The End is Where We Begin
She could taste the blood on her tongue, sharp and coppery as it was, even as she heaved for breath there atop the plinth she had been chained to.
Chakra pulsed in her forehead, a dull throb she had never been able to rid herself of since the day she had decided to investigate what nature chakra would do when combined with her seal. She had just been hoping to earn some form of sage mode to better her healing abilities and combat options. She hadn’t striven to accidentally make herself something of an immortal, forever to regenerate from the wounds inflicted upon her without wearing out her skin cells and making her age. Rather, the influx of nature energy had kept her body somehow repairing itself without wearing it out – keeping her in the state which she had been in when she had acquired her botched seal.
It wasn’t perfect immortality though, and Sakura was so very glad for that – so very glad there was a way out of that prison she had found herself within. A den of sadists and a woman who very much enjoyed torturing her, saying it was all to discover just how she had made herself that which she had. Sakura didn’t understand why anyone would want to sign themselves up to the same hell she was trapped in, but each to their own, or so she thought to herself bitterly. Naruto and Sasuke were long dead. There was no rescue coming for her, and Sakura was quite frankly tired. It was funny how ending up in such a situation had led to her figuring out a way to die as she had so wished to for so very long. What was that saying? In every cloud… She shook her head then, focusing back on the task at hand then – and what an important task it was.
Her so-called immortality was still dependent on her chakra – with nature chakra influencing her own network, she couldn’t really run out of chakra or so she had found after many attempts. Her seal ensured that much, boosting her own chakra recovery rate. Injuries to her body didn’t work. But injuries to her chakra system itself might. It was entirely possible to do such damage, despite it going against everything she had been taught and her natural instincts themselves, but she only had one chance to do it, and do it correctly. Otherwise they would notice she had figured out a way to slip chakra through the binds they had placed on her. Something which had taken a good ten years to figure out, or there abouts, with how little she knew of sealing. Those only sealed her ordinary chakra though, not the seal on her forehead, unlike normal restraints. Normal restraints had crumbled to stone thanks to the sheer potency of the nature chakra which had been introduced to her body. Though she had already known her chakra couldn’t be sealed through normal methods – she had tried to have someone seal it, and the end result had been them turned to stone. Her chakra still flowed naturally around her body, subsequently healing her. The seals just impaired her ability to access her chakra, hence why it had taken her so long to figure a way around them.
They were seals designed especially for her. Sakura hadn’t thought that possible, but that was why they had managed to capture her in the first place. She had gotten used to the status quo, become complacent in believing she couldn’t be killed and that she might as well be unmatched. There were things worse than death. Sakura knew that by then. Torture was one of them. More so when the body repaired itself meaning even the more brutal forms of the barbaric art wouldn’t kill her. She couldn’t count the number of times she had been used as a training dummy by the people who worked in that facility where she was being kept. The experiences had blurred into one.
Enough was enough though, and she gathered the chakra she had managed to slip through the seals, even as the door to her cell was opened and her most frequent visitor greeted her with that smile she despised with every inch of her being. She really wanted to watch her expression turn as she realised her favourite toy was dying for real. Escaping once and for all. Her heart leapt at the thought, and despite many years of misery and denial, she felt the roaring flame of hope crackle to life within her chest. She would see Naruto and Sasuke soon, once she reached the Pure Lands, and she wouldn’t feel that pain which had tormented her for so very long. Even if her captors knew the Reanimation Technique, she would feel no pain. She rather doubted they would bother, given as how they were only interested in her thanks to the terrible, accidental modification of the Yin Seal she had made. So she was going to be free so very soon. She wouldn’t have to spend any more years trapped in that place. Her heart raced at the thought, and she allowed hope to feel her with an odd sort of happiness. That had hardly been something she would have expected to feel at the prospect of her own death. Well, all those years ago when Team Seven had been alive and well and she had been normal and mortal.
Her chakra built in her chest, and she had it rotating in her chakra core, forming little drill-headed tendrils even as she pushed past the instincts of no-wrong-don’t-do-this-death-danger.
“Ah, Sakura!” her main tormenter greeted, picking up a sharp scalpel then, freshly cleaned and ready for use once more. “I’ve been waiting all day to come and visit you!” she declared, skipping forwards then, implement in hand.
“So have I,” Sakura hissed, lifting her head then, a smile on her face as her chakra readied itself to go against every instinct in her body. “Fuck you, bitch,” she spat, feeling a vicious sense of satisfaction as pain ripped through every inch of her, her own chakra spearing through the thick walls of her chakra core. Her tormentor’s eyes widened, and Sakura felt her own chakra run rampant in her body, freed then from its coils and core, tearing through bone and tissue as it drained away. Tiredness hit her soon after the agony, though she was somewhat used to the latter by then – and that was going to be the last time she felt such pain. Because she was going to die. She could tell it even as blood welled up in her throat and she spat it out. Already her body tried to heal itself, draining her core of the little chakra it had left, and Sakura could only smile weakly, blood on her tongue as her vision darkened as the last few drops of chakra were taken from her ruined chakra system.
Chakra exhaustion wasn’t quite the method she thought she would die by, so long ago, but Sakura supposed she would take what she got. The howl of rage on behalf of her tormentor was music to her ears. She was so glad she had waited until that moment, despite the risk of being saved from the clutches of death she so longed for. And they were just about embracing her right then and there. Her eyes closed, the cold grip of death closing around her then for a single instant and then—
Nothing.
Darkness surrounded her, bleak and unfathomable, pain wracking through her – which Sakura thought odd because she was dead, and she hadn’t thought there would be the slightest bit of pain awaiting her after she had died. It was why she had longed for that end, despite it being out of her feasible reach for such a long time.
Her body was so very heavy, eyelids feeling like they were stuck in molasses as they blinked open so very slowly. She felt drained and tired as she lay there, staring at the ceiling. Staring at a ceiling. She was dead. She was supposed to be dead. Chakra exhaustion had come for her and blissfully freed her from that place of nightmares and eternal suffering and she was free and dead. She was dead too, and that was the crux of the matter.
She was supposed to be dead. Her heart was beating still – she could feel it in her chest, and fear hit her like a sucker punch to the gut. Fingers clenched in sheets—bedsheets, she figured after a brief look around and the feeling of a pillow behind her head. She hadn’t slept on a bed in years. She couldn’t really remember how long she had been a captive for. Long enough for that baby to grow into her worst tormenter. Just as her mother had been before her, and her mother before that…
But she wasn’t looming over her then, gloating about how they had somehow brought Sakura back from what was almost certainly a fatal injury. Her heart pounded in her chest, because gloating about her failed suicide attempt would be something she would do.
Slowly, ever so slowly, she gained her bearings, eyes narrowing at the light which seeped in through the window and the drawn red curtains. The room was dark though, covered in heavy furnishings like thick rug and the tall dark wood dresser close by her bedside, set in the corner of that room. Sakura thought she might have been able to live with that, had everything not been that shade of red. Red like spilled blood. Red like the colouring of her blood and innards mixed together.
She lurched out of bed, heart pounding then as she looked around the room wildly, taking a step towards the door and promptly falling flat on her face as the sheets tangled in her legs. Red sheets. Bloodied sheets. Her breath caught in her throat, and then she was back on her feet and stumbling out of that red-red-red room. The door slammed behind her with a definitive click and thunk, and Sakura rested her back against it then, breathing heavily as she tried to find balance in a body which felt wrong and out of shape. Though she had been tortured and chained up in the same place for years, so it probably wasn’t too surprising she was out of shape in some ways—but her seal had kept returning her to the state she had been, meaning she should have had some form of muscle…
Sakura lifted her arm in front of her, nausea stirring in her gut as she stared at the wrong shade of skin colour. She had been pale before, but her skin had an olive undertone to it. Not the ruddy red undertones and the pale porcelain which she had more associated with the Uchiha and the high-class nobles who stayed inside more often than not to avoid tanning. So why did she have those tones right then and there? Her breath caught in her throat again, and Sakura was vaguely aware she was on the verge of having a panic attack. She slid down the door then, clutching her knees to her chest as she tried to gather her wits about her. Because she was supposed to be dead, supposed to be in the Pure Lands, but her heart was beating and nothing looked vaguely familiar.
“Deep breaths,” she whispered, her voice piercing the thick silence around her – one which had only been broken by her ragged gasps, not that she could hear them over the ringing in her ears. “Deep breaths…” she murmured again, comforting herself in the fact she was no longer in that facility and she was no longer chained to that plinth. Her arms wrapped around herself, fingernails digging in until the pain hit her and she felt the familiar warm, sticky liquid rush over her skin then.
Startled, she drew back, staring as the blood trickled from those deep crescent gouges in her skin then, panic returning full force as the skin healed shut in seconds. Like it had when she had still been under the influence of her tragically modified Yin Seal. Her heart fluttered in her chest, fear rising in a crescendo as she stood up.
“No,” she muttered, because if the Yin Seal worked still, then she was still alive. “No,” she muttered again, because she had died of chakra exhaustion and she was supposed to be in the Pure Lands doing whatever dead things did. “No,” she muttered once more, because nothing was making sense anymore. Her feet moved then, moving her away from the red-red-red-like-blood room, and she walked across the hallway overlooking some sort of hallway below. She needed to figure out where she was, if she was in danger, and what exactly was going on. There was movement in the corner of her eye, and her head snapped around, heart in her throat as she caught sight of green eyes staring back at her.
Their hair was brown, unlike the white her own had turned after so many years of torment – the only thing the seal had allowed to change for some reason, the face undeniably female with that soft, heart-shaped face, delicate bow-shaped lips, thin, elegantly styled brows, and thick brown eyelashes which framed those big green eyes. She didn’t look like a threat, what with her small profile, and she looked as surprised as Sakura as they locked eyes. Taking a deep breath, she straightened up and took a step forwards before she stopped sharp. Because the brunette did the same, and that was a mirror opposite her which should have reflected herself in that frame, given how she was standing, but she could only see that strange brown-haired lady. Her breathing picked up again, a whimper and whine escaping her as she backpedalled sharply, eyes widening as she tumbled into and over the railing. Hair flew up around her as she fell, too stunned to even attempt to flip herself over. It was brown. Her hair was brown, just like that stranger in the reflection where she should have been. She didn’t quite understand how that could be.
Her back slammed into the ground, the snap of bone somewhere audible, pain throbbed through her then, giving her a single snippet of clarity amidst the madness clawing at the eaves of her mind, but her forehead was already pulsing in such a familiar manner, and then that pain was fading and ebbing as her body healed. Sakura lay there, staring at the ceiling in shock, numbness not from injury making her simply lie there and stare blankly at a chandelier which didn’t resemble any she had seen before. Nothing was familiar, not the patterns of the designs on the walls, nor any of the decoration there. Sakura didn’t understand. “No, no, no, no, no,” she muttered, because she was supposed to be dead and free. But those walls around her were closing in, and she couldn’t breathe, even as she vomited over herself, the taste hot and thick and making her gag as her stomach expelled whatever had been inside it. Her breath came in sharp pants, even after her stomach had finished expelling everything within it, and she curled up into a ball then, ignoring the horrid scent of her own sick permeating through the air. She had lived in and smelt worse.
She stayed like that, shaking and sobbing, curled up in a ball until the light from the window faded. Tiredness pulled at her limbs then, and she pulled herself to her feet, ignoring the mess on the floor and all over her then as an owl hooted someplace off in the distance. She needed to move to a more defensible and comfortable location if she wished to rest. Shivers crawled down her spine as her bare feet stepped over the cool tile, hairs rising on end as she realised just how long she had lain there on the ground for. And the fact no one had come across her lying like that, clearly having some sort of panic attack. That and nobody had come after she had fallen – something that might have killed a normal person. She was anything but ordinary by that point. After all, she was supposed to be something dead, yet there she was, seemingly alive, not in any form of Pure Lands, and in a body which wasn’t hers. Sakura was reasonably sure she was alone in that place, but it never hurt to be careful. She didn’t want to get captured and tortured again, and if anything or anyone found her to be a dead thing in a living body then they would probably want to know how she had achieved such a feat. Sakura didn’t want to be an experiment or a victim of curiosity, or a victim of torture yet again.
Before, she had only been caught because she had grown complacent and had let her guard down. She wouldn’t let her guard down ever again. She had to be cautious, in this new, strange place, even if she was seemingly alone. Her feet were near silent as she edged her way into the entranceway. The sight of the door which ultimately had to lead outside, or so the cloudy window on either side suggested made something in her shrivel up in fear, and Sakura hurried up the stairs, eager to get out of what she was tentatively classing as ‘the danger zone’.
The stairs were made from wood, heavy and dark, carpet runners set upon them, though Sakura was grateful they were a deep dark blue. Like the ocean. She hadn’t seen it in so long. Her feet made no noise atop the wonderful carpet, and so she padded up it carefully, ears straining to catch any sound of movement or breathing aside from her own. But chakra wasn’t threading through her ears, enhancing her hearing capabilities as it should have been. Sakura frowned at that, but she was managing just fine without her chakra right then and there. She could investigate the problem at a later late because something had definitely healed her after she had fallen before—before she had started panicking. But she was done panicking for now. She needed to find a safe place to hole up for the night, and it could hardly do that while she was panicking. Panicking could come second, and then could come research and monitoring of her strange new situation. Because that hadn’t been her body in the mirror, nor had that been her brown hair attached to her head. Something had changed, something had interfered, and now she wasn’t dead like she was supposed to be.
Sakura wasn’t quite sure what to feel about that much – she wanted to see Naruto and Sasuke again. They wouldn’t hurt her, nor would Ino or another of her friends. They had all died before her, leaving her alone, afflicted with that dodgy seal of hers which had only brought misfortune after misfortune upon her. She wanted to see them all again.
Yet her cursed seal was probably still in place, if the incident earlier was anything to go by. Sakura swallowed, throat feeling dry then, but she didn’t particularly care too much as she stumbled forwards, finding the first door which didn’t lead to a lounge area or a study. She hadn’t found a single trap as of yet, proving it likely wasn’t the house of a shinobi, but Sakura wasn’t about to let her guard down. The last time she had done that she had been captured and tortured. Sakura didn’t want that again, and so she hesitantly peered around the room there, heart leaping as she spied the not-red bedding on the large bed in the room and the overly large wardrobe. Safe, her instincts whispered, and Sakura wasted no time in carefully checking the area for possible traps or enemies hiding in the shadows before she hauled the blankets and pillows from the bed, and threw open the wardrobe. There were only a few clothes within, and she moved them to one side swiftly as she set up her bed there.
It was cosy in there, more so when she closed the wardrobe doors, and most importantly nothing was red. Rather than cloistering, the wardrobe walls felt protecting and comforting. They weren’t about to close in, and even if they did she could escape them easily enough. It wasn’t like there was a lock on the wardrobe, not even from the inside. Though that meant anyone could get to her – she would have some warning, because the wardrobe didn’t quite have solid doors for the most part – there were gaps where patterns of trees had been carved. She would be able to see a flash of movement before any sort of attack. Or so she hoped, as she curled up and pulled a forest green blanket to cover up her shaking body. She didn’t understand why or how she was there. But one thing Sakura knew for certain was that she would never be captured again. She refused to be tormented again, and she knew she was the only one she could rely upon to stop that.