This was so deeply horrifying yet so so so good
Amazing!

Hell yeah! My type of fanfic! I loved it so much. Do you have any similar ones?
Thanks for the ride
-dig

Holy shit.

A very interesting premise, though squandered quite a bit from your end. I don't think Orochimaru would not advise Sakura to keep his playful mad-scientist ventures between them (in a manner like he told her of most things). She has friends, and he was already let off from a terrible situation, involved in the same things he's involved in now; so this part of the story made little to no sense. There's little reason to believe that Sakura wouldn't blurt out about this to Ino: she's nowhere near as clever as you think she is (and as a nine-year-old, she was a very stupid and obnoxious girl at this point in the manga). Book smart? I suppose, to an extent. Clever, talented (in varied Ninjutsu knowledge and with a strategic bent of mind), and far-sighted? Not even close (in canon); so how did she manage to stay mum about this? The topic, apparently, never came up, and that’s not how children work.

In Viz (official translation), she doesn't have perfect chakra control (that would be the characters with elemental Ninjutsus, Jutsus which are far superior to non-elemental Jutsus as Kakashi explained, which require an A-Rank [Jōnin] rare talent to combine Shape and Nature manipulation alone; elemental Jutsu-learning comes second; a talent Sakura never possessed at any point in the manga—neither does Tsunade as her Raiton Jutsu’s rather terrible): she's got "delicate" chakra control (whatever that means). Sakura can't learn all Jutsus simply because "only" Shizune praised her all-purpose Jutsu (no, really, Byakugō’s a variation of her strength and that’s a variation of her healing Jutsu—literally—so she only knows few Jutsus, at best, most of which are Chūnin ranked or below; and as they’re non-elemental, they’re naturally inferior to all shaped elemental Jutsus) or her chakra control’s delicate—that's absurd; so that part, which you clearly misread from canon, didn't mesh in as organically as it should have as it adds literally nothing to the skill which was required of her or the Jutsu she learnt from Orochimaru, apparently, of which more elaboration was required than simply the natural pitfall of fanon “she can learn anything, fam, ’cause canon said that her chakra’s delicate or something!”.

It comes across as rather silly to me, especially when all that's seen with respect to sewing and stitching as they are but two tiny, tiny facets of surgery; and I don't believe Orochimaru's gullible enough to lean on a girl, with passable talents in Ninjutsu field and wifely skills, to this degree and pluck her out as a disciple for Sharingan transplants of all the things (his masturbatory obsession on this front is legendary) when she's got ziltch and zipple to offer on Ninjutsu front. Why her? Why not any other kid? What would he teach her, anyway? I'm drawing a blank here, because she lacks talent for all of his Canon Jutsus. If you believe that any of what I've said works, your fiction works, too. You didn't present a thing to counter the issues this approach presents.

That aside, your fiction has positives, as well, that balance out these short-comings. For one, I, mostly, liked Sakura's characterisation. I dislike it when people write about children by opting for narrow character point-of-view (POV) writing. Sakura mostly sounds like a very naive, very foolish, very presumptive girl. From her thoughts, you can ascertain that these are the thoughts of a child. That "pork" remark from Orochimaru and Sakura's reaction was the highlight of the story. It flowed along in an easy and natural manner. Sakura’s thought process is also easy to understand and telling of her mind, which is of a child. Whilst I didn't exactly enjoy the sparse prose (you haven't used any in a literary sense), I do believe that you stuck to what you knew best; and, at times, that can work, too, as it has here.

Your angle in regard to "moving up from small surgical tasks (it wouldn't be anywhere near as easy as you've assumed here, but it's Fan-Fiction, and I'm willing to apply "suspension of disbelief" here)" worked. Orochimaru was strangely charming, and I'd expect him to be charming to children whilst he's got ulterior motives in mind. That's how he embraced all children: he played with their weaknesses and strengths and initiated them into his cult, or whatever you'd like to call it; so that rang true here. In fact, I liked Orochimaru's characterisation, aside of the aforementioned misgivings, the most. He isn't unwilling to utilise Sakura as a subject, as well; but, as she's more useful to him for now, he goes for Anko in her stead.

The glimpses into Root's and Konoha's collective corruption in orphaned children exploitation was a nice touch. It showed how the council only cared when Orochimaru went at Konoha's citizens. Lord knows how many people he'd brutally murdered before, yet all was good till he didn't bite the ones he was supposed to glorify. Sasuke's narrative passivity worked the best, though he wouldn't have been afraid to see a dead body: it's proven that people who go through extreme traumas (which is more extreme still in his case) grow completely apathetic to pretty much everything, and their empathy drops down drastically, as well; so that part was strange. That aside, I liked it that you kept him away from the narrative and kept the focus on Sakura—a method that almost overshadowed the issues.

Last but not least, even though you've made the claim in your Author Notes, you didn't handle anything like body horror, I'm afraid—in a proper manner, anyway. There wasn't any "horror" in surgeries, and your details were too scant to paint any vivid imageries that are required from the sub-genre. You moved quickly through scenes, which complemented the "repetitive" nature of Sakura's tasks well enough, without drawing out the ones that needed to be drawn out; and your language was inadequate to create anything novel. It's minimalism, and though it worked well with Sakura's foolish nature, it didn't work well with this genre, I'm afraid. You also dragged on the concept well-beyond use. In fact, you can cut-out about three thousand words and you'd still lose nothing of value. All could’ve gone for more compression as it's absolutely necessary for your writing style; because, as it stands, the one-shot, whilst good, was bloated.

All in all, a very good attempt. I'm interested in reading more from you on Sakura. You've got a good handle on her personality. Good job!

That was really good! Thanks for sharing it :)

Such a good fic. Uff. The horror was so real, I could imagine everything actually happening. Orochimaru's character was specially delightful to read. It's so interesting reading how he manipulates children into idolatring and fearing him at the same time.

Thinking about their dynamic is frightening too, because Sakura is always justifying him and I can see a future where her adult self trembles just remembering everything she did, and how close she was of being one of those countless dead/damaged people. Or maybe she will care even less and turn into another Kabuto.

I wonder what will happen in this Konoha that still has Orochimaru inside its walls. Maybe the other villages will join in order to destroy the one that did experiments with their own children.

This isn't relevant at all, but I'm curious if you studied something that has to do with medicine or if this story is a product of a careful research.

Great story. Hugs,
Nico.

This was brilliant, and utterly terrifying. Good work!

How have I never read this before? This is, without a doubt in my mind, the best Sakura shortfic on the website.

This is one of the stories that I just keep coming back to read one more time!

Holy shit I feel terrible for Anko, but isn't Orochimaru out of the village by now? I mean Anko's several years older than Naruto's generation...

An interesting very dark and interesting story. Would've maybe preferred a bit more about where things would go before they were all caught in one fashion or another or the crisis was pushed all the more. Other then that though excellently done. Thanks very much for sharing.

I loved this! I really like the way Sakura's view on everything slowly changes through the course of the story the more involved she gets with Orochimaru. The last bit where she volunteers Anko was perfect, the implication that she's still expendable to Orochimaru, just not as much as Anko... very chilling

holy sh*t, this story came full circle! I forgot about the ARM transplants! So that's what's happened
excellent story

I had a similar idea about Sakura extracting Sharingan eyeballs in 2016 and wrote it in my own story Sakura's Glasses, but I was a noob about it, yours is way more detail
I'll recommend this to friends

Thank you for writing this story, and I wish you would continue it! it's amazing

So intense and I love it. My only wish is that it went longer! Such an interesting idea from a psychological perspective.

Questions, comments, complaints?

My question is 'more?', my comment is 'more', my complaint is that there's not more.

It's a nicely written bit of oh-god-why that I would LOVE to see a follow up to exploring the consequences and reactions that result from taking a child that young and changing their perceptions and thoughts so drastically.

I mean, if this gets discovered will Sakura be blamed for any of it when she's been taught in such a way? Especially since she's just following orders, which is so par-for-the-course for ninja but kind of goes double for a child.

If Anko survives, what's her thoughts on Sakura? Anger? Pity? Fear?

Does Sakura ever adjust to normal life again, or at least what passes as normal life in Konoha?

Or, strangely, what would the reactions be like if the timeline went and progressed as normal, leaving Sakura on the canon Team 7 and meeting Orochimaru in the Chuuni Exams alongside Sasuke?