Chapter NINE

Sasuke spends the rest of the day thinking about Kimimaro's words. While he knows Sakura needs to be pulled out before it was too late, he doesn't know when the right time would be or if she would even agree to leave with him.

The orders from Konoha had been clear. He was to kill Orochimaru, spend the next half a year destroying the rest of his bases, then return to Konoha.

He has no idea how Sakura would react to him killing her father. While she seems to not bat an eye at the idea of killing in cold blood, he knows that it will probably be like losing the one existence she had used to root herself down to the ground.

Would he, someone who had barely known her for a year, be enough to keep her on her feet?

Then there was the fact that he didn't know if he could trust Kimimaro. For all he knew, Kimimaro might have alerted Orochimaru and the two might be waiting for him to make a move.

Then again, even if Sakura agrees to leave with him, will Konoha accept her? While he thinks he will be able to convince the Hokage to at least listen to his side of the story, the Elders were a whole different story. The moment they find out that Sakura held more than one Cursed Mark within her and that she was a survivor of Orochimaru's experiments, they will no doubt want dissect her to see if they could find anything.

While he is an Uchiha and has the backing of an entire clan, there will be nothing stopping them from cutting her open for it wouldn't be a problem if she dies. She was Orochimaru's daughter, after all.

He runs a hand through his hair and is about to prepare to go to sleep when there is a knock on the door. He senses Kabuto's chakra and he sighs before he moves to open the door.

The bespectacled man smiles at him and gestures from him to come out. Sasuke narrows his eyes and stays rooted to his spot. "What?"

Kabuto sighs but drops his hand. "Orochimaru-sama wants you." He says.

Sasuke does not comment on just how wrong that sounds and instead, narrows his eyes and fixes the man with an annoyed glare. "It's late." He says.

"And you're still awake." Kabuto crosses his arms. "He's in lab room 407."

"If he wants me to fight one of his mindless zombies, tell him he can wait-"

"Sakura-chan is there to."

Sasuke narrows his eyes. "So?" He asks. He does not know what to think when he just about manages to keep his tone flat and wonders if Kabuto noticed.

However, the man does not say anything and does not change is expression. Instead, he frowns. "Orochimaru-sama told me you would come if I said that." He shrugs. "Well, it's fine. I guess I'll-"

Sasuke close the door in Kabuto's face and misses the man's knowing smirk.


The moment Sasuke is sure Kabuto has left, he slips out of the door. He had no idea what the suffocating feeling within him was but if going to see Orochimaru would lighten it, he would do so.

He was absolutely not going to see Sakura, and he was in no way going to admit that Kabuto's baiting had worked.

Because he was an Uchiha, and they were the ones that did the baiting, not the other way around.

Repeating the words over and over in his head, he hurries down the corridor. He can feel Orochimaru's chakra leaking out even before he has reached the fourth floor. He masks his chakra to the point it would hard to detect, but not too suspicious if found out. The door to room 404 is left slightly open. The light from within leaves eerie shadows in the corridor. As he sneaks closer, he can hear Orochimaru saying something under his breath.

A scream forcefully pulls him out of his musing. For a second, his heart stops and when he realizes, he is skidding to a halt right outside the room.

"You are truly amazing, Sakura-chan." Orochimaru says, then looks over his shoulder. His snake like yellow eyes meet his onyx ones and Sasuke feels his blood run cold. "Don't you think so, Sasuke-kun?"

He just about manages to catch Orochimaru's mocking voice. His eyes slide over him and land on the bloodied form of Sakura, chained down to the table like all those other experiments he had seen while coming here. There is a crimson soaked kunai in the Sannin's hand and multiple stab wounds dripping blood on pinkette's chest.

Her Cursed Seals had spread over her body, the two different patterns clashing and molding before his very eyes. The flame marks of his Cursed Mark of Heaven are on the right and Kimimaro's Cursed Mark of Earth on the left. The area between them is a shifting blob of black, like the two marks are trying to absorb each other.

"What...are you doing?"

Orochimaru chuckles and runs his hand through Sakura's hair. "Hear that, Sakura-chan?" The girl tenses and her eyes widen but Sasuke can see that she is not looking at anything and she is not hearing anything. "I guess Sasuke-kun doesn't agree."

Sakura's eyes begin to flutter shut. Orochimaru curses and reaches over for a syringe but she is out before he even turns back. In an instant, the marks of the Cursed Seals begin to pull away from each other.

Orochimaru sighs and Sasuke can tell that he is trying to hold back his anger.

"So close, Sakura-chan." He lifts his kunai again and before Sasuke can react, stabs the unconscious girl again. He waves his hand in Sasuke's direction. "She'll be fine by morning." He ignores Sasuke's disbelieving silence and storms out without a single comment.

The moment he is gone, Sasuke darts over Sakura. He tries to remember what he had learnt in the Academy about first aid and catches himself before he pulls out the blade. Without anything to stop the bleeding, there was a chance she would die of blood loss.

He then remembers Orochimaru's regeneration abilities and the fact that the snake had been so sure that she wouldn't die. He gently runs his fingers over the rips in Sakura's clothes and feels one of the wounds probably acquired before his arrival beginning to close.

With an annoyed snarl, he rips the chains holding down her limbs and strips out of his top. He wraps the white shirt around the girl and gathers her up into his arms. She does not make a sound, and that worries him. Even when unconscious, people gave signs of being in pain. Sakura's expression had become blank, as though she was sleeping. Her fists were loose and she didn't struggle against him or anything.

He streaks out of the room and heads straight towards his. It was Orochimaru's absolute belief in Sakura's seeming indestructibility that put her in so much danger. He would keep going until he reaches the results he wanted and Sakura's death would be a hindrance at most to his plans.

She seems to be his favorite, after all.

Sasuke has already received orders from Konoha. It has been left up to him to pick the place and moment and it seems he cannot waste anymore time. First and foremost, he has to get Sakura out of here.

Their relationship has changed rapidly over time. First, all Sakura had been was another step leading up to his final mission. After that, he had gone to her to escape the monstrosities of Orochimaru's base. Here, he had seen things and done things so horrifying he couldn't allow himself to look back. He had held onto the belief that if someone like Sakura could stay as untainted as she seemed, she could shield him from it too.

But something black could not be tainted any darker and it had taken him a little too long to realize this.

It hurt to think that Sakura could have been so much more brighter.


So, here's chapter eight. Sasuke will begin his, uh, slipping away? soon.

Darque: I have no idea if Sasuke and Sakura's relationship is written right. Does it seem forced or too quick?

Raven: How am I supposed to know? You're the girl here.

Darque: You're being chauvinistic.

Raven: Oh...

Darque: Anyways, what we're trying to do here is not build a slow relationship built on understanding and stuff like that. Sasuke and Sakura are broken in ways not visible in first glance and that's what made them click.

Raven: Well, they certainly seem broken.

Darque: I think that, at the back of his mind, Sasuke sees Sakura as a charity case. He knows he used her as an anchor to the light of sorts and he wants to repay her without even realizing it.

Raven: You sound so serious for once.

Darque: I am trying to write something dark and twisted in a not so bad way and you are ruining the moment.

Raven: You like these broken-people-forced-together-to-create-something-uniquely-them thing a lot, don't you. Our stories tend to be like that.

Darque: I do.

Raven: Is this sadistic hunger for mental conflict and emotional suffering a girl thing, or is it a Darque thing?

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