Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot idea, the Darkness village and ninja, and the Yamikage and Shinji. All else belongs to the respective owners...otherwise I'd so make this part of the actual storyline.

Authoress' Note: OMG I love my reviews soooo much right now! Thank you everyone for the lovely words for the last chapter! And the one before too...which I carelessly forgot to mention in my previous chapter. So my thanks go to:

cute0anime0addict; SpeedDemon315; aznkitty180; Kitty; Dria-Chan; VampireArgonian92; overlordofnobodies; NibiNoNEKO and applefreak.

Thank you all! Please enjoy this chapter! I'm proud of the detail and things are certainly going to get interesting in the next chapter. I hope this one is as well Please review once you've read it, I just adore feeback!

Chapter 5

Sakura staggered to her feet for perhaps the sixth time that afternoon. Her feet were aching and her head was throbbing from the constant light of the sun. On top of her physical pain was also her irritation with her own mind. Although she knew the direction that she needed to head, she had no idea where exactly she was supposed to be to reach one of the villages on the border of the Wind country. To make her suffering worse, the pink-haired ninja was fairly sure that she had moved off the route she had mapped out in her own mind.

"Why does every single thing in the stupid desert look like sand?!"

She pulled at her hair in frustration and in the process tore some pink strands out in her tightly closed fists. With a groan and a sigh, Sakura continued at a sluggish pace to reach where she hoped the outskirts of the Wind country lay.

Darkness village, Yamikage's manor

Sasori's mind was calculating the many different strategies he could employ to make a quick getaway from the terrible place, and the odds that any of these plans would actually work. So far his only options were: let the Leaf ninja distract the Darkness ninja and run very fast when their backs are turned; or kill all of the Darkness ninja when the Leaf ninja arrived and distracted them.

Both ideas were appealing to the puppet master, but unless he was freed from the net that bound all puppets, he would never be able to carry the plans out.

Somewhere near the western border of the Wind country

"What's with this heat? I feel like I'm going to melt on the sand, make a puddle and then evaporate because it's just too hot!"

Sakura was about close to giving up on the weather, the sun and the mission. She had no idea what was driving her to even bother with the mission, but she wanted to. She wanted to find out where the missing people had gone. She needed to be there…she just felt drawn to the west.

She smiled wryly at her own thoughts, "I guess that means that no matter what, my feet will take me there."

Her three day journey didn't seem as long as she first expected; she had only been travelling for about six hours and she could tell the border was close by.

Sakura stopped to catch her breath, rocked back on her feet and collapsed in a tired heap on the sandy ground below. She doubted that she could move any further and she could now feel nightfall approaching once more. Up ahead her weary eyes caught sight of a forest shrouded almost entirely in a dark blanket.

"It doesn't look to welcoming, but anything is better than this awful heat."

After she hauled her exhausted body up onto her feet, the teenager carefully approached the entrance to the foreboding forest. Up close, it didn't look any better than it did from before, but the Leaf ninja desperately wanted some shade and a nice reprieve from the scorching sunlight.

She scanned the first few trees nearby for any signs of danger, but found none at all. With a shrug and a sigh of relief, Sakura stepped within the shadowy trees. All at once she couldn't see anything. No trees, ground or even her own body. It was a black void. She didn't even know which way she came in from. Except that she did, because she had only taken one single step. The pink-haired girl chuckled slightly and took a step back, instantly returning her sight and all over senses as she did.

"That place is freaky. I don't know how anyone or anything could live in there." She put a finger to her chin in thought, "Maybe a bat…they have sonar."

One of the trees close to her left rustled, but no wind was blowing to cause it. Sakura took out a kunai and raised it calmly in front of her body as she searched the foliage for an enemy attack.

Minutes passed by and nothing else happened, so she allowed her guard to relax a little bit.

"Must have been my imagination." She muttered quietly.

"Oh I wouldn't say that you imagined anything at all…little girl…"

The voice was quiet, close to her and very creepy. All things that made Sakura jump out of her skin when she was still a Genin. Yet she was no longer a little 12 year old. Now she was a few years older, more experienced in combat and a Chunin. With reflexes that Tsunade had helped her perfect, Sakura pivoted on her right foot and faced her enemy: a man clothed in all black, except for his eyes and headband. He was taller than Sakura, about 2 feet more, and he looked physically more powerful than her too. Add to that his ability to sneak up on her without her ever knowing, this foe was not one to toy with.

Before the enemy ninja could launch any kind of attack, Sakura had already sent chakra into her right fist, which was aimed directly for his chin. Unfortunately for the pink-haired ninja, the man was too fast and too prepared. Plus, he had back-up in the form of seven other ninja. He evaded her well-aimed punch – barely – and then kicked her kunai out of her loosened left-hand. Sakura had barely blinked before his allies threw a chakra binding net over her entire body, preventing the girl from using any of her chakra at all.

She reached for another kunai to cut the net, but one of the ninja behind her smashed her around the head with a metal pole, which knocked her unconscious.

A prison cell, Darkness village, close to the Yamikage's manor

"Ouch, my head's killing me."

Sakura gently massaged her probably swollen and definitely bruised head with her gloved hand. For some reason she wasn't able to hold her own against any of those ninja. They were too fast and seemed to be expecting her, like they were ready to ambush her the second she arrived. For that to be true, they would have to know that the Leaf village was sending any ninja to help the Sand village out…

Sakura slapped her forehead as realisation sunk into her skull, "Of course they knew I was coming. They were expecting for Leaf ninja to be investigating the area. Geez Sakura, you really made a mess of things this time. It'll take everyone at least three days before they even know I'm missing, and that's assuming that Hinata and Ino even leave the Sand village today." Panic took over the pink-haired girl's mind, "Oh man, I'm going to die."

With Sasori

"What was the point in moving me? The only change is the location…"

The Akatsuki member was at the end of his very thin rope. He couldn't take the silence or the boredom for much longer. He needed to leave so he could return to the Leader and tell him to have the whole village wiped out instead of asking for their assistance. Sasori still couldn't understand why he had to do this on his own; he would have been safer with someone else to back him up. If the puppet master didn't know any better, he would think that the Leader wanted him dead. These ninja did all seem to know how to handle puppets, extremely well actually.

"He better not have had my death planned for in this irritating place…"

Those same voices from before entered the corridor outside his currently occupied room, and Sasori instantly held still to listen to everything they said as they passed by. Only this time they weren't passing by. Instead, they were coming into the room and taking a few puppets with them as they talked. Sasori remained perfectly still when one of them picked him up using the net again, and he managed to catch a few sentences that they said,

"We'll use a couple of puppets to hold the girl down, and then you can do the rest Shinji."

The one called Shinji replied, while smirking, "She's such a pretty little thing, I'd hate for her to go to waste so soon. Do you think the boss will let us have some fun before we make her into a doll?"

The first voice, a big fat man holding Sasori's net, answered Shinji's question, "I'm not sure, but if you want we can ask the boss before we perform the technique. I bet he won't say no to the idea…"

Sasori ignored the rest of their conversation and instead focused on exactly where the ninja were taking him and the other puppets. Aside from himself, only two more puppets had been removed from the room and those also had nets on them – possibly to prevent any unwanted chakra entering them, but Sasori was entirely sure.

The corridor led down a long tunnel, and beyond that was a dark and mouldy wooden door. The man called Shinji opened this door and the walked through it with his friends following behind him. Passed the door was a series of stone walkways that filled a large, empty room. The walkways were above Sasori, below him and to either side as well. They were currently on one of the walkways and across from it was a large, cylindrical building made of black stones to blend with the surroundings. Torches lit up each walkway and Sasori hated the poor lighting by the end of the journey to the building.

There was a rusted old lock on the door and Shinji produced the key to it, which matched the lock rust for rust. When the click sounded, Shinji pushed open the door and they all filed in after him. Lining either side of the long room was a set of iron-barred cells. Some had living occupants – small children and crying women – while others housed blood-stains and body parts. Sasori didn't even bat an eye at them though, having been used to such things for years.

The cell that Shinji and the other Darkness ninja eventually came to a stop at was filled with only one person – a small, slip of a girl with pink hair.