This arc will soon end, I promise, and I swear the next chapter will satisfy everyone! For now, thanks to all of you reviewers, I always like to hear from you!
If you want to be in the right mindset when you read this, I suggest you listen to AFI's Prelude 12/21. Enjoy!
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Two voices filtering through cotton-filled ears in a hazy world.
"Tell me you have managed to stabilize her."
"We have, Danzo-sama."
"Good. This girl has to stay alive."
Footsteps leaving hurriedly.
-:-
People entered her room. She knew because she heard their footsteps. Her head automatically turned in that direction tiredly. Soon enough, the door closed, leaving whoever had entered stranded with her.
"Hello," she called out slowly, "what are you doing here?"
Whoever had entered came closer to her bed; she didn't recognize the footsteps, thus didn't know who it was nor what that person could want from her.
"They're cleaning my room," replied a young but nonetheless clearly male voice.
"Ah…" she replied dizzily.
"You're going to die soon, aren't you?" asked the boy. "That's why you're so feeble and why they left me in here."
"Hm…maybe you'll get my room," she replied tiredly. She had long since accepted that she would die. The frequent relapses made sure of that. The point had been driven home quite effectively.
"Maybe," he agreed, looming over her. "What's with the bandages?"
"I'm getting new eyes. But they hurt. Are eyes supposed to hurt? I wouldn't know, I never had any…"
She heard a swish of clothes, as though he was shrugging, though she couldn't be sure, and he answered that his didn't. Then they remained quiet, as she was too feeble to talk and he apparently didn't feel like speaking anyway. She drifted off to sleep—nowadays, she always felt so drained of energy that she never stayed awake for long.
-:-
Kisame was brooding. Life was dull nowadays. Before, he'd get to see the pinkette once in a while, and it never failed to lift his spirits, but now…She had disappeared more than a year ago, and still the loss felt as raw as the first day.
That didn't keep him from accomplishing his missions efficiently, but it did put a damper on his mood.
He found himself moody and irascible, which lead him to being more violent than usual.
And when his irritation rose to a higher level than he could manage, he went to the place where he had left Hidan's beheaded body. It never failed to bring him a small measure of peace.
While the Jashinist hadn't been the one to kidnap Sakura, he had been the catalyst that had allowed the kidnapper to take her. That was guilt enough in his book.
She was gone, and the mere thought was enough at times to very nearly drive him insane.
On his way to the Jashinist, he noticed someone tailing him. What was strange wasn't the fact that he was tailed, for to a nuke-nin, that was bound to happen occasionally, but rather the fact that his tail wasn't bothering to hide their chakra signature at all. That alone made him curious. It was as though the person wanted him to know he was being tailed.
He conveniently stopped in the middle of a clearing and waited for his tail to show up.
Soon enough, another ninja ran out of the trees and stopped some distance away, allowing him to recognize the man easily.
"Well, well. If it isn't the Toad Sage himself. What do you want?"
Looking unusually grave, the man frowned, answering in a hard voice, "I've been looking for you for a while, Hoshigaki-san. I'll get straight to the point. My Sakura-chan has disappeared over a year ago, yet no ransom was demanded and since her clones haven't disappeared, she has to still be alive. Was your group the one that took her?"
He snorted, half angry and half amused.
"I would have known if we had been. I wondered the same myself, but I checked, just in case my leader decided to take her without my knowledge. We don't have her."
The Sannin sighed sadly.
"I figured so, but…I had to make sure. Have you found anything, with your contacts in the underworld?"
"No more than you apparently have."
There was nothing more to be said. With a last glare at each other and a "I still don't like you" and "Likewise", they each left their own way, figuring if they fought each other now, they would lose more than they would gain. A tentative partnership was better than none at all.
Why did all leads end up being dead ends?
-:-
"What's that noise?"
The strange noise she had been hearing ever since she had woken up stopped for a moment before continuing, but at least her temporary roommate answered her question.
"My brush."
A brush?
"What can you possibly be painting in here?" she asked incredulously, though her voice was much more feeble than she would have liked.
"You," he answered straight and to the point.
"What do I look like?" she wondered curiously.
"Like a corpse."
"Hah!" she snorted amusedly. "That's hardly flattering, though I…suppose it must be true."
They lapsed into silence once more.
"Will you remember me after I'm gone?" she asked at length.
"I remember every last one of my drawings."
"Good…"
Her breaths grew shallower.
-:-
"Her state was supposed to be stabilized. Why is she getting worse?"
"We don't know, Danzo-sama. There is nothing we can do."
"To bring in an outside medic would be dangerous…but one's memories can always be erased…"
Her hearing was getting worse—as was, apparently, the rest of her body.
She missed her temporary roommate. When he was there, at least his silent companionship made her feel less alone. But he had to train, and she was frequently sleeping; there was something about him that felt, if not familiar, at least reassuring. She liked it when he was there.
-:-
"This is your chance to prove that you have learned something from your father, Yakushi-san. Your mission is to heal this female."
The male looked at the feverish girl with scrutinizing eyes, his glasses glinting sharply in the artificial lighting of the room. Despite her obvious bad state, he recognized her—the bandages around her eyes were clue enough. He wisely kept from commenting and nodded, kneeling next to the ailing girl.
-:-
There was something strange about that new person. She didn't quite know why, but something didn't sit well with her about that male. The air around him seemed cold, somehow, and it gave her goosebumps. She much preferred her temporary roommate.
She was too weak to protest, however, and stayed immobile as he put his hands on her torso and something not quite warm seemed to enter her body.
She frowned in displeasure, but her eyes hurt more than usual when her face scrunched up, and she tried to avoid making such faces.
They were left alone, and that thought didn't exactly comfort her.
"Well…I am going to get you out of here. I know someone who wants to meet you. To think you were here…"
Get out? Where? What for? Why would she want to get out of here? They tried to heal her, even though they knew she was dying. That meant they were nice, right? They cared about her.
Yet something at the back of her mind told her that wasn't quite true. And as she thought such, her world came to a halt in an instant.
-:-
Inner Sakura shook her head, crossing her arms as she plopped in front of the warded door behind which Sakura had been sealed.
Staying put had never been her forte, and to be frank, to pretend that she didn't exist and keep her existence a secret was a pain in the ass. Still, more than ripping Danzo a new one, she wanted to live, not solely survive, and she knew that Kabuto was her best bet, despite how dangerous the situation could turn. This may very well be the opportunity she had been waiting for.
"Wait a bit, wait a bit, and then we may be free…If all goes well…"
She pushed away from the wall, stretched her arms above her head and nodded to herself.
"Well, time to surreptitiously implant some ideas into the empty shell I'm inhabiting," she said to herself.
-:-
When she came to, she instantly noticed something was different. The air was…danker, somehow. It felt more oppressive, but she didn't know why. Still, her mind cried at her that something wasn't exactly right.
Frowning, she wondered what it was.
After assessing her surroundings, she realized that the by now familiar sound of brush sweeping across paper was nowhere to be heard. Had her temporary companion been transferred to another room?
A door opened, but the metallic creak and the fact that she barely felt a breeze told her that it was probably a cell door rather than a normal one like she had in her old room.
She didn't recognize the footsteps, either, but as they stopped next to her cot, she turned her head in the direction of her visitor. To her left, as it was, which further confirmed that she wasn't in the same room as before, as in her old room, her visitors had approached from her right.
"Well, well, now that you're in my possession, we're going to have much fun together. At least, I will."
As she wondered what the man with the sibilant voice meant, he continued, "You have much potential. And I've got great plans for you."
She wondered what she could possibly mean to him, but before she could say anything, he knocked her unconscious.
-:-
Something was not right. After visiting the medical village, the Konoha ninja had gotten into a fight; despite the high level of their adversaries, it seemed their only goal was to get the young Haruno, for as soon as they managed to grab her, they took off with the screaming girl in tow, leaving behind tired and bleeding shinobi who could only rage at the circumstances.
"Attacking at night, when they were sure most of us would be sleeping, just to get the element of surprise…"
"We must have gotten close to something," agreed Itachi, eyes narrowing in anger.
"Think she was taken by the same people who took Sakura-sensei?" asked Shisui, looking cautiously at his fuming cousin.
"Undoubtedly. Something must have happened, or else she would have been taken long before now—unless they were waiting for her to get out of Konoha. I think this proves that the two Sakura are related."
"Aa…They may very well be sisters…but why would someone kidnap the younger Sakura?"
Indeed, why would one capture a child civilian?
-:-
Something was strangling her, something was choking the life out of her, but there were no hands around her neck, no knee on her chest, and the feeling brought strange helplessness. She came to, gasping for air, and cried out loudly. She clawed at her chest, panting and huffing, and barely noticed someone throwing themselves away from her bedside and landing sharply on the floor over the rush in her ears.
Her world was compressing around her, her head hurt like crazy and she had trouble even thinking. What was going on?
Something was unsettling her, and unfounded panic gripped her, unbidden. She had to get away. She had to get far way. She didn't know where, she didn't know how, but she couldn't stay there. She would die if she did—that she knew for sure, though she didn't know how she was so certain of that.
"Are you…alright?" asked a young voice, sounding unsure.
And then something wormed from the back of her mind, something that she hadn't even suspected was there, and her mind suddenly wasn't so hollow anymore, but it erupted in a fare of pain that left her gasping.
"This isn't right…"
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Wow, what a crappy chapter. Necessary, but crappy. I didn't manage to write this to my satisfaction, but at least I worked on this today, so it isn't as bad as it was yesterday. I promise the next chapter will be much, much better, with plenty of action and drama to make everyone happy.
