First came the pain in her neck. It was like her consciousness gradually returned through the doorway of that pain. Soon, she felt something cool and hard against her shoulders and back. She realized she was lying on the floor in an unnatural posture. She tried to move her arms and legs, but couldn’t.
She slowly opened her eyes. Her hands were bound behind her, her ankles tied together with some metal restraint.
She felt vaguely nauseous, but this passed after a while.
She was in a bare concrete room. Big, empty. Directly in front of her was a rusted iron door. There was no window, so she couldn’t determine if she was underground or not.
She had no idea how much time had passed since she had been kidnapped.
She tried forcing her arms apart; maybe she could break the restraints. But she couldn’t muster up much strength. They had injected something into her neck when they took her. This lack of strength was probably the effect of that.
The iron door had a tiny window in it, and she could see someone wearing an Anbu mask peeking in through it.
“She’s awake. Tell Master Kido.”
After these words, she heard the footsteps of someone else running off.
Master Kido, the mask said. So this was one of Kido’s hideouts.
The memory of the kidnapping came back to her.
It had been cheap theater. The Anbu holding down the newly returned Sasuke. There was no way something like that would happen right next door to Sakura.
And she had been suspicious at first. But she let her guard down for an instant. And for shinobi, an instant was deadly.
I am such a disaster…
Sakura closed her eyes. She was ashamed of herself for getting caught in such an obvious trap.
She could hear the footsteps of several people, and then the door opened to allow a man with a hooked nose in. Beside him was a fair-skinned man with a monocle.
Hook Nose was wearing a coat over his uniform, while Monocle was in a white robe. Two masked Anbu members stood behind them, probably the pair who had been watching over Sakura outside the door.
“So you’re…Kido, then” Sakura said to Hook Nose, haltingly.
“I am. Haruno Sakura. You don’t happen to know where Uchiha Sasuke is?”
“Where…Sasuke is? I’d like to ask…you the same thing.” Her posture made it hard to speak. She was on her side like a caterpillar with her interlocutor looking down at her. The humiliation made Sakura’s eyes hard. “So you’re the one…who cobbled together the fake...Sasuke and sent him out, huh?”
“I am. I thought doing so might make him return to the village. But he has not. Which is why we kidnapped you.”
“To make...Sasuke come back..to the village…?”
You kidnapped me?
“You’re his classmate. Same team. Friends who fought together in the Great War, yes? Once he hears that you’ve gone missing, he will come back.”
“Hmm...I don’t know. Sasuke’s incredibly cool. Just me going missing. He won’t—”
Come back to the village, she tried to say, but a small pain shot through her heart.
Would you really not come back, Sasuke?
Because it was just me who went missing…
She wanted him to come back. But she quickly chased that thought away.
That can’t happen. If he comes back, he’ll be doing exactly what they want. He should definitely not come back.
But if he doesn’t come back, then that means that he’s not particularly worried about me…
Sakura was torn between her yearning for Sasuke and her fear for his safety.
“If he doesn’t come back,” Kido continued, “it’s quite simple. We’ll just kill you. When he hears your body’s been found, even that man will come home. At least for the funeral.”
“In that case, go ahead and kill me now!” She figured she’d give herself over to her anger and try ripping off her shackles. But she still couldn’t muster enough strength.
“I think it would be best if you refrained from doing anything reckless,” Monocle said—most likely the medical ninja Magire. “The injection in your neck was a drug that makes it difficult to knead chakra while simultaneously numbing your muscles. Simply being quiet and resting will allow you to avoid expending excess energy. That is all.”
“Ngh!” Sakura gritted her teeth.
“We won’t kill you right now,” Kido said. “Ideally, we would be able to kill you in front of him.”
Sakura stared up at Kido. “In front of Sasuke?”
“Exactly. Doing so will improve the quality of his eyes.” Kido gave her the biggest smile he’d had since entering the room.
“The quality…of his eyes…?”
What is he talking about?
“The Uchihas are a deeply loving clan,” Kido remarked, malicious smile still playing on his lips. “I’m sure you also know that the nature of this love has granted the Uchihas strong eye powers, yes?”
She said nothing.
“Anyone would grieve and lament if a precious family member, a friend, a lover were to be killed before their eyes. But that’s not all that happens with the Uchiha clan. Their grief is so deep that it acts on their optic nerves and gives their eyes power.”
She managed to keep herself from gasping.
“Their sadness and anger and grief must further refine that eye power. Which is why we will kill you in front of him.”
Sakura took a deep breath. “And doing that, what are you trying to…?”
“A sharingan drug,” Kido told her. “We’re going to use his eyes as the ingredients and make a drug. A drug that will allow anyone to use the sharingan. We’ll sell it.” His throaty laugh crawled along the concrete floor. “I will collect more money than anyone has ever seen before. Money, money…!”
The menacing chuckle turned into loud laughter, and filled the room.
This man…
For the first time, Sakura felt not hatred for this man Kido, but fear.
✦ ✦ ✦
There was a knock on the door.
Sai turned the shower off. In between knocks, he could hear a voice calling his name. It sounded like Ino. He put on some underwear and headed toward the door, drying his head with a towel.
When he opened the door, Ino was standing there.
“So, Sai, the thing is—whoa! Hey!” In an instant, Ino’s face was beet red. “W-why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”
“Sorry, I was in the shower.” He had thought it would be fine to open the door to Ino like this, but apparently, it was not. The mysterious part was that not only did she get angry, her face also turned red.
“Anyway, what’s going on? It’s so early,” Sai said, and Ino turned her gaze back on him. Her face was still red, but her expression held a hint of tension.
“Sakura’s gone.”
“Sakura?” The hands moving the towel on his head stopped.
“I went to the therapy center early this morning since there’s some paperwork we have to do together. But she never showed. So I went to her house, and she’s not there. I tried detecting her chakra, but I couldn’t find any trace of it.”
Sai let out a sigh. “It’s probably Kido and his gang.”
“That’s what I thought too.”
“Let’s go look for her,” he said, and went into his room. As he hurriedly yanked on his uniform, he called to Ino in the entryway. “If he wanted to get in the way of our investigation, all he’d have to do is take her down right then and there. The fact that she’s gone means they’ve taken her somewhere.”
When he was done getting ready, he went back out to Ino. “Have you told Master Kakashi?”
Ino shook her head. “Not yet.”
“Could you use Mind Transmission to tell him?” Sai asked.
Ino nodded and quickly wove the signs to use her jutsu. In a moment, Kakashi, Ino, and Sai were connected in their heads via the Mind Transmission Jutsu.
“Master, Sakura’s been kidnapped.” Ino explained the situation. “Sai and I are going to go look for her now.”
“You need backup?” Kakashi’s voice flowed through their heads. “Having said that, though, a lot of people are out on missions. The number of people I can mobilize right away is limited.”
“We’re fine just the two of us,” Sai said. “I’m sure Sakura is still alive. But if we do a large-scale search, there’ll be a commotion in the village, and they might just kill her immediately.”
“Okay, sorry, but I’m counting on you,” Kakashi said, apologetically. “I’d like to go with you, but a message came in from the Raikage over the wireless earlier. He said we should probably go ahead and have a meeting of the five Kages about putting Sasuke on the wanted list already. I’m going to discuss the situation and get them to wait a bit.”
“Master, please take care of that. We’ll handle—” Sai said, and Ino’s jutsu was released.
“But look for her where?” Ino said.
“I’ve been watching Kido for ten days or so now, I know a few of the places he goes around to. We’ll start there.”
“But they know that you’ve been investigating them, right? So they wouldn’t hold Sakura anywhere you might know about, would they?”
Sai nodded; Ino’s remark was exactly on point. “I’ve got an idea. It’s a bit of an aggressive way of doing things, though. Let’s go,” he said, and started moving.