1

Water dripped from the pipes above.

It was constant, the dripping—drip, drip, drip. It fell in sync with her footsteps, with her beating heart. It was the only sound, other than her breathing; the eerie atmosphere sent shivers down her spine. Sakura's eyes were wide in the darkness, walking down the tunnel with nothing but her racking nerves and her pulsing mind.

Hokage-sama had been very strict about where they kept his most prized prisoner.

The cell—it was the only cell, taking up the entire back of the cave; no bars, so it didn't even deserve the rights to be called a cell, now, did it? Hokage-sama was arrogant and absolutely loved to play with his prisoner's ego; chaining him, with no bars to secure his imprisonment. His prisoner must hate it—she hated it.

And, oh, how Sakura hated it—how she hated everything.

She hated that orange-haired man for attacking her home. She hated him for killing so many innocents, for causing her Shishou to fight. She hated her Shishou for not waking up, for growing so thin and frail and so goddamn still. She hated her friends for pushing all that weight on her shoulders. She hated Naruto for taking it away from her. She hated herself for failing.

Because she had succeeded.

And that's why she hated herself the most.

Because she brought Uchiha Sasuke home and set him up for—for—for this.

She grit her teeth and stopped, feet away from him.

Sakura could see him, sitting down, legs spread out in front of him and arms chained above with chakra depleting chains. His head was resting against the cool, jagged surface of the cave's wall, his messy hair—growing long, now, oh, Sasuke looked like a ghost of his former self—brushing the top of his shoulders and falling over his bandaged eyes.

"Sasuke," she whispered and clenched her mouth shut. She didn't deserve to call him by the suffix she once adored to pin to his name.

He didn't move, and she didn't blame him.

If he disliked her when they were younger, he had every right to hate her now.

She closed her eyes and walked forward until she was right in front of him, her breathing shallow. Sakura crouched before him, reaching a hand toward his shoulder and stopping inches away. This was nothing different—this always happened.

"Sasuke," she whispered again, sad and filled with so much turmoil. "Sasuke, I'm…"

This always happened, too.

She always tried to apologize and the words always got caught on the tip of her tongue.

Sighing, she fingered his hair. "I can give you a haircut… It's gotten long…"

She reached for a kunai from her pouch and—

"Leave it."

His voice was a deep, low rasp. Nothing smooth and alluring left in it.

Sakura took a deep breath and nodded, pulling away.

"Sasuke—"

"Danzo know you're here?" he asked, slowly turning away.

"I—no… No…" She breathed, closing her eyes and opening them when she regained her composure. "I… I know how to get my way in here…"

He was quiet.

"I didn't—"

"It's been months," he cut her off, not harsh. Because Sasuke wasn't harsh, like he should be. He was quiet and lightly annoyed. Like he had finally given in to where he was now. "Save it."

Sakura furrowed her brow, lips puckering up as she tried to calm her anger. "You can't just—"

"I just did."

"Naruto—"

"I know."

Sakura growled, standing up and pacing around.

"This wasn't what was supposed to happen!" She fisted her gloved hands at her side, messy bangs falling to shadow her eyes as she looked down at the ground, brow furrowed and lips set into a deep frown. "I was… Everyone was trying to kill you! I… I…"

"Shut up."

Sakura shook her head. "I—"

"Shut up."

And she fled.

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.

.

Sakura laid in bed and reeled on everything she'd done up to this day. It went something like this:

Just short after the attack on Konoha, the new Hokage was appointed and everyone thought it would be Kakashi—everyone knew it would be Kakashi. But it wasn't; it wasn't because the new Hokage was Danzo and he was such a twisted man. He had changed so many things—sent Kakashi and Naruto out of the village and far, far away; across the nation. He'd sent Gai away—he'd sent anyone that mattered away.

And, oh, her Shishou had been thrown aside and it was all she and Shizune could do but keep her hooked up to an IV in Shizune's house, a place they both haunted every hour of the day.

She'd been stopped by her friends—all of them. There'd been Shikamaru and Ino and Chouji and Hinata and Kiba and Shino and Lee and Tenten and even Neji. They'd looked serious, had heard about Sasuke joining the Akatsuki from the foreign villagers that arrived to help them.

Akatsuki was the enemy—not so much anymore because of Naruto, but because—because, look at what they did to their home. Look at what they'd done to their leader and look at who's hand they'd fallen into because of that.

Sasuke needed to be taken out.

And, fuck, Sakura's heart had jolted up to her throat. And, fuck, how she wanted to save him; because, fuck, how she loved him. She loved him irrationally—stupidly—incoherently. Only not—because she knew what she had gotten herself into, since she was young. Sasuke was dark and dangerous and beautiful all together; he was a night with a full moon and the drunken adrenaline pumping in her system. He was bruises and blood and twisted pasts and she accepted it—she accepted all of him.

So she'd assembled a team and went in search of him.

And Sakura knew him best, second—she knew him. She knew him.

And she found him.

And she was framed.

Lee and Kiba and Sai were knocked out and it was Sakura and Sasuke—both battered and bruised and bloody—against ROOT members that fought with the intentions to kill. And when Sasuke had been captured and Sakura had been pinned down, Danzo appeared.

"True to your Sannin sensei before you," he had hummed, mocking, "you've captured Uchiha Sasuke for me. Well done."

And that look in Sasuke's eyes had been the last before they were covered with bandages.

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.

She fingered a forget-me-not, lips pursed into a soft scowl and fingertips as soft and delicate as they could ever possibly be now.

Ino sat next to her, slicing up apples; green, because Sakura liked green apples the best. It was quiet between them—it was always quiet between them. Sakura didn't know if Ino resented her for the false accusations and claims hanging off her name like dripping blood from a ledger.

She swallowed, thickly, and accepted a slice handed to her over the cool metal surface of the knife.

"At some point," Ino finally whispered, "we have to do something."

Sakura debated whether to play the clueless act. But she couldn't—because this was Ino and she knew her the best. "Everything's all wrong."

Ino's piercing gray-blue eyes were on her—she could feel them, burning holes into her skin. She took a soft intake of fresh air and looked up at her. "I know what you think of me—"

"I don't think anything."

"—Cut the bullshit, Ino. You think… You actually think I'd do that to him?"

Ino looked down for a moment.

"This is me."

"Everything's all wrong," Ino said, throwing her words back at her. "What's there to even think, anymore?"

Sakura threw the forget-me-not onto the counter and stood up. Her hands—free of their gloves, for once—clenched and unclenched into fists at her sides. Her molars ground into each other uncomfortably and her eyes refused to look up as she tried to form a coherent sentence out of everything running through her head.

"I'm going to fix it—this—everything." She took ragged breaths and looked up at Ino. "I will; you'll see."

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.

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"Why are you back."

His questions were never questions and it always made Sakura's heart pang with nostalgia.

"I'm going to fix this," she whispered, breathing harsh and cracked and uneven. She crouched down in front of him, itching to push his hair back and run her fingertips down his jawline to assure herself that he was real and calm her wracking nerves. "I'm going to fix this."

He looked away from her, like he always did. The bandages around his eyes were dirty with sweat and the exhaustion of being tied around him for months on end; the medic within her hissed how horrible that was for his eyesight. All of him—he needed attention. He needed to be fed… He…

"Sasuke," she whispered, leaning forward.

"Quit dreaming, Sakura," he muttered, lips barely moving. He sounded tired. "Go home—"

"No!" She slammed a fist onto the wall, mere inches away from his face. It rumbled and cracked in protest, but Sakura didn't pay attention to it. "Stop sending me home—stop contradicting me! Stop…" Her voice lost all its fight and her eyes stung with unshed tears. "Stop making it seem like you've given up."

His lips pulled back into a sneer. "And what other choice do I have."

"Fight back, you asshole!" She grabbed at either side of his jaw and forced him to face her, dropping down on top of him so that she straddled him. "Fight—back—you have to… You have to fight back!"

"You're the one that put me here," he growled.

And Sakura saw red—it was a flash of a millisecond but it was enough for her to punch him in the jaw. She heard it crack and saw it instantly begin to bruise and swell. Her chest rose and fell erratically and she forced her eyes shut as a means to regain her composure.

"I," she swallowed. "I had nothing—absolutely nothing—to do with your imprisonment." She brushed her finger around the swell of where she'd punched him, tears of anger and turmoil catching at her lashes. "You… Should know me better than that—they were… Everyone was trying to kill you. I panicked! I didn't know what my exact goal was, out there—but I know, for a single fact, that it was not to get you captured and I was not working under Danzo."

She swallowed, again, and slowly began to heal his bruise. "My loyalties," she whispered, "are still with my Shishou—and with Team Seven. Or what's left of us."

There was a thick silence laced with tension and Sakura felt like she was drowning in it.

"Get off me, Sakura," Sasuke said. She watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed, lowly saying, "Go home."

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Sakura lost count after five.

It became like a routine—it consumed her and it was all she could ever really think about. When she trained, when she worked at the hospital, when she treated Danzo and his disease, when she visited her Shishou, when she sat with Ino, when she sat by her window and wondered where Kakashi and Naruto were—were they okay? Were they fighting their way to them? Were they even alive?

But all she could really ever do was plot and plan.

Because she couldn't do anything alone—she'd be setting herself up for failure.

Gone was the insecure girl and with it the one that was worthless and weak. But she wasn't wonder woman—she needed help.

She needed Sasuke.

And so she started from there.

She had to figure out how she could get him out and how to fight off the ROOT that were already there, guarding his prison religiously.

Sasuke would be weak and Sakura couldn't take them all on by herself.

But—but—her relationship with the other rookies… It was so goddamn strained… How would they even want to help her? When they'd settled on killing Sasuke, they'd done it to save the escalated hate and war, and they'd done it to save him from himself. When Sakura had left with Kiba, Lee and Sai, she knew she wanted to save him, too. Because she loved him too much…

…But with everyone thinking that she helped in his capturing…

Sakura broke her window with a punch, on the nth night of her planning and musings. She grit her teeth and ignored the blood flowing from the knuckles and the jagged jars of glass sticking out at random places. "Damn you, Danzo."

She leaned her head back against her wall, biting her lip in frustration and running her hand through her hair, leaving trails of blood to blend with the pink strands.

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And when it happened, it was pure adrenaline and fear that fueled her limbs.

Her pupils were dilated—black overtaking the yellow-green of her irises as she moved within the shadows of the night. Her lips were parted but she tried as best as she could to keep her breathing down; it was sheer luck, the fact that she made it to the cave as the ROOT soldiers made their watch switch.

She moved with all the agility her thirteen years of training taught her. She could see Sasuke's limp form as she neared.

"Sasuke," she whispered, sliding down in front of him. "Sasuke, wake up—listen to me."

"Sak'ra…?"

"Yes—Sasuke—Sasuke, wake up!"

"Wha's… What's going on….?"

"We're getting out of here, Sasuke." She snatched at the bandages around his eyes and cut them right off with her chakra. "Open your eyes, Sasuke."

It took him a while—first a squint, and then a flutter, ten flutters, and his dark eyes were on her. She swallowed, thickly, looking over her shoulder toward the entrance of the cave. She turned back to him, breathing hard and erratic. She was crazy—this was crazy—so worth it—but so fucking crazy. Suicidal—if they were caught they were dead.

"Sakura, what the hell are you thinking…"

She locked eyes with him, her hands gripping at the chakra depleting chains. "I'm thinking about setting things right—I said I'd fix this. I'm breaking you out and we're going to find Naruto."

Sakura took a deep breath, grabbing the chains on either of her hands and concentrating. They were chakra depleting, so using her chakra would be futile and stupid. But Sakura's strength didn't come from just chakra—she always had this immense strength that even she couldn't handle, properly.

So she concentrated on that—and yanked.

They popped and broke with a saddened cry before the pieces fell to the ground between them. Sasuke snatched at his wrists and flexed his arms, completely numb and lost of any sort of feeling to them from having them hang above him for so long. He clenched his fists and threw them, as punches, hearing the satisfying pop of his elbows snapping back into place.

Sakura grabbed his forearms and raised him to his feet, catching him when his lack of chakra caused him to stumble.

"We don't have much time," she whispered.

When he made to walk, she grabbed him, brow furrowed as a thought occurred to her.

"What?" he hissed.

"My Shishou taught me something," she breathed out, her eyes locked with his. "It's something so common, I think—I've never seen it happen between shinobi, but I bet it is."

"What the hell are you talking about."

"I can give you some of my chakra," Sakura stated, face serious. "I can give you enough so you can fight, if we need it. But I need to keep the majority of it or I'll be useless—and I refuse to ever be that again."

Her nerves jolted when she heard ROOT just at the mouth of the cave, but without another word, she placed her hands to Sasuke's chest, closed her eyes and concentrated. She envisioned images of breaking—she watched herself, long hair, lanky and awkward, handing Ino the red ribbon—she watched herself fight off those Oto ninjas—she stared as she asked Tsunade for her guidance—she watched her fight against Sasori—

And then everything was explosions.

Everything was kunais and shurikens against her skin and blow after blow after blow. She wondered how the hell she managed to breathe as she concentrated solely on dodging and hitting back.

Where was Sasuke—her system was going haywire because if he was down for the count this had all been for nothing and—a punch.

Sakura growled and shielded her fist with green, connecting it with a nameless ROOT's face and trying to find her away out of the cave before it collapsed.

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Konoha was in shambles behind them.

There was a fire—something burned; a building of some sort, and the black smoke curled around the dust of the crumbled cave and landscape. She could hear screams of confusion and fear and she could hear the shinobi preparing to go in to search for them. She dropped to her knees, hands gripping the grass as she tried to regain her breath.

Across from her, Sasuke leaned into a tree.

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"What now?" There was a gash at the edge of his left eyebrow and a deep scratch that would leave a thick scar across his chest.

Sakura licked at the nasty cut at the corner of her lips, a bruise already forming under her right eye. She crouched down, looking behind her in paranoia, before she turned back to look up at Sasuke. He was staring back at her, running his hands through his messy hair.

Her voice was cracked and it hurt to suck in air as she said, as solidly as she possibly could, "We look for Naruto."