my first one-shot and my first complete story on fanfiction... i hope you enjoy it :D
After a minute of silence coming from inside the office room, Deidara decided to risk it and poke his head around the corner of the door, his long golden locks draping over his shoulder, to see if Pein was even in there.
Deidara's body stiffened when his bright blue eyes landed on the fear-inducing rinnegan that followed his every movement.
Pein knew Deidara was so frightened at that moment that he wasn't even able to form words. If he were in any semblance of a better mood, he would have laughed at the irony of the Akatsuki's blabber-mouth being lost for words, but he was nowhere near that state, and he only glared harder at the intruder.
"What is it?" he demanded.
There was a quick huff of breath from the other side of the door before Deidara was pulled from that doorway and a new face appeared to replace it.
This was unusual. He had never seen this face before. Well, not in person anyway.
The only time Pein had ever laid eyes on this particular person was when Kakuzu had thrust his bingo book in front of his face and shown him who it was exactly that had killed Sasori, then going on to rant about how the puppet master was at least good for bringing him one more 'cash cow', as he so bluntly put it. He just couldn't remember her name, though he remembered it had something to do with a flower of sorts.
He was pulled from his thoughts by movement coming from her direction.
His eyes were now focused on the opening office door, allowing the girl to enter properly, also giving him a view of Deidara standing just beyond the door's barrier, still frozen.
She, however, had confidently moved through his office to the chair opposite his own. Before she sat down though, he held out his hand, stopping her mid-sit.
"Close the door, kunoichi. I don't want that idiot in my presence," he motioned his head in the direction of said idiot.
Once the door was closed, he interlaced his fingers and rested his chin on his hands, while she moved back to the other seat.
"What is your name?"
She paused for a moment, thinking he already knew her from when she had killed one of his members.
"Sakura Haruno, sir," she tilted her head downward, as though giving a slight bow.
"And why is it you are here Miss Haruno?"
"I wish to join your ranks," she looked him directly in his eyes, not showing even the slightest amount of fear when pitted against the rinnegan.
Pein was impressed by her boldness. Any other ninja would have crumbled before him, take Deidara for example, but not this girl. What was so different about her?
"I admire your confidence, Miss Haruno, but we are in no need of new members.
She stood and slammed her hands on the table, reducing it to splinters due to her immense strength.
"What the hell do you mean by that?" her voice had risen several levels.
"I apologize, but your services are…" his calm tone was cut off but hers.
"I don't give a crap. You will take me on as an Akatsuki member, and you will damn well be happy about it," she screamed back at him.
He stood as well, hoping this action would intimidate her and she would back down. It didn't quite work the way he had hoped, but she did flinch slightly. If it weren't for his rinnegan, he would have missed the action altogether.
"And why is it you wish to join us? Have you no family in your own country? No friends?" His voice had also risen, but only so he knew it was clear his point would be put across.
He didn't expect what happened next.
The pinkette fell to her chair as though her legs had simply given out on her and she buried her face in her hands.
Pein was truly surprised at the young woman's reaction. He had expected her to back down, but not to burst out in tears.
"Uh… Miss Haruno?"
She pulled her hands from her face and waved them in front of herself.
"No, no! I apologize, Pein-sama. This has nothing to do with you, it's that…" she was unable to complete her sentence as her features had returned to her palms.
Pein hesitated a moment before allowing himself to rest in his chair once more.
"Miss Haruno?"
She looked up once more.
"Did you leave Konoha by choice?"
A quick nod.
"Would it be possible for you to give me an explanation as to why?"
Hesitation, then a nod.
He could clearly see she didn't want to tell him. it was painfully clear in her expression.
"Please, take all the time you need," another nod.
He waited several moments before she was ready, and even then, she was quite hesitant.
"They… It was as though they were offering me up as a sacrifice to some ancient god, expecting me to… to be overjoyed at the 'great opportunity' I had been gifted with." She paused to clear her face of tears, only to have more almost immediately replace them.
Pein was more confused than he was than when the young woman had first popped her short, pink locks past his office door.
"I'm not sure I understand," his brow furrowed.
"That damn Uchiha came back and fucked everything over," her fists were clenched so tight, her nails were breaking skin.
Pein cocked his head to the side, showing his confusion.
"He offered you… to an ancient god?"
"NO!" her hands slammed down on her thighs. He could already see the red welts that would leave. "Konoha was going to force me to marry that bastard and become his broodmare."
His jaw dropped ever so slightly.
"A… a broodmare?" his voice was low from trying to control his anger.
Another nod.
"What the… that…" it was Sakura's turn to be surprised as Pein threw any remaining form of the table at the wall, causing Sakura to flinch away from the man.
"Those fucking elders!"
Pein's fists were tightly clenched, his eyes focused on the floor and his body was rigid.
Sakura didn't even risk blinking, let alone breathing, though when Pein's gaze turned on her, she let out a gasp, regretting the sound instantly.
Pein felt quite the opposite. He didn't want her to be frightened of him. After hearing what the elders had tried to force upon her, he felt pity for the girl. He would create a safe haven for her here, with the Akatsuki. They would protect her from the evil of those bastards' minds.
"Deidara!" he called out, knowing Deidara was still frozen on the other side of the door.
He was correct in his assumptions, as Deidara's blonde mane made its way through the doorway mere moments later, though his observational eyes remained on Sakura's frightened form.
"Yes, Leader-sama?"
His gaze flickered to Deidara, who shivered beneath the power of the rinnegan.
"Take Miss Haruno to Konan's old chambers and show her where her new uniform is so she can change from this filth immediately," he said, motioning to the ANBU garb she was fashioning.
Sakura moved to follow Deidara down the hall, but before she completely left the office, she turned and gave a quick bow towards Pein.
"A… arigatou, Leader-sama," then she followed after the blonde down the hall.
Deidara stepped to the side of a wooden door down the hall from Pein's office and gave a small bow, crossing his arm over his stomach.
"We have arrived at our destination, malady," he stood up straight and opened the door for her.
The first thing Sakura saw was the large, red and black bed pushed to the wall furthest from the door. Then she took in the rest of the equally large room. The majority of decorations were red and black, just like the bed, but there were the odd bits and pieces that were blue, like the chair by the desk in the corner, and the small trinkets left here and there.
He noticed where she was looking, "It's mostly all Konan's stuff, un. Come on, her old Akatsuki stuff's over here," he set off towards one of the dressers. She followed him inside the room and sat on the edge of the bed closest to the dresser Deidara was at.
"Can I ask you something, Deidara?"
"Sure, un."
"What happened to Konan?"
He stilled for a moment then, as though he had already found what it was he had been looking for, he grabbed some clothes and made his way next to her on the bed.
"You remember when the Akatsuki attacked your village?" She remembered that day, alright. That was the day Choji, Ino, Kakashi and Neji had all died.
"Well, everyone was paired off, as we usually are, and Leader-sama was with Konan. The two of them were the best team there could possibly be," a small smile played on his lips, but it faded as he remembered what happened to his old friend.
Sakura, however, was remembering seeing two members of the Akatsuki while fighting alongside her old sensei. One, the male, had bright orange hair and was covered in piercings, as far as the eye could see, while the other, the female, had blue hair and only had two piercings below her lip.
It was because of that woman that Kakashi was dead.
And with that memory, she knew exactly what happened to Konan.
"Leader-sama told us that in the middle of battle, Konan killed the great Kakashi Hatake, then some ninja neither one of them had ever even heard of before showed up, and killed Konan to avenge Hatake."
"Did he… did he find out who it was?"
He let out a slight chuckle.
"No, but when he finds out, that fucking bitch is gonna wish she were dead, un."
Sakura's eyes widened and she almost couldn't breathe.
"Anyway," he moved off the bed and towards the door. "I best leave you to yourself, un," he motioned to the clothes.
Sakura stared at his retreating back until his being was no longer in the room. As soon as the door clicked closed, Sakura grabbed the clothes given to her, and headed for a door in which she assumed lead to the bathroom.
She assumed correctly.
As she stripped, she noticed the shower was quite large indeed. She assumed it were large enough to fit two people, which left the question, who had Konan shared it with?
There were many possible candidates of the Akatsuki, seeing as they were all men, but the most obvious answer was Pein.
The thought made Sakura quite uncomfortable, though she wasn't completely sure as to why. It could possibly have something to do with the reason the blue haired woman was dead.
She pushed those thoughts from her head and continued on toward a much-needed shower.
By the time she was finished, she felt quite exhausted, so, not wanting to wear her new shinobi uniform to bed, she just crawled beneath the covers and let herself drift to sleep, knowing it would just be herself in the rather large bed.
Pein was quite exhausted by the time he had finished up in his office, especially since both he and Sakura had destroyed his desk, leaving him to clean up the mess and complete his work on the carpet of his office.
Since then, he still wasn't able to control his temper. He kept muttering "broodmare" and "fucking Uchiha" under his breath.
As the entrance to his bedroom came in view, he forced himself to keep his anger suppressed so as not to wake the woman he knew would be long unconscious by now. He knew that if he had been through what she had, he would be exhausted as well.
He stopped just before the room's barrier, unsure if he was willing to disturb her rest.
Just as he was about to pull away though, he heard a rather loud grunt-like noise, to which he reacted with a small huff of laughter, surprising even himself at the sound, causing a small smile to make its way on his overly pierced features.
He thought again on stepping away and leaving the young girl for the night, but a yawn brought itself to attention, changing his thoughts to those of sleep.
"As long as I don't make a sound," he entered the door and found himself gazing upon the sight of the beautiful Konoha kunoichi resting peacefully beneath the blood-red cover to his bed.
Silently, he closed the door to the room, not even allowing for the soft 'click' sound and hung his cloak on the hook beside the frame.
The shirt and pants he wore though, he discarded them next to his tall boy, pulling his nightwear from the drawers and changing into them, so as not to alarm the pinkette of a mostly nude man having crawled in the bed as she was asleep.
Once decently covered, Pein crawled between the sheets of his bed and wriggled towards his bed mate, though leaving a comfortable distance between the two of them, again not wanting to frighten the small woman when she woke.
Gazing upon her beautifully pale features, Pein actually found himself growing more calm with each passing second as his eyes grew heavy and he felt consciousness begin to leave him.
As calm as he felt drifting to sleep, Pein felt he was at the complete opposite end of the scale when he awoke to the piercing screams of a female.
His hands covered his ears, not really doing their job in blocking the screams out, when Pein took a blow to his midsection. His arms moved to wrap themselves around his hurt flesh, curling to a foetus position.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, you creep!" the woman beside him screamed, trying as best she could to cover the body he had not realized was unclothed.
As soon as he noticed, he turned his face away and wriggled away from her body, not realizing he was already on the edge of the bed, causing him to fall out of the bed.
He grabbed at whatever it was he could find to help him stay on the bed's surface, though the only thing in reach was Sakura.
She screamed once again as her arm was pulled towards the man falling out of the bed, in turn dragging her whole body from the safety of the sheets and down with him.
However, the small amount of momentum caused by the fall rolled her off the man and on to the soft, red carpet of the bedroom.
After the shock of the fall cleared, Sakura tried to cover her body up, only to have her wrists held by two very masculine hands.
"Let go of me, you perv!" she yelled at him, struggling for freedom, though he did not surrender hold on her, only gripped tighter, causing Sakura to struggle further.
"Get off of me!" she tried using her legs, only to find herself pinned beneath him, preventing her from moving.
"Get the fuck off me, you fucking freak!" however, he only moved closer to her.
"What are you doing, you…" he cut her off by pressing his lips against her own.
Sakura stilled completely, halting all forms of struggling. Her mind only focusing on the thought that she was being kissed.
Pein withdrew himself, breathing in the air his body was currently lacking.
He couldn't help but stare at her flushed face and ponder on the beauty she held.
Pein brought his hand down from her wrist to the side of her face.
"How is it that one person can be as beautiful as you?" he smiled down at her, though her face turned from being flushed, to one showing her to be completely uncomfortable with the predicament they found themselves to be in.
"Sakura?" her flinch at the kindness in his voice did not go unnoticed. "What's wrong?"
She pulled her other hand free from his and covered as much of her body as her small arms would allow as she looked away.
Pein rolled to her side, pulling the sheet from the bed to give her something to cover herself with in an attempt to make her more comfortable.
"Sakura? What is it?"
"I'm sorry, Leader-sama, but I can't do this," her voice was full of emotion, pain being the most dominant.
"Please, call me…"
"No! It's not that it's… well…"
He remained silent, though his mere presence was pushing her to tell him.
"I… I know how Konan died," with her words, Pein was frozen. However, she waited for some sort of movement on his behalf before she continued.
His movement came in the form of him sitting up, so as to be able to look at Sakura directly. This unnerved her more so than she already was, and she turned her face away from him.
"It was… it was inner," his features turned to that of confusion.
"I'm not sure I understand," his brows were tightly woven together.
"When the Akatsuki attacked Konoha, I was there, fighting alongside Kakashi-sensei when he was killed," she paused, letting him remember the moment his old comrade had killed the great copy-nin. "I don't entirely remember what happened, but I do remember I was buried beneath the debris of a nearby explosion."
It was clear on his face that he was remembering the moment quite clearly.
I must've hit my head then, because I don't remember anything else until when I was running towards shishou, but inner told me what had happened. She told me that she couldn't just let us lie there helplessly while Kakashi-sensei's murderer got away, so she took over and…" Sakura finally turned to face him, "she killed Konan."
The fury was evident on Pein's features.
"Who is this woman? Where can I find her?"
"You're not understanding me, Pein!" her voice was raised, causing him to flinch, as he was not used to others raising their voice at him. The only one to have ever done so had been Konan, but she had been gone for quite some time now.
She grabbed his shoulders so he wouldn't be able to look away.
"It was me! I was the one that killed Konan!"
She could see he had stopped breathing.
He stayed this way for several moments before he pushed her away and stood, extending the distance between them.
"Wha… no! You said it was this 'Inner' wom…"
Sakura stood as well, clutching the sheet to her body.
"That is me! I was the one that killed Konan! I was the one who avenged Kakashi-sensei!"
There was a pregnant silence throughout the room, neither even daring to breathe, then, once the dust had settled and Pein had accepted what Sakura was telling him, he reacted.
Rinnegan full of hatred and turned on Sakura, she was held where she was by the bed, captured by his terrifying gaze.
She didn't know what to do. She felt the need to move, but under the powerful gaze of his eyes, she was unable to. If he was going to kill her though, he would kill her, not stand there and terrify her with his stare.
She let out the breath she was unaware she was holding in when there was a knock on the door and a blonde crown of hair pushed the door open.
Sakura eyes strayed from Pein's face and turned to the heaven-sent interruption, whereas Pein kept his eyes on the unmoving kunoichi before him.
"Leader-sa…" Deidara stopped at the sight before him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interr…"
"What is it, Deidara?"his voice was strained; it was obvious he was holding his anger back.
"Uhh…" the blonde was reluctant in his answer. "I'm sure this could wait, sir. I'll just be outside," and with that, the interruption had fled the scene.
The pair remained, staring at the area the blonde had once been.
"Stay here," Pein's words were clipped, his anger being evident in his words.
Luckily for Sakura though, she was spared his wrath for the time being as he stepped out of the room. However, it was unlucky for Deidara, because Sakura could hear Pein yelling at the undeserving blonde through the door.
She knew that when he returned though, all that anger would be turned back to where it rightfully should be turned, upon her, so instead of the attire she was currently modelling, she decided clothes were a necessity.
She still didn't feel comfortable wearing the ex-Akatsuki's old uniform, but it was the only thing she had to wear besides the bed sheet and she would prefer facing Pein in normal clothes.
Sakura hadn't listened in on the conversation between the two criminal ninja, only the sounds of their voices to determine when she might be expecting company.
Relief spread throughout her body as the voices outside her room moved away from the door and off to a new, unknown location.
She waited several moments before cracking the door open slightly. In seeing the empty hallway, Sakura ran back to where she had left her kunai pouch the night before and fled from the scene, escaping the base of her recent allies, if she could even call them that, and the end fate had newly given her.
Pein let out an exasperated sigh as he reached for his door handle, in a similar manner to the previous night, though he knew he would be carrying this burning rage with him through the threshold, not leaving it behind so as not to disturb anyone.
"Any rumour ever made about any blonde is the past, any and all doubts I have ever had about them have now been removed from my mind," he murmured to himself as he thought on the reason Deidara had pulled him away from his argument with Sakura.
It was to show him a new, more efficient way of blowing up his clay.
And it didn't even work.
"What a complete waste of time," he murmured under his breath.
As he pulled the handle down, he prepared himself for the verbal war he knew would unfurl once the pinkette was within his sight.
The door was pushed open, but she was nowhere to be seen. He scanned the room once more but again, there was nothing. He made his way to their shared bathroom and again found nothing.
"Sakura?" he called out with no response.
"Sakura!" he screamed out only to receive the same response.
He reached for his Akatsuki ring and twisted it, calling forth his subordinates. Their holograms appeared before him.
It was Itachi question their gathering first. "What is it, Leader-sama?"
"It's Sakura. She has disappeared."
"Do you wish for us to recapture her?" it was Itachi again.
"Yes. It seems she will prove to be more of an enemy than the kyuubi container. We need her to become a part of the Akatsuki."