Chapter 4:

Snapping awake was always hard. The sudden jolt of adrenaline leading to wakefulness always left one a little disoriented. Something had woken her up. It took a moment to realize her legs were moving. Was she sleep walking? Blearily her eyes adjusted and she felt a weight in her arms. She was carrying something. Half out if it she looked down and time seemed to stop.

Amber eyes met her own.

"Did you have a nice dream?" Asked the cool voice of the puppet master that lay in her arms.

Sakura silently screamed.

How? Why? What was going on?!

Sakura struggled but her body continued to move forward. She tried to lash side to side, drop the bastard, run, fight, scream something but she continued serenely forward uncovered aside from the tensing of her body.

Despite carrying the puppeteer in her arms he didnt seem interested in making conversations with her after his initial statment. The silence was deafening. The only thing she could hear around the forest was the soft methodical crunching of her sandals. It made her feel trapped and alone.

The dark woods were creepier than ever, the moonlight barely giving any aid to her sight and yet she moved with a grace she didn't normally possess. Generally her movements were direct and to the point, now she moved as if she was floating just above the ground. Sakura could feel her muscles contract and move with ease without her input and felt like a passenger in her own body. The web of strings she had previously thought gone were now surrounding every inch of her inside and out. Even a thread of chakra she knew to be Sasori's was running through her network, bending her energy to his whims. The feeling was too intimate and wrong. She felt defiled and invaded in a way she didn't believe was possible.

This wasn't right, the girl tried to scream and swear, tried to fight and flail but again, she only succeeded in making her muscles clench tight and begin to knot up. She tried to bring chakra into her hands but the secondary current under her skin and within her coils bid it to move against her wishes in a steady rythm. In fact, her entire body was flowing at a relaxed pace.

This was hell.

Desperately Sakura tried to remember what happened to put her in this situation. Hadn't she just been in the sand village? Oh wait, he had said that she had been dreaming. If that was the case how had-

Her thought caught short as she remembered flashes of digging in the dark. Looking for someone, and someone she found. Her mind then flashed to the jutsu he used but that didn't make any sense. She had gotten out… hadn't she? Did she just block out the horror of reality? A shiver over took her, it was subtle but enough to catch the notice of the person she carried.

The red head finally turned to her and seemed like he was going to say something when a twig snapped.

Sakura froze as she felt a kunai dig into the flesh of her neck. She inhaled sharply but didn't move. Couldn't move. Everything seemed to still and her gaze flickered from Sasori to strait ahead, dread pooling in her core.

"I'll give you three seconds to put him down, yeah?" Spoke an accented voice that she vaugely recollected as being the puppet masters blonde partner.

She gladly would have complied and dropped her cargo if she was able to. As it stood she could only tense further as the man began to count down, the hair raising on her arms and gooseflesh litering her skin. She felt the cool metal dig further into her flesh and she marveled briefly at how real it felt.

"Diedara…" Sasori spoke in a warning tone which apparnetly caught the other off gaurd as the knife loosened from her throat.

"Don't worry, I got this. The leaf bitch isn't going anywhere." The guy, Diedara apparently, said casually and Sakura bristled in indignation. She wanted so bad to turn around and punch the bastard into next week.

"Put that down before I make you." The red head drawled, his voice hard. Finally the metal was removed and she was able to see her would be murderer as he maneuvered in front of her. Sakura blinked as she really took him in. He looked so… feminine. Kinda like Ino. The thought would have made her laugh if she was capable.

As his teammate took in the sight, Diedara's eyes buldged at the sorry state of the puppteer.

Sasori only had one complete arm which was slung over her shoulders to keep him steady. His legs were little more than splinters and his other arm was nothing but a socket at the shoulder. The puppets top half was still uncovered, revealing the compartment that held the poisoned cable in his stomach.

"What the hell happened?!" The blonde asked incredulously. Eyes scanning his partners ravaged form.

Sasori's bored gaze sharpened and the other man could be seen fighting a flinch. Finally the red head relented and his hand went from her shoulders to the scruff of her neck and bore down on it enough to cause a slight wince.

"This girl here was a bit more trouble than I anticipated." The begrudging respect actually made Sakura feel both excited and a little ill.

"Seriously?" The other man asked looking the girl up and down before scoffing, clearly finding nothing worth much.

Sakura grit her teeth, the barest amount of killing intent leaking out as she wished horrible things on the man who underestimated her. She was, however, brought out of her glare by a pinch at the back of her neck. She then opened her mouth and too her horror started to speak.

"I caused Master a lot of unnecessary hardship." The words were torn from her unwilling mouth and she practically gagged on them as she spoke. Her voice was guttural and showed just how much she didn't want to speak such nonsense.

Diedara gaped at her before he burst out laughing. As he brought a hand to his face she finally realized he was missing an arm. A brief memory flashed before her of a clearing and Naruto mentioning someone getting their arm blown off. That moment was when it really hit home something was wrong. The memory was fuzzy and unclear as if from a dream but that wasn't possible because she remembered falling asleep, so this was a the dream then.

The only problem with that was the fact that it felt real. She could feel the heavy weight of the puppeteer in her arms, the grass brushing against her toes, and the cool night air on her skin.

"Wow, you did a number on her!" The blonde calmed till he was simply snickering at her. She felt the heat rise to her face and looked down only to meet the eyes of Sasori. His expression was one of amusement and she realized he too was laughing at her expense, though not outwardly.

She made a sound low in her throat and was surprised when it actually worked. It came out as a low growl but nothing more. This set of the blonde off again but Sasori was less amused this time. When the taller akatsuki guy finally stopped and righted himself he gave a genial smile.

"Hey, hey, she's a medic, yeah? How about having her reattach my arm?" The bomber gave a wide grin and pulled his severed arm out of his cloak. It didn't look like it was cut with a blade, it looked like it was ripped off. Internally she cringed at the sight. She had seen wounds before and severed appendages but that was the most rugged job she'd encountered. It would take alot of chakra to mend it.

"That depends." Sasori rumbled, seeming to read her thoughts.

"Oh? On what?"

"Did you managed to bring back the kazekage's corpse like I requested?" At this the puppteer gave a knowing look to his partner who blanched and pursed his lips.

"…No." Diedara finally replied looking displeased at the answer himself. The pressure on her neck subsided in an instant and the cable in Sasori's stomach came alive in about a second. The sharp tip was pointing at the bombers face who put on a mask of indifference. This all happened dizzying fast and the only thing she could think of was being glad to not be on the receiving end of the puppet masters wrath this time.

"Diedara, I swear if you turned him into your redciulous form of art I'm going to-"

"It's not like that! The nine tails brat is more possessive of the bastard than I would have thought." The blonde defended himself, cutting his partner off much to the red heads extreme annoyance.

The two glared at each other, a silent battle of wills taking place before the cable wound back and away from the other.

"In that case you can wait till we get back to base for her to reattach your arm." Sasori finally said, his voice going back to his lazy countinence.

"What! In case you haven't noticed you have no limbs and I'm down one. We are in little condition to fight if that brat comes looking for his teammate." Diedara sent her a pointed look and she felt hope blossom in her chest because yes she wanted Naruto to come and save her.

It took a lot to swallow her pride and admit that.

"Have you already forgotten?" Sasori waved his hand at Sakura. "She's my puppet, I have a weapon. If the jinchuriki comes around she will easily be a distraction."

Sakura was getting a headache as the two continued to bicker back and forth like an old married couple. Seriously who the hell put these two together on a team and thought it was functional? Probably the powers that be that had brought team seven together, now that she thought about it. As much as she hated to admit, her team had been rather dysfunctional in the begining.

Suddenly she jerked forward, thoughts getting interuppted as she began walking again. Sasori pointedly ignored the blonde as he continued the argument that the red head had apprently deemed pointless. Internally Sakura lamented her fate, was she going to be ignored and talked over like this for the rest of her life?

No...

Because this wasn't real. Sakura closed her eyes for it didn't matter if they were open, her body was under the will of another and would go where it may. As much as she hated it, it left her a moment to herself. A blessed moment to reflect on what had come before she 'woke up'. She was fighting with Chiyo, the landslide, the jutsu and then... and then she killed him. Sakura's fist had gone strait through his heart container. Then she got out and found her-

"Hnng!" A low whine sounded as a sharp pain split her skull. It made her want to black out, as it stood her mind went to fuzz and scattered her thoughts like dust in the wind. She opened her glazed eye's and stared ahead blankly, her shoulders trembling slightly. It hurt so bad, her head began to throb. Breathing heavily, she forced herself to reel back and stop attempting to access the memory.

"Uh, I think somethings wrong with your... puppet, yeah?" The girl heard Diedara mention from beside her. She couldn't bring herself to look his way as the pain behind her eyes settled into a dull ache.

"No." Sasori denied, "She's just thinking useless things again."

Useless? She hesitantly wondered, hoping that the pain wouldn't return if she stayed in the moment. Mercifully the pain didnt return and she was left with a phantom sensation of a knife in her cranium. Despite the apparent warning, she resolved to try again in a bit to break out of this nightmare when the puppet masters words came back to her.

"Your mind and body will be under my full command..."

Mind and body.

Oh...

Oh no.

The pinkette's eyes widened and her breathing began to become shorter. All those looks he gave her, his reactions like he could read her mind. It was because he could read her mind this whole time. She wasn't safe in her own head. The one place she had though free of him was a lie, how would she get out if she couldn't plan? If he knew of her every thought, what chance did she have of getting away from him?

She looked down at the puppeteer in growing terror to see him lazily glance back at her, his lips twitching up into a smirk. Ice shot down her back as the realization drowned her.

It was a damn good thing he was controlling her because she would have dropped to her knee's in shock and panic.

As it stood her muscles loosened allowing him easier control of her form. Her movments became more fluid as she fought with her body to start hyperventaliting. She needed to get out of here. Her mind was a jumble. She needed to wake up.

Sakura pushed when she suddenly felt a block appear in her mind.

Wake up.

Sasori noticed she knew but she was already cracking the barrier.

Wake up!

Blinding pain, but she perserveered.

Sakura!

Sakura shot up like a rocket with a screech. Her breath came out in short gasps and her gaze darted around the room. Where was she? The room was unfamiliar. The bed unfamiliar. No one around that was familiar. Did Sasori get her back to the base he had mentioned? The feeling of his energy surrounding her and inside her drove her nearly wild. Without anither thought, she raced out of the door not realizing she had full control of her limbs and found a long hallway. Going to the next door down she began pounding on it desperately.

She didn't stop even as she heard someone get out of bed and when the door opened she was met with bright blue eyes and electric blonde hair. For a moment she froze thinking it was the puppeteers partner before she noticed the shorter messy locks.

Not Diedara, Naruto.

"Sakura?" The boy asked confused and worried. The girl could only let out a trembling cry as she threw her arms around her friend. His warm presence immediedly enveloped her and she let out a choked sob. She felt light headed and melted against her friend and teammate.

"What's wrong?" Naruto asked, completely bewildered by the girl who clutched him tightly. Normally he would have jumped at the chance to have her in his arms but something was obviously very wrong.

"Your real." He heard her say quietly as she fought to calm down. "This is real."

Well, if that wasn't a red flag he wasn't sure what was.

Wrapping his arms around her, Naruto patted her on the back and ran a hand through her hair, guiltily enjoying the moment of being able to touch her without the threat of injury. He pushed other thoughts away for the moment. She needed him, had come to him. It made him positively radiate warmth. Take that Sasuke, Naruto thought contented.

"I'm okay." Sakura said more to herself than to her teammate. "It's okay, it's over."

"Do you... want to talk about it?" Her friend asked a little awkwardly. The pinkette shook her head.

"N-no." She stuttered for a moment before taking a deep fortifying breath. "No, its nothing. Just still in shock over the battle, I guess."

Naruto looking away feeling ashamed. While he and Kakshi had gone after Gaara she had been left behind to fight that freaky puppet guy. Hell she had almost died! He had beat himself up when he thought she was dead only to feel the pressure on his heart go away once he knew she was alive. He hadn't considered the affect it had on her. What the near death situation had done to her psyche... and yet-

"Sakura," he said getting her attention. His face was oddly serious as he got her to look at him. Something had been off with her since she got back. It was hard to put her finger on what but something was off. "Did that guy... do anything to you?"

He felt the girl freeze in his arms and she looked at him, gaze far away and haunted. He had his answer.

"It was something you didn't want to tell Kakashi." He surmise, slightly annoyed with his teammates withdrawal.

"You know you can tell me anything right?" Naruto finally asked, feeling a knot in his stomach as he watched her faraway look focus on him. He wanted so bad for her to confide in him. They were friends, a team! Shakily she nodded and parted her lips to speak.

"He was going to turn me into a puppet..." She shuddered, speaking so quietly he nearly missed it. Her gazed flicked around as if saying it out loud would spawn the dead akatsuki member in the hallway.

Naruto felt his jaw drop as he looked at the girl he loved. He suddenly had a vision of her dancing on blue strings, lifeless eyes gazing into him as she was forced to attack. Blood being spilt as he refused to injure the girl but knowing his life would end if he didn't fight back. That had almost been the reality. How close had the fight been to that nightmare senario? He swallowed hard and pushed away the thought.

"Yeah? Well he didn't, and he isn't going to. You killed him, right?" Naruto didn't mean to sound unsure but the idea scared him.

She hesitantly nodded, eyes focusing back on him. The boy relaxed a little, pulling her into a hug and burying his face into her hair. The soft strands brushing against his face, reassurance that she was here.

Naruto felt her breathing returning to normal as he held her and he felt his own heart rate calming down. The two stood, embracing one another for a long moment. He honestly didn't want to moment to end, she felt so good in his arms. He only wished it was under better circumstances but he would take this. He vowed to protect her, to hold and cherish her. He knew her heart was probably still set on Sasuke but the bastard wasn't here right now. So Naruto would be her rock, her comfort, her light.

"Can I..." She started quietly, voice off for a moment as Naruto pulled back and looked at her. Hesitantly the girl licked her lip and looked away. Naruto waited patiently for her to complete her thought, unsure what she was trying to say. "Can I sleep in your room tonight?"

The boy felt his heart melt a little bit. He knew she didn't mean it that way. She just didn't want to be alone but it was enough. She wanted him to help chase away the nightmares. To offer comfort and he would never turn her down. Truth be told, he didn't want to let her out of his sight after he got her back but he knew smothering her would drive her away. With a goofy grin he nodded and move aside to invite his teammate in. He let her have the bed while he took the floor, he didnt mind.

His Sakura was near and alive, and that was all that mattered.

A/N: I had this chapter written out before the last one because this one was fun. The last one was necessary though, oh well. Also Naruto took up more screen time than I anticipated, I hadn't actually meant for that last scene but the muse works in mysterious ways.