Note: Flashbacks, unless specifically noted, don't necessarily appear in chronological order.

The fourth week of her stay in Konoha was a strange one.

Suddenly, the friends that daily came to visit her stopped and she was left to her own devices. Sakura was still confined to her room because her house was still guarded (except now all the Jonin and Chunin were people she had never met before and far stricter looking than any of the older ones too).

So Sakura kept to herself.

And the days grew far lonelier than she'd ever imagined them to be.

With no one to distract her, all of her thoughts now turned to Sasuke. How he used to hold her, how he used to kiss her, how he used to…

…command her to say she loved him.

The memories were the only thing to keep her company and Sakura found herself drowning in them.

Every last one of them.

"Where are you taking me?" Sakura shouted as he dragged her with his iron grip of one hand, over both of her tiny wrists. "LET ME GO!"

She wanted to scream for help but she doubted it would actually do anything effective except anger her captor even more. They were in a completely empty area, save for the two of them, right now, and at that, nighttime so even if there was anyone close enough to hear, they were most likely asleep.

Which was probably why Sasuke had brought her here.

Wherever here was.

They were traversing on a dirt road that was obviously used on a daily basis for no clumps of grass grew anywhere on the path and at that the footprints were still distinct on the sand.

Sasuke completely ignored her struggles as he continued pulling her forward.

She looked ahead, eyes adjusting to the dim light, and saw a huge wide complexly designed bridge that they were obviously heading towards. When they were right beneath the sign of the bridge, they stopped. Sasuke looked up and Sakura followed his gaze, stopping her struggle momentarily out of curiosity to see what he was observing.

The kanji sign said one thing: The Great Naruto Bridge

Naruto? Why was this thing named after her best friend?

Sakura gasped. Sasuke turned to stare at her, for a long tense moment.

And then his dark eyes tightened in fury. He threw her violently and ferociously, past the open ornate gate.

Sakura stumbled from his great strength onto the bridge, running initially to try and keep herself balance but eventually her leg muscles wore down in soreness at the relentless movement and she fell, flat onto her front. Sakura scraped her elbows during the impact but she still fought to get back onto her feet.

She had to get away. She had to get away.

But her movements were too slow and Sakura felt a strong arm falling down onto her shoulder from behind. It whirled her back around to face Sasuke, who still had that furious gaze inside his irises.

Sakura gasped for breath, as if she was underwater, that was how frightened she was. Her green eyes trembled as their gazes met, pleading for him not to hurt her anymore.

Sasuke gritted his teeth. "What do you know of this place?"

Sakura was obviously unnerved, torn between the truth and what to say to not infuriate him anymore than she already had.

"I-I," she turned to face every which way, quickly taking in her surroundings. "I-I don't…"

She bit her lip. "I've never been here before."

Sasuke suddenly jerked her completely against his body, seething hotly against her face: "Wrong. Answer."

And with that he came to suckle her neckline, simultaneously ripping open the front of her kimono like top that was essentially only kept closed by a sash at her waist. Sasuke pulled wide open her collar without undoing the sash so that a large portion of her breasts and entire neckline got bared to him.

Sakura squealed in horror as his mouth came to kiss its way down the valley between her breasts, while his hands kept her secured against him by pressing against her back.

"Please!" she cried desperately while trying to back out of his hold; her hands that had been trying to shove him away got taken again into his palms and pulled high above her head. Sasuke let her back the two of them up because eventually he had her cornered against the wooden railing.

"No…" Sakura cried as he finally pulled off her white sash and then flung it high behind him, landing somewhere on the shadowed bridge. Sasuke next tried to do the same with her entire top, trying to take it off her and potentially just letting it fall off into the waters-

-but Sakura fought hard to keep it on her arms.

And then the pinkette did something he didn't expect. She pressed her head into his chest that was revealed by his plunging v-neck shirt, sobbing straight into the firm muscular surface. "Please…I'm sorry…I take it back, I take everything back...just don't do anything to me."

Her entire being trembled in his hold as she continued to cry for an indefinite amount of time; Sasuke stopped moving in that moment, hardly even breathing.

Then his hands came to rise up on her back -and for a second, she thought he was going to continue again- but his hands only came to rest on her shoulders, before forcing her away from him.

Sakura sniffled as she came to look up at him. As soon as their eyes met again, Sasuke closed the distance between them once more, only it was to kiss her forehead.

Sakura's eyes widened at this action.

Her entire body stood frozen in shock, as her ears suddenly started burning.

She was blushing.

"I'll give you one more chance," he whispered right up against her forehead. "Look into my eyes."

Sakura trembled again but consented; slowly, she raised her head. Red eyes.

Instantly, the world around her melted away and she found herself…

…well on the bridge again, only it didn't look so much like a complete bridge anymore. It looked half built and had wooden beams strewn carelessly on the surface and-

She gasped as a shuriken suddenly came flying past her head.

She ducked down right at the last minute and managed to avoid being skewered.

Sakura looked ahead, towards where it had come from and saw that that particular area of the incomplete bridge was thickly fogged, unnaturally so.

Something compelled her to walk forward. For some reason, Sasuke had just disappeared.

Closer and closer she drew until Sakura saw that she was on the brim of a battlefield. Inside a slew of rotating what looked to be essentially mirrors floating in a dome shape hovered above ground, surrounding…what looked to be two young boys.

Sakura drew closer.

"Be careful of the Crystal Ice Jutsu! Haku can come out from anywhere!" a familiar male voice shouted from somewhere behind her; she turned and came to see Kakashi, standing in front of an old bearded man with a straw hat, clearly protecting him.

But right as he said that a masked individual with two dangling hair braids suddenly shot out from the mirror and attacked-

-Sakura gasped. They were attacking Naruto!

It was his younger form and still dressed in that orange jumpsuit of his but definitely him.

She immediately ran towards the rotating mirror dome. Sakura tried to get in but a force field over the dome's outside stopped her. She could only look in from the outside.

And that's when she saw the other person next to Naruto.

The face was less distinct and had more baby fat but it was undeniably Sasuke, as a child. Or perhaps a preteen. He looked tall even back then, for his age. His clothes were torn and slit open from various attacks. The same could be said about Naruto's clothes.

The two were obviously hurt and critically damaged.

Suddenly the domed ice completely shattered and a flash of blinding light obscured Sakura's vision.

When it faded, everything vanished around her. Kakashi, the straw hat man, even the bridge…was all gone.

Except for Sasuke and Naruto, who both lied unconscious on the ground. Sakura moved, to run to their forms…but suddenly a third being ran into the scene, right through her body?

Sakura gasped at the sight she saw.

It was her, or at least, the younger version of her. She still had that long river of hair down her back, kept back fashionably by her shinobi headband and she was wearing a red sported qi pao-

-as she ran to Sasuke's form.

She came to cradle the boy's being in her embrace as she started to cry, clearly distraught over the his injuries. Sakura outright ignored Naruto, who was equally injured.

What in the world was she watching?

"Sasuke! You...you have to be alright!" she called while tears streamed down her face.

After a spending a significant amount of time checking on Sasuke's vitals, Sakura's younger form finally turned to look at Naruto.

Sakura's real self moved, as if to go closer again -but a hand came to tighten around her upper arm, and jerked her around.

Immediately, the white world shattered and she was back on that bridge. The completed bridge, with adult Sasuke.

Her green eyes trembled and flashed her terrified confusion. "What just…"

"I'm giving you, one chance…" the man said with stern black eyes that stared right into her soul. "Say and do exactly what you just saw, to me, and I'll let everything go for tonight."

Sakura could only stare at him in astonished confusion, neither complying nor showing she objected. Sasuke's patience grew thin after a few more moments of inaction. A hand came to snatch the back of Sakura's hair, wrenching her head back at a painful angle to expose all of her throat to him.

"Fine. Have it your way," he said before coming down to suck her throat.

"Ah!" Sakura cried while trying to shove him away again but like always she was too weak. Her shirt was still without a sash and hung open at the sides on her front, exposing the side of her breasts to him (because he hadn't given her a bra to wear the last time she showered) and Sasuke easily took advantage of this. His hands rose up to painfully cup both of her breasts and knead the soft mounds with angry fervor.

"St-st-stop!" she shouted desperately through panted breaths. His touches were blatantly intended to cause her pain instead of stimulation and Sakura could only wince at the sensations. "Pl-please! I'm sorry!"

But he wouldn't stop this time.

The hand came back to tug on her hair, wrenching her to face him. "Say it."

A tear leaked from Sakura's eye, down her pale cheek but she complied, in a weak shaky voice: "Please Sasuke…you have to be…alright."

She stated through raking sobs that shook her body from head to toe. Sakura cried into Sasuke's hold again and her hands wrapped around him, because she didn't know how else to calm him. There was no way she could run away and Sakura just wanted to keep his hands away.

"You…have to be alright…" she stated again, continuing to bawl into his hold. "…you have to…be…"

Alright.

The memory faded and Sakura stood up from her bed, hugging herself as she walked to her window.

True to his word, Sasuke had indeed stopped his actions against her that night. She hadn't been able to understand why he'd been so driven to have her re-live those genjutsu events (which she now knew, after some research, had been summoned up by his Sharingan) but now she understood.

He'd been trying to remind her of her old life.

Her old memories, perhaps.

Which meant all the things she'd seen, thru him, had…actually occurred.

She'd really cried over Sasuke's wellbeing instead of Naruto's.

She'd favored him?

But then again, everything could have just been his fabrication. He could have made up the entire illusion just to fulfill some kind of sick fetish…

Sakura couldn't be certain.

Because nothing was certain right now.

Suigetsu sent the signal at the Ghems, a now abandoned village near the outskirts of Konoha. The signal was a firework like blitzkrieg that exploded into the night sky, in which looked like an old festive explosion to anyone except Taka members.

Sasuke had taught them that whenever they saw this signal, they were to immediately drop whatever assignment given to them and meet up, thirty meters North and twenty meters West of where the signal had originated; the instructions were obviously to evade anyone that had decided to follow the firelight anyway.

And so Sasuke and Suigetsu waited.

And sure enough, not even ten minutes later, a being in a black cloak shifted in their peripheral vision, leaping atop the high canopy tree tops, until they were right above them; they leaped down.

A girl with long dark magenta hair stood before them.

Karin.

It was only Karin.

"Where's Jugo?" Sasuke immediately asked, before the girl could emit her usual 'SASUKE!' squeal whenever she saw him. The kunoichi was visibly deflated at the Uchiha's lack of enthusiasm at seeing her, but she replied nonetheless:

"He's in Konoha still."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "I told you guys the instant you see the signal to drop whatever mission you're on."

Karin's chest huffed indignantly. "Well, if we weren't so sure that you would murder us on the spot if we did leave Sakura, then we would have complied!"

Suigetsu hadn't caught a word of that. "What?"

"What are you talking about?" the Uchiha intoned strictly.

The abrasive girl scoffed. "Seems like your old village has turned their backs on that little prize of yours; they're planning on undoing the reanimation jutsu to send her soul back to the dead."

Sasuke's fist tightened against his trousers as his teeth gritted.

"Where's Jugo now?" he seethed lowly.

"Keeping a bird's eye view on her, outside of her window. He's planning on springing her free before midnight today, since that's when the Konoha ops plan on taking her."

Sasuke's next words were almost anticipated.

"We have to move, fast."

Evening came around slowly for Sakura; this was officially the end of her fourth week in Konoha.

She sighed as she gazed out the window to her bedroom. The sun had set awhile ago but only now were the house lights on her street going down.

On the complete opposite side of the road, she saw the silhouette of a woman and a smaller form, clearly a child being dressed into their pajamas, before getting tucked into bed by said mother.

It made her miss her own mom.

Where was the woman?

Where was her father?

And how come they hadn't come back from sea by now? Ino had said that they'd already gotten news of her return and were on their way back.

But she'd said that three weeks ago.

So perhaps Ino had been lying back then.

And perhaps that was the real reason her friends had all stopped coming to see her, from fear that she would ask them about the truth of where her parents really were, and none of them wanted to be the one to break the news to her.

That they had died.

Sakura hated to confront this growing thought and suspicion but what else could she think? Everything added to this conclusion and she knew that if they were still alive, nothing could keep them away from her, no matter the distance.

And if Ino had lied to her about her parents that meant that Naruto too was…

No. No. NO.

She couldn't think like this.

If Sakura thought like this…she would lose her mind.

And she wouldn't let the world take that from her too.

Just then, right on her peripheral vision, she saw a shifting shadow right before her vision. Sakura knew what it was immediately: a shinobi moving at chakra speed.

The weeks she'd spent cooped up back in Konoha had at least let her regain a bit of her old Ninja Academy teachings. She'd had too much time and spent most of it reading her old textbooks.

Just as she opened her mouth to scream for help, Sakura felt a hand clamp down around her lips from behind.

"Don't speak," a warbled voice, that she couldn't tell if it was either female or male, spoke from behind her.

Turning with her best capability, restrained as she was, Sakura saw that her attacker was someone wearing all black, gender ambiguous, shinobi attire and face mask. Even their eyes had a one way visor over them so that Sakura couldn't see past it.

Sakura's scream was muffled by the individuals large palm and she tried in vain to pry it off with both hands. Finally, the individual intoned: "I'm here to help you, Sakura Haruno."

But she wasn't so easily convinced.

An elbow came crashing back behind into the being's body but it didn't seem to hurt her attacker too much. In fact, they barely phased, not even allowing Sakura a moment to break free.

Right in that moment, a series of heavy footsteps pounded on the floor below, then rushing up her staircase. Sure enough, a second later the door to Sakura's bedroom burst open, and in came at least a dozen masked ANBU shinobis that all had jonin level armbands. They were all dressed in battle ware and had their shinobi tools strapped plentifully across their entire personage.

Like they were about to go to war.

What was going on?

"I thought you guys had planned for midnight." Her attacker said stoically from behind her.

The leading masked ANBU was the one to answer: "That was the plan, until we sensed a foreign chakra coming in thru this household. Our sentries immediately sent word that someone was trying to break the Haruno girl out."

Break. Her. Out.

Like a prison?

The masked man currently holding her from behind, suddenly turned around, looking thru the open window he'd come in from. Sakura heard him whisper, probably thinking to himself: "They couldn't have sensed my chakra…"

And all of a sudden, he leaned in to whisper into Sakura's ear: "Hold your breath."

A second later, he threw a smoke bomb onto the ground. Immediately, choking gray smoke obscured all of Sakura's vision and she'd barely had time to comprehend what he'd told her to do before enacting it.

Unable to see anything, Sakura felt herself being lifted into strong arms and then a second later, she found herself being carried out of her window. The clouded night's sky surrounded her, with no moon and stars so Sakura could hardly see what was going on around her. All she could hope was that the man currently holding her knew where he was going and wouldn't run into the bordering mountains of Konoha.

Sasuke got to the outside of Konoha and he immediately knew he'd arrived too late.

Every single barrier of the town had been initiated, clearly to prevent anyone from entering.

Or leaving.

"Karin, sense Jugo's chakra," he instructed quickly. Clearly, Sakura had already escaped with Jugo and the two were now on the run. Jugo was a strong Shinobi, able to even go against A's lightning attacks head first, but he was no match for all of Konoha's militia.

They had to get to the two of them, fast.

Their plan was meticulous: span the outside of Konoha's barrier, locating either Sakura or Jugo's chakra (or their actual person with Sasuke's sharingan). Once they found it, depending on where it was, they would blast a hole through the city's barrier defense and quickly rescue them.

Because Karin sensed there were countless other sensory ninja nearby, and Sasuke's team was currently trying to stay the stealth track, she had to keep her chakra as low as possible.

And as a result, it took longer for her to locate Jugo's chakra.

But eventually Karin felt it, a sliver of chakra, dimmed and clearly…

Wounded.

Sasuke sped up to the location Karin pointed out: a cave near the outside of Konoha, right before it touched the surrounding mountainside. They must have escaped in time before Konoha became completely quarantined.

Sasuke was the first to the cave's entrance. Not even needing to activate his sharingan, he saw Jugo's bloodied form hunched down the cave's wall.

He was alone.

"Jugo," Sasuke called quietly once he was right next to the bipolar man's form. He lightly shook the man's arm.

Either Sakura had been captured at the cave, causing Jugo's present injuries or she'd been taken during the escape and Jugo had just barely made it out before the barrier closed.

The orange haired man stirred and then his eyes fluttered open.

"Sasuke…wh…at-"

"Jugo, where is Sakura?" the Uchiha asked impatiently; Suigetsu and Karin had caught up to the cave's entrance by then.

"I-I don't know. Someone else rescued her before I could. They escaped out of her window with the ANBU chasing after them. I gave chase, to see if the masked person was one of us but…I got ca-caught-" He started coughing up a spasm of blood. "I…I just…barely made it…out…"

But by then Sasuke had stopped listening.

"Karin, heal Jugo," he commanded emotionlessly while standing up and walking away.

He came to stare out into the cold night's sky, his mind racing. If Jugo hadn't been the one to take Sakura, then who had?