Guinea Pigs

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"Wake up, Haruno-san!"

Haruno... that was her name. Sakuras body reacted to the command before her mind had caught up with it. Her eyes fluttered open. She groaned, as an afterthought of past pain ran through her body. Her surroundings were dark and her vision needed a moment to adjust to it. Then, she saw, behind iron bars, a face that she barely recognized as familiar.

"Iwaza-san... wasn't it?", she asked, unsure if her memory served her right. The nod in return proved her right. Iwaza, a chuunin of Konoha, a few years older than her. He too had fought in the battle, but Sakura could not recall seeing him brought to Ino, herself or the other medical ninjas. He seemed to be in a rather good condition, so... how did he end up here?

"Iwaza-san, how did you get captured? The battle, did we...?", 'lose?', she meant to ask. She sat up abruptly, or at least, she tried. Her upper body had moved halfway upwards before it fell back onto the sorry excuse for a bed.

Her body felt as if she was buried in mud. Her limbs were hard to move, her head was fuzzy, her eyes were not working properly yet. But that could all be because of her unconsciousness... but it wasn't and she knew it. The flow of chakra was disturbed. The result of her life force that her body produced. What had once been like a river inside her body had now become stiff like rocks, and it was heavier to draw out than lifting iron.

"My... my chakra...", she asked, perplexed as she found herself laying on her back again. One more time, she tried to sit up and this time she suceeded, although it cost her much more energy than she used to need before.

"Don't you remember? They have sealed our chakra. You have a seal on the back of your neck.", Iwaza informed her, turning to the side and brushing his hair away over his neck to reveal his mark. It was in the shape of a swastika, a symbol of restriction like Neji and the rest of the Hyuuga branch family carried.

Unconsciously, Sakura put her hand on the spot he had shown her and regretted it immediately. When her finger softly brushed over it, a searing pain shot through her body. Sakura winced and fell to her knees. Yes, she did remember now.

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The first time Sakura had awoken from her unconsciousness, she was laid on a wooden bench, with her face down. The first thing she saw was a young woman that was probably around her age, with uneven, red hair, smirking down on her. Matching red eyes stared at her intently behind glasses. Then, Sakura had instantly realized that she had never seen that woman before.

Hands were pressed on her body, her limbs and her head too. Strong hands, that would forbid her movement. "Wha-...?", she opened her mouth to ask, but the question was cut off instantly.

"You might wanna bite down on this!", the redhead said after she had stuffed a leathermade belt into her mouth. Not being given a real choice here, Sakura did as she was told. Even without being told, she knew then what had happened to her: She was captured by the enemy.

"Sakura Haruno, you will be placed in a prison. That's why your chakra will be sealed.", was all the explanation that was offered to her. The redhead was the only one who spoke to her. The male guards who held her down were silent, so Sakura concluded that the girl was the highest-ranking in the room.

A slightly sadistic chuckle escaped her lips as she walked out of Sakuras sight. Sakura felt that she climbed onto the table

where she was pinned down. "Right, hold her down tightly, boys!", she commanded as she had straddled Sakuras body. Her pink hair was parted by the soft hands of that female, and then, a buzzing sound was heard.

Before Sakura could even begin to guess what it was, the procedure was started without any warning. It felt like a thousand of searing hot needles were being driven into one tiny point inside her spine. Her body wanted to buck wildly against the pain, but as commanded, the hands did not allow that. The hands of the guards pressed her head and shoulder down on the table, so hard that Sakura had thought she would either become pressed into it or they would break before that happened.

Sakuras pain had been immense and like pain usually makes you believe, it seemed to take no end. For what seemed like hours to her, she only felt the presence of the needle(s) piercing her skin. She couldn't even make out what was done with her, what shape the seal would have, so she could draw some conclusion about it. To no avail, all she could feel was the agony it caused, not from where it came. Her head tried to move, but the rest of her body had been paralyzed by the pain.

The eternity lasted merely twenty minutes to the wardens involved, then the outlining of the seal was finished. Sakura had fainted just afterwards, not witnessing how an amount of chakra was channeled into it that would allow the seal to take its effect.

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"Yes... yes, I remember now...", she pressed out from behind her gritted teeth. The pain was still lingering. She guessed it would take it a couple of days to heal, since she could not help herself with her chakra.

"As for the battle, I don't know. The last thing I remember from it was Orochimaru summoning his snakes. I looked up to them, and then they got me in that instant. I just wonder why they didn't kill me...", he wondered.

Sakura sighed with relief. At least that left her with the hope that the battle had not been lost. The fact remained that she and the others had been brought here. So the battle had probably ended in a draw at best. And she had faith that they would be rescued.

She just didn't know how long it would take her friends to find them...

Instead, Sakura would have to endure this prison for the time being. She looked around herself. She had small cell for herself, not spacious, of course, it was barely large enough to contain the bed and a small table. She guessed that if she would spread both of her arms, she could touch the bars on both sides of this cage. Hers was located at the very end of this corridor, and dozens of other cells were lining the hallway. Each cell was seperated from the other with an iron wall with only a small window between them. Why that was was beyong Sakura, but at least it allowed her to talk to Iwaza-san some more...

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The guards did not tell the prisoners to remain silent, for whatever reasons. But despite that, there soon reigned a curtain of silence over the entire cellblock. Sakura had talked with Iwaza-san, the only ninja she recognized here, for a while, but they soon reached topics neither of them wanted to talk about, like what was planned for them, or where they were. Neither wanted to speculate about that, it would be too depressing. So, both fell silent after a while and they only talked once in a while for the next time.

The air was stiffling. It almost seemed dead. Strangely fitting for this place. Sakura could assume from this that they were locked in a place where the door leading to fresh air was seldomly opened and windows, if there even were some present, were even rarer opened.

To pass her time, Sakura began to first wander around in her cell, and then, to throw some punches, to at least keep herself in shape. A natural reaction of a living being to being caged. But she found herself out of breath quickly. Much quicker than normal, even with her chakra being restricted. So it had to be something else... and eventually, she figured out what it was.

It was the air.

Or rather, the lack of it. An effective way to keep someone in line. If she had only little air to draw in, she could also move scarcely, decreasing her overall speed and strength considerably. It was as good as shackling her to a wall. The few wardens that she had seen so far were breathing as shallow as the prisoners. They had gotten used to it.

The wardens. They gave them food and water. Thankfully, enough food and diverse enough that none of the prisoners actually fell sick. But Sakura still hated them. They were as mute as stones, she hated them for it. They didn't treat them badly, and she hated them for that. Because it made it harder to hate them over the fact that they were the enemy. That they were Orochmiarus lackeys.

She couldn't tell what time of the day it was, whether it was night- or daytime. The food, she didn't know if it was always delivered at set times or just randomly to further throw her into confusion. She just didn't know. She expected that kind of mindgame from Orochimaru. Maybe she was getting paranoid, but what else was she supposed to think?

The wardens would come and get them, one by one. They would open the door and say just one chilling sentence: "Orochimaru-sama awaits you.". She had first witnessed this when Iwaza was ordered there. He did not resist. He knew he could only try to endure what was waiting for him, Sakura saw that in his eyes as they looked at each other briefly. "Don't give up, Haruno-san.", he told her but his voice failed to sound encouragingly.

"You too.", she returned, doing an even worse job. She had seen firsthand what Orochimaru liked to do to his own subjects and she certainly did not want to imagine what he would do to prisoners.

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Some time later, it could have been days or even weeks, Sakura had a visitor. By then, Sakura was already beginning to think she would go insane from the routine of this prison, from the small cell, from the dim light, from the smell, everything was stiffling her senses. She was little more than an animal inside here.

The visitor broke that routine, and Sakura was thankful for that. And it wasn't a guard that had come to take her with him. No, it was a familiar face. It was the redhead that had placed that seal on her that she had cursed so often on that day.

At first, she stood just there, with a clipboard in her hand, looking at Sakura, then scribbling something on it, looking back at her, then scribbling some more.

"You want something from me?", Sakura asked, finally unnerved by the silence that was only broken by her pen writing on the paper.

Instead of looking at her, the woman only motioned her to be silent with her hand and then said. "Silence. You are a specimen, that is all. I will ask you a few questions, and you are to answer.", she ordered without any hint of softness in her voice.

The word 'specimen' was what held Sakuras tongue for now. Specimen? For what? Orochimarus purposes? Sakuras blood boiled, but before she could voice her disapproval of even that idea, the woman spoke again.

"Name is Haruno Sakura, correct?", she inquired, the cold tone of her voice unchanged.

Sakura considered resisting this interrogation, but what would it help her? They obviously knew her name already. So, she would only refuse to answer if they would ask her things like how to conquer Konoha or the likes. "Yes."

"Age?"

"19 years.", Sakura found herself answering.

"Height?"

"162 cm."

"Weight?"

"Last time I checked, 104 pounds."

"Any chronic diseases?"

"No.", she answered. Was this going to be a medical checkup?

"Sexual orientation?"

"What?", Sakura asked, rapidly blushing. What kind of a question was that?

"Just answer!"

"S-straight."

"With how many men did you have intercourse with so far?", the next question came as quickly and disinterested as possible.

Sakuras blush deepened. "N-none so far...", Sakura admitted.

At that answer, the facade on her captors face broke for a moment as she grinned to herself.

"What's so funny?", Sakura asked again, this time seriously getting pissed at her.

"Nothing.", the redhead answer, emotionless again, scribbled some more words down and then looked straight at Sakura again.

"That is all.", she said briskly and turned around.

As she walked down the hallway, Sakuras eyes followed her back. She was confused that those were all the questions she had been asked. She jumped up from her bed and dashed the small distance from there to the door to her cell. "Hey wait! Why did you ask me those things?", Sakura yelled after her.

At first, it didn't seem to affect her and the woman continued to walk. Then however, she turned around, and that mocking, sadistic smile on her face was there again. She sauntered back to Sakuras cell and stood in front of the bars, closer than she had before. Sakura even felt her breath on her own face.

"Orochimaru-sama has a plan for you. Several, in fact. The questions you answered me merely confirmed that you were eligible for any of them."

"What... what kind of plans?", Sakura asked. Her stomach was threatening to reject the food that it had recently received as Sakura merely pictured what Orochimaru was capable of doing.

But the jailor merely shrugged. "Different ones. But I won't spoil you the fun of finding out yourself.", she answered.

"But don't worry...", as she said this, her hand reached through the bars and patted Sakuras cheek. Sakura slapped the hand away and denied her the pleasure of submitting to this mocking gesture. The smile on the redheads face faded at Sakuras continued resistance. "In comparison to what your colleague Iwaza-san is going through, yours will be most merciful.", she hissed and with that, left Sakura alone in her cell again.

Alone to wonder about the things she had said. Alone to her dreams that would paint those 'plans' in the worst kind of ways for her. Alone to slowly break apart in fear.


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The door screeched as it was moved for the first time in... she didn't know how long it was. A week? A month? A year? By now, Sakura had completely lost track of time. She sat up and saw who it was. A bit of her still held the hope that it would be one of her friends, but that hope was crushed in an instant. It was a guard.

"Orochimaru-sama awaits you."

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