So - second chapter - cool beans.

I thought while I have a moment I'd say that if you're looking for some good crossover stories you might want to check out Remnants of a Shinobi's Fire by ippus67. It's got great structure, a lot of cool fight scenes and an incredible sense of depth and mystery. If you're in the market, I'd check it out asap.

And when you're done with that...

"Naruto," Sakura said, arms crossed, one eyebrow cocked, "how exactly did this happen?"

The blond haired boy stood before her, oozing syrup onto the entryway to her parents home. He reached up and tried to rub the back of his head, but his fingers got tangled in his hair. He'd let it grow out since the end of the war, it was almost as long has his father's had been, to the point that looking up at the fourth's face upon the Hokage's monument reminded her more of her teammate then of the legendary Kage. Someday, Naruto would be up there and she didn't think there would be much difference between the sculptures besides some whisker like scars carved into his cheeks.

"Well," Naturo said sheepishly, "I met Izumo and Kotetsu at the Jounin lounge and we were talking - but long version short we had this bet and you know how they can be - and ... you don't look like you want to know the details."

"No. Please. Explain."

"Aw, come on, Sakura-chan! I just need to borrow your bathroom!"

"No way! Go to a bathhouse!"

"They wouldn't let me in!"

"Go jump in a lake then." Sakura reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose, her forehead tight with exasperated affection. Naruto said something, but it sounded muffled and she wondered with amusement if he had tried to start licking the sappy mess clean. It would be just like him.

But that wasn't the case as she opened her eyes.

Naruto was blurred; a faceless, voiceless monster.

He spoke at her, a dark hole gaping in the swirling void where his face had been, gooey strands of flesh catching where there should be his kind mouth. There was a faraway sound, like she was hearing him after an explosion. A high tone rang through her head, echoing the horrific sound of a chidori in battle. The summer air began to grow hotter, suddenly stifling where it had once been balmy.

Sakura stepped back into her home. The walls were sagging around her, as if gravity was breaking apart every molecule and dragging the world downwards.

"What's happening?!"

The smudged figure that had been Naruto stepped in after her and reached out with indistinct limbs, the mockery of hands catching her by the throat. He said something again and again as he pushed her up against the disintegrating wall, it stretched back around her like a coffin while her family portrait melted into obscurity beside her head.

"...hgggiiiihhh...hgggiiiihh...hgggiiiih...!" The not-Naruto roared in her face. She could feel his breath, freezing in comparison to the world.

He was killing her. She was going to die. She couldn't breath.

"...hgggiiihhh...hgggiiihhh...!" She struggled in vain, lashing out with her feet and, scratching with her hands. Every blow she dealt felt like it was landing in clay, her skin catching against him.

Not-Naruto went silent as he slid her down to the floor, straddled her chest and squeezed both hands around her throat almost as hard as he could. The smeared face leaned down to her ear.

"...die."

He leaned all his weight on her and Sakura could hear her collarbones and spine splintering, feel the moment of hesitation as her throat reached it's point of breaking and began to collapse.

She tried to breath in and choked -

- on a plastic tube that was being removed from her throat. The hard end brushed across the back of her tongue and Sakura gagged and turned her head, heaving dryly over the edge of a bed.

"Maklik nou, maklik meisie."

...What?

"Hi daar . Hou net kalm . Weet jy waar jy is?"

...What?

Her heart racing, Sakura reached out blindly and grasped onto starchy sheet that was tucked in around her legs. A light swung from side to side above her head, clearing away the darkness. She struggled to regain a footing in reality. Terror swept across her skin, leaving behind cold sweat and an army of goosebumps. Consciousness had brought along a new awareness of pain. Sakura felt sluggish with foreign painkillers that barely seemed to be doing their job. Her entire body still ached bitterly. Then again, she reasoned, she was pretty sure she'd been expecting to be dead, so maybe the pain was a good sign. Something to reassure her that she wasn't quite done yet.

She groaned, fighting to control her rolling eyes as she straightened from her twisted hunch. Her ribs heartily protested the movement, wringing another moan out of her.

"Dit is die beste as jy nog steeds bly." The light, which Sakura noted was actually a pen light, swept across her vision once more and then two hands came to rest on her shoulders and eased her back. Sakura surrendered herself to the cot, exhaling harshly as her roaming eyes focused onto the owner of the pen light.

It was a man, twice her age. Tall and on the thin side, dark skinned, carrying no visible weapons. The linen, flower printed shirt he wore hung off him where it didn't stick from patches of sweat. He didn't wear a medic armband, but there was a stethoscope hung around his neck, the clear plastic stained yellow around where it rested on his skin.

"Kan jy my verstaan?" He asked, or she assumed he asked, it sounded like a question, despite it being gibberish.

"Do you speak English?" He asked and Sakura's mind flickered with understanding.

The language wasn't called English to her, but she understood the tongue of Western folk well enough to answer him.

"Yes." Her voice croaked like an old woman. Like an old woman's who dined primarily on frogs. The man moved to her side and fiddled with a bag of saline that was attached to her arm intravenously. Her mouth filled with the taste of foreign metal, the ghost of salt. The man nodded to himself as he sat back onto a stool beside her bed and retrieved a clipboard that had been sitting on the small bedside table. Someone had left her flowers, a small bouquet of wilted, weedy looking buds, plucked too soon, she couldn't quite name them. She thought for a moment that it was a sign that Ino had been by her side and her heart swelled, until she noticed that the cots to either side of her had identical arrangements.

"Do you know where you are?" the man asked.

"...building of doctors?" Sakura guessed, taking in the room, unable to find better words. The ward she was in was one long shelter, coated roughly with flaking white paint that revealed it was built from cement blocks. Dozens of cots were lined up against the walls, filled with patients that doctors and nurses were talking to and treating.

Sakura had never seen so many people with dark skin in her life. She wondered if she was in a Kumogakure medical center. Wondered how she could have ended up there.

"Yes. This is a hospital. You were brought in last night." The man looked down at her with professionally distant sympathy, "You've been injured."

Sakura flicked her eyes down to her arms. Both of them were swaddled in crisp white bandages. She could feel the bulk of more gauze strapped around her torso, could feel the throbbing wound - that little souvenir from Sasori, bizarrely reopened.

I was sure I was dead, I used life force, I probably should be dead, she thought. While Sakura was glad to be alive, the questions of where, when, and why plagued her. Why had these particular wounds reopened? Why she was still alive? Who had saved her? And why had they saved her but not gotten her proper medical attention? Where was she? What's going on, damn it!?

She summoned chakra and cringed at the weak response, like digging for water in a desert. Still, it was there and for that she had to be thankful. She cycled through an inventory of her injuries while gently applying her chakra towards the worst part of her gut wound, working around rudimentary internal stitches, stitches made from some sort of fiber, not the standard chakra fused stitches she should have found. The sensation of her own healing was one of burning, new cells exploding into a existence within her as damaged cells were scorched away to make room.

As she dug a little deeper into examining herself she was appalled at the lack of any real treatment. What she had received could barely be counted as emergency field first aid. It was a miracle she was alive. Kumogakure jurisdiction or not, she was going to ball out whatever medic was botching up this operation, letting people be so under-treated. If she was this bad she could hardly imagine what care the other patients in this so called 'building of doctors' were receiving.

"You were attacked by a man. We found him with you. Do you remember?"

Sakura startled and would have pinched herself is she could move her fingers. She'd forgotten the doctor was even sitting beside her.

Man? She figured he must be talking about Obito Uchiha. Is he alive too? I thought for sure he was a goner.

She hadn't given it much thought in her supposed final moment, but she assumed he was dead. She was alive though and it seemed he was too, and that filled her with a sense of giddiness, because it meant that Naruto and Sasuke must have succeeded. She would be able to go home soon. To see her parents, and grieve for her fallen friends, and resume some sort of life. And if Obito was alive and somehow he managed to escape punishment for trying to destroy the world (maybe her pain medication was effective because that was a crazy thought) Kakashi might not be so gloomy anymore, having his long dead friend back. He'd have someone else to visit besides that lonesome grave, or maybe they would visit it together, or something. Definitely the meds.

"Do not worry." The doctor interrupted her far-fetched fantasy, reaching out to hold her slightly less swaddled left hand warmly, "We have kept him locked up in another building. He will not hurt you anymore."

"...Hurt me?" she muttered, confused again.

"The authorities want to speak with you. They have been waiting until you were well enough to speak. I would like to get some basic information before they talk to you though."

Authorities?

"I..." Sakura scowled at the man. This whole situation seemed ridiculous in her opinion but luckily she knew the magic name to cut through bullshit, "Where is Tsunade?"

"Is that who he is?"

"What?"

"Is Tsunade the man who attacked you?"

"No, he didn't." Sakura's forehead creased, "He's not Tsunade."

"Okay, it's okay. We'll take this slow. What is your name?"

"...Sakura Haruno." Her name, she had thought, was well known too, she was fairly certain it wasn't just a narcissistic notion, but this man showed no recognition as he questioned her about the spelling. She wasn't able to help him and so he wrote her name across the form as best as he could.

"Where are you from?"

"Where am I from...?" a scream raked across her ears, coming from the other end of the ward and then the sound of something being dropped, metallic, a bed pan maybe, and then a scuffle, someone calling for assistance. The doctor stood up, setting his chart aside. He left without another word to go help whatever ailing creature needed his attention. Sakura flinched from the noise.

What self respecting ninja would make such a racket? It's probably one of those Samurai, she thought, though really with this sort of medical care I can almost understand. I need to get out of here and send a message to Tsunade. She couldn't believe she'd been so grossly misplaced. That was obviously what had happened, maybe this wasn't even a shinobi operation, maybe these were all just civilians. That made sense to her. These people didn't know who Tsunade was. Anyone who was involved in the war at least knew the names of the big players. She just needed to find a way to contact someone for help. Better not to explain to these people who she was, who knew how these particular civilians would treat a ninja in distress.

Sakura shifted under her sheets, pulling her legs free from the confining fabric. She turned slowly while sitting up, until she hunched over the side of the bed, legs swinging. She felt ready to topple. Her right arm was mostly numb, the skin pulled tight from where the acid had burned her. Scowling angrily, Sakura scooted forward and rocked onto her feet. The floor was cement, cool to the touch, a sharp contrast against the muggy air.

She was dressed in a loose cotton gown, that gaped open at her side, baring bandages and skin. She knotted it off roughly and hoped it held, though honestly, modesty was pretty far down her list at the moment. Sakura limped weakly towards the nearest door, which conveniently led directly outside into a weed filled yard. Other buildings were lined up at her sides, each marked with blue paint in a language she couldn't understand.

Where's the communications site? Which one is it?

She looked up searching for messenger hawks that might be coming or going. There was nothing though, just a empty blue sky yawning before her. The light seemed so different, the quality of it unlike anything she had seen.

"You're awake then...and where do you think your going?" Sakura whipped around to face a slight woman, pale skinned with familiarly arched features, all of which maintained a blank, unimpressed expression. She looked like someone Sakura might have passed on the street in Konoha. Not a civilian though, this woman was a warrior.

Sakura leaned against the door frame, fingers clutching the wood. The woman wore a dark jumpsuit that triggered Sakura to think 'uniform'. She had holsters on her hips and thighs. No common blades, just the small one tucked ever so sneakily at her thigh, a last resort weapon. Sakura assessed the strangely shaped chunks of black metal and plastic sitting in her kits instead of the standard kunai and shuriken.

"I ... the doctor told me to walk. For... circulation." Sakura explained, schooling her alert expression into a benign smile.

Instinct fired off inside her brain. Sakura did not recognize this soldier and the woman wore no identifying badge or mark, she was a danger, an obstacle. Who knew what sort things opportunistic people were doing post war. Is she a bounty hunter?

"That would be strange, as I gave him specific directives not to let you leave your bed or his sight after he woke you up."

Sakura shifted just a little, pressing up onto the balls of her feet.

She's definitely a threat, Sakura thought, the so called 'Authority' if I'm not mistaken.

"Who are you?" Sakura asked lightly, glancing at the nearest rock embedded at her feet, calculating how hard she would have to throw it to do any serious damage. If she could get to it fast enough. She would have to shut the woman up quickly if she wanted to have a chance to get out of here. Who knows if there are more.

"I'm Agent May. I was sent to collect you and your associate and bring you under S.H.I.E.L.D's custody."

"...and if I choose to be... not collected?"

"We already have your friend in our custody."

Sakura flinched and pursed her mouth. Obito.

"The doctors here think that he's the one that injured you. But you know what I think? I think he's your partner." Agent May shifted into one hip, a hand propped on her side, "I think he was trying to protect you when you came here with that rock. The way he was holding you."

"Rock?" Sakura said warily.

Agent May turned a little and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. Sakura glanced over and blinked rapidly at what she saw. In the far distance beyond rooftops and towards the dark edge of a forest, there was a mountain sitting like a blood stain against the horizon. A mountain made of curdled red stone, cut smooth on one side in a way that couldn't naturally have occurred.

Sakura's guts curled viciously within her and she felt all the warmth in the world seeping from her body as she remembered what she had been trying desperately not to think about.

...the portal...

She threw up onto the stone walkway, bones protesting the movement, throat burning. She didn't manage to miss her feet.

Agent May looked on without sympathy or reaction. She studied her the way Sakura used to study dead fish when she wasn't able to heal them.

"I think it's time you came along. There are some questions that need to be answered."

"No..." Sakura pulled herself up to her full height and stature with the help of the doorway.

Nobody recognizes me, she thought. These people have only rudimentary medical capabilities.

No, Sakura thought, this isn't Konohagakure. This wasn't Kumogakure. This wasn't even some backwater civilian village. It was a backwater civilian dimension - world - whatever.

"It's best if you don't resist. For your own sake." The woman raised her hand into the air and flicked two fingers. Sakura flinched, trained to expect a jutsu or a weapon. Instead she just heard the sound of shoes behind her. Heavy boots, and a rhythmic metallic clicking.

She turned and saw two men approaching down the ward at a threatening pace. They wore uniforms of thicker material than Agent May's, less streamlined, and padded vests as well. They carried heavy metal machines in their arms, similar to the things Agent May carried in her holsters, but larger, longer, thicker. Sakura thought that the machines looked vaguely familiar to rifles, but not made of wood and missing the contraption that ignited the force to throw the internal projectiles. Something to keep an eye on, because whatever they were, these people held them like weapons.

Patients and medical workers scattered like mice, eager to be out of the soldier's wake.

Agent May stepped forward and two other uniformed men jogged over to flank her side.

Sakura did not like this. She did not like any of this. The hair on the back of her neck prickled as her shoulder blades arched up like hackles. She could hear Tsunade so clearly in her ears then. You're a medic, you evade. You keep out of the fight. Except for when you can't. Create a diversion, hide, attack with stealth, not brute force. Be a shinobi until you can be a medic again.

She raised her foot subtly and then without fanfare slammed her heel into the concrete. Hard. The floor made a wrenching sound as it burst like an overripe fruit. A rough seam shot down the length of the long room, gaping with rebar teeth and churning stones. She tore at her bandaged hands, freeing her fingers so she could catch pieces of the flying rubble.

The men, other agents of the organization that the woman belonged to Sakura deduced, threw themselves aside to avoid the destruction, only barely managing to escape falling into the newly wrought crevasse.

People screamed and scrambled blindly through the dust that filled the air. They spilled from the exits, some jumping through the windows to get away. Sakura darted into the cloud, using it as cover, using the people as a distraction. Where's your medic's oath now? Something in her whispered snidely. Back in her own dimension, Sakura figured grimly, where it might have to stay for the time being. Caring about these people was a luxury she couldn't afford.

She pushed passed a nurse huddled around a young boy. The nurse screamed when she saw her and Sakura heard a terrible cracking noise and felt something small and hard whistle past her ear. She turned violently and chucked her handful of pebbles, hearing the satisfying crack of stone on at least one skull before she threw herself to the ground painfully. Sakura crawled beneath the nearest bed listening as the men shot at her again, short bursts of light flaring from within the chaos.

"Stop it! Hold your fire! You'll hit civilians!" Agent May's voice was doubled. Sakura could hear her shouting from outside and she could hear the voice coming from a little radio speaker. A speaker that wasn't more than a yard away.

Reaching out, Sakura wrapped her hand around an ankle and pulled. The man fell forward, catching his chin on the floor, stunned briefly. Sakura crawled over his back and without giving him a chance to struggle she slammed a knuckle into his temple. He slumped, boneless without another noise.

Two down, she thought, and...how many were left? Were there more on their way?

Thick fingers wrapped in her hair at the back of her scalp, tightening cruelly before they pulled so hard that she was dragged off the man she had just taken down. Sakura writhed, reaching up behind her to claw at her assailant, ribs protesting, but her nails only dug into protective gloves and a thick sleeve. He shook her hard, like a child having a fit with a doll, her neck popped and creaked. He was successful in keeping her grasping hands from getting a hold of his wrist and turning it to pulp.

"I got her! I got her!" her captor was shouting, sounding far too happy at his accomplishment, it was never a good sign when a soldier spoke with that particular kind of pleasure.

Her hands fell as he dragged her from the building, back into the open sunlight where the dust was just beginning to settle. She twisted, feet kicking out uselessly. He had a knife tucked into his boot, the handle made of ridges of dull rubber. She gripped the hilt behind her back, pulled it free, and savagely stabbed him in the back of the knee three times in quick succession.

"Son of a bitch!"

He screamed and released her, staggering to the ground in a sprawl. Sakura shifted around to his back and jammed the knife up against his throat just as Agent May and her two other men aimed their strange weapons at her. One of them seemed unsteady on his feet, blood trickling down his temple. The man in her arms was groaning and in the distance she could hear the civilian's panicking still. Besides that there was silence, emptiness. An impasse.

"It doesn't have to be this way," Agent May said. "Put down the weapon and we can discuss this."

"No. Leave me alone. I do not want to speak with you."

Agent May's mouth turned sour. She lowered her weapon and turned away. Sakura looked warily after her, clutching the whimpering man tighter.

Agent May said something into a radio that rested in her ear. This time it was not broadcast over the other radio's as well, Sakura could only hear silence from her hostage's ear piece. He tried to say something and she mashed his face into the dirt to silence him. The dark haired woman spoke again, waited, and spoke once more. Then she turned and strode back, stowing her weapon away nonchalantly.

"I told you before." Agent May said.

"Told me what?" Sakura asked.

"I have a someone with your friend right now. I will not hesitate to put a bullet in his brain if you don't surrender and comply. I will not have you endanger anymore lives today."

Obito, she thought. Damn it.

"What if... you are wrong?" Sakura asked, "What if he is not my friend. What if he is...civilian. Or my enemy. Why should I care? I could kill this man here too."

"I'm willing to bet."

"You said you did not want to endanger any lives. If I did care, how do I know you really do have that man anyways?"

"I'm willing to bet," Agent May repeated, her voice like ice, "and I'm done negotiating."

She reached up to press the button on her radio.

All she could think was No. No. No. She needed him. He was her last connection.

"Code 4, you have a go -"

I have to stop her, Sakura's mind raced. If she threw the knife she could take out the nearest man standing between her and the woman, but she couldn't run fast enough to make it to her in time to silence her order. By the time she got there Obito would be -

"Yamete!" Sakura shouted, and then, "Stop! Stop, please..."

"Hold your fire. Code 4 canceled."

Sakura scooted back from her hostage and raised her hands slowly, dropping the knife to the ground with a thump. She shuffled onto her knees and locked her fingers behind her head. Agent May and her teammates approached, weapons still aimed and ready.

"Bring the SBX-90 cuffs," Agent May said into her radio. "Put a pair on the other one too."

Sakura glared at the ground mutely, trying to wrangle back a helpless rage that filled her chest.

A moment later a woman jogged up, clad in a uniform different from the rest, a tiny pin on her chest with two small wings on it. She handed off a heavy pair of shackles. Agent May did the honors.

Sakura couldn't see what was happening to her hands behind her back, but she could feel the restraints tighten snugly around her wrists by themselves, humming with some sort of energy. She tested them, pulling gently and received a blood curdling jolt of energy that zinged up and down her arms and made her jaw ache.

"I'd recommend not doing that again. It gets worse each time you try it."

Sakura slumped forward, the manacles the only thing keeping her from falling face first into the dirt.

"Load her up. We're returning to base." Agent May said, stepping around Sakura's body. "ETD in ten."

Sakura choked on wretched sounding sobs. She'd bitten her tongue, blood and spit drooled through her stained teeth to dot the ground. She felt herself crying, a physical reaction to the spike of electricity more than anything else. The shock seemed to bounce between her nerves, jangling everything so badly that she couldn't stop shaking.

"Looks like the cuffs work pretty well, huh?" one of the men said, gripping her forearms and dragging Sakura to her feet.

"Stark'll be happy to hear it." Another man muttered, prodding Sakura in the ribs with the long end of his weapon, "not that he needs the ego boost."

They took her to a squatting metal hut with a massive propeller attached to it's top, or maybe it was a strange antenna. Once inside, they chained her to a chair, keeping her arms pinned behind her. Had she been in her usual gear she would have already fished her hidden senbon out of the lining of her apron and begun work on dismantling her cuffs. Even strange electric ones must surely have need for a key.

Sakura noticed quickly that Agent May hadn't been bluffing. Obito was strapped onto a gurney on the floor at Sakura's feet, wearing matching cuffs, unconscious to the new world. She almost envied him.

They loaded on the man she had knocked out on another gurney and helped the man with the dripping head wound strap in, giving him a wad of gauze to hold to his skull. He caught her eye and gave her a slightly scared look. Like she was some sort of monster. His face was soon obscured though as the man she had stabbed fell into a seat just in front of her. His leg was wrapped with rudimentary bandages and splinted as well with some sort of semi-flexible plastic rod. With distant medical curiosity, Sakura wondered if she'd managed to cut a tendon.

He glared at her darkly, looked around to make sure he wasn't being watched, and then leaned in close. Sakura could feel the moisture of his breath on her face, the smell, the stench of old smoke and rotting lung tissue.

"They're gonna cut you up when we get back to base." He whispered, his voice low and ugly, "They'll split your chest open and dig out your heart."

He wanted to scare her, like she was a little girl.

Sakura spat a mouthful of blood at him.

"You little bitch!" He lunged up unsteadily but didn't make it far.

"That's enough." Agent May was there, one of her uniformed associates holding the man back, "Move him to the front."

She turned her cool gaze back onto Sakura, "I would stop causing so much trouble, if I were you."

Sakura said nothing.

"For your friends sake, then." Agent May walked away, down the narrow aisle.

Sakura looked down onto Obito's pale face and glowered. His eyes had been wrapped with gauze along with half his face, probably because they thought something was wrong with them. Sakura remembered the trails of blood from before, the way his scars had cracked open, a side effect from usage. She prayed that he had turned off his bloodline abilities, if he was even able to. She didn't want to know what these people would do with that sort of power if they stumbled upon it.

They're gonna cut you up...

Sakura sunk back into her seat as much as her bowed arms would allow.

Let them try, she thought, I'll tear them apart first.

As far as she had seen, these people lacked true power, none of them had used any shinobi arts during their scuffle. All they had was their strange weapons and rudimentary threats. Once Obito was able to fight there would be nothing standing in the way of escape. She was fairly sure that she could strike a partnership with him, at least until they got home.

Her seat began to shake violently and Sakura shifted to stare out a small circular window as her prison began to roar and lift into the air. This heavy hunk of metal was flying. The building is flying!

Flying.

The red mountain grew as they passed by and then shrank behind them.

Strange weapons, rudimentary threats, and unknown levels of technological advances.

Sakura looked back to Obito as the new world scrolled by beneath her.

Wake up.

Wake up.

Please, wake up...