All In The Name Of A One Sided Love
The next two days passed uneventfully. Ino was becoming increasingly worried about her friend, and Kabuto was awaiting the arrival of Takara, someone who had come to be known as one of the most wanted fugitives on Orochimaru's list. However, as Orochimaru did not know, Takara and Kabuto had become friends, and in fact, Kabuto retrieved a lot of information from her.
Takara was a forty-year-old elite ninja, who originally came from the Village Hidden in the Mist. She didn't look quite as old as she was, but Kabuto suspected a genjutsu to hide her real appearances. She changed the way she looked every time she saw Orochimaru, and only then. Currently, unless she met Orochimaru unbeknownst to Kabuto, she had shoulder-length brown hair and caramel brown eyes, tanned skin, and was somewhat of medium stature—not skinny, not fat. Sometimes she was extremely skinny, and, though rarely, she sometimes even went for the much thicker side of ninja. Sometimes, to even further throw Orochimaru off of her tracks, she posed as a guy.
Ino was growing increasingly worried about Sakura. Sometimes, she seemed to be normal. Other times, she would appear to be talking to herself, both aloud and inside her mind, for she would daze off and just continue doing her tasks mindlessly (usually in the gym). This, however, was just a segue for her acting completely opposite of herself—she'd do or say something totally unlike her. From what Ino could remember, she would act similar to how she did when she was twelve. Ino couldn't really picture Sakura at that age, or when she made the transition from the annoying twelve-year-old to the mature Sakura, but Ino figured it was either right after Sasuke's departure or early on during her training with Tsunade.
When Takara did arrive, she entered the front door with ease, as if she had memorized all of the codes to every lair. When she entered so abruptly, Kabuto would have freaked out, if not for the fact that he had been expecting her, added onto the fact that he could read her chakra signature as easily as he could read a book. When she entered the Library, Kabuto calmly turned, smirk, and asked her how she was.
"How am I? What do you need me for? Do you think you're going insane in this huge lair by yourself or something?" Takara demanded. Kabuto frowned—he had never elaborated that he needed it for Sakura.
Kabuto sighed and began to brief his old friend, unconcerned about being overheard for Sakura and Ino were in the gym. "Well, you see, Orochimaru had me abduct two young ladies—Sakura Haruno and Ino Yamanaka—just before he and Sasuke left to go murder Sasuke's older brother. When they come back, I will have brainwashed them and convinced them that they're on our side. And when they do come back… Sasuke will impregnate Sakura, and I shall impregnate Ino, for he is running lower on followers," Kabuto explained.
Takara, who by now, had taken a seat, folded her hands over each other and leaned forward, her head resting on her hands. "So, what you're saying is, Orochimaru is going to directly produce an army of young followers from the two of them?"
Kabuto nodded silently.
"And you're going along with that? What, are they going to be nannies? mistresses? ninja for Orochimaru's side who just happen to also raise kids? what will happen to the children if their mother's die? will you take care of them?" Takara asked, a flurry of questions coming out at once.
"I'm glad I thought to put a sound-proof barrier in this room…" Kabuto muttered aloud. "Yes, nannies of sorts, but not mistresses. They will also work, of course, but nothing that's too… Lethal until the children grow of age. And, if they do die before that, I'd probably ending up being the poor scum that has to raise the kids." He sighed and continued, "But, to brief you on what you actually came here to do, the one I need you to check out is Sakura. She has an obvious mental condition, but I can't place it. I'd say it was multiple personalities, but it seems to go deeper, more specific than that."
Takara nodded and sighed. "Perhaps I should talk to her other self?"
"Shall I get her now, or later?"
----
Sakura was extremely confused. One minute, she was exercising with the weights, and then the next, Kabuto and a strange lady—who Sakura had yet to be introduced to—had drug her off into another room, one she had never seen before. Ino was equally, if not more so confused, and was quite worried that Kabuto would be doing things with ill intentions (from rape, to torture, to murder) to Sakura, and it was making her extremely anxious.
Sakura sat in the middle of the damp room, looking around, trying to take it. From what she could tell, it was a small room, about walk-in closet size. They had her sit on top of a strange symbol, one which read "Onurah Arukas Fo Dnim Eht Otni Yawetag Eht" around the edges. Sakura tilted her head in confusion, and looked up at Kabuto.
"Read it backwards he simply said, as he began to draw yet another circle around the circle and the words. "The Gateway Into The Mind Of Sakura Haruno" was what she read, and sat, shocked. No, wait. She couldn't move at all! It was as if some invisible force was holding her still, stuck looking straight ahead.
"Let's go," Takara commanded Kabuto, and he nodded. He sat in front of her, and began to hypnotize her into a dreamless soft of sleep. Takara then put her hands onto the ground, and pushed her chakra through the circle…
----
The mind of Sakura Haruno was an odd one indeed. In the hallways of the mind, which were usually decorated in only one type of design that truly fitted the person, it was half pink and stuffed animals, the other half dark and dank, the norm for ninja. She looked at the doorways of memories and the pictures that lined every wall, glancing barely at each. On one door, there was a picture of Sasuke, and that happened to be on the pink side of the hallway. A picture of Tsunade was on the darker side, and a picture of Ino was on both sides of the hallways.
Takara did not go into any of these doors, for none of them were important. There were hundreds of doors per sides, all full of memories that may have been long forgotten. Some even included Sakura as a toddler, and some from just the day before in the lair. When she finally reached the end of the impossibly long hallway, she found a large opening with two doors, cutting the door into two separate pieces, one on each side of the hallway—one completely pink, the other completely black.
'As a ninja, black must be her current personality… So the pink is her other, neh?' Takara decided before entering inside that door.
She saw an image of Sakura seemingly meditating in the middle of the room, her legs crossed and her hands out. "Yes?" the voice answered evenly.
"Excuse me… Are you Sakura's first personality, or the one that lurks beneath the surface?" Takara asked carefully.
"The one beneath the surface, if that is what you call the other Sakura hiding me away," she answered, somewhat coldly.
"I'm sorry, I pictured you to be more… extreme. You seem depressed, compared to what Kabuto said about you," she explained, rubbing the back of her head nervously.
"I'm depressed," she said, once again so evenly it was scary.
"Why?"
"Because, Sakura and I had a discussion, and she said it was stupid of me to dream of marriage between Saku-chan and Sasu-kun," the voice explained.
"Saku-chan…? Sasu-kun…?" Takara asked, confused.
"Me and Sasuke Uchiha," the voice answered back with a huff.
"You call yourself Saku-chan?" Takara asked, almost laughing.
"Well, I can't be considered Sakura, now can I?" the voice asked.
"Well, who knows? Maybe you and Sasu-kun will yet be married," Takara pointed out, trying to cheer up the voice.
"Really?" the voice asked cautiously, finally opening an eye. Shockingly, the eye was, instead of green, pink.
"Yes. Really," Takara said with a nod.
"Hmm…." The voice thought, before concluding, "Yeah! You're right! Neh, neh, can you tell Saku-chan where Sasu-kun is right now?" she asked, suddenly eager and excited. She leaned close to Takara, making Takara almost want to inch away from her.
"Uh, n-no…" Takara answered back, taken off-guard by her sudden burst of enthusiasm.
"Ah, shit!" the Sakura yelled. She sighed and smiled. "But, that's okay! He loves me above everyone, especially that damn Ino!"
Takara sighed. This girl was hopeless. "Hey, hey…" she began, suddenly struck by an idea. "When did Sakura begin to hide you away?" she asked cautiously.
"Oh? When Sasuke went on vacation," Saku-chan explained.
"Thank you!" Takara said, bowing quickly and dashing out of that side of the mind. She exhaled heavily before opening the second door, the one that led to Sakura's current personality.
When she opened the door, she was shocked to find such a drastic change. The personality was reading over material (in these cases, going over information or stories she had read before) from a desk across from the door.
"I'm sorry, can I help you?" the voice asked evenly. Her eyes were starkly black, but otherwise was a picture-perfect replica of the other personality.
"I… I just wanted to meet you, actually. I'd like to ask a few questions…" Takara began cautiously.
"Go ahead," the other Sakura said gently. "Have a seat," she offered, a seat suddenly appearing in front of the desk.
Takara took the seat reluctantly, watching the girl before beginning. "Were you originally in this vessel?" she asked.
"Yes, sort of… I was kind of just lurking underneath the surface, waiting for Sakura to mature a bit," she explained.
"So, you go by Sakura?" Takara asked for confirmation.
"No, I go by Ra-san. Together, Saku and I make up Sakura… We decided that the names, put together, should also make up Saku-ra, and since Saku is cuter-sounding, I let Saku have that name. So I'm Ra."
"I see. How long have you been active?" Takara asked.
"Ever since Naruto broke his promise to bring him back." she answered back, showing no emotion.
"Do you not care for him at all?" Takara asked, somewhat shocked.
"No, I don't. In fact, I hate him for his disloyalty. However, Saku adores him… But I… I can't bare the thought of him! In fact, right now, I can't stand the thought of going out with any of the boys I know."
"Hey… wait… So, what happened in between Sasuke leaving and Naruto being unable to bring him back?" Takara asked, suddenly realizing that there had to be a gap of a few days, at least, between the events.
"… Emptiness."
----
"You were right, Kabuto. It is a form of multiple personalities," Takara concluded with a deep sigh.
"And?" Kabuto asked, milking her for more information.
"You were also right about it going deeper than that. She has an exaggerated inner-child, and so… Well, her inner child somewhat died when Sasuke left the village. Her current personality, the mature one, came up after Naruto failed to bring Sasuke back into the village. And in that gap, I guess she was so depressed that she was but an empty shell…" Takara said, sighing again. "She doesn't seem like it on the outside, but really, she is mentally messed up."
"Is there any way to fix it?" Kabuto asked.
"Yes… We'd have to merge the personalities into something that can be considered a combination of the Saku and the Ra, forming a true Sakura," Takara explained with a smirk, wondering if Kabuto would catch on.
Kabuto nodded in reply. "That's going to be harder than you make it sound…"
A/N: Bleh. Shorter chapter, compared to the others. Sorry.