Fire: This is Wait for Me: Following chapter 7. Welcome back!
Sasuke: How are you so sure that they're not new readers?
Fire: New readers don't start at chapter 7.
Kakashi: That makes sense to me.
Sasuke: Urusai!
Fire: Don't yell at your sensei!
Sasuke: Urusai, Fire!
Fire: Sasuke's in a bad mood today…
Kakashi: …because he's still not back yet.
Sasuke: I'm not in a bad mood!
Fire: Maybe some reviews will cheer him up!
Kakashi: (drags out the Big Bag of Reviews and pulls out a window) The first review!
Fire: (reads the window) First for this chapter.
Kakashi: Is it good news?
Fire: (turns the window around in hands) I…don't know.
Kakashi: (confused) How can you not know?
Fire: It's a lot of encouragement, but I'm confused about what 293581623046 reviews are. Oh well, I guess Diet Soda will tell me later when there's more time.
Kakashi: And?
Fire: Nothing else. I replied with the reply button, but thanks for all the reviews. I'll try to make the storyline a little clearer in the upcoming chapters if you were confused about anything that happened before. Anything confusing is supposed to be foundation or foreshadowing of something else, but since you're only reading only one chapter per week, it might get confusing. Gomen nasai.
Kakashi: Better pull up the next chapter before Fire starts talking again. (pulls up chapter 7)
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Chapter 7: Scar of the Sakura
The sun had set a long time ago, and Sakura could no longer see the open scroll in front of her, but she didn't care. She didn't really want to look at it. She wasn't in the mood to memorize another useless, weak technique that Orochimaru hadn't thought fit to keep for himself.
The man she had sent to Konoha had returned while she was away.
She hadn't actually thought that he would return. Sasuke and Naruto were buried so far into the village that it wasn't possible for someone of that man's rank to steal their ashes. And he hadn't. He had returned without them.
It was just as well. She didn't really want them with her. If they were here, they would see how pitiful she had become, how horrible she had become. Even though she was tired from excessive study, even though her eyes were threatening to bleed lest she sleep, even though her body weighed more than her fortified strength could lift, and even though Orochimaru was annoying her with his useless techniques, she had no excuse for acting so horribly. She had really allowed herself to disgrace their memory, and she didn't deserve even their coldest words.
The kunoichi stared down at her palms, and in the darkness that surrounded her, she could faintly make out the dark lines worn into rough callouses. These held the memories of her childhood, of the life she had before. These were memories she had wanted to leave behind.
The girl lifted a kunai from the pouch at her side and poised it over her hand.
These were memories she didn't deserve.
"Yamete kudasai, Sakura-sama!" Kabuto grabbed her arm before she could cut the memories from her hands.
Sakura glared at the man, the hatred pouring unstoppably into the room with every angry breath. She hadn't given him permission to enter her room, so what was he doing here?
Kabuto stumbled back at the glare, holding his hand as if suddenly burned. The intensity of that hatred froze his body and made his bones shake beneath his skin. "Orochimaru-sama requests your presence."
And the glare melted into a bewildered stare. Orochimaru had requested her presence? In all the time she had been at this compound, he had never requested her presence. She always had to seek him out for herself! She couldn't think of any reason why he would want to see her except...
'The cursed seal!' He had said something about a prime example of the cursed seal, and he was going to show it to her!
"I–I'm going!"
Sakura ran out of her room before Kabuto could say anything more. If she took too long, Orochimaru might change his mind. Whatever it was, she had to see it. She had to learn it, even if she would never use it.
"O-Orochimaru!" Sakura threw the door to Orochimaru's study open. He was always here when she needed him. She assumed that this was where she would find him again.
But study wasn't the right word for this room. With the glowing jars on one side of the room, the dead bodies near the remarkably clean dissecting bed at the other side of the room, the beeping of machines and computers from somewhere in the back, the open scrolls with their unreadable language sprawled out in strange areas and pinned to the walls, and the single chair that belonged to Orochimaru, this was anything but a normal study. However, Sakura couldn't think of another word to describe this room. She always thought of it as Orochimaru's study, just as Tsunade-shishou had always spent her time in her study.
And it was empty. Sakura stared at the suppressed din of the room and scanned every unoccupied space again, but it was still empty even after she looked around for the fourth time. She was wrong. He was somewhere else.
Disappointment filled her body as she realized that she was in the wrong place...until a jar appeared in front of her face.
Sakura plucked it out of the pallid hand and stared at it, but she didn't have to look at the name to know what it was. "A present, Sakura-chan," Orochimaru said, even as he took it from her again. He walked pass her into the room and set two jars on the only table in the room. "Close the door behind you."
But the girl was stunned. She was rooted to the ground, and her feet refused to move. She had thought that they were gone. The man she had sent had said that the ashes weren't there. But all along, Orochimaru had them. He had had them from the start.
Cold gold eyes stared out at Sakura from across the room, waiting for her to carry out his command. Close the door. And it took a moment before the girl could move her limbs enough to comply. She didn't know why this man had those ashes, but she was definitely going to find out.
Orochimaru was pleased as he looked at the two jars. He had wanted proof that his young apprentice was dead, but he never thought that it would come in handy. The two boys had been buried together, so it wasn't a marvel that his minion had brought both jars to him. However, he only needed one.
"Sakura-chan," he said as soon as the door was closed. He had to say it otherwise he might say the other name, and earn himself another slap to the head, and he was too old to handle too many of those anymore. "Come!" And he pulled a scroll from his side as he leaned back in his seat. "I have a gift for you."
Sakura shivered. The dark atmosphere of the room was pressing against her, and she couldn't help but feel that he was planning something. "Orochimaru," Sakura said slowly, the old Sakura returning into her voice for a moment before she strengthened it. "Does your gift have to do with these jars?" Jars which she knew very well. Jars that shouldn't have been in Orochimaru's possession in the first place.
The girl stopped before she was within arm's length of Orochimaru. This was about right. She could attack him if the need arose, even if she wasn't likely to survive it.
But Orochimaru was laughing, chuckling with that dark rumbling of his voice. "Such suspicion," he said slowly before raising emotionless eyes up to the girl. He leapt forwards to grab Sakura by the arm, pulled her to face him so that there was nothing to distract her from what he had to say. "This is important..." ...because he had deemed it important... "...so listen well!" It had taken a lot of thought but he had decided. This was necessary.
Orochimaru looked up as Kabuto walked into his room. He hadn't thought that he would see Kabuto walk into his room this easily again, so he was a little surprised. And the Sannin was going to punish his foolish subordinate for his careless behaviour, until Kabuto spoke.
There was a reconnaissance team here.
There was only one thought that ran through his mind as the pale man took in the information that Kabuto offered. There was no doubt in the Sannin's mind that the information was correct. There would have been nothing for Kabuto to gain from lying to him. If Orochimaru died, he was definitely going to take Kabuto with him.
The one thought was of Sakura. He knew that the team–Kakashi's team–was here to find her, and because of Kabuto, they now knew that she was here. And that meant that they will be back, and they will be back soon to retrieve Sakura.
Time was running short for his plan. If he still wanted to go through with his plan, he couldn't put it off any longer. He would have to go on to the next step. Now.
Orochimaru had decided what he was going to do, and he wasn't going to go back on his decision. He wasn't good at giving up.
"I'm going to do you a favour," he said as he lightly ran a finger across Sakura's neck, from the back of her ear to the tip of her collarbone. He had thought of where would be best...but it wasn't as if he had really thought about things like this before. Although Tayuya had chosen a place where no one could see, he never thought that it was that ugly. However, on a girl, aesthetics was important. But then, Orochimaru didn't think that he could just put it on the back of Sakura's neck. Her hair was too short.
"Orochimaru," Sakura said slowly as she looked into frigid gold eyes. And she knew what he was thinking. "Get away from me!"
The kunoichi pushed the Sannin away with all her strength, effectively dislodging herself from the man's grasp. But the pale man's fangs sank into the muscle of her bare shoulder, and Orochimaru caught her again.
'Shan...naro,' Sakura thought before pain seized her body and her subconscious rose up to surround her. It was just as she had thought. 'The cursed seal...'
The girl slumped against Orochimaru, the power of the seal overtaking her body. Dark purple chakra trickled from the black marks that formed on her shoulder.
The Sannin held the girl for a few moments staring at the limp body before draping her onto the dissecting bed. He had thought it over for a long time, and this was what he had decided. If he wanted to go on with his plan to destroy Konoha, to bring the wheel of motion back into this stagnantly peaceful world, he had to break the Will of Fire within this girl's body, the will to protect Konoha.
The plan he had decided upon was dangerous. He could very well kill her by giving the seal to her, or his plan would fail even if she awoke. But, he could see no way around this problem, and he had already done it. There was no time for regrets. Besides, he was too stubborn to stop anyway. He had given the seal to her, even if he hadn't originally intended to put it on her shoulder. There was no going back now. Whether she survived or not was up to her.
Kabuto had to wonder what Orochimaru was planning. His master had stared at his scrolls all day, and then ordered him to get Sakura. Then, he had come out, looking as he did when he killed Sandaime Hokage, as if he had lost the usage of his arms all over again. There wasn't a word spoken to the spectacled nin, but Orochimaru hardly ever said anything to him unless he needed something. But in this case, Kabuto already knew what he wanted.
He knew as soon as he looked into the study. The pink-haired girl was lying on the dissecting bed as if she was a guinea pig ready for whatever torturous experimentation its master had planned. She was lying there, and he knew. Orochimaru wanted him to keep an eye on her.
It wasn't as if she could run away, or there was anything particularly interesting about this specific transformation. The seal that the pale man had given to the girl wasn't even special. It wasn't as if it was a new seal that no one has ever had before.
It was the Gaia seal, the same seal that Kimimaro had used before his demise. Kabuto wasn't even that surprised. This seal was as powerful as the Heaven seal given to Sasuke-kun, and Orochimaru needed Sakura to be as strong as possible for his plan to work. And he wasn't going to give her the Heaven seal. It was still too soon, too close to Sasuke's betrayal for him to use that seal.
No. There was nothing special about this girl...except that she was important to Orochimaru's plan. If she was going to die–and there was a very large possibility that she wouldn't survive the transformation–the Sannin wanted to know about it immediately.
So, Kabuto sat watch over the girl, waiting for the chakra to saturate her body and poison her heart against the Leaf that had sheltered her since the day she was born.
Sakura didn't know what was happening. She was acutely aware that the setting around her wasn't normal. There was something wrong about the grey atmosphere that surrounded her. But, she didn't really think twice about it. In this place, her mind controlled everything, and there was no reason to think that it was any different from the reality that her waking mind knew so well.
It was just that she didn't know where she was.
In the distance, somewhere in front of her, she could hear the quiet sobbing of a girl. But the dull grey light that encompassed her completely swallowed the image of that girl. The only sense that was of any use was her hearing.
There was no arguing with it. Her body moved forwards of their own account. The kind heart that ultimately resided at the very centre of the hardened shell which she had built around herself wouldn't allow her to stand around and do nothing when there was someone crying.
But her body froze as soon as she saw who it was. In the distance, as she moved closer to the sound of the crying girl, she could see pink hair tied with a Konoha hitai-ate. It was very different from the Oto hitai-ate that resided there now.
It was herself.
Sakura had read about the visions that the cursed seal induced. If she couldn't figure out the vision, she would die. The pain that came from the visions would kill her. The chakra that infused her body would kill her.
"Sasuke-kun..." Her other self, herself only three months ago, was sobbing, knelt at the side of two bodies she knew all too well. "Naruto..."
The familiar names cut through the real Sakura more truly than any physical kunai or shuriken, more easily than any adept ANBU katana. The stabbing pain that tugged at her heart, spilling the bitter blood of loss that she had tried so hard to keep bottled inside, was more damaging than any kage ninjutsu.
These were names that she hadn't heard for such a long time. Even she had never said them aloud, for fear that she would lose her nerve and go back to the world she had left. But she could never allow herself to go back to Konoha. She had a promise to keep to herself, and to her teammates. She had to do this.
"They didn't have to die," her other self sniffed. "I could have saved them."
Sakura was much calmer than she thought she would be. The words had no effect on her. She didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but she knew that that statement was wrong. "No," she corrected herself. "I couldn't have saved them."
The other Sakura looked up at Sakura. "Yes, I could have!"
"The wound in Naruto's lungs had reopened when the fuuma shuriken hit him." She hadn't known at the time, but she knew now. The ruptured capillaries in Naruto's lungs, facilitated by a powerful attack about three months prior to his death, must not have healed properly. Even if Tsunade-shishou was there to help, there would still have been haemorrhaging and blood clots. What could she have done if even Tsunade-shishou couldn't have healed him? "There was nothing I could have done." And Sasuke... By the time she arrived, he was dead. "There was nothing!" She refused to believe that she could have saved Sasuke. That was impossible! If she could have done it, she...
"If I was stronger, I could have saved them," the other Sakura said slowly, her eyes darkening as she stared up at the real Sakura. "Because I wasn't faster, they died. Because I wasn't more powerful, I couldn't heal them." She held up her bloody hands, hands covered with Naruto's blood after her many failed attempts at healing his wounds. "If I had more power, I could have saved them. If I had power..." The girl trailed off before speaking again, as if her mind was connecting to the real Sakura's somehow.
And before Sakura could stop herself, she was persuaded.
Kabuto was entranced. He had never actually had a chance to watch something like this before. The purple chakra of the cursed seal was actually visible and emanating from the girl's body. This was something that he just never had the time to really see.
But, he wasn't going to get the chance to watch it for much longer. Almost an entire day had passed since the girl was given the seal, and if she hadn't died by now, she wasn't going to die. At least not yet. She was going to wake up soon. He had seen enough seal transformations to know that she was going to wake up soon.
And she did.
Sakura sat up, her hand rising quickly to her shoulder where the seal pulsed with pain. It was trying to spread across her body. Even the little chakra that she was using, even though she wasn't in a fight, was enough to make the cursed seal react.
'Kuso. I'm going to kill that baka Sannin next time I see him.'
Then, she realized that Kabuto was staring at her. "Nani?" She stared at him with long forgotten innocence as she waited for his answer.
But he was more surprised that she had survived than he appeared. The thought had passed through his mind, but he hadn't actually believed that she would survive.
"Oh, nothing, Sakura-sama," Kabuto said slowly as he watched her closely. He felt as if she might collapse at any moment, might fall to the power of the cursed seal and die. "Is there anything you need?"
Sakura glared at the annoying man, the innocence vanishing instantly from her face. "No," she said coldly. No matter how nice Kabuto was trying to be, she couldn't forget what he was here for. He was here only to watch her in place of Orochimaru. And Orochimaru only wanted her for...
She didn't know why Orochimaru wanted her, but it couldn't be good. There was a reason why he gave her the cursed seal. He couldn't have given her power just because she had asked him for it.
She stared down at the strange marking on her shoulder, her mind numb to everything around her but the glare of light off Kabuto's glasses. She had the cursed seal, but she didn't feel stronger.
Then, she caught sight of it. The dim electric lights that lit the study finally brought the two jars to her attention. Those two jars!
Sakura jumped from her seat on the dissecting bed and stopped beside the jars after two long strides. She remembered them sitting there, waiting for her. She didn't know why Orochimaru had brought them here, but...
She clutched the two jars against her chest even though Kabuto's watchful eye bore into her back. She was glad to have them with her again. She didn't deserve to have them here with her, but she was happy to be around them again.
'And I promise...soon, Orochimaru will die.'
She couldn't help but think of her promise as she held the two jars in her hands.
'If I had power, they will all die.'
End Chapter 7
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Fire's English tidbits for those who care:
How do I do it! Now, the answer is here! Okay, too much enthusiasm, but this is very exciting, and also very hard for new writers to do. I've had about ten years of habitual experience, so it's easy for me, but I'm not sure if you'd want to do this. I have quotas. That means that I have a set number of words per story that I have to write, and anything over that is extra and carries over to the next day. At the moment, my quota is 3000 words per story, per day. That means that if I'm working on three stories at once, my quota in total is 9000 words! I calculate the number of words for the day with the formula: total number of words ÷ number of days in total that I've been working on this story average words per day and the answer must be over 3000 at all times. If it isn't over 3000 then: (3000 – average words per day) + 3000 quota for the day. That can be hard, especially if you miss a lot of days. And that's just one story! That's why if anyone wants to put this into practice, start with a lower quota and slowly work your way up if it's too easy. It'll help you with your writing if you're on a schedule since you're conditioning your brain to think about it at will. This will also help with writer's block! But think hard before you do it. I don't want complaints about not being able to stop writing. I literally can't stop. This is a habit for me, formed over years and years. If I don't do it, I can't sleep until I do. And I don't eat when I write! It's weird. I'm weird! Ahh! (freaking out and running away) Writing is so unhealthy!
Fire's babbling:
Kakashi: (staring at the English tidbits) What Fire was trying to say is: Warning: Writing may cause side effects if used daily over a prolonged period of time. Please use with caution.
Sasuke: (shaking his head) And Fire's running around again.
Kakashi: That's a bad thing? At least Fire's getting in some good Taijutsu training!
Gai: Great idea Kakashi! Lee, one hundred laps around the window!
Lee: (salutes) Ossu!
Kakashi: Umm…the window's not big enough for that.
Sasuke: Go away! I'm trying to get some time alone! I finally get to host the babbling column!
Fire: (stops in front of the group) I'm back!
Sasuke: (cursing under his breath) Kuso.
Fire: First off, I want to apologize to anyone who likes Sakura…like me (sniff). I'm so mean to her in this story. Poor Sakura.
Sasuke: What did you do to her?
Fire: Read the chapter!
Lee: (avidly rereading the chapter) Sakura-san!
Fire: Now, I want to hear what you think, so review. Review! Tell me if you hated this chapter. Tell me if you feel sorry for Sakura. Tell me if you don't feel sorry for Sakura. Tell me if you want her to suffer more. Tell me if you want her to suffer less. Does the story make sense? Aaah! I'm going crazy! Send me a review!
Sasuke: Come back next chapter. By then, Fire should be back to normal.
Lee: Sakura-san!
Kakashi: Ja ne!
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