AN: I know I've been gone for awhile, and I have started on a multi-chaptered fic, but I"m not sure if it'll ever come out. So in the meantime... there's this!
Important Note: This was intended as a STAND ALONE and it can still be read as such, however it morphed into a possible prequel of 'Oblivion' It doesn't explain everything - there is a missing year, after all, but hopefully it gives you some insight into what happened. But it is a possibility, just like 'My Darling Stuffed Animals' is a possibility, so in the end, it's up to you to decide :)
Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto
"I'm sorry."
Sakura swallows harshly and tries to shrug. "Whatever," she says, choking on her tears, "I guess you can move me to the front lines now eh?"
Tsunade bites her lip, sharing a pained look with Shizune. Her assistant begins to tremble, tears forming rapidly. "Sakura..." Tsunade says softly, turning back to her and placing a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, you'll be alright."
Sakura laughs bitterly. "No," she says, smiling softly, "No I won't."
Shizune chokes and runs out of the room.
There's a beat of silence before Tsunade clears her throat awkwardly. "As you know we're um..." she reaches for her desk and slides over a map, with a little rock formation in Grass circled. "We're launching an attack on one of Akatsuki's main bases in three months - the Grass Initiative - and-"
Sakura crumples up the printed photos in her hand. Tsunade silences, avoiding meeting eyes with her apprentice.
"They've got a stronghold," Tsunade continues, "and it can only be broken down with-"
"Brute force," Sakura says coldly, flexing her fist, "I know. Except there're too many guards, eh? Too dangerous for our front liners."
"...yeah." Tsunade says. There's no use denying the truth anyway.
"I'll think about it," Sakura finally says after a heavy pause, "But that's all I can promise you."
"Alright," Tsunade agrees with a weak smile, "But remember Naruto-"
"-needs this," Sakura finishes, "I know."
She grabs her scans and numbly walks out. Tsunade watches her retreating back with pain and regret, pondering on the loss of someone who would've been great.
"Sakura-" Shizune says as she emerges, and she lurches forward and tries to grab the other girl, feeling for strands of hair or clothing that prove she is still alive, still corporal, but Sakura shakes her away.
"I need to go," she says quietly.
Shizune slowly relinquishes her grip, watching the pink-haired girl make her way down the stairs stiffly, fat tears rolling down onto the floor.
Sakura tries her first suicidal mission the week after. She survives, but comes back with so many scars she knows she cannot do what Tsunade is asking her of. She tells Tsunade, and her mentor sighs with disappointment, dismissing her before summing Akimichi Chouji.
That night Sakura makes a decision and sneaks into the Hokage's records, locating Uchiha Sasuke's last known coordinates.
Sakura disappears the day after.
Naruto is distraught as can be, and Shikamaru watches on sadly. Naruto has already lost one teammate and the second has left. Though he too is confused, hurt and slightly betrayed his pain does not compare to Naruto's. Nevertheless, he accompanies him to the Hokage's office.
That is when his suspicions are first raised.
Once Naruto finishes telling his tale - of how Sakura had walked out, ignoring the calls of Izumo and Kotetsu - Shizune begins trembling. She starts to shake, and tears begin to roll down to cheeks. She turns to Tsunade and she says I knew this would happen. Why did you lie to her?
Tsunade simply sighs. "Let her go," she tells the boys.
Naruto is confused and he shouts, screams, begs for answers.
Tsunade waits for him to finish before leaning forward, locking her eyes with his. "Don't worry," she says firmly, "We'll make it work out."
Finally, Naruto storms out. Kakashi is waiting outside and there is an unspoken agreement between the remaining members of Team 7 as they disappear into the forest, Kakashi's ninken barking the way forward.
As Shikamaru lounges outside the door slightly pained and very hopeless, he hears the Hokage say finally-
"We have to do this. We need that base. We should've picked him in the first place. Sakura wasn't patriotic enough. She's still tied down by Sasuke. She was a risk factor."
And to this Shizune replies-
"But what if she comes back?"
The Hokage says with finality-
"She won't.
Shizune's choked cries turn louder. He can't bear it anymore and he leaves, a stone over his heart. He's confused over her words, but he doesn't want to mull over them - he's scared of what he'll find if he does. So he stores it into the back of his mind and tries to block out the thoughts, the pain.
The next day, Chouji sits him and Ino down and the Hokage's words are banished from his thoughts by something much bigger.
I'm sorry, Chouji says, choking on his words as big fat tears form at his eyes. I- I- I had my tests done yesterday and... I... I- I- I-
He can't form the words and Ino starts to panic and Shikamaru can feel his heart constricting-
Here, Chouji says finally, pulling out a long, yellow envelope.
Shakily, Ino grasps it. She slides out the files inside and with a sinking feeling Shikamaru realises that they're scans - brain scans - and there's a strange, horrible patch of white that definitely shouldn't be there.
It feels as if a vice has clamped on his heart. Suddenly it's hard to breathe and his hands start shaking. Ino begins to sob, and then she's shaking and Team 10 are immersed in the saddest bubble of hysteria-
I- I'm terminally ill, Chouji finally manages to say, I have a brain tumor.
Ino begins to choke and Shikamaru tries to be comforting, pats her on the back while his other hand grips Chouji's with fierce frenzy while he himself tries to keep in the tears-
I'm going to do it, Chouji chokes out, I'll do the Grass Initiative.
And Shikamaru can't hold back his tears anymore because he knows what his friend is talking about - that stupid fucking Akatsuki mission is going to kill him. He'll get them through the barriers and then he'll be fucking impaled by poisoned swords and arrows and he'll convulse in pain and then he'll die-
No no no no no, Ino is still murmuring. She reaches forward and clasps his head, searching it with her chakra but she cannot deny the truth. There is an advanced tumor in his head, and nothing they do will stop it.
How long do you have? Shikamaru asks softly.
...Three months, Chouji says.
.
Sakura is sitting in a small cafe on the border of Wave - the last known sighting of Uchiha Sasuke - in an inconspicuous civilian outfit with her hair henged black. She has some police reports in her hand - various thefts and murders, crimes she think could be connected to Sasuke and the team he travels with.
She's trying to locate their path, find where they went to next. Although she wants to go back to her friends in Konoha, she needs this. She knows that they all feel incredibly betrayed - all her letters have been returned unopened - but she wants to bring him back for Naruto and Kakashi-sensei, but above all that she needs to talk to him before she dies. She needs to confess, but it doesn't matter if he doesn't reciprocate her feelings because goddammit Sakura just wants closure-
Ya know the new Ino-Shika-Cho trio, the mercenary sitting on the table next to her whispers to his partner, y'know? The young 'uns. From Konoha.
Sakura tenses and picks up her tea cup. Subtly, she glances over, memorising their features quickly - the first man looks mid-twenties, blonde with brown eyes and a scar on his left cheek. The second man is older - thirty, perhaps even more - and has brown hair and an eyepatch over one eye. She stores them in her mind just in case she needs to send a message to Tsunade - just in case this turns out to be vital information.
The boy, the mercenary continues, leaning forward so that his blonde hair obscures the file he slides over the table.
His partner grins. Oooh, he murmurs, this is good. Konoha's defenses are getting weaker. First the apprentice, now him...
Sakura starts. What are they saying? Is something wrong with Shikamaru or Chouji? Should she go back? She tries to steady her breathing and regulate her heartbeat. A bead of sweat rolls down from her forehead, but luckily the two mercenaries are either too preoccupied or untrained that they are oblivious to her mental conflict.
Finally, Sakura reaches a verdict. She needs to continue on her mission. It's tempting to go back to safety and security but since she's not doing the Grass Initiative - and kami does she feel guilty - she needs to give her country something before she dies - so she'll bring it Uchiha Sasuke.
However that doesn't stop her from stalking their hotel room at two in the morning and stealing the files.
She brings it back to the safety of her rented room and slides open the envelope. She quickly scans over it, and her heart begins to drop lower and lower as she does.
The medical report is eight pages, but Sakura can sum it up in one sentence:
Chouji has the exact same brain tumor.
And she knows something is suspicious - something is wrong - and that is when she sees it.
These few days there had been sounds of scuffling in her room, but mice were so abundant in this cheap motel Sakura had barely managed to afford that she had brushed it off. But now she sees it. It is sitting in the corner of her room, away from the window completely obscured in the shadows. It is a mouse, yes, but it is not real.
It is Sai's, she sees with frightening clarity.
.
It's been a week since the news, and Shikamaru has been like a ghost. He's lost his sensei, and Neji was killed barely a month ago in the war effort - the war that is so bloody long - and he just knows his mother's health is declining and Sakura's disappeared and now Chouji's going too-
He quickly blinks, trying to will away the tears. Up ahead, Lee is running his customary laps - twenty a day around the Hyuuga compound in honour of his lost teammate - and the heiress is training just as hard within the compound with her two teammates. Naruto has not been seen since Sakura's disappearance, and neither has Kakashi - no surprise though, Shikamaru thinks.
He's making his way to Ino's - they're to meet up before going to Chouji's - when he sees Sai trying to covertly run on the treetops to the Hokage tower. He's obviously in a hurry if he's slipping up enough to be noticed, and he's in his ANBU gear - not his normal ninja wear. That means he's on secret business, and it doesn't look like he has good news.
This is serious, Shikamaru realises with a sickening sense of dread.
He tails him, subtly diverting his course into his own leisurely path to the Hokage tower. Sai doesn't notice, and Shikamaru makes it there inconspicuously and without notice. Shizune sends him a tight lipped smile as he enters the reception and he returns it with a hollow one of his own. He makes it up the stairs to the Hokage's office just in time to hear the window shut through the door.
"Report," he hears the Hokage say briskly.
"She knows," is all Sai supplies.
There's a beat of silence before Tsunade lets out a hallow breath. "So it's come to that."
"Yes," Sai says, and Shikamaru thinks he can even detect a small scent of sadness in his usually emotionless tone.
"Very well," Tsunade says gravely, "I'll dispatch ANBU Unit A1 to dispose of her, and B6 for backup. Please relay the message."
"...yes Hokage-sama..."
There's another beat of silence and Shikamaru stands stiffly, trying to make his breathing as quiet as possible.
"I'm sorry Sai, but it has to be done," Tsunade finally says, "We can't have Sakura coming back with the exact same tumor. She'll look into it and realise it's been planted."
The window opens and closes again but Shikamaru can barely register the sound. His first thought is disbelief - they were talking about Sakura? But Shikamaru isn't stupid - not by far - and that is when all of the facts click - Sakura leaving, the fucking tumor, the mission in three months that only two could do but no one would and he understood it all now. Why Chouji had gotten so sick despite his previously unblemished healthy record, Shizune's erratic emotions, Sakura's 'disposal'.
Kami, Shikamaru realises with horror, Tsunade and Shizune inserted the tumor into Sakura to convince her to accept the Grass Initiative. Sakura refused, so they did it to Chouji but they couldn't have her revealing their tricks to him. Luckily she left without ever knowing, but once she found out - she had to be 'disposed of'. This- this-
"Next time," Tsunade calls from inside her office, "Suppress your chakra Shikamaru."
Shikamaru freezes. The door opens and Tsunade stands there in front of him, face grave and unyielding and he curses himself for making such a stupid, elementary mistake-
"I did for Konoha you know," Tsunade says, "for us."
Shikamaru stares at her in horror. She condemned two people to death-
Tsunade narrows her eyes at his expression. "Konoha isn't pretty pink butterflies," she hisses. "We aren't the most powerful village for nothing. We didn't beat the bloody mist by being 'unbloody'. There's a side of us you don't know, and most likely never will know. You don't have the heart to deal with it."
"You're sick," is all he can manage to say.
"No," Tsunade says wryly, "I'm realistic."
Then she jabs his temples and he falls.
When he meets Ino and Chouji an hour later, he tells them sheepishly what he remembers - he got distracted by a fish shop that was selling his favourites at a cheap price. He lined for hours but in the end they ran out before they got to him.
Ino giggles and Chouji laughs and for the first time since the news Team 10 has a semblance of normalcy and all is happy and good.
In the meantime, Tsunade dispatches ANBU squads B2 and B3 to corroborate his story. Shizune thinks it's drastic measures just for some kelp and mackerel, but Tsunade argues that nothing is not worth sacrificing for Konoha.
Even the life of her apprentice.
.
"The tumor's not mine," Sakura says hysterically.
The Captain ignores her. "Haruno Sakura. You have been charged for treason in the first degree, sabotage in the second degree-"
"Listen to me!" Sakura cries, "It's not mine. It's not mine!"
The Captain continues regardless. "-crimes against the Hokage, crimes against Konoha-"
"No," Sakura murmurs, shaking her head before turning to the rest of the ANBU Squad. "Don't you see?" she says louder, but they all ignore her, all stand still as trees, tense, waiting for her to attack-
"Don't you see?"
"-crimes for which total to two death sentences, one-hundred and twenty years in jail-"
"Ha!" Sakura spits spitefully. "I see you're all Root. There's no point trying to talk to you then. Go ahead, come at me!"
Finally the ANBU Captain silences as if realising that listing her crimes and punishments will never dissuade her. He tenses, and with a signal that Sakura completely misses - something that could have been as subtle as a wink or a twitch of the finger - all the ANBU attack.
But Sakura is ready and she is angry and furious and feeling so fucking betrayed. She pulls out her best arsenal of weapons - chakra scalpels, monstrous strength, complicated genjutsu that even Kurenai would be jealous of- but it is not enough.
Despite all the gifts her perfect chakra control has given her, Sakura is still human and her reserves are limited and she is only seventeen and she despite how much she wants to she has not yet completed her Strength of a Hundred Seal. And she knows that she will never win - she is up against an ANBU squad, after all - and no matter how much she heals her wounds this will never stop.
Sakura tries one last time, jumping back, biting her thumb and pressing it onto the floor-
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
Katsuyu-sama appears just in time to save her from the ANBU Captain's fire dragons and Sakura breathes a sigh of relief and leans forward to jump on top of her-
"Sakura-sama," Katsuyu sobs, "I'm so sorry! Tsunade-sama..."
And Sakura's heart breaks all over and she knows.
Katsuyu disappears and the ANBU Captain is left and she thinks - this is the end.
But she's ready, and she faces the fire dragons with her head held high and her eyes blazing-
Suddenly, a white hand shoots up from the ground. Sakura barely has time to register that she's evaded the fire dragons before she sees a venus fly trap and she's falling - into the ground and away.
.
Sakura wakes up - but not really.
She seems to be floating above her body. It lies limply in a makeshift hospital bed, connected all around with drips and tubes inside a dark room, walled in on all sides with rocks. The only decoration in the room is a naked lightbulb floating above, taunting her with its pale, flickering light.
Slightly confused, not to mention quite disorientated, she tries to move her 'body', but it doesn't work. She is stuck forever floating ethereally above. She thinks she will wake up soon, and knows that this may be a common experience among patients, but she can't help the panic rising up. She's stuck, and she doesn't know where, and who has her, and poor Chouji is back in Konoha-
She begins to hyperventilate, her thoughts running through thousands of possibilities while the screen monitoring her heart rate is just calmly fluctuating. Up, then down. Pause. Pause. Up, then down.
Sakura is freaking out, but before she can employ her calming mechanisms the door creaks open.
The figure glides in, head enveloped in cloth, a mask covering his mouth and a sharp, scratched Takigakure headband on his forehead. Momentarily, he turns to the light and she catches little red clouds on his black cloak.
Akatsuki, Sakura realises with a mixture of fascination and horror.
He makes his way to her bedside, finally revealing his whole figure to the dim light the bulb above provides. He reaches inside his cloak and pulls out a plethora of medical devices, isolating a few surgical instruments and placing them on top of one of the drip monitors. He then shrugs off his cloak, and Sakura realises that his arms are interwoven with stark stitches. They interweave along his muscles, and as he flexes she makes out the pattern of four masks on his back.
He is a medical phenomenon and Sakura doesn't know whether to be enthralled or repulsed. She settles for curiousity from a purely medical standpoint.
He grabs the scalpel and reaches for her head, parting her hair. He begins to cut along her scalp and Sakura realises that she is watching her own head being cut open. She wants to gag but there is no air for her to gag on, no vomit to call upon.
So she is condemned to watch her own operation, motionless and helpless.
Surprisingly though, he doesn't stuff it up. Sakura watches him remove the tumor - chuck it carelessly, in fact, over his shoulder - and he closes up her head just as quickly. The procedure is completed, and actually completed quite competently.
He checks all of her monitors and grabs his cloak, throwing it on. He turns to the door and begins to make his way out when he pauses. Slowly, his lips curl into a smile and he sits down, leaning against the back of the wall before closing his eyes.
A few minutes later, his chest begins to rise up and down rhythmically and he is limp.
Quite unsure what to do, Sakura decides to avoid staring at her prone, unconscious body in favour of studying the tumor. It is big, and it looks exactly like the one pictured in the scans, but removing it has not harmed her - presumably because it wasn't hers in the first place. A burst of anger runs through her veins at that thought and Sakura grounds her teeth. If she can somehow get past the ANBU, maybe she could get a message to Ino. Anonymously though, of course - Ino is probably feeling so betrayed she would burn her letter.
A pang of guilt rises again and she turns back to the tumor. Now that it's been rotting on the floor, it's already started to turn blue and decay, no doubt the effects of whatever jutsu Tsu- the Hokage - had used.
"Fascinating isn't it?"
If Sakura could've jumped, she would've jumped very high.
The figure moves in front of her, and the Akatsuki man grins at her, ghost form. He doesn't have any cloth hiding him anymore and he stands in front of her shirtless, black pants hanging at his hips. His hair falls down to his shoulders, stiff and black, and his face too is marred with stitches. She can faintly see the lines of his masks peeking out from his back.
"Kami," Sakura breathes. She doesn't think she can take anymore medical miracles. "Yes," she finally manages to say, "Yes it is."
The man chuckles before holding out his hand. "My name is Kakuzu," he says.
Sakura smiles. "Nice to meet you. I'm Sakura."
Kakuzu nods. "I know. Leader paid me 200 000 ryu to gather all information on you."
Now Sakura recognises him - he is the Akatsuki treasurer.
"Just 200 000?" she asks wryly.
Kakuzu grins ferally. "Another 300 000 to fix you up, probably another 100 000 now that I can talk to you."
Money hungry and stingy, Sakura thinks, perfect for his job.
"Anyway," Kakuzu says, "We have a proposition for you. We think you'll enjoy it. And though it means an extra mouth to feed, I believe the investment will pay off." He slides his gaze over to her and crosses his arms, smirking. "After all," he drawls, "We haven't had a medic since that bitch Orochimaru left, and demand is high and rich."
Oh, Sakura thinks, oh.
This is- this is an invitation to Akatsuki.
Kakuzu smirks at her stupefied state. "Just giving you a warning. Think about it."
He disappears, leaving her floating there above. His body below jerks and he awakens.
"You'll recover soon," he says, leaving her alone in the room with her own, stitched up body.
.
Kami, Sakura thinks, this is too soon.
First, she had met Hidan that bastard. After that she had to deal with that crazy shit Deidara pulled, and now it was Uchiha Itachi?
Perhaps she should she glad that Kisame is unavailable, but Sakura thinks that she would take ten of him over Uchiha Itachi any day.
Surprisingly though, Uchiha Itachi is starkly silent. He doesn't question her about Konoha or Sasuke and she doesn't either. She knows that some facts in his record don't match, and he knows that Konoha hasn't been off the grid the past few weeks for no reason. But perhaps neither really want to know the answer, so neither really ask.
Unsurprisingly though, he is every bit the systematic killer she has heard about. He is ruthless but he is quick. Sakura is prepared for blood, for gore, for guts mattered across her palms, but Uchiha Itachi is the definition of efficient.
All his enemies fall, but never die unnecessarily. He has his goal, and he does not detour around it. He is like a machine - everything has a purpose, and destruction is never it. He can be subtle and he can be definite.
Strangely, he reminds her of herself.
He is her temporary partner for this mission, and it is a simple theft. They both sneak in rather easily - a simple genjutsu and a masking of their chakra. The incapacitation too, is easy. He gets them with a simple shift in his sharingan and she gets them with a tiny jolt of chakra through her fingertip.
They break through the safe rather easily too - once it is ascertained that unlocking seals will not do the job Sakura breaks the wall with brute force. They grab the diamond-encrusted tiara and Itachi trips the alarm on the way out. They do not run - it is important that guards see Akatsuki so they can pass the threat on to their master - but they still make it through relatively unscratched.
Sakura is unused to such an unevenly numbered showdown but it doesn't matter really, for by the time she has soundly taken down ten he has already reached the other twenty. They leave, leaving the guards with only two dead bodies and a message for their leader.
Sakura is sure now that Itachi's sharingan is the most powerful weapon she has encountered, but she is not quite sure it is invincible. She catches him bending over and coughing, splattering the ground with drops of blood. Feebly, she offers to heal him. He refuses, perhaps sensing that she does not really want to, or perhaps he has another purpose himself, but whatever it is Sakura does not ask and they resign themselves to a strained silence all the way back to base.
Just before they arrive however - him to regroup with Hoshigaki, her to meet Deidara (who had been without a partner ever since she had killed Sasori, fittingly enough) - he calls upon his raven and leaves it with her.
He goes off to report to Leader, and Sakura thanks him silently as she pens an anonymous message to Ino.
.
Three months later, Sakura is sitting in the same cafe as before, waiting for Deidara to finish buying the clothes for their undercover operation.
The same two mercenaries are rendezvousing, leaning forward as they talked in hushed whispers.
Sakura casually flips a page in her magazine.
"-Akimichi's better now."
"Shit. Really?"
"Yeah. Apparently, that Yamanaka girl's quite headstrong. Before, she was wavering on whether or not to risk surgery. The Hokage was against it, but something changed her mind in the last minute and the girl was adamant. She ended up performing the experiment herself 'cause the Hokage wouldn't - and it worked!"
The other mercenary growls. That's a real damn pity. How 'bout we relocate our operation to Kumo then? I hear defenses have been weakening there. Apparently the Raikage's brother has gone missing..."
Deidara casually walks passed the cafe. Sakura stands up, leaves her bill on the table and walks out.
"All good?" she asks him as he hands her a bag filled with her clothes.
"Yep," he says happily, popping the 'p'.
She takes a quick look inside the bag and scrunches her nose. "Really? Frills?"
Deidara shrugs, smirking at her. "I had to," he says innocently. He sends her a quick look. "And you? All alright?"
Sakura smiles.
"Yes," she says truthfully, "Yes I am."
.
The End.
.
Nine months later, Sakura is on a cliff, and Naruto is staring at her with such rage.
"You know," Sakura says quietly, "I know that you know."
Naruto snarls. "It was for Konoha! You would have saved thousands of lives! But you ran away!"
"I could have," Sakura says quietly, "But I didn't want to. I wanted to live, to survive."
Another tail forms and he turns absolutely feral. Then he charges at her and in an almighty swirl of chakra Sakura falls off the cliff.
AN: A little glimpse into 'Oblivion'. Hope you all enjoyed :)