A/N: You know the drill. Naruto's not mine and I don't want to go to jail because I don't feel like repeating myself for however many chapters this is going to take.
CH. 5: Ino's Pain and Sakura's Promise
Sakura sat by the bed as the nurse checked Ino's pulse. She heard heavy footsteps and watched as a man with a long blonde pony tail and a woman with short blonde hair came running into the room. They saw Sakura, holding Ino's hand, and she was covered in blood.
"YOU! How DARE you hurt my daughter and then act like you saved her! You are COVERED in her blood!" the man screamed and ran at Sakura, who grabbed the man around the neck and held him there.
"You will keep your voice down in this hospital Yamanaka-san, or you will leave…by force if necessary. I just got Ino to sleep by promising to stay here and protect her and I would appreciate it if you would not wake her up. She has suffered greatly and she does not need a psychotic father on her hands. So be still and shut you mouth." Sakura's voice was deathly calm and she could see the man sputtering and turning blue. She released the man and went back to sit by Ino's bed. The woman came up to her husband and checked him over.
"We are sorry, young lady, but the Godaime said that our daughter was seriously injured, and we came to see her and you are covered in her blood. You can not blame my husband for his assumption." the woman said in a quiet voice. Sakura looked up at the woman sharply and growled, making both of them take a step back.
"I'm covered in her blood because I was the one that found her beside Uchiha Sasuke's Spyder after receiving my school packet. I started school here today and was retrieving my bag from my bike when I saw a body. I ran to her and stopped the blood flow. As young as I am, I am a licensed doctor. I have a PH.D. and four years field experience. I am the one that diagnosed her because she would not let the doctors here treat her." Sakura looked at the parents, who were waiting for the worst.
"I'm sorry Yamanaka-san…your daughter…she was raped…violently." Sakura said softly and stroked back Ino's hair.
Ino's father broke down in tears and cried like his heart was breaking. Ino's mother started wailing, denies resounding throughout the room between chocked sobs. Tears formed in Sakura's eyes as she listened to Ino's parents mourn their daughter's tragedy. "Will…will she be…okay?" Ino's father managed to ask, hoarsely. Sakura looked at them sadly.
"I really don't know the answer to that Yamanaka-san. What this guy did to her…it was beyond brutal. There is another case…almost identical to this one, but nothing can be proved unless both the previous victim and Ino come forward. But I'm afraid it's not that simple. The other victim is now mute from her experience and Ino will never tell anyone. I tried to get her to tell me, but she's too afraid. I would like your permission to take Ino home with myself and help her. I know what she is going through. I can feel her pain and I would like to help her…if you will allow me." Sakura didn't tell them that she knew how Ino felt because she had delved into Ino's memories and emotions. That might freak them out. Ino's father nodded and looked her in the eyes for the first time since they arrived.
"Give me your address and I'll have her things delivered there tonight. We will sign her care over to you until you feel she is better." Ino's father was willing to do anything to help his daughter.
"You will need to put as much money in her bank account as you can…or you can do that in installments. I am not going to baby her Yamanaka-san. It will be like her living with a room-mate, only her room mate with have a PH.D. She will buy her own medications, which I can prescribe for her, at my discretion and she will pay for her food and help pay bills. I am offering her medical help in return for that only. I will charge no fee to help her, only that she does not freeload off of me." Sakura wrote her address on a prescription pad and handed it to Ino's father.
"Would you please give us weekly updates on how she does? I…I want to be there for her…but…if you think staying with you will be the best…then I will do anything for her." Ino's mother burst into tears again.
"I am going to find out who did this to your daughter Yamanaka-san. I will use all my connections to send this sick bastard to jail. Hatori Corporation is at your disposal." Sakura bowed and then looked up at the shocked faces of the Yamanakas.
"You…you're a Hatori? You're a relative to THE Hatori Hetoshi? The most decorated officer on the Kagure police force?" Yamanaka couldn't believe his eyes. He was face to face with a close relative of the Hero of Kagure.
"My Ji-chan would be proud to know that people outside Kagure know of him and his efforts on the streets. It pleases me as heir to Hatori Corp. that his name still has honor after Karin ran it into the ground so many times." Sakura smiled one of rare real smiles. Both Yamanaka's looked disturbed.
"That Karin girl is what got our Ino in trouble in the first place. Ino wanted to be just like her…pretty, popular…she started hanging out with this strange boy with black hair and eyes. He goes here, but he's not very respectable." Ino's father had a disapproving look in his eyes as he looked over Sakura once more. Sakura just continued smiling.
"Karin is no longer part of the Hatori clan. She will not drive my Ji-chan's name into he ground any further. I will not stand for her dishonoring him or his memory. I intend to investigate this matter personally. I will put my investigation of my Ji-chan's mysterious accident aside and find the man who hurt Ino and the other girl. I will not rest until he is behind bars, of this you can be sure. You have my word, Yamanaka-san." Sakura bowed once more and went back to Ino, holding the girl's hand as she started to shift restlessly.
"Mommy…daddy…I want my daddy…" Ino whined in her sleep. Her father chocked on his sob and went to his daughter's side. He kissed her forehead and grabbed her other hand.
"Daddy's here joji…I wont leave you alone…never…Mommy's here too joji…wake up…please joji…just let me see you're okay." Ino's father begged. He gave a soft, happy cry, when Ino's eyes cracked slightly and looked at him.
"D-daddy?" came her soft mewl. Her father chocked again and kissed her hand.
"It's me, joji. How are you feeling?" He tried to keep his voice stead, but was failing miserably.
"I hurt daddy…all over." she whispered, barely audible. She snuggled up into her parents' embrace as the shared a family hug. Sakura excused herself and found her neesan.
"Godaime…may I speak with you in private?" she said softly, but her neesan heard her, as did Gaara. He followed them, but kept hidden.
"What is it joji? What did you find out?" Tsunade stroked Sakura's bangs out of her face.
"It's not good new neesan. Ino can't remember what happened to her, not consciously. She was beaten within an inch of her life…just like the Hyuuga. I need to get my hands on the Hyuuga girl and see if I can see her attacker. I can't go off half cocked without seeing his face in her mind as well. I have Ino's memories, but they are second hand and blurry. The Hyuuga won't let anyone but Naruto touch her though, so I'm hitting a road block. I'm putting Ji-chan's murder on hold until I put this serial rapist behind bars. Keep an eye on the Uchiha, though. He is the one…I know it. But I can't just accuse him of it without evidence. We can't let him think we know anything, but you HAVE to keep him away from the other girls. There's no telling how many more girls he will brutalize before I can get solid evidence." Sakura raked her hands through her hair. Tsunade sighed and looked at the floor.
"I want to help you joji…but I can't risk my family and my job. You'll have to do this with as little help from me as possible. I have Konohamaru to think about, as well as Moegi. Konohamaru may not be my child, but I promised Sarutobi-ji-chan that I would take care of him. Much has changed since our life together joji. I have others to think about. You will have to think of your important people as well. Including a certain red head that is hiding in the shadows, listening to our entire conversation as we speak." Tsunade smirked at Gaara's surprised face.
Sakura sighed and turned to face the youth that she had a crush on. "How much do you know? I really don't want to have to silence you Gaara." Sakura's tired eyes made his heart melt.
"I know enough to keep me informed but not enough to put me in danger." he said cryptically, looking away from them. Sakura sighed once more.
"Fucking shit. This is not turning out the way I wanted it to. Ji-chan…why the HELL did you put me in charge anyways!?" she yelled to no one in particular. She glared back at Gaara, then at her neesan.
"Neesan…Ino's parents are sending her to live with me until she can function in a social setting once more. I know who did this to Ino, but I can't prove it as of yet, so I'm going to stage a non lethal accident to keep him out of school while Ino is recovering. Gaara…" Sakura turned to the red head and looked him up and down once. He felt a shiver of awareness creep up his spine.
"What do you need me to do Sakura?" he said, offering his assistance freely. Sakura gave him a sad smile and an appreciative sigh escaped her.
"I need you to get the Hyuuga girl over to either your house or mine. I need to read her, and I can't do that without touching her. I could use my…other…ability to read her, but it would scare everyone way too much to use it. Also…I will need you and Kankuro to take turns staying at my house. Temari I will need every night to help me with Ino, unless you can arrange for Naruto to alternate with you and Kankuro while the Hyuuga alternates with Temari."
"I can help the Hyuuga if she comes to me…but I can't heal her unless she allows me to. That is both my gift and my curse. Let's get started…we have a lot of things to do and little time to do them in." she said and walked towards the exit to the hospital. She stopped right as she got to the swinging double doors. She spoke while she held the doors slightly ajar.
"According to my memory, we should be in first period right about now. It's time to turn up the heat on this sick bastard. He's no longer the hunter." she said in a malicious voice. When she turned around to face her neesan and Gaara, her eyes were glowing silver. "He's now become the hunted." and with that, she exited. Gaara just stared after her, slightly shaking.
"She…is she always like that?" he asked Tsunade in a quiet voice. Tsunade gave a short laugh and looked at him.
"When she was five years old, one of the village boys killed her pet because he was getting back at her for making a fool of him. She usually has a strangle hold on her emotions. She's had to, being a jurinchiki. The malicious glee the boy felt while torturing her beloved pet and friend radiated off of him when Sakura met him on the street. He taunted her about killing the poor little creature and how it had suffered before he killed it." Gaara stared at the far off look in the older woman's eyes as she watched her younger sister leave.
"When I found her, she was standing in a puddle of blood, her eyes shining silver like they just were. Her hair was drenched in the boy's blood. She had killed him, mercilessly." Tsunade looked over at Gaara, her face strained with worry. "She is using the same intensity she felt then to hunt criminals. She is highly intelligent, more advanced than anything you have ever seen. It takes her only a quarter of the time it takes a normal person to learn. She is…in a sense…the perfect weapon. The only thing that messes all the up…is that she has a conscious."
"The perfect weapon? Godaime…on our way over here…Sakura said that fear was the mind killer…what made her think like that?" he asked, and was sorry he did when Tsunade's eyes became immensely sad.
"When Sakura was six, a man came to our village. He said he wished to learn from our clan, to study under our father. He stayed with us for three years. On Sakura's ninth birthday, the man slaughtered our clan right before her eyes. She watched all of our siblings die a horrible death…our pregnant mother was impaled on the sword our father gave Sakura for her birthday. F-Father…he was tied to a chair and made to watch as his wife, his children, and all his other relatives were murdered before his very eyes. Then, the man cut his eyes out and tied him down outside and let the carnivores feed on him while he was still living. Through all of this, he made Sakura watch."
"When I came home from my medical studies, I found my father's decaying corpse in the front yard and our servant's bodies lying about. I found my family, hung like decorations all around the house. And I found Sakura, tied up to a pendulum, with the man pouring blood all over her…our family's blood. I managed to get her away from him…we hid for months, sleeping by day, running by night. I took away as many of the memories of what happened as I could. But she would wake screaming seeing the man's snake eyes."
"The man caught up with us four months after we went into hiding. I fought with him to protect her. The entire time, she was too scared to do anything but hide. It was only after the bastard stabbed me and I used a destruction jutsu that she realized her mistake. She used her beast and killed the man, but it was bloody, and brutal. When Sakura returned to her normal form, the man's apprentice ambushed us and used some kind of jutsu that expelled us far from each other…and completely out of our world." the last part was so quiet he almost didn't catch it.
"Your…world? What the FUCK is that supposed to mean!?" Gaara looked puzzled. He knew that something wasn't right about these two women.
"When I was younger, my parents used to tell me of a world that was parallel with ours. It was a place where technology was far more advanced than our own world, but there was constant war. Our world was peaceful for the most part, but the thought of a world with such medical advancements…" she looked away from him and laughed humorlessly.
"Until four hours ago I didn't remember any of this. It's wasn't until I met my joji again that I even remembered who I really was. We were thrown into this world by a combination of two jutsus that had a large amount of power that collided and created a rift between the dimensions. I was thrown into Tsuki and Sakura was thrown into Kagure. Today is the first time we have seen each other in ten years."
Gaara processed this information as he continued staring out the door after Sakura. He chuckled lightly at the realization that they were not all that different. Tsunade looked down at Gaara and grunted in question.
"I just realized our pasts are not all that different." he said, then walked out the door. Tsunade stared after him.
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