The Forgotten Fiance

Chapter 16

Kabuto sat with Sakura in the secluded room.

"So, Miss Sakura... could you tell me what exactly is the problem?"

She fidgeted; playing with her hair and then twisting her hands; biting her lip and shaking her legs. She has never told anyone about everything- all of it- ever. It was personal, really, as holding it all in for five years scared her to spill it to someone else in fear it would get worse.

"Well?" Kabuto prompted. She shakily took a breath as she said, "O-okay."

Then she told him, nervously as she did, about how she found herself in an unknown hospital bed in a magnificent manor with a handsome man claiming to be her fiancé. How she was plunged into endless tests, appointments, shots, drugs- until they ran out of things to provide. How she got married, confused as she did so, and how there was little to no love in the wedding.

And then she went on to explain the uneasiness expanding, growing, between them, and then her head-splitting headaches and how her friends and servants had to knock her out in order to stop it. She coveyed all the pain and suffering she went through, the utter hell that she faced when she didn't do anything, anything wrong.

Naruto's sudden expedition, Sasuke's announcement of a quest to seek Kabuto out- she told him. Guy's sudden appearance, their attack- she told him. How she slowly began to remember, in her heart, her love for Sasuke- and how it was stolen again- she told him. Their arrival at the Village of Rain and how they lost two of their most crucial members- she told him. Her voice tightened at the part of when she spilled the contents of that day, but she kept going on- an unblocked river of tales, an everlasting waterfall of events.

Finally, she came to the dream- the vague sense of knowing something, but not knowing. The truth that was revealed to her and then half of it lost. She explained everything, pouring out her soul and finally finishing the saga they went through with a breathless, "That's all- thank you."

Kabuto sat there, listening intently, and then thinking it all over. "What I heard just now- the contents of it don't matter. That dream you experienced, could you tell me about it again? With as much detail as you can muster?"

Sakura nodded. "A man came to me- Sasuke's late older brother. He called himself Crow. Crow said that this, this endless maze of regaining and painfully losing my memories was because the system that it was made within was never meant for me."

Kabuto frowned. "I'm not sure I can follow. Was this system injected somehow?"

Sakura hesitated. To tell or not to tell him about the Sharingan? From what she heard, it was a closely guarded secret that Sasuke possessed it. But, if she didn't tell him she would never get better...

Trust him.

A small voice, eerily sounding like Naruto's, urged her to tell him. Trust him, and tell him. Everything will be okay once you tell him the full truth.

"...it's personal I understand."

Sakura snapped out of it as Kabuto continued smiling at her expectantly, waiting. She took a breath as she told him.

"Crow possessed the Sharingan."

Kabuto's mouth fell open.

Only slightly, only slightly- just a little gap between bis lips as he stared at her for a moment, fazed for a second, then regained his composure. "I see. So does that make Sasuke a user of the Sharingan as well?"

Sakura answered, "I'd like to keep the contents of that to myself."

"I see," Kabuto answered coolly as he nodded. "Was this Crow, perhaps, Itachi Uchiha?"