Exit Strategy by Crackalive

Summary: Kenobi escapes by jumping into a random simulation. However, things go wrong and he cannot leave. What he needs is an exit strategy... but is he ready to follow it?

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Rated T for some language and violence.

Huge fight coming chapter 14. Sit tight, it'll be worth it!

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PART 4

III- CORRIDORS

I felt both delighted and depressed to hear those words.

On one hand, she had revealed that she knew my feelings for her. On the other hand, it was discouraging to know that Sakura felt she could not be loved. I paused, trying to find the right phrase. Her warmth pierced my chest and went straight to my heart. To my dismay, she took my silence for a rejection and clenched her fists, twisting the fabric on my back.

I ran a hand through her hair. She leveled her head, looking at my chin, then tilted backwards, her eyes meeting mine. I could not get enough of those emerald disks; the way they seemed vulnerable, precious yet revealed strength and determination she did not realize. Before I spoke, I placed my right hand on her cheek, thumb below her eye and fingers on her neck. Slowly, I drew my thumb under her eyelids to wipe away her tears.

"Sakura… how could I not love you?"

My hands moved over to her shoulders as I stepped out of her grasp.

"How could I not love how beautiful, strong and intelligent you are?"

Her eyes were wide with incredulity and I hated her for that. Such things were evident to me.

"Sakura!" I shook her. "Don't say you're useless! Naruto, Sasuke… they're idiots! They can't see you for who you are. You were the one to push them forward; without you they'd be nothing. I believe in what you can do. Believe in yourself!"

The kunoichi had stopped shaking, looking up to me with a shocked expression. Her cheeks were rosy, fists clenched. I grinned and let my eyes wander over her body.

"I love you because you're sexy in ninja wear and your hair is pink." I added.

Her blush spread to the rest of her face, which she hid by staring intently at her feet. After a while, her hair shook. I frowned. Her breath caught before she coughed- no, she was laughing! The movements grew to a chuckle, then to repressed hiccups. Soon the kunoichi was clenching her stomach with one hand, laughter resounding off the dusty walls.

"Kenobi…" she gasped "My hair? Really?"

I grinned, not knowing what to do. Unconsciously, I scratched my hair like Naruto. "Well, it is kind of unique."

She drew a handkerchief to wipe her wet cheeks. I waited as she calmed her breaths before speaking again, trying to convey a sense of seriousness. I had the impression that her laugh hadn't been entirely sincere; she was covering other painful emotions.

"Sakura… I know you're worried about meeting Sasuke. Naruto told me. He was cold and unthankful to you…" I paused slightly at her disappearing smile. "I want to show him he was wrong to do so. I want… I want to show everyone how amazing you are. But right now, we have a mission to do. Will you help me?"

I extended my hand. She gripped it.

"Let's do this!" I said, proud of her determined expression.

"HAI!" she shouted.

I stepped back, startled. The pink-haired girl seemed surprised too. She looked away, embarrassed at her outburst. I let go of her hand and stepped towards the open door.

"Sakura, I said you should be confident in your strength, but… we're kind of trying to avoid being caught here."

We laughed together as we set out.

We continued the search at a rapid pace. I would unlock a door magnetically, she would dart her head inside before we sprinted to the next door in line. It was tiring work; the hardest part was to pause, listening, against each door as we tried to calm our breathing after running. My sound amplifier dish only helped little. Every now and then, we'd look over to each other and grin. Sometimes she would hide a blush. Most often she had a serene, dutiful expression that ignored me to concentrate on the next room.

I was happy to see her confidence return.

We spent two and a half hours clearing our half of the level. I had counted over three hundred empty chambers.

Turning a final corner, we saw Yamato and the blond waiting for us.

The teenager was pacing between the walls, frustration giving him a sour expression. Even the captain seemed worried. He hailed us as soon as we entered his sight.

"Kenobi! Sakura! Anything?"

The two of us shook our heads.

"Nothing on our side either." he said, sounding disappointed.

"You should have let me use my clones!" cried the blond.

"I already told you, Naruto," reprimanded the wood-user in a tone bordering exasperation, "Orochimaru would detect such a use of your chakra!"

"Then we'll fight the snake fu-"

Sakura was the one to interrupt him.

"Shut it! I've had enough of your whining! Listen to him, for your own sake." she snarled, her stare and throbbing fist making the teenager cower in fear. There was a moment's silence.

"It's seven o'clock in the morning." said Yamato. "The chances of finding Sasuke asleep are slim. I'm unsure whether we should continue…"

I understood his concern. Every moment we stayed here increased our chances of being detected.

"Shall we take a vote- "

"We continue searching."

We all stared at Sakura. She was deathly serious and none of her previous nervousness remained. The pink-haired ninja was a completely different person from the trembling girl I had held over an hour earlier. I wondered if she'd ever mention our little talk again or if she'd be too embarrassed by her moment of weakness.

Sakura and I were running again. The candles sped past, blurs as we searched each room in a rehearsed maneuver.

The team had split up again after following Yamato down to the next level. It was in all points identical to the one we had just left. The only difference I noted was that the air was a few degrees warmer. I wondered how deep underground we were.

We reached door number 461 or 462. I skidded to a halt against it, holding my breath. Sakura stopped silently next to me. I nodded to her and turned the knob magnetically, pushing the door open. She ducked her head past the opening before backing out. Her hair swayed left and right before she turned away and left for the next room. I locked the door behind me and followed her.

Sakura was a distraction, and a pleasant one at that, but my thoughts were slowly drifting to my own plans. What would I do when I met Sasuke? The Uchiha mattered a lot to my teammates, and I did not want to hurt them by killing him. However, the traitor had been trained by a sannin-level ninja for years and had probably obtained unfathomable power. Maybe I should try and survive the fight, I thought, before thinking of whether to kill the guy or not.

We skidded around a corner and started on the next row of rooms. The base was much larger than the map suggested. Even Yamato and Naruto were outside of my metal sensing ra-

I shouted out to Sakura. She jumped as the stone cracked and rumbled. Three massive cobras burst from the floor between us, cutting me off from the kunoichi. The serpents' wedge-shaped heads swiveled, searching for their prey. Their jaws opened to reveal three pair of fangs oozing with venom. The creatures hissed, swaying menacingly. I looked past them. The pink-haired ninja had only been surprised for a moment; for now she held her combat knife with a killing stare. She crouched, ready to spring. Noticing me, she gave a curt nod.

As if on cue, the snakes lunged at us, two towards the medic ninja and one towards me. I watched as the amber eyes focused on me, jaws widening as the fangs were pushed forward into hollow daggers.

The cobra slumped at my feet, skull crushed by three darts. Its poison still flowed, forming a pool between its inert jaws. I glanced worriedly at my partner. Her knife was stuck between the eyes of one serpent, her other arm wrestling with the other as she gripped it behind the head. I aimed carefully to avoid her arm and launched two darts at the beast. It twitched, spitting venom before falling to the ground.

Both of us were breathing heavily, shaking with the adrenalin. A slight smile crossed our lips… The stone around us exploded into a shower of jagged fragments and crumbling rock. I raised a shield to protect myself, multiple impacts denting the metal as I was pushed back. The dust blocked out the candlelight, plunging the corridor into darkness.

From the shadows emerged hoarse laughter; a human voice merged with the hisses of a snake and thick with malice. As the dust cleared, I heard a sickly wet sound. A pale body, glistening with slime, was being regurgitated from the throat of a massive viper. The nightmarish beast's head scraped against the roof, making stones rain around it as it quivered. With a humid pop, the legs emerged.

Orochimaru smiled up at me.

I forced my face to suppress any hint of fear despite my panic. Six darts started revolving around me with increasing speed. It hurt to generate a strong enough field to keep the darts close and avoid hitting the walls. My pain was forgotten though when I saw blood trickle down the kunoichi's forehead from a bruised cut.

An impossibly long tongue slithered between the man's lips, flickering to taste the air.

"Children… do you know how my pets found you?" he sneered. "The same way they hunt rats... they smelled the fear. And you two reek of it. "

He widened his nostrils for effect, predatory smile spreading on his pale, grey face. The snake master examined me from head to toe before twisting on his feet to look at Sakura. The extended tongue pushed his humid, black hair away from his eyes, reaching past his ears.

"Interesting, interesting." he muttered as he stood up, patting the head of the gigantic snake next to him. "Kabuto would need such young, healthy bodies for his experiments. I might get a favor or two out of him-"

"Get away from her!" I yelled, taking a step forward. My stomach churned as I imagined the pink-hair girl strapped to an operating table, the grey-haired, bespectacled medic standing over her while sharpening his scalpels…

Orochimaru's head swiveled to stare at me. The Konoha defector's momentary anger melted into a sickly smile.

"Saving the girl, are we? Ku ku ku… If I were you, I'd save myself first."

He twisted back to me in a bone-dislocating movement.

"Fool! Rats survive because they flee from danger. I'm the danger, so flee!" the man hissed.

My grip on the metal in my cloak tightened. The darts were making the dust swirl and rise in a mini-tornado. An enraged battle cry resounded down the corridor.

Sakura had leapt forward, one fist pulled back and the other armed with her knife. Orochimaru's head snapped backwards, jaws unhinged to allow his tongue to transform into a snake and shoot past his lips. Sakura jammed her knife between its fangs as it approached. The sannin's hands were moving, forming seals. Fearing an unavoidable ninjutsu in the narrow corridor, I released all my projectiles at once. The metal sliced through his arms and chest with a wet ripping sound soon covered by a thunderous splash. Gore and ribbons of red meat coated the walls.

I wiped my eyes and hastily scanned the area. Orochimaru stood, drenched in blood. In front of him, an equally red kunoichi had her arm extended. I feared the worst for a moment before the giant viper slumped between them, head missing. It had intercepted Sakura's punch and exploded like a water balloon.

I sighed in short-lived relief. The sannin's arms were torn from the elbow and several large craters pitted his chest. What would have been a mortal blow from my darts only seemed toannoyhim. His tongue reverted back to its original form and retreated.

Slowly, small white snakes emerged from his wounds. They multiplied and bit each other, merging into a smooth surface of healed flesh. Sakura jumped back, grimacing in disgust. I generated two acceleration rings, ignoring the pain.

Orochimaru's sickly healing process ended. I looked down to watch his hands. Suddenly, the man's neck extended, head split in half to reveal an array of fangs. He reached me before I formed a shield; my only reaction was to raise an arm in defense. The fangs dug into my forearm. I merged the wires to form a solid layer of armor before they penetrated the skin. The head hissed, eyes staring at the ceiling. I punched it with my other hand, making the fangs grate against the metal. In the corner of my eye, Sakura had jumped onto Orochimaru's back and was hacking away at the base of the neck.

I slammed my arm into the head and pulled it back out through the fangs, breaking them. The head reared away in pain before twisting to face Sakura. Its jaws fell out before being replaced by new rows of ivory daggers. My heart jumped. The head shot back to its body.

The kunoichi wedged the knife slick with blood between the vertebrae and pulled. She cried out in rage, body drenched with ichors. With a crack, the bones separated and the ten meter long neck bounced to a standstill. I was approaching on a platform, several darts levitating in front of me.

My heart sunk when the headless body's arms shot up and gripped the kunoichi's neck, lifting her off her feet. I launched my darts into its back, electricity shooting up from my fingers as I pushed the metal with the force of despair. Orochimaru did not flinch from the new wounds. Instead, white snakes were emerging like worms from the ragged neck wound and were forming a new head. I accelerated faster. His hands gripped tighter.

All happened at once. Sakura struck the roof with her fist. I jumped off my platform and shaped it into a spear. Several man-sized snakes pushed through the stone floor before being buried by an avalanche of rock. The cracks spread over my position and the stone crashed down.

I coughed the dust out of my lungs. It was pitch black and my head felt cold.

I closed my eyes to sense my environment. A metal shell surrounded me; all was silent. Expanding my sixth sense, I found Sakura's weapons pouch... four meters above me. How could she be- the roof had collapsed! Reviewing my last memories, I remembered that I had been standing on the ground Orochimaru's snakes had broken through; it might have been weakened. That put me… on the third floor, under Sakura. I touched the cold patch on my head. My fingers returned wet; something must have hit me on the head before I had raised the shield.

My frown deepened. How could I have lost consciousness? I was an electronic spirit receiving information through a simulation, my physical skull could be crushed and I'd still remember something. It dawned on me. The shield… the shield had completely enveloped me in a flash: the painful feedback from forming it so quickly must have overloaded the link between my electronic self and the simulation. I shuddered to think what would happen if I generated too strong a field during a fight.

I ran mental fingers over the shell's surface. I was slanted nearly vertically inside it, so I must have fallen feet first. Eventually, I found the area that met the least resistance and expanded the bubble in that direction. A few rocks tumbled and some fell, making dents. Minutes later, I met fresh air.

The corridor I was in was identical to the one above it. Several candles had fallen off their stands or were flickering in the cold air current that was carrying the dust away. Behind me was a mound of crushed rock extending to the roof. I shook the dust off my torn cloak, stepping under Sakura's position. I calmed slightly when I noticed that the roof had no cracks at that spot.

I sat against the wall and forced myself not to sneeze. Closing my eyes, I extended my touch through the rock above me. I was searching for a small disk of metal, around 5 millimeters wide and a tenth of a millimeter thick. I vibrated it.

Sakura gasped.

"Kenobi!" she hissed, sounding worried. "Whereareyou?"

"I'm okay, Sakura. I fell to the lower level. I'm standing right under you. How are you?" I asked.

"Oh Kenobi, I was so worried! I thought I'd buried you!"

I heard a sniffle; had she been crying again?

"Sakura! Cut it out. Are you safe?"

There was no answer. I repeat louder.

"Dammit. Look, I'm communicating with you with a piece of metal on your eardrum. Whisper and I'll still hear you."

"Okay." she answered in a small voice. "I'm safe. Orochimaru dispelled; it was a clone… What are you going to do now?"

I looked around. None of the familiar doors were present, only bare stone carved with repeating patterns.

"I'm going to continue searching for Sasuke."

She gasped. "Wait, I'm coming. Move away from under me!"

"No! Don't!"

"Keno-"

"Sakura. Do you know why Yamato sent you with me?"

She hesitated before answering. "I'm the team's medical ninja and you're in the best position to defend me with your long range attacks. But I-"

"Listen to me!" I snapped. "The real Orochimaru is going to come here soon. I want you to return to Yamato and inform him that we've been found. When I'll find Sasuke, I'll communicate like I am doing now. Then-"

This time she was the one to interrupt. Her voice hissed with anger. "No, you listen to me! I've had enough of being protected! FUCK being medic! You're not going alone to face Sasuke. I will be the one to face him!"

I waited until the heavy breathing in my ear slowed down. Despite myself, irritation changed my voice into a cold, menacing whisper.

"Tell me, which is more important to you? The lives of your teammates or your love for thatbastard?"

With that, I marched away, seething. I de-magnetized the earpieces so that she wouldn't hear my cursing echo down the corridor.

I hated myself. Those words had hurt her, I knew it from the way her breath caught and the muffled sobs I heard after I magnetized the metal in her ear a few minutes later. She hadn't followed me.

My steps carried me against the cold breeze. The corridor curved slowly to the right; only the regular placement of the candles allowed me to keep track of how far I had walked.

My self-pity left way to thinking about Sasuke. What had the cold-hearted boy done to her to keep her loyal for so many years? Naruto loved her for sure. Without doubt, she felt something for him too. On too many occasions he had saved her life and acted selflessly in her favor and yet they hadn't gone on a single date. The blond wasn't really idiotic, filthy and ignorant as some thought. Nothing explained the way Sakura kept her distance with him.

The same was happening to me. Her blushes and tearful confessions in my arms revealed her heart wasn't insensible but she was obviously holding back, refraining from admitting that she felt something for me.

Sasuke.

He was the answer to the problem he had created. If he was captured, Sakura would see that he was no more than the burnt-out husk of the boy he used to be, having been consumed by revenge. If he was killed, the girl might move on. She might fall for me, Naruto or someone else. She might lock up her emotions and never recover. Whatever happened, the conflict in her heart would end and she would find peace. After all, it was her happiness I wanted, not a place by my side.

I had to find Sasuke.

The cold air originated from one of the unmarked, empty patches on Yamato's map. I listened carefully for a long time before darting past the opening and away from the light.

The chamber's size was beyond measure. It was pitch black; a darkness that enveloped me and erased the ceiling and walls. On one end was a single, flickering spot of light, like a single star in the night sky. Behind me was the candlelight from the corridor, illuminating only a few meters of stone before being devoured by the black void.

I closed my eyes and extended my other senses. The air smelled of damp earth. The only sound was my thumping heartbeat. Far away, a blade of metal arced in the air, making circles and jabs.

My heart raced. From my files, only one person in this base used a sword. Had I found…

The sword was sheathed and started bobbing away. I waited until it was put to rest next to a pile of shuriken. It didn't move again.

I tried to think of a suitable course of action. Should I attack? Should I wait and observe? Was it better that I inform Sakura that I had found him?

My eyes opened again. I had made my decision.

The soft scrape of my sandals against the smooth stone was deafening to my ears. I stopped ten meters away from the only source of light in the chamber. It was a pair of candles, one in each hollow eye of a momentous snake statue. Their list cast an eerie glow on the meditating figure under it.

The raven black hair could not be distinguished from the shadows behind him. It framed the fair skin on his face. The ninja wore a long-sleeved white shirt, revealing his torso. Thick cord tied in a bow held the blue cloth over his laps.

Either he had not detected me or he was confident enough in his abilities to not react to my approach. I feared it was the latter.

The figure was perfectly still. He breathed through his nose without a sound, bangs slightly swaying with each deep inhalation. I waited for a reaction. After three minutes, my preparation was ready.

I put all my loathing into my words, not needing to speak up in the silence.

"Enjoying your stay at Orochimaru's?"

Sasuke's eyelids parted to reveal red circles as he looked up at me. Three tomoe spun in each iris. His face was an unmoving mask. I stepped closer, slowly drawing a scroll from a pouch on the side of my backpack.

"Naruto and Sakura want you back." I said. "She cries at night and feels insecure. The blond… doesn't know how much of an unfeeling ** you've become. He feels like a failure for not doing something about friendship, bonds and the rest of his usual blather."

There was no reaction. I continued, voice disappearing without an echo into the darkness around me.

"Here is the mission statement." I unrolled the scroll with a grin. "Objective: Capture and retrieve Sasuke Uchiha." He blinked slowly. "Unlike Naruto, I'm not idiotic enough to try and make you hear reason. But… they wouldn't want me to kill you. So how about we do this." I ripped the paper and threw it aside. "I beat you to bloody pulp. If you survive, you'll get to ask forgiveness from Naruto and maybe you won't rot in prison. If you don't, there's nothing to worry about. They'll forget about you eventually. Oh and…"

I stood up. He did too, hand gliding over his sword to arm himself.

"Don't worry about your revenge on Itachi. He's next on my list."

His nose creased in anger as he formed his first facial expression. That was the reaction I wanted. The Uchiha's bare feet blurred and he melted into the shadows.

Thank you all!

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