“Trust yourself, Sakura,” I muttered. “You probably put a genjutsu on yourself to scramble the memory of whatever you really did. Which means you shouldn’t remember this either.”
They had me locked down with enough chakra suppression seals to pacify a bijuu, but fortunately you can’t completely cut off the flow of chakra inside someone’s brain without killing them. It took three tries, but eventually I managed to hit myself with an amnesia technique that would wipe the last six hours of my memory. Unfortunately it also knocked me out, and when I woke up there was only one of me again.
I calculated later that I must have spent most of a month in a drugged haze, while they picked me apart and pounded compulsions into my head. Don’t reset the loop. Don’t try to escape. Don’t split your mind. Don’t try to resist. It went on and on and on, until I dreamed the words, until I could barely think anything else.
I was dimly aware that they did other things while I slept. Someone with techniques like the Yamanaka’s peeled what was left of my shields apart one step at a time, and sifted through my memories looking for god knows what. They might have erased things, or put in memories that weren’t mine, but I was in no condition to tell the difference. I know they tried to make me forget… someone… golden hair and clear blue eyes and a smile that could light the world… Naruto, that was his name. I loved him, and they couldn’t change that, and as long as that blazing beacon of emotion remained I’d know the man it burned for. Some things are more stubborn than mere memory.
But who he was, how we met, what our past was together? I had only fragmentary images, of that any many other things.
One day they let me wake. I looked up from the floor where I was chained to find Sasuke, Pein and a redheaded kunoichi I felt I ought to recognize studying me.
“How are you feeling, Sakura?” Asked the woman.
“I won’t reset the loop,” I told her. It was a silly thing to say, since I somehow knew I could never do such a thing without permission anyway, but it was the rule that echoed the loudest.
She frowned. “I hope we didn’t overdo it. I asked how you’re feeling, not what the rules are.”
Oh. Well, in that case. “I’m badly dehydrated, I’ve got serious kidney damage from being overdosed on Vexadrine and Restasol at the same time, and I’m going into shock because you took me off the will suppressants too quickly. You’ve been starving me too, and I never got a chance to buff up my body this loop, so unless you plan on letting me heal myself I’m probably going to die soon.”
She hissed in frustration, and Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Pein frowned.
“I thought your people were better than that, Sasuke,” he said. “If we lose her all of this work will be for nothing.”
“Karin?” Sasuke asked pointedly.
“I can save her,” the redhead said hurriedly. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not good enough to work on someone like this without pushing the limits. Her mind is fantastically resistant to every drug I know of, but her physical reactions aren’t consistent at all. One day she throws off a treatment in minutes, and the next it lasts for hours, so I have to recalibrate constantly. I’m doing my best, but I don’t think she’s even human. Her chakra tastes so strange…”
Pein sighed. “Fine. See that she lives. Sasuke, I believe you’ll have to modify your standard program. I found memories of her absorbing a demon somehow, and spirit beings don’t react to stress the way humans do. Do they, Sakura?”
“You can torture me for a hundred years, and my mind will never snap,” I confirmed. “But that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Can we make a deal?”
“You see?” He said. “She won’t break in the traditional sense, but she can be made to adapt.”
“Hnn. What should I do with you, Sakura?” Sasuke asked thoughtfully.
“I’m a bad girl,” I heard myself say. “Bad girls need to be punished, and taught to be good. Why do you make me talk like this, Sasuke? I don’t like it.”
“Then why are you still here?” He said coldly.
“I won’t reset the loop!” I protested hotly. “I’m strong enough to take my punishment. I won’t give up, and what the hell am I saying?”
Pein gave a satisfied nod. “The compulsions will hold for now. I’ll warn you she was highly resistant, and there was considerable damage done. You’ll note that she isn’t entirely coherent.”
“I’m confident that she’ll recover once they wear off,” Sasuke replied. “How long will they last?”
“Years, normally. In her case, perhaps two or three months.”
“Plenty of time,” Sasuke said confidently. “Even for her, one month should be enough.”
“Can we please just make a deal?” I asked plaintively. “I don’t want to hurt anymore.”
Pein shook his head, and bent to put a hand on my forehead. “Sleep,” he said gently.
I did.
My cell had a light.
It was three feet wide and two feet deep, just big enough to hold me. Cold bands of chakra-forged steel encircled my limbs, three on each arm and four for each leg, all of them anchored deep in the wall of steel they pinned me to. On the inside the bands had spikes that pierced my limbs all the way through, between the bones and through the major muscle groups, just to ensure that I couldn’t wiggle free with some fancy technique. The three around my torso were the same, their spikes carefully placed to impale major muscles and bracket my organs without actually puncturing them.
The collar around my neck was festooned with IV lines running up to a fancy fluids dispenser above my head. The needles itched terribly, especially when my wounds got infected. But they never removed the ball gag and harness that kept my mouth shut, so the liquids the whirring machine dispensed into my veins at intervals were the only thing keeping me alive.
Of course, the drugs it dispensed were so strong I barely knew who I was most of the time. But floating in a dazed stupor was better than waiting for my next punishment, so I didn’t mind.
They didn’t bother to clothe me, and I worried sometimes that I’d catch cold and suffocate while no one was watching. There were chakra suppression seals tattooed over most of my skin, so many that even clearing up a little congestion was more than I could have managed. Karin was one of Orochimaru’s old assistants, and I could tell she wasn’t used to working on patients who were actually supposed to survive. She was far too careless about little details like that.
It made me a little sad that Sasuke still didn’t trust me not to escape. There was also a thrill of pride that he thought I was so dangerous, and sometimes curiosity about why. The few shattered fragments of memory I had left told me I’d been a damned good ninja, maybe even kage-rank. But in my current condition I’d be lucky if I could walk, let alone fight. An academy student could knock me out with ease.
Did I have other abilities I didn’t remember, that made all the caution justified? Or was Sasuke just that paranoid? I wondered.
But my cell had a light, and that made me happy.
There was writing on the inside of the door, right in front of me where I could read it easily. It said:
Sakura’s Punishments
For escaping — 11
For resetting her loop — 20
For hiding her powers — 10
The first number had started at 30, but I was more than halfway through it now.
Sasuke visited at irregular intervals, which was a classic tactic. I had no way to tell time, without clocks or windows or even mealtimes, and his schedule offered no clue. All I had was the numbers, slowly ticking off the increments of my punishment for transgressions I could barely remember.
We never stayed in my cell for long. He’d catch my gaze with those spinning red eyes, and I’d find myself kneeling at his feet in some outdoor location, under a night sky lit by a bloody moon. The first few times I’d tried to leap to my feet and… well, it was something bad, but I couldn’t remember what. A few days of uninterrupted punishment had taught me to be more obedient.