Dark eyes roved over her body and Sakura stared at the cracked ceiling. The last time she had counted, there were three cracks, but now, just under the shade of the bare lightbulb hanging in the middle of the room, there was a fourth, jutting all the way until the beginning of the wall.
It reminded Sakura of Kakashi and Sasuke's chidori.
"Sakura-chan, are you paying attention to me?" Kabuto asked, dragging her out of her bored thoughts.
Sakura's eyes turned onto gray ones and her fingers twitched.
"Yes."
"…Good. Now, tell me again, what are we doing here?" Kabuto drilled once more, brushing a glowing hand across Sakura's ripped chest.
The blood was beginning to drip down her sides and Sakura found herself quite annoyed that Kabuto was taking her injury as a chance to preach another lesson at her. She had thought she had made herself clear the last time he had tried this—she would not tolerate his regard of sadistic practices.
"Why must you be so frustrating Sakura-chan?" Sweaty hands brushed away the frizz forming at her temples, the reflection of his chakra lighting up her green eyes, "I only want a simple answer."
Sakura quelled the urge to give him a simpering smile and tell the little cockroach to choke on his own blood and shifted her gaze to the ceiling once more.
"We are here to test my pain tolerance." Sakura replied. Her blank voice echoed around the room and she felt Kabuto dip his fingers into the two-inch hole in her gut once more, poking and prodding and pinching once more.
"Very, very good my lovely." Was Kabuto's rather serpentine reply.
It was times like these when Sakura wondered why she had ever come here in the first place.
It was times like these when she remembered those happy years—
Naruto choking down ramen.
Sasuke glaring at another fangirl who dared approach him.
Kakashi patting her on the head and ruffling her curls.
And then she would suddenly remember, would always remember, the reasons why.
(That dark night—thick fingers, screaming, choked grunts of pain, thosedyinggreeneyes—)
Kabuto's fingers roved over an exposed rib and Sakura flinched. Gray eyes locked onto a pale face and a disturbing grin rose to Kabuto's face. Dragging his fingernail across the bone, creating that scratch, scratch, stratch that Sakura so hated, she took another deep breath and focused on something other than the pain.
The way that her hair smelled, freshly clean, of lemons and watermelon, the way that her hands clenched or how sweat ran down her temple.
(Anything to get her mind off that scritch scratch scritch scratch.)
"Well done Sakura-chan. You will almost be better than me by the time we are done here."
Sakura did not forget his use of the word almost.
She would be getting a summons from Orochimaru again, this time, spelling more disaster than a two-inch hole carving into her gut.
As Sakura closed her eyes, she imagined her mother's warm hugs and those nice bentos at the Konoha general store that she loved.
A mad giggle filled the silence and Sakura tightened her jaw against Kabuto's chakra-enforced fingers ripping apart her chest cavity.