"Would you like to tell me what happened?"
He knows he has no right to screw around, but by now he has no other way of communicating with her. It has become a habit for both of them. He cannot suppress the need to tease her as soon as he opens his mouth. Seemingly, his words have no effect on her, but she has her own methods of retaliation. One of her favorites is smoking in his presence. Not one to talk much, she usually just takes her time with the cigarettes, exhaling small puffs of smoke that float in his direction, making his hands shake with want.
Uchiha Sasuke stirs in the corner of the room, obviously uncomfortable with his position on the wooden stool. He's a bizarre child, really. Not that much came up after checking his background. Family dead, no relatives, no traces of any previous connection to any organization. He practically popped out of nowhere and requested the best agent available. It wasn't a favor he was asking for, either. He payed the required deposit as soon as the higher-ups agreed to take the job. God knows kids these days are brave to carry that much cash on them in broad daylight.
Redirecting his stare back to the woman in front of him, he sees her reaching for her coat pocket. He bites the inside of his cheek as she extracts a notebook and a pack of cigarettes, placing them on the table. He knows it's his own fault for pressing her buttons like that – after such an ordeal, no less – and he braces himself when after some more rummaging she produces a lighter. Lazily, she places one cigarette in her mouth and lights up. Berating himself once again for quitting, he tries to focus on her eyes instead of the tantalizing smell.
She stares at him hard for a few seconds and then her gaze slowly shifts on to the Uchiha boy. Whether it's to grab his attention or for some other purpose, he cannot tell.
"Alright, then, Asuma," she concludes, opening her notebook.
Walking to the designated spot, she finds him sitting on a bench under a large sakura tree. He seems dazed, absentmindedly staring at the falling petals, the newspaper in his hands forgotten. It is quite nice outside, she must admit. Casually, she approaches the bench and sits down next to him.
"Found our birdie?" she ventures, admiring the sakura.
"Tch," he conceals his grin, playing with the toothpick in his mouth. "Last time I checked, he was my birdie."
Honestly, how many times has she told him one day he is going to choke on it?
"I'm just taking a peek," she says. Fact is, she wants nothing to do with his target. It's simply that the client asked for a confirmation of whereabouts and she was sent in to determine whether it was indeed alright to proceed. "You're no good at remaining unnoticed anyway, always wandering off to your dreamland."
He snorts. "Kind of a joke, hearing that from a woman who had to dye her hair before being allowed to go on assignments."
"Watch it, wise guy," she reiterates, one side of her mouth twitching. "With the amount of cash Kakashi owes me after last weekend, I can persuade him to do virtually anything."
"Oh, bringing out the big guns now, aren't we," he smirks.
Her elbow connects with his side, and he grunts, the sound followed immediately by discreet snickering. It's amazing how this man can lift her mood at any time of the day. Whether she's drunk, hungover or on a mission, his casualness, so laden with subtle hints, always hits the spot.
"I'll see you later," she offers, standing up.
With her hands in her pockets, she moves forward, indifference the only recognizable emotion on her face. It took quite some time to get her moods under control like this. At first, she used to place a sort of a barrier in front of herself, when communicating. With that, she could detach herself from the person she was interrogating, pretending not to care about anything that concerned them. However, while she did manage to seem cold and distant on the surface, even the simplest of actions were accompanied by inner turmoil. Missions drained her so much, it started taking days to recover both mentally and physically.
Later, she discovered different ways of preparing. Too stubborn to quit, she studied herself, discovered her own boundaries and crossed them. By the time she was moved in to work with the trio, she had mastered herself to an alarming degree. And yet meeting Kakashi, Genma and Asuma was what had made her complete. She now faced her obstacles armed with the knowledge that there were other people that also found the same things difficult. Having someone she could relate to for a change had certainly lifted her uneasiness greatly.
Approaching the corner of a small pub, she stops at a newspaper vendor. From this distance, she can easily pretend to be browsing today's headlines and also see every single person inside, without anyone noticing her. The object of her interest, though, is not in the pub. After a few moments, she buys a newspaper and continues forward, passing the pub without so much as a glance towards it and then calmly turns in to an alley on the right. Her pace is steady as she wanders through the narrow streets, the tall buildings soon gouging all the noise from the main avenue.
After a couple of more turns, she is sure she isn't being followed and now heads towards her real destination. As soon as she can see the outline of what seems to be a warehouse of some sort, she quietens her footsteps. Looking around one more time, she moves swiftly, the assuring weight of her Sig P226 in her hands. Cautiously, she reaches the entrance, by now making virtually no sound at all. She places her ear against a tiny gap in the wall, straining to hear something. Eliminating the people inside is not the purpose of her trip, henceforth, she will not be making any contact.
All that she needs is to confirm the whereabouts of the target. Still listening intently, her eyes widen for a fracture of a second as she jumps to the side, avoiding a hit. Turning around, she is puzzled by the menacing presence in front of her. She was sure there was nobody tailing her, so how was she discovered just now? Her opponent is smirking and she gasps, her blurry vision informing her that she was supposed to block the previous blow instead of dodging it.
She wakes to an unpleasant smell of mold and exhaust fumes, but now that she is awake, she isn't so sure anymore whether it was the stench or the unbearable noise of metal scraping against concrete that woke her. Wishing for earplugs more than ever, she lays still, her breathing deep and steady, not intent on alerting the enemy of her regaining her consciousness. Slowly, she tries to analyze the situation and become as aware as possible of her surroundings. As far as she can tell, there are no bindings restricting her movement, and no soreness, indicating that she has an injury. There is always the chance that morphine was used to relieve the pain, but she rules that out, after feeling the slight sting of biting down on her own tongue.
Relentlessly, the scraping outside – she is pretty confident by now that it is, in fact, coming from the outside – continues as she tries to grasp for how long she has been knocked out. Judging by the dryness of her throat, more than 72 hours should not have passed. For sure, she has at most been unconscious for two days, she decides, noticing that even though she would gladly have a shower if such an opportunity presented itself, the greasiness of her hair and the amount of dirt on her skin is not yet unbearable.
Having now a general idea of her condition, she wipes all the thoughts from her mind and listens intently for anything that would indicate that she is not alone. Soft breathing, a rustle of clothes, any movement at all. Usually, she trusts her instincts and natural awareness of the presence of people around her, but she is no longer willing to do so. What with the incident that got her in to this mess, she is obviously dealing with a person who can bypass her senses.
After what feels like at least twenty minutes of painful straining, she lets herself relax a bit, more or less sure that she is indeed, alone. Regrettably, just as she is about to finally open her eyes and search for a way out, she hears something that makes her insides freeze with shock.
"Awake, aren't you?"
The voice is considerably quiet, and yet as she lies there, unable to stop her body from going rigid with tension, every syllable rings in her head, magnified a thousand times. She was unable to feel his presence again. More than that, the whole time she was unaware of her captor, he saw right through what she thought was a flawless imitation of slumber.
Incapable of containing herself any longer – and also urged by the soft footsteps nearing closer – she opens her eyes, fixing her captor with a defiant stare. For a moment, she wishes she hadn't, for her gaze is met by the one man she was supposed to avoid intercepting by all costs, and that makes her day even worse.
The one surveying her calculatingly is none other than the man that knocked her out. Genma's target.
Uchiha Itachi.
Interestingly enough, he doesn't seem to have any intentions of torturing her. Instead, he brings her food and lets her eat quietly, with no restraints at all. He must surely think highly of himself, deciding that she could only harm him with her gun. It vexes her a little.
She has finished her meal and sits with her back against the wall, the unending noise outside doing nothing to relieve her already taut nerves. He is observing her openly – she can feel his searching gaze on her as she stares at an indent on the door, her face expressionless. Surely, he doesn't believe this kind of pressure is enough to make her uncomfortable? She can easily stay apathetic and oblivious as long as necessary.
Night time approaches, and he has yet to ask her a single question. In fact, he has moved from his spot only for a couple of times, and that was to bring her food and a blanket to cover herself with while sleeping. This must be his way of mocking her – or so she presumes. He deliberately refuses to acknowledge she most likely has worthy information, his lack of faith in her abilities clearly expressed by her unbound limbs. She, on the other hand, less than hardly concerned of his opinion of her, cannot stop herself from wondering for the umpteenth time how is it that he manages to trick her senses.
Reaching for the blanket with obvious disinterest, she covers herself and closes her stinging eyes, deciding that it must be a machine of some sort, emitting the scraping sound, for it shows no signs of stopping for the night, just like it did during the day. It is difficult to say exactly where she is imprisoned, for the room she is currently in tells her little about the rest of the building. The walls have no paint on them, there is no furniture and there is a small window on the right. Moving from her spot would insinuate nervousness, and unluckily she cannot see outside from where she sits.
Still, she is willing to bet that she is situated on the second, perhaps the third floor. Taking into account that she constantly hears the noise of what she assumes is a machine, but has so far seen no personnel, this could possibly be an abandoned facility of some kind. Her predicament is ridiculous to the point of becoming amusing. There is a fighting chance that the only people in the building are her and her captor. And yet before she discovers something to support her theory she cannot move, for that could mean drawing more attention to herself and jeopardizing the whole operation even further.
And, she cannot help being mildly interested in his motives for bringing her here.
"You are unable to sleep with me in the room," she hears a soft voice from the corner.
Slowly, she opens her eyes and gazes at the figure in front of her. She has decided. She is going to figure out the trick he used on her earlier, and then she is going to eliminate him. So much for promising Genma to only poke around for a bit.
"Incorrect," she retaliates, her voice slightly hoarse from the lack of use. This is the second sentence he has directed at her within the span of at least seven hours, and it's not even a question. "It is rather that I choose not to, which is quite an expected course of action for a captive."
How irritating.
"A captive," he echoes. Is that a question? She hopes he isn't going to try to be amusing. Not only does she lack a sense of humor in general, jesting doesn't usually work very well when she knows the dead body count in her companion's file has more than one digit.
Instead of responding, she lazily raises her chin a little higher, as if to convey that she is not compelled to play games with him. He was lucky when he managed to catch her off guard, that is all there is to it.
"Would it be wrong to say that I view you more as a guest, rather than a captive?" he continues, a smirk dawning on his features.
"A guest," she repeats, raising her eyebrows.
"A guest," he nods slowly, his smirk becoming more prominent. "You are an interesting woman, Haruno Sakura. I think it is safe to presume that it was just a matter of time before our paths crossed."
The use of her name feels like a slap on the face with a wet towel. The only way this man could be aware of her identity was either thanks to a breach in the system, or a leak – both a crucial indicator that the safety of those important to her might be imperiled. Clenching her fist, she decides that she will have to speed up her departure.
"Actually, there are a couple of matters that I would like to discuss with you," he continues again, shifting in his chair and reaching out to shortly massage his apparently stiff shoulder. "And I was hoping that we could reach an agreement suitable for both sides and then part ways."
Eyebrows still raised, she decides that the first thing that she is going to do upon returning to headquarters is add "arrogant" to the characteristics in his file. Underlined.
"Unlikely, I must say," she announces coldly, though somewhat intent on continuing the conversation. "Is the fact that you and I could possibly agree on something."
"Oh, on the contrary," he whispers confidently, leaning back in his chair again, a conspiratorial gleam in his eyes.
She must admit it is slightly amusing, this unusual atmosphere. One might even call it a rare sight, of sorts. Taking a long drag on her cigarette – she does not really enjoy smoking that much, it simply sometimes saves her the effort of kicking a certain individual on the shins – she exhales slowly, listening to the barely audible breathing of the other two occupants of the room. Goodness, they're almost shaking with anticipation.
"What," the man in front of her attempts to ask, but has to swallow before being able to continue, "What was the deal he wanted to make?"
This weakness of his never ceases to bewilder her. How could a grown man allow himself to become so dependent on something so trivial as tobacco? Expensive, unpleasant to those around you that do not share the habit and unnecessary. She is glad he quit. Or is at least trying to, if the way he has to wet his dry throat every thirty seconds every time she smokes is anything to judge his ever-present inner self-contradictions by.
The soft sound of someone shifting redirects her attention to the other person currently present in the room. Watching him trying to adjust his position on the uncooperative stool, she realizes that she is stalling. Well, no – she never stalls – it is more like a slightly altered form of procrastination, this thing she is doing. It's only natural; the business she has to take care of is a rather new experience for her, a previously unexploited area. But then, she was always a quick learner.
She flips over another page in her notebook, successfully landing on a blank one and retrieves a pen from her coat pocket.
"You'll understand easier if I do this," she states matter-of-factly, scribbling down on the paper, the cigarette still in her mouth, "Since it's somewhat hard describe accurately by using words only."
She rises from her sitting position just enough for her outstretched arm to meet Asuma's eagerly waiting hand and the two men gaze with bated breath at the small notebook, the younger one stretching to the point of falling off his stool to see the two words written on it.
Suddenly, a sharp intake of breath pierces the air, followed by rapid movement and then – complete stillness.
"You have probably already guessed this, Asuma," Haruno Sakura says pleasantly, her posture perfect as she aims at two foreheads simultaneously, steadily holding a gun in each of her hands, and a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
"But I said next time I would bring his little brother with me."
End.
05-01-08, 22:19.
AN: To those of you that might be interested, the two words in the notebook were "Uzumaki Naruto". He is Sakura's missing former partner in this fanfic.