AN: Note that I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any of the characters from either Anime. This work is a fanfiction written out of my love for the series and not in any attempt to make a profit.

Proofread by: Author

Now, following the last, rather extreme chapter, we return to a more serene one, although, it still isn't back to the sunshine and rainbows from early on in canon Naruto.

I saw a bit of a spike in readers from that chapter, so I hope to see that happening, as well as hoping I didn't scare anyone off with it. It's hard to tell sometimes how well received some of my story decisions are.

Either way, I hope you who continue to read my story enjoy it as much as I do writing it.

Chapter 101: Escape and revival


Quickly surveying the room, Sakura took in the bare walls, wooden shelves, counters, sink, and table that held some pens, scrolls, books, and papers full of notes.

Walking over to the sink, Sakura turned it on and grimaced at the murky water that came out, but felt it was better than nothing. Fortunately, there were some rags available, allowing Sakura to quickly clean herself, wiping away the filth from her body after so long, even if only partially with the dirty water. Shivering from the cold water which left her skin damp as she wiped away the disgusting remains of her own body, dried blood, urine, sweat, and dust disappearing with each wipe, making her feel much, much better. If Kabuto hadn't been professional enough to actually take his research seriously, there were no doubts that each incision he made into her body would have left an infection to fester inside of her after he patched her back up, considering how much filth covered her.

The memory of feeling her muscles, bones, and organs move and twist apart, or together under Kabuto's hands using medical chakra made her feel dirty. He might not have gone so far as to violate her sexually, but the psychological and physical torture had still been there. What other reason had there been for making his own job so difficult? It was twisted, and Sakura had to fight against the train of thought that tried to pull her into thinking about it, as it would only serve to delay her reactions. Kabuto would soon be returning, and she had to prepare herself for him.

Using some of the relatively clean rags, Sakura tied them together and made herself a simple chest binding and loincloth, making her feel better at not being completely exposed anymore, even if it didn't matter anymore at this point. She had originally considered clothes a very low priority in her escape attempt, but in Heikō's opinion, they had to patch up the cracks in their sanity as well as they could if they wanted to make it out alive, so it had been pushed up the list of priorities in the end, along with the need to feel clean and comfortable in their own body, therefore cleaning themselves up. Their hair on the other hand was far too much of a waste of time for them to bother with.

Letting their senses spread out, Sakura could feel Kabuto approaching down the corridor at a sedated pace, wearing a self-satisfied smirk and carrying some kind of box with him, as well as her meal for the day. Suppressing her chakra, and allowing her presence to melt into the Natural energy surrounding them, she tried to disappear, hiding behind the edge of one of the counters, while summoning a clone to take her place, feigning sleep, as she truly was exhausted.

Sakura had no delusions about Kabuto being an easy target. After all, he had survived a direct attack of her Natural energy once already, even if he hadn't done so unscathed. While her sight had been robbed with a blindfold, Sakura had easily been able to feel her surroundings using Natural energy, and she had felt that Kabuto's body was all kinds of wrong. There were obvious signs from whatever had been done to correct some of the errors, but nothing could seemingly be done about the scales that covered his right shoulder or the obviously shaved, yet persistent fur that seemed to be growing around his left leg. The bones in that leg had also been thicker, and denser than in his other one, with the proportions slightly off. It was a shame that Kabuto hadn't ended up with a brain tumor instead.

As the door opened, and Kabuto stepped inside, Sakura kept herself concealed behind the counter she had chosen to hide her. She didn't need to see him, even if it would be tempting to etch his expression into her memories as she launched her attack on him. All she needed him to do was step into the room properly so that she'd have an unobstructed, straight line between herself and Kabuto for her to unleash her Natural energy onto him. It was risky to let him get close to her, but Sakura and Heikō were certain they had no other choice. Orochimaru had somehow managed to avoid their attack and had most likely warned Kabuto about it.

Kabuto smiled as he laid eyes on her clone and was about to speak up, only to frown and instead sniff the air. With wide eyes, Sakura did the same, wondering what he might have picked up, as she didn't think the absence of her body odor, urine, and blood would be enough to tip him off, considering how much the chair reeked of her as well. However, that wasn't the case. Sakura realized that she had messed up as she had completely forgotten about the smell of burned rope, which while barely there, stood out in contrast against all the other smells.

Unable to delay further, and risk losing her element of surprise, Sakura threw herself out from behind the counter and launched a wave of Natural energy at Kabuto. As expected, he attempted to dodge, but unlike last time, Sakura knew better, and hadn't simply created a single-pointed spike, stopping her attack there, but intentionally allowed her attack to continue, blooming out in all directions, like the crown of a tree, catching Kabuto in the chest and left leg.

Kabut grunted in pain and tried to retaliate with some kind of chakra attack that obliterated the wall behind her as she dodged. Sakura let her clone release as it no longer served a purpose, and focused more Natural energy into Kabuto, satisfied to see him fall to his knees and double over in pain, screaming unintelligible before going into a seizure as part of his head began to swell. Sakura could feel that he was still breathing, but his heart had stopped, and his brain activity was slowing as well as a tumor developed inside of it.

She didn't dare to move until she was certain that he was dead, and his still mutating body ended up forever frozen in stone. Only then did she manage a breath of relief, and sunk down against one of the walls, sliding down, relaxing as she tried to recover from the brief, yet taxing battle. She was lucky that she had this ability, but her mental fortitude was running out. Looking down at her hands, she found them shaking, and in order to still them, she wrapped her arms around herself, grabbing her shoulders for comfort as painful sobs began to wrack her body.

It was awful, but she wasn't sobbing from fear or regret. It was from relief. She was aware that Kabuto's death might already be known, it was unlikely that Orochimaru didn't have a sensory-nin or two under his control, but Sakura and Heikō couldn't handle another battle at that moment, and therefore both took the opportunity to deal with their immediate mental issues. Sakura knew that Heikō needed time to figure things out as well, but at the moment, she was sacrificing herself for Sakura, helping her through the breakdown by mending cracks and restoring damaged parts of her psyche in their mindscape. It had been an unexpected advantage of having a mental representation of their mind, that they could find the damage dealt and track it back to the source, based on what they saw in their mindscape. Something Heikō took full advantage of.

Sakura decided it felt odd, to feel her mind mend itself together as it did. She was crying, and unlike how it had been in her childhood, her reasons for it seemed to diminish, one by one, disappearing rapidly, making it easier to compose herself until she no longer felt like she was weak and falling apart at the seams.

Once she felt confident enough in herself that she wouldn't fall back into another breakdown, she took control and switched places with Heikō, forcefully thrusting her out of their mindscape, and into their body, while she took over the duty of repair and maintenance.

Sakura could feel their physical body once again break down, and she felt her heart go out to her sister. She felt bad for ignoring her, for not offering her words of comfort, but she knew it would only prove to be far less effective than the alternative she was there to provide. Heikō could feel her intentions and feelings, so she knew that Sakura was just as devoted to her as she was to Sakura. With that in mind, and the heartfelt gratitude from Heikō to soothe her consciousness, Sakura got to work. She wasn't as fast or intuitive with mindscape maintenance as Heikō, but she knew that it was far better that she was the one doing the repairs in Heikō's part of the mind. There were temptations and perspectives that clouded one's judgment when one visited particular parts of one's own psyche, they had discovered, so it was Heikō's job to maintain Sakura's part of the mindscape, and Sakura's job to maintain Heikō's. It was how they had lived through Kabuto's torture so far.

Their mindscape and the damage dealt to it was an ugly sight, even more so after they had actually broken down, but Heikō had been an excellent teacher, and Sakura an avid learner, so it was a relatively easy, if tedious, process to clean up and repair it all. Ugly cracks and fissures had sprung out everywhere, making their mindscape look as if it was ready to collapse. Sakura reached for the cracks, ignoring the urge to flinch and pull back as she found the trauma and memories connected to it. She began working her way through the issues by cutting the memories up, removing the worst of it, and then sending the small, tolerable pieces to the right parts of their mind to be reprocessed.

It was a simplified method of how the mind handled nightmares according to Heikō. It was less effective, but it saved a lot of time and worked wonders in a time crunch. The actual, original memories were copied and locked away, confined in storage for later usage when they could handle them properly and they could be processed naturally, with ease, as there wouldn't be as much to deal with at once after the processing of the edited memories.

Sakura wasn't certain how long she had been working on Heikō's part of the mindscape, but she had found odd nooks and corners following fissures that seemed to bend in space in unnatural ways. She found herself in areas Heikō had twisted and hidden from her, and she threaded through them carefully, focusing on nothing but the damage, resisting her urge to explore. Eventually, as she found herself sealing what seemed to be the last of the damage, nothing but hairline fractures in solid-looking floors and walls, Sakura realized that the damage around her seemed to be disappearing on its own. Amazed, she looked around and realized that she had done enough for Heikō's subconscious to catch up and take over. With her job done, Sakura turned back to reality.

It was apparent that Heikō had recovered admirably. They were no longer in the room they had been kept in and killed Kabuto in but were instead running along a dark, underground corridor.

Heikō had apparently managed to find their stuff, and more, as they were once again wearing their usual clothes, no longer running along barefooted in nothing but rags. Carrying under her arms, she held several scrolls, and as Sakura inquired, Heikō directed her to the memories of what she had been doing as soon as she felt good enough for it.

Apparently, Kabuto had expected their escape attempt at some point, but they had managed to surprise him and done so far earlier than he had thought possible. They were apparently scheduled to move to another base in one week when Orochimaru would be coming back, and after that, they would be seen to by Orochimaru personally.

Sakura mentally shuddered at the thought, and instead focused on the rest of the information Heikō had gathered and stuffed into storage scrolls she had found and emptied of medical tools and experiments in stasis. They had taken all of Kabuto's notes, and some of Orochimaru's as well. It seemed that Sakura and Heikō had given Orochimaru and Kabuto far too much credit, as Kabuto and one guard had been the only ones present. The guard had turned out to be the fat Oto-nin who Sakura had failed to kill during the Konoha Crush when she took down the purple barrier. This time, Heikō easily took care of him before he could react. Sadly, they didn't know where they were in relation to Konohagakure, but any direction was better than staying in the base for Orochimaru to find them, even if they supposedly had a week before his return.

With Sakura caught up, they once again switched roles, and Heikō returned to finish the repairs on Sakura's part of the mindscape. Sakura ignored the feeling of her own memories shifting and changing. She trusted Heikō to do an even better job than her and appreciated the peace of mind she gained as the moments ticked by as she flew through the forest, jumping from tree to tree. Freedom felt amazing.


AN: And so, Sakura escapes. Also, yes, I am well aware that Sakura and Heikō could have just used their Natural energy to kill Kabuto, giving them all the time in the world to escape, allowing them to do so so much earlier, but when you're being tortured and focus a significant amount of your efforts on remaining sane, not all your ideas are going to be the best possible ones, so you make do with the plans you do come up with.

Also, the reason Kabuto managed to survive Sakura's Natural energy attack the first time was because he was essentially doing the corpse control we see Kakashi encounter in canon when Kabuto intended to kill Sasuke in his hospital bed. Since Kabuto was still connected to the body as it died, some of the Natural energy traveled through the chakra connection, kinda like chakra, and Natural energy goes back to the user when one of their shadow clones dispels. So Kabuto was hit with Natural energy, but not with the same intensity as the corpse puppet he used, leaving him only mutated and capable of healing the worst issues his body encountered.

The reason he can't really combat Natural energy in this chapter is two-fold. Countering Natural energy, in general, is incredibly hard, and doing so when it is essentially forming mega cancer in your brain, even more so.

If you have any more questions and such, feel free to PM me, or leave a review. The more the better, because I love feedback and communicating with you guys.