Disclaimer: All the materials I used belong to their rightful owners. I take no profit from it. It is purely FanFiction, and is in no way associated with the anime.

Breaking Point

Sakura placed her hand in the cuff, closing it around her thin wrist. It snapped shut, and a gasp escaped her lips. The spikes on the inside of the cuff had pierced her soft alabaster skin, slivers of blood dripping down her fingertips.

"Sakura! This is madness. Is your life really worth his?"

Sai's words echoed throughout the chamber. This was a rare display of emotion from her teammate. However she disregarded it completely. There was no chance for her to back out now.

Wincing as she grabbed the next cuff, her fingers slippery with her own blood, she fastened that around her other wrist. Her breath caught in her throat as it clicked in place.

"Breathe…" she murmured softly to herself. To win this challenge, she had to stay calm. The 'game' was dangerous. The traps had overcome Itachi Uchiha, and his power exceeded her own. Now she was playing to save his life, but risking her own. Panic would cost her more than just the game, but her life, as well as the former Akatsuki members. If she lost, it was a death sentence for the S-Rank missing-nin.

Sakura never would have thought to find herself in such a predicament. The man she had been hunting mercilessly for the past month, the cause of her pain and the target of her hatred, the man she had wish death upon with every fibre of her being was now utterly dependant on her – to live.

Time was running out.

As the seconds passed, piling into minutes, the Uchiha inched closer to death.

Blood was trickling out of his wounds; the blood thinning agents coating the spikes and bolts penetrating his skin stopped his body from healing itself and halting the flow.

The more blood he lost, the less time Sakura had.

She needed to release him from the trap – and heal him.

However, the only way that the trap could be reversed, was to substitute him with someone else – and restore the balance. She needed to go through what he had gone through, and lose the same amount of blood that he had lost, restoring the balance of the chamber. But the was a risk of the Uchiha dying at any minute, and if he was to die, Sakura would have to die too – to maintain the balance.

Once she entered the contraption, she could not leave.

It would not released until the price had been paid.

This meant that Sai could not take her place halfway through, nor could she take a break to heal herself.

Now that she had started, she could not turn back.

N.B. Just something that had been floating around in my head. No real idea what is going to happen next - I was just looking up medieval torture instruments [for school], and this sprung to life.