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A Moment in Time # 2: Changes

Pairings: Kankuro x Sakura

When: In between Anime 53 & 54

When you're a shinobi, being distracted is a very dangerous thing. you could endanger the lives of your comrades and the success of the mission if you aren't focused at hand. Enemy shinobi could easily sneak upon you and observe you from a far. Or in Sakura's case at the tea house; Kankuro.

Kankuro was on his way back from a B-ranked mission when he gradually felt chakra slowly unmasking. But it wasn't just any chakra he felt, it belonged to his favorite leaf kunoichi. She was sitting in a tea house with a cup of tea just looking at the sky. For two minutes, she barely touched her tea and he saw/heard her sigh a few times as well.

'She must be really upset about something to be this out of it.' thought Kankuro. It was true though; his girlfriend was almost always focused unless she was extremely upset about something. So, deciding to snap her out of it. Kankuro silently snuck up behind Sakura and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. The medic felt her heart was going pound out of chest at any given second. The time between that Sakura felt lips on her cheek and the actual sight of Kankuro felt like hours to the pink-haired kunoichi. When she finally saw her boyfriend , her whole body relaxed and she beamed from ear to ear.

"Kankuro!" The puppet master embraced his girlfriend in a hug; she had her head tucked into his chest and the puppeteer's arms were wrapped protectively around Sakura's waist. She tilted her her chin up so that she was looking at her lover straight in the eye. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you right now."

"You want to bed." And with that, the sand-shinobi crashed his lips eagerly onto his girlfriend's. Now, when your girlfriend is a shinobi from a different hidden village, you don't see her much and she has just as much responsibility as you do; you tend to want to spend as much time as you can with her. Some or most of the time; having a slow, romantic kiss just doesn't cut it. This kiss they shared in the tea house basically said, "I love you and I missed you." Being in a long-distance relationship wasn't easy between the brother and the apprentice of two Kages. Sure, they wrote to each other whenever they could, but that wasn't the same as seeing one another on a daily basis.

Before they went any further with the kiss, both shinobi reluctantly pulled away on their own accord. Kankuro said, "Coming back from a b-ranked mission."

"C-ranked mission; collecting herbs." Both of the puppet master's eyebrows shot up in surprise."I know it's a little out of character but I needed to get out of the village for a little while, to clear my thoughts." She slumped in her lover's arms. "A lot has happened in such a short amount of time." Kankuro just nodded and guided her outside. Fifteen minutes later, The two shinobi were laying down in a grassy field. Her head laid on his should while on of the medic's hands rested on the male shinobi's chest. Sakura looked up at Kankuro and lightly squeezed the black material at his chest. "Team Kakashi got a temporary replacement for Sasuke; his name is Sai. And since Kakashi-sensei is bed ridden right now, Captain Yamato is his replacement." Kankuro took a real good look at his girlfriend, she had a sad distant look in her face."

"Sakura?"

"We ran into Orochimaru, Kabuto, and Sasuke." His eyes widened. "I'm starting to think that you were right about Sasuke all along."

"That he's a prick?" Sakura smiled. Kankuro knew what to say in times' like these.

"That if you don't attack your enemies with killing intent then you're probably as good as dead and . . ." She paused and looked at her lover. To say that he looked anxious was to say at least. "Sasuke is a lost cause." Kankuro's head snapped up in utter shock.

"W-w-wha-what?" The puppet master's face went from shock to pure horror. As much as he wanted Sakura to realize that the Uchiha was a missing ninja and that meant he was an enemy. However the Sakura he knew would never ever say something like that. "Sakura!" The kunoichi was startled from the rise in his voice and Kankuro knew that something significant had to happen in order for girl girlfriend to start loosing faith in the snake of Team 7. Now pure horror wasn't covered in the sand-shinobi's eyes, but worry and concern. "Princess, what happened?"

Sakura's voice was coy and meek, "Naruto fought Orochimaru and he transformed into a miniature version of the Nine-Tails."

Twelve hours later the medical ninja woke up in a strange room. Although she was a little disoriented and confused, it wasn't hard to not noticed the masculine body entangled with her own. She tried to untangled herself from Kankuro without waking him. However, being the light sleeper that he was during missions, he woke up at the slightest movement of his lover.

"Princess, go back to sleep." mumbled a very sleepy puppet master. He tightened his grip on Sakura and tucked her head into his chest. It took Sakura a couple of minutes to remember what happened after she told him about Naruto; the puppeteer enveloped her in a bear hug, then kissed her with all his might. Kankuro knew perfectly what dangers decreed anyone who was very close to a jinjuriki, especially who had no control over the demon. Sakura tried to relax her body but she just couldn't go back to sleep. The few minutes after Sakura's remembrance, she was absolutely sure that Kankuro was fast asleep, she tried to untangle herself from her boyfriend yet again. "Sakura," a very irritated sand-shinobi vocalized. "It's two o'clock in the morning. Is something bothering you?"

"A girl can't get up to get some fresh air without her boyfriend holding her down. "Kankuro reluctantly untangled himself from her. The medic rose from the bed and quickly sped outside for some much needed fresh air. Once Sakura was out on the balcony, she let a huge breath of air that she didn't know she was holding. The reason for Sakura's uneasiness was she had a nightmare and she woke up in the exact same position as her bad dream had started in.

"Sakura, please talk to me. What's going on?" His voice was filled with something that Sakura had never heard in Kankuro's voice before; desperation mixed with worry.

"I had a bad dream; we were both in bed and I woke up to see Kabuto in the corner of our room. He had this . . . . . smirk on his face, . . . . as if he was up to something. I tried to wake you up but you wouldn't move an inch. Kabuto gradually closer to us and I tried to scream, but for some reason i couldn't. When he finally reached our bed, I woke up. . . . . When Naruto transformed into a miniature version of the Nine-Tails, he attacked me. Kabuto healed me and then told me that we're allies because we share a common enemy."

"The Akatsuki."Sakura nodded. Kankuro ran a hand over his race and rubbed his sleep deprived eyes. He led her back into their room, they sat on their bed facing each other. The puppet master grabbed the palm of her hands and kissed them. Absent-mindedly, the sand shinobi traced patterns on the palm of her hand using his thumbs. "Princess, as much as we may not like it, things from now on are bound to change."

"I know." Sakura took her gaze away from her lover's.

"But you know what they say," Kankuro was now giving his girlfriend his famous all-knowing smirk. " 'The more things change the more things will stay the same.' "

Sakura chuckled, "Like your constant need for jokes?"

"Or Naruto's obnoxious behavior?"

"I guess so."

"Hey beautiful, guess what?" Sakura took a real good look at Kankuro; he had a gleam in his eyes. They were exactly identical to the gleam he had before Sakura and her comrades left after the Gaara incident.

"I thought you said you were tired?"

"I never said such a thing." The Puppet master had been slowly inching toward his girlfriend.

"Kankuro, don't you have to return to your village soon?"

"I'm not due back to Suna for at least another few days and I happen to know that you just started your mission the day before yesterday. It's a known fact that to complete a collecting herb mission, it takes three days to complete. It'll take about a half day's journey to get back to my village. We've got time." Kankuro pushed down on shoulder and trapped his knees between Sakura's waist. He then removed his shirt and did the same to Sakura's. Aroused or not, she was more than a little tense. "Love, you need to relax."

"I am relaxed."

"There's no reason for you not to be relaxed; there's no snoopy Temari or Shikamaru to be pounding on our door. There's no meetings for either of us to attend. No obnoxious Naruto to be barging in. This is probably the only time that we'll have in months to spend with each other."

"Why do you always have to be right?"

The End of 'A Moment in Time # 2: Changes'

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