Sakura's eyes seemed permanently widened in shock. "Wh-what are you talking about?"
Tsunade's grip on her shoulders tightened. "You…died, at least fourteen months ago."
Sakura couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her mind couldn't process or make sense of any of it. "F-fourteen…months ago…"
She'd been packing for her trip to train with the Fifth Mizukage! How could Tsunade say this when, at the time, the Hokage herself had given her own recommendation? Her astonishment showed through her face and Tsunade pursed her lips before dropping her hands from Sakura's hands.
Keeping her eyes trained on the bedspread, the Hokage intoned slowly: "What's the last…thing you remember before…before Sasuke?"
Sakura eyebrows crossed; the complexity and absurdness of this situation finally wore down her patience. "I was walking home to my apartment when he-"
"What were you doing before then?" Tsunade interrupted urgently.
The pinkette frowned but complied: "I had been training in Konoha's Aquatic terrain, preparing for my three year training with The Fifth Mizukage."
Astonishment was not enough to describe the looks across everyone's faces, presently staring at her.
"Mizukage?" Tenten asked, bewilderingly.
Sakura clicked her tongue. "YES! That's what I said!"
Tsunade pursed her lips before coming to stare into her pupil straight into the eyes. "Sakura…all…no, I don't think all but…most likely the majority of what you think, as your life, is not true."
The kunoichi's jaw dropped. She couldn't think of what to say for a few seconds…and then she decided just on: "No…no, no…that can't-"
Sakura tried to get up from the bed.
"-be."
Tsunade's hand came to grip her forearm.
"NO!" Sakura stated while throwing the woman off with surprising strength and agility. Before Tsunade could recover, or before Shizune and Tenten could react, the pink haired kunoichi had stormed off out of the room and down the hospital hall.
As soon as she got more than sevent feet out of the room, wooden poles suddenly jutted out from the tiled floor of the hallway to encase her up on all sides, before meeting above her head. Sakura was completely sealed in.
Yamato.
His woodstyle jutsu.
Sakura identified it immediately.
In a few seconds, Tsunade stepped out from the hospital quarter she'd just sprinted from. The Hokage moved to place a hand on her shoulders, of which the girl immediately shucked off, as if the devil himself had tried to grip her.
Sakura's mentor was obviously hurt with the way she rejected her…but Tsunade understood. The pink haired kunoichi was still in shock.
Tsunade opened her mouth as if to speak but Sakura got there first: "What about Yamato? I remember him, I know his jutsu. I-"
"Sakura!" Tsunade grabbed both of her shoulders, through the wooden bars, again. "You need to calm down. I told you already, not all of your memories are incorrect."
"But why are they like that?" Sakura cried indignantly and a man stepped up from a neighboring, dark-lit room. It was Yamato, to answer: "Sasuke altered them."
The kunoichi felt like her heart had been ripped out right then. "Wh-what?"
Tsunade could tell that this was breaking Sakura's heart so she added: "Unintentionally so, as it seems."
Sakura was just getting more confused. "What are you talking about?"
Tenten and Shizune had by then moved up to stand behind Tsunade. The latter inserted: "Do you remember how, when the Fourth Shinobi War had still been going on, there were reanimated bodies of the dead brought back by Kabuto to fight our side?"
Sakura didn't like where this was going. Were they trying to tell her she was presently a zombie?
"That…is not what you are right now." Tsunade added quick. "Those bodies had only a sliver of the host form's DNA inserted into another being that then takes on their old form."
"But th-that's not me you're saying?" Sakura reiterated and the Hokage nodded.
"More than a year ago Sasuke found another way to bring back the dead and implemented it, bringing you back to life right inside of your own body."
Sakura raised her palms up to look at the undersides of them. From what she could remember, the reanimated shinobi's always looked partially like a mummy, with grayed skin almost and fragments of the paper curses used to transform their bodies into the accurate shape.
She had none such things.
"We don't know the exact details but Sasuke was…somehow able to force your soul back into your body, thus reviving you from the dead, completely. At first, when we heard sightings of you, we had placed it to be gossiped rumors or enemy duplicity…"
Tsunade looked down. "But then I sent spies to investigate…the first time they found Sasuke, with you, you were unconscious, next to a campfire."
Sakura's eyes grew distant, almost blurred with a forgotten memory:
Dirt.
That was the first thing she felt against her face.
Before she realized she was planted cheek first on the ground. In a swift motion, Sakura turned onto her side.
Black hair was the first thing that caught her eyes.
And then a cold ridiculously beautiful male face. He was staring at her with intense coal black eyes.
He was the same man she'd seen in the lot of her apartment.
And all too suddenly, Sakura's mind put two and two together.
"AH!" she cried while scooting back from his elegant form; her back collided with the trunk of a large wide tree.
She remembered him attacking her at the base of her apartment and then knocking her unconscious. Looking hastily around herself right now, Sakura surmised that she was in some kind of forest. He had kidnapped her!
The dark haired man moved to step towards her but Sakura quickly screamed: "NO! G-get back! Wh-who are you?"
His eyebrows crossed darkly…and angrily?
"What do you mean 'who am I?'"
His hand shot out and swiftly snatched her dainty wrist into his strong menacing grip. He squeezed it unintentionally tight.
Sakura screamed as he pressed her tight against the tree. The girl turned her head from side to side to try and shake him off but it didn't work; he pressed his mouth deathly tight against her ear, successfully pinning the side of her face against the trunk.
"This isn't funny Sakura," he whispered dangerously.
How did he know her name?
The girl only continued squirming and all too suddenly, she felt a strong hand squeezing her right thigh, agonizingly tight. "I'm warning you, Sakura, you better st-"
His words were cut off by the sound of a huge explosion, sounding about twenty feet away from them.
Sakura turned her head to look but suddenly a hand came to grip her chin and force her looking back at him.
Red eyes.
That was the last thing she remembered.
"Sakura?" Tsunade asked, right as the memory faded back into the recesses of her mind. The pink haired kunoichi shook her head, not really wanting to talk.
Tsunade continued nonetheless.
"We're not really sure why…but it seems something went wrong with the procedure and some of your memories got…altered…"
Sakura had stopped listening.
Now she understood why Tenten had embraced her like that. Why Shizune had cried. Sakura felt like her mind weighed ten tons. Her entire body felt too heavy and sluggish.
In fact, right as Yamato retracted the wooden bars (for she had calmed down significantly), Sakura collapsed onto the tiled hallway.