“Yeah. Don’t worry about it, Hinata, you did the right thing.” I sat up, and took stock of myself. I was naked, and covered from head to toe in minor cuts and bruises, but not seriously injured. Since my presence in this place was more a representation of my mind than a physical body, I surmised that the brainwashing hadn’t had too much effect on me yet.
My other self, however, was being questioned.
I suppressed a shudder, and tried not to feel what was happening to her. It wasn’t easy, especially with her reaching out to me and begging incoherently for help, but I needed to think.
“So Sasuke got to the looping Hinata first, and she set us up. They’ve got my contract, so he’s probably signed it by now. Damn it, I do not want that bastard to be able to call me whenever he wants. But the contract works both ways, so if we can get it to Naruto we should be able to work this out. First we summon Sasuke and kick his ass, then we can call the other Hinata and deprogram her. I hate changing someone else’s mind by force like that, but in this case I think I can safely say it’s the right thing to do.”
“I like this plan,” my Hinata agreed. “But the contract is still out there, and how are you going to do a summoning with your chakra suppressed?”
“Hmm. I might be able to pull it off by tapping my storage seal, but there are lots of ways that could go wrong. Better to do this the safe way. Naruto is bound to know something is wrong by now, since we didn’t come back and apparently he hasn’t been able to summon us. They must have me in some kind of containment seal to keep that from happening. But he’ll try again right after the reset, so I should just… I should… crap.”
“What’s wrong?” Hinata asked, concerned.
“Some kind of mind control genjutsu,” I growled, turning my senses inward. “Trying to keep me from deciding to… you know. But I’m not that easy. Yeah, ok, I see it now. I can figure this out…”
Hinata pulled me in close, and kissed me fiercely. I completely lost my train of thought, and for a moment I even forgot about what was happening to my other self.
“You don’t need to figure it out,” she told me, her eyes full of conviction. “You’re stronger than he is. Break it, and get us out of here.”
Nothing could make me disappoint those eyes. Certainly not some stupid genjutsu.
“You’re right, my love. This loop is shot. We need to go back, and try again.”
I barely had time to sit up in bed before Naruto’s summons came, and I gladly let it take me. But just as I appeared in his arms another call came, and plucked me away from him. I tried to resist, but it was far stronger than should have been possible. Even Sasuke and Hinata together wouldn’t have been that strong.
I was dragged unwilling across the void between worlds, but Naruto wasn’t going to give up that easily. He called me again, and my progress came to a halt. I felt a twinge of pain as his immense strength began to pry at the other summons, pulling me back towards him despite its best efforts. For a moment I thought he was going to win.
Then something new and terribly strong joined the other summoning attempt, and the force of the conflicting techniques became more than I could take. I screamed soundlessly as I was pulled back and forth, stretched across the formless space between worlds and nearly torn apart in the process.
I tried to split myself, hoping to satisfy each calling with an aspect and pull myself together later. But while Naruto’s summoning was satisfied with one of me, the other one wanted everything that was Sakura. The instant Naruto’s technique fixed on one of me the other was snatched away, into a quickly-growing maze of anti-summoning wards whose influence bled over onto the rest of me. Bit by bit I was torn out of Naruto’s failing grip, until I found myself sprawled across a concrete floor in the middle of a seal array. By then my other self was already caught in Sasuke’s Tsukuyomi, and his Hinata had my tenketsu closed and was already applying a knockout technique.
This time they kept me under for a long, long time.
I dreamed that I was being tortured, and interrogated, and tortured again. But I was a bad girl, so that was alright. Bad girls need to be punished. I wanted it to be over, but only cowards run away. I was a brave girl, and I could take my punishment. Then I’d learn to be good again, and everything would be alright.
Even in my half-aware state I knew there was something wrong with that line of thought, but I couldn’t put my finger on the problem. When I tried too hard bad things happened, and soon I learned not to do that. I didn’t want to be buried or baked or broken to bits, and those were the nicer options. It wasn’t so bad if I didn’t do anything, so mostly I didn’t try.
But they had to wake me up at least a little to question me, and they had so many questions. I was so dazed from the compulsions crowding my head I couldn’t understand words, but that didn’t stop them from trying. The red eyes spun like drills, burrowing into my soft brain in search of secrets. Vaguely I felt the barriers I’d erected over the course of my long traveling loop with Hinata cracking one by one, but there was nothing I could do.
Until one special barrier broke, and suddenly everything was crystal clear as the techniques I’d embedded in it discharged automatically. I slapped Sasuke’s probe aside and blew away a cloud of genjutsu as my body suddenly cleared of drugs, all to distract him from the aspect that dropped into my hidden mindscape.
I was chained to the floor in the middle of a massive seal array that covered every surface of what looked like an underground bunker. Every visible surface was chakra-forged steel, and there were several people I didn’t recognize spaced about the room. Sasuke stood immediately before me, looking down with an amused expression.
“What is this supposed to accomplish?” He asked mockingly. “Another summoning battle would destroy you, and how else do you expect to escape?”
I formed a Flame Rasengan on the tip of my nose and threw it into his face. But it flew away in entirely the wrong direction, and I realized that somehow I was still trapped in a genjutsu. Between that and my bonds there was no chance of a conventional escape.
“Why are you doing this? I won’t be your puppet, Sasuke!”
He sighed, and for the first time I saw something that might have been a hint of regret in his eyes. “I hardly think you’ll help me kill Naruto of your own will, Sakura,” he said sardonically.
“Of course not!” I retorted. “But why would you even want to do that?”
“It is necessary,” he said shortly. “But I’m not going to make the mistake of explaining myself to an enemy. You are far too slippery for such carelessness. I will win in the end, but I wouldn’t put it past you to somehow get a message to Naruto in the interim.”
Everything was getting hazy again, as the surge of chakra released by my barrier was eaten away by the suppression seals that covered most of my body. But their influence couldn’t reach into my inner mindscape, and I could feel my other self busily doing something in there. So all I needed to do here was distract him, and maybe fish for information.
“Sasuke, I’ve had decades to think of ways to fight you,” I protested. “You can’t break me the way you did before. Why are you so intent on doing it this way? If you’ve found out something we don’t know, just tell us!”
“I’ve said all I intend to,” he replied. “Fight as hard as you feel you must, Sakura. But you’re experienced enough to know that no one can hold out forever. If you’re wise you will give in while there is still something left of you.”
Then the world faded away again, and the me on the outside lost consciousness.