Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Sakura woke up early as usual the next morning. For a moment, she was confused about her surroundings, but she quickly remembered the previous day's events. She still didn't quite know what to make of the developments. She decided to just go with the flow and worry about any problems as they arose, and in the mean time hope that none did. She got up and took a shower, thanking Kami that the bathroom had towels and the necessary toiletries furnished. She stared at her headband as she reentered the room and opted not to put it on, even though the action bugged her. Technically if anyone knew that she'd left willingly with Sasuke to go with him to Orochimaru, she'd automatically be a missing nin and a traitor to her village. She walked to the kitchen to see about breakfast and hoped she'd run into Sasuke to see if anything was expected of her.

As luck would have it, Sasuke wasn't in the kitchen. Kabuto, however was. He smiled at her in greeting, although she doubted it was genuine. She smiled back anyway,"Good morning."

She made herself a bowl of cereal and sat at the table quietly eating. Kabuto was the first one to speak.

"You're a medical nin personally trained by Tsunade, is that correct?"
"That's right."
"That being the case, I'm taking you on as my student. You'll come with me after you've finished eating," Kabuto said simply as he sat to wait for her.
She wanted to inquire about Sasuke, but nodded and finished her cereal instead. She washed her dishes and then followed Kabuto down the long corridor. After a series of twists and turns and a set of stairs, she considered asking for a map until she got used to the base, though that thought was laughable. It truly did seem like a maze. She followed Kabuto into a room at the end of a lower corridor. It was a large room that looked like something that a mad scientist would envy. She shuddered in spite of herself, imagining all the experiments that had happened here. She shivered, wondering if Sasuke had been experimented on here.

The day consisted mostly of Kabuto finding out her skill level. So far she was not disappointing judging by his reactions. It went by surprisingly fast. At the end of the day, she still hadn't saw Sasuke even once. Sakura sighed, 'I guess he's not going to make an appearance.' Inside she knew he'd probably do his best to avoid her, after all, she had never been high on his list of favorite people, that thought made her smile, knowing Sasuke had no favorite people other than himself. He'd always thought she was weak and annoying. He probably thought she was still just a fangirl with a huge crush. It was true that she did still love him, but she had also learned over time that most likely he would never return the feelings and that as far as romance she should just give up. So for the most part, she had, but Sasuke had no way of knowing that. Only a small part of her acknowledged the fact that she'd only followed him because of residual feelings, she'd simply been unable to resist him. That small hidden side of her that still thought of him as her Sasuke-kun and looked at him with utter blind adoration had won out with no argument from her rational side. It was a little disheartening as she had erroneously thought that she was past that. Itachi's threat to her was a perfect excuse.

The days passed quickly, Kabuto was a pretty much constant companion, always testing her and teaching her new things. He would disappear sometimes, she assumed that he was likely tutoring Sasuke in some capacity, or tormenting some human lab rat in private as he knew she would object to such things. Otherwise he was actually a good teacher, which surprised her. She hadn't saw Sasuke in two weeks, which she would've thought that even in the maze would've been an impossible feat. It only proved to her that he was actively avoiding her. She refused to admit even to herself that deep down she was hurt by this, but luckily she was getting accustomed to it and not secretly looking for him when she entered a room.
The next morning she did her usual routine of waking, shower, and then breakfast. As she walked into the kitchen, she was expecting Kabuto to be there as usual. Instead she saw Sasuke. Her heart flipped over for a second, but she immediately forced herself to ignore him and went to the cupboard to get a bowl. He didn't acknowledge her presence, simply continued to eat his peeled and salted tomato as she silently prepared her cereal. She mentally raised an eyebrow at his choice of breakfast. 'Tomato for breakfast, really?' she thought. Normally she would've ate in the kitchen, but she decided perhaps in light of him being in the room, it would be better for him if she took it to the room. She started to walk out with the cereal when a voice interrupted her.
"Kabuto prefers that we eat in the kitchen."
She turned and looked at him, momentarily stunned that he'd actually spoken to her. She shrugged and turned around, choosing the seat farthest away from him so that she would annoy him less with her presence.
The corners of his lips nearly lifted at her choice of seats. "Still irritated with me."
She looked at him as if he'd gone daft. Then she shook her head and smiled. "No, just giving you your space."
He arched a black brow at her,"Decided to be less annoying?"
She sighed,"If you're waiting for me to 'Sasuke-kun' you and bat my eyelashes, I'd advise you not to hold your breath. I got the message loud and clear Sasuke." She finished her breakfast first and got up to wash her dishes.
He smirked at her. She turned away and continued with her task. "By the way, do you know how long I'm going to be here?"
He shrugged, "Probably until Itachi's dead or you get strong enough to fend him off." He snorted after the last sentence.
She narrowed her eyes on him but remained quiet. 'Maybe I should be more annoying,' she thought with an evil grin.
Sasuke didn't miss it. He smirked at her again, "well you weren't doing very well against his clone on your own."
" You know very well how dangerous he is. Tell me Sasuke, how well do most people fare against him?." She finished the last with a smirk of her own.
He gave her his death glare. "Why were you alone?"
"Kakashi ordered me to distract him so that they could follow the real Itachi back to the Akatsuki base to find out the coordinates for the Leaf. Granted, I couldn't have took him out, but I could have done more. I judged that it was best to distract him with talking. The distraction part worked, however him apparently deciding to make me a personal pet was an unforeseen side effect. I think that part was more for your benefit though, he probably thought that it might make you angry. Likely he only intends to kill me."
"Hn."
Kabuto entered the kitchen at that moment. "Good morning, Kabuto."
"Come on," was all he said moving aside to let her pass. She nodded in Sasuke's direction and followed Kabuto down the hallway.
Sasuke's eyes followed her as she left the room. "Annoying."

"You're late, I have important things to do. Don't let it happen again."
"Sorry, Senpai." She didn't even bother trying to defend herself. After all, she hadn't seen Sasuke in nearly three years, and then he'd avoided her for two weeks. She didn't regret the decision to make Kabuto wait in spite of his complaints. Though she did decide to make an effort to be more prompt in future.

She was rapidly learning, some things she hadn't thought possible. It was all actually very fascinating to her. She was soon surpassing Tsunade as a healer and her new mentor was quite pleased with her advancement. She still didn't relax around Kabuto however. She'd even met Orochimaru a few times, even though the Sannin made her extremely nervous. He could probably tell even though she hid it well. Sasuke was the only one that she felt almost completely comfortable with. In ways it was almost like before he left, although he was still pretty much cut off emotionally. In all honesty, that wasn't very different from before he left Konoha. She had noticed she saw him more often, and sometimes he would actually greet her like before. The jerk did still call her annoying, although after Kabuto's praise of her, the word weak was conspicuously absent. She smiled thinking of this development.

It was only a couple of days after that, that Orochimaru himself asked to see her. She noticed that both Sasuke and Kabuto were also present. Orochimaru smiled at her, inwardly she cringed thinking the motion made him look sick and constipated. She didn't voice this observation for obvious reasons. "You're doing well at the medical training, Sakura, but your battle skills are still inept." Orochimaru looked at Sasuke,"train her." It wasn't a question.
Sasuke glared at Orochimaru and looked as if he'd like to argue, but said nothing and simply nodded, albeit grudgingly. Sakura showed no emotion, although inside she felt very happy for this opportunity to learn and to spend time with Sasuke, instead of that freak Kabuto.
Sasuke motioned for her to follow him and she complied silently. He said nothing but led her to a training room with a wall of weapons. He allowed her to look around and become acquainted with the room. She couldn't help but think how much patience he was showing her. 'Don't make too much of it,' she thought, 'he's probably only acting that way as an excuse to not have to speak to you, after all, he didn't want to do this.'
He motioned toward the wall, "choose one."
She looked over all the weapons and asked," Does it have to be a katana?"
"No."
She smiled and chose the sais. Not just because they were a teammate's namesake, but they also looked light and would give her use of both arms. They looked sturdy enough to take on a katana. He pulled out his sword, "begin."
It was on.
A short while later, both were out of breath and sweating profusely. She beamed as the lesson finished. "So Sasuke, let me guess, weak and annoying."
He smirked, "hn. Improving."

They'd practiced for what seemed like hours. Sakura didn't think she'd ever worked out that hard. The sais she'd chosen were made to be infused with chakra as well, so she'd run out of chakra before her lesson was up. Sasuke wasn't surprised. He'd commented that she didn't have enough chakra. She didn't know exactly what he thought she could do about that. In actual battle it simply meant that she wouldn't infuse them unless they were penetrating a foe. The next morning, she was very much regretting her hard workout. She was sore all over, and took a little longer with her hot shower. She healed her sore muscles as much as possible during the shower. She was glad she did as she had to hurry through breakfast to go and train more with Sasuke. Her speed was also a problem, Sasuke forced her to wear leg weights that started out small and got heavier gradually over time. He fully expected her to keep up her speed with them on, and she surprised herself by managing to do just that. While she was enjoying her time with Sasuke and learning all the fighting techniques and jutsus he taught her, she also realized that her fast paced learning was also shortening her time with him. She resolved herself to it. She really had no choice, with Sasuke it was learn fast or die trying. Though she had to admit, she was ten times stronger than she'd ever been. That part she didn't regret, but she knew the second worse day of her life was coming and fast. The day she'd have to leave him.
Soon Kabuto came to her. He informed her that they'd made the decision to have a Yin Seal put on her. Her eyes widened, 'just like Tsunade,' she thought. Kabuto immediately took her to his medical wing and began the procedure. It was a risk, after all, if her body rejected it, she could die. Luckily there were no complications. She began storing chakra inside the crystal and learning all associated jutsus almost immediately. Unlike Tsunade, she'd had hers put in between her breasts. For her it made more sense not to reveal that in battle immediately unless she had to use it. Although she would never judge Tsunade for putting hers on her forehead, after all, Tsunade did gain a certain intimidation factor from doing just that. She did have some creep factor about the location of her Yin Seal, however, Kabuto wasn't what she'd envisioned for the first man to ever see her chest. To his credit, he kept it very professional.

Sasuke also helped her further improve her genjutsu and jutsus to dispel them. It did seem like he wanted to fully prepare her for Itachi should he decide to try to carry out his threat. Sakura simply had to keep reminding herself of Sasuke's motivations. It would be too easy to actually think that he actually cared for her. She'd already learned through bitter experience that that wasn't the case. Sometimes late at night, she'd indulge her weaker side and pretend though.

She'd been at Orochimaru's hideout with Sasuke for four months at that point, and they'd absolutely flew by with everything she was learning. Her body had become even more lean and muscled. Her confidence got higher and her abilities were much better. She was still nervous about what to do if and when she had to leave. Would she still be welcome in Konoha? She still thought about Naruto and the Team 7 days often, although when she thought about Sasuke, it wasn't the boy that she'd had a crush on she saw, it was the man he was today. Sasuke took her outside that day. She knew her stay was ending.