Sakura wakes up to the rhythmic bumping of a wagon over the road. She jerks in her restraints, before a swift kick to her shins has her stilling again, and she shifts as quietly as she can to see Karins desperate face.
She holds a silent finger to her lips in the universal sign of 'quiet' and Sakura is too stricken to even balk at the idea of taking a suggestion from Karin. She remains quiet as she slowly takes in her surroundings. They are in a hooded wagon, a military issue one meant for carrying around supplies as evidenced by the ration bars and weapons oil stashed around them. Judging by the heat and the peaks at the wildflowers she can see between the wooden cracks they are some distance away from Konoha, but still in fire country.
What had those Kusa ninja said? Something about Sakura being a potential Uzumaki as well due to her pink hair? Did they think she had the same healing bite bloodline as Karin?
Sakura theorizes as she feels Karin's increasing anxiety next to her. The girl was terrified of these people. It was more than just the terror of being kidnapped by enemy nin. Karin had experiences with these people. As Sakura watched, Karin rubbed the bite scars on her arms.
"Fuck! Get the brats out already, we have wounded!"
Karin choked in terror at his words as the flap was flung open and a fearsome man grabbed Karin by her hair.
She screamed, and Sakura stopped pretending to be asleep. She may not like Karin, but that was just cruel.
"Put her down! She can walk by herself!"
The man stopped. He turned to look at Sakura and she suddenly felt very small. His eyes were deep and dark, but unlike the warmth in Sasuke's his felt like black holes.
"If you're awake too, then we can test for the same healing capabilities."
She was unceremoniously grabbed too, and the restraints coupled with the lack of chakra from the battle meant she was unable to resist as he dragged her out too. They emerged in a clearing with what looked like the rest of the Grass attack force resting on the sides. There were many wounded, most with burns from fire ninjutsu, and Sakura watched in silent horror as he dragged a crying Karin, forcefully extended her arms, and allowed a wounded woman to bite down.
Sakura flinched as Karin screamed, and specks of blood flew out from the new wound.
She looked on in helpless horror, and for the first time, she understood why Karin was willing to run, to abandon her village and live in a xenophobic new one.
It was so she could escape this.
Sakura knew Karin had bite mark scars, but she never knew the full extent, or the reason behind them. Karin's lips were always sealed shut whenever asked, and her body was covered, either in makeup or clothes. Here she had no such protection.
"Try biting this one."
Her arm was held out against her will and the gaping mouth of a frantic wounded ninja had Sakura yelling.
"I'm not an Uzumaki, I can't heal through a bite!"
They paused.
"Do you think shes telling the truth sir?"
"Only one way to find out."
He bit down.
It was incredibly painful. The blunt yet sharp teeth digging in, drawing blood and ripping through skin and the top layers of flesh. Sakura screamed, they cried as they threw her down in frustration when the biter was not healed.
"She was telling the truth sir."
Over in the clearing, Karin screamed as her face was bit. Her arms were bloodied to the point where the transfer didn't work, and Sakura was silent with the horror of Karin being treated like a healing machine. A chakra battery.
"Then she's useless to us." He lifts his kunai.
"Wait! I'm a medic nin in training! I can still heal you!"
They pause. She does her best to be as unassuming as possible even with KArin;s shrieks of pain and misery behind her. He unties her chakra suppression bonds and she feels her energy rush back to her.
She leans over the man, feeling Ino's homemade chakra boosting pills in the braids of her hair, and the moment she can, she will take the pills, and split the earth, and run home with Karin and beg for forgiveness. She was too hard on the girl. One bite had Sakura in tears, she cannot imagine enduring this for years, and after the death of her mother too. Even now, Karin isn't crying from pain so much as she's crying at being stuck again.
She slowly heals the man, leaving behind some minor bruising and cuts to let them underestimate her. They have her move from ninja to ninja, and at the end of the day she is exhausted and barely able to put a buffer around her wrists to resist the chakra suppression. She will slip them off later and run.
EIther they don't know medic nin can slip out of suppression cuffs with enough control or they don't think she's capable of it, because they toss her into the back of the wagon with a crying, bleeding Karin.
They lay in silence.
"...I'm sorry." Sakura whispers, blinking back tears and feeling horrible.
"...Why didn't you like me?"
Sakura chews her lip, and decides Karin deserves her honesty.
"I was jealous. You are from a clan, and had multiple bloodlines. I would never have that. I was just a civilian born. Sasuke was impressed by you immediately when It took me years to earn his admiration. It was petty, but it was also true. I...ignored the fact that you were on the run because of your clan's persecution, and ignored the things that were done to you."
"I-oh, that makes sense. I thought you were mad because...because of Ino!" Karin said, trying to keep it to a whisper as to not wake the sleeping grass nin and alert the watch.
"Well, that too. You could have healed her. She's alot better now, and you almost can't tell anything happened to her, but her face is always going to be a bit off and painful. If you have allowed her to bite right away that could have been prevented."
"But, wouldn't the biju chakra get in the way?"
"The Uzumaki bloodline chakra is uniquely adept at dealing with biju; it's why Naruto was chosen."
"Oh. I guess I deserve this then." Karin said weakly, gesturing to the bite on her face. It would scar, and it would be near impossible to hide.
Sakura shifted, then hesitated. Karin wouldn't want someone touching her now. But to Sakura's surprise, Karin leaned towards Sakura and accepted her hug even as they both strained against their bonds.
"Karin."
"Hm?"
"I'm sorry for threatening to use your bloodline against you. I was wrong to do that."
"It's alright."
"No. It's not. You could have been in serious danger over it in Konoha. I threatened your safety. But now I can make up for it."
Sakura freed herself from her cuffs, to Karin's gasp of awe. She placed her healing hands on Karin's face, and even though it was hard, she fully healed the bite. There wasn't much she could do about the rest of Karin's body right now, but she quickly rendered the cuffs into pieces.
She wrapped her arms around the redhead and whispered her secret.
"It was fair what happened to Ino. It was fair what happened to you, so now I'm going to make it fair. I have a bloodline too. Kiri chakra tends to be unstable and either me or my father mutated a new bloodline. With my mother pregnant, I don't know how the baby will be."
Karin gasped again. To share something like that was unprecedented, and dangerous. They were even now. The pinkette took the pills down from her hair, cracking one between her teeth and giving the other to Karin.
"Take this. They're still weak from the battle. We need to make a break for it before we get taken any farther."
The two girls nodded at each other, and peered through the wooded cracks.
Zosui was on guard. The strongest of them. The one who had captured Karin and her.
Sakura slipped the girl a kunai she had been able to grab.
"We need to take him out before we go. Do you want to do the honors?"
It was quick, but brutal. Sakura cut his vocal cords with chakra scalpels so he couldn't scream for help, and used a genjutsu learned from Kurenai to muffle the sounds of a struggle. She couldn't react in time to cut his throat, but Karin had that covered. With a fierce charge forward, the redhead shoved it through his upper chest, glasses flashing as the man fell to the forest floor with a muffled thud.
They looted his pockets, cracked another pill each, and sprinted home.
Short, but sweet. Sakura learns the errors of her ways and makes up for it in the best way possible-murder! Karin and her are now good friends!
Question of the chapter: Do you like how Sakura made up for her past aggression?
Covid 19 some real shit! Wash your hands or Sakura will get you!