Chapter 3. Is there blood in creation?
An odd shaped figure swayed from side to side under it's own weight as it neared the gates of Konoha. Finally, the gates opened and the figure staggered towards the hospital. She was a week late she knew, but it couldn't be helped. The once vivacious cherry blossom pink hair was now blood red, and tangled. Her body was littered with shallow and deep cuts and bruises, her arms were wrapped up from the shoulders to the wrists. Her attire wasn't much better. Her ANBU mask was just barely staying on her face.
The doors to the hospital were just a few feet away, and Sakura Haruno was starting to feel the adrenaline in her body ebb away in her relief.
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She came around to the sound of and annoying beeping sound. She was uncertain, but for some reason she felt as if she were missing something.
"so, you're awake. How do you feel?" the hokage's voice; she must have made it.
I looked up at her "how was your mission?"
"Everything went as expected. Lord hokage. Every one of the experiments have been eliminated." I was sore and tired and now being scolded. What a way to wake up. Now onto the hard part.
"The mission was a fake. Orochimaru never left sound, he was expecting me." Tsunade turned a nice shade of red. "I did as you asked and killed all, I even fought and won against Orochimaru, I thought he was dead. I was wrong. He used the last of him life force to force my transformation. It lasted for three days. When the jutsu was done I lay dying, and tried to heal myself. I traveled until I made it to the valley of the end, and found refuge there during the time I needed to recover a bit to make it back to the village. I don't remember much after that except that every minute I was alive, I was fighting my transformation, so I sent my life force in little increments into myself until I was back into the village. I know how to reverse the jutsu, I just need a bit more time to replenish my chakra."
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Sasuke was listening at the door, his mouth in a tight line as he became curiously irritated that he'd come to see sakura only to find her in worse condition than himself at his return. He admitted to himself that not twenty-four hours after sakura's visit, he had felt as healthy as a horse. It disgusted him that the weakest link, the one team member that had to always be protected, was now stronger than her old protector. How was he supposed to feel as if what he did was the best avenue to gain strength if at every turn he was proven wrong?
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"After your defeat of the entire Akatsuki and now Sound, I'm sure you'll be wanting to have a vacation. Well either way, you'll have two weeks off of missions after you get out of the hospital. On another note, We're going to have to transport you to the lower city. I don't want to put innocents in danger".
"of course, lady hokage. I'll report to the lower city training center upon release." the calmness in sakura's disposition was expected by Tsunade, but Sasuke was having trouble with this new and improved sakura.
"I also want you to get detoxed again. Too much has happened for us to even think that we're safe without something leashing your powers." Tsunade left the room without another word. Her prodigy and former pupil stood from the bed that she was currently residing on and slowly and painfully dressed herself.
She knew without looking, that her former team-mate and old enemy was just outside the door, and that due to the snippet of conversation he had just heard was bound to be curious.
"you can come with me to the lower city as soon as I'm changed. everyone else in the village knows about me, you as well might need to know."
Sasuke was only mildly surprised by this time that with him shielding his chakra and using stealth that even the best hadn't been able to hear or sense, Sakura still knew he was there.
"so it wasn't a secret?" Sasuke took a deep breath, and lightly leaned with his back against the hallway wall and pushing his now relaxed hands into him pockets. "then what is it?"
"Sasuke, I think it's better if I just show you, then let you make your own assessments. If you have questions after, then I'll be happy to answer any you have." Sakura finished putting on her ANBU gear and cape before she went out into the hall to meet with Sasuke.
"well you certainly look a lot better." was her assessment for how well her healing had worked on him. To sakura's trained eyes, Sasuke was practically glowing with healing energy. Sakura smirked. "nice to know, after all this time that you still need me to save your butt Uchiha."
Sasuke stopped cold in his tracks and stared at sakura's retreating back, awed in spite of himself. The sakura he had once known would have never have teased him; this little thing only further proved to him that sakura had definitely changed.
Sasuke easily caught up with sakura, her silence comfortable rather than unnerving. They proceeded to the lower city training center. Instead of staying on the first floor though, sakura went to the elevator and pushed the down button, taking the two of them down to the medical and science labs under the training center and led them to an office/lab combination. The place looked oddly familiar to Sasuke only he couldn't quite place where he had seen it before.
"why don't you take a seat and relax while I see what's come in and take care of the reason we're here." as sakura turned away Sasuke could swear he saw a shadow fall slowly upon sakura's form as she moved to the lab portion of her office.
"knock, knock." a cheery voice said at the door. Sasuke looked at kakashi as the man made himself comfortable on sakura's nice Blood Red couch. He chuckled at her before launching into the latest mission he and the dobe had been sent on, and how Naruto had almost messed up the mission again.
"and I hear that you finally did away with Orochimaru; I wonder if he ever considered his own creations being his demise."
Sakura laughed joyfully. " somehow I highly doubt it. Even in the end, he was adamant that I would come be with him, join him and leave Konoha. - giggle- I don't think he ever thought that loyalty was stronger than jutsu. He tried to force me to his will." kakashi and sakura both busted up laughing as Sasuke was still trying to make sense of their conversations.
Kakashi had been monitoring Sasuke's reactions to the information that was freely flying and was amazed to see confusion not laced with anger. " Orochimaru was once a scientist and ninja for this lab, and Konoha. He illegally used human experiments for his research. One of his experiments was a life giving jutsu, where he created a living being out of nothing more than the basic elemental components each human is made up of. However, he also made animals and each had a connection to each other. Some were chimera hybrids, animal and human mixes, which shouldn't even be possible due to the difference in chromosomes each species possesses. Sakura was one of the hybrids Orochimaru had Created just before his expulsion from Konoha, her body was in an incubation tube just sitting there, and even though the order was to kill all specimens the fourth took one look at sakura and saved her rather than terminated her. No one knew then that sakura would grow faster than the average child. After leaving the tube, sakura's powers awakened, and she started seeing images in the fire, moving things with her mind, and talking with people telepathically.
She could control several types of elements and she can levitate."
Sasuke's eyebrows had risen to his hairline in disbelief; kakashi continued. "now, all of this is scientifically impossible, except for the fact that sakura's brain used more than 70% of it's capacity, while a normal human can only use about 10% at best. Now she uses only about 85% of her potential, when in peak form, and as she's grown and continues to grow, her capacity expands more."
Sasuke's jaw dropped, and he stared at kakashi, stupidly unawares of sakura stripping herself.
"kakashi, I'm gonna need another dose of the tranquilizer and more of the cleansing formula. The tube is filling up, and I'll be incapacitated until tomorrow. Do you have my usual music with you? I'm assuming you knew I was going to be here otherwise you wouldn't have-"
"hold it! This is impossible. If sakura was that incredibly powerful all those years, then why didn't she ever use her powers when they were needed. Al the bridge? In the forest? In the hills? in the valley of the dead?" Sasuke's voice had now gone from calm to panicky and high pitched.
Sakura and kakashi exchanged a look , "you didn't honestly think that pink hair was normal right? How many pink haired woman do you know?" walking towards the ladder sakura put a spare change of clothes and a towel on a stool and adjusted a nozzle before lowering her body into the warm water.
Sakura was fully submerged within seconds and her face was covered with a mask which allowed her to breathe easily underwater. She nodded to kakashi.
Grimly he preformed the Chidori, and placed his hand on the glass right in front of sakura's face. The water in the tube with sakura began to bubble and sakura herself was withering around in the water in pain, the water around her turning a horrid shade of black, with streaks of green. Three minutes later kakashi released the jutsu and just barely made it to the couch before he collapsed into a coma-like sleep.
Sasuke was left watching sakura pass out as the color in the water dissolved.
