Another chapter is here!

Enjoy!

Sasuke had run off.

That fact pressed down on Sakura's heart like a steel weight, threatening to drag it deeper into her stomach the longer she stared down at the nightstand. It was there they'd found his headband, placed in front of a picture of Team 7—signifying he'd left his past behind. She looked over to Karin, who stood off to the side with her lips pursed into a thin frown as she ran her tense fingers through her red hair.

"He must've left after Naruto told him they found a way to remove the Cursed Seal." She huffed and then looked towards the entryway. "He must not have wanted to get rid of it. I'm not sure why, but it's the only reason I can think of."

"He… probably felt he needed the power." Sakura picked up the picture and thought back to when things had gone the other way. It was when he'd run into his brother and ended up in that coma. She had hoped things could go back to how they were before; that Kakashi, Naruto, and her words had reached him—but they hadn't.

"Then he must've left to get it elevated to the next stage. It makes those who can handle it more powerful in that state." Karin looked off to the side for a moment before shaking her head. She then turned back to Sakura with a stern expression. "How do you want to handle this?"

"We have to report this, but…" She had to pause to gather herself, to breathe as the words clawed at her throat. "But then he'll go down as a Missing-Nin. They'll make him a criminal."

A tense silence hung in the air between the two at that. Sakura had to report his absence so they could send people out to find him. Stop him from making a mistake he'd regret. But he'd never forgive them for it if this was what he chose over his teammates and the village. Footfalls eventually broke the silence as Karin came over and set a hand on Sakura's shoulder.

"They won't put him in the Bingo book or make the knowledge public," she assured her. "They can't because advertising that the last member of a near-extinct bloodline would bring the vultures out—people who'd want him for it. The village is surprisingly lenient, so chances are they'd just put him under watch and house arrest or something."

It was of little comfort as Sakura brought her empty hand to her chest and grasped at it, trying to reach past the cloth for the heavy pressure building there while she sorted through which of the myriad of emotions roiling in her chest hurt the most. Was it that he didn't tell them anything? That he let them believe that he would work with them and they'd grow stronger together? Or that he left without so much as a goodbye to them—to her—for the sake of revenge?

"…Sakura, how do you want to handle this?" Karin asked her again after just watching her reaction for a moment. "I know you and Naruto were both close to him, but the longer we go without reporting it—"

Pink hair swayed as Sakura shook her head. "Do you know where Kakashi-sensei is?"

"The Memorial Stone," she said. "He spends a lot of time there."

"We have to tell him at least," Sakura decided. "He might be able to track him or something."

Karin nodded and then silently turned towards the door. Sakura set the picture down and picked up Sasuke's headband to take with her before she followed on autopilot. They'd barely made it past the entrance and outside when the Uzumaki came to an abrupt stop.

"What's—" Her words died as the whistle of air being parted by steel reached her ears and pushed Sakura's feelings to the back of her mind. She snapped her head towards the source of the sound as streaks of orange intercepted the projectiles and sent them clattering to the ground.

"We're not alone," Karin said with her left arm outstretched, a chain extending from beneath the sleeve. It hovered in the air, primed to lash out and lunge like a serpent as her crimson eyes narrowed behind her glasses at the one who'd thrown the six kunai.

He was older by a few years, with light-blue hair. Hostility rolled off him as he stood on top of the building across from them. Everything about him screamed 'enemy' to Sakura, especially the way he was looking down at them.

"Who is that?" Sakura asked, unwilling to take her eyes off him as she crouched down and picked up one of the kunai to use for herself. She hadn't brought any with her given she expected to be at a birthday party. Then again, today hadn't gone at all how she'd wanted it to.

"He must've been suppressing his chakra so that I couldn't feel it until just now, but he's one of the Cursed Seal-users working with Kabuto," Karin explained. "The fact that he's here after the Uchiha went missing probably isn't a coincidence either. I'll capture him and take him with us to get some answers."

"That's big talk considering how you ran like a frightened rabbit the last time," he said to that. "Scurrying away as fast as you could, you let everyone else throw themselves in the way to buy yourself a few more seconds that night. And yet here you are, celebrating a birthday while that woman who took your place suffers."

Karin's eyes went from narrowed to wide at that. "She's alive?"

"As alive as she can be in Kabuto's care." He chuckled cruelly at the sight of her head dipping upon hearing that, the shadow cast by her hair obscuring her face. "Death would be a mercy compared to what he's done to her. But you'll—"

He never got the chance to finish. The chain that had been placid lengthened, rocketing forward from beneath her arms without any movement on Karin's part. It was joined by another from that sleeve and two from the other arm as they cut through the air like arrows towards him.

Yet, the cruel smile from the effect his words had never left his lips. He merely twisted his body to avoid them as they whizzed by with enough force that they would have ran him through. The spear-tips of a pair of her chains then craned around and shot for him, aiming to impale him from the back, only from him to dodge them too by falling off the roof.

In a wordless rage Karin raised her head, showing her face twisted in anger while his smile was reflected in her glasses. She angled the first pair of chains to come around again from the bottom. At the same time, she pulled the second pair of chains that wedged themselves in the edge of the roof to bring down the outer wall of the neglected and abandoned building on top of him.

The enemy didn't dodge them. Instead, he threw down a pair of kunai that nailed the first two chains to the ground by the links at the neck of the tips. Then, the moment he touched down, he drove his fist upwards and shattered the rubble meant to fall on him with sickening ease before he threw a spread of shuriken their way while charging forward.

"WHERE ARE THEY!?" Karin demanded as she dismissed the chains rather than trying to pull them back in time, letting them shatter into shards that dissipated into glittering motes of orange. They were replaced by thinner ones from her finger-tips, one hand's worth diverting the shuriken and the other hunting for the enemy while dissuading him from a frontal assault.

She won't catch him at this rate, Sakura realized as he kept avoiding them. While those chains could neutralize and shut down an opponent's chakra, they had to actually manage to make contact and he wasn't making it easy.

She formed hand-seals to contribute, letting it shape her chakra to mold a specific illusion while his attention was on Karin's chains as they moved in more erratic patterns to go with her mounting frustration. It had been instilled in her during practice with Kurenai that the feeling of someone else's chakra invading their system would be noticed unless it was done with excellent control. Since Sakura didn't have the level of skill yet to stop someone from breaking it if noticed, she had to focus on that precision—which was easier said than done when being hounded by a fast opponent.

Let's hope that Kiba had been good practice. Projecting the finished technique outwards with her control, Sakura felt the chakra sliding into and intermingling with his chakra system with a precise smoothness as it rode the current flowing through his body to his brain. She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding as she felt the illusion taking hold through an imprint, courtesy of the spiritual nature of the Yin Chakra.

His vision was gone, turning liquid as the atmosphere became a swirling blend of undulating colors. The ground around him turned into a mire that pulled him in without reservation to drown him. No matter how hard he struggled there would be no escape until it dragged him down and kept him there.

Karin immediately shifted gears as the enemy began to crouch down involuntarily. His body had turned into a plaything of his mind under the influence of the Hazy Genjutsu, leaving him open. All ten chains went in for the capture as she crossed her arms and hurried them along—

Then the illusion was dispelled, her chakra expelled by a foreign one injecting itself into his somehow to free him in time. Using his already chambered legs to leap over the enclosing chains, he let fly another spread of shuriken to rain death from above. The chains that had been giving chase were forced to curve around upwards to deflect them and left Karin's front open as he managed to launch himself towards her with his fist chambered.

The Uzumaki brought her arms up and braced them to cover her face on reflex. Then she abruptly buckled forward as something slammed into her stomach. Doubled over, it left her face open for a punch that connected with the sound of glass shattering as her body was driven to the ground.

Sakura, in the process of casting another illusion, caught sight of a third leg extending from what should have been his stomach. The additional limb was seamlessly passing through his clothes, not tearing through it or anything. It slowly retracted as he lowered his arm that had an additional one melding into it, but Sakura didn't dwell on it when he looked towards her as she finished her hand-seals.

She felt an illusion taking hold for the second time, regardless of the extra extremities half-withdrawn into his body. Karin and Sakura vanished from his view in a wave of flower petals before lashing vines emerged from the ground and wrapped around his arms and legs. They thickened, turning into a solid tree that entwined him so thoroughly that he couldn't even breathe.

Not that she trusted it to last after he broke the first one, but she only needed a second. Since Karin was downed, unconscious and her cheek looking like a bruise would form as blood trickled from her lip, Sakura wouldn't wait for her to get chains around him in that time. Instead, with a kunai in her hand, she lunged with all her might before he could break it a second time.

She came an inch within stabbing him before an arm shot out of his body and grabbed her by the wrist before she could bring the kunai down on his head. A second hand followed, grabbing her by the throat as she felt the illusion be dispelled again and his gaze turned her. His lips set themselves into a hate-filled scowl as a second head of all things emerged.

"Let's see how you like being suffocated, girl," he said in a soft, yet menacing voice. Then his hand tightened around her throat.

Sakura could feel the digits digging into it. Fear set in as he threatened to crush her windpipe from the force alone. She struggled to get free and pull the hand away to no avail. The need for air began to drown out all the other sensations in her body and she had no doubt she would have died right then and there if not for a Chakra Chain shooting out of the ground, aimed straight for the primary head.

He leaned back to avoid it taking out an eye at the least. But the tip took a sharp-turn pierced the arm holding Sakura's own with the kunai. The second head screamed in pain as Sakura pulled her arm free in that moment and, in an act of desperation, stabbed the kunai into the arm that had a death-grip on her throat.

Chakra and adrenaline flooded her body with the rush of air that followed as she was freed and took a deep breath on reflex as she formed a single hand-seal. A discharge of Yin Chakra imitating the brightness of the sun at close range flared into existence. The blinding light elicited a scream from the primary head this time as it consumed them both.

In full-on flight mode, Sakura then spun on her heels and grabbed Karin. She was still on the ground and struggling for breath even as the chain that had extended from her palm underground dissipated. Scooping her up as best she could in the split-second they had, Sakura then ran with her to get away before they were killed.

[-oOo-]

Sakon snarled as the light stung his eyes even after he's screwed them shut. It was like they'd been stabbed by kunai driven straight into the sockets. On reflex, he jumped backwards and sharpened his other senses in anticipation for another attack, only to hear nothing. When he opened his eyes again, lids straining to do so at the risk of being blinded again, he saw they'd fled.

"This only happened because you tried indulging in that sadistic streak of yours," his brother, Ukon, said. When Sakon shifted his head backwards, he saw the blood running from the two wounds to his arms. "I'll recover inside of you. Chase them down before they can get away."

Sakon pressed his lips thin as he felt his brother's body fusing perfectly into his again. The nature of their bloodline meant they could join with one another and share a single body or split in two. Both had an awareness of the other when they were combined and enhanced healing for the one who laid dormant, so it wouldn't take more than a minute to recover from wounds of those nature.

Still, it did nothing to ease his rage at being had by a couple of Genin girls. He and his brother had faced far greater opponents and come out on top, being the strongest of the Sound Four. Yet they were humiliated by the pair.

He gave chase the moment he made them out in the distance, running as fast as their last legs could carry them before turning into an alley. Probably attempting to lose him through the backstreets. It was futile, given he was faster despite the few seconds of advantage they'd gained.

They wouldn't escape him.

[-oOo-]

"…You can drop the clones now," Karin whispered, letting out a low sigh as the tension left her body as she leaned against the exterior of a building along with Sakura. They were in an alley off to the side, where Sakura had used the Demonic Illusion: False Surroundings technique on the segment of the alley they were in to make it appear to be empty. They'd hidden without moving an inch or even breathing to avoid breaking through it and exposing themselves.

"That was close." Sakura released the illusionary clones, which she had manipulated through her chakra control, after they'd exited Sakon's line of sight. He was still going after what he perceived to be the path they'd gone, meaning they'd bought time. "Are you okay?"

"Nothing broken." Though, to be honest, her stomach ached to the point there was a dull but throbbing pain that radiated outwards with every breath she took. She could also feel where the bruise was forming on her face, blood coming from where her lip had been split. And then there was the fact her head was pounding since she'd woken up from blacking out for a few seconds when they'd hit her.

But she could manage it. "I can stop the pain once I've had a minute."

"We need to hide somewhere better than here then." Sakura's head moved around, taking in her surroundings. Then she ran further down into the alley, growing blurrier as Karin's eyes failed to adjust. She was near-sighted without her glasses and those were broken. "This building has a side-entrance in the alley. Come on."

Karin followed her inside and heard the door shut as the illusion outside dropped. She could feel the dust beneath her fingers as she held her hand out to braced the wall before she lowered herself onto the floor. She then focused on gathering her chakra and converting it for medical use as she worked on dealing with the injuries. "How's your neck?"

"Bruised, but I'll live." Sakura sat next to her. "What was with him—or them?"

Karin didn't look at her, instead focused on numbing the pain receptors with her chakra while keeping track of the enemy with a narrowed focus. She didn't get caught off guard again as she explained, "They must have a bloodline ability that allows them to meld with one another. Orochimaru always had an interest in people with unique abilities and talents, and with him gone Kabuto must be pulling their strings."

A cold and dull sensation took root as the technique did its work. She had no idea how many days it would take before her healing ability was back to how it had been before her surgery, so it would suffice for now. "I couldn't tell there were two of them until the second one started moving, but they have to be aware of each other too while in that state. Otherwise they wouldn't have been able to break the Genjutsu so quickly, despite it being an obvious one."

"Well, there was no time for subtlety when he was going directly after us," Sakura muttered in her defense. "When the enemy knows you're there, the easiest thing to do is to use one that allows you to inflict enough mental trauma or disorient them enough to get an opening to strike. But when there's two of them it's a problem because one can inject his chakra into the other to break it."

"I'm not shifting the blame," Karin said. "If I had known there was more than one of them I would have tried something different too. Either way, now that I know I can try again with a little more luck. It'll all be over as long as I get them in my chains."

Karin could practically hear the disbelief in the kunoichi's voice as she asked, "You're still going to try to capture them?"

Nevertheless, she nodded her head. "I won't get a better chance than this. They've lost the element of surprise and they're in enemy territory. If we escape from the district they'll have no choice but to retreat, so they're rushing around to find us. I can use that to my advantage."

"That's stupid!" Sakura responded. "We should focus on escaping and telling someone who can deal with them and let the Hokage know about this! If you can sense them then we can wait until we have an opening, get on Suzaku and then—"

"Live in fear until they pull this again?" Karin filled in for her, a sharp note in her tone. She wouldn't be able to look forward to the future if she was always afraid that one day they'd take even Naruto from her. And then there was Anko—they hadn't even known each other for very long and she put herself into harm's way to save both her and Naruto. For them to bring her up just to mock Karin only served to fuel her anger and determination to correct that.

Sakura went still for a moment. Judging her, if Karin had to guess. Then she shook her head. "We can't fight them head-on. They're stronger than us physically, and they were faster than your chains were. You'd never catch them."

"I just need to get my hands on some ink and paper," Karin said as she finished, the glow of medical charka fading. "I still remember the seals I made for Naruto during the Chuunin Exams. They probably won't be strong enough to kill them, but if I can just distract them and catch at least one of them in the chains I can manage."

"And if they catch you, then it won't matter," Sakura pointed out.

"That's where you come in." Karin reached into pocket and pulled out Suzaku's sealing slip. "I'll call out Suzaku and have him on standby with you. Once I have them distracted, he'll fly you out to tell someone what's happening. If they managed to catch me, then Naruto can use the mask to track me through the spiritual connection as long as I'm alive. The village can then gather whoever they can to find Kabuto and put an end to him."

Sakura stared at the sealing slip in absolute silence. Then she reached out past it to grab Karin by the shoulders and jerked her closer, until they were nearly face-to-face. "And what am I supposed to tell Naruto, huh? That I had to run away while you let yourself get caught on the same day that I have to tell him his teammate decided to abandon us for them without saying anything!?"

Karin winced as the girl's fingers were digging into her shoulders, caught off-guard by the sudden aggression. But she was quick to state, "There is no other choice! I won't get a better chance than this! And if it works they'll be able to find the Uchiha too, so—"

"I'M NOT DOING THAT!" Sakura shouted, the silence of the long-abandoned building broken by her outburst. A moment later, strength left Sakura's arms as she continued in a lower tone. "I've already have to tell Naruto that Sasuke abandoned us—abandoned the village, without telling us anything or letting us help him. Do you think I want to tell Naruto that you're gone too on his birthday?"

Karin expression grew heavy, her eyes and lips dropping as she processed that. Thankfully, Sakon had been far enough away not to hear it. But it was risky and she should know better, so it had to be a weight on Sakura that Karin didn't take proper note of.

"How do you think he'd feel that you made that decision on your own and left him behind?" Sakura continued, her shoulders trembling. "How do you think I'd feel having to tell him I let someone else fight while I ran away and hid again? Do you know what it's like to go through that?"

"…It's not that I want to do this, but it's that I have to," Karin said after a moment. "If they get away, how long until we get another chance to deal with Kabuto and the remainder of Orochimaru's forces? How long until they manage to slip in again and take one of us then? This is as close to a last chance as I'll get, so I have to act now while I have the chance."

"I'm not letting you do that," Sakura said in a firm tone as she regained her composure. "There has to be another way to accomplish everything at once. Just give me a minute to make up a plan and we'll go from there."

They were wasting time arguing and there was only so much she could do alone. If working together gave her a better chance of success, then there was no reason for Karin to disagree. And, if things took a turn for the worst, she could just put her to sleep and have Suzaku fly her out. "Fine. What do you have in mind?"

[-oOo-]

Sakon had grown frustrated over the minutes as he searched for the girls to no avail through the alleyways when he caught the faint sound of chains rattling. A second later one smashed through the right wall of the alley he was in as he leapt backwards to evade it. The tip of it curved around like a serpent to track him down while three more tore through the wall to get at him as well.

He bound off the sides of the wall and into the air above to look down and see how far away they came from. The target was hiding behind a building some distance away, her head angled up towards them as he flung a spread of kunai towards her. When she disengaged the chains to dodge, it confirmed that her vision was compromised in accordance to the information Kabuto had given them, leaving her only means of detection being chakra-sensing.

"I'll draw out her attacks," Sakon said as he split from his brother, ejecting him through the use of chakra while Ukon's was suppressed. If she could only track by chakra then he should be able to get the drop on her with ease.

As Ukon ran the other way to circle around, Sakon started moving again and exited through the alley's mouth into the wider street. A flash of orange caught his eye from a corner as snaking chains came for him once again. This time from above as he spotted her on a rooftop, leaping from one to the other as chains from her arms lanced through the air down towards him. He was moving to get around them when he noticed that tags were lining the tips of each of them, ready to detonate.

"Tch." He disappeared with a Body Flicker, escaping as the tag on the leading chain went off when it reached where he had been. No sooner than he touched down on a light pole, just outside of the blast radius as the dark smoke mixed with the dirt and dust, the other three chains parted the veil from different angles to pincer him in. Sakon dodged those as well, landing on a roof briefly to note that the excessive noise would draw attention when he spotted the something moving in the air.

The pink-haired one is running, he thought while watching as she rode on the bird they'd flown in towards the edge of the district while the other bought time for her to escape. That would bring the ANBU to the site if the smoke didn't eventually, but they'd be long gone by then. "Better not waste any more time."

Cursed Seal markings spread across his body, making it stronger and faster than before. A cloud of dust rose up as he kicked off the surface of the rooftop and rushed for the fleeing traitor as she jumped down into the alley below, seeking to escape. He didn't let her, bounding off the side of the opposite side of the alley wall to slam his foot into her back. The blow was hard enough to cripple her since he only had to bring her back alive…

Or so he thought until she broke apart into cherry blossoms that scattered around as he passed through the space she'd been. He fell into a skid as he landed, his mind racing as the cherry blossoms swirled in a maelstrom that blanketed the surroundings and fell down over him like snow. I thought the other one had run away, but that was a Genjutsu in itself…

He flared his chakra flow to disrupt the illusion, only to find that some of the petals that had fallen were explosive tags that were mixed into it. It had been a trap and the one responsible, the traitorous target, was standing just past the mouth of the alley with a smug look on her face. She'd gotten the better of him and knew it.

His frustration and fury boiled over as he allowed the Cursed Seal to reach the next stage before the explosions swallowed him whole. Heat and force pounded at his flesh that warped, becoming a darker shade of red with scales emerging from half of his body to form armor as the rest became that of an oni. He shot out of the smoke, burns lining his flesh and smoke curdling off his body as he reached out to grab her. "I'll tear your body apart from the inside out!"

The moment he went through the mouth of the alley it was like passing through a portal into another world. The street itself transitioned to being a web of Chakra Chains, running in zig-zag lines that cordoned off the entire section to prevent escape. All at once they closed in on him from all angles and, in an instant, they'd made contact with his skin and coiled around his body mid-lunge.

They wrapped tightly, connecting and melding to become fetters that pulled his arms and legs apart. The transformation of the second stage of the seal was suppressed as they coiled around his abdomen and neck, the two locations where he'd drawn his power from. Then they pulled taut as though to strangle both his air circulation and chakra network all at once.

"Urk…khaa…" Struggling to breathe, he turned his head to follow where they stemmed from. His eyes went wide as he found Karin behind him there, filthy with dust covering her face where it clung to the sweat that glistened in the spots that were unblemished. He struggled to get free as the chains dragged him closer while her hands were outstretched and covered with a pale-green shrouded of chakra."Ya…You…"

The moment she grabbed his head, it was over. The world began to swim and everything… grew… dark…

[-oOo-]

"Okay, he's out," Karin said as she removed her hands from his head, the tinge of the medical chakra dissipating as Sakura dropped the Transformation technique and returned to her normal appearance. The plan was to split the brothers apart from the beginning, though if they remained together it would have been fine so long as they were both wrapped inside of Karin's Chakra Chains. They had already suppressed their chakra once to sneak up on her, so it was only reasonable to assume they would try to do so again.

Once Sakura, who was in hiding, saw them split apart she placed the other under an illusion to divert his direction away from the alley and the explosions. That done, she then layered a different Genjutsu onto this one to buy time for Karin to set the web of chains up until he fell into the alley. The exit had been masked to hide what was behind it until he passed through it.

It couldn't have been more than a minute after the execution that things had gotten to this point. But that was the longest minute in her life. Especially when he'd taken on that monstrous appearance. "That was close. I knew they could get stronger from the markings, but I didn't think they'd change that much. And then there's the threat he made at the end..."

"People who have a second-stage seem to be able to use their abilities to a great extent," Karin explained. "The bone-user made an entire forest of them under his, so if I had to guess this one and his brother could probably merge with other people using their bloodline. The body rejects foreign cells and chakra, but if he used his own to overwrite it then he could probably use it to do whatever he wanted to it."

Sakura let a shuddering breath leave her mouth at that. "And you're sure he's secure?"

Karin nodded as she stripped the man of his weapons while the excess chains dissipated, leaving only those that left their prisoner bound with a length for her to drag or carry. "The medical technique is meant to put patients under so they don't struggle while being treated. An enemy can shrug it off before it takes hold by using their chakra to expel the medical chakra being used, but he can't while in my chains."

"Then let's get out of here before the other one—" The words died once she felt the Genjutsu she placed on the other one being dispelled. And that one was the highest-tier technique she had, taking a lot more chakra to make it harder to dissipate once it was inside of their chakra system.

Karin stiffened, no doubt sensing the change as well. She pulled Suzaku's mask from the sealing slip and called out the Vermillion Bird as chains emerged from her body. One connected with the captive's chains, melding with it before abruptly lifting him onto Suzaku's back. The others flowed around Sakura to try and catch the demonic figure that exploded from the walls behind her.

He dodged them. Faster than Sakura could keep track, he slipped beneath the chains and then grabbed her, slamming her into the ground hard enough that her vision flared with agony. When she opened her eyes again, despite pain hammering at her skull as frantically as her heart did her ribcage, he was gone and the spear-tipped chains were angled down towards her.

Sakura sat up and her emerald eyes turned towards Karin, who had a startled look on her face as she stared over her shoulder. Then she heard breathing coming from next to her ear and felt her heart stall. She turned her head slowly turned to see the demonic one attached to her shoulder seamlessly.

Then he made his demand. "Release my brother or she dies."