Ripples

Chapter 3

                         Suspicions

"I think you should have learned by now to walk in the opposite direction whenever you see him," Sasuke mused from the bedroom.

"I did walk in de oppothite direction," Sakura insisted from the bathroom, her voice alternating between blocked and nasal and normal pitch and rhythm as she tried pinching her nose to stop the bleeding.

Since being imprisoned in Sound, she'd tried to escape a total of three times. The second time, she'd heard someone coming and (having learned from her previous escape attempt) simply made her way back to Sasuke's room as quickly as possible, sliding through the door barely a corridor ahead of the patrolling guards.

As before, Sasuke had said nothing. Sakura still couldn't figure out why.

The third time she'd been almost out of Sound entirely; she'd actually been opening the door of the hidden entrance she'd been hustled in through, ready to run home to Konoha...when Arashi and another guard had emerged from a nearby storeroom. Sakura had suspicions they'd been drinking sake or sneaking extra helpings of chocolate (she was sure they had been doing something they shouldn't!) and had seen her.

Sakura had been rather frightened at the idea that they might report her attempted escape to Orochimaru, only to have her fears proved groundless...at least in that matter. Slaves tried to escape so often that it was up to the guards who caught them to administer punishment.

So Arashi and his friend had simply given Sakura what she thought could truly run for the worst beating of her life.

It had been difficult to take, not only because she had been making an effort not to scream and give those sadists the satisfaction, but also because she had been trying not to fight back. With the collar on, it was debatable whether or not she'd actually have won the fight...but if she broke out some ninja moves, Arashi was certain to become more suspicious than he already was.

So, though it took more willpower than Sakura had ever thought she possessed, she'd laid passively on the floor while she was kicked around like a beach ball. She vaguely recalled someone kicking her head into a wall before the whole world went fuzzy.

She'd awoken alone in the corridor, lying on the floor with a small, sticky pool of blood haloed around her head. She had taken slow, careful inventory of her injuries, noting that her temple was dripping blood, her left cheekbone was probably broken, her nose was bleeding and her probing tongue had found a split lip in addition to two very loose teeth.

Her right arm had come up to cover her head at some point in time, and subsequently been broken by a sharp kick. With every breath she took her ribs had stung like a knife in her side, so she had believed she could safely assume a few of them were broken as well.

Her body had been felt strangely numb, as though she were in so much pain her brain simply couldn't deal with it. Her mind had been fogged and cloudy, and she vaguely admitted it was a miracle her transformation hadn't dropped.

Somehow - Sakura couldn't quite recall how - she'd mustered enough energy to force her fingers into the necessary signs to repair the damage her head had taken and take care of any internal bleeding. And then she'd passed out again.

She'd come to again feeling a little better, but still aching and strangely numb. Ignoring the dizziness brought on by the collar, she'd performed a healing jutsu again, this time repairing her broken arm and ribs and setting her loose teeth. She had been able to heal the broken bones completely, though she hadn't been able to do anything about the bruised muscle and tissue around them. For a moment, she'd thought she was going to pass out again, but after a few moments of grey nothingness closing in on her vision, she had found the strength to hitch herself into a standing position before slowly, painfully, hobbling back to Sasuke's room.