The sun grazes the treetops, casting the under-forest in a slightly warmer light. Dawn has come and she's still alive. Her strained heart thuds a little harder at the understanding that she is only alive and free because of some whim of Orochimaru's. If he hadn't slaughtered the ANBU squad, they would have found her, curled up in her hidey-hole, and dragged her back to Konoha for execution or imprisonment. She's not sure which, nor even sure which she would prefer. She shivers slightly at the memory of being on her knees before him, waiting to die. That, too, had been a whim. A suicidal whim, but it was backed by the very real understanding that she is now alone. That her purpose and her loved ones will forever be out of reach.
She shakes herself loose from the grip of her thoughts. She has gone over the events of the night so very many times that she is virtually numb to the shock and the horror of it. There is nothing more to be gleaned from her recollections at this moment; she has combed through them endlessly, trying to pick apart the pieces and find the angle. The information she has is minimal, she could never divine Orochimaru's purpose from such a brief and strange encounter. That his motives led to her survival draws out conflict in her mind, over just how grateful she should be (she's leaning heavily towards 'not very'), and over why and how he came to be in just the right place at just the right time. She half wants to think it was coincidence. The other half of her doesn't believe in things like luck, and that half wants answers.
Those answers are not going to be found in her own head, and if she she is to continue living long enough to discover them, she needs to find some place to hide. Not just for an hour, but for longer, some place that will afford her the time to explore the very many things that appear to be wrong with her world and her life. There may yet be an explanation for her own abnormal – for lack of a better word – behaviour. There may yet be a way for her to go home (the half that doesn't believe in luck and coincidence winces at the naivete displayed by the rest of her).
Sakura heaves a pained sigh, wincing as the air dives into her aching lungs and back out again. She really needs to recover some chakra so that she can assess the damage she's done to her body. Her legs tremble with every step, the muscles in her calves and thighs jumping as though they are half-shredded from the inside, and feeling as though they are at least a bit on fire. She reflects tiredly that her skeleton seems to be protesting holding her flesh upright, and her heart is definitely not one hundred percent as it bucks unevenly in her chest.
On the bright side, she no longer feels a driving urge to continue north. Instead, she is circling a well worn clearing as though there is an invisible tether preventing her from leaving it. This is just one more thing she cannot fathom an explanation for. She hasn't actually tried to leave the track she is wearing, but that's really the sum of the problem; she doesn't want to. If she leaves this clearing she doesn't know where she will go. All this time running, she has been pulled along by a sensationless tug centred in the tissue behind her now-shuddering heart. It's not there any more, like a rubber band with all the tension gone out of it, it lies dormant and quiet.
The pink-haired kunoichi groans and scrubs her filthy hands over her face, trying to rub the stars out of her eyes. She's growing dizzier by the moment, and she's fairly convinced that her heart is about to just give up. She has no chakra to feed it to keep her going. No chakra to heal the damage, either. She has, quite literally, worn herself out.
She is beginning to silently berate herself for her foolishness (though, really, she wouldn't be alive now if she hadn't poured all of her energy into her flight), when the ground moves nearby. Sakura comes to a wobbly standstill and tries to focus her fuzzy, sparkly, vision on the strange bit of earth. It's moved from where it was before, and now there are stone stairs visible, leading down into the ground. She sways unsteadily and tries to marshal some brain cells into pondering the mystery, when a grey-topped head pokes out of the hole.
"Would you like to come in? You look awfully tired," a bland, and slightly condescending, voice emanates from the pale oval that must be a face. Sakura wishes she could clear her starry vision.
She knows this voice, too, and despite her exhaustion she manages a stab of fear at the coincidence of it all.
She cannot afford to turn down any offer of shelter now, though. If he doesn't kill her, Kabuto might even be kind enough to see to her overstrained heart.
With nowhere else to go, and no other option but a quiet and painful death on the forest floor, Sakura nods her heavy head and murmurs a tired "Yes," with no small amount of effort.
She thinks it's a good thing he's coming closer because the ground is rushing up to meet her face very quickly. The night spins down into darkness just as hands close over her shoulders.