A/N: Revised. I resized the three chapters to two. Sorry for the weird time sequence.

Summary: Sakura is taken as hostage at Hidden Sound Village and is used for her medical abilities to assist Kabuto. While there, she meets up with a shadowy figure of her past. Sasusaku.

Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, he wouldn't wear orange.

The Sound

Sakura cursed and pushed off another tree branch. She looked behind her to check her pursuers' progress then returned her gaze to the trees ahead. They hadn't caught up yet, but they were gaining more land then she was leaving behind.

She had already depleted most of her chakra, so it was only a matter of time before the nins caught up. Her hand crept into the weapons pouch slung on her hip. Currently, she possessed two kunai, three shuriken, and one exploding tag- definitely insufficient for battle.

On top of that, the sun was starting to set, and even though she was a kunoichi, it was still hard for her to operate in darkness. She wasn't one of those super nocturnal people- like Kakashi.

She sighed. Today was not a good day. She was returning to Konoha from a simple guarding mission in the Land of Lightning and had barely passed the Land of Rice's border before she felt several shinobi presences following her. Apparently, they sensed her chakra and decided that she was a enemy nin.

Which she wasn't. Not today, anyway.

Usually, Sakura would simply wait for the ninja to catch up to her and flash her Leaf headband to show her alliance. All ally ninjas of Konoha would understand that she, as a leaf kunoichi, would not be dangerous to them. Unfortunately, the Leaf wasn't exactly friendly with the Sound, and she had a strong feeling that if she tried to flash her headband at them, they would probably have chopped her head off first. She was forced to continue escaping.

She tried to think positive- there was only one hundred and fifty or so miles until Fire country border.

Okay… not so positive.

Suddenly, a kunai flew out of the darkness of the trees. Sakura jumped out of the way a second before it would have impaled her and the metal embedded itself the maple behind her instead. She cursed again- they caught up faster than she expected. Things were looking down.

There was no way she could fight them, win, and still have enough energy to turn back into the Land of Fire. She had already used a lot of chakra for running through the trees.

Just as Sakura was beginning to panic, the presences of the Sound nins disappeared. Cautiously, she backed up against the trunk of the tree she was crouching on and waited for their next move.

A bird trilled somewhere behind her, and a long pause passed.

Logic dictated that the nins were preparing for a gang attack but the hopeful side of her thought they had decided she wasn't worth the chase.

No such luck.

By the time she realized they surrounded her, it was too late. She was unconscious before she hit the ground.

"… need help for Sakon and Ukon- they won't stop bleeding, and- Ah, hello Sakura-san."

Sakura groaned. She lifted her head up from what she judged by the hardness was the floor and surveyed her surroundings. She was in a dimly lit room covered with shelves that contained numerous scrolls and jars of mystery objects suspended and liquids. Just like in the movies with the mad scientists.

Sakura sat up on the floor and checked her body. Her hands were bound with their backs together, her chakra level was at the bare minimum and her weapons pouch was nowhere in sight. But besides feeling a little woozy, she was fine for the moment.

But wait. How come she wasn't chained up in a dungeon with the rest of the prisoners? They must want her for some reason.

She acknowledged the other two presences in the room. Standing in front of her was the traitor to the Leaf, Kabuto and behind him was a man clad in white that she didn't recognize. The man looked suspiciously like a surgeon.

A surgeon in a non-sterile environment. Uh-oh. Flashes of movies with mad scientists reigned havoc on her brain.

"How do you feel?" Kabuto asked. It was a rhetorical question, really. Like he gave a shit how she felt.

Sakura glared at the older man.

"Have you ever been knocked out, carried around for couple hundred miles, then had all your chakra sucked out of you?"

Kabuto smiled slightly but it wasn't a genuine smile. It was more like an I'm-going-to-eat-you-for-breakfast kind of thing. Ignoring her question, he turned towards the man in the back.

"You're dismissed," he quietly stated. The man nodded and walked out of the dark room. Sakura glimpsed a long and equally dark hallway before the door was shut.

"What do you want from me?" she asked Kabuto. Against her will, she still had a secure and safe feeling around him because of when he helped her team in the second stage of the Chunnin exams. She felt inclined to be as polite to him as he was to her.

It must be a Stockholm Syndrome thing.

Kabuto hesitated before answering, choosing his words to be as sparse and vague as possible. "We are in need of a medic and your skills deem appropriate for our purposes."

Sakura's suspicion was correct. She already suspected that Orochimaru wanted her to heal his arms and to finish the job that Tsunade refused. But fortunately or unfortunately, his arms were dead and no one can revive the dead. She debated whether or not to share this information with Kabuto. If she told him that she couldn't heal Orochimaru, she would most likely be killed. If she said she could and they found out later that she couldn't, she would still be killed. It all came down to when she wanted to die.

Just as she was about to open her mouth and announce that she accepted his offer, thinking that she would find a way to escape before Kabuto found out she was lying, he said, "Don't bother lying, we already know Orochimaru-sama's arms can't be healed."

Indignant that her thoughts were so clearly interpreted, she asked,"So what do you need me for? I'm not going to stay here as a hospital nurse if that's what you mean."

Once again, Kabuto chose his words carefully before answering.

"Do you remember the first retrieval mission for Uchiha Sasuke?"

Sakura winced. Of course she remembered- she had begged Naruto to bring her precious Sasuke-kun back and even cried about it. God, she was so ignorant back then.

"Yes," she replied.

"During that mission, Otokagure sent out five shinobi to intercept Konoha's and they were defeated by Shikamaru Nara's and Temari no Sabuku's teams. The Sound Five were presumed to have died in combat and were overlooked by Konoha ANBU sweeping for survivors. Unknowingly to them, our nins were still alive. Since all of them were in their cursed seal form during "death", Orochimaru's chakra kept them from passing on. They were in critical condition though and needed to be treated immediately. Our ninjas managed to retrieve their bodies and I put them in a temporary suspension so I could heal them one by one."

Sakura remembered Naruto and the others telling her about that battle. Many of the Genin on that mission had a hard time fighting with the Sound nins and would have been killed if the Sand nins didn't arrive in time. Neji had to undergo a mass healing jutsu and Tsunade herself had to heal Chouji.

"What does this have to do with me?"

"Like I said- the suspension is only temporary. It has begun to wear off and the bodies are beginning to decay. Some of the bodies are beyond my skill level because the damage is too severe and requires too much chakra. If I begin the healing process and run out of chakra, the suspension would be broken. I need you to take this deal and heal the two bodies that are out of my league."

Despite the barrage of more important questions that needed to be asked, Sakura questioned, "Weren't there five? What happened to the other three?"

"Two I have already healed and one didn't make it." He didn't elaborate.

"And what if I said no, to this deal I mean?" she asked.

"That is not an option unless you want to die young. If I were you, I would just heal them and hope Orochimaru would let me go. The only other choice is death."

… Great. Do die or do the Sound a huge favor? She weighed her options.

If she remained loyal to the Konoha, she would be killed and the world would lose its best medic (she tried to be modest). On the other hand, if Kabuto couldn't heal them, it was probably a safe bet that it would take her a very long time to heal the bodies. That would give her enough opportunities to try to break out of this fortress. She didn't even have to finish healing them if she managed to escape. Besides, she knew Tsunade wouldn't want her to die.

So, ignoring the possibility that she may be executed for treason even if she did escape, Sakura made her decision.

"I'll do it."

In her mind, Sakura already began planning for the healing sessions. She would have to do it wound by wound and leave room for her chakra to replenish in the middle...

"Excellent decision," Kabuto congratulated her as if she won something.

Look on the bright side- I just guaranteed my life another few days. Who knows? Maybe I will celebrate my seventeenth birthday! Maybe I'll even see Sas... Sakura didn't let that thought continue. She abandoned all hope of him after that incident when they were fifteen when he almost killed Naruto. Even she knew when to give up.

Had Orochimaru already taken over his body? Despite her animosity towards the Uchiha, a jolt of fear ran down her spine at the thought of her former teammate being possessed.

No, she would get news of it if the body-switching jutsu had been preformed. Also, Konoha hasn't been attacked in almost five years. There was still hope that Sasuke was Sasuke.

"Let me show you the room you will be staying in during your stay here," Kabuto said, breaking her out of her muse. He walked to the door, clearly expecting her to follow.

Sakura, realizing that he had released the binding jutsu on her wrists, nodded to herself and followed him out of the room and into the hallway.

Sakura gasped.

It really was a sight to behold- two corpses lying on beds wrapped in bloodstained bandages. No, they weren't even corpse-like. At least dead bodies look like they had once been alive. These two looked like something straight out of a zombie horror movie. And she had to revive them.

What if I can't do it? Will my chakra be enough? If Kabuto can't heal them it'll probably be hard for me too… Will I die here? For the second time in twelve minutes, a pang of fear ran through her.

How did she get into this predicament?

After she had briefed on the terms of her capture, Kabuto led her out of the room with a lot of shelves and through a maze-like series of hallways lit by torches. Hallways she knew she would never be able to navigate herself.

How the hell am I going to get out of here?

The thought ran through her head while she examined of all the possibilities. Abruptly, Kabuto stopped walking and Sakura almost smacked into him. She looked around him and saw that they had arrived at a closed door that blended in with the wall of the hallway in the darkness.

"This is the recuperation room. You will be healing and monitoring the patients here until they regain consciousness and can stay in their own respective dormitories. Which reminds me. During your stay, you will rest…" Kabuto walked down the hallway a little further "…here."

He stopped at another identical wooden door. Sakura fervently hoped she wouldn't get lost in the Sound fortress. Now that she's seen the inside of this place, she was more concerned with finding the exit when the time came that she had to escape.

"May I see the patients?" She inquired. Kabuto nodded and led her into the first door…

Which brings her here. With the two half-decaying Sound nins.

"What is your plan for the healing?" Kabuto asked.

Sakura studied the bodies for a moment. Now that she entered her "professional mode" and looked past the blood, she can see that they were almost identical in appearances save the fact that their blood-matted hair was parted in different directions. She also noticed that no one had bothered to clean the bodies. There truly was no sympathy for the dead… or in this case- the half-dead-half-live.

She walked towards the nearer of the two which also happened to be the gorier and more mummy-like.

Since she couldn't see the wounds under the bandages, she drew chakra to the tips of her fingers and placed them on the body's forehead to examine them from the inside. She felt Kabuto watching her every move.

Of the internal systems, Sakura examined his nervous system first. The brain was working enough to have the normal body functions going, just enough to keep him alive. Most of the nerves have been numbed to keep him from feeling much pain, but when she examined the brain closer, she found there was more activity going on then she had first glanced. So he has some idea of what's going on around him…

Sakura looked through his skeletal frame and noted one fractured and one broken rib, a partially shattered shinbone, and a couple of fractures along his forearms. His muscular system was in shabby shape with numerous torn ligaments. There was also a low level of protein and cells- probably from lack of exercise and food. This prevented the body from healing itself.

Those wounds weren't what surprised her the most, though. All throughout his body, there were deep stab wounds that looked like they were infected judging from the high level of inactive bacteria around them.

Ouch.

Then checked his bloodstream, she found at least three different types of lethal poisons. Wait… she recognized those poisons. They were the ones that she helped Kankuro develop during her stay in the Sand.

Well, at least she had that going for her.

A/N: First chapter. Yes, yes I know Sasuke didn't appear in this chapter, but he will! Review please- you know you want to. TT3TT