*note: the chapter got so long that I decided to split it in two - so that it wouldn't take another 4 weeks until you get something to read. Maybe this means I can write the next update sooner... fingers crossed.
Everything happened very fast, but to Sakura in her soul-chilling, mind-numbing stupor, it felt like everything went down in slow motion.
Sasuke was screaming in agony at the top of his voice, his limbs twisting grotesquely as he transformed into something horrific, somewhat resembling his Stage 2 Curse Seal of Heaven persona but with red skin and long, sharp talons and fangs instead of wings.
Thrashing around him wildly and still screaming, he ripped open Nurun who had the misfortune to stand closest to him and then threw his body across the room like a ragdoll, blood splattering everywhere along the way.
Instantly, the lab smelled like a battlefield. Blood and guts. Sakura gagged helplessly, barely able to keep the contents of her stomach down. She didn't need to check his vitals to know Nurun was dead.
Fire sprang up around Sasuke with a pronounced woosh, a corona of black fire... the worst possible fire, its destructiveness unparalleled. Out. We need to get out...
Sakura saw how Kabuto, all color gone from his face, scrambled away from Sasuke, ran towards a cupboard and frantically started to rip out documents, stuffing as many of them as possible into his pockets. Then, avoiding Nurun's body, he ran to the back of the room where he kept samples and other things, roughly shouldering Karin aside who had her hands clasped to her mouth.
Like a red flash, Kakashi moved past her and Sasuke's head snapped around to look at him with his eerie eyes. The Rinnegan was red, the eternal Mangekyo swirling. His fanged mouth twisted into a nasty snarl.
"No!" Sakura wanted to scream, but the two men had already made contact before her mouth even got the chance to utter a sound. Sasuke's talons missed Kakashi's face by a mere fraction when he dodged the aggressive forward attack. Kakashi, his entire body covered in red glowing marks, moved unbelievably fast, a mere red streak to Sakura's eyes. But could he move faster than the Amaterasu that was hurled at him relentlessly? And for how long could he keep this up?
Time to move. She jolted herself out of the strange inertia that had taken a hold of her.
"Out!" she signalled Micha who stood frozen to the side, his eyes huge with shock, his large body trembling like a leaf. She ran towards him and grabbed him by the arm, seeing how Kabuto made his way towards the entrance with one last look at the lifeless Nurun, his arms full of various objects.
"Micha, come!" she urged him, "this lab will burn down. These flames cannot be extinguished!"
"The equipment," he gasped, "the serum!"
The serum. A sob escaped Sakura's throat. The serum she had made. Useless. Utterly useless, worse... She was to blame for this disaster. She had turned her own husband into a bloodthirsty monster.
"Leave it!" she urged him, but he shook off her hand and stumbled away to his part of the lab, in the process bending down to pick a discarded syringe off the floor.
"Micha!" she called after him, but then she caught movement from the corner of her eye and swiveled around, just in time to see Sasuke leap towards the doctor, Kakashi at his heel.
"Watch out!" she screamed, but it was too late. Sasuke's talons got Micha across the back, shredding open his lab coat and his flesh underneath. Micha went to his knees with a muffled cry and toppled over, flat on his face.
Kakashi ripped Sasuke back by the shaggy hair and slung his legs around his middle, inelegantly tumbling to the floor with him.
"Micha!" Sakura screamed again and rushed to his side, readying her hands to heal the nasty wound. Her chakra was very sluggish to respond, due to exhaustion... fear ... a depleted Strength of a Hundred Seal from yesterday. But she gathered what she had and more, pressing her trembling hands against Micha's back. She was able to close the worst of it, stubbornly ignoring the labored sounds of the two men wrestling on the floor behind her and the mounting heat of the Amaterasu threatening to ignite the world.
"Can you walk?" she asked her friend, seeing with immense relief how the color returned to his face.
"I am not leaving our research behind," he insisted as he pushed himself up.
"Let the garbage burn!" she cried, but he ignored her and stumbled to his work area, hastily collecting vials and other items. All of this had traveled around the world just to fall prey to an inferno that she had caused. Will you now realize how useless I am? she wanted to cry in Kakashi's arms. An incompetent woman playing doctor.
Oxygen was getting short, Sakura realized when she took a labored breath. But where was Karin?! Her eyes searched the room. There! Hiding behind a bed curtain like a child, still clasping her hands before her mouth.
"Get out!" Sakura yelled at her. It was clear to her that the red haired woman was on some kind of substance from the way her pupils were dilated, would she understand?
"I need to help Sasuke," Karin sobbed, "I need to..."
Sakura ran over to her and pulled at her hand. "Karin, you cannot help him."
"Yes, I can!" Karin hissed at her and pushed her hard, rushing forward as Sakura stumbled backwards, her hands outstretched.
"Watch out!" Sakura screamed and followed after her. Before them, a black ring of flames was dancing around Kakashi and Sasuke, who had come to their feet, exchanging quick blows with feet, legs, hands, and arms. Was Kakashi somehow controlling the flames? It looked like he was able to keep them at bay! Both men seemed fairly evenly matched, but it had to be a matter of time before Kakashi ran out of chakra. It had always been his weakness.
"I've got everything," Micha wheezed behind her, "let's go."
"You go," Sakura said with a shake of her head, "I need to get Karin out."
But Karin seemed not in the least interested in leaving. She rushed forward blindly and promptly got hit by an elbow flying at her by accident. Sakura grabbed the opportunity or rather, Karin's hair, and pulled her backwards.
"You bitch!" Karin foamed, twisting, kicking and trying to pull herself free, "I won't let you have him! He's mine!"
Kakashi briefly turned his head towards them and Sakura felt a chill in her bones when their red madness met hers. There was no black left, it looked like they were filled with blood. She shook her head at him, don't help! I'm fine! But this second of inattentiveness already cost Kakashi dearly. Sasuke dug his fangs into his neck and Kakashi screamed.
"Leave him alone!" Sakura yelled, all caution forgotten. Letting go of Karin, she rushed forward herself, jumping over the ring of fire, gathering chakra into her fist and slamming it into into the side of Sasuke's head. There was something like surprise in his eyes upon impact. He was catapulted backwards, but she had not been able to collect even half of her usual strength, so he came already to his feet after two backflips, his attention on her now.
She did not like what she saw in those eyes. He jumped at her with a lusty snarl, long talons extended as if to grab her, but Kakashi threw himself against Sasuke with his full weight right before impact, throwing him to the side and away from her.
"What are you still doing here," he gargled at her, "get the fuck out! I'll try to keep him in here as long as necessary."
To protect the village, she understood. If that fire got out...
"Kakashi...," she said apprehensively, her eyes on the wound on his throat. It looked bad.
"Sasuke! Sasuke!" Karin wailed, rushing towards the monster, "this isn't good for you, here! Bite me!"
She extended an arm towards him. Kakashi saved her from losing the limb by grabbing her by the waist and throwing her unceremoniously towards the entrance, away from Sasuke's reach.
"Get her to safety," Kakashi rasped at Sakura. "It's an order! And lock the door behind us."
Sasuke jumped at him again and they went down in a jumble of limbs.
"An order from your Hokage!" Kakashi managed to add with no little authority, one hand trying to close around Sasuke's throat. But Sakura saw how much his arm was shaking. His strength was dwindling fast.
"Sasuke, Sasuke!" Karin was crying from the door, crawling forward on her hands and knees, "I'm here, I'm here!"
Pressing her lips together, Sakura grabbed Karin by the back of her jacket and dragged her with her, almost dislocating her arm in the process. Locking the door? Never. He would die in here if she would. He couldn't die. Neither of the two could.
The air on the corridor was much better than inside the lab because the front door stood open. Micha's anxious face peered in.
"Thank god, you're alright," he breathed when she had reached the door and had stumbled out into the ice cold dark outside, a single but bright lamp illuminating a circular patch of snow from above the door, "I thought I would have to come back in for you and die, to at the very least repay you for saving me... is Kakashi going to be alright?"
"We will have to restrain her," Sakura pointed at Karin who was already trying to get back into the lab, making a grab for her hands, twisting them and putting a knee on her back. Yes, was Kakashi going to be alright? He had to be. He had talked to her, normally. When would his memory loss hit? Would it be worse than before? Would he at all manage to get that seal under control again? She didn't want to think about it right now.
Micha nodded and pulled the belt from his trousers. "Will this do?" he asked doubtfully.
Sakura nodded, grabbed the belt and quickly and firmly tied Karin's hands behind her back, still leaving the knee in place as she pulled it extra tight.
"You!" she called over at Kabuto who was sitting just outside the illuminated area in the snow with his head hanging down like he had no strength left inside of him. "I need rope or a belt or something from you!"
Kabuto didn't react. Micha walked over briskly, holding on to his sliding pants with one hand, pointing demandingly at Kabuto's shoes with the other. Ah... the shoelaces! Yes, these were military grade laces, strong and infused with chakra to become unbreakable.
Kabuto frowned, but Micha insisted until he pulled them out and handed them to him. Once Micha had brought them over, Sakura tied them together and then around Karin's legs with a knot she had learned from Kakashi in one of the first weeks of having him as a teacher.
Karin wiggled helplessly in the snow, cursing and crying at the same time, repeating Sasuke's name over and over, her voice increasingly hoarse.
"Keep an eye on her?" Sakura asked Micha, feeling sorry and annoyed at the same time. "She cannot go back in. Also, she's on some kind of drugs, I hope it's nothing too bad, but be extra watchful."
Micha nodded and sat down next to Karin, looking at her ultra grimly, which shut her up for the time being.
"You alright?" Sakura asked Kabuto gruffly, scanning his body for injuries. He appeared to be fine as far as she could see. And if he wasn't, he could heal himself.
Kabuto briefly looked up at her, his glasses glittering in the light, then turned his face away disdainfully instead of giving her an answer.
She deserved this. It was all her fault. But that didn't matter right now, did it. Not yet at least.
"I'm very sorry for what happened to Nurun. But you must come back in with me," Sakura said sharply, "we need some tranquilizer if you have it."
"You want to bring him down like a wild animal?" Kabuto asked darkly. "Good luck with that."
"We can't just hope the transformation wears off soon! We need to save Kakashi!"
"Save him?!" Kabuto murmured. "From what, himself? Good luck with that too."
"He's no match for Sasuke in the long run," Sakura said urgently, "his chakra will run out, you know that! He means to contain Sasuke and the Amaterasu in there!"
"A good plan," Kabuto said drily. "And worth dying for. There is much too much wood in Konoha. Should have built differently after Pain's Assault, but we just never learn from past mistakes."
"We cannot lose them!" Sakura was getting angry in her desperation. She looked towards the door and shuddered. Okay, fine! She would go in alone if this traitor wouldn't help her.
"Where are you going?" Kabuto frowned and got up quickly as she started to walk towards the door.
"In to help!" she retorted, "what did you think, traitor?"
"I think you have no sense at all," Kabuto sneered. "Didn't you see what a perfect soldier he finally became? I wish people would appreciate my work some more. Take it from me, Kakashi will be perfectly fine."
"What?" Sakura asked sharply. "What it it? What have you done?"
"It is classified, do I need to repeat everything for you, Pinkie?" Kabuto said, but looking towards the door of the lab with a deepening frown.
"What exactly is your problem?" Sakura felt her anger surge, a welcome emotion because at least, she wouldn't drown in worry.
"Your little tantrum made me remember that there's several rather large container of methane in there and if that catches fire..."
"Fuck you," Sakura said vehemently, cold dread rushing through her, "methane?"
The explosion would be horrendous. In her head, she went over the list of buildings nearby that could be damaged if the lab blew up... And the city wall...
"You idiot!" she screamed, "who keeps methane in a lab?!"
"I needed it for my experiments," Kabuto yelled back, "but now that's all become useless thanks to you!"
"We need to warn everyone, they need to evacuate..."
Sakura looked over at Micha, anxiously biting her lip. How could he warn people without speaking their language? Should she go? But they would lose too much time...
"Okay, you come in with me, now," she ordered Kabuto. "Can we drag it out? Is it too big?"
Kabuto was already emptying his pockets and putting all he had salvaged into the snow, the documents on top of objects that would prevent them from getting wet.
"Tell your foreign friend to watch those," he said to Sakura icily as he started marching towards the door, "it's extremely valuable research."
The temperature inside the lab complex was so high, sweat broke out all over Sakura's body instantly. If this blows up now, we're all dead, she thought. She followed Kabuto down the corridor and to the right, without a chance to see either Kakashi or Sasuke. But she heard them alright - the impact of fists on flesh, the grunts of a vicious fight in a closed space, where using jutsu was often very hard because it was harder to control. They got to a room that was full of softly illuminated, human-sized tanks, that, though empty, gave her the shivers.
Kabuto indicated four large canisters with a haughty look on his face, like this wasn't at all a problem he had created and they both grabbed the foremost, in the process trying not to come into close contact with each other.
"Pull!" he said and she did as he pushed.
Progress was slow... too slow. Sakura's heart was beating very fast, not only from exertion. Her fingers were so sweaty they constantly slipped off the handles. It felt like they were dragging a very slick live bomb along, inch for agonizing inch. They managed to get it outside and dropped the canister in the snow, at some distance from the lab entrance.
"One of us needs to warn Kakashi," she told Kabuto once they were back inside the room with the canisters, "you go do that and I continue dragging another one out, I think I'm stronger than you."
"Who gave you the authority to order me around?" Kabuto snapped at her.
"Hm, let's see... maybe I head the hospital? And you're a medical-nin, no? Makes me your boss I think."
"Right," he snarked, "helps if you sleep with the right people."
She should have hit him, but without him, this was a lost game. And then she suddenly saw it. His behavior. It made warped sense to her.
"Wow," she narrowed her eyes at him, "don't tell me you are jealous? Do you feel slighted? You're older than me and definitely more skilled, all things considered. Do you think you should have gotten my position?"
Kabuto laughed mirthlessly. "As if. Nobody wants to be head of that hospital, Pinkie, it's a mediocre country clinic with mediocre equipment and mediocre staff."
"That only matters to people who are after status," she shrugged. "That's not you. Imagine, a boy from the orphanage with huge medical skills. A goddamn traitor, but one of the best of his generation and then... a much younger woman is promoted. Hey, I actually get it. I'd be angry too."
"You think you're so smart," Kabuto said, his voice dripping with hate, "but you're not. You're just lucky. And cunning. It is not easy to wrap that Sensei of yours around your finger. No, I do not think I should have gotten the position. But Rin should have."
W...hat? Sakura stared at him. Rin? What did he have to do with Rin?
"I fully agree," she said and watched how surprise quickly flitted over his face.
Kabuto and Rin, huh. She continued watching him as he cautiously entered the room in which Sasuke and Kakashi were still beating each other up, thousands of thoughts shooting through her head.
"Was it you?" she asked slowly when he came back out to help with the second canister. "Did you bring her back? In Madara's cave?"
Kabuto's eyes narrowed to slits. "Don't poke your pretty nose into things that are none of your business or you'll lose it quickly."
"You were," Sakura said, narrowing her eyes as well, her heart racing. "Of course it was you, you worked for him then, didn't you? Already. Even before you worked for Orochimaru. How did you save her life? With... with Uchiha blood? Is that it? The beginning of those experiments?"
Her head was reeling. Did this make any sense? Had Kabuto even been born when Kakashi killed Rin? Or had Kabuto just stepped in later... yeah, that had to be it. And was Rin infected too? She had to be, no wonder the Noharas were so eager for a cure.
"Did the Noharas use Madara as well?" she mused more to herself. "But what do they want? Damn that Ĺtsutsuki Clan!"
"How... how do you know about that?" Kabuto asked flabbergasted, letting go of the canister. "Wait. He knows? Shit, he knows! He's playing them... he's playing me..."
Kabuto made a few hasty steps towards the door, then he stopped and swiveled around to face her.
"Then I hope he dies in here," he said viciously. "He doesn't deserve her adoration, never has. I will make her see that he would betray her, again and again."
"You're such a moron," Sakura hissed at him, "what game do you think you're playing? Kakashi wants one thing, one thing only, and that is the best for Konoha. If you are opposed to him, you are an enemy. Get back here and help me!"
Tears of fury gathered in her eyes, but he simply walked out and never looked back.
"I hate you!" she screamed and went behind the canister to push it towards the door, collecting all the strength she had left. Had this corridor become longer?! With alarm, she saw that small flames had begun do dance down the length of the corridor, along the walls, twisting rhythmically as if they wanted to mock her.
She looked down at the canister. If only one of the flames decided to jump...
"Kakashi," she whispered.
And then she dropped everything and shot forward and into the room with the two fighting men. There was so much blood in here, it was almost as if someone had painted the walls in her absence.
"Get out! Get out!" she screamed, with exactly zero effect. They were on the floor, arms and legs slung around each other, each grappling for an advantage.
"Please," she whispered.
But maybe this was it. Maybe this was how it had to end. Kakashi and Sasuke were fighting to the death and she could do absolutely nothing to save the both of them.
Slowly, she sat down and closed her eyes. She might as well die with them.
There was a rush of ice cold air and just when she wanted to open her eyes, the shock wave blasted her off her feet, threw her backwards and she hit her head so hard, she blacked out instantly.
The last thought that stupidly flashed through her mind was ... Shit, I promised to stay with you tonight, Kakashi. I never thought it would be this hard to keep my promises.