Sakura awoke to complete silence. Terrified of being in an unknown location, she did not dare open her eyes. Instead she felt with her senses for any chakra presences near her. Surprisingly, there were many nearby; far more than she was used to. Luckily none of the presences were within ten square feet of where she lay. There was something strange about the chakra signatures though…they somehow felt…less daunting than usual. The strangest part was that she couldn't find a single familiar signature; every single one was brand new. Extremely cautious, she moved her limbs slowly to see where she was strapped down.

She almost scoffed, it seemed the only thing attached to her was an IV in her arm. She could feel that her strength was returning for once in a very, very long time, and the idiots didn't even bother to bind her. That would be their biggest mistake.

She then noticed the next weird thing about the room—was that…a blanket covering her? They gave her a blanket? And a pillow? And were those socks she felt? What the hell was going on? Her curiosity got the best of her once more, and Sakura slowly blinked her eyes open, but was careful not to move.

The room was dark, but she could tell that she was not anywhere familiar. The walls were white, clean, and it didn't smell as funky as usual. She swallowed hard, forcing saliva down her dry throat, and slowly moved her head to the side to take a better look at her surroundings.

There wasn't much in the room near her bed besides an empty chair, a cupboard, and a closed door that had a square window, spilling light into the room.

Sakura turned her head to the other side and identified an open window with a brilliant view of the clear, night sky. Mesmerized by the stars and the moon, Sakura almost didn't notice the shadow that had joined her in the room.

Almost.

Pretending that she didn't notice, Sakura kept her gaze on the window until she felt the person approach the bed. Within a fraction of a second, she violently ripped the IV out of her arm, whipped up onto her feet and summoned a fireball jutsu—causing an explosion before her attacker could even blink. During the attack she caught a slight glimpse of him—dark hair and dark clothing. Deciding to flee, Sakura ended the jutsu and leapt out the open window behind her.

As she descended a few stories and feeling the attacker's chakra behind her, she realized jumping out the window might not have been the best idea. Quickly she summoned her natural wind chakra and used it to command the wind so she could softly land on the hard concrete in her socks.

No time to think—the person was right on her tail. She needed to get away and she needed to get away now. Sakura took off sprinting with lightning speed as she felt a few more chakra signatures join the first. She counted a total of 4 pursuers including the original person she attacked to escape the room.

A blonde man suddenly appeared in front of her and yelled her name. He was clearly brave if he was going to face her head on. Knowing four other people were still chasing her, she did not have time to stop and deal with this one. Summoning chakra again, Sakura did some quick hand-signs and launched a harsh, slicing wind jutsu at him. He staggered slightly, but still tried to grab at her through the wind. Sakura used her new-found speed and reappeared on the other side of him, easily avoiding his grasp.

Despite being out of shape, Sakura sped up her pace even more. There was no way any normal shinobi could catch her at this speed.

However, she spoke too soon.

One of the pursuers caught her, tackling her from behind. It was the one with dark hair that she first attacked. Moving at such a fast speed caused them to fly for several meters before crashing hard into the ground and rolling over each other. The attacker landed on top of her and immediately pinned her arms down.

Running on adrenaline, she simply screamed, releasing a burst of chakra and causing the man to fly off of her. She scrambled to her feet and began running in the same direction when the blonde man caught up again, and instantly tackled her down. She slid across the pavement roughly, several scrapes appearing on her exposed skin. He held her face down with all his body weight crushing into her back.

The man she first threw off quickly recovered and was suddenly there, as well as the other three who were chasing her.

She panicked, grabbed a kunai out of the weapon pouch of the man on top of her before throwing him off and finally stood—surrounded. Taking in her opponents, Sakura staggered. Surrounding her was Hinata, Kakashi, Sai, Sasuke, and Naruto all looking extremely worried. She swallowed hard and looked passed them all to the brick buildings surrounding them. They were in the streets of Konoha.

Sakura narrowed her eyes, twirled the kunai around her finger and harshly slammed the blade into her right thigh, causing those surrounding her to gasp. Pain exploded through her leg and blood crawled down her thigh, but the image of the village and her friends never swayed.

"Well," she mumbled to herself as she pulled the knife out of her leg, "This is almost as good as one of Sasuke's genjutsu." Blood gushed from her wound, pouring onto the ground, but Sakura didn't seem to notice. She was too busy looking around for faults or mistakes, something the caster wouldn't have known about the village or her comrades that she would.

"Sakura why did you stab yourself? Why are you running from us?" Naruto questioned, taking a step toward her—causing her to face him directly and lower into a defensive stance with the kunai. Naruto froze, uncertain how to respond. "Sakura…why did you attack Sasuke and I?"

"She thinks she's in a genjutsu." Sai announced, his hand resting casually on his hip. "Right, Sakura?"

Her eyes flicked over to Sai, and she stood a bit straighter. "Give me a reason to think otherwise."

Naruto's pleading voice spoke up, "We brought you home Sakura! We are trying to understand what happened to you. Please lower the knife…"

She pointed the knife at Naruto, "That's not going to happen until I can figure out what's real and what's not. Until then—back off." She growled, and Naruto stared at her wide-eyed.

"Sakura," Kakashi spoke up, "You've never been susceptible to genjutsu before; what makes you think you are in one now?"

She seemed thoughtful, but her voice was still cold. "Although normal genjutsu has no effect on me, I am susceptible to certain levels of genjutsu. Take, for example, Sasuke's Sharingan."

"But—Sakura!" Naruto's frustration was seeping into his voice, "Why would Sasuke do that now? And who else would have such a powerful genjutsu ability anyway?"

A light-bulb went off in her mind. "I can think of a few."

"What? Who?"

"I've been on my own for a while now Naruto." Sakura began twirling the knife absent-mindedly, "I've seen some things and met some people. Most of them weren't very kind."

Naruto was practically growling, "How are we going to convince you that we are real?"

Finally, Sakura smirked, making the tiger sign with her free hand. "You won't." Sakura burst into cherry blossom petals and fluttered away in the wind before reforming into herself on top of a roof. "You're just going to have to catch me again!" She shouted, and sprinted away.

Fully growling, Naruto shouted her name before taking off after her with the others right on his tail. Or at least, they thought they did. In reality, they were still standing in a circle around Sakura who, thanks to Naruto, had the idea of casting them into a genjutsu. If it didn't work, it would mean she was being manipulated. If it did, however, then she could still be in one unless Sasuke broke the jutsu. She looked around at her old friends, making sure they were fully under her spell.

In anticipation of him breaking the jutsu, Sakura turned to face Sasuke and had to stop herself from flinching. He had already brushed the hair out of his left eye and activated his dojutsu, and was staring at her with one blood-red eye and one Rinnegan eye. She let out a shaky breath, "Sasuke?" Could she really be home?

He stepped toward her, not breaking eye contact.

She lowered the kunai in her hands, feeling the burning of tears beginning to form behind her eyes. "…It's really you?"

His eyes faded back to his natural color and he nodded, letting his bangs fall over his left eye once more.

Overcome with emotion, Sakura's heart rate increased, her lip quivered, she dropped the kunai and threw her arms around Sasuke's torso, pressing tightly against his chest and neck.

Awkwardly wrapping his right arm around her, Sasuke then held up his prosthetic arm and released the genjutsu Sakura had cast on their comrades.

At first angry to wake up, Naruto's emotions quickly changed to sadness and relief when he realized Sakura was crying in Sasuke's arms.

A needle in her arm made her eyes shoot open and Sakura found herself once again strapped to a chair in the dimly lit room of Daisuke's lab. With her body completely restrained, Sakura panicked as she woke up, violently tugging at every bond.

"Now, now Sakura-chan." Daisuke cooed, stroking her head. "Calm down, it's alright. You were just having a dream sweetheart."

Sakura was practically hyperventilating. "Get the fuck off me." She spat, glaring at him as harshly as she could manage.

He laughed in response, bright green eyes twinkling with delight. "You are so sexy when you're angry. Keep it up dear, it's good to see some life back in you again." He walked around the chair where she was restrained and grabbed a vile of dark red liquid. "See this?" He playfully held it up so she could see, "This is a blood sample I took from you last week. The results to our testing have been just astounding."

Her glare never faltered, but he took her silence as approval to continue speaking. "As you know I've been placing chakra and blood inside of you from users of all different chakra natures, and waiting to see how you react. Usually your body just rejects them, but I've finally found a water-nature chakra that your body doesn't reject and now you're starting to prove my biggest theory! This is going to be a huge breakthrough in shinobi science! Isn't that just wonderful?"

"Yes, wonderful," her voice dripped with sarcasm, "Now let me go!"

A large smack was heard and a bright red handprint throbbed on Sakura's face.

Daisuke quickly spoke into her ear. "I thought we've been over this sweetheart. You're never going home. In fact, we've only just begun here. So why don't you just be a good little girl and shut up so I don't have to gag that pretty little mouth of yours too."

When panicking, Sakura had managed to get her left wrist free, and now she used that to her advantage. She reached up and scratched Daisuke's face, using chakra to deepen the cuts. He screamed and staggered backward as she attempted to free herself of her other bonds. Before she had any opportunity though, electricity crackled and Sakura screamed as her entire body was electrocuted.

"SAKURA!"

She was smacked again. This time when she shot up from a laying position, she was not restrained. She frantically looked around and it took a moment to recognize the location as the bedroom at Sasuke's house she had been staying in with her former teammates.

"Sakura." Naruto spoke softer this time, arms extended toward her as though she was a rabid dog.

Her breathing slowed and he took a step closer to her. "You're awake now. It's okay. Sasuke and I are here with you."

Sakura tightly closed her eyes, clenching her fists. She was never going to get rest again. Angrily, she hit the wall, causing the entire room to shake. Hardly able to contain herself, she slid down the wall until she was seated on the soft carpet. She held back tears as she brought her shaking hands in front of her face and covered her eyes. "Sorry I woke you…again…" She whispered, untrusting of her own voice.

"Sakura…" His voice was full of pain. It was like this almost every night. The worst part of it was that Sakura refused to share with anyone what her nightmares were about. They could only assume it had to do with her captivity. The truth was that she was too scared to talk to them—to say it out loud. She was actually having an extremely hard time deciding what was real and what was in her head. Every single night she dreamed of waking back up as a captive and in nearly every dream she'd lose consciousness and wake up back home.

Sakura tried remembering what her life really was like as a captive, but towards the end she was unconscious more than conscious—so there was a small possibility that she was still there—and all of this was something her mind made up. There was a possibility that she completely lost it, and there was no way she was going to admit that out loud—for fear of it being true.

"I'm going to go speak with Kakashi. Be back later." Naruto fled from the room, and Sasuke couldn't say he blamed him. The boy had lost many nights of sleep taking care of Sakura, and his marriage was beginning to suffer from it as well.

Alone with her, Sasuke slowly approached the shaking girl on the floor before him. He was unarmed, barefoot, and dressed in pajama bottoms and a fitting tank top. He crouched in front of her and tried to get a better look at her eyes. Sometimes when she woke up from her nightmares, he swore her eyes flashed a different color, but Naruto never seemed to notice.

"Sakura." He spoke, wanting to observe her eyes for any abnormalities, but she refused to look up and kept her eyes glued on his feet. He internally sighed, and swiftly picked her up bridal-style to put her back onto her bed.

Instead of accepting his arms happily like normal, Sakura twisted and, very ungracefully, flung herself back onto the floor, quickly stood up, and then brushed herself off like nothing happened.

Sasuke looked at her incredulously.

She cleared her throat and wiped her wet face off with the inside of her red t-shirt as she spoke. "I—um—I'm going for a walk." She went to the same window Naruto leapt out of, and swung herself up onto the roof wearing nothing but her t-shirt, a pair of black shorts that barely covered her butt, and no shoes.

Knowing he was supposed to escort her for the night, Sasuke sighed and reluctantly followed her, not bothering to put on shoes either. Her actions were too unpredictable now, and that made him extremely wary of letting her out of sight for too long. As he swung up after her, he looked around and realized that she was not present on the roof. Once again she was proving that he should never let her out of sight.

She was gone.

Like completely gone. What the fuck? He spun around 360 degrees but he could not see her and he could not sense her. Spotting the tallest building nearby, Sasuke leapt up onto that roof and did another sweep of the area but this time with his Sharingan active. There was no one in sight. No Sakura, no enemies, nothing. It was like she vanished into thin air. Naruto was going to kill him…

"Nice view, huh?"

Sasuke spun around, holding back from attacking the person since he had recognized the voice as Sakura's. He looked her up and down with his Sharingan to confirm it was indeed her.

"How did you—?" He trailed off, unsure how to ask. "How did you do that?"

"…What do you mean?" Her voice was soft, and her eyes were once again on the ground.

Realizing the Sharingan made her uncomfortable, he deactivated it. "You completely hid your chakra signature. There wasn't a single trace of you around here."

She blinked and looked at herself for a moment, before looking back up to him and smiling. "You really couldn't sense me?" She asked with far too much joy for his liking.

He glared at her, "No. I couldn't."

As her smile grew bigger, his glare grew more intense.

They stayed that for a moment before Sasuke couldn't take it anymore. "What?"

"I snuck up on Sasuke Uchiha!" She shouted, throwing her arms above her head in joy and causing him to slam a hand over her mouth.

"Sakura—" He was really angry now, "It's nearly three in the morning. Keep your voice down."

She pushed his hand away. Her giggling did not cease, but it did get quieter. "You have no idea how much of an accomplishment that is for me." She giggled again, melting away his anger. It had actually been quite a long time since she laughed like that. This was the most of her old personality she had shown since she had been back. He made a mental note that her showing off to him is what made this happen—and made another mental note to tell Naruto.

"Come on," she asked, tugging him toward the direction she wanted to go, "Let's go on a walk."

It had been nearly two years since they walked together hand-in-hand. Back then, when he was finally maturing and not clouded with demise, Sasuke finally understood why Naruto enjoyed being within Sakura's presence all the time. Sakura just brought light and joy to the atmosphere.

He wished that he hadn't left on his journey when he did, because she would have never been taken had he still been around to protect her. Instead, she was alone and vulnerable, and went missing during a solo mission. A year had passed since he had left, and when two Chunin finally found him Sakura had been missing for nearly five months.

Glancing at the girl beside him, he realized she must have grabbed his right hand out of muscle memory since the last time they did this, he didn't have a left arm. He also noticed that a small smile was still present on her face, and unfamiliar warmth filled him again.

Maybe, just maybe things were going to be alright for her.

Author's Notes: Thank you everyone for so many positive responses on chapter one. Please let me know what you think of chapter two!

-Alexis Marie