A/N: Another chapter so soon, you wonder? My husband went out of state for a week. That's why! Anyway, here's some more Gen plot stuff WE WILL EVENTUALLY GET BACK TO THE ROMANCE STUFF I PROMISE. This stuff is just here to enhance the leesaku and increase the romantic stakes. I swear. It'll make the leesaku all the more juicer.
Prepare for more Boruto/Gaiden AU stuff and creative use of jutsu abilities this chapter.
To answer an anon's comment - yes I do post this fic to AO3! I am under the same username. In fact, I prefer AO3 to FFN due to its better moderation. Someone here on FFN left me a signed-in comment on this fic filled with slurs and a death threat, and despite YEARS of me reporting it and the account, it was never deleted. I had to manually delete it myself using a (now patched out) URL exploit on this site. I continue to update this fic here out of respect for those who read primarily here, but new fanfics of mine might remain exclusive to AO3 (I currently have another WIP leesaku fic only on my AO3 for those interested).
Chapter 35
Progeny II
Sakura landed a punch directly to Orochimaru's shoulder. He flew, crashing into one of the stone pillars. Spiderweb cracks spread up the pillar from the impact. Orochimaru lurched up, arm and shoulder twisted unnaturally.
Sakura smirked. She broke it.
His arm then spasmed, horrible cracking noises filling the cavern, and then his arm was set, good as new.
Her satisfaction dissipated, and suddenly the cuts and bruises Orochimaru had already given her ached even more.
"Sasuke and Itachi combined were unable to defeat Kabuto without brainwashing him through genjutsu. I am him, but more. What makes you think you can defeat me?" Orochimaru declared as he closed the distance between them.
He and Sakura twisted and weaved around each other, dodging and blocking blows. With one throw of his hand his entire arm turned into writhing snakes, launching out to ensnare her. Sakura backflipped away, then wall-ran up the nearby column as the snakes trailed close behind her. She landed on the top, snakes coiling after her around the column - but they stopped short. The snakes then all squeezed at once, crumbling the column beneath her feet. She leapt away, but the unsteady footing put her beside the snakes and falling rubble, much closer than she anticipated. Orochimaru saw this too and swung his snakes at her, spiking her into the ground and slamming the breath right out of her.
She ignored her body's protests as she immediately threw herself behind a pillar as Orochimaru spat a ball of fire at her. She leaned her back flush against the pillar as the blistering fire roared past, singing her arm hairs. Then there was a sudden hand around her throat as Orochimaru partially phased through the pillar. She punched his face with a backwards swing, and Orochimaru disintegrated into mud.
A clone!
She leapt forward and rounded the corner. The room was now full of mud clones, the real Orochimaru hiding somewhere among them. The one she had destroyed reformed itself and phased out of the pillar, joining the rest. They all charged at her at once. She weaved and flipped around their blows, throwing punches when there was an opening. The mud clones exploded from her hits, but moments later reformed to rejoin the battle. They performed Wood Release, launching twisting wooden pillars at her as she fled to not get surrounded. She dodged around them and smashed others into splinters with her fists.
Something grabbed at her ankles, tripping her - another Orochimaru, half his body in the ground. "Tsunade has raised you well, despite your blood's limitations," he said. His mouth opened unnaturally wide, and snakes shot out at her face. The snakes were suddenly cleaved off with a flash of steel, centimeters before they reached her.
Floating beside her was the sword of Kusanagi - Log's katana. Sakura spared a glance in his direction. He was still standing in front of Karin, wakizashi in one hand, but directing the motion of the Kusanagi sword with the other. With a flip of his finger, the Kusanagi sword twisted downward at Orochimaru's head. Orochimaru leapt away, phasing up out of the ground to land safely away from Sakura and the sword. A lock of his hair fell to the ground. A bleeding gash bloomed at his neck. It would have been a fatal wound had it not stitched itself together a mere moment later.
"I see you stole something of mine," Orochimaru said to Log as his mud clones disintegrated permanently to the ground. He let out a wet cough, splattering blood on the ground, before shakily regaining his composure.
In response, Log twisted hand and the katana's blade pointed directly at Orochimaru before it extended out unnaturally long with the intention of impaling him. Orochimaru leapt away. Sakura charged, seeing her opportunity to go on the attack. The katana retracted, and it too launched itself towards Orochimaru.
Sakura and the Log's katana kept on the offensive, this time leaving Orochimaru with little option but to dodge. The katana side slashed, slicing an opening in the side of Orochimaru's shirt. Weeping bandages were below. Wounds that were not healing. Sakura honed in on Orochimaru's side; when the katana created an opening, she landed a spinning Leaf Whirlwind kick, just as Lee taught her, right to that bandaged side.
Orochimaru went flying, crashing and tumbling to the ground. His shaky hands pulled him up, and he vomited blood, before he glared at Sakura with a pained scowl. Log left him no room for him to recover further, shooting the Kusangi sword at him again. Sakura was right behind it.
"Target his existing wounds!" she commanded.
As they reengaged in their deadly dance, jumping between pillars and weaving around columns, Orochimaru was slowing down. He was sweating profusely, letting out ragged gasps of breath between his moves. His side was bothering him; Sakura could tell. He was making more mistakes and receiving more slashes from Log's sword. The wounds on his bare skin healed; the ones over the bandages did not. The sword cleaved off Orochimaru's arm when Sakura distracted him with a backflip kick, but snakes immediately sprouted from both ends of his severed limb and pulled the two pieces together back into a functional arm.
When Sakura came in for another massive swing at his bandaged side, bones erupted out of his skin, slicing her arm before she leapt away. She pulled out a kunai, despite the fact that she still wouldn't have the necessary reach to bypass the jagged bones jutting out all across his body. Log's katana tried to slice at Orochimaru, but it would just catch on the bones.
Sakura went for Orochimaru's face. It was the one place that was free of bones, and his forehead was covered in bandages. Log's sword forcefully interlocked in a row of bones, and it threw off Orochimaru's balance enough for Sakura to slash at his face. He dodged, a little too late, and she sliced his forehead open from brow to hairline.
Orochimaru leaped back once he dislodged the sword, panting and sweating. The bandages around his head unraveled, and underneath it, in the center of his forehead was an eye - a bloodshot three tomoe Sharingan. Orochimaru activated it then, and it formed into Shin's Mangekyo Sharingan with that strange triangle shape. The whites of that eye were so red that it blended almost seamlessly with the red of the Sharingan, reminiscent of Kaguya's Rinne Sharingan. The skin around it was red and swollen too. Sakura could tell the eye was infected.
"Your body is rejecting the Sharingan. You weren't meant to have it," Sakura said.
"Silence, you brat!" Orochimaru cursed.
Sakura charged at him alongside the sword. A green ribcage of chakra surrounded Orochimaru - blocking both Sakura and the sword's blows. Susanoo. While they were still close, Orochimaru held out his hand and a massive vortex of wind sent her tumbling backwards into a pillar. The Kusanagi sword embedded itself in the floor a few feet away. Snakes then erupted from the ground, constricting Sakura in place.
"Leaf-nin have been captured," buzzed Yumi on the other end of the radio line. Sakura would have felt relief if she wasn't currently in the midst of trying to fight her way out of the snakes' death strangle.
Orochimaru whipped around, charging at Log and Karin at the other side of the cavern. Out through his mouth he shed his skin - slithering out looking the same as before but with the bottom half of a snake - as he picked up even more incredible speed. Log stood poised, ready for him. Karin summoned thorned chains from her back, whipping and crashing them at him. He deftly dodged each chain - the ones that struck true simply glanced off his partial Susanoo. When he was finally on them in a matter of seconds, out through his mouth he once again shed his skin, becoming impossibly big, his whole form becoming that of a massive white snake with a wild mop of black hair, the Sharingan still squarely in the center of his forehead.
Sakura felt that familiar tickling in the back of her mind. A genjutsu. But by the time she had freed herself and the snakes faded to nothingness, it was too late to catch up. She pulled the Kusanagi sword out of the ground and charged after.
"I will take what is mine!" Orochimaru declared, launching himself at Log.
Karin tumbled backwards as Log blocked Orochimaru's gaping maw with his wakizashi. Orochimaru's Sharingan then spun, paralyzing Log in a genjutsu. His wakizashi slipped from his hands, and Orochimaru swallowed Log whole.
Orochimaru's scales were made up of smaller snakes - and they independently striked at Karin while she was still vulnerable on the ground, glasses ajar on her face. She stumbled back to her feet, clumsily slashing her chains at the encroaching snakes to keep them at bay. Orochimaru turned his gaze at Karin next.
Sakura was on them then. She gripped the Kusanagi sword in both hands, and cleaved Orochimaru in two bloody halves. Log wetly slipped out of one end, still unconscious. Sakura held her breath ("The blood of his true form is a paralysis vapor," Karin had told her.) and dived in the mess of writhing snakes to save Log. She dissipated the genjutsu that had taken hold of him with one touch, and he immediately scrambled to his feet. "Don't breathe," she told him as she led him away by the arm from the two halves of Orochimaru, beheading the snake heads as they tried to bite them.
When they were out of range of the snakes, Sakura shoved the Kusanagi sword back in Log's hand. Karin joined them at their side a second later, rattled but unharmed.
The two halves of Orochimaru's body pulled themselves together by the writhing mass of snakes. Dark red vapor pooled heavily around him above the puddles of blood.
"Try not to cut him," Sakura told Log. "We need to avoid creating more paralysis vapor and he'll just regenerate anyway."
In response Log rotated the katana in his hands, facing the flat side of the blade outward. His hands were still shaking from the close call of having his body stolen.
"I'm going to need to get closer to capture him," Karin said.
Orochimaru's terrible head reared once his body was finally whole once more. "How dare you, you simple-blooded kunoichi! His body is mine by right! I created him for this purpose! He is mine!"
Sakura noticed along his right side his white snake-skin was covered in dark, mottled rot. There were no writhing snake-scales there - just barren skin. Even in this form he still had his weakness.
"Then we'll subdue him at a distance," Sakura replied to Karin. "Log and I will distract him."
Orochimaru charged at them, gaping maw wide. Log and Karin split, moving out of Orochimaru's direct attack. Sakura didn't flee; she instead stepped behind a pillar, lined it up with Orochimaru, concentrated both her fists in a wide blunt-force chakra burst, and punched the pillar with all her might. A giant section lodged out of the pillar, as tall as her, and launched itself at Orochimaru. He was too surprised to react; the boulder exploded onto his face, halting him in place as the rest of his body crumpled against it. His bloody head burst out of the cloud of dust, furious, eyes trained murderously on Sakura as she moved away from the crumbling top half of the pillar she just destroyed.
Log was then beside Orochimaru a safe distance away, commanding the Kusanagi sword to target the rot at Orochimaru's ribs with the flat side. Orochimaru hissed in pain at the blunt, bruising attacks at his fragile skin, and summoned his Susanoo again - this time the green chakra ribs extending protectively down his entire snake body.
His head is still exposed, Sakura noted, pleased.
So Orochimaru didn't refocus his attention onto Log, Sakura moved behind another pillar, lined up the shot, and hurtled another boulder at Orochimaru. He twisted his giant form away, catching the boulder on his Susanoo instead. The boulder crumbled against Susanoo's ribs, cracking it, before the ribs reformed whole. Orochimaru charged at her, weaving through the pillars as he closed the distance between them.
Good.
Sakura fled, jumping around the pillars as Orochimaru striked and bit at her. When she disappeared around a corner she summoned illusionary clones and had them split wide as they ran.
"Stupid girl! Don't you know that Sharingan can see through such a beginner technique?" Orochimaru roared.
Orochimaru honed in on the real Sakura. Before he could strike at her the clones jumped in front of his vision, obscuring Sakura as they poofed away in clouds of smoke. When the smoke cleared Orochimaru lost sight of the real Sakura.
"Right here!" Sakura called.
Orochimaru reared his head towards the sound. A pillar ten feet away from him. Sakura punched it too, and it exploded on impact on Orochimaru's face.
Orochimaru hissed in rage as Sakura continued to run.
The two played this game of cat and mouse - Sakura fleeing and finding the right moment to launch another boulder at him, to keep his attention off of Karin, wherever she was hiding in this maze of pillars, and away from Log, so he could not attempt to steal his body again. A haze of blood vapor followed behind him, rising from the rotting wounds at his side.
"What are you doing? If you destroy every pillar this room will collapse and kill us all!" Orochimaru hissed.
I made no such promises to keep you alive, Sakura thought. If both Orochimaru and the Sound could be deprived of the terrible power within that scroll, and make his death look like an accident from her end, she would rejoice.
"Collapsing this room is my intention!" Sakura declared. She had made sure to specifically target the pillars on one side of the room, to create a partial collapse.
When Orochimaru was just where she wanted him, she punched the ground near one of the cavern walls. The ground sank from the force of her hit, and the fissure she created spread up the wall, to the ceiling above Orochimaru's head. Orochimaru looked up as the rocky ceiling collapsed on top of him, shattering his Susanoo and burying everything but his head in rubble. The night sky shone through the hole in the ceiling.
Karin made her appearance then from around the rubble of a destroyed pillar, dashing towards Orochimaru and summoning her chains. The chains phased through the rubble, coiling around his snake-like form.
"No!" Orochimaru bellowed.
Before the chains could hold tight, Orochimaru regurgitated his human form out of his maw, narrowly avoiding the chains as they constricted.
"Oh no you don't!" Sakura declared, diving at him with a deadly punch, intending to kill him then and there. Before she could hit him, one of Karin's chains grabbed her, suspending her in the air.
Karin's sealing chains then burst from under Orochimaru as he struggled to his feet, catching his legs, then arms, and then wrapped around his torso. He let out a yell, trying to fight against the strength of the chains, but they wrapped around his throat too, holding him tight.
"Got him," Karin smirked.
"When did you master the Adamantine Sealing Chains?!" Orochimaru sputtered, face contorted in outrage. His Mangekyo Sharingan deactivated back to its base three tomoe state, but now looked dull and unfocused. Now he could no longer use chakra.
"It's been years since the war, Orochimaru. Once I discovered I had this ability, it was only natural that I trained them to their true form," Karin said, adjusting her glasses.
Orochimaru shook with the effort to try and escape the chains but they were taut and unrelenting, forcing him to his knees and stretching out his arms.
Karin then lowered Sakura to the ground and released her from her chains. "Phew. That was close. I was worried you might kill him there."
Sakura lowered her fists and let out a deep breath. "Sorry," she said.
Log approached them cautiously. "You sure he can't escape?"
"It's impossible," Karin said. "Nothing can beat the sealing ability of my chains."
"I see you've done more than distract him," Sasuke said as he limped into the room. He was covered in cuts and slashes, and a cut as his temple was bleeding profusely down his face. His dark gaze bore into Orochimaru.
"Sasuke!" Karin and Sakura exclaimed.
"You're hurt badly!" Karin said, pulling up her sleeve. Her arm was covered in bite mark scars. "Bite me. Quick."
Sasuke pushed aside her offered arm. "I'll be fine. It looks worse than it is. Plus, you'll need your chakra to hold him in place."
Deciding Sasuke's wounds were worse than hers, Sakura went over to Sasuke and began to heal him where he stood. He didn't shoo her off, and Karin looked at them with barely disguised envy. Sakura was too sore to care.
Sasuke stopped in front of Orochimaru. Orochimaru growled, glaring up at him.
"That monster you created is dead, and I made sure to destroy each of his eyes too," Sasuke said flatly.
In a flash, Sasuke whipped out a kunai and gouged out the Sharingan at Orochimaru's forehead. Orochimaru howled and cursed, straining wildly against the chains. With finality, Sasuke crushed the eye under his foot. Orochimaru's skin quickly healed over the wound, leaving nothing but an empty socket and the blood that had streaked down the middle of his worn face.
"Now you're going to give me the master scroll and tell me how to reattune it to myself."
"And then I'll let you kill me?" Orochimaru wheezed with a sneering smile. "I thought you were more clever than that, Sasuke."
"Remember, you are only alive now because I willed it when I had need of answers, and I'll have your death too when it pleases me," Sasuke said with contempt. "Give it now, or I'll carve it out of you like I did that stolen eye. With your healing ability, I know you'll survive to feel every second of it, and I won't be quick about it."
After a moment of staring each other down, Orochimaru relented when Sasuke reached for his katana. He regurgitated it, spitting it to the ground. "Not that it will be of any use to you. You think I was lying about it being attuned to me, but I spoke nothing but the truth. Look with your Rinnegan and see for yourself." Sweat streaked through the drying blood on his brow as he still grinned up at Sasuke, as though he somehow retained an ounce of control of the situation.
Sasuke picked up the scroll and whipped off the body fluids with a flick of his wrist. His brow furrowed as his eye followed an invisible line from the scroll to Orochimaru's chest.
"What do you see, Sasuke?" Sakura said.
"A thread of his soul is connected to the scroll and intertwined with his chakra," Sasuke said.
"See? I did not lie to you," Orochimaru grinned, mouth twitching. "You need me alive." Sakura could see the fear rolling off of him like the beads of his sweat.
Sasuke attempted to open the scroll with a flick of his thumb, but its container held fast and glowed a furious red, burning Sasuke's hand. "Let me guess. I need you to read the scroll too?"
"Correct. And don't think you ever stand a chance at ever replicating it. It is impossible for anyone to match the exact brush strokes needed to copy such a complex jutsu. It's the first of its kind to manipulate natural energy through the use of scrolls. Only an expert such as I could ever understand how it works. And don't think for a second Kabuto is anywhere near as knowledgeable as me."
Log stepped forward. "Then, if it is attuned only to Orochimaru's soul, perhaps it could be tricked into attuning to me. I am his genetic clone after all."
Orochimaru's lips curled. "Don't make me laugh. That ridiculous idea would never work."
Sasuke gave Orochimaru a long look. "His soul is too muddled with the souls of all of the bodies he's stolen. But, I think I can make him transfer it to me."
"What are you talking about?" Orochimaru sneered.
"Through the Human Path, my Rinnegan can manipulate souls. I will detach your soul from the scroll and connect my own. And Sakura will untwist your chakra from the scroll's."
Orochimaru protested, ranting and raving, desperately trying to excuse and explain away why Sasuke should not do that - that he would be putting the scroll at risk. Meanwhile Sasuke pocketed the scroll into his pouch and produced a black control rod from the palm of his hand, much thicker than the one he gave Sakura.
"Shut up, you disgusting worm," Sasuke said and with one heavy thrust he stabbed the rod into Orochimaru's gut.
Orochimaru let out a snarl of pain. The bleeding soon stopped, as his rapid healing sealed the wound around the rod.
"Karin, release him."
"Are you sure about that?" Karin protested.
"Yeah. Do it."
The chains around Orochimaru unraveled, fading back to Karin's chest. Before Orochimaru could bring his hands together to form his own counter seals or pull the rod out, Sasuke halted them with his Rinnegan. Orochimaru bared his teeth at Sasuke, arms shaking with the strain of resisting the control rod. His yellow eyes flickered to that of Sasuke's Rinnegan - much like how Pain's possessed corpses all contained an image of the Rinnegan in their eyes.
"Why you...!"
"Don't bother resisting. You're under my control now," Sasuke said as he forced Orochimaru to stand. "Log - move to him and I will make him remove your curse seal."
Log did as commanded, holding out his palms. With a mechanical slowness, Orochimaru's hands formed the curse release seal and then touched each of Log's hands. The curse seals melted away into nothingness until Log's palms were made bare.
Log stepped away from his father, flexing his hands with awe. "Thank you," he said to Sasuke. "I can feel my chakra again."
"How dare you use my body against me like this!" Orochimaru snarled. He suddenly retched.
"Heh, how does it feel to have someone else take control of your body? Not great, I imagine," Sasuke smirked. "You're making it harder on yourself by resisting, you know."
Karin folded her arms. "Sasuke, we should bring him back to Kabuto first so we can think about this more," Karin said. "It's too difficult for me to parse out truth from lies from him. It's possible we could ruin the scroll doing this."
"No, it's too risky to transport him. We're doing this here and now. I know I can do it without killing him."
Sasuke had him, Sakura, and Orochimaru each grip a part of the scroll. Sakura felt Orochimaru's chakra flowing through the scroll itself, like it was a delicate part of his chakra system. She probed her own chakra into the scroll itself, familiarizing herself with its flow, and finding Sasuke's chakra in there too. Through his Rinnegan, Sasuke grabbed ahold of the thread of Orochimaru's soul, causing Orochimaru's eyes to bulge and his chest to seize like the air had been sucked out of his lungs.
Then it was her turn. She was to purge Orochimaru's chakra from the scroll, using a combination of her own chakra and a modification of a genjutsu dissipation to rattle his chakra right out as Sasuke injected his own chakra to replace it.
But...
She could do it. She could sabotage this - make it look like an accident. The scroll would be destroyed, so no matter what the future would hold for the Sound, they would not have the dangerous power contained in this scroll. All she had to do was mess up. And she could still keep her cover.
She flooded the scroll with her own chakra in a sudden aggressive burst, intending to destroy the scroll from the inside out by overwhelming its delicate chakra system.
Then after that she doesn't know what happened. Suddenly everything went black. When she awoke, her head was on Karin's lap as she patted her cheek to wake her. Orochimaru was crumpled on the ground near her, unmoving, Log staring down at his body with a conflicted expression. Sasuke was kneeling beside her with the scroll in his hand, flabbergasted. She must have been out for less than a minute.
Sakura shot up into a sitting position, immediately alert. "What happened?"
"Orochimaru is dead. And the scroll," Sasuke said, staring at her with a certain intensity. "It attuned itself to your soul."
Her eyes darted to Orochimaru with new shock. Dead. Orochimaru was dead. Then her eyes shot to the scroll in Sasuke's hands, and trailed to the place she imagined the thread of her soul to be.
"How…?" Sakura said.
"The scroll suddenly lurched with power right when I was disconnecting Orochimaru's soul from it. The thread of his soul then fraid up to his body and he died. Then I think the scroll latched onto a random nearby soul. Yours."
So he was dead because of her. She was glad for it, but she didn't mean for the scroll to attune itself to her in the process. She meant to destroy it; make whatever power that lay within unusable. But instead she had invited the scroll to connect to her soul instead.
"I suspect Orochimaru's soul was weakened by being mixed with the souls of others," Sasuke frowned. "For what it's worth, at least the trapped souls he carried within him are free now."
"We should have brought him back to Kabuto," Karin sighed.
"Could we still reattune it?" Log asked, finally tearing his eyes off his dead father.
"Not without risking Sakura's death," Sasuke said. "The bond between one's soul and the scroll might be more two-sided than I would have believed." Sasuke then searched Sakura's eyes. "You know what this means, Sakura. You are now vital to the Sound's future."
Sakura's stomach lurched.
Sakura knew what he really meant beneath his words. While Sasuke had previously said he had given her the option to decide if she wanted to join him, there was no longer that choice for her now. And that look of unspoken trepidation he gave her was hoping that she had made her decision - that she picked to stay with the Sound.
Sasuke offered a hand to help her up. She took it, feeling the tension thick between them. He searched her eyes again, looking for her answer. She hid her panic the best she could.
"Papa!" came the desperate scream of a young girl.
A black-haired girl with a pair of red glasses came running into the room. Behind her was a child of similar age, a younger clone of Log. His elastic, stretching arm tried to grab her to pull her back, but she dodged out of the way of it.
"Sarada, no!" the boy shouted.
The others stared in shock. They stood defensively, but the children gave no indication of hostility towards them that forced them to act.
Sarada dropped to her knees in front of Orochimaru's body and desperately shaked him awake. "Papa! It's not too late! You can take my body. Take it! Please! Please. " She descended into incoherent pleads and sobs as Orochimaru did not respond.
The Log clone caught up to Sarada and stood defensively by her side. "Log, you… you traitor ," the clone growled, shaking with anger. "You killed our father! You were supposed to be his next vessel and you killed him!"
"Mitsuki," Log sighed, looking at his younger siblings with pity. "You don't understand."
"I understand clearly!" Mitsuki yelled. "Father gave us everything , all we had to do was help him, and we were to live eternally through him. And you took that away from us!"
"Father had no good will towards us other than seeing us as something to be used. Raising us as his children to him was just mere amusement to him. We are free now."
"Liar!" In a wild fury, Sarada lashed out at the closest person - Sasuke - with a hidden kunai. Sasuke easily caught her wrist, and his eyes widened at what he saw. In her eyes were the one tomoe Sharingan - newly awakened. Tears streamed down her face. "I'll kill you all for what you did to Papa! I swear it!"
"Sarada, your eyes!" Mitsuki exclaimed.
The more Sakura stared at Sarada, the more she saw Sasuke's likeness. "What is she?"
"A true Uchiha made from the DNA of Sasuke and Karin," Log answered.
"Me and Sasuke…" Karin recoiled in horror. "Have a daughter?! "
"What?" Sasuke gasped.
Sakura stood in shock.
"I'm no daughter of either of you," Sarada said, face twisted in rage. "You are nothing but my DNA donors. Orochimaru is, and always will be, my only parent!"
Sasuke released his grip on Sarada's wrist. She leapt back, eyes darting angrily between them all. Mitsuki grabbed her arm before she could attack again - he wisely knew they were outnumbered.
Suddenly, black metal dust degraded off of Log's armor, and within alarming speed, captured both children into a metal cocoon. Sarada screamed bloody murder, struggling and snarling that she would kill them all, while Mitsuki accepted his fate with a frustrated grimace. Log then closed the cocoon fully around them both, muffling Sarada's screaming.
"I'll take them to their rooms," Log said.
"Would a... cell be more appropriate?" Sasuke said, mouth twisting with all sorts of conflicted emotions.
"Our rooms serve as cells too," Log simply responded.
Before they followed Log, Sasuke made sure to set fire to Orochimaru's corpse with a burst of fire chakra.
As they followed Log, Karin radioed the other teams for an update. The hideout had gone quiet - they had eliminated all enemy presence. The uninjured Talons, Jugo, and Suigetsu would comb the base to root out any hidden threats or help Natsu imprison the escaped scientists they captured in the hideout's available cells. Later, Karin and Yumi would meet with the prisoners to determine who from those willing would be trustworthy enough to join the Sound. Those with serious injuries would immediately gather in the medical room, R-8, to be tended to. Hanma would help Rei deal with Mio's body after their injuries are healed. Koga had body duty for their kills, by clearing them up from the base so they don't start to stink. And they all would set up for the night within the hideout, claimed now in the name of the Sound.
After Log had thrown Sarada and Mitsuki in their bare rooms and locked the doors behind them, a flash of sharp metal rounded the corner, shooting straight towards Sasuke. Sasuke deflected the telekinetically controlled kaiken dagger, dropped his katana and surged forward, grabbed the head of the pale child that lurched from around the corner, and planted its head hard to the floor, holding it there with a knee on its back.
"You killed Father. You killed me," the Shin clone uttered, voice ice cold. In his too-large eyes were the same Mangekyo Sharingan pattern that Shin had.
Log reacted, metal dust completely surrounding the clone to capture him so Sasuke could release his grapple. The clone didn't struggle like Sarada did, instead muttering over and over with those wide, staring eyes full of stunned hatred, "You killed me."
"Not you," Log answered him. "Your DNA donor."
"Then what am I?" Only the clone's face was visible through the metal dust now. His eyes were lost, more fitting for the small child that he was. His Sharingan deactivated to black, soulful eyes.
"The old Shin is gone. You are now the new Shin. Forge your own identity out of that name, and become a different person than your DNA donor," Log answered.
Shin looked terrified at that thought, and stared, haunted, as Log locked him in his room besides Mitsuki and Sarada's.
"The boy has the Mangekyo Sharingan at his age," Sasuke stated, shaken.
"It was how Shin and Orochimaru awakened the Sharingan left in this base," Log answered, matter-of-fact. "Shin's body could perfectly accept transplanted organs - such that they adapted to his body as though he was naturally born with them. But in order to evolve the Sharingan with the tragedy that is necessary, Shin decided clones were the solution. He raised them in pairs, accelerated through genjutsu, and then forced one to kill the other. Once their Sharingan evolved to Mangekyo Sharingan, the surviving clones underwent surgery, swapping eyes in order to awaken to the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Then Shin took those eyes for himself."
"Disgusting," Sasuke seethed, pounding the wall with a balled fist. Shin had turned the emotional tragedy behind the ultimate Uchiha bloodline limit's power into a clinical, mass-produced process.
Log looked then to the new Shin's door. "While the other clones are now brain dead, just there for spare parts, Shin kept this one awake. He intended for Orochimaru to teach him how to transfer bodies so he too could have immortality in a younger body. And, when Sarada came of age, marry her, and begin the Uchiha Clan again through their progeny."
Sakura felt sick to her stomach.
Log then turned to look at the three of them, assessing them each carefully. "Now tell me, what do you plan to do with my siblings?"
Sasuke was dead silent as he slowly picked up his katana and sheathed it. His mouth twitched.
Karin adjusted her glasses. "I don't like kids, but it's as Yumi said: children are the future of the Sound. We should give them to Kabuto to raise. They're young enough to deprogram their brainwashing."
"You're right," Sasuke finally grimaced, frustrated beyond measure. "I'm no child killer. And the spawn of Orochimaru and my… bloodline limit will find no other home that would welcome them."
Log nodded, pleased. "And what are your plans for this hideout?"
"I will destroy everything - the remaining Uchiha eyes, those disgusting creatures in those tubes, the other clones - so none may replicate what Orochimaru and Shin did here."
Log nodded again. "What if I might convince you it's in Sarada's best interest that one pair of the Uchiha eyes remain protected so that in the unfortunate event she ever awakens the Mangekyo Sharingan, she might avoid blindness like you or Shin?"
Sasuke gritted his teeth, and let out a low, deliberate breath. "That is… acceptable."
"Good. Follow me," Log led the way to another room, one that must have been Orochimaru's from its spaciousness and decor, and the thick smell of sickness in the air. Log accessed a hidden compartment located behind a decorative wall scroll, used his chakra to open it, and in it were a single pair of eyes floating in a small tube. "These are your old eyes, Sasuke. The ones Obito took from you when he traded yours for Itachi's. These have the smallest risk of rejection if Sarada were to need the transplant. Let her keep these for her future."
Sakura saw the rage roiling inside of Sasuke from the violation of it. Clear in his expression was the overwhelming desire to just destroy everything with no regards for the future - to destroy every trace of Orochimaru and Shin's perverse obsession with his clan, consequences be damned.
"Fine," he finally said. "Just keep them out of my sight." And he stalked out of the room, katana drawn, ready to destroy everything else this base offered. He had intended to let the Sharingan die with him, but that option had been stripped away from him now.
Karin and Sakura shared a look.
"Come with me to R-8," Karin said to Sakura. "We could use your healing abilities."
Sakura wanted to desperately run to the cells to see how Yamato, Sai, and Anko were doing, to make sure they weren't grievously injured or being mistreated, but it seemed like she wasn't permitted freedom quite yet. So she suppressed her worry, and followed Karin to R-8, all the while healing her own minor wounds along the way.
Sakura approached the room she knew the Leaf-nin were being kept in. Suigetsu was guarding the outside door. He nodded his head in greeting to her.
"How much do they know?" Sakura asked.
"Enough, because of Koga and Funai's mouths when they dragged them here. They know you're here with us, and that Sasuke is aligned with the Sound. Oops," Suigetsu shrugged.
Sakura bit her lip, brow furrowed. Their anonymity was gone. There would be no option to free them, clueless to who they were really fighting. And this complicated getting Sasuke another pardon, if Naruto were to somehow convince him to drop this endeavour of his.
"Let me see them," she said.
Suigetsu inclined his head, moving away from the door to let her in. When she passed him, he gave her a calculating look.
Inside the room were rows and rows of cells, each a small room with a steel door and a small, barred window. Sakura peered through each one. Many were filled with cowering scientists. Other cells were filled with surviving enemy-nin, bloodied, exhausted, with chakra nullifying shackles around their neck and wrists.
When she rounded the corner, Funai was leaning against the wall. When he saw Sakura, he sneered at the corner of his mouth. "Your former friends are there," he said, pointing out their cell.
Sakura anxiously approached the cell that he pointed out. When she peered in the small window, she finally saw them. All of them were wearing the chakra-nullification shackles. Sai was sitting cross-legged, brow furrowed deeply, as he sat in silence. Yamato was beside Anko, trying to clumsily wrap a wound on her leg with torn fabric from his sleeve.
Sakura looked to Funai. "Let me in to see them. Alone."
"Can't do. I'm under orders to observe any visitations." Funai smirked at her frustration as he pulled out the keys, spun them on his finger, before opening the door to let her in. He locked it behind her and lingered by the window.
The prisoners' heads shot up.
"Sakura!" Yamato exclaimed.
"Why you…!" Anko swore. "You traitorous bitch! I shoulda known you would pick that damned Uchiha over your own country!" Anko tried to lurch to her feet to fight Sakura, with what little she could even do restrained by the shackles, but Yamato held her down on the floor by gripping her shoulders.
Sai just stared at her with those furrowed brows, studying her with a deep frown.
Sakura approached Anko. "Hold still so I can heal you."
Anko let out an angry hiss of a breath as she glared at Sakura, but relented and turned her head away as Sakura began to heal over the wound on her leg. Sakura was so tired from all the fighting and healing that her green chakra flickered weakly over Anko's wound.
"What's going on?" Yamato said, voice deadly serious. "We followed the directions in that letter the Steam decoded to this hideout, learned Sasuke's leading these missing-nin, and discovered you're here too. Are you working with Orochimaru? Tell us the truth, Sakura!"
"Where's that snake-faced bastard?!" Anko seethed. "I want to see his damn face!"
"Orochimaru is dead," Sakura said. "We killed him."
Anko and Yamato startled, eyes wide.
"Truly dead?" Anko said. "Are you sure? "
"Yes, I was there when it happened. His body has been reduced to nothing more than ash."
Yamato looked relieved, like ghosts that had been haunting him for ages had finally left. Anko meanwhile looked conflicted. She gritted her teeth and punched the ground.
"I wanted to see him die with my own eyes, and I just barely missed it. After what he did to me… Damn it!"
"The man who haunts our pasts is gone," Yamato said, putting a hand on Anko's shoulder. "Let us finally find a way to move forward with our lives."
"So it is Sasuke behind the Sound," Sai said, still staring intently at Sakura. "What made him betray the Leaf - and Naruto - again?"
"He wishes to create a new Hidden Village of his own, outside the meddling and limitations of the other countries," Sakura answered as plainly as possible, not wanting to give Funai any reason to be suspicious.
Sai then said, "And what of your loyalty?"
Sakura could feel Funai's gaze on her back. "It's true. I've joined Sasuke and the Sound."
"Why?" Yamato said.
"Because I love him," Sakura said, standing up after finishing with Anko's wounds. "And my eyes have been opened to the good in what he's doing."
"That's ridiculous!" Anko growled. "His Sound's done nothing but hurt the Leaf and the Steam, and gave undeserved legitimacy to all the missing-nin he's gathered under his wing."
"I thought you were better than this, Sakura," Sai said. "After all you and Naruto went through to bring Sasuke back to Konoha..."
Sakura turned around, swallowing the lump in her throat. She wished she could tell them. But even the smallest hint could betray everything. I will do everything in my power to make sure your lives are spared, Sakura wished she could say. She didn't say anything more to them as Funai let her out of the cell, even when they shouted her name.
When she left the prison room Jugo was waiting for her. "Karin told me to watch over you," he said.
"Why?"
"I was told the news that you are now the key to the scroll's power. I'm to guard you."
So it had already begun. They would be monitoring her much closer now.
She wanted nothing more than to collapse in a bed and sleep, but she had to first find Sasuke. She followed the echoing sounds of crashing and destruction, Jugo a silent ghost at her side. But when Jugo realized her intentions, he halted her with a firm hand on her shoulder.
"You shouldn't disturb him now," Jugo said. "He needs this time to himself."
"I need to know his intentions with the Leaf-nin." She tried to shrug off his big hand but it held firm.
"I know that they will live, at least until we return to Otogakure. From there I do not know. You will have time to ask Sasuke that question later."
Seeing how Jugo's hand still remained gripped to her shoulder waiting to see her reaction, she thought it wasn't wise to push the issue further. As long as her Leaf-nin weren't in immediate danger, that would do for her for now. Because right now she was exhausted and sore beyond measure.
She gathered her belongings and went in search of a room she could call her own for the night, Jugo following silently behind. She passed by a room that appeared to be a cafeteria of sorts, and saw that several Talons were celebrating their victory with what food they scavenged from the kitchen; they didn't need to suffer rations for tonight. She kept walking.
Most of the rooms she found were empty cells - with a lock on the outside of the door. Eventually she was able to find bedrooms that must have housed some of the enemy-nin or scientists. She picked one that looked clean, but it still carried the slight scent of a stranger - one that was no doubt either dead or shivering in a prison cell. Thankfully the room was stocked with clean sheets, and so she changed out the bed linens so she didn't have to sleep in a stranger's scent too. The room was even equipped with a personal shower - whoever owned this room must have once been valuable to Orochimaru.
When she was done prepping the room she looked at Jugo, who was watching her from the corner of the bedroom. "Do you mind?" Sakura asserted.
"Sorry," Jugo said. "I will let you sleep." And he left the room, courteously closing the door behind him.
Sakura sighed. The door thankfully came equipped with a privacy lock (surprisingly on the inside ), so she made sure to lock her room to keep out any nosy intruders, showered off all the blood and sweat of the day, turned off the light, and crawled into bed.
In the silence and pitch blackness, the events of the past few days finally caught up with her, and it made her feel so terribly alone. She wished she was back home. She wished she could see Lee's heartwarming smile again.
She was no ANBU, meant for covert missions. She was more warrior and medic than spy. Yet now keeping her cover was all the more important, especially now when she had to use it to find a way to save Sai, Yamato, and Anko.
She also didn't know what being attuned to the scroll meant for her future.
She tossed restlessly in bed as she tried to sleep.
A/N: Hrnnnnggg I reread some of the leesaku shippy scenes of my story and it's just making me want to get back to them so soon. I want them to reunite so bad! Just a little longer...
I enjoyed showing the extent of what Orochimaru was up to. I always intended him to get the Sharingan left in Obito/Madara's base since the beginning, and finally let him taste what its like to have the eye he wanted so badly. Exploring Gaiden content only made me realize that I could expand further upon that idea, and add more Sharingan fuckery with Shin and Sarada, which only makes sense with how many eyes were left in that hideout. (Also, Karin as Sarada's "parent" was intended because it made more sense in this context and there's no way I'm throwing more on Sakura's plate.)
Part of me is also feeling a little self conscious about the growing word count of this fic lol. I sometimes like to think on what I would cut or condense if I were to ever re-edit/redo the fic (probably lots of stuff at the beginning of this fic). Hopefully this fic doesn't feel like it's spinning its wheels too much. I assure you I do have the rest of this fic clearly outlined and an ending planned (and there's no way I'm going to waste any time changing or redoing old chapters). Just it turned out my big plans for my epic leesaku slowburn longfic ended up longer than expected ha.
Anyway, I'm hoping next chapter might be a Lee chapter. I have some ground to cover with him while Sakura's on her mission that I'll have to interject somewhere in here. And hopefully I'll write it up as fast as this chapter. Until next time!