Officially the final chapter! :)

Chapter Five

They were too late in finding Sakura, but that did NOT mean she was dead.

What happened was that they broke down the door to the apartment complex, scouted the area and found no one there - nothing except a streamer which had HER name, along with colorful balloons, just like Sasuke before her - and then there was a trail of blood on the floorboards, first leading them to believe they failed to save her...

...but the trail ended at a closet, where they found the corpse of an old woman who had been bludgeoned to death at the skull. It was old lady Chiyo; she must have walked in on him, which spoke that Orochimaru hated surprises. Except now they had lost Sakura again and had no idea what else to do now.

There was also today's paper, with the warning headline beneath the sketch they had: LOCK UP YOUR CHILDREN! PEDOPHILIC SERIAL KILLER ON THE LOOSE!

They would learn from the neighbors that the landlady took a tour to Shukuba Town for four days, but came back a day early because she ran out of money. Those same neighbors said she did this three times a year. Which means that these are the only times where he has the run of the house.

"We got four hours left," Minato said, but if he had anything to say about it, they would find Sakura if this would cost everything. He was going to ignore the fact she could already be dead, because that meant calling it off altogether in order to avoid the regret of finding her corpse even if they did apprehend Orochimaru.

Sometimes Kakashi was the one to become cynical over a possible loss, since he'd seen his fair share, but what the hell?! They'd been through worst together. "But what if she's already dead, Minato?" he challenged. "He's on the run now, so you really think he's sticking to a time clock?!"

"Alright, a few minutes of rec time!" Tsunade shouted when she refused to have outbursts in her office. "Hatake, you head outside for some fresh air, and Namikaze, you go talk to your wife."

"Hm?" He turned around and was surprised to see Kushina and Naruto standing there. This surprised him, since their son was supposed to be in school, unless she pulled the strings for him to play hokey just for the day - and to keep him close to her. Now his stress levels lowered down just at the sight of his family.

He took them over to the soda and snacks machine. "How's my boy doing?" He ruffled Naruto's hair, who swatted his hand away while laughing. "I feel really bad for not being home lately, Naruto. It's really hard right now, and there's a girl your age going through something that a boy also your age just did. We're like...on a time clock." He looked up at Kushina who exhaled, now bearing a sad and worried face.

"I hope you guys get him, Dad," Naruto said, face angry now. "Doing that to kids - it makes me sick. Make sure he won't get someone like me or any of my friends, too." Minato had to sigh and force himself to smile, but if only he could promise his son that.

Kushina kissed him on the cheek. "Well, you're our hero, honey, as much as you are to everyone else." Most of everyone else, his mind corrected, and then he heard Kakashi call for him.

"Love you both, see you later," Minato told his family, embracing them one more time before joining his partner and the rest of the team.

Finally, there was good news and a step to finding and saving Sakura: Sadao Goto who said he wasn't home last night had lied to them, and with a little arm twisting from Asuma and Guy who had gone back to pay him a visit, the man finally admitted that Orochimaru called him back just before eight.

The night Sakura was taken.

And with that, her abductor would need travel money to get out of Konoha in order to avoid capture, so he was on his way to Mr. Goto's pawn shop, where he occasionally sold some antiques. Orochimaru was a regular.

Correction: no drive to the pawn shop, because going through town meant he would be spotted, so there was a rendezvous point in the warehouse section.

~o~

Commando units in position atop each roof were ready to shoot if the suspect attempted to escape. The opened area where any vehicle would enter through would be blocked with police cars so that Orochimaru would not get away. They were also keeping an eye out on his arrival, and when he showed, they would close off the route of his getaway.

"All set," Minato told him, then spoke into a walkie to tell everyone to get into position. He then rushed across the driveway to the other side where a van with more commandos was. Guy was with him. Leaving Kakashi to listen to his end of the earpiece which was the damned conversation between Asuma and Sadao Goto.

"What's he unloading, courtesan dolls?" That was Asuma.

"No, he sells an attic full of antiques and jewelry owned by this old broad."

"The landlady he bludgeoned to death." It was stated bluntly, followed by a nervous exhale from the other man.

"Oh, for the stretch, I DID consider he might be a thief or something. But a kid-raping killer? Not a clue at all."

"You do anything to tip him off, you're going down as a kid-raping accomplice, got it?" Asuma snapped, and then silence was followed until it was broken again - and Kakashi also saw it with his own two eyes.

Goto was on the verge of panicking when he said "He's here". The idiot was going to get himself shot if not for the ANBU commandos atop each warehouse. If he kept this scared shitless thing up, Asuma would no doubt shoot him himself.

Alright, there is our man now. We got him. His blood pumped with the adrenaline of finally getting this animal off their streets. There was the white van itself, and when it paused maybe ten feet away, the driver's head poked out - a head of raven hair framing a pale white face, and no doubt the teeth were just as rotten as those yellow eyes Kakashi's sharp ones spotted from where he was. He intended to look into those irises as he told him he was under arrest for the kidnapping, raping and killing of four innocent children - and for taking away the childhood of Sasuke Uchiha, and maybe the simple abduction of Sakura Haruno, if she was still alive in the back of this vehicle.

"Sadao, bring it here!" The voice was rough, like wet velvet. If you looked closely at the features, you would assume you were looking at a snake. When the man he came here to see didn't approach him, his face contorted, and he looked up and around, finally figuring it all out.

He didn't get to screech his rear end out of here before his escape was blocked, and he rushed back in only to nearly run into the final blockage there was. He was trapped.

The Konoha Special Victims team whipped out their arms and made their way to the driver's spot, where hands were out in compliance, and Guy did the honors, being a beast in yanking the man out, turning him around with brute strength and slamming him face flat into the surface of the unmarked white van. "Orochimaru, you are under arrest!" Kakashi shouted, pointing his gun into the face as he was cuffed from behind. Reading off the rights, he saw Minato go into the back of the van himself -

- and when he came back out, not only was he haunted in the face, but in his arms, wrapped in a warm blanket, was none other than a dazed Sakura, alive and well but clearly scared. When we get her to the hospital, she'll endure the rape kit examination just like Sasuke before her. I hope Orochimaru didn't already...

Minato, I owe you an apology.

"It's over, honey," Minato said hoarsely as he carried the girl in his arms. "You're going home now." He completely ignored the livid, defeated glare of the man who kidnapped her from her mother, who was shoved into the back of the police car by Guy.

He was going to get the punishment he deserved, which was none other than a needle to his arm rather than long-term imprisonment.

~o~

Now that the elusive snake was finally in custody, she would be granted with the honor of prosecuting him. Life had been a nightmare because of him. As a result, she had to keep Konohamaru close on her part, while Asuma and his colleagues were busy stressing out and not heading home until they got Sakura Haruno back safe and sound.

That morning, when she dressed up in her pomegranate-hued suit dress, wrapped the gold two-part necklace from Asuma on her last birthday - one part a rectangle, the other an extender - and finally put on her golden engagement ring with the square diamond and pavé band, she did NOT anticipate the call from the correctional facility in regards to the soon-to-be convicted rapist/serial killer known only as Orochimaru.

Sakura was looked at, and it was concluded she hadn't been raped at all. Hymen was in place, thank God. But it didn't mean the same closure could ever be made for Sasuke who deserved the same justice as the other kids who would never return to their families.

Why was she not surprised that Orochimaru's lawyer was her rival, Danzo Shimura? He was a weasel as they came and went. He just had to inform her that his client wanted a deal and asked for her in order to negotiate the terms. Kurenai Sarutobi just about laughed inside at this idiocy; what could he possibly ask for that wouldn't get him off the death penalty? "Your client rapes and kills children," she spat, arms across her chest and one leg atop the other. "The only deal he will be getting is a free last meal."

"He has disclosed to me," the man with the X-shaped scar beneath his chin said, unfazed, "that at some point in the past, he took the life of a young girl and disposed of the body."

Oh, is that all there is? Another victim to add that we don't know about? "We already know that," she said coldly. "In fact, we know about all four of the kids you killed - two boys and two girls." She was not prepared for the bomb that was dropped.

"...five, actually."

"Yes, a fifth victim whose body has never been recovered," Shimura said, not affected by this at all.

Another victim no one knew about - he withheld this on purpose. It was nothing new, but it wouldn't change anything regarding his fate. "Four bodies puts a needle in your arm. I don't need a fifth." But the girl's mother...

Orochimaru apparently knew what she was thinking, for he was still smiling. "I'm sure that the mother would love to have some closure."

He was doing this for one reason: to escape execution. Well, she wasn't going to let him get the upper hand. If he lived, then his existence meant that it would be a permanent mark on the mothers of all the other victims, especially Mikoto Uchiha and Mebuki Haruno. "Tell me the girl's name," she said to Shimura, who only shook his head. His client wouldn't tell him, and he thought he could use it to his advantage.

"She was my first. She was a perfect little princess - as sweet as can be." The way those eyes closed as if relishing this made her take an effort to not jump out of her seat to strangle him with her bare hands. Plus, that guard was there by the door.

"Give...me...her...NAME," Kurenai growled, but he still wouldn't have it. She had only two options now: take off the death penalty from the table and he would shout it from the rooftops, or the mother would continue suffering never knowing what happened to her child. Her hands were tied.

Which was why she thought this through extremely carefully, calling the one person who might help her in case the answer was no. She explained everything to none other than Mikoto Uchiha who sucked in a breath before shakily replying. "He's - he's doing this to just get away from the needle! He knows that this will bring more pain to those other mothers who lost their children - and ME!"

"You took the words out of my mouth, Mrs. Uchiha. But this mother deserves to know what happened to her daughter; I bet you know what it's like to not know where your child is." Exactly what I'd feel, if Konohamaru had been in this position.

"You bet I do! This woman..." She paused and stifled what sounded like hiccups. "...she must be feeling what I have while Sasuke was gone. Three days for me, but YEARS for her?! Mrs. Sarutobi, I am coming over there right now!" The line went dead without waiting for Kurenai to reply. She stared at it for a moment before leaving it on the surface of her desk. It felt like a hell of a long time before the woman herself burst in, harried and distressed as she admittedly was feeling.

She was now in the office of her superior - Mikoto waiting outside until she was called in - telling him everything and just as wary as he was. "I need you to authorize this deal," she insisted.

"Counselor," Homura Mitokado said, taking his glasses off his eyes and cleaning them with his tie before putting them back on, "I am a public servant, and the public at large does not want this...boil on the rear end of humanity living to a ripe old age."

"I don't, either," she agreed, "but Homura, think of the mother!"

"I am doing just that," he said, arms limp on either side. "And I am certain she would want to see him die."

She couldn't agree more, since it was exactly what he deserved. But he was using this withheld information to prolong this woman's suffering and to take the needle - which was on her as well as Homura who also would take the stress of the public outrage just like her - or to get himself off free and easy from death where she at last learned of her child's death. "Maybe, but she probably wants to know what happened to her daughter also," Kurenai said, but that wasn't the end of it.

"And what of the mothers of those other victims? They want him dead. The entire town would want him dead - even protestors against the death penalty." That might be so much of the time, but here was different. He didn't really know the half of those other mothers, including the ones who knew what became of their kids but would never see them come home unlike the two in the present.

Kurenai took matters into her own hands now, going over to the door which led to where the one who came here to help waited. "Please come in, Mrs. Uchiha," she told the woman who followed her in, making herself known. "This is Mikoto, mother of Sasuke Uchiha - one of Orochimaru's victims."

He looked at the woman first with some shock before he collected himself and quickly offered her a seat in the one for visitors. "Oh, Mrs. Uchiha. I'm terribly sorry about what your son endured, but thankfully, he did escape with his life," he told her.

She didn't have it in herself to speak, so she nodded mutely. And now it was down to the most important reason why she was here. "What do you think should happen to him, Mrs. Uchiha?" Kurenai asked her. It was difficult to get it all out, and she expected what came.

"He...raped my boy. He killed his childhood." She paused and swallowed. "I want that bastard dead. You must understand, it's more unbearable than you can imagine. I cried every second, every minute of EVERY day Sasuke was missing. I wanted to crawl out of my skin, and there were times I didn't realize I'd be screaming at the top of my lungs. Itachi, my other son, pulled me out of it, but he also worried himself sick and constantly swore that he would beat the living daylights out of the one who hurt his brother. Even now that the perpetrator is in custody, he still wants to." Now she was crying, and she accepted a tissue before picking up.

"Not knowing for three days nearly killed me. I can't - I can't imagine this poor woman living through all of those feelings for years, and letting it go on for the rest of her life! I mean, I want him dead, but you got to help this woman, Counselor."

~o~

That snake got off scot-free from death. Because he spilled the beans about a young girl who was murdered by him - before all the others - and she'd been buried in the forests of Kusa: Shigeko Sakurai.

As expected, there were bones found. And Orochimaru was there, in an orange prison suit and chains, then led away on Minato's snapping orders. That animal should be out of all their miseries, but it was something they would have to learn to live with. Even the victims' mothers. The look he saw on Kakashi's face, grim and bittersweet, matched his own.

When he and his partner stood outside the home of the dead girl's family, they remained there for what felt like a long time before finally going up the porch steps; before they could ring the bell, it was opened already, and there the woman herself was. She's been waiting for several years for the news - and now she was to have closure, and not the good kind.

After they told Mrs. Sakurai everything, she broke down and turned away from them, and that was when her husband came to comfort her, also bursting into tears of his own.

In the end, everything was just bittersweet. These things happened every day, never really going away. You had to expect that it could happen to you again or someone else, then do something about it.

With Orochimaru locked up, the team was free to finally collapse at home for a day of rest. Asuma back to his wife - who prosecuted the child-murdering rapist himself, but unwillingly negotiated the deal of finding the long-lost victim in exchange for removing execution from the table - Guy and Kakashi off to get a drink before going separate ways...and that left Minato being picked up by his wife and son at the end of the day. He really missed them.

It was then that he came up with a great idea, and tomorrow he would contact Mikoto Uchiha himself - or Kushina could do that for him while he passed out much of the day.

Sakura might be okay, since she didn't get raped, but Sasuke isn't so lucky. He really needs counseling and his loved ones to be with him. His mother said that his previous so-called friends all but abandoned him when they didn't even understand what he went through...and one went far to accuse him and ask him if he enjoyed "having sex with an older man he didn't like". Who the hell has the right to insinuate such things, even if these are only kids?!

Besides getting much-needed therapy, he planned on bringing Naruto over to try and befriend him, try to have some sunshine to make him a happy guy again. Maybe Sakura could join them, if her parents also said yes. Because Itachi Uchiha - angry older brother who wanted his younger sibling's tormentor dead even while locked up - had agreed to this before his mother's consent.

Sadly, the other victims' mothers had learned to live with losing their children, but they ended up getting together in a long-distance group to help each other out. Minato wouldn't be surprised that they could start an activist organization against other sexual predators and killers.

There was also finally some good news to come, even if not in the way they'd wanted when they first caught him: Orochimaru was dead. According to the prison warden, he'd been "made a bitch and then beaten to death when he didn't stand a chance". That was the end of one nightmare, but there would always be more to come.

So, the ending was hard to do, emotionally and technically. In terms mostly of how to bring everything to closure as best as possible, even if it doesn't end on an expected "happily ever after" note.

Sasuke's fate was most important, since usually in real life, some teen male rape victims resort to a quick death (suicide) or a slow and painful one even when they refuse to get the help they need. But I REFUSED to let that happen here. Thus Minato saved him by helping him get counseling, time eventually healing, and having his son Naruto befriend him - and of course, Sakura coming into the fray, too. :)

Reviews appreciated. :D