467? Dear lord, this manga is never going to end.

Realm of the Mask

By Allegra

The sun was bright as four young shinobi clad in traveling cloaks and an impossibly huge dog made their way down a dirt trail. Sakura kept her eyes on her feet as she walked, only half listening to Rock Lee's largely one-sided discussion with Kiba behind her. Sai walked in front of her, silent and unreadable as usual. Sakura grimaced at the contrast between his calm exterior and her own inner turmoil. She knew that she was all too readable at the moment, and that what her cell mates saw worried them, but she was too busy sorting through her confused thoughts to care much what they saw. She was giving up on a dream that had sustained her through endless tear-filled nights, brought her hope when she was almost ready to stop hoping— she was giving up on Sasuke. And worse, she was going to have to convince Naruto to give up on Sasuke. Sakura wasn't sure she could do it, even if she tried, but she knew that no one else stood a chance of convincing the blonde; his optimism bordered on willful ignorance. She would have to resign herself to the fact that if she saw Sasuke again, she would be forced to try to kill him.

Sakura was holding up, and that was enough. No one really expected her to be okay right now.

"Which way?" Sai asked tonelessly. Sakura glanced up and saw that they had come to a fork in the road.

"Keep straight," Kiba called up. Sai nodded shortly and continued.

"I don't like this," Sakura muttered, finally taking the time to concentrate on their surroundings. They were walking on a simple dirt road, with a smattering of trees too sparse to be called a forest to their left and nothing but open fields to their right. "It's too open, anyone can see us coming from a mile away."

"It's the fastest way," Sai reminded her from ahead, though his Root training had instilled him with enough knowledge to know that it was not the safest way. A quick pace took highest priority right now.

"Besides, we'll see them from a mile away too," Kiba added.

"You would think."

The procession immediately halted, each shinobi glancing around and trying to pinpoint where the alien voice had come from— a feat that proved harder in practice than in theory.

"Kiba, I thought you were on the lookout for trackers," Sakura snapped, albeit quietly, brow furrowing in irritation as she automatically reached for a kunai.

"I was, I didn't smell anything; neither did Akamaru. Still don't," Kiba growled, unnerved that someone had slipped by him so easily. Sakura felt for a chakra signal, and found none apart from those of her group.

"Don't be too hard on him," the voice admonished as a cloaked figure sporting a familiar orange, swirled mask emerged from behind a tree, balancing on a branch. The Konoha shinobi stiffened, each crouched and ready to intercept an attack. Uchiha Mandara made no move beyond a friendly wave; Sakura could picture him smiling condescendingly behind his mask. As if they were absolutely no threat.

And they weren't, were they? They were four teenagers, only one of which had a particular bloodline advantage, and it wasn't a very powerful one. They were impressive shinobi, especially for their ages, but they were not geniuses; or really even child prodigies, by Konoha standards. And he was Uchiha Mandara. Sakura's frown deepened as she straightened herself, body still tensed. If this became a battle, they would lose. Never giving up only got one so far, and they were hopelessly outclassed.

"What do you want?" Sakura called up, doing her best to sound calm and authoritative. Though her voice came out strong, judging by the Uchiha's chuckle, he was not impressed. Sakura's unoccupied hand balled into a fist.

"Now, you already know that," Mandara replied. Those who had risen out of their battle stances immediately fell back into them as he hopped down, barely pausing to land before he began to approach them. Sakura stood her ground, a few paces closer to him than the rest of the group. A second later, Rock Lee was at her side, obviously eager to block her from their incoming opponent. Sakura wasn't sure if she was touched or annoyed by the motion.

"You are after Naruto," Sai stated, coming to stand on Sakura's other side. Kiba and Akamaru took their places next to Lee.

"That's right," Mandara bobbed his head in affirmation as he approached them. "How lucky that I ran into you all. So, tell me, where is the kyuubi?"

"I don't know," Sakura answered automatically; a little too quickly, but without any ticks or overt signs of falsehood. Mandara paused, tilting his head to the side.

"Yes you do. You're a couple centuries to young to be lying to me, little girl."

Then he was gone.

Sakura whirled around in time to just barely dodge a kunai swipe aimed for her throat. They always did seem to go for her. Lee let out an inarticulate shout of rage, Sai's ink was out, and suddenly a battle had started. Sakura sighed, gathering her chakra in her fists as she launched herself at her attacker. It wasn't as if diplomacy would have worked anyway.

Predictably, Sakura's fist phased right through Mandara. She used the momentum of her punch to swing around for a low kick, which Mandara opted to jump over before flipping backwards, avoiding a swipe from Kiba. Sakura winced as one of Sai's ink beasts nearly took out Akamaru on its way to attack Mandara, much to Kiba's chagrin.

"We need to make a formation!" Sakura called; not the easiest thing to do in the midst of battle. She growled as the idea was mostly ignored; Kiba and Sai did at least fall back a bit as Lee engaged Mandara directly, looking for an opening to jump in and help. This was bad. As if they weren't outmatched enough, the four of them had never really fought together as a team before; Sakura was just starting to get used to teaming up with Sai. Lee was thrown backwards as Mandara managed to land a kick, and Sakura jumped up to catch him before he could fly into a tree. The impact sent them both plummeting to the ground, but Sakura landed on her feet.

"Thanks," Lee said quickly, panting slightly as they both righted themselves and ran back towards the fight.

"Look out," Sakura advised, channeling chakra into her hand and slamming it into the ground. Lee jumped out of the way as rocks jutted out of the ground from the impact, leaving a deep crevice in their wake the was headed straight for Mandara. The Uchiha dodged to the right, allowing an ink creation to get caught in the blast, but Sakura was right behind it. She raised her hand to catch his arm as he aimed a kunai at her, and was surprised when she actually succeeded. Her grip was nearly hard enough to break his wrist, and she knew that she could if she applied just a little more pressure; Sakura looked up at the blank mask quizzically, wondering why he was letting her.

"Where is the kyuubi?" he asked, somehow making Sakura feel as if she was the one being held hostage. She hastily averted her eyes when she caught a glimpse of red beyond the mask; she was a master of breaking genjutsu, but the sharingan was far beyond her control. She kept her eyes firmly focused on the middle of his mask when she looked back up at him.

"Where is Sasuke?" she returned, challengingly. Mandara seemed surprised by the question, though it was impossible to tell. Perhaps she was just projecting her own feelings onto him; hadn't she just resolved to give up on Sasuke?

"A friend of my apprentice," Mandara's tone was amused, and Sakura could think of several reasons why that could be, but did not know for sure. "If you want to see him so badly, I suppose I can let him get the kyuubi's whereabouts out of you."

Before Sakura could question this statement, she felt a sickening stretching sensation overtake her body. Gasping, she let go and jumped backwards, but found herself immediately drawn back towards the hole in his mask. Everything seemed to be spinning, and Sakura fleetingly wondered when he'd caught her with the sharingan. She vaguely heard someone shout her name, as if they were at the end of a long tunnel, made all the more faint by the wind in her ears. Time seemed to slow long enough for her to feel herself twisting to the point that she thought she'd break in half— then the sensation was gone, and she found herself kneeling on the ground.

The ground itself was a mystery; it was neither the soft dirt nor dry grass that she'd left behind, but seemed to be a sort of marble, white and blemishless. Where…? Her thought process drifted to a halt as she looked up, and saw that she was on a small, square platform, no more than five feet across. Surrounding her were similar platforms; some smaller and some larger, with a few towering several feet above her. There were only a few inches between them, skywards— nothing. Just blackness. Sakura looked back down, and saw the same darkness in-between the cracks. The sight made her stomach churn uneasily, imagining the blocks remembering their connection to the laws of physics and dropping into the nothingness, taking her with them.

But this was not real, the laws of gravity did not apply here. Sakura stood up and closed her eyes, trying to center herself. Perhaps if she concentrated hard enough she could break the genjutsu; there was no telling what could be happening to her unprotected body. She took a deep breath, feeling her chakra hum as she had so often before during meditation exercises.

"Who are you?" a shrill, female voice demanded, slicing through the silence. Sakura opened her eyes, irritated. Was this some obstacle meant to keep her trapped within the illusion? Looking to her left, she made out a shape which looked to be about twenty blocks away.

"I could ask you the same," Sakura yelled back, cautiously stepping onto the next block. It didn't bob beneath her weight and seemed sturdy enough despite all logic telling her that it was anything but. Emboldened, she hopped over the next few, stopping a good five yards away from the source of noise. The shape turned out to be two figures, one a woman with fiery red hair and black-rimmed glasses who was eyeing her warily while hugging— Sakura's eyes widened, and she sucked in a quick breath involuntarily. Sasuke hung limply from her arms, clothes tattered and torn. Sakura immediately gave his body a once-over, searching for any injuries or signs of labored breathing, her medic side kicking in.

"What do you want?" the red-head asked, pulling Sasuke closer to her in response to Sakura's apparent fixation. Sakura blinked, forcing herself to look at the woman rather than her ex-team mate.

"I want to know where the hell I am," Sakura answered. "Also, who you are and what happened to Sasuke, while we're at it."

"How do you know Sasuke?" Karin asked suspiciously. Sakura rolled her eyes.

"Alright, we obviously both have some questions. You answer one of mine, I'll answer one of yours," she offered. The woman considered this a moment before answering.

"We're in an alternate dimension," she said at last. Sakura raised an eyebrow at her.

"That is really helpful," she stated sardonically. "Care to elaborate?"

"I don't know anything more than that," the woman snapped. "One minute I was somewhere else, then I was here."

"Same. Did a shinobi in an orange mask send you here?"

"You have to answer one of my questions before I answer another," the woman retorted. Sakura frowned.

"I did, I told you how I got here."

"Not good enough."

"Fine," Sakura sighed. "My name is Sakura. I'm not telling you anything else until you continue." The two women glared at each other for a minute, before the red-head finally averted her gaze. Sakura smiled smugly.

"Yes, I was sent here by him."

"Do you know who he is?"

"Do you?"

"The idea is to answer a question with an answer, not another question," Sakura growled. The other woman was silent.

"Yes, I know who he is." Sakura frowned indecisively, unsure whether or not it would be worth divulging his name to get more information. She sighed aggravatedly. Hell, this woman had to know who he was if she was one of Sasuke's team mates. Ignoring the pang in her chest that accompanied that thought, Sakura continued. "He is Uchiha Mandara, correct?"

The red haired woman nodded stiffly. "Alright then," Sakura continued. "My turn. Who are you?"

"Karin," the woman answered reluctantly. She stared at Sakura intently, apparently choosing her next question wisely. "How do you know Sasuke?" she eventually asked.

"That is… complicated," Sakura answered honestly. Karin's eyes narrowed. "He was my team mate," Sakura elaborated, realizing that Karin couldn't see the Konoha symbol on her headband from such an angle. The older woman didn't seem to be wearing any village insignia at all, though it could simply be hidden by her robes.

"That wasn't very complicated," Karin commented.

"Things are always complicated when it comes to Sasuke," Sakura replied, taking a step forward. Karin watched her movements, but made no protest as Sakura began to approach her. "My turn. What happened to Sasuke?"

AN: My stories are always so dialogue-heavy. I wasn't really sure which characters to put as the main ones; Sakura, Karin and Sasuke I suppose. It's certainly been a while since I wrote for the Naruto fandom, I actually had to look up a couple characters' names. Could not remember Rock Lee or the word 'genjutsu' for the life of me, I thought I was making "Lee" up due to my recent fixation with D. Gray-Man.