will help." Tsunade's expression softened. "I trust you to act in her best interests, after all. But until Sakura speaks up we have to respect her privacy. I'm not going to order her to spill her guts, and if I find either of you have done anything to force her to reveal things she doesn't want to I'll decorate my office with your small intestines.

"Got it?" Tsunade's friendly smile did nothing to make the threat less potent.

Recently Konoha had been enjoying some of the most beautiful weather it had seen in years. Despite it being March, the sun was shining brightly and the temperature was warm enough that one could easily go around without a jacket.

Most of the village was taking advantage. If a person were to go to Konoha Central Park, for example, that person's attention would be immediately drawn to Inuzuka Kiba and Hyuuga Hinata, who were on dog sitting duty. The Inuzuka matriarch, Tsume, had been called to a meeting of clan heads only to be told that the head of the Hyuuga household was horribly allergic to dogs. After several arguments that resulted in pulled hair, thrown pens, three tantrums and six spilled drinks the Aburame clan patriarch resolved the dispute by threatening to permanently infest both clan's households with fleas if they didn't come to an agreement.

Thus, Tsume's dog Kuromaru had been left in Kiba's care, and Hinata had been instructed to help. Kuromaru had taken a great liking to Hinata and was acting like a puppy again, chasing the Hyuuga heir around in circles. Kiba was allowing this because he had yet to realize that Hinata was terrified of dogs.

If a person were to go to Konoha Public Library on the other hand, they would find the inside of the building mostly deserted. The lone occupant was Aburame Shino. He found that staying inside had the double advantage of keeping his pale skin out of the sun and keeping himself away from dog duty. Though the bug-wielder had come to love his teammates more than he'd ever thought possible, he still couldn't quite make his bugs love Kiba's dogs.

Naruto almost went to Konoha Central Park and Konoha Public Library because he was considering asking the members of Team Eight if they had noticed anything odd about Sakura lately (they were, after all, the team most specialized in tracking and would notice clues and hints that others could easily miss), but he eventually decided against it. Team Eight were friends Naruto would trust with his life, but they weren't family. If Kakashi wasn't just being paranoid and Sakura did have some kind of really serious problem, it might well be a private matter that she didn't want just anybody finding out about.

So Naruto went to Nakamura's Yakiniku restaurant instead, because Team Ten was there.

Almost two months ago Chouji and Shikamaru's exasperation at Ino's refusal to eat had grown into outright alarm when the blonde fainted during training one day. They had tried cajoling her, ordering her, outright threatening her, and cooking her favorite foods but nothing seemed to break Ino's iron will to turn herself into a living skeleton. After two weeks Shikamaru had figured out Ino's weakness and exploited it: her pride. At least twice a week Chouji and Shikamaru would casually ask Ino to a team luncheon, where they would dare her to try and out-eat one of them. Bristling at the very idea that she couldn't do something they could, Ino would accept. They had been doing this for a month and a half and Ino had yet to catch on that she was being tricked into saving her own life. Shikamaru was constantly grumbling about what a pain in the ass it was to spend so much money in restaurants, but Chouji coyly noticed that it wasn't such a pain in the ass that his friend wasn't willing to do it. He agreed it was hard on his wallet, though, with Asuma-sensei no longer around to pay. As of next week the two were going to try to get her to go to one of their houses instead.

Naruto entered by ducking under the gaudy purple curtain that covered the doorway and easily spotted the trio sitting in a corner of the restaurant. Chouji had grabbed a piece of meat at the same time as Ino, resulting in a tug-of-war that was inadvertently splashing a less than amused Shikamaru with flecks of beef. Chouji stopped to apologize to his friend, only to find the beef pulled from his chopsticks by a triumphant Ino.

"Ha ha ha-ha ha!" She cried, popping the beef in her mouth and choking on it. Naruto stepped up and thumped her on the back until she was able to breathe again.

"Thanks," she wheezed as Shikamaru put a hand to his face in total disgust.

"No problem!" Said Naruto, plopping himself down next to Ino uninvited. Act cool, he thought to himself, just act cool…nothing's wrong here… "So! How are you guys? How's life? How's training? How's the food?"

"Oh, it's—"

"Great, great," Naruto babbled, cutting Chouji off. "That's great. Wonderful. I mean, we're—I mean, I'M great, just great."

"Um," said Shikamaru. "That's great."

"Yeah. Yeah, isn't it? And not just me, nope! No, Kakashi-sensei is great. Hell, he's fabulous. New porno book coming out in less than a month, it doesn't get much better than that for him. And Sai is having all kinds of fun, he's getting along better with all of us every day! And Sakura-chan, well she's always great. I mean, doesn't she seem great? Like always? She does look great to you, doesn't she?"

Here Naruto paused from his monologue to see three shocked faces. "Have you been drinking?" Asked Ino seriously.

Shikamaru, much more perceptive than his teammate, narrowed his eyes and asked, "Is something wrong with Sakura, then?"

At the look of alarm on Ino's face Naruto quickly shook his head. "No! Nope, not a bit, she's—"

"—'Great,' we know," Ino snapped. "What's wrong with my friend?"

Naruto decided to go with a half-truth before she throttled him. "Well, it's nothing serious. It's just that…well, Tsunade-baachan noticed her—Sakura-chan's, not Tsunade-baachan's—chakra levels have been a little low lately. I was just wondering what she was using all that chakra on, like if she was training extra with you guys or something." Whatever the Hokage had said, Naruto was sure that if anyone was going to spend extra energy on anything, it had to involve training.

Shikamaru's narrowed eyes showed he didn't believe a word of it, but Ino and Chouji both relaxed. "Oh, is that all," said Ino. "Well she hasn't been doing anything with us, but why don't you ask Sai?"

Naruto blinked in surprise. "Sai?"

"Yeah," Chouji agreed. "She's been going by his place, like, every night. We see her every time we walk home from dinner."

"Yeah, and whenever I go to meet her after her shifts in the hospital she's been going over there lately too." Said Ino, scowling jealously. "She says she goes over there to help him with an art project."

Naruto left Team Ten squabbling over the check, happy to avoid further questioning from Shikamaru. With any luck, Shikamaru's naturally lazy disposition would keep the genius from following up on his suspicions. After all, taking care of Ino's anorexia was probably enough responsibility.

Naruto took his time walking down the street as he mulled over just how odd the whole situation was. Sai had said just that morning that he hadn't noticed anything wrong with Sakura. Was he lying? Or were he and Sakura doing something together that they didn't want others to know about? No way, no frickin' way—if Sakura was oddly nice to Sai sometimes, it was just because it was in her nature to try and make peace with everyone. Naruto absolutely refused to believe that anything more was going on. He'd prove it, too—he'd go to Sai's apartment that very night and see for himself that there was nothing to see!

Naruto wished he were smarter, smart enough to figure out for himself what was really going on (because it surely wasn't anything that might make him jealous, oh no). He wished Kakashi hadn't been scared off by their Hokage's threats, either—the Copy Ninja would be able to figure this mess out. But Naruto wasn't smart enough, and Kakashi wasn't there, so Naruto figured he'd just have to go and see for himself.

Sai had recently moved into an apartment about halfway between Naruto's own apartment and the Haruno household. Given that Sai was now a member of Team Seven for an as yet undetermined period of time, he and Kakashi had decided that it made sense for him to be easy for his teammates to get a hold of. The place was tiny, but Sai never seemed to mind. As long as he had space to store his art supplies and enough room to lie down at night, he was satisfied.

Naruto at first planned to knock on the front door, but as he got closer to the apartment he began to change his mind. Not that he had any conscious problem with the idea of knocking on the door and just asking Sai what was going on. Instead there was a feeling in his gut, a nervous twisty feeling that made the blond walk more and more slowly the closer to Sai's apartment he got.

Well…it couldn't hurt to just take a peek in the window, Naruto thought. Just to see if anyone's home before I bother with the door…

Naruto leapt from the streets to the rooftops a good block away from Sai's apartment complex, and traversed the distance in a few prodigious hops. When he was on the roof of a boutique across from his teammate's apartment complex, Naruto jumped into a huge tree that looked directly into Sai's window. He had to struggle for a moment with the mass amount of leaves that seemed to have sprouted overnight (stupid unusually warm March weather!). Finally he managed to push them all out of the way enough for him to get a perfect view of Sakura spread naked on Sai's bed.

Naruto almost fell out of the tree.

When he had recovered himself, Naruto rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands, hard. He couldn't have seen that. He didn't just see that.

But he had. Naruto looked again and there Sakura was, lying on her back with her hands held above her head (and just out of Naruto's field of vision). Though she was completely naked, the medic was covered in ink pictures: phoenixes, tigers and dragons were drawn across her pale flesh, making her skin seem alive with movement. Naruto couldn't see her face, as it was turned away from the window, but he could easily manage a look of bliss on the features he adored so much. Sakura was a living work of art. Naruto knew he would have thought so even without the ink drawings.

When Sai walked up to her as naked as she, Naruto began to feel sick to his stomach. This was really happening. Sakura was really letting Sai of all people…letting him…

Naruto straightened on the tree branch and prepared to leap away. He didn't want to watch this, and even if he did it really wasn't his right to do so. Feeling more depressed than he had since Sasuke's betrayal Naruto prepared to jump away, but felt one last masochistic urge to look back.

When he gave in and looked, sadness turned again to shock in the blink of an eye, for Sai was kneeling down onto Sakura with a kunai in his hand. Horrified, Naruto stood frozen while Sai sunk the kunai into the tiger running over Sakura's left breast. Sakura threw her head back and Naruto saw that she was biting her lip, her forehead scrunched up in pain and tears leaking from her eyes.

Sai carved the tiger out with quick, efficient strokes. His face never changed from its calm and masklike appearance, but Naruto saw the other boy's erection growing harder as more of Sakura's blood spilled over her sides. Sai moved from the tiger on Sakura's breast to the phoenix spread majestically across her belly. Sakura's red blood filled in the phoenix image until the beast appeared alive on her skin, the mythical fiery creature about to burst out of the prison of Sakura's flesh and come to life.

Sakura was tossing her head from side to side now and biting her lip so hard it was bleeding too. Naruto felt his knees shake and he almost collapsed from the feelings of disgust coursing through his body. Sai was apparently feeling fairly strong emotions too; he was saying something to Sakura, and then he was turning her onto her belly and shoving her head into the mattress and her rear into the air.

And then, oh God, then he was fucking her, pushing his cock in and out of Sakura so roughly that the girl's head was shoved deeply into the mattress with every thrust. She was screaming, Naruto knew she was by the way her head was twisting wildly even though her face never came up from the mattress. Sai was holding her head down—he was suffocating her!

Naruto gasped and forced himself to straighten up. He had seen a lot of horrors in his life, but nothing he'd ever heard of could compare to this.

Sakura-chan is in trouble, damn it! Go! Go!

He went. Not bothering to wonder about the circumstances or how dangerous it was for him to leap through a pane of glass, Naruto went crashing through Sai's window boots first and made sure the bottoms of his feet hit Sai right in the shoulders.

Sai went flying, and the crunch he made as he collided with the far wall was satisfying enough to make up for all the cuts smarting across Naruto's body. The blonde took a look back at Sakura and was horrified all over again. Blood was smeared all over his dear friend's body, and now that he could see her arms Naruto realized they were tied much too tightly to the headboard. In turning her over, Sai had twisted Sakura's wrists in those ropes, making them weep with blood and pus. Tears fell from the girl's wide eyes, and she was trying in vain to pull her body into as small a ball as possible.

Trembling with rage, Naruto took a single second to slash Sakura's wrists free with the blood-soaked kunai Sai had dropped before leaping across the room. Naruto could feel the kyuubi boiling inside of him, felt his eyes go slitted and red as claws and fangs grew from his body. Let the change come. He was going to tear Sai apart, going to rip his arms off and throw them out the window, going to drink his blood and eat his entrails!

In the time Naruto had taken to untie Sakura Sai had picked up his brush. Naruto found himself facing a soaring eagle. He didn't pause, but batted the creature out of the air and continued across the room.

But suddenly Sakura was in front of him, her tear and snot streaked face right in his own, yelling something Naruto couldn't hear past the roaring in his ears. There was enough left of him to halt; he growled deep in his chest, warning her to get out of his way so he could kill who he had to.

"Naruto!" She was crying, and he heard her. "Naruto, please, don't do this! Stop it, it's not Sai, it's not his fault—I asked him to do this!"

A punch to his gut couldn't have destroyed Naruto's concentration more completely than that last sentence.

"You…you…Sakura-chan, you what?" Naruto's eyes went wide, and the red bled from them like the blood from Sakura's wounds.

"Please…Naruto…" She was sobbing now, her chest heaving as she reached for him. Naruto stepped back, repulsed and shocked.

"You…Sakura-chan how? You couldn't…"

"She did," said Sai flatly, coming to stand beside Sakura. As usual, he looked as calm as if the three of them were discussing a vaguely interesting book Sakura had just read. "She's been coming to me for weeks, and it's been her idea all the way."

Naruto felt his head begin to spin, felt bile rise in his throat. "I'm gonna be sick."

"No," Sakura moaned, her arms trembling and her face desperate. "Don't…it's not…"

"It's not what, Sakura-chan, not what it looks like?" Naruto shook his head and then put his hand to his mouth to prevent himself from vomiting. "You and he have been…" Naruto trailed off again, unable to finish the thought. "I don't want to know this," he finally said, not looking at either of his teammates. "This is sick…this is disgusting and I don't want to know about it!"

The kyuubi container turned and almost stumbled back towards the window, the cuts on his skin healing as he went. He knew the wounds in his soul would take much longer.

He left so quickly he didn't see Sakura collapse to the floor, wracked with sobs.

TO BE CONTINUED

A/N

A while ago I read this little one-shot piece called "Living Canvas" by Monday's Dusk Noon. I loved it, and wrote to the author asking if I could use her idea of Sai painting on and cutting up Sakura (provided that I not plagiarize, of course). She agreed. God bless you, MDN! Go read the story, the plot is totally different from this one and it's really cool.

If you liked this piece, or if you didn't like it, please review and tell me why, I'd love to hear any opinions, corrections or criticisms!