Hellooooo everybody! NOW BEFORE YOU KILL ME I'M SO SORRY SO MUCH HAS BEEN GOING ON THAT I DIDN'T PLAN ON I SWEAR AND IT'S MIDNIGHT RIGHT NOW AND I JUST REALLY WANNA SLEEP! I'm seriously sorry for the delay guys but I've been doing a lot of work and school starts in a couple days and I have no idea how the entire summer went by with me only writing two chapters. I'm so so sorry about that, but on the bright side I managed to write this!! By sneaking moments to myself... like now at midnight... Anyway, won't hold those of you who bothered to read this back. Here is chapter 30!

            Her heart was beating loudly inside her head. Where was she? What was the last thing she had done? I just want to sleep...

            WAKE UP!

            She jerked up, eyelids flying open. Her body screamed in pain, her sore muscles stiff from being still for so long. Her surroundings were a blur of colors before she blinked away the haziness. Gray stone encircled her with no apparent openings in sight. She craned her neck upwards towards the only light source. She seemed to be in a deep pit.

            She moved to stand but heard a jangling sound instead. Looking down to her right, she saw a thick metal band encircled her ankle, causing a ruckus with every move she made. She opened her mouth to yell only for her tongue to scrape against rough cloth. She realized with a start that her arms were also bound behind her back. She couldn't do even crawl, much less stand.

            Don't panic, don't panic, she thought to herself as she felt her blood pressure rising. Just try to remember what happened.

            Her thoughts settled as she tried to reconstruct the prior events. They had been ambushed and Zetsus had restrained her before her tired body could even try to respond to the situation, knocking her out just as they crossed the crumbling wall.

            Sasuke! She had to get back to him!

            But how?

            Why had she alone been kidnapped? She had clearly been specifically targeted.

            She stamped her feet on the hay-covered ground, gritting her teeth. The chain links collided with each other, the unpleasant sound bouncing off of the stone pit's walls.

            It had to have something to do with her power, as it seemed everything did nowadays. That was the only thing that set her apart from any other Konoha shinobi. But that information was supposed to be classified, which meant...

            There's a spy.

            She shuddered.

            I need to tell Tsunade-sama, she needs to know!

            But the heavy weight of her shackles reminded her of her unfortunate reality. Who had kidnapped her? From what she'd seen on the battlefield, Zetsus weren't particularly strong nor intelligent, they were just hard to kill because of their artificial makeup and their sheer strength in numbers. There was no way one of them had led such an intricate kidnapping, even timing it so that they kidnapped her just as the barrier was put up and no one could follow for a long time.

            Sasuke's hand had been outstretched towards her before she was knocked unconscious, onyx eyes gleaming with desperation. Her chest heaved, her body reacting to her desire to be with him. She tilted her head up towards the light, trying to stop herself from crying. Crying would do nothing but make it harder to breathe with the gag in her mouth. But... Why do we keep getting torn apart?

            Sakura hadn't moved for hours. She couldn't without causing a ruckus, and she wasn't ready to meet her kidnappers quite yet.

            Ugh, I need to get out of this dress!

            The already ripped black fabric was straining with every move she made and was definitely not adequate clothing if she wanted to somehow get out of here, wherever here was. Not to mention the fact that the dress only reminded her of everyone she was missing. Hinata... She hoped she was ok.

            Agh! Whatever!

            She couldn't do anything so she might as well sleep. Maybe with some rest she could devise a way to get out of this seemingly impenetrable pit. Fat chance...

            She closed her eyes and tried to calm her galloping thoughts.

            Sleep...

            Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.

            What is that sound?

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

            Water?

            Drip.

            "Our first time meeting, and you can't even wake up? How pathetic."

            She gasped as she jerked awake, her neck cracking as she took in her new surroundings. This definitely wasn't the pit. To start, Sakura was lying knee-deep in shallow water, soft sand sifting through her toes as she curled them. Pink petals floated around her, small ripples extending outwards wherever they fell. She looked up, and her jaw fell open. Wrinkled bark twisted to form a thick trunk sprouting out of the pool of water, and decorating its branches were the most beautiful flowers she'd ever seen. Pale pink blossoms made every branch their home, and each petal that floated ever so gently down to the water's surface seemed to glow with a gentle light, illuminating the dark space.

            "Sakura, have you ever seen a sakura tree in bloom?"

            Sakura raised her head and shook it, her curiosity piqued.

            "Well, that's to be expected; nothing blooms much around here. Sakura trees are a wondrous sight to see when in bloom! They're soft and pink, just like your hair, and when the wind blows even slightly, the petals scatter in a soft, pink shower! It's one of the most beautiful phenomena to be observed in this world!"

            "Shizune... is this it? Is this what you wanted... to show me?"

            "Yes, it is," a voice responded.

            Sakura jumped to her feet, only now realizing that she wasn't bound nor gagged. Wait... That was her voice.

             A figure that had blended into the tree's foliage now slid down from its branches, creating not a single ripple when her feet touched the water. Pink hair gathered around her feet, locks of it trailing back up into the branches of the magnificent tree. Only a simple white dress with thin straps and a short skirt offered her pale skin any coverage. Her eyes were a clear green and glowing, and a small purple diamond sat in the middle of her wide forehead, black lines crossing through it and across her face, twisting around her arms and legs, and dipping beneath her dress.

            "Who-Who are you?"

            The woman cocked her head, regarding her bemusedly with her glowing eyes.

            "Can't you tell? I am you. I'm your inner, Sakura."

            "My... inner?"

            She knew an inner was the manifestation of your instincts or something along those lines, and that every resident beyond the forest had one, but hers had never manifested in her life. Or had it?

            He's right here! Up ahead!

            "Are you the one who led me to Sasuke that time in the forest?"

            Her inner nodded.

            "But why... why haven't I heard you otherwise?"

            Her inner sighed and walked towards her, practically gliding across the water as the locks of her hair tangled with the branches of the sakura tree stretched behind her.

            "Because my dear self," She stroked Sakura's cheek, her glowing orbs looking straight into hers. "You weren't raised in the forest. The forest gives you power, but it also gives me power. Inners thrive off of the forest's energy. I only got short bursts of nutrition to boost my development, but recently, I have been eating quite well." She smirked, licking her lips.

            This is my inner?

            "What? Disappointed?" she asked, stepping back.

            "Wha­–how did you–"

            Her inner arched her eyebrow.

            "Oh right."

            I'm her and she's me. Of course, she can hear my thoughts.

            "No, I'm not disappointed, I'm just surprised is all. You're... well nothing like me."

            "You just think that, but I represent a hidden side of you, just as everyone else's inner represents a hidden side of them." She twirled lightly on the surface of the water, glancing at Sakura over her shoulder. "You're tougher than you think."

            Sakura stared at her but her inner merely smiled obscurely. "Tough" wasn't exactly the word she'd use to describe her inner, but there were more pressing matters at hand.

            "If you're my inner, do you have some sort of instinct that could help me-us get out of this prison."

            "What do you take me for? A genie?"

            Sakura flinched, cheeks heating up.

            "N-No, I just–"

            "Ssh!" Her inner spun around, putting a finger to her lips.

            Sakura strained her ears. Nothing. Her inner shuddered, and Sakura felt it, as if ice water were running down her back.

            "Seems our captor has come to pay us a visit," her inner snarled. "We'll continue this conversation another time."

            Her inner jumped landing lithely back into the branches of the sakura tree, becoming one with its blossoms.

            "Hey wait!" Sakura called, but her limbs wouldn't move to chase after her. A muffled voice grated against her ear, and the beautiful pool of petals disappeared.

            "Wakey-wakey, Haruno. Sakura."

Alright! So now we have officially entered the second half of the story! I hope you guys enjoyed meeting Sakura's inner. She was pretty interesting to write actually, kind of seductive, sarcastic, and mysterious is what I was going for. Hope I got that down. Also, sorry this chapter is kind of short but I thought it would be better to get something out now than to make you guys wait God knows how long for a longer chapter. Plus, you know how I love my cliffhangers. 

So what are your predictions for the second half? Who do you think is the captor? And who do you think is the spy? Let me know in the comments below!

Thanks for reading guys and again, sorry for the delay, but I'm seriously falling asleep at my keyboard right now, so I'm gonna bid you guys good night. Love you all. See ya next time! Ja ne!