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Chapter 10

Sakura woke in a dark room alone, and bound. She still couldn't feel much from the neck down and started trying to heal what Kabuto had done to her.

"Just great. Is being captured all I am good at? I am so pathetic." She mumbled to herself in self loathing. She knew Itachi wouldn't come for her again, he would realize how weak she truly was and not even waste his time. She was on her own this time and she would have to defeat her enemies by herself.

"So Tsunade's apprentence is here? Perhaps it would be benificial to take the body of such a powerful little medic this time." Orochimaru chuckled darkly. Kabuto narrowed his eyes.

"Oh don't look so offended Kabuto, you know she had more power than you, she is just lacking the expierence and training to use it. Bring her to me now, and don't let your guard down around her. If she is a student of Tsunade than she will be cunning." Kabuto bowed and left quickly to comply with his master's wishes.

"That little brat is no where near as strong as me, she proved that in our battle. She is just a weak little girl who will always loose." He muttered as he walked down the hallway. He opened the door to the room where the prisioner was being held and gasped when he saw that she was no longer laying where he had put her.

Sakura used the little chakra she had left to cling to the celling as Kabuto opened the door. She used the moment of his distraction against him and swung down quickly to kick him in the face, sending him crashing into the wall opposite to the room. Sakura ran as fast as she could for an open window at the end of the hall, only to be grabbed by the shoulder roughly and slammed into the wall.

"You are out of chakra little girl, nice try but you know to use any more in fighting will kill you." Kabuto growled to the girl against the wall. Sakura nodded stiffly, she knew that she had lost the opportunity to escape, but such an opportunity might arise again if she remained calm and let her chakra replenish itself. Kabuto knew he had, for the moment, subdued her.

"So little flower, did you know that your village has sent out many teams to find you? Popular little one arent you?" Orochimaru said with a smirk.

"Of course." Sakura replied with even more arrogence than him.

"You know your village will never find you, and you know that Itachi Uchiha wont come for you, so for the time being you are at my mercy." Orochimaru grinnned evily as a thought popped into his head. "I wonder what your village would think about your behavior with the imfamous clan killer? Do you think they would understand, or would they put you on trial for treason? Do you have anything to go back to Sakura?"

Sakura knew exactly what he was doing and she wasn't going to fall for it. She smiled her sweetest fake smile and bowed.

"I don't think that my honor or loyalty is any of your concern Orochimaru, so I would appreciate it if you kept your greasy noes out of my buissness."

Orochimaru's smirk fell and he nodded to Kabuto who smacked her in the face, hard.

"You will learn your place soon enough. For now place her with the other prisioner, I'm sure they will have a lot in common." He grinned and dismissed his servent and his prisioner.

"Hey!" Sakura yelled as Kabuto threw her harshly into a dark room. She hit the ground with a thud and heard the door slam. "What a jerk." She mumbled.

"Sakura?" a voice from the corner of the room called quietly. Sakura turned slowly, she knew that voice, she trusted that voice.

"Sa..Sasuke?" she whispered. Disbelief shown in her bright green eyes.

Sasuke sat in the corner of the room, his eyes were clouded with pain. He had many knife wounds to his body but the real pain came deep within. He was filled with a deep pain he could not be released from.

Sakura rushed over to his side and started healing his wounds. He looked up into her eyes, finding none of the things he thought he would find. He did not find hate or betrayal, nor did he find hurt or anger. The only emotions in Sakura's eyes were concern and love.

"Don't waste your strength Sakura, I'm not worth it." Sasuke muttered, trying to pull away from her iron like grip.

"Shut up Sasuke." Was her reply.

"Why are you doing this, after what I did to you?" Sasuke asked bitterly.

"Because you are my team mate, my friend. Even though you forgot what that means, I havent." She said with a hitch. Tears welled in her eyes but she angerly brushed them away and continued with her work.

"Sakura…" he whispered, but could not finish what he was thinking.

They sat in silence for a long while, neither really knowing what to say to the other. Finally Sakura got sick of the silence.

"How did you get caught?" She asked curiously.

"Curse mark." He said quietly. Sakura nodded. "You?"

Sakura didn't know how to answer that. Should she tell him the truth?

"Kabuto caught me as I was trying to get back to the village." She said vaguely. Sasuke noticed that she was leaving out information, but decided not to press it.

"Sakura… I didn't forget." He whispered. She looked up startled, not knowing what he was talking about.

"I didn't forget what being a friend means, I just… got lost somewhere and couldn't get out. After my brother saved you from me, I realized that I had been chasing my goal the wrong way. Instead of asking for the help I needed from the ones I trusted, I betrayed them and eventually became what I truly despised. It's pretty bad when my worst enemy has to save my best friend from being my victim." A tear ran down Sasuke's cheek. "I need you Sakura, I need both you and Naruto, I realize that now."

Sakura was stunned to say the least. After all these years, Sasuke had finally seen the metophoric light. She laughed suddenly and threw herself into Sasuke's arms.

"You jerk! I missed you, you know." She cried with happy tears. "Lets find a way out of here, yeah?" Sakura asked with a smile.

Itachi neared the end of Kabuto's trail. It looked like a cave but Itachi knew better. After carefully cloaking his chakra, he proceeded forward with caution and stealth. If Sakura was here, she would probably be kept pretty far underground. He used his Akatsuki training to sence where people where. Orochimaru he recognized almost instantly because of his slimy aura. Kabuto was on the floor above him with ten other ninja. He closed his eyes and focused harder until he found two chakra traces he knew intimately. One was Sakura, she was low on chakra but other wise unharmed, and the other was his idiot brother. Itachi could tell that they were two floors below Orochimaru and between him and Sakura there was about sixty ninja in the way. He growled in annoyance, this was going to take longer than he wanted.

He would have to be silent and precise, he couldn't afford for Orochimaru to notice him until he had taken out at least half of the other ninja. One by one Itachi took the ninja down with a kunai, and his own silent stealth.

'I'm coming Sakura.' He thought with a strange emotion he had never felt before.

"Itachi…" Sakura whispered. She was shaking now, she knew with ever fiber of her being that he was there. She could feel him, his aura was dark yet had something strange mingled into it.

"What?" Sasuke asked.

"I…I feel him. I didn't think he would come for me." She whispered with confusion in her voice.

"Feel him? What do you mean?" Sasuke asked with narrowed eyes. "Is there something going on between you and my brother?"

"No! I mean… well you know how he is, there could never be anything between us Sasuke, remember he isn't exactly the loving type of person you know." Sakura rambled.

"Did you sleep with him?" Sasuke asked angerly.

"What?! I… that's… that is none of your buisness." She stuttered. "Look, Itachi is here to get me out, we need to help out if we have any chance of getting out of here alive. We will talk about this later Sasuke." She said with a tense voice.

Yes we will." Sasuke said with finality.

A/N: Sorry about the really long time without an update, I don't have an excuse to give you, I was just a bum. Please read and review and I promise I will update again very very soon.