Short chapter, this was supposed to be the last part of chapter 16 but I cut it out because of that chapter's extreme length.

Sasuke had...sealed her memories. So that she wouldn't know about his kinder side, most likely to keep her fearful of him.

So she would never run away.

The sad thing was, his goal had succeeded. She had done exactly what he wanted, by doing nothing.

Part of her wanted to blame this on him but she knew deep inside this was her own fault, for letting him break her. She should have never stopped fighting.

...but then again, she'd been afraid he would kill her the entire time she was with him. Only now was she aware of his intense...infatuation towards her.

She didn't want to use the word love because Sakura felt it was too good for him. His obsession with her had resembled so much like the younger version of herself, inside that scene of her trying to stop Sasuke from leaving.

Both crazed and unable to accept the other's departure.

But at least...she hadn't raped him! At least she hadn't kidnapped and tortured him! At least...she had been honest with him.

But no, Sasuke had had to tell her the truth and then forcibly wipe the memory from her. What an asshole!

And yet, even as she thought that, some part of her felt elated...knowing all about his feelings.

He loved her. He loved her. HE. LOVED. HER.

Again and again she thought back to her revived memory of his confession...just to delight in his uncertainty and insecurity. Who would have thought the cold, fearless, sociopath she'd grown so used to...was actually not a sociopath.

That he could genuinely apologize and show remorse.

Sakura would have been moved if it weren't for the now new suspicions inside her about what else Sasuke had locked in her memories.

Did he have anything to do with her childhood memories being erased?

Had Tsunade been wrong about him "unintentionally" erasing her memories before her death?

In a second, Sakura knew this couldn't be. Because, simply put, Sasuke would have wanted her to keep her childhood memories. After all, she'd been infatuated with him. She would have done anything for him if he had just asked her of it.

So...then…

Sakura tried to get her life down in a linear timeline:

After the Fourth Shinobi War, she had died somehow, then months later, Sasuke brought her back...but her memories were wrong for some reason -perhaps a side effect of the resurrection ceremony- and she couldn't remember anything about Sasuke. This made him angry, multiplying his fury at her for making him care for her.

He first kept her inside a wooden log cabin for about two weeks before her chakra was crippled in which he then moved her to the steel bedroom that she would stay in for the rest of that year.

Then he would take care of her there, occasionally taking her out for "trips" in which he forced her to reenact old childhood experiences of themselves together, always showing her what to do through a vision generated by his Sharingan.

Then on the anniversary of his brother's death, he raped her, at first just to produce an heir but eventually not even caring about the offspring anymore.

More sealed memories of Sasuke came back to her and Sakura realized that he'd been giving her pregnancy tests, at least initially. But then, quickly, after she repeatedly tested negative...failing to succumb to him...Sasuke had stopped the tests altogether.

He had been content just to...have her be with him, apparently.

Why exactly were all these memories suddenly getting unlocked?

She'd...never been able to recall the birthday incident until now. She had always known that she'd celebrated her birthday with him...almost holding it to be just a fact...just in the back of her head.

But she'd never been able to actually see the memory until now.

Was it because she was inside this strange white space?

Try as she might, Sakura could never find a way out of here. No matter how long she walked, the white emptiness just never seemed to end and she would eventually just collapse from exhaustion.

Then she would wake up and once again get assaulted by either a memory of her past forgotten childhood, or her locked time with Sasuke, either sealed or unsealed.

It was confusing at first but eventually Sakura was able to tell the differences between the latter two options. The reason being mainly because Sasuke had sealed only a few events during their time together, aside from giving her pregnancy tests.

Beside her birthday, there was only one other significant memory that Sakura realized Sasuke had manipulated.

She felt particularly weak this day inside the log cabin and even when Sasuke came in to undo her chakra manacles so that she could shower, Sakura just meekly responded to him. As soon as he undid the bindings, the kunoichi moved to stand up but found herself unable to.

Most shinobi walked on what they called "air steps" which was a form of wind jutsu that required no handsigns and was the first thing taught to young shinobi by their parents. It trained them whenever they walked by letting them float on a thin stream of air, just nanometers above the ground. To an untrained eye, shinobi walked just like all others but to themselves, any ninja could see the thin streams of air keeping everyone afloat no matter where they travelled.

When first taught, it took a typical child two years to let the technique grow habitual, until they did it even if they sleep walked. This was to keep a shinobi trained no matter where they were and allowed a ninja to build endurance.

...but if a ninja suddenly lost use of their chakras, they would most likely forget how to walk for a few seconds until their autonomous nervous system kicked back in:

"What's wrong?" Sasuke asked as Sakura stayed motionless on the bed even though he'd already undone all her manacles.

"I-I-I don't…" Sakura tried explaining but found that even she didn't know what was wrong with her...she just couldn't seem to stand up.

But in a few seconds, her mind cleared itself and Sakura was able to balance onto her feet once more. The pinkette nearly breathed a sigh of relief as she extended her foot out another step.

For some reason Sasuke's posture stiffened before her; Sakura saw this but thought nothing of it. Whatever was unnerving him probably had nothing to do with her.

Sakura got to the inside of the bathroom and waited for Sasuke to join her (as he always mandated now ever since she'd succeeded in running from him). He never actually did anything to her during the time she washed herself, even allowing her to keep the shower door closed as he stood waiting in the corner.

But this time the man never came.

"Hello? Can't you see I'm already inside?"

Sasuke's posture stiffened as he suddenly formed from within his left hand a small chakra infused energy ball, it was light and cool to the touch, infused with wind jutsu. It was a common technique used by second year shinobi students to play catch or hackeysack.

"Catch this," Sasuke randomly said and a second later threw it straight to Sakura.

The ball was made of simple compressed air and any chakra natured shinobi could hold it regardless of their training. Sakura knew this because she'd once been a champion at catch playing with this very same technique. She reached out and came to cup right underneath it.

But the ball broke right on her hand, dissipating back into the original air currents.

Sakura blinked.

What?

She turned to stare at Sasuke who had an equally perplexed, if not significantly darkened expression across his countenance.

Sakura tried consciously summoning her chakras now, picturing the green fire she knew she had inside her to culminate in the tips of her fingers...but nothing happened.

Sakura stared horror eyed at her pale bare palms, they were plain and clearly not infused with chakra, even though she was pouring all her energy into them.

Sasuke just stared at her, watching her actions. Sakura grew frustrated at his inaction and threw the closest flower pot at him, which surprised him but he easily dodged it nonetheless. That didn't deter Sakura though, she screamed: "Why can't I use my chakra?"

Sasuke strangely enough, still hadn't said anything to her after that outburst. Sakura now noted as she sat resting inside her own mind.

She recalled the rest of the scene:

"What have you done to me?!" Sakura shouted furiously as her palms once again refused to light up with her iconic green flames. She waved the simplest of handsigns, the kind taught to kindergarteners and even chakra challenged individuals...nothing.

Sasuke watched her do all this.

Finally, Sakura exhaled a wail of frustration and gave up, shrinking to the tiled floor in exhausted desperation as she started crying. "Why? Why did you have to take my chakra? Wasn't stealing me away from my home already enough?"

Sasuke stayed silent once more. Sakura raised her head, revealing a tear streaked face to him: "Answer me!"

In the blink of an eye, he had come within inches of her face and was now gripping her hair by it's roots, though not painfully, just enough to angle her face up to line parallel with his. This action shocked Sakura and she temporarily stopped crying.

She stopped breathing too because in that instant, he came to kiss the corner of her eye, sucking slightly at the origin of her tears. Sakura, despite her distressed state, felt the surface of her cheeks grow warm. Sasuke moved and did the same thing to the other eye, causing a strange warm butterfly feeling to settle inside Sakura's chest.

Then she saw Sasuke's eyes...and they looked almost red, for some reason.

"Go to sleep Sakura."

Sakura gasped, breaking out of her reverie because that was indeed the last thing she remembered about that day.

...just like her birthday, Sakura had only ever "felt" that Sasuke had crippled her chakra points, even forming exaggerated versions of him doing so.

But now the memory had made it clear to her.

If he really crippled her points like she'd thought then why hadn't he been reveling at her pain? At her misery? Like a true sadist?

But no, instead, he'd seemed almost...confused at her disability, hiding it behind a focused expression. He'd even gone so far as to pull her into a Sharingan induced sleep just to numb reality for her.

...he hadn't expected this outcome to occur.

Sakura gasped. Could her losing her chakras just been another side effect of being resurrected that Sasuke hadn't counted on?

And just like the birthday party, Sasuke had sealed this memory she'd had of him just to keep her frightened of him. He'd used this unfortunate and unpredicted side effect as a threat so that she would be more obedient. Sasuke was a genius after all and he knew when to use circumstances to his advantage.

All this time, he'd taken the blame upon himself even though he'd had nothing to do with it.

Whenever Sakura had yelled at him for doing this inhumane crime, he would just accept it or say that there were far more heinous punishments he could think up to inflict on her.

Just to intimidate her.

Just to keep her frightened.

Just to make her dependent.

Honestly asking, was this chapter kinda cheesy? What do you think of this new plot development?

Also, I have to ask now that I'm writing the next chapter, what characters would you like to see more of?