AN: Yes, I made it! Another chapter! Hope you'll all enjoy x

Preliminaries - II

Naruto

It's the last fight of the day.

The first really though, Kurama notes, the others were boring.

Yes, Naruto agrees. Yes they had been. The only one that had been remotely interesting had been Sasuke and Hinata's – two children from the main family of Konoha's two most prestigious clans, pitted against each other. They had the potential to be an amazing pairing, but it had just been bland. Dry. The demon sand could have been interesting, Naruto supposed, but his fight had never eventuated. Pity.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Naruto thinks that there's something more to Sasuke and Hinata, something he should be remembering, feeling. It's like an itch at the back of his head, just underneath his skin in a place he can't reach anymore.

If you can't remember, why bother?

That's a good point, Naruto acknowledges, they're just obstacles after all.

"Uzumaki Naruto v Abumi Zaku," Hayate announces. Naruto steps away from the other genin, their wishes of good luck brushing over him noiselessly as he jumps down onto the lower level.

Abumi Zaku… he'd heard that name before, somewhere. What had been the kid's fighting style again? He can't quite remember. Is he the one that drained chakra? But the boy was a Sound genin, so maybe he's the one who did something with the air waves, like Kin.

Does it matter? We'll just take what's coming.

True. It's not as if he won't be able to handle anything this genin throws at him. Because despite the superiority complex all the Sound genin seem to have, they all pale in comparison to what he has, what he will have once he crushes all these…

"Match, begin!" Hayate musters with as much enthusiasm as he can before turning away and falling into another coughing fit.

Weak… Kurama murmurs.

Zaku waits a few moments, surveying Naruto. Perhaps this boy isn't as stupid as the others – after all, he had the sense not to rush at him without knowing his capabilities, something the other genin seemed to demonstrably lack.

He'll crack soon.

Kurama's right. Zaku straightens up, trying to seem taller than Naruto. Not that it's too hard to tower over him considering how he'd always been quite short at this age, even now.

"Aren't you going to come at me?" Zaku taunts. "Or you too weak midget?"

A good taunting strategy… would have been successful in the past.

"I suppose so," Naruto murmurs in response to Kurama, thinking back to his old, impulsive days. But Zaku seems to take it as a response to his earlier comment because he chuckles and readies himself for action, bouncing on his feet as his lip curls back in a sneer.

Wait… he remembers Zaku now. He's the one that'd been injured before. Sling in one arm. From the curse-marked Uchiha Sasuke.

"Well then," Zaku grins, hackles rising in anticipation, "Guess it's my go now." He rushes forward with a kunai first, arm raised, ready to slash and incapacitate Naruto's dominant arm.

His stance is off, Kurama comments. Naruto eyes the approaching genin and notes how he favours his right side, leaving his left open to attack.

Unstable on his feet, Naruto agrees. And his grip on his kunai is a bit crooked – he won't get a clean hit…

He's right. The kunai only manages to nick his arm – he hadn't even dodged but the slanted kunai had mitigated any real damage.

No. That's a lie. His arm is bleeding now. The blood flows out – and out – but it's stopped now.

I've got your back, Kurama purrs. The wound knits itself together, painfully. There's no soothing green chakra which rolls over the wound like anaesthetic – this is just pure pulling the flesh together, meshing them until they click.

"What the fuck?" Zaku murmurs, staring blatantly at Naruto's healed arm. Perversely, Naruto feels a grin creeping up his face.

On the other hind Zaku steps back, slightly perturbed, but then someone – Zaku's teammate? – shouts at him to get on with it and he lunges forward with the kunai again.

"Crooked grip," Naruto whispers, and Zaku snarls, Naruto's comment being, funnily enough, the distraction which causes Zaku to swerve and actually manage to imbed the kunai into Naruto's left arm.

Zaku wrenches the kunai out victoriously and scoots back, pulling out some shuriken for a secondary attacck. Naruto looks down at his arm – already beginning to knit itself back together – before pulling his head up again to stare at the genin.

Zaku's grip slackens on his kunai as he eyes the pink flesh of Naruto's arm.

"What is wrong with you?" he whispers, backing away slowly. "What the hell?" He looks up at the balconies, and belatedly Naruto follows his gaze up. The jounin are stirring, the air is stifling.

"Hurry it up!" Someone – the girl – Kin – shouts.

Zaku bristles and turns back to Naruto, determinedly ignoring his wound. "I- I'm going to finish you," he shouts, raising his shuriken threateningly.

Turning to the familiar for comfort – anger… Sounds like someone we know…

Ignoring Kurama's comments, Naruto turns his attention back to the lunging genin.

Third time unlucky, Naruto decides, because this time as Zaku leaps towards him, weapons raised in that crooked grip and open stance, Naruto locks him in the eye.

"Stop," he whispers, then his mother's adamantine sealing chains shoot out from his palms, curling around the genin and wrenching him frozen, poised still with hand raised in motion. Inside, Kurama purrs with content.

"You- you haven't seen anything yet!" Zaku shouts as he struggles against Naruto's chains. Not giving up yet, Naruto notes – an admirable trait. Too bad it might kill him. Cocking his head to the side, Naruto raises the genin higher into the air. Will it make him squirm more?

"Let- let me go!" Zaku shouts, as if that's going to make a difference. He struggles some more and Naruto grits his teeth. How annoying. He snakes another chain down the genin's arms to his right hand, the one with the shuriken in his grasp. With a clenching of his fist the chain tightens and Zaku is forced to drop the shuriken, or else imbed his own hand in them.

"Zaku!" his teammate is still shouting. What a pest. "Get your act together! Zaku!"

Where were his teammates anyway… MIA? Missing in action? KIA? Killed in action? Yes… that was it, wasn't it? That had always been it.

"I'm an air user you know!" Zaku manages to say without stumbling over his words. "I'll- I'll get you!"

He spoke too soon, it seems. But at least the genin seems finally spurred to do something besides standing there with his dull weapons. He can feel the chakra of Zaku under his chain stirring, in preparation for some sort of jutsu, and vaguely Naruto feels someone calling his name. It seems to be one of the jounin… the one with the mask… Kakashi. That's right. What was that other sound he'd heard though? That buzzing in the background?

"Should we interfere-"

"What is tha-"

"-orange-"

Aah… People are asking questions… questions about him… about the orange that envelops the deadly grey chains. Konoha won't be happy…

Konoha doesn't like questions…

Zaku sends out a burst of air, highly pressurised, and surprisingly well-aimed considering his current predicament and previous kunai throwing. It's just too bad he's going against a wind user – Naruto is in his element – he's always in his element – and the attack is pathetically easy to dodge.

Maybe he should spice things up a little. Naruto tightens his chains experimentally and Zaku screams. Boring. He twists the chain. Something snaps. One of Zaku's arms…? He'll be in a sling again, then…

Or maybe not. The arm seems to be quite… detached. The skin is all there, intact, it just seems floppy. He twists it and Zaku screams even harder.

And then he hears – "Naruto!"

Someone is calling his name. Many people are calling his name. Kakashi… who is that though – who is that person who calls and calls and-

"Naruto!"

"Uzumaki Naruto-"

"Uzu-"

"Naruto!"

"-maki-"

Why were they so loud? Goodness… it shouldn't matter. They let all sorts of weird things happen the last time around – it's just because he's the one doing it this time around, him with the orange around his body. He coils the muscles in his arms and twists and turns the chain, almost grinding the body underneath.

Yes…

"Hokage-sama…"

"Naruto this is so unecessar-"

Naruto!

"Hinata," Naruto murmurs. That was who was calling – that was the Hyuuga's name. Hinata. No. That was wrong. She wasn't Hyuuga Hinata. She was- she was Hinata but Hyuuga seemed – was she a Hyuuga? She must've been but- but she was an-

"Uzumaki-!"

"Hokage-sama should we stop him-"

The Hokage stands up from his chair. Naruto frowns. Zaku screams.

"Let me go let me go you're fucking sick why aren't you stopping him- ow!-"

"Naruto-"

"-you're crazy crazy I'm ending this now- extreme decapitation airwaves-"

Naruto's attention snaps back to the bug in his grasp. The boy is releasing large, large airwaves – they're going to wipe out this whole building with everything in it.

Naruto closes his eyes. He reaches with his chains and pushes them into the air tubes in the boys arms just as the technique begins causing it to implode within – implode, implode and the boy will explode-

He does. Naruto opens his eyes and there's blood, guts, and fractured snippets of bones littered all around the place.

"Oh my god-"

"Uzumaki-"

"Hokage-sama-"

"Medic-"

"Naruto!"

"Medics will be of no help."

"Hokage-sama-"

"Call the ANBU we need to secure the boy secure the area-"

"Naruto why- why-"

Naruto turns around. The earth walls someone had raised up for protection in case Naruto hadn't stopped Zaku's deadly technique crumble down. Someone – the Hyuuga but not – turns around and pukes and another boy – white hair, round glasses, rubs her back and soothes her with his silver tongue and the jounin are jumping down onto the ground and coming for him-

"Everybody SHUT UP!" Sakura screams.

For a second there is stillness. Then noise erupts but that's enough time because Naruto has turned towards the eruption-

Sasuke locks him dead in the eye.

"Naruto-kun?" Hinata whimpers.

"I'm sorry," Sakura whispers.

"Everybody step back," Sasuke says, and Kurama is shouting in his head, incoherent words, but there's something about Uchiha Sasuke that drowns out the black words in his head-

Sakura lunges away and tackles the white haired boy leaning over Hinata.

Sasuke looks Naruto in the eye and says – "Tsukuyomi."

Naruto goes down.

Sasuke

Sasuke's been inside Naruto's head a few times.

None of those times were ever too pleasant.

There'd always been something about Naruto that'd bugged him, ever since they were genin. Mostly it'd been the fact that Naruto had always been so obnoxiously loud, meaning that migraines often followed their encounters… But even he had known that that wasn't it, that that had been too simplistic to be it.

Perhaps, Sasuke muses as he looks down on Naruto's twitching body, perhaps it'd been how the blonde was always so happy. So cheerful. So bloody optimistic when Sasuke had known – he had always known that the blonde hadn't been living a good life. That the villagers had hated him and it'd been like an oppressive blanket that'd just smothered him, all the time, every day, pushing him down and down. Of the half rotting meat for his meals, or the muddied laundry that came back in the basket, or the hate the fear that was in every gaze, the contempt, the mistrust.

Naruto had lived a hard life. They'd been two different materials in the same mould. Or maybe they'd been the same material shoved into two different moulds.

And he'd always known that there was something wrong with the boy. Because everyone had known – deep down everyone had known! – that poor little Sasuke was going to snap because look at him the poor dear his brother has murdered his whole fucking family and wasn't that just a tragedy. But little Naruto hadn't been so poor or pathetic at all because look at how happy he was all the bloody time.

And he had been. Because sometimes Sasuke truly believed that Naruto had beenhappy. And that- that had been possible because all of that negativity, all of that – that hate – had been locked up in a little part of his brain in a chest that was to be never opened. It had been the part of him that he'd overcome, that he'd embraced to become a good Hokage, a great Hokage – one of the best leaders the world had ever come to see…

But then there'd been another war.

And- and- they'd never talked about this, because Sakura had been dead and so had he all dead and dead- it had been Naruto who'd had to pick up the pieces. Naruto who had sent them all back in time.

Because the terrifying thing was – is – that there'd been something in that demented mind of his, of the fox's, that facilitated something so utterly destructive it ripped apart the entire fabric of this whole universe, of time itself.

But!

But he has 72 hours now.

And he will – he will fixthis.

"And how the tables have turned," Sasuke murmurs.

Below him Naruto stares up at him with wide eyes, body still prone, lying on the ground.

"Tsukuyomi…" the blonde echoes.

"Yes," Sasuke notes, and he leans down and extends a hand. Naruto looks up at his hand before grasping it and pulling himself up.

"Where have you taken us Sasuke?" Naruto asks quietly.

Sasuke stares steadily at his teammate. Naruto stare back, eye-level, with completely blue eyes.

"I don't have the chakra stores at this age to create an environment yet," Sasuke says quietly. "Which is why this is your construction – your mind, Naruto. Where your deepest… thoughts… have taken us. And it is why we appear to be as old as we were when we- when I died."

Naruto looks around, and takes in the death.

When Sasuke had let the setting slip from his fingers, he hadn't known where they would end up. He had been tempted to tell Naruto it would be the place of this deepest fear, but he knows that really, that isn't true – there are other emotions just as strong, just as prominent, and they intermingle so much that you can't ever distinguish wherever this is – only that it is a place of strong, strong emotion.

"Have I ended up as Kakashi?" Naruto murmurs quietly, running his finger down the memorial stone. Just behind him towers the Uchiha cenotaph. Both are the only things in the barren landscape, dark brown under the red sky. Names and names of the dead line the stone and bleed down onto the ground. Names go on, endless, kanji melting into one another.

"Where do you think this is? Is this my dominant emotion? Guilt?"

Sasuke looks down at the ground, traces some of the names. He doesn't recognise any.

"Who are they?" he asks quietly.

"People that died," Naruto says quietly. "When I- when I was Hokage. But- but- that doesn't answer your question. I- I don't know. I don't know who they are – I never met them. They were just names to me. Numbers of squads. I can't tell you who- who-" He bends down and traces kanji frantically. "I never knew who Hajime Kenji was! I don't know if he had a family, a pregnant wife at home, if he was optimistic, pessimistic, idealistic, or if he owned a fish shop that was his pride and joy-"

Naruto cries.

Sasuke doesn't know what to say, or how to even describe it. Naruto's crying starts off with just a few tears that leak from his eyes, but his teammate has never been one to be understated. Soon the crying becomes louder, and louder, and the tears increase, falling down in flat plops onto the dead ground, and Naruto heaves, chest rising and falling with his rapid breaths. He collapses onto the ground, knees shaking. He's guttural in his crying.

Sasuke lets out a small breath. His cheeks are wet.

And after what could have been minutes or hours – who knows with Tsukuyomi? – Naruto's tears subside until there's only silence again in this construction.

"What did I just do out there?" Naruto asks quietly. "Out there – to all those genin?"

Sasuke watches him and chooses not to respond, instead just staring and waiting, because he knows that Naruto will pull through-

"How do I fix it?" Naruto asks determinedly.

And Sasuke smiles. He's never needed to fix Naruto because – because that was why Naruto was Naruto, why he was the Hokage and not him because he knew how to put himself back together after things that were truly horrible and wasn't that…

"Whatever you did," Sasuke says slowly, "Just undo it."

"That's easy for you to say…" Naruto says, cracking a small bittersweet smile. "Hard for me to do."

"…You undid the seal didn't you?"

Sasuke looks over at his old companion. Naruto sighs and nods.

"Then do it back up again," Sasuke says simply.

Naruto looks up at him flatly. "Me. Twelve years old. Up against the nine-tailed fox trying to force him back into his cage. That will go well, I can tell."

Sasuke rolls his eyes. "No need to be sarcastic. Plus. You'll have help."

Naruto eyes him slowly. "Please. Elaborate."

"Well…" Sasuke drawls, dropping down onto the ground next to Naruto. "While you and I are here chilling for the next three days, guess who's supporting you out there doing all the damage control you and I managed to avoid?"

"Oh no," Naruto groans. "Crap. Poor Sakura. Lovely Sakura. But- man. She's going to be pissed."

"Pissed as hell." Sasuke nods.

"As in pissed like that one time she caught you and I reading Kakashi-sensei's stash of Icha-"

"We agreed never to bring that up again," Sasuke cuts in quickly, and Naruto chuckles. Their voices echo amongst the barren plain, but it's less lonely with two.

"She was so mad man, but I pulled the 'I'm so upset' face because I said I was just reminiscing over Jiraiya and she felt so guilty afterwards-"

"-she made us all dinner," Sasuke finishes. "Yeah. I remember. That's when she was in her experimental phase with cooking though and who knows what the hell was in it 'cause I went home that night and I puked."

"Yeah! Like aren't medics supposed to be good cooks and stuff?"

Sasuke snorts. "If she hears that she'll slaughter you."

"Yeah," Naruto murmurs. "Screw that, Hinata will slaughter-"

Naruto suddenly falls silent and Sasuke swallows awkwardly. He doesn't quite know what to say, and he's never been the talkative one, and gosh where is Sakura when you need her-

The ground rumbles beneath them.

Sasuke and Naruto sit up immediately.

"What was that?" Naruto asks slowly. "I thought you said it would only be us for three days."

"Maybe your fox is more powerful than we'd imagined…" Sasuke murmurs, reaching into his robe for Kusanagi.

"What the hell? How do you have that thing?" Naruto asks in disgust. "And where are my weapons?"

"Dobe," Sasuke sighs, rolling his eyes. "Have you looked at what you're wearing? You're older now, you're not in that stupid orange jumpsuit."

Naruto looks down. "My Hokage robes! That's why you're in that ugly purple rope thing."

"Shut up," Sasuke growls.

Naruto simply pulls out his own set of kunai. "So we going to fight Kurama or what?"

"It's not Kurama," Sasuke says, eyes training on the growing crack in the ground. "It's his influence on your mind."

"Close enough," Naruto says, rolling his eyes. "But… it's a pity I'll have to fight him. I'd hoped we'd get along."

"Tch," Sasuke snorts. "Of course you had."

The ground begins to splinter and he tightens his grip on Kusanagi. A shadowy silhouette of Kurama rises and- really? Is that the best Naruto's mind could come up with?

"You ready teme?" Naruto taunts, spinning his kunai. "We're gonna spend three days fighting this thing."

"I really wish you'd stop dreaming up monsters dobe," Sasuke sighs, feeling a smile creep on at the familiar feel of Kusanagi at his fingertips. "But I suppose I'm ready."

"Suppose?" Naruto grins, hackles rising in preparation as the monster begins to charge.

Sasuke grins, angling Kusanagi. "I'm ready."

Sakura

Sakura grits her teeth.

She bets Sasuke and Naruto are having the time of their lives now, aren't they, in that lovely Tsukuyomi while she has to deal with- with- with this!

Sakura is pissed.

No- no- she has to stay calm. Deep breaths.

Quickly surveying the area with her medic eye – her default calm mode – she divides the area into three problems she has to conquer. First, there's the genin – huddled in a corner, with the open window behind them from where Kabuto had run out – bastard. Then there's the jounin, torn between running towards the genin and running to the Hokage. And unfortunately, that's the third problem – the Third Hokage himself, looking quite displeased with the whole situation. And knowing Sarutobi's usual poker face, that says a lot.

No.

Wait.

There's four problems crap what'd she been thinking?

Sabaku no Gaara.

Shit. Shit! Of course it'd be just like Naruto and Sasuke to leave her here and couldn't Sasuke just speed up the bloody thing already?! Gaara is about to go crazy out there because there's a tense atmosphere and shit just went down and the Hokage's too bloody caught up in the Naruto crisis and calling for ANBU or some other shit to deal with it!

"Kakashi-sensei!" she calls out. Because goddamn it she needs to rely on someone now and she would throw her own life into his hands. "Please – please – I need you to take Gaara away from here – away! Now!"

And her sensei is looking at her like she's- like she's a twelve year old girl with pink hair but there's no time for this!

"Please," she begs, "Kakashi – I need you to see me as an equal right now. I need you to trust me. Take him away and I promise – I'll take care of the rest just- please."

Her sensei tightens his jaw and nods, lifting up his headband to reveal his sharingan.

"Leave him to me."

Sakura nods in thanks and resists the urge to collapse. She needs to pull herself together goddamn it!

"You!" she screams to the remaining jounin, "Help them! Help them!" She gestures towards the balcony where the other genin are still standing, half in shock and terror. But why is no one moving?

Sakura sends out a huge wave of killer intent towards the genin, just as Kakashi pulls Gaara away, and that snaps most of the jounin into action, quickly shunshin'ing over to where the genin are crippled in fear.

"Get them out!" Sakura screams, because she doesn't know how successful Sasuke is in there, in Naruto's head.

That's when a hand closes in on her arm and she thinks – it's about bloody time the ANBU got here!

She curbs her killing intent, letting the genin sag in relief, before twisting around to face the ANBU. Using her super strength – something certainly unexpected by the ANBU – she manages to break free from his grasp and shunshin away, making the ANBU's second swipe connect only with air.

She needs to hurry up because Naruto and Sasuke are lying there prone, unconscious, and she needs to do something before people start prodding at their bodies.

Sakura appears at the Hokage's foot, interrupting him half way through his briefing of Asuma. Both turn to her and Asuma immediately pulls out a kunai. But he wavers, unsure of whether or not to raise arms against a young student – a genin, at that. The Hokage seems to have no such problem however, because Sakura sees the bulge of his hand under the robes right over his weapons pouch, in a familiar stance she'd come to see in Naruto.

"Please Hokage-sama," Sakura begs immediately, dropping down onto one knee in the traditional ANBU pose. "I need- please listen to me, please, please please-"

The Hokage grabs her shoulder and pulls her up, looking at her with a steady eye.

"You best tell me what's going on girl," he says quietly. "Especially considering one of your teammate has snapped, the other has used the Tsukuyomi, and your sensei is taking orders from you."

The ANBU who had tried to grab her materialises by the Hokage's side.

"Yamanaka Inoichi has arrived Hokage-sama."

The Hokage turns to Asuma.

"I'm going to need you to take care of this situation. Can you do it?"

Asuma nods, and Sakura lets out a sigh of relief. Yeah. Let someone else deal with the fallout.

"Now," Sarutobi says, turning back to Sakura. "Are you going to come with me, or do we need to…"

"Do it here," Sakura says immediately.

Sarutobi knots his eyebrows. "I'm afraid-"

"Inoichi-san's here, is he not?" Sakura counters, then immediately adds – "I'm not leaving my teammates."

To be honest, there's no way she's letting Inoichi mindwalk her. But she just needs to stall – stall and stall and stall until Tsukuyomi lets off and her teammates wake up. But she also needs to make sure her teammates wake up in a safe environment.

"Unless," Sakura adds quickly, "Unless you take them with us."

Sarutobi smiles. "We were going to do that anyway."

He gestures to two ANBU and they quickly drop down, grabbing both boys. Sakura watches sharply, making sure both are always in her eyesight.

"You'd best take us to the C-Block," she says quickly.

The Hokage eyes her with a critical eye and she knows they'll be in for heavy questioning later – especially in regards to how she knows about the C-Block. But hey, at least by then both Sasuke and Naruto will have bloody woken up-!

"Alright," the Hokage says, and with some unspoken signal three ANBU ambush her and clamp on chakra restrictors. Sakura grits her teeth and forces down her instinctual reaction to resist and lets them attach them onto her – though three is a bit excessive, isn't it?

"Remember," the Hokage says quietly, "You volunteered yourself for the C-Block."

"Always a joy," Sakura manages to say before the Hokage wrenches open a window and jumps out, the ANBU lugging the bodies of her two teammates behind her.

"Cat," the Hokage says, once they're all safely outside the building, "Find Kakashi. Otter, take both boys. Tiger, secure Haruno-san. I'll accompany you to the C-Block and brief Inoichi, and then I'll have to return here."

"Yes Hokage-sama," the ANBU squad murmurs in unison. As Cat transfers Sasuke's prone body onto Otter's back, Sakura experimentally sends small, smoothing streams of chakra down her arms, testing the chakra clamps on both her wrists which have manacled her hands together. She can get some minimal chakra through, but not much. This time the Hokage has been meticulous. Were they already expecting some sort of trouble?

"Let's go," the Hokage murmurs, and Sakura is thrown over the shoulder of Tiger and the three remaining ninja leap off to ANBU, C-Block.

The ANBU Building is… not actually a building. It'd been a name made up to confuse those who wanted information, and to be truthful ANBU never had a need for a building anyway. All ANBU operations were covert ones, and ANBU often only rendezvoused in the Hokage Tower or, if need be, at a few predetermined hotspots.

Except, of course, the C-Block. Again, a misleading name – there is no A-Block, nor is there a B-Block. C-Block is the only real building ANBU converges in, a small two-story structure masquerading as a storage building – a façade that explains all the materials that will go in and out, often including body bags. The first level is that of the minimal administration and paperwork requirements of ANBU, such as those of pay – most ANBU missions are off the record.

The level underneath…

As they approach the facility, the entourage has slipped into a genjutsu. The Hokage had gone ahead to meet with Inoichi, and Cat and Tiger are now a young couple. Cat is a young man, carrying two chairs – Naruto and Sasuke, and Tiger is a young woman carrying Sakura – a toddler wrapped in a multitude of blankets.

The ANBU stationed as the door does the customary façade – cooing over the toddler, helping Cat with one of the bodies. It all makes Sakura feel as if her two teammates are simply dead bodies, carried for incineration. And apparently the genjutsu detects this, because her toddler form starts crying.

The door shuts behind them and the genjutsu cracks.

"Take them below," an ANBU that had been stationed at the door murmurs. Tiger nods and motions to Cat, the two of them dragging Team 7 down to the lower level.

The real C-Block.

"Close your eyes," Tiger whispers, and Sakura almost gasps in surprise because – because ANBU are nice here – they're – nice – or maybe it's just Tiger but she does she closes her eyes and she doesn't see-

She doesn't see the prisoners strung up against the cell wall, she doesn't see the gaunt look of prisoners, ragged and dying and tortured, lying in cells while some Konoha agent masquerades, takes away their identity. She doesn't see the blood which smears the ground, the sparseness of the cells because nothing's sharp there - nothing that will allow the prisoners any sort of escape, any sort of mental escape - they're stuck here. They can't kill themselves. The C-Block is their home for the rest of their lives. She hears the screams, the crying, but its minimal – most of the people here have been broken beyond repair. They have no minds.

And that is why this is really the only place they can take Team 7.

Cat and Tiger deposit the three of them, thankfully, in the same cell, even though that means that all their bodies are pressed up against each other. A second later, the Hokage emerges with Inoichi.

"Please listen-" Sakura says immediately, but the Hokage's stare is stone cold. And then Inoichi is in her mind, pulling, scratching-

Sakura falls back and closes her eyes.

She loses consciousness and Inner awakes.

AN: Well the drama's certainly increasing. My current plan is that this story will probably end soon, and I've got a good plan for where it goes - maybe 2, 3 chapters? So as you can tell they'll be quite content heavy, and maybe an epilogue after that. We'll see... So hopefully it'll be completed soon!

Thanks to all those that left comments last chap: FreelanceBum, Loner Kid, greymouser, Guest, Guest, Guest, Suzululu4moe, Enigma infinite, BurningSaiyan, pucflek, Guest, Blindguy95, Catcrazzed, Guest, Lord Alania, God General Mai, usaginekohime, SilverWhiteDragon, Arrocha Semotis Vir, Illuminated, NarutoXHonoka, Ninisty, Lonely Athena, Otakugal, Pinoy Gamer, Lamelinam, Guest, sauskaepanda, Uhh, darkpiro9, Kurai Ummei, yellowpigeonpoop, fascalia, guest, The King in White and Ruinous Crow. Lots of love guys, it's greatly appreciated!

Hope you all enjoy, and thanks for sticking with me all this time x It's wrapping up soon!