It was Zetsu she sought out.

"This is a delectable surprise, Sakura-chan," he purred into her hair. Somehow Zetsu had managed to wind his way around her body, so he had one arm around her waist and another hand running through her pink hair. His voice was right next to her ear, so close she could feel his breath. "I haven't seen you in so long. Staying away from you increases my eating-humans tendencies."

She blinked slowly at him. She never could tell when he was kidding or not. Probably didn't really want to know.

"I need a favor," Sakura said as Zetsu continued to smell her hair. Honestly, though. "And I don't completely trust the others to give me all the straight answers."

Zetsu hummed. "Is this about the Uchiha brat? Pein still feels guilty about losing your trust, flower-chan."

Sakura shrugged one shoulder. "He hasn't lost all of my trust," she mused. "I just . . . would feel better getting this information from you right now. Pein didn't even tell me Shisui was missing; Mikoto had to be the one to tell me."

"Pein wasn't sure Orochimaru had Shisui at the beginning. They didn't want to worry you for no reason, rotting bastards though they are."

Sakura had to hold back her sneer at that. Zetsu may have had a point. If Shisui had just been working late on a case-which had happened before-and just hadn't told anyone for some reason, or the others just assuming another person knew of Shisui's whereabouts, was one thing. So Sakura did understand why neither Pein nor any of the others told her about Shisui's disappearance. She wasn't mad about that.

But still. After the flashdrive incident Sakura would have thought everyone would have been a little more worried after a day of not hearing from one person.

But none of that really mattered right then. "Will you help me or not?" Sakura asked, not unkindly. She wasn't sure if Zetsu would get in trouble with Pein for helping her, but Zetsu had always hit her as a man with his own agenda. Sort of with the Akatsuki and sort of with only himself.

Or both themselves, if she was being completely honest.

"Of course we'll help you, pretty Sakura-chan! But it will cost you."

She almost scoffed. She'd figured as much.

"What do you want?"

"Hmm. Perhaps a simple I-owe-you for now? One might just come in handy later."

Sakura swallowed. Zetsu might be drawn to her in the same ways all the Akatsuki members were, but that didn't mean she trusted him. Probably trusted him less, even. "Fine. What do you know about Orochimaru and where might he have taken Shisui?"

He weaved a hand down her arm until he was at her palm, drew it up to his mouth to nip at her fingertips. "The snake bastard has a thing for abandoned warehouses. Quite cliché, really. His protégé prefers cleanlier housing for his work."

"Orochimaru has Shisui at a warehouse?"

"A clean warehouse." Zetsu shrugged. "Do you really expect to find the Uchiha brat alive?"

She hadn't really let herself think that far ahead. "It doesn't really matter. The sooner Orochimaru and Kabuto are dead, the better."

Zetsu titled his head at her and smiled with all his sharp teeth on display. "Funny how you say 'dead' and not 'stopped' or 'arrested.' Not that I'm complaining, of course."

"Is there really a difference?" Sakura shot back. "I doubt arresting him will be a permanent fixture, and simply stopping him seems impossible. Killing him, however, is probable."

"Hmm. How delectably morbid you are, flower-chan." He grinned. "You are likely right, however." Zetsu frowned suddenly. His one-eighty emotional changes were going to give her whiplash. "I, too, cannot wait for the snake bastard to finally be gone for good."

He looked down at her and grinned again, all childish glee. "May I eat him when you are done killing him? You can even chop him up first, it makes him easier to chew."

Sakura side-eyed him. "I can never tell when you're kidding or not."

"I'm always serious, Sakura-chan. Dead serious."

She rolled her eyes. "You're such a little fucker, you know that?"

Zetsu rubbed his face in her hair. "I'd love to fu-"

She cut him off with a growl. "Don't. Even. Hidan is already bad enough as it is."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "I could eat him for you?"

"Shut up," she grumbled, a smile playing at her lips. "So Orochimaru has Shisui at some warehouse. Do you know where?"

Zetsu looked mildly offended. You know, for a plant. "Obviously."

She raised an eyebrow. "Annddd?"

He licked his lips. "There is a place by the river a little ways east. Surrounded by fishing ports and touristy spots. Annoying little place. I'll text you the address."

Sakura crossed her arms. "And you're sure this is where Shisui is?"

"My intel is ruthless, Sakura-chan," Zetsu purred. She wasn't sure how to take that, but whatever.

She turned so she could poke him in the chest, just hard enough with her nail to get her point across. "If this turns out to be faulty intel, I'll be very, very angry, Zetsu," she purred right back.

Zetsu leaned in close, a hairs breath away from her mouth. "Oh, I learned ages ago how sharp your claws are, pretty little Sakura-chan. Don't fret-I, too, have a hunger that needs to be sated when it comes to the snake bastard."

Sakura believed him.

Her phone chirped with the address Zetsu texted her. When she looked down at it, her eyebrows raised. "Really? I've been in that area a dozen times."

Touristy area, indeed. Sakura had walked that pier with Ino and Karin before, looking into little nick-knack stores and going into overpriced coffee shops. But she supposed from the warehouse she and Kakashi and Yamato had been at the other day and how it was surrounded by nice places, it shouldn't have come as a surprise to her where it was located.

"The snake bastard has a sense of irony, I suppose."

Sakura untangled herself from Zetsu's arms before making her way towards the door. His voice drew her back one more time. "And Sakura-chan? Remember your end of the bargain, would you?"

There was something in his voice that probably should have alerted Sakura, but all she was running on was anger and a loathing for Orochimaru and Kabuto unlike she'd ever felt, burning on low and simmering. "Will do."

Sakura left to the sound of Zetsu chuckling.

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

It had been roughly two and a half days since Shisui disappeared.

Sakura had come back to Mikoto cleaning her kitchen. The burned pancakes had been cleared away, the dishes and pans thrown into the dish washer. Mikoto had looked up upon her entrance with red-rimmed eyes and simply said, "Tell him I'm sorry, would you? My . . . my hands are tied with the clan elders and . . . and I can't do anything."

There was disgust in her voice, not for the clan elders but for herself. Sakura understood. The clan elders wouldn't want any of the Uchihas looking for Shisui, because if they did and it got out one of them was missing and taken by Orochimaru, everything else would come to light. They were saving their own reputations.

And Mikoto-lovely, gentle Mikoto, with a spine of steel couldn't do anything as the Uchiha matriarch.

Sakura suddenly understood why it was she had found Mikoto in her kitchen with burning pancakes that morning.

She nodded and handed Mikoto a tissue box that had been sitting beside the living room couch as Mikoto settled in at one of the kitchen stools.

Then she called Sasuke.

"Hn. What is it, Sakura?"

"Did you know Shisui's missing?"

He did not, and from the screaming in the background, neither did Naruto. She explained to them the morning's events, leaving out the part with Kakashi. That was his secret to tell, not hers.

They agreed to meet her at the address she texted them.

"Are you going to tell the Akatsuki?" Sasuke asked before she could hang up.

She hesitated. Weighed it. Swallowed her pride. "I'll call them."

"Hn."

Sakura knew him well enough to tell that he knew she was leaving something out, but he trusted her enough to keep secrets. Sometimes knowing someone so perfectly meant knowing they kept secrets that weren't theirs to tell, and to trust them enough to understand they may never know everything about that person.

Before Sakura called the Akatsuki, she texted Kakashi the address. He would know what it meant. And he would likely bring Yamato. Or Yamato would simply tag along. Either/or.

Sakura weighed her phone in her hand, chewing her bottom lip. Who should she call? Which of the Akatsuki would be the best to bare the news?

She thought of calling Pein, but immediately dismissed it.

She hesitated once more, then dialed the number from her contacts.

"Sakura-chan," the voice purred over the line. Sakura swallowed. "To what do I owe this delicious surprise?"

"Madara," she choked out, suddenly heavy with emotion. Maybe it shouldn't change things, knowing he had once been the head of the Uchiha clan. How her version of Madara-silly and never serious, up on a stage in a night club, constantly pestering her with questions on what where her preferred colors and the flower arrangements she'd like at their wedding-was so at odds with this new version of him. The version who made deals with Orochimaru and who-though unintendedly-set in motion the events of Kakashi and Obito's torture, Rin's death.

"I know everything."

There was a long pause, and Sakura had to lower her phone from her ear at one point to make sure he hadn't hung up on her. Finally, his voice came down the line. "I'm sorry you had to find out like this," he murmured, sounding so damn defeated and tired. "I would have told you eventually, but . . ."

"It wasn't your secret to tell," Sakura finished. She thought of Tobi. "Shisui's missing."

Some shuffling on the other end of the phone before he spoke again, hesitant. "I am aware."

She nodded, even though no one was around to see. "I know where he's being held. Orochimaru and Kabuto are likely there too. I'm texting you the address now."

"How?"

"Zetsu," Sakura simply answered.

A pause as she texted him the address. The air between them was tense and palpable; Sakura not knowing what to do with it.

It had never been like this before. Madara was goofy and annoyingly possessive of her, not unsure and guilt-ridden. It didn't fit him.

Sakura sighed heavily. "Don't do this. I don't see you any differently, Madara. It wasn't your secret to tell."

"You're too kind, Sakura-chan," he murmured, so softly she could barely hear him. "I don't deserve it."

"Bullshit," she sang. "You made a mistake and there was an unforeseen consequence. Not your fault. You were just trying to help your clan, right? Orochimaru, for all the evil he is, still had amazing medical research that was useable, and it helped people, didn't it?"

Honestly, Sakura was grasping at straws here. She knew that Madara working with Orochimaru was likely for the purpose of gaining more power for the clan, but that didn't mean Orochimaru's information and lab results weren't useful in the scientific community. She'd even bet that some of his research was life changing for some people.

From Madara's silence, Sakura bet she wasn't wrong to assume that.

"It did," Madara sighed. "But I used him for the clan and didn't care who I hurt along the way."

"I don't expect you to be perfect," Sakura said simply. "You dealt with everything well enough-as well as you could."

Again, she didn't know for sure if this was true, but it felt right to say. She couldn't think about what she would have done in his situation, because at that point nothing seemed to be the right answer.

"Well, let's make it better," Sakura said. "Shisui's missing and I-and now you-have the address of where he is. Tell Pein and Akatsuki. Tell Tobi."

A rough inhale. "Alright." He cleared his throat. "We'll meet you there, Sakura-chan." A pause. "Thank you."

She hung up and got into her car.

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

She met up with Kakashi a half hour later at the address Zetsu had given her. He obviously had just come as he was when Sakura texted him the address, dressed down in jeans and a long-sleeved black buttoned shirt. One hand was in his pocket and he stood stock-still near the pier.

He wasn't wearing a scarf.

It took Sakura a second to take this in. She'd spotted him from her car which she'd had to parallel park and it had only taken her give-or-take five minutes, thank you very much due to his white, wild hair. But he'd turned, and she'd seen a long fingered hand go up to his mouth with a cigarette. To his mouth. Without a scarf in the way.

Sakura blinked rapidly and got out of the car. She jogged over to him, looking at Kakashi over the rim of her sunglasses. He grinned down at her, and Sakura was proud to note that she did not gasp at the sight.

Kakashi Hatake was undeniably hot.

She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting under his scarf, but it sure hadn't been chiseled cheekbones and full lips and straight teeth like that. It hadn't been the wide, almost goofy crooked grin he gave her-the very one that gave him his eye crinkles.

Sakura swallowed and tried not to gape. "What happened to your scarf?"

Kakashi had already thrown his cigarette to the ground upon her appearance, and now he ground his leather shoes over it even more and shrugged. "I figured it was time to stop hiding," he said.

Sakura accepted this easily enough, running her finger over the scar on her hand without thinking. She was wearing a long gray sweater and some black, tight fitting yoga pants. It was unusually warm for the current time of year, and especially that day. She tugged her sleeve down over her hand, biting her lip and nodding.

"Is Yamato coming, too?" she asked.

Kakashi nodded and looked over her shoulder. Sakura turned to look as well.

Yamato came jogging out of one of the gift stores nearby, calling a greeting to Sakura and eyeing Kakashi like he was a ticking time bomb. Kakashi just wiggled his fingers in Yamato's direction.

They made their way towards the warehouse next to the river, waiting for the rest of the Akatsuki to show up. Sakura's body was humming with the knowledge that Shisui was close, that he was a few walls away, possible dying, probably in a lot of pain. She wanted to dig her nails in something to make it bleed at the thought.

The Akatsuki did not show up in a group, as Sakura might have expected. Instead, they were positioned in different spots around the warehouse, catching Sakura's eye when they'd pass by, but nothing else. Sakura understood-it would be a bit obvious if suddenly a large group of interesting characters suddenly made their way to the warehouse that likely was known for housing illegal and despicable things. Such as stolen Uchiha members.

In the end, entering the warehouse was simple. Sakura had already assumed that Orochimaru and Kabuto likely knew they were coming. They were not fools, and one did not capture Shisui Uchiha without using him as bait, which was what they likely wanted.

A few windows were broken, a few guards' neck were snapped and taken out a quickly and quietly as possible. It was Madara and Itachi who took up most of the work, both working silently side-by-side. Sakura, Kakashi, and Yamato stood outside, waiting.

After another two minutes had passed once both Madara and Itachi had been inside, not one sound being heard, Kakashi heaved a great sigh and tapped Sakura on the shoulder. He smiled down at her and gestured to the side of the warehouse, where she knew was a window Kakashi wanted to break into.

There was not so much as a plan as there was a silent agreement between all parties involved to not do something stupid. There was no time, and Shisui had been gone long enough.

As Sakura and Kakashi crept over to the side of the warehouse-acutely aware of the surveillance cameras positioned in the trees in the area as well as around the building and taking care to stay out of their way-Yamato followed along without comment.

Sakura saw a flash of color out of the corner of her eye. She swung her head around to see Naruto grinning goofily at her and Sasuke up in a tree, dismantling one of the cameras. Sasuke looked over at them and scowled, giving up on taking out the camera cleanly and instead pulling a knife out of his pocket and then jammed it into the thing. He took care of the rest of the nearby cameras with some well-aimed thrown knifes and nearly silent bullets. Luckily there was no one around this area at the moment, or someone would be bound to notice the angry looking blue haired dyed dude with knifes and a gun.

Kakashi fiddled with the window a bit, but it was not as easy to open as the window as the other warehouse had been, and gave up after a moment to just knock the glass out with the back of his gun.

Sakura, too, had a glossy black gun in her palms, along with a few knives tucked into her clothes. Yamato was not armed, but Sakura didn't doubt he had weapons hidden.

Kakashi was the first to jump over, taking a moment to clear the area, and helped Sakura get over the broken glass. The first thing she noticed was the wooden crates, and she couldn't help but think about the crates in the last warehouse, the ones with body parts in them. However, while all of those crates had been closed lidded, some of these ones were still open, obviously still in the process of being loaded.

She stepped over the broken glass on the floor to get a better look into one of the open crates, readying herself for something horrific to stare back at her. Instead, she got an eyeful of paper. Documents and notebooks and things that made her think about the little notebook that had been handed over to Orochimaru at the last warehouse.

She reached in and randomly selected one of the notebooks, something spiral bound that reminded her of the notebooks she'd buy for one of her classes to take notes in. Her stomach rolled.

Inside were notes. Notes upon notes upon notes. They were in different colored inks and written by different people, writing over and around each other like they were desperate to get their own thoughts and experiments in and heard. Sakura caught words like test subjects and vials X-Z and chromosomes and flu toxins and antibodies and sharingans and familial genes. Many of the phrases Sakura had heard of but did not understand; others she had simply never heard of at all.

Some pages had drawings and diagrams. One page was fully dedicated to lists upon lists of the pros and cons of anti-virus techniques, of splicing genes and taking the knowns of strong ones and incubating them in lesser ones. Another had detailed theorems on the mental capacity of a person, on mental health and the idea that certain parts of the brain could be controlled using very particular familial genes and making the brain think everything was alright. The writer was pathological about tricking the brain at its own game after a handful of treatments of having the person sit in a chair and being shown pictures of certain things, of black crosses and crows and red eyes and then being able to trick the brain into seeing different things, believing different things to be real. Narcissistically and violent, this writer was.

Sakura flipped through the notebook at an alarming rate. Then tossed it aside and picked up a leather-bound journal. Read words about treatments and experiments, some legal and some not. About test subjects, varying from humans to animals to a handful of cells or bacteria under a microscope.

Some of it was ingenious. Others were disturbing and ruthless and made her stomach turn over. Most was pathological.

A hand slipped over Sakura's shoulder to gently remove the notebook from her hands. She flinched and turned her head to see Sasuke, frowning and touching the notebook like it was something contagious. His eyes flitted over the chaotic words with distaste until he sneered and tossed it back into the wooden crate. He shook his head at her, one solid motion.

Sakura fisted her now empty hands and growled low under her breath, "We need to find Shisui."

What she really meant was, We need to kill Orochimaru.

Madara and Itachi were much farther into the warehouse, which became more and more obvious as they all wandered through the aisles and in-between wooden crates filled with horrors. Dead and almost-dead and wishing-they-were-dead men were gathered along the floors. Some were leaking blood and saliva or a disgusting mix of both. Sakura looked only long enough to see that they were not going to move anytime soon and then continued on.

Sakura didn't think it was odd how only Madara and Itachi were the ones in the building, how they were seemingly the only ones to ever be thought of as the first in line to save Shisui. Both were Uchihas: Madara as the post-patriarch of the horror that was Obito and Kakashi's childhood; Itachi as Shisui's best friend and cousin.

The rest of the Akatsuki were outside, content to wait and watch and be there for backup, but this-this was for them.

It didn't take as long as Sakura had expected for Kakashi and Yamato to disappear. Honestly, she was even surprised they'd stuck around long enough for them all to get into the warehouse. When Naruto noticed they were missing from the rear of their little pose, he swore viciously and a bit too loudly.

Sakura caught his sleeve before he could go running back the way they came. "They're fine, Naruto. Trust them."

"Someone might have caught them!"

Sakura didn't bother to point out that the likelihood of Madara and Itachi missing anyone was slim to none. "Trust Kakashi, Naruto. He's not defenseless." And when he still looked unimpressed, added, "And Yamato's there to rein him in."

It wasn't the best argument, but it got Naruto to turn back around and continue on. She, Naruto, and Sasuke had to get through the maze-like room of crates and boxes, and Sakura was annoyed to find out just how large of a warehouse this was, and with just how many rooms.

Mostly, they just followed the trail of bodies until they came upon a room with a closed metal door. It was nothing fancy or odd, but when Sakura touched the metal handle, she had to bite back her yelp at just how ice cold it was.

She swallowed and opened the door, Naruto and Sasuke right there with her and guns drawn. At first, Sakura had to blink and . . . blink some more.

The room was just full of lights. On the ceiling, on the walls, hanging from odd places. She didn't understand at first.

Then she registered the cold.

It was the kind of ice cold that trailed its claws up and down your spine. The kind of cold that crept in when you slept without good heating on a winters night, and woke up only to have to throw back the covers and step down with bare, warm feet onto the carpet-less ground.

It was like walking into a freezer.

Which it obviously was, Sakura noted. There were some crates in there as well, and while some were still open, Sakura knew these were not ones she would want to look into. Nothing that had to be kept at these kinds of temperatures was ever good to look at when it came to people like Kabuto and Orochimaru.

It explained why the door handle had been so cold. Everything was metal in the room sans the wooden crates, though Sakura noted that even some of those were, in fact, metal as well. Those likely contained more valuable items, and all of the metal ones were sealed shut and stacked atop each other to likely preserve the temperature.

It was a warmer day outside, after all.

Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke all paused there, right at the entrance into the room while the door shut behind them, not moving, not breathing. It was a stupid thing to do, but they took everything in for a mere moment before all jumping for cover behind the nearest crates, even though it appeared there was no one else in the room with them.

After a deafening moment of silence, Sasuke gestured at them to keep moving. And keep moving they did.

More crates, both wooden and metal. More lights. More coldness.

It appeared that the farther they moved into the long, narrow room the colder it got. Sakura was shivering, and she could see both Naruto and Sasuke moving quicker to raise their body temperatures.

They had been moving another few paces before they heard the first sound, the first voice.

It was a scream.

Unidentifiable, but still a scream. It could be Madara and Itachi taking out another guard. Or it could be Shisui.

Neither Sakura, Naruto, or Sasuke broke stride. They moved a little faster, yes, because that was all they really could do. All had noticed the lack of bodies on the floor of this room and none had commented on it.

Another few steps and they saw it. It, being the body tied to a long, horizontal table with a slight incline to where the head was located, almost like so the person strapped in could pier down at their own body if they so desired to watch whatever horror was being put upon their person.

Sakura saw the mess of black curls and felt something break open inside her, hot and vicious and clawing for murder.

She also noticed the lack of movement.

Then she noticed the three bodies standing around the table-one behind the table near where the head was, the other two side-by-side across the way, where his feet were.

A scalpel was being held to Shisui's throat, and Sakura could barely make out the trickle of blood from the cut there. This partially was due to how far away she was from Shisui and also because it was a tad difficult to differentiate between the blood flowing down from the cut on his throat and all the blood leaking down his face from his eyes.

Sakura had always thought the Uchihas rocked the colors red and black. They were the colors of the Uchiha crest, the colors most members seemed to be so fond of, the same colors Red Dawn was made up of.

But seeing it now, all that red, made Sakura wish to never see it again-not on Shisui, not on Itachi, not on Sasuke, not on anyone.

Orochimaru took note of their presence then. He smiled a long and slick closed lip stretch of skin. "Ah! Sakura-chan has chosen to join us at last! Lovely, lovely-do come in, sweetheart." His voice was oily over the pet name.

His eyes flicked towards both Naruto and Sasuke on either side of her. "And it seems she brought friends! How gracious of her, wouldn't you say, Shisui Uchiha?" He chortled.

Sakura slowed down to come up to both Madara and Itachi, who were posed there at Shisui's tied down feet, guns drawn but not raised. Sakura took note and did the same. She forced her gaze away from Shisui's face-red and red and so much fucking red-to gaze uninterestedly at Orochimaru.

"Usually I'd complement you on your hospitality, but that would be a lie," she remarked dryly. Her legs felt shaky and the ground felt uneven, but she steeled herself and thought of how all the red would look splattered across Orochimaru's face.

As Orochimaru had said: Lovely.

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

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