Seriously, you all made me well up with tears with your reviews, favorites, and follows, especially after I had a rough midterm week :') so I'm glad most of you like my story—Sasuke and Sakura's story. Thereby I present to you Chapter Three! Can't believe this fic is more than 50% done...
I will be going back and editing past chapters after I complete this whole story to make the horrendous writing a little better lmao
I don't own Naruto. Enjoy!
Sasuke's obsidian eye dangerously narrowed as he found it difficult to breathe in such a suffocating presence. Seeing Sakura shift uncomfortably in his peripheral vision, he guessed that whatever was oppressing the atmosphere was affecting her too.
The threatening figure had seemingly fallen from the sky, lightly landing onto the ground without so much as an indent into the earth. His dark cloak flapped about in almost slow motion, and when it settled around his body as he stood up from his landing position, his features were unveiled. The man's plum-colored eyes were fixated on Sakura, roving over her physique like a hungry child and pale blonde curls softly flowing with the breeze.
"Sakura... you're even more beautiful than last time," he murmured, a smile gracing his sickly lips. Sakura visibly tensed, thrown off by this man's words and still not quite sure of his identity. Sasuke instinctively took a protective step toward her, this time with a piercing glare.
"Who are you?" Sakura cautiously inquired. She slowly reached for the pack of new shuriken she won not even a few hours ago. The man's smile fell into a slight frown.
"Do you not... remember me?" He intoned, effeminate voice wavering with disappointment. Quiet descended between the trio, as Sakura perused his countenance. The sound of the tumbling river deafened the clear night.
A wave of memories surged inside of her mind and she vaguely recognized him.
"You... you're that vagabond from...!"
He sighed, "So you didn't forget," relief resounded through his soft voice, "yes, it is I, Hotaru."
"Sakura, who is he?" Sasuke questioned through gritted teeth, wary of the shear amount of ominous chakra crushing everything in the immediate vicinity that was permeating from this stranger.
Without taking her eyes off of the man, Sakura answered, "He was a traveler who fell ill on the road—I came across him near Tanigakure on my way back from a mission in Suna and tried to help heal him. But he vanished before I could find a way..."
"And what does he want with you now?" Sasuke bit out. Sakura's eyebrows furrowed together.
"I'm not sure..."
"What I want with Sakura? Not at all, dear Sasuke. I want Sakura." The man called Hotaru laughed, sending chills down Sakura's spine. Sasuke tightened his fists. "Sakura, my love, your temporary medicine was simply superb. But you are intelligent, and you were catching on to who I truly am too fast. I needed to gather myself and devise a strategy."
Catching on to who he truly is? She thought, and the gears began turning in her head. "You're... not a human from Earth," she realized. Sasuke became even more guarded as his expression grew cautious.
Her brain recalled the research she hastily conducted during her week with Hotaru as a patient.
"From a biopsy of your lungs, I found that your cells possess not only an excessive number of oddly shaped mitochondria, but ones about one hundred-fifty percent larger than the size of a normal human's." Sakura's eyes grew wide. "But what shocked me the most was when I brought the last of your blood sample back to my lab to examine under an electron microscope: there's free-floating genetic material in your cells that have molecular structures different from those of the five common nitrogenous bases found in the DNA and RNA of humans!"
Sasuke wasn't quite sure what any of that meant, but he was certain it wasn't anything good.
"As expected of you, Sakura," Hotaru's eyes gleamed, impressed. "Yes. As you guessed, I am not of this world. And you will no longer be either, once you agree to my proposition."
"... Proposition?" Sakura asked.
"Come with me, and your little village remains unharmed."
Her eyes narrowed into a glare, "What if I don't want to?"
Hotaru let out a tired sigh and closed his eyes, "Then I will raze your beloved hometown to the ground, and then you will come with me."
"LIKE HELL YOU WILL!" Naruto, Hinata, Ino, and Sai decided that they had had enough and burst out of the bushes they were hidden behind, flanking Sasuke and Sakura and determined to defend their village.
"I was wondering when you would show yourselves," Hotaru simply said, skimming over the new entrants with an unsurprised and unimpressed look. He turned his gaze back to Sakura. "I don't want to make this difficult for you. I wouldn't want to kill your friends."
Sakura blinked and dryly laughed. "My friends aren't that easy to kill," she replied while untying her obi. She retied her yukata, methodically pushing back the long sleeves and dress out of the way in order to make it easier for her to fight and dodge.
"Hinata, what can you see?" Naruto asked. Without needing to be told what to do, the veins around Hinata's pearly white eyes bulged prominently. Subsequently, Sasuke's visible eye seeped blood red and black, the six-pointed star of his Mangekyo Sharingan spurring to life. Hinata gasped, and Sasuke knew exactly why because he could see it too.
"His chakra pathways... are so wide," she observed. "And he possesses an uncanny amount of strange, colorless, chakra... Naruto-kun, everyone, please be careful."
Sai turned to Ino. "Ino, go inform Hokage-sama of this," he asserted.
"What?! I can't just leave you guys here to fight this creep without me!"
"Ino, please. Hokage-sama must know."
Ino bit her lower lip, extremely reluctant to leave Sai and Sakura behind.
"If you end up getting yourself killed, I swear I will find a way to bring you back to life and kill you myse—oomph!" Sai cut her off by quickly pulling her into a hug. His bangs shadowed his face, hiding his expression.
He muttered, "Ninpo: Choujuu Giga," and shoved her onto a giant inky bird swooping forward from his scroll.
"SAI!" Ino screamed, hand outstretched and fearing for his and the rest of her friends' fates as she and the super beast imitation drawing rapidly flew toward the Hokage Tower.
"Sorry, but without Shikamaru and Chouji, your mind techniques have little chance of working," Sai said softly, watching her retreating form.
"How sweet," Hotaru mocked, swiping his cloak back, "but I am finished playing. Sakura, this is your last warning. Come with me."
Sasuke also decided that he had waited long enough.
"Sakura. Stand back," he commanded and pulled out the sealing scroll laying in the left inner breast pocket of his yukata.
Although Sakura's first instinct was to argue with his order because she was strong damnit, she knew it wasn't exactly the time to try and prove herself when her main role was as a support. So she nodded and fell back with Hinata, ready to fulfill her supporting duty as a medic and continued to be locked into a defensive mode.
Swiftly, Sasuke hurled the scroll open, releasing his chokuto. Tossing the scroll behind him, he snatched the sword and unsheathed it in midair and bolted through the clearing in a blur. Naruto and Sai immediately followed his queue without being prompted. Naruto summoned ten of his Kage Bunshin and Sai whipped up another one of his specialty paintings.
Just before Sasuke reached the man, electric blue lightning surged through his sword and he swung it so fast neither Sakura nor Hinata could see it happen. However, right before the lightning sword could slice through Hotaru like a hot knife through butter, it was deflected so hard by an invisible force that Sasuke was blown back into the forest, crashing through at least five trees. The villain didn't even blink an eye.
Sakura shouted with concern, taking a step forward.
Naruto and Sai followed up on Sasuke's attack and Naruto and his clones pounced at the bored-looking man. With just a raise of his hand, Hotaru obliterated each clone and incarnated beast with pulses of invisible chakra, and the two also went flying backwards after being hit. Naruto was able to pull himself back to his feet, but Sai seemed to have gotten the brunt of the attack and remained down. Sakura ran over to him and immediately assessed his condition.
"Naruto-kun!" Hinata cried, worried.
"Naruto! Call the Kyuubi!" Sasuke emerged from the trail of demolished trees with a dash.
Naruto screamed, "KURAMA!" and golden light enveloped him as he entered into Kurama Mode. The Kyuubi manifested from Naruto's chakra.
Sasuke threw the string of his sheathed sword around his shoulder. Then he held up his palm, slamming the air in a manner such that if he had both hands he'd be clapping them with great force. This caused his hair to fly out of his face, and his Rinnegan visibly flashed as he activated its powers.
"Chibaku Tensei!" He shouted, forming a giant black orb in the sky. As he didn't want the whole village to be sucked in, Sasuke focused on containing the orb to just the surrounding area. Suddenly, trees started to uproot and rocks and dirt flew up as the ball pulled them in. Kurama's chakra kept Hinata, as well as Sakura and Sai, in place.
Hotaru stared at the orb of gravity, and then let out a laugh. "Ha... ha ha. Hahaha, AHAHAHAHAHA, HAHAHAHAHA!" He threw his head back, cackling wildly, as if Sasuke had just told the funniest joke he had ever heard in his life.
"It's not going to work," He deadpanned, and he was able to calmly stalk over to Sasuke without being affected at all by the power of the Deva Path. Sasuke stepped back, bewildered, eyes wide open.
"Want to know a little secret?" Hotaru snidely asked. He gleefully laughed, pure evil seeping through his voice, "My chakra can manipulate dark matter and dark energy!"
"Mama... I feel so tired, like I wanna just go to sleep right now," Ino, racing toward the Hokage Tower overhead under the night sky, heard a small civilian boy complain. He sat down right in the middle of the road, and his hand, which was holding half-eaten pink cotton candy, drooped to the ground and he let go of the sweet treat.
"Tai! You'll get your... yukata... dirty..." and before his mother could scoop him off of the ground, she too keeled over. One by one, the people on the street started to feel heavy, like there was a literal burden on their shoulders. One by one, they fell to the ground. Even the buildings creaked and groaned at the weight, their foundations visibly sinking.
Ino could feel it too: an unknown force pressing down on the village. Sai's beast painting was starting to lose its shape, ink dripping and raining down below.
Don't tell me it's from that guy?!
Ino was scared. Not for herself, but for Sai. For Sakura. For Sasuke, Hinata, and Naruto. For the village.
Suddenly, she heard booming thuds in the distance behind her. When she looked back, she saw several trees fall over from the direction she came from. Worry etching across her face, she turned to Sai's super beast imitation drawing, which was rapidly losing form faster than before.
Please hold out until I get to Hokage-sama! She pleaded, referring to both the group fighting the cloaked man and Sai's painting.
When she reached the tower, the brought-to-life painting disintegrated and Ino was able to hurtle her way up to the Hokage's office. She burst right in, not caring to knock. Right when she entered, the effects of Hotaru's jutsu (or whatever it was) finally reached the area.
Kakashi raised his eyebrow when Ino slammed open the door and was about to question her when all of a sudden, he had to hold his head and push himself against the desk from crashing right through it. Ino fell to the ground.
"What.. what is this?"
"H-Hokage-sama..." Ino grunted, struggling to breathe as her cheek was smashed against the hard floor, "Sasuke-kun, S-Sakura... need help..."
And Kakashi abruptly felt the presence in the outskirts of the village. Taking great strength to crane his neck to the window, a black sphere appeared in the sky.
Sasuke? The sphere sucked in trees, boulders, and water from the river, but nothing more. What's going on?
"Naruto, Sai, and... Hi..nata are... there too," Ino gasped.
After nearly a minute, the orb dissipated as quickly as it formed. The direction where it came from appeared quiet and still.
Is it over? Kakashi wondered but had a feeling far from it, as he was still being smothered under heavy air. He wished he was able to move, to help his former students combat this powerful threat and protect the village from it. But all he could do was place his hope onto his ninja.
Even so, his face grew grim.
I have an extremely bad feeling about this.
Naruto felt a terrible sensation creep up his stomach. "Dark... matter? Dark energy?" he questioned, hardening his expression. Hotaru looked at Naruto with a sly smile.
"That's right," he condescendingly affirmed. "In other words..." He turned back to Sasuke, "I can control gravity better than that silly eye of yours!" And he brought his hand down, as if to demonstrate. Instinctively, Sasuke's purple Susanoo flared to life and protectively wrapped around him, but the weight of the gravity put down upon it was so extreme it broke through the chakra armor and Sasuke instantly slammed to the ground face first, fracturing the earth. His body trembled at the weight of the gravity over him, as he struggled to get back up.
"Sasuke!" Naruto yelled, and he started forward in an attempt to help his best friend. But Hotaru swiped his other hand in a downward motion and the gravity around Naruto intensified as well. Naruto tumbled over onto his left side and gasped in pain, blood and spit splattering from his mouth.
Sakura clenched her fists and bared her teeth. She couldn't just sit on the sidelines now. Not when her teammates needed her help!
Hinata seemed to share the same sentiment, as she called under hooded eyes, "Sakura-san." She was shaking. Sakura looked at her and nodded, leaning Sai against the thick trunk of a tree.
"Hinata... Sakura-chan... get away!" Naruto coughed. Sasuke struggled to look up.
Although she didn't have her trademark gloves with her, Sakura didn't particularly care about the knuckle injuries she would most likely sustain when throwing a punch.
Her hands glowed a striking blue as she concentrated her chakra into the tips of her fingers, molding them into blades with perfect precision.
Likewise, Hinata's hands were engulfed by blue chakra in the shape of giant lions' heads as her Byakugan veins bulged angrily around her eyes.
"Let's go!"
Sakura shot forward, using her precise chakra control to push with immense strength against the oppressive gravity crushing down against her. Hinata, who also possessed extremely fine control, followed, although she had to stay close behind Sakura as her control wasn't quite as exact. Hotaru raised an eyebrow with interest.
"I wouldn't have expected any less from my future wife," he stated with a hint of pride. However, he got too caught up in his amusement because before he could further intensify the gravity around the two women, they were able to reach him.
Hinata jumped out from behind Sakura to attack first.
"Juuho, Soushiken!" She cried, opting for a head-on attack. Hotaru swiftly pulled a hand up into a one-handed seal neither Sakura nor Hinata had seen before, different from the twelve common zodiac seals.
And before Hinata's twin lion fists could pulverize him, Hotaru sent her arms pounding into the ground. Her fists created two craters in the ground and she let out a short scream at the painful impact, bones likely shattered.
Sakura wasted no time using the slight opening Hinata created and quickly swiped at him from the side. But because the gravity around him was so heavy, Sakura's attack was a lot slower than she typically would have executed—after all, she did have to expend chakra on fighting the gravity. He easily dodged the chakra scalpel and snatched her wrist from the air.
Hotaru pulled her close in one motion, used his other hand to grab her chin, an swooped his head down as he pressed a kiss to the very corner of her mouth. Sakura reeled in shock, her surprised noise muffled by Hotaru's mouth.
"Sakura!" Sasuke choked in outrage.
"Delicious," He remarked when he drew back, tasting the sweet remnants of the festival food she had eaten not long before by licking his lips. Sakura stared wide-eyed at the man.
When she snapped out of her stupor, she angrily swung her feet under his, and he tripped just a bit as both of his hands were still holding onto her. Gathering a colossal amount of chakra to her dominant foot, Sakura aimed to stomp him down as she screamed, "SHANNARO!"
Hotaru threw up another one-handed seal, this time different from the one he used on Hinata. Unlike from what he'd shown thus far, this time the gravity around Sakura lightened to the point she was nearly floating. This nearly threw her off-balance, but she didn't let it faze her. She pumped in even more chakra and screamed, persevering on counteracting the lightness.
Naruto, realizing what Sakura was about to do, used the shift in gravity as an opportunity to protect Hinata and Sai with Kyuubi's chakra.
The weightless gravity gave just enough time for Hotaru to maneuver out of the way just as Sakura's wooden-clad feet came crashing down onto the earth.
A deafening BOOM resounded. The geta on Sakura's foot disintegrated upon impact, and she was left standing on one bare foot in the middle of the quasi-valley she had just created. One sleeve of her yukata had completely torn off, revealing her chest bound in a roll of white bandages. Cuts and bruises riddled her visible skin. Her hair threatened to fall out of its beautiful do, and the white flower that Sasuke gave her laid on the dirt in front of her.
But Hotaru remained unscathed, as he floated high into the air weightless as a feather. He surveyed the damage Sakura had caused. The entire clearing was obliterated, no trees or river in sight. Just cratered dirt. The destruction reached just shy of the streets of the village. He was impressed by the near perfection of Sakura's control.
He turned to look back at her. Eyes shadowed by loose hair, she stood unmoving appearing to be strong, but he could see that if she took one step, she would stagger and fall over.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the raven-haired man struggling to his feet in an attempt to make his way toward Sakura. Hotaru frowned and immediately manipulated the gravity around the area to keep everyone in place. Sakura didn't have the strength anymore to push back the weight of the air. In a flash, he appeared before her, crushing the flower under his shoe.
"I warned you, Sakura. Are you prepared to see your beloved home demolished into nothing?"
Sakura's head snapped up and her eyes met his, pleading.
"No... please don't...!"
Hotaru outstretched his hand in the direction of the village. Suddenly, she could see the buildings sink into the ground inch by inch and heard the anguished screams of the civilians in the distance.
"STOP!" She shrieked, growing hysterical, "I'll.. I'll come willingly! Just, please, stop."
He closed his fist, halting the destruction of Konoha.
"Please," Sakura begged, one more time. Hotaru closed his eyes.
"Tell me that you want to be with me," He demanded. Sakura's breath caught in her throat but she had no other choice.
Her voice wavered, "I-I want... to be with you..."
"Sakura, no!" Sasuke furiously shouted from his position on the ground.
"Sakura-chan!"
"Come here." Hotaru held out his arms. Sakura complied, and stumbled into his embrace. He caressed her head and waist against his chest and body.
"Sakura!"
Sakura's eyes turned to Sasuke and he couldn't hear anything as his mind went into shock and everything around him slid into a deafening silence.
He saw her mouth the words, "I'm sorry." And she immediately vanished along with Hotaru, only leaving behind crystalline tears that trailed the air with a sparkle.
"SAKURA!"
Kakashi could move again. Is it over now?
He shot up as Ino gasped for air. After making sure she was okay, the first thing he did was jump out the window in the direction where the destruction occurred—in the direction where his former students were. His Rokudaime Hokage coat billowed behind him.
He quickly flashed his way over to the outskirts of the village.
Please, let everyone be safe. He silently wished.
When he dropped down into the giant crater, no doubt made by Sakura, he looked around for his underling ninja. Sasuke was on his knees, staring at the ground in shock, and Naruto supported him up by holding his shoulders. Hinata lied unconscious beside them, arms laying palms up at her sides. Sai sat near them as well, nursing his shoulder with the opposite hand.
But there was one person missing. Kakashi gulped.
"Where's... Sakura?" At the mention of her name, Sasuke's head snapped up, eyes wide. Slowly, he gritted his teeth.
"I will destroy him!" He growled, and staggered to his feet.
"Sasuke! Sasuke, stop!" Naruto stood up as well.
"Don't stop me! I'm going to get her back!"
"Be rational! I want Sakura-chan back too! But we just got creamed by this guy!"
"Then what are you telling me to do?! Just sit here and do nothing?! I need to get her back right now before the creep does something to her!"
"No, bastard! I'm saying we should make a plan!"
Kakashi exhaled, "Sasuke, Naruto is right. There's not much you can do right now. You need to rest, and once we figure out where Sakura's been taken, we will definitely get her back."
"..." Sasuke fell silent. Pushing past Naruto, he limped his way over to where Sakura had been standing just moments before.
He knelt down and touched the trampled petals of the white flower that had once rested in her hair. It was wet with Sakura's tears.
Sasuke's greatest fear was losing another person close to him.
And it seemed like his greatest fear just came true.
When Sakura opened her eyes, all she saw was stone grey.
She sat up and looked around the dreary space. "Where... am I?"
"Ah, you're awake."
Sakura turned to the voice and nearly touched noses with Hotaru. She instantly inched backwards and drew up her knees as if they could be a barrier between them.
He had shed his cloak, and she could see that he wore a loose, flowing white shirt tucked slightly into black pants. His feet were bare, and she noticed that hers were too. In fact, she saw glowing shackle-like rings clasped around her ankles and wrists. Chakra restraints, she realized. So she couldn't fight back. Yet.
A tiny dot of glowing green from the corner of her eye caught her attention.
"Fireflies?" She questioned, confused.
"Yes... they are my only friends," Hotaru explained. Sakura's face softened just a little as her heart betrayed her and felt a bit of pity for this man. He was the namesake of this pretty insect, which landed on his outstretched finger. Sakura silently watched.
She shook her head. This was the same man who hurt Sasuke, Naruto, Sai, and Hinata! This was the same man who was going to demolish her village.
"Did you take me so I could heal you?" She asked, deciding not to beat around the bush. Hotaru released the firefly.
"Yes, and no," he answered, looking at her directly in the eye. Sakura looked at him in confusion.
"I brought you here so you can become my wife."
Sakura's eyebrows drew together in confusion. "But... why? Why me? I'm sure there are plenty of women on your planet who would be happy to be with yo—"
"They're all dead. Everyone here is dead, and I am the only one left."
Sakura reeled in surprise. "O-oh, sorry..."
"Why? You didn't kill them," he simply said. She looked away.
"Just an expression of condolence..." She muttered. "But that still doesn't answer why you want me to be your wife."
"You are the strongest, most beautiful, and most compassionate woman on Earth."
Embarrassed, Sakura put her head down in between her knees. Sasuke had never complimented her like that in her life. You're weak, you're annoying, he would tell her. But that didn't mean her heart would be swayed. She loved Sasuke, after all. Not this alien.
Hotaru continued, "And when you heal me enough, we will both eat the fruit from the Shinju and attain power beyond comprehension. Then, we'll annihilate Earth of its wretched earthlings and start that world anew. We will begin something amazing together."
Taking a moment to process what he just said, Sakura gasped in anger, "You liar! You said you wouldn't touch the village!"
"I said that I wouldn't touch your village if you came with me. Now that you are with me, I make no promises."
"... But I am an earthling," Sakura pointed out, and her eyes narrowed in fury.
"You are different from those sinful creatures." Hotaru didn't want to say that humans from Earth were the only species that people from his planet could intergalactically mate with.
"I love someone else!" She blurted. He frowned.
"You will love me, when I am the only one left to love."
Sasuke couldn't get any sleep because his mind was plagued with Sakura's kidnapping, but he felt that he rested well enough to finally start retrieving her. The first thing he did in the morning was pack his tools and supplies, change into his mission attire and cloak, and head to the Hokage's office. There, he met Naruto, Sai, and Shikamaru. They stood expectantly in front of Kakashi, who looked beyond fatigued.
"You four are officially appointed on a mission to retrieve Haruno Sakura." He threw a scroll at Shikamaru. "Shikamaru will lead. There are more details inside, but the gist of it is that I think I've figured out where she is."
"How? I can't sense her chakra anywhere, even with my Rinnegan," Sasuke admitted.
"I've turned the most classified archives inside-out. Based on what information you and Naruto gave me, I found that there have been scarce records of strange, unexplained gravitational phenomena occurring in various regions of the world long ago, most likely done by people who could manipulate dark matter and dark energy just like Hotaru can. Along with more evidence, societies with more advanced knowledge on Space and astronomy have postulated the existence of a parallel universe residing next to our own and the existence of people who can do such things in that universe."
"And... and you're saying that Sakura is... there?" Naruto asked for them all, with a incredulous look on his face.
"Basically, yes." Kakashi closed his eyes. "Sasuke, considering the space-time abilities of your Rinnegan, I'm thinking you can open a portal just like you can open a portal to another dimension. However, it may consume even more chakra than your average dimensional portal..."
"I won't be able to pinpoint where she exactly is," Sasuke pointed out.
"Ah, but you should be able to feel mass amounts of the same type of chakra Hotaru was using congregated around a celestial body. Prioritize transporting to the planet first, and then use the time you will spend looking for Sakura to rejuvenate your chakra."
Sasuke nodded.
"Alright. Everyone, meet on the roof." And everyone cleared the room in a blur.
On the rooftop of Hokage Tower, Kakashi stood a little ways behind the four shinobi. Sasuke closed his eyes and blocked out his surroundings, concentrating extremely hard. He searched for the presence of that strange chakra he encountered the night before.
And he felt it, in the faint corner of his mind, amalgamated altogether in one place. Before he could try and create a portal, Ino burst through the door to the rooftop and was breathing heavily.
"Sai! You better come back alive, or I will be so mad! You too Shikamaru! And Naruto! Sasuke! And Naruto, if you don't come back, poor hospitalized Hinata will be devastated! So all of you, please come back alive and in one piece!"
They all nodded their heads once in affirmative.
Using his Rinnegan and using the majority of his chakra, he manipulated the space-time continuum to open up a direct portal to the planet that housed the peculiar chakra.
"Let's go save Sakura-chan!" Naruto declared, and the four shinobi jumped right in.
"I don't have the necessary materials and ingredients to make that medicine from before," Sakura bluntly stated. She had been carried by Hotaru and settled onto a bed of rock with minimal blankets piled onto it and was uncomfortable by the way his hand lingered on her bare thigh a few seconds longer than necessary. She wished she could retie her tattered yukata to the way it had been before the fight. He stood before her.
"You will heal me with your chakra," he replied.
"You say that so easily, but I don't know if it's even possible. I went a week without figuring out how to use my chakra to help your disease. I had to resort to mixing herbs, and even then I wasn't quite sure what I was doing."
"You will heal me with your chakra," he repeated, "because I know you will be able to do it."
Sakura thickly swallowed and looked away, staring instead at the table filled with miscellaneous glass tubes, papers, and tools situated in the middle of the cavern-like room.
"You'll need to take these chakra restraints off of my arms, then."
"I will only loosen their strength, so you can use a minimal amount of chakra."
"That'll take an extremely long time, you know."
"I am patient."
"Sasuke-kun will come find me in that time."
Hotaru's face unpleasantly twitched at his name, "Why do you think so highly of such a man?"
Sakura looked down at her bound hands.
"Because... he kept his promise. He came back to me, and he will always keep coming back to me."
Hotaru closed his eyes and took a seat beside Sakura on the bed. She scooted away from him, but apparently not far away enough because he grabbed her wrists and she felt some of her chakra return to circulating normally within her body.
"Heal me. If you try anything funny, I will immediately return to Konoha and pound it to the ground."
Sakura gulped. She could try and slice his throat, sever a major artery, or even internally damage an organ. But the fear that he wouldn't die an instant death ran high, and she couldn't risk Konoha's destruction for a failed attempt at taking this insane man's life.
So she put a hand to his chest, pumping the minuscule amount chakra she was allowed to use and scanned his lungs. He stared at her working face with half-lidded eyes, lulled by the healing green glow of her hand—it reminded him of the light of the insects he loved so much.
Suddenly, he was overcome with intense desire, partly out of his attraction to her and partly because somewhere deep in his mind he was afraid that the man Sakura held feelings for would come for them, for her, just as she claimed. He reached out, first enclosing her wrist with his hand, shutting off her chakra allowance and then using his other hand to release the hair that had been dangerously falling out of its updo. Her soft hair cascaded down her shoulders. His eyes grew hungrier by the second.
"H-hey, what are you—"
He shoved her down onto the bed, caging her in between his arms.
Sasuke, Naruto, Sai, and Shikamaru braced themselves as they fell through the portal into a gray world of rocky terrain and little vegetation. The gravity on this planet was a lot more intense than on Earth, but all of the shinobi except Sasuke were able to land gracefully, as Sasuke now had barely enough chakra to stand upright even under Earth's gravitational conditions. He tumbled onto the ground and winced.
Shikamaru, observing this, made an executive decision. "We camp here until Sasuke recharges." Everyone nodded at the leader's order.
"I'm fine, let's go," Sasuke commanded, bolting into an upright position.
Shikamaru sighed in irritation, "Sasuke, don't argue with me and just do what's best for you, everyone here, and most importantly, Sakura. The portal took too much of your chakra, and you know that better than we do. We need you fully functional to defeat this guy."
"... Fine," Sasuke conceded with great reluctance.
"Uh, hey guys..." Naruto interrupted.
"What is it, Naruto?"
Shikamaru and Sasuke turned around, and immediately noticed what Naruto and Sai were staring wide-eyed at.
"What the hell is that?!"
Sakura couldn't help but let out a small scream, and her hand flew to pull down the bottom of her yukata over as much skin on her legs as she possibly could. She wasn't ready for that! She was still pure! She had been saving herself for... for...
"Sorry," he muttered, and pushed himself off of her, "I will wait until our wedding night, when we consummate our marriage." He had nearly lost his self-control.
Sakura shot back up, breathing heavily and heart pounding against the wall of her chest.
Hoping to get her mind of what had just transpired, Hotaru walked over to one of the walls. There was a seal placed near the top. He injected some chakra into it, and peeled it off. A door revealed in its place, and he once again used chakra to slide it open.
"Would you like to see the outside?"
Sakura remained silent, unsure of what to say. It wasn't as if she could simply walk over there either; the restraints bound both of her ankles together so she couldn't walk on her own.
He walked back to her, and lifted her into his arms. She stiffened. Ignoring her action's implications, he took her back to the open door and stepped out. When Sakura looked around, she noticed that the outside of this world was just as dreary as Hotaru's room.
But when her eyes landed on what was in front of her, her jaw dropped and she inhaled sharply in shock.
There, in the far-off distance, stood a tree, with a girth that stretched as wide as the horizon and a height that seemingly reached the heavens. One gigantic something was sprouting from the leaves high in the sky.
Hotaru smiled, "That's our Shinju—our God Tree."
A/N: I have no idea the extent to which Sasuke can use the Deva Path, but I'm assuming he can't really throw people around like Nagato/Pain could. And Hotaru's gravitational powers are slightly different. IDK DON'T HATE ME, THIS WAS ALL FOR THE PLOT NO JUTSU OKAY? Sasuke can use so many different jutsus and techniques I can't keep track of all of them :| I am also not an astrophysicist by any means, so I pretty much have to Wikipedia all this shit about dark matter and dark energy (although I really didn't do anything with it yet). Also Naruto being the rational one makes me laugh.