Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
Finally a new chapter! I hope you enjoy! :D I wanted to go with this and was a lot happier (it fits with the characters a little better) and kinda show a little bit more. Also...NaruSasu. My other favorite pairing. Hehehe.
AND it's not short! ;)
Chapter 5:
Date: Who the hell knows…
Time: Dark
Location: Underground
Bunch of rag-tag bandits. This is stupid. I'm getting nowhere with these idiots. But I need to make a name for myself before I can contact the heavy weights that handle The Compound. Is this what it is like? Fucking up poor villages just to feed you band of merry men? Should I just go do something big on my own? Maybe I should kill the leader of The Compound. Yeah, stupid idea. It needs to be something BIG. Something against Konoha or one of their allies. Really do something that a missing-nin would do besides run away. I've never really been good with assassinations. Quiet isn't my style. Maybe mess with some trade routes. Oh! I know! Shizune will love me for this one!
The entry ended and Kakashi laid the book against his chest. He chuckled. Roughly about five years ago Tsunade went on a rampage. For a month, no sake or spirits came into the village. According to intel gathered, someone was messing with the route that was used to deliver the alcohol. The fact that Sakura had been behind it made him smile.
She still sounded like Sakura. He wondered how made Tsunade was to learn it was Sakura's doing that made her go dry for a month. But the hokage hadn't mentioned it at all. Just gave him that dark, haunting look. He was only a few pages into her report and maybe a couple months by his calculation. It wasn't like a diary; he silently thanked her. There wasn't an entry every day. They were more just random boredom rants every so often between information gathered. The bandits had been a good source of information but wasn't her mission.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto's annoying I-want-to-fight-you tone made Kakashi sigh.
"Not now Naruto, can't you see I'm busy?"
He whined. "Busy doing what? Being lazy?"
"Exactly." He shot Naruto an eye crinkle. Though he was surprised that Sasuke was also with Naruto.
"We aren't here to fight. We want to know what's going on with Sakura." Sasuke tried to sound disinterested but Kakashi's eyebrow rose.
"Unlike you Sasuke to ask about someone, especially Sakura."
"Kakashi-sensei! She is our teammate and our friend! Of course we are worried about her." Naruto exclaimed, waving his hands around. "Someone said you were part of the team that brought her back. Baa-chan won't tell me anything or let me visit her."
Kakashi sighed. "Yes, I was. No, I'm not telling you anything. And the hokage has her reasons. No one is allowed in."
It was true. After that first night of staying with Sakura, Tsunade had kicked him out. Never to be let back in again.
"Naruto would probably annoy her awake just so she could punch him." Sasuke shrugged.
Kakashi stared at the Uchiha. Was he genuinely worried about her? More than one occasion had Sakura ranted about the both of them. They both had basically abandoned her. Sasuke to power and Naruto to his drive to become the Hokage. Even going so far as refusing dinner when she offered to pay. He looked at his former students with a suspicious eye.
"Whatever you two are after, forget it. I don't know what your motives are but in no way am I helping you."
Kakashi gave them a small wave and an eye crinkle before disappearing into a puff of smoke. But he didn't go far. Just behind the tree he had been leaning up against and masked his chakra. What were these two up to?
"Dobe, now he is suspicious of us." Sasuke chastised Naruto.
"No, it's the fact you came too. Both of us didn't even give her the time of day before she left. At least I make more sense to be asking. You're the emotionally stunted one." Naruto grunted as Sasuke hit him.
"You're the one who wants to talk to her, not me."
So, Sasuke had no part in this. Naruto was the one who talked him into…Kakashi's train of thought was interrupted.
"You're the one who found out whose team picked her up. You're the one who said Kakashi-sensei would be here. And you wanted to come with."
"You would have just sparred with him."
"Admit it! You're worried about her! It's okay to worry. She's our friend. She was always there for us. Having her gone for five years was a lot tougher than we thought."
Sasuke grunted in reply.
"Plus, we need to get her blessing." Naruto's voice went unusually quiet.
"You can't just spring something on her like that when she just comes back, let alone wakes up from a coma, dobe."
Naruto whined. "It's been five years, Sasuke-kun. I didn't think she would be gone for that long."
The unusual sound of Sasuke's laughter was suddenly cut off. Kakashi leaned around the tree to look and his eyes widened as he witnessed the first display of affection between the two teammates he had ever seen. Sure, there were rumors and they always were together, but there was nothing like actually seeing them having a full make-out session. Sakura had always said it, turns out she was right. Quickly, Kakashi teleported into his apartment. He fumbled around for the light. As soon as he flicked it on, he ran his hands through his silver mop, hoping to shake off the slight embarrassment.
At least they weren't going to try and battle her for her elite status. Instead, they just wanted her blessing on their relationship. It was cute and Sakura would probably be more than happy. Taking off his vest, he flopped on the couch. At least, the Sakura he knew before all this. With Sakura's book open, he began reading again.
Date: Unkown
Time: Dusk
Location: Fire Country
They made contact! I can finally get this stupid mission started. The rogue-nin interrupted my battle with the newest shipment of sake. He said that they would bring me to his field leader. Have him talk to me. I am so ready.
Date: Summer
Time: Midday
Location: Forest – Fire Country
I made contact with the field leader. His name is Tetsu, and no one knows his last name. Apparently, I'm still too well known as the hokage's apprentice and they decided to torture me. It wasn't anything terrible. Poisons, truth serums, genjutsu, pain tolerance, and a couple of the men wanting sex but all they got was the story Tsunade made up as to why I left the village. I'm sitting in a cell now. But tomorrow I think they will move me to the main base. I hear rumors from the other prisoners and the guards about the man who actually runs the facility. I'm starting to think that maybe this was a suicide mission. He knows everyone by name and is very powerful. But thinking like that will get me nowhere. I can do this. I dealt with Naruto and Sasuke all these years. I was trained by Kakashi, the Copy-nin, who did nothing but torture us. Then by Tsunade, the Slug Queen, ultimate temper. I'm a member of ANBU. I am the best medic-nin in our country. There isn't anything I can't do when I put my mind to it.
It was unusual for Sakura need to write down a pep talk to herself. But the other notes, of the compound and the guards. The types of poisons, people, prisoners. Everything was extremely detailed which was very much Sakura. However, you could see the detail of the man who ran the whole operation. He was detail oriented, meticulous, and he would not be someone to take lightly. She must have realized this and realized what a dangerous situation she was in.
Kakashi flipped the page. There was an unusual blank page between the writings. The next page, the writing was different. It was perfect. The lines weren't straight on the page but the way the words were written. There was also no date and time like the others.
It has been about six months since my last journal. I was probably excited to start my mission. How stupid I was.
The leader is a man named Musashi. A rouge-nin from Mist. The man has lived too long not to be suspicious of everything. He stands tall, but the air around him makes him feel like a giant. He commands attention and respect. You would think through fear but that isn't the case. People respect him, what he has been though, what he does, and what he is willing to do.
As a prisoner, I was tied to the back of a caravan, naked, with the other prisoners and we walked. We lost four prisoners before we reached the main complex. Three to starvation, one had a heart attack. I just watched him die at the time. I could only watch and wonder if that was going to be me soon enough. Now, I wish it had been me.
The torture began the moment I came into the complex. The guards took their turns first. Musashi had yet to finish with his meeting and so the men decided to enjoy the fresh meat. But as soon as Musashi came, he knew me. He knew by my pink hair, my accent, he knew exactly who I was. He also refused to believe me. Then it started: broken bone, healed, and broken again. It was a vicious cycle. Still, I gave them the same rehearsed story. They broke my toes one by one. They shut off my chakra stream, pushed their chakra into me, and then let the chakra burst through my body, burning me from the inside. They skinned me. Took off my whole back, without any numbing agent. It came off in a big sheet. And they just let me hang by my wrists. They dislocated after the second day. My fingernails seemed to be their favorite. They still haven't grown back yet. I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't take it over and over and over again. I would apologize to the Village but I don't seem the use in it now. I'm done apologizing. I told them the truth. Watching my friends die for a village that didn't care one bit about them. That I had continuously questioned why I watched people die, and get used as tools and become shells of their former selves and the entire village gave a shit about was the next generation of ninja. I told them I ran and took a bunch of ANBU bastards with me. I was ready to die than go back. But they were told to bring me back alive. They did eventually catch me but the Hokage had too much of a soft spot for me since I was her apprentice and she gave me a choice. A mission or die. I told them I didn't choose either. I left before I had to make the choice. But this time, I was smarter and didn't alert them.
They accepted it. Musashi knows when someone is telling him the truth. He nodded and that was all that was needed as an approval. But for good measure continued to torture me, as their plaything. To make sure I wouldn't change my story again. They let me go about four months ago, as an official member of their ranks. There is an initiation. Something must be given up. Something that is precious to you, something that ties you to your village. Musashi decides while he is torturing you. If you came with items and something seemed to be more precious to you than anything. That last piece of the village that you can't let go but he said with me it was hard. I already had distain for my village. He brought out my bag that they had taken from me and slashed my headband. But he said that wasn't good enough. That wasn't enough for me to forget and turn from my life in the village.
So they cut out my eyes; my green eyes, the color of the forest. That is what my price was to become part of their ranks. Not that I had another choice. They wouldn't have just let me go. They sliced them out with a knife and soaked them in some kind of mixture. Then they put them back, but the nerves don't work anymore. They didn't heal them either, they are just in my eyes held on by tissue. I was too weak to heal myself and by the time I had enough strength, it was too late.
It's taken two months to figure out how to write without sight. Chakra is an amazing thing. A ninja who only goes by Gramps has been teaching me to stop relying on my eyes. Infusing chakra with the ink in the pen, I can sort of see the remnants of the chakra in the ink so I can write knowing what I am writing. It was his idea back when one of his old friends started to lose sight from an old wound. It takes serious chakra control but here is the result. He said that I have an amazing knack for it and he has been teaching me other things about not seeing with my eyes.
Kakashi put down the book. He was shaking and he slowed his breathing. Skinned, broken, beaten, torn and what was left was a broken down shell of the happy Sakura he knew. They had cut out her eyes. That's what Ino had said. That was her initiation? Sure, he had been tortured. He had the scars to prove it but losing your eyes to be part of this group at a compound. He shook his head. Sakura should have known she was in over her head. She couldn't have gotten out though. They would have just killed her. He wondered if that had ever crossed her mind. If this had happened to his teammate, he would have put them out of their misery. But she continued with the mission. Or had she? Had she no longer looked at it like a mission but instead a new life? Her drawings of the compound floors were neat but there were little scribbles of names in rooms and times of shifts in the corner. Was this intel for the mission or were these reminders for her? But it also slightly confirmed that something else was going on in the village. Something she was angry over, and thought that the village didn't care about any of the ninja.
He flipped the next page. The writing was straighter this time, and if possible, neater.
Never would I have thought eyesight was a handicap until now. Gramps passed me onto a couple nin from different hidden villages. I have been learning so much about sensing chakra in everything. Not just ninja. How sound waves echo. Trees breathe. Everything is interconnected. This place may be filled with murderers and some of the worst ninja but it seems more comfortable now than back at the village. Is that wrong of me to say? Even after all the pain I have been through?/i
This time Kakashi set the book down on the table. How could Tsunade let him read something like this? Turning off the light, Kakashi laid in bed and stared at the ceiling. He didn't know Sakura well enough to feel comfortable diving into her raw thoughts. Not after being stripped of her entire definition of herself. It wasn't light reading, like the Hokage said. His eyes bore a hole into the ceiling a little while longer before glancing at the book on the coffee table. He sighed and threw the sheet off him, got the book and brought it back to bed with him.
