WARNING: chapter contains blood and violence which are the reasons it is rated M.

No Longer Weak

Running Out of Time

Tsunade kneeled down next to Sakura and pulled out a small surgical knife from her pouch. Clutching the grass with white knuckles, Sakura rolled with a loud swear onto her back and dug her nails into the dirt as hard as she could. She felt a strap secured on her thigh above the wound, nestled below her hip. To stop the bleeding.

Judging by the pain and location, Sakura could tell right away what kind of injury Tsunade was dealing with.

The cloth on her left leg was cut away to reveal the white of bone poking through skin.

"Femur break," Tsunade muttered as if Sakura didn't already know. She dropped the bloody knife and her hands started to glow. "3…2…"

The bone cracked into place and Sakura screamed, low and guttural. Even through the pain, she remained still. The bone slowly mended, then the sinew of muscle and nerves. The skin fibers started to form and solidify from thin to thick. The only remnants of the wound after a half hour of healing by one of the best medics was all the blood.

When her leg was good as new with just a touch of soreness that would fade by tomorrow, she pushed herself onto her knees and to her feet. This wasn't her first femur break and it wouldn't be her last.

Their sparring took on a level that no one else could match. As two of the best medics in all of the Nations, near nothing was a death blow except for decapitation. That left few attacks off-limits and plenty of opportunity to cause and experience pain.

Tsunade liked to say it was "killing two birds with one stone".

The first time Sakura lost one of her hands, she cursed and yelled at Tsunade the entire time it was being reattached. It was the first time she'd cried in a long time and one of the worst injuries she had ever experienced, aside from the day she lost her sight. But as time went on, Sakura took on a new appreciation for healing and for what her patients went through. She understood what it felt like to lose a limb, the feeling of what was once there suddenly gone. The earth-shattering pain of a femur being broken. The sharp explosion of a katana going through organs.

She wasn't just known for her healing capabilities, but also her bedside manners. Her empathy. Her strength. Her endurance.

Tsunade steadied Sakura as her adrenaline faded and the world tilted.

Taking a few deep breaths, Sakura said, "Lunch?"

There was a chuckle and then, "You're almost as bad as Naruto."

Sakura scoffed. "I said lunch, not ramen."

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Kabuto slammed a fist onto the surface of his desk. The frame rattled and groaned. A stack of papers slanted sideways and collapsed to the floor, but Kabuto didn't look up. His eyes remained focused on the wooden top in frustrated concentration.

He'd clearly underestimated Sakura Haruno. He should've known, based on the rumors of her skill and her success rate for missions, that she wasn't going to crack under pressure and pain.

"Goddammit," he muttered and straightened, shoving his glasses back up his nose.

He needed a new plan, but what could be worse than being tortured for someone like Sakura Haruno? Most would argue nothing, that it was clearly a lost cause if someone didn't cave even after having nearly every bone in her body shattered, mended, and shattered again. Day after day after day. But Kabuto was desperate, and desperation didn't allow for giving up.

The mission he had sent Sasuke on was a legitimate tip, but they couldn't keep wasting time like this searching for the scroll. Tsunade was out of their reach and Sakura wasn't giving anything up on its whereabouts, if she even knew where it was. For all he knew, Tsunade could've taught it to her without needing the scroll.

Orochimaru being revived was no longer an option, if it had ever been one. The only option was if Sasuke up the position of power for himself, but that wasn't an option until Itachi was eliminated. Once Itachi was eliminated, there would be nothing holding Sasuke back. He would be free to do as he wished with his power and Kabuto damn well wanted to be in control of that power or at least benefitting from it in some way.

Their only option was for her to tell him where Itachi was, but her own wellbeing meant nothing to her.

Pacing, he stroked his chin in thought. He pulled some papers from under a pile and examined them.

She was a medic. Survival rate with her as head surgeon was 99.9%. Even he had to admit that was pretty impressive.

He stopped and looked skyward, thinking hard. He wondered how she felt about that .01% that she couldn't save. If she was as good of a medic as these reports claimed, then she had to hate not being able to save someone. That's something someone with a good heart would fear. It would feel like torture to have to sit by and do nothing when your first instinct is to help.

With a smile, he summoned his assistants.

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Sakura fell back against the wall, gave up on trying to hold herself up, and slid down. Her head rolled back and rested against stone tiredly. Sweet unconsciousness was close. She could taste blood in her mouth, feel it oozing from the cut at her temple, creating one long stream down her body and slowly pooling below her like a red grave.

She would rather go to the grave than give up Itachi's location. She'd wondered, in between their "sessions" as Kabuto liked to call them, how he'd known she was lying. Where had she messed up?

"I know what you're thinking," Kabuto cut through her thoughts. "That this is pointless. That you'll never tell us anything. That hurting you won't get us anywhere."

Sakura grunted in agreement, eyes rolling back into her head. She could feel the heavy weight on unconsciousness descending on her and welcomed it with open arms.

"Ah, ah, ah, no falling asleep on me," Kabuto said and she felt a pinprick on her arm. She jerked away weakly and felt the unconsciousness subsiding. If she had to guess, he injected her with something to keep her awake. Adrenaline maybe.

"So I thought to myself. What does a top medic like yourself fear the most?" Kabuto continued and she could hear him moving towards the door. It swung and gaped open in heavy silence.

There was a crescendo of noise as two people got closer. Based on the way one halted every now and then while the other dug in their heels and tried to break free, she could tell something extremely bad was about to happen.

"No, please, please," the man cried and tried to catch the edge of the doorway. He took hold for a split second before he was yanked into the room and the door swung shut behind him.

Sakura didn't recognize the voice and felt slightly guilty at the small relief that it wasn't someone she knew.

"Who..." the man said in a weak voice, having given up. There was no way to escape now.

His body sagged as they chained him to the wall across from her.

"So, Sakura, I'm going to ask you one last time, where is Itachi?" Kabuto demanded, standing in the space between her and the man.

Her head dropped and she grit her teeth. She should've known it was going to come to this, but there would've been no way to prepare for such a horror. It almost would've been easier if it had been someone she knew because then she would've been able to say no confident that they could handle what was going to come next.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to the man and then tilted her eyes up towards Kabuto's voice. "Go to hell."

Kabuto clicked his tongue in disappointment. "You're not very good at saving people."

The man started screaming, even as they shattered his bones one by one. The smell of urine filled the air and then something more rancid. Kabuto made a noise of disgust, then chuckled at the man, but didn't stop.

"I-I didn't see anything," he whimpered against the ground, body limp. "…just a girl."

Kabuto's footsteps moved around the man slowly, methodically. He asked someone for a strap and then crouched down. Sakura listened to it being secured and guessed he had tied a tourniquet around the man's right forearm.

Something made of metal was tapped against the ground.

"Have you ever lost a hand before, Sakura?" Kabuto taunted and without waiting for a response started to press the sharp edge of a chopping knife into to flesh above the bone of the wrist.

"It was the girl…I SWEAR, IT WAS THE GIRL." The man's words became gurgled.

Sakura wanted to turn her face away but forced herself to remain still. She flinched as the screaming got louder and hoarser. If she had eaten anything in the past few days, it would've come up by now. She fought gagging when the knife came down on bone and the wet thud of what she guessed was a hand hitting the ground.

The screaming reached its peak, became a pitiful wailing, and then died down as shock started to settle in. There was so much blood Sakura could smell the metallic in the air. It felt like it was coating her lungs and throat until that's all she could smell and taste.

Kabuto clicked his tongue in disappointment as he stood and headed for the door. "Thought he would last longer."

The door slammed shut and Sakura hastily crawled towards the man. She felt the tears running down her face, her hands shaking as she pulled the man's head onto her lap.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered to him. His breathing was shallow, each gasp a struggle. She placed one hand on his cheek, felt his eyelids fluttering open and close. "I'm so, so sorry."

"She was pretty, even with her blond hair like that…" He coughed up blood.

Pieces shifted into place.

"You were there," Sakura realized with wide eyes. He saw what happened to Kori and that's how Kabuto knew she was lying. Knew she was leading him on a wild goose chase.

"I…I told (cough) ah! I told them the t-truth," he whimpered and coughed up more blood, but this time he couldn't stop. His body started spasming.

"You did," Sakura said in a soft tone and bent her head over his, tears still coming. "It's not your fault—"

The coughing stopped and his body sagged in her lap.

"—it's mine."

She bent her head down over the man and forced herself to stop crying. It would only get harder from here, with each of Kabuto's trials worse and worse. She was already in rough shape and who knew how much longer she could stay quiet. Sasuke was about to get on a boat and she wasn't going to be alive when he returned in a few weeks, that much she knew.

But then again, did she really think she was going to be alive at the end of this mission? She walked into this Hell willingly. The file stated her chance of survival was 3% and that was doing the calculations specific to her. Everyone else had a .001% chance of survive. Kakashi's had been 1% and Naruto was 1.2%. Tsunade and her had sat down and discussed the mission in length for months leading up to her departure, strategizing and coming up with possible situations and people who might get in the way.

Now, she was reaching the end of her mission and she was about to fail. Tsunade had given her assignments. Most important was to wipe out the higher-ups in this base and destabilize the whole group's mission and bring Sasuke home. If Sasuke got in the way, she was to take him out too.

Shaking her head, she would smack herself if she had the energy. To actually believe she would succeed and have a perfect world. To think she could get Sasuke home, as simple as that sounded at the time. With a 3% survival rate. Her and Tsunade should've thought of something else, some other way that would've stood a better chance. Blow up the base while Sasuke is out on a mission. Something. Anything.

Instead, here she was with the life fading right out of her. And she was taking down others with her.

Her eyes narrowed. If she was going down, then she was taking Kabuto down with her. Rid the world of this horrible creature disguised as a man and free Sasuke from him.

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It was early. Earlier than even the early risers. Three to four in the morning was the quietest time of day on the base, and most anywhere else.

Karin descended into the lower levels, only needing to evade a few people on her way there. As she went from one floor to another, she felt a weight on her chest that kept getting heavier. She heard screaming and smelled blood, felt the hair on her arms raising painfully.

There were no guards down here, probably because Kabuto assumed no one would be stupid enough to come down here on their own will. He guessed right.

She sensed different chakras behind the doors. Some were strong, and some were weak. One faded in and out and then suddenly was gone. She walked towards the door, hands shaking. Pushing it open, she was grateful she hadn't had a stomach to eat dinner that night. What she saw made her gag.

A man was tied to a post. His body was limp and he looked like he hadn't shaved in three years. The scraggly, knotted mess reached past his collarbone. His chest was bare and impeccably smooth skin stretched over ribs. His pants hung off his gaunt body.

The body jerked, and Karin nearly screamed. She clenched her teeth and watched as the body jerked again and what looked like a large worm moved beneath the skin in his stomach. Closing the door quietly, Karin backed away and quickly headed for the stairs.

Kabuto was infamous for his experiments, but until now it had been mere imagination for Karin. She'd never come down here before, knowing she wouldn't like what she found and afraid she might end up on the other end of one of those doors if she was caught. Now that she was here, she was glad she had never acted on her curiosity.

As she descended the levels became quieter, colder. The walls started to become damper and more musty smelling. She thought about how she never really liked Kabuto, never understood what Sasuke saw in him, but she followed Sasuke regardless. Blinded loyalty masked as love.

Her heart jumped as she descended another level. She could sense Kabuto in one of the rooms with one other strong chakra and two weak ones. More of the rooms down here were empty. She slid into one and closed the door quietly. She knelt down, the stone cold against her knee, and focused.

She could tell who the other strong chakra was. His second in command. The third chakra was someone young and fading in and out. Karin's stomach dropped. The fourth was Sakura. Sakura's chakra was weak but a steady thrum.

"What are you doing down here?" Karin whispered to herself. She stood and started running through her options. Chances are the door was guarded 24/7 and she was here, alone, with her team a week and a half away getting on a boat.

Pressing her fingers against her temples, she squeezed her eyes shut.

"Based on its speed…seven days ago…" she muttered to herself. She did the math and her eyes snapped open. If she didn't get moving now, and pray for a little bit of luck, the very short window she had would disappear.

She slipped out of the room and carefully made her way back up to ground level. It was almost five o'clock and soon more people would be getting up. She had to hurry. Stopping by her room, she wrote a quick note on a piece of paper and folded it up.

The crisp air was cool, but welcoming compared to the suffocating, dead chill of the lower levels of the base. She inhaled deep and set off in a sprint, pumping chakra into her feet. Reaching out, she found the patrol teams at the four corners of the base. Adjusting her direction, she slipped between two of them and picked up speed. The sky was a greyish color.

She ran along a high set of cliffs and then started up an extremely high hill. When she'd reached the top, she jumped into the nearest tree, climbing to the top. She could see out over the forest for miles. The sun was starting to spread along the tree tops, tinting them gold.

It was breathtaking. It reminded her of a two months ago, when she came upon a path of destruction.

Karin walked around another crater and looked up at two figures sitting on a high branch. She kept her chakra signature masked and went up a nearby tree.

"I don't know how to do this, okay?" Sasuke said with a huff of frustration.

It was shameless, what Karin was doing, but she had to know.

"I'm trying to apologize and you're not making it any easier."

This was the most human she had ever seen Sasuke. He looked vulnerable, like he actually cared about what she thought of him. Sasuke was so used to having to cover up his emotions that with Sakura being blind, it was one person he didn't have to hide anything from. She couldn't see his face, so what mattered if his emotions were clear on his face.

Karin's heart sank because she knew the emotion in his eyes was clear in his voice.

She could feel the weight on their history thick in the air. This was something she'd never be able to touch and this was a man she'd never be able to have for his heart was taken by someone else. She knew Sasuke well enough to see the drive behind his actions. Any other person would've been dead by now, not worth his time and energy. But her and Team Seven were his family and no matter the distance, they would always be that.

Judging by the emotion on Sakura's face, she felt the same way.

"Sometimes things don't go our way and we have to figure out how to work around that. It's not always a bad thing to create a new path when the old one gets cut off," Sakura said.

More words were exchanged, but Karin couldn't hear them. Sasuke looked closer at Sakura and asked, "How did it happen?"

There was a long pause. Karin could see the war raging on Sakura's face.

Karin truly thought Sakura would tell him what happened. Her gut told her it all had something to do with Itachi, that where he was would be revealed as well. Sakura turned to Sasuke and Karin held her breath.

Instead, Sakura said, "I'm not ready to share that yet."

Sasuke nodded. Sakura said something but Karin was already down the tree. She'd already seen too much of their private moment and preferred ignorance over invasion, especially when it came to Sasuke and Sakura's twisted story.

There was a rumble behind Karin and she looked over her shoulder. Storm clouds were rearing their ugly heads in the distance, a sight she didn't want to see. If the storm caught up with the carrier, it would delay it and it might not get there in time. She did a sequence of hand seals and a hawk appeared perched on her shoulder. She tucked the letter into the strap on its ankle and guided its feet onto her forearm.

"Sasuke. It's an emergency. As fast as you can," Karin said to the hawk. It nodded at her and she pushed it into the sky. She watched it flap its wings and head off over the trees. There wasn't enough time to watch it go any further, so she started down the tree and back to the base.

She managed to slip back between the patrol teams and was coming into the base when she passed Kabuto near the eating area. Slowing as he did, she tried to keep her face neutral. It felt like bugs were crawling on her skin. It was hard to look him in the eye after what she'd witnessed in the lower levels, but she held his gaze anyways.

"You're up early," he commented, taking in the sheen of sweat on her skin and wipe awake expression. "Is it cold outside?"

"Just a little," she responded, forcing her voice to remain calm. "I couldn't sleep. It always happens when my team is away. Thought I'd go for a run before it rains later."

He made a noise of agreement and headed down the hallway, disappearing around the corner without looking back. Karin took a deep breath and blew it out through her mouth. She headed for her room. Now she had to wait and pray to whatever gods were listening. Her stomach clenched when she thought about how she would need to keep going to the lower levels to gather more information on what was going on and make sure Sakura was still alive.

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The end is in sight! I have mapped out the rest of the story so it will eventually be finished in the next few chapters. The best feeling in the world is tying up loose ends and getting to read the ending of a story. Oh and hot showers, duh.