Hi everyone, I'm back after a nice long siesta! Here's the first chapter in the sequel to Akatsuki's Cherry Blossom (ACB), which I actually wrote ages ago, but was too lazy to post.

You don't necessarily need to have read ACB - this focuses more on other characters. However, as a background: At the end of ACB, Itachi proposed to Sakura. They have now been married for about a year.

Disclaimer: I (unfortunately) do not own Naruto; that lovely privilege belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I, however, do own my character, Sayuri Hara.

Chapter 1: A Million Bucks?!

Sayuri Hara opened her lime-green eyes and glanced around warily. She was in a bed in a very unfamiliar room that looked much like a makeshift hospital room.

She looked down. She was still wearing her clothes: a white tank top, which exposed her midriff (and pierced belly button), underneath a short-sleeved fishnet shirt. She wore a light blue miniskirt ripped at the hem from narrowly escaping death countless times. Underneath, she wore dark periwinkle leggings that fell about mid-calf. On her hands she wore navy blue fingerless gloves. Where the gloves ended on her wrists, she wore white bandages, which ended at her elbows.

However…

Someone had removed her weapon pouches. Where am I? She wondered.

Sayuri sat up. Her red-orange hair was still in an updo A/N: Similar to Anko's hair and a stand on either side was hanging down behind her ears, almost reaching shoulder-length. Her bangs were prated in the middle and came to about eye-level.

She raised her hands and felt her ears, eyebrows, and left nostril, counting the piercings. Left eyebrow…two, right eyebrow…three, nose…one, right ear…eight, left ear…eight…and bellybutton — one.

After she ensured that all twenty-three piercing were present and accounted for, Sayuri got out of bed and put on her sandals. I wonder where I am? She thought again. There were no windows in the room.

The door opened and a pink-haired young woman entered the room. She looked vaguely familiar…

"Oh! You're awake," she said not unkindly. "I'm Sakura Haruno."

Thatwas why she looked so familiar! Sayuri remembered now: The Harunos and Haras had been next-door neighbors, and Sakura and Sayuri had played together as children, though Sakura had been a grade ahead of her at the Ninja Academy.

Sayuri hadn't thought about Konoha very much since her family had been killed when she was fourteen. She had been an ANBU member then, but after her family's deaths, she ran away from the village. She had been traveling by herself for the past three years, living in ninja villages for short periods of time. She had been wandering aimlessly and must have lost consciousness when she ended up — wherever she was.

"Sayuri Hara. We used to be next-door neighbors."

"Ohmigod, no way!" exclaimed Sakura, hugging Sayuri.

Sayuri smiled and hugged her back.

"So…" she said when Sakura stepped back, "where are we?"

The smile that had been on the rosette's face vanished. "The — the Akatsuki base," she replied in a low voice.

"No freakin' way!" Sayuri cried excitedly. "That's amazing! I'm their biggest fan!"

Sakura raised an eyebrow. "You know that they're evil, right?"

Sayuri nodded. "Yeah, but they're so hot!"

Sakura fell over, a sweat-drop appearing on her head.

"So…can I meet them? Please?"

As if right on cue, about half of Akatsuki burst through the door: Kisame, Hidan, Kakuzu, and Deidara all struggled to enter the room first. A few seconds belatedly, Tobi burst in, crying joyously, "Party!"

Everyone but Sayuri and Tobi sweat-dropped.

"Oh my God!" exclaimed Sayuri and ran over to the hyperactive Akatsuki member. "You're Tobi, right?"

Tobi nodded. "Tobi is a good boy."

"You're so cute— God, you're so much cuter in person!" She hugged him tightly. "I'm Sayuri, by the way," she added to all of them.

Kakuzu moved closer. "Sayuri Hara?" he inquired.

Sayuri's eyes narrowed and she released Tobi to face "Akatsuki's treasurer".

"No, Kakuzu, you can't turn me in to get the million-dollar reward," she told him.

Kakuzu looked dejected, but everyone else in the room turned to stare at her in amazement.

"M-million-dollar r-reward?!" repeated Kisame, Hidan, Deidara, and Sakura in disbelief.

"What'd you do?" Kisame asked, looking impressed but stunned at the same time.

Sayuri grinned impishly. "I'm a bad, bad girl."

She winked seductively.

Every man in the room except Tobi blushed.

She giggled lightly and then turned to Hidan.

"Hey, Hidan, you think you could tell me where your leader guy is?"

"Why the fuck do you want to know?" he demanded.

"I wanna join Akatsuki, duh!"

Sayuri rolled her green eyes and turned away. "Umm…Deidara?"

The blond looked at her eagerly. "Yeah?"

"You think you can show me where the leader is?" she asked, giving him a puppy-dog look.

He turned red. "Uh…sure, un…"

"Great, thanks." She smiled at him and grabbed his arm. "Lead the way."

Deidara pulled her, not ungently, out of the room. Once out of earshot of everyone else, he inquired, "So, what'd you do to get a million bucks on your head, yeah?"

Oh, God. It's cuter in person when he says "yeah" and "un" at the end of sentences!

Sayuri smiled. "A few things here, a few things there…" she replied vaguely. "Eventually, everything I did added up to a miilion bucks, I guess."

She had no regrets of her actions; it had been rather fun, and, at the time, she had only been messing around most of the time. The robberies, the explosions, the graffiti, skateboarding through a kage's office, smashing windows — it had all been causing trouble. But there was one crime she committed that was not for fun, and that probably caused her to attain such a high price on her head.

Her family was murdered by a small organization, and Sayuri's personal mission from age fourteen had been to track them down and kill them. She brutally killed every single one of them (including one that had been a highly powerful kage) by age fifteen. Ordinarily, Sayuri did not like hurting people if she could help it; if she had to kill, she did it quickly, so as to cause as little pain to the person as possible. But her family's killers were a special case. They had caused her so much grief, so much pain and sorrow, she wanted them to feel what she had felt.

Now, three years after she had completed her goal, she tried to forget about her past, which was why she had taken to traveling. She kept her expression cheerful and bubbly, and kept the bitter remnants of her history locked inside.

"Hey, you okay, un?"

Sayuri looked up. Deidara was looking at her in concern.

What's going on…?

She blinked and felt tears in her eyes. Looking down, she noticed her hands were clenched in tight fists.

She struggled to calm herself down, as she was accustomed to doing for the past four years.

"Yeah," she whispered. "Yeah… I'm okay."

Deidara rubbed her shoulder softly.

Sayuri pushed his hand off.

"Let's go," she said briskly.

They walked the rest of the way in silence. Sayuri hoped she did not hurt him…she just hated it when people tried to comfort her when she was about to cry; she hated showing weakness, showing vulnerability.

"Leader's just through here, yeah," the blond told her, pointing at the door in front of them.

Sayuri put on a smile. "Thanks, Deidara-kun."

Deidara smiled back, and a blush appeared on his cheeks.

Sayuri giggled. She put her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek.

Momentarily, he just stood there, but slowly, he put his arms around her waist.

"You like art, un?" he murmured in her ear.

She ran her fingers through his surprisingly soft hair. "Yeah, I do…I hear you're quite the artist yourself."

"Yeah… I can show you later, if you want…hm."

Sayuri smiled. "That'd be great…but I should probably see that leader guy now…"

Rather reluctantly, she noted, Deidara drew back from her.

"See you later, Sayuri, yeah."

She waved and entered the Akatsuki leader's office…