Forty-Nine: The Lost and the Found

Sakura Haruno had often contemplated what her death would be like. As a shinobi, it was almost a guarantee that she would never die of old age, comfortable in a hospital bed, surrounded by her closest friends and family. But that never bothered her. Despite what her parents had thought, she'd known what she was signing up for when she entered the ninja academy, and understood her fate when she'd accepted the Konoha headband as a genin.

But never in all of her imaginings of the worst way she might meet her end did she ever come up with something like this. Even in her nightmares, she'd always died being of some service to the village. Even if she died painfully, it was to stop innocent children and civilians from meeting an untimely end at the hands of a crazed rogue ninja. But now she was going to die alone, broken, and in a dark basement where not one of her friends would ever know she had spent her final weeks.

It was depressing to think about.

So Sakura tried to think about happier things. Memories of her genin days with Team Seven came to mind. She'd been naïve—and even a little bit stupid—back then, but she'd loved every minute of the time spent watching the stars with Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi.

Then there was Team Kakashi—all five of them, until Sasuke returned to them and five became six. In the grand scheme of the universe, she hadn't spent much time with them, but those missions had been the shining point of her life.

She was sad that she'd miss out on certain things, sure—being the maid of honor at Ino's wedding was one of them. Sakura didn't know who Ino would wind up marrying—although she had not-so-secretly always hoped it would be Choji—but she did know her blonde friend would get married, and would probably be the first of the Konoha 12 to do it. Although, now that she thought about it, Shikamaru and Temari might beat her to it.

She wanted to be there when either Naruto or Hinata finally got the guts to take their relationship to the next level, too. If there were two people in this world that deserved to be happy, it was them.

No. That wasn't entirely true. The deserved to be happy, of course, but there was someone else that did too. Maybe even more.

Tears stung her eyes as she thought of her silver-haired team leader. She'd been trying to avoid thinking of him all day after thoughts of him had kept her up the night before. Well, she couldn't be entirely sure it was thoughts of him. It could have just been the knowledge of her impending death.

She hoped he wouldn't blame himself too much. Sakura could imagine him standing in front of the memorial stone, looking as broken as he always did as his calloused fingers traced yet another name engraved into the surface.

The sound of the door opening shook her from her thoughts, and Sakura mentally prepared herself to face what could quite possibly be the most trying experience of her nineteen short years.

Kaoru would hold true to his promise, though. She knew that much at least. She only had to last ten hours. If she could last that long without breaking, then any information about the mission of Konoha would die with her. And that would be a victory.

Three intimidating men strutted into the room, and Sakura felt her stomach drop. As if the broken ribs and bruises weren't enough already.

"Heh. Boss said we can rough you up as much as we'd like," the first man grinned. He was missing a tooth.

"Yeah." A second man appeared behind her and jerked her head back by her hair before turning so that his mouth was by the side of her face. "Whatever we want."

Something cool and wet pressed against her cheek, and Sakura tried to squirm away in disgust as the man slid his tongue across her face.

"So you've still got a bit of fire left in you? That'll be fun to beat out of you," the missing tooth man taunted.

"Oh enough of this," the third man grunted, moving to stand directly in front of Sakura, who was still being held by the second man. "Let's just get this over with."

"Ah, come on. There's no fun in that," the second man said, giving her another lick for good measure.

"Oh?" the third man said, giving her a good stomp to the chest and watching with morbid fascination as scarlet spilled from her mouth. "There isn't?"

A loud thud sounded from outside, giving the men pause, but their attention quickly turned back to Sakura. She didn't know how long they spent, each taking turns breaking every bone she had in her body, and then doing it all over again.

Another crash sounded outside, followed by another, then another. This time, the three men looked worried, although Sakura was too disoriented to notice. All she knew was pain; it was her entire existence.

"What was that?" the toothless man finally asked.

The third shrugged. "Maybe we should check outside."

Sakura lifted her head weakly to the door, just in time to see it come off its hinges.

Kakashi burst through the door, causing the guards in the room to scatter in fear. He knew how he must have looked—silver hair disheveled, red eye blazing, his body covered in their comrades blood.

They tried to run, but Kakashi didn't care one bit. These men had been keeping Sakura, and who knew what sort of torture they'd put his teammate through. His blood boiled just thinking about it. The snaps and cracks of their bones beneath his hands felt satisfying, and as more and more bodies dropped, Kakashi found himself giving into his rage.

He probably would have continued, mindlessly slaughtering anyone who got in his way, but a small voice penetrated his mind.

"'Kashi?"

It sounded weak and dry, but the silver-haired jonin would have recognized that voice anywhere.

"Sakura?" he breathed, spinning around in the direction her voice had come from.

Rage swelled up inside him, and Kakashi found himself hoping he came across Kaoru again, because if he did, he was going to make sure the blonde man died a slow, painful death for what he'd done to his pink-haired medic.

Sakura was slumped forward, ominous-looking bruises and cuts marring every inch of her body. One eye was swollen shut, and it was obvious even without the Sharingan that she had multiple broken bones. She looked so shattered, like she hardly had any energy left, and Kakashi knew if it weren't for the rope suspending her arms above her head, she would have collapsed to the ground.

They clearly hadn't gone easy on her, and Kakashi felt his chest constrict painfully in a mix between despair and fury.

"Kakashi," she croaked. Every syllable sounded like it pained her.

Kakashi was at her side instantly, mismatched eyes roaming over her as if he needed to see her with both to convince him she was real. He reached out hesitantly, afraid that if he touched her he would find out the whole thing had been nothing more than an illusion.

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out as she struggled to clear her throat of all the dried blood caking the surface. Coughing was out of the question, as it would be too painful on her heavily damaged ribs. So she settled for whispering.

"You found me," she whispered, and Kakashi thought something inside of him might break at the site of her sad smile.

"Always," he said fiercely, cradling her head to his chest and allowing his chin to rest atop her hair in a brief moment of relief before reaching up to cut the ropes binding her wrists. She slumped fully into his chest, unable to find the strength to hold herself up.

Kakashi closed his eyes, surprised to find a few angry tears stinging at his eyelids. He sighed, burying his face in her pink hair before he stood, offering her a hand. Sakura took it and he pulled her to her feet. The pink-haired girl took a shaky step forward, and her legs buckled beneath her. She felt herself falling, but Kakashi was there, a strong arm wrapping itself around her waist to hold her up. Wordlessly, he scooped her up into his arms, cradling her against his chest as he headed back toward the rendezvous point where he knew Shikamaru and Temari would be waiting.

"This better not be a genjutsu," Sakura muttered weakly. Her words were muffled by the fabric of his flak jacket, but Kakashi still understood.

"It's not," Kakashi said. "I promise it's really me."

"I really hope so," she said, leaning her head closer to his chest.

"They tried to get information from me," Sakura said softly, when Kakashi didn't offer any conversation. "About the Sasakis, and all the stuff you'd figured out too, but I didn't tell them because that would have made everything you and I did pointless."

Kakashi gritted his teeth, squeezing her tighter. "I don't care about any of that," he said fiercely. "I only care that you're safe."

Sakura looked surprised, but she quickly relaxed in his hold.

"Oh."

Kakashi looked down at her. "But I am proud of you."

Temari was the first one to notice when Kakashi returned, although, to be fair, Shikamaru was a little more preoccupied with his opponents than she was. Hers weren't quite as skilled, it seemed.

"Shika…" she gasped, once Kakashi was within eyeshot. "Look. You were…"

Shikamaru turned, apathetic eyes widening as he recognized the telltale pink hair of the person in Kakashi's arms.

"I was right," he breathed, turning his attention back to the enemy sharply as the man nearest to him fell pray to one of Temari's senbon.

"Thanks."

"Always happy to help," the blonde grinned.

A small frown formed on Temari's face as she took in the appearance of the duo. Then it turned to a smile as realization dawned on the kunoichi.

"What is it?" Shikamaru asked.

"Nothing," Temari said, shaking her head, "I just wouldn't have pegged it before, but now I'm beginning to wonder."

"Wonder what?" Shikamaru sighed. He really hated ambiguous answers.

"Those two," she said, inclining her head towards the Copy Ninja.

Shikamaru scoffed. "Nah, they're just close teammates. Besides, Kakashi feels like what happened to Sakura was his fault. She was protecting him, after all."

Temari smiled, humoring her boyfriend, even if she wasn't convinced. "Whatever you say, Shika."

"Are we clear?" Kakashi asked, coming to stand by the pair once they'd taken care of all the guards.

"Yeah," Shikamaru said, "we're done here."

"Good riddance," Temari said, looking back at the enemy hideout.

Neither Kakashi nor Sakura said anything, but Temari and Shikamaru both knew those two were far more relieved to put that place behind them than either of them were.