Departure Chapter 1: Hands, a naruto fanfic

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Author's Note: I have to dedicate this chapter to Cataclysma. If I could award sainthood for patience, you would have a halo and a following of millions. :) Also, I apologize for the number signs. It's the only way I could keep things from getting squished together. If someone is willing to give me a tutorial on spacing tricks for FF, I'm all ears.

Chapter 1: Hands

There are times when she dreams of drowning, and even more disturbingly of a mysterious hand clutching hers as the water sloshes over her head. The phantom hand is calloused in familiar places; along the thumb and spanning the inside arch of the palm. She doesn't know how she can tell underwater, but she can feel the rough skin and instantly knows that the hand belongs to someone used to gripping a weapon. Shinobi.

There is no light. She imagines it looks this way in the murky heart of the ocean. The chill of the water is permeating her skin and she would shiver if she could, but she is held immobile by the weight of the battle-roughened hand. A hand that doesn't seem to have a body attached, yet it is solid in her grasp.

Suddenly, like a crack of thunder in her ears, there is sound. There shouldn't be sound, not here, but she can hear them, voices distorted by liquid. They echo many leagues away and she wishes she could swim towards them. The hand is gripping hers tightly now. She tries to shake it off but finds that she still can't move. The voices become clearer. They sound agitated. One voice is decidedly masculine, but the other…her eyes widen, unseeing in the pitch-black gloom. She can hear them distinctly now.

"Leave me. Leave me…Naruto."

"No." She thinks she can discern a swift intake of breath through clenched teeth. "Sakura-chan, you're hurt, you don't know what you're saying."

"I want him back, Naruto." Her breath is labored and her words are strained. "I want Sasuke…back. Please."

"No!" The voice yells and she imagines something soft touching her cheek, tracing down it like a tear tract. "I don't want to leave you. Do you hear me, Sakura, I don't want to leave you!"

"I…know," she hears her own voice say. It's weak and thick-sounding, as if she was trying to talk around a mouthful of blood. Of course she would be able to judge the extent of her injuries. She can tell from her own voice that she's lying. "It's…It's al-right. I'll stay… here."

"I can't." The voice cracks. "Please don't ask me to do it. I'd do anything for you, but I can't…"

In her mind's eye, there is a flash of Kakashi standing behind the orange blur of Naruto's stooped form. The copy ninja's mask is covered in shallow cuts. His mismatched eyes are gazing at her with unshed tears, impossibly sad. She's never seen him like this.

Kakashi's hand makes a quick swipe at his eyes, and then he appears at Naruto's back, his hand on the young man's shoulder. "Time's short, Naruto. If we're going to catch up to him, we need to go, now." His voice is weary. The image shrinks and disappears like a shade lowering, but the voices remain.

"Sakura-chan," she hears Naruto's sorrowful voice intimately close, can imagine he is holding her, that there must be some reason he sounds like he's crying. "Sakura. I love you. Always have." He's whispering and the volume is fading. Again, she imagines something touching her, the lightest press of warmth on her cold lips. "Please, hold on for me."

The hand gripping hers in the murk squeezes without warning, hard enough to grind bone. A gasp of pain bursts from her mouth, and the water suddenly rushes in, filling her up inside with liquid cold…

Sakura awoke gasping, her face pressed into the thin mattress. With panicked movements, she clawed at the twisted sheets and took a long, shuddering breath to fill her lungs with much needed air. Her eyes darted frantically, landing first on the window, the door, and then the small opened closet with a brief, trained flicker of her eyes. The breath sighed out of her in relief. Completely undisturbed.

It took a few moments to control her breathing, but eventually her heartbeat slowed and she felt more in control of her body. She unfolded her tense limbs and stood, walking over to the shuttered window. One rapidly performed hand motion dispelled the powerful seal protecting the room's only passage to the outside world.

She pushed open the weathered wood and peered out, not bothering to look down at the barren grounds. Instead she chose to gaze up at the mottled, cloud-covered sky. Another morning. She turned away from the window and knelt at the basin of water set in the corner of the small room. With little fanfare, she plunged a wash rag beneath the liquid surface, disrupting its smooth tranquility to cleanse away the lingering traces of her nightmare.

Her hand had just fastened the high neck of her top when she heard familiar footsteps. Two seconds later, a soft knock broke the quiet of the room. She could recognize the measured cadence of that knock anywhere now.

"Come in," she called as she slid her feet into black sandals and knelt to fasten them.

"It's locked," a muffled male voice said from the other side. Sakura was completely unsurprised as seconds later, the door swung open.

She fixed the young, bespectacled man with a smile that wasn't quite friendly as she straightened. "Since when were locks a problem for you?"

"They aren't."

Her hands twisted and speared the pale pink locks at the nape of her neck with practiced ease. "What brings you here so early?"

The ashen-haired shinobi pushed gently at the glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. A telling gesture, but whether it was from nervousness or calculating deviousness, she couldn't tell. "You're wanted in the Hall," he said in his usual, silky intonation.

"Any idea why? Or were you too busy kissing his sandals to tell?" Strangely, she didn't receive the expected response. The barren walls of her room held more emotion than the stoic, blank expression on his face. "I haven't perfected the life-stasis jutsu yet. My chance at success in the Suna assassination depends on that technique. He knows that."

When the medical-nin-turned-assassin continued to stare back at her, she resisted the urge to sigh loudly in his face. "What I'm trying to say is that I need more time."

Kabuto stepped forward, invading her personal space with his tall, lanky frame and leaned down. The soft fabric of his shirt rasped against the silk of her top and his hand, so detached from the rest of his stiff demeanor, reached up to gently finger a stray lock of her hair. When it slid back further to briefly touch her jaw, Sakura's eyes fluttered shut. Was this why he had appeared so early? Because he knew it would be the only time he'd have to--

"It's not a good idea to keep him waiting, Sakura. Collect yourself and be in the Hall in five minutes. And bring your supplies." Her eyes shot open as she watched him turn sharply to leave, his hand back at his side as though it had never touched her with gentleness that should not exist in such a cold-blooded killer. The door clicked shut behind him, and under different circumstances, it might have amused her to hear the slide of the lock being put back into place.

With a slow, deep breath, Sakura went over to the simple futon pushed against the wall and lifted the lumpy-looking pillow. She slid her hand into the pillow case and pulled out the two kunai hidden there. Setting the pillow aside, she got down on one knee and ran her fingers under the edge of the mattress, feeling for the handles of three more kunai and finally, the medical pouch she'd received from the Fifth Hokage on her sixteenth birthday. That seemed like decades ago, now. Even the face of her former Shishou was fading in the sickening dawn of her new life.

There was one thing left to retrieve before she made her way downward through the dank staircases to Orochimaru. She tugged the face mask from its usual hiding place next to her medical scrolls stacked in the closet. Stretching it open as much as it was able to avoid mussing her hair, Sakura slipped it down over her face and neck and tucked the edges beneath her collar. She told herself every day she wore it that it wasn't a tribute to her former sensei, that it was just a way to protect her identity from those who might relay the information back to the Hidden Leaf village. It didn't disguise her hair but though her unique coloring was rare in Konoha, it wasn't completely unheard of in other parts of the world. Which meant she could get away with it.

Besides, she was supposed to be dead. Not even ANBU was looking for her on account of Kabuto's next to flawless body cloning technique. For all that Konoha knew, her body had been taken back to her parents and buried in the Haruno family plot. Sakura Haruno was now nothing more than a name on the Shinobi Memorial Statue near the Hokage shrine.

Fastening her pouch across her hips, Sakura left the sunlit safety of her room and stepped into the cooler darkness of the corridor, bound for the Great Hall of her new master.

"You certainly took your time, little blossom."

She remained silent as she knelt on the chilled stone, meeting the dead stare of the Snake Sannin. Considering the way he liked to turn her words back on her, she knew silence was always her best option.

"Kabuto-kun tells me you haven't been able to master the chakra techniques he taught you. Forgive me for thinking it a little convenient when there are only three days left to complete the mission."

Sakura's gaze flickered to Kabuto standing beside the throne-like chair. The Snake's Right Hand looked as distant as ever with torchlight reflecting off the lenses of his glasses. He would be no help.

So much for silence.

"Forgive me for not being able to master a technique that normally takes years in several weeks. I have tried my best, but I still need more time." It was hard to discern details in such a dimly lit room, but she was sure of the displeasure marring the perfect smoothness of the Sannin's eerily pale face.

She wasn't above punishment, but since she had sworn loyalty to him nearly two years ago, he had allowed her to get away with a defiant comment or two. She suspected that it amused him more than anything, as he often remarked that she had inherited Tsunade's spark from her time spent studying under the Fifth Hokage. From the almost whimsical way he spoke about her former Shishou, Sakura thought there may have been some sort of hidden emotion there, though it could just as easily be imagined. One never knew with Orochimaru.

"You leave tonight. As soon as the mission is complete, report to Kabuto. You are dismissed."

Just like that. Without even a thought, he could have easily ordered her to her death. She had known that he wouldn't listen to her, but that didn't make her any less angry. Still, if he thought his quick dismissal would keep her from remembering his promises, he was sadly mistaken.

"Orochimaru-sama. There is still the matter of Sasuke to discuss."

The smile he gave her was indulgent. "Very good, little blossom. Unfortunately, Sasuke-kun is not available to see visitor's today." He chuckled softly at the irony of his statement.

"With all due respect, Orochimaru-sama, the outcome of my mission is unsure now that I won't have the time to perfect the jitsu," she rushed on as his mouth opened to reprimand her subtle accusation, "and as it may be my last opportunity, I would like to visit him. You did give your word."

"I have done many despicable things in my lifetime. Why would breaking my word have any effect on me?"

"Because my loyalty depends on your word." She let the statement hang in the stagnant air of his underground chamber.

"I can kill you and have Kabuto-kun carry out the mission." He said it casually.

"You could, but he doesn't know Suna like I do. And I doubt that Kabuto would look as good in a dress. Makanishi might be a pervert, but he does have standards. The only way into his room is to have him bring you there, and a henge-jitsu would just alert the ANBU and foreign-nin that you have something to hide. I'm the best one for this mission and you know it."

Orochimaru was still smiling as he crooked a finger at her. "Come here, Sakura."

Her heart lurched in terror but she rose all the same. She may have learned how to make eye contact with the S-Class criminal without perspiring, but rarely was she closer than a few meters away. Yet to disobey a direct order could easily mean her death. Not that she wasn't already going to die at some point.

Slowly, she lowered herself before him, now within arms-reach, her gaze on his cloth-covered knees. He made her wait for twenty-seven heartbeats before he said anything.

"Sakura."

Almost as if his hand was beneath her chin, her face tipped upwards to meet his reptilian eyes. And in that moment she was struck immobile, frozen in her sudden awareness of what he was: cold, pitiless, artfully nefarious, inhuman, a killer of all that lay between him and his deranged path toward greatness. In the still-cognizant part of her mind, she remembered this feeling as a child, during her first fateful encounter with the Snake Sannin, and she was just as helpless then as she was now.

"You really are just like your namesake. So fragile, yet so vibrant. A reminder of how impermanent this life can be if we're not careful." His cool fingers barely glided though the soft pink wisps of hair framing her face before they settled on her mask-covered jaw, gently, pulling her up until she was standing before him. Her eyes remained fixed ahead of her even as he tilted her head sideways and smiled wide enough to show fangs.

There was a rasp of breath on her shoulder—when had he unfastened her collar?—a tightening of fingers around her neck, then a sudden, deep pain that arrested her heart and caused her unseeing eyes to rapidly blink away tears. She could not move, could not scream, merely gasp as Orochimaru's arms folded around her and held her closer still. Deeper his fangs went, until she was sure they had shattered her shoulder and were making progress to her ribcage, all the while enduring the unnatural feeling of something chilly and liquid flowing inside of her from the wound.

Her heart was slowing. The dim lighting melted away until she was trapped in a world of darkness and sensation. And then she heard it, a sinister chuckle and what felt like a kiss brush along her jaw.

"My little cherry blossom. Sleep, and when you awaken, you will feel like more than yourself."

She could no longer feel her limbs or the breath filling her lungs, but pain, she could still feel the god-awful pain.

"Kabuto-kun," she heard that gravelly voice say, "Take her. Be there when she wakes."

"Hai, Orochimaru-sama." Was she mistaken? Did Kabuto's voice sound almost…angry?

It didn't matter, because in the time it took her to complete that thought, Sakura was already unconscious.

When Sakura's eyes opened to blackness, her first assumption was that she was still unconscious. The surface beneath her was soft and yielding, such a contrast to the memories of numbness and pain. It was only when she forced a weak hand up to touch her neck that she realized her first assumption and her second assumption—that she was alone—was incorrect.

"How do you feel?" Kabuto's quiet voice spoke beside her in the darkness.

Her fingers moved slowly over the exposed flesh of her collarbone, feeling carefully for a wound that simply wasn't there. There was nothing unusual; her skin was clammy and sweat-slicked but otherwise completely healthy.

"I should have died from that," she whispered, slightly disturbed that the room was as dark as the black behind her eyelids. "What…what was that? Was it genjutsu?"

"No, it wasn't genjutsu." She felt the pull of energy, chakra, flowing through the air just as a flame burst into life beside her. Sakura squinted at the sudden brightness. The room she saw around her was small, a clone of the many rooms scattered throughout Orochimaru's compound. The lack of shuttered windows told her she was still underground.

"Are you going to tell me, Kabuto? Will he even allow it?" she asked bitterly, turning away from his familiar face. She wasn't sure she had the strength to rise yet, but she refused to flounder in front of him as she tried.

"I'm surprised you didn't recognize it. You've seen something like it before."

She was silent as she turned to stare at him first in confusion, then dawning horror. "You can't mean…"

"It isn't the same as Sasuke-kun's, but the same rules apply. Had you not been strong enough, the cursed seal would have killed you."

"That fucking bastard!" she burst out as she flung herself upright, trying hard to ignore the lurching protest of her stomach. "Why now? What could he possibly gain?"

He still wouldn't look at her, and it sparked her anger as it always did when he ignored her. "Kabuto, you're an asshole even on your best day, but at least answer my question. I don't have the slightest idea how to control a cursed seal. Adding an unknown factor into the equation makes the success rate of this mission even lower than before. Why would he do it?"

"This particular seal will heighten your abilities, allow you to sense chakra in others better. It gives you a sensory advantage. It can do nothing but help you."

"But there is always a downside to his little gifts, Kabuto. I know what happened to Sasuke."

"Sasuke was different. He sought power and overtaxed his mind and body just to feel it. I think your sense of self-preservation is higher." He met her eyes then. She couldn't shake the feeling that he was leaving something unspoken.

"That still doesn't answer my question. He can't possibly be that concerned with my success on this mission. There's something I don't know."

"All is as I've told you. The mission is still the same and you have all of the information you need."

With care, Sakura gingerly lowered herself to recline back on the bed. The bright, chakra-induced lighting was starting to give her a headache. "Whatever. Is that all?"

"When you're able to move properly, I am to escort you to the dungeons."

Sakura tried, and failed, to hide her surprise. "Snake-eyes is keeping his promise?"

The look Kabuto cut her reminded her that he didn't approve of her nickname for Orochimaru. "You only have three and a half hours until nightfall, two of which should be spent preparing. I can allow you twenty minutes with him."

"That…should be enough," she said quietly, wondering if that might even be too much time. She was both anticipating and dreading her encounter in the dungeons. "It will probably be one-sided anyway. It always is."

She felt gentle fingers touch her temple, but she forced her hand up quickly to encircle Kabuto's wrist. "Wait," she whispered as she gazed up at his suddenly much closer face. She could see his eyes in high detail, a blue so dark the pupil almost blended in with the iris. "What will happen, if I fail? If I'm not killed by the Sand or Grass shinobi and I make it back here. Will you be the one to do it?" She didn't elaborate because she knew he understood.

His fingers were still touching her temple, but they inched downward a little. There…finally, an emotion she could recognize on his face, yet it baffled her. The half-smile he gave her was regretful, wistful even. "Would that make you feel better?"

"Yes," she said simply. She didn't hate him. It was something she had come to terms with a while ago, and connected to Orochimaru as she was now, she realized that she no longer had the right to judge. Whether for righteous reasons or selfish, they both made these choices for themselves. If she was going to die, let it be by the hand of someone who understood her choices.

"We'll see." His fingers pressed, and soothing chakra flowed into her mind, calming it, relaxing her. She closed her eyes but did not sleep, content to lie there as she heard Kabuto shift back to his place against the wall. She would have to make sure to rise before sunset, since it was quite possibly the last one she would ever see.

The dungeons weren't elaborate or particularly grim. It had surprised her that first time, knowing Orochimaru's love of dramatics. She had honestly been expecting blood-soaked floors and torture devices. It said much about the malevolence of the Snake Sannin's presence that he didn't need any of this to make enemy shinobi spill their guts, figuratively and literally. He was a neat monster.

The depressing appeal of the holding cells resided in the strong and virtually unbreakable seals barring exit, entry, and general tampering with. Not one shinobi trick had been successful in dispelling it, or so Kabuto had lectured her. Each seal was infused with the blood of its prisoner; even if the door was left opened, the moment the prisoner passed within the seal's range, he or she would be immediately drained of chakra.

Sakura watched, as she always did, as Kabuto broke a hole in the seal with a complex series of hand movements. There was still something that she'd been unable to pick up, because her own attempts at dispelling the seal had proven fruitless. Kabuto touched a hand to the door then took a step back, his face unreadable.

"Thank you," she said softly, though it was unnecessary. Why thank him for allowing her to see the incarcerated ex-teammate for whom she had traded her freedom? She shrugged off the feelings of gratitude and moved through the doorway, grabbing a torch from a nearby sconce one-handedly with her unoccupied palm. She heard Kabuto's deliberate footsteps moving away but knew he wouldn't be far. Sakura had no doubt that he listened to every word of every encounter they had and reported it all back to Orochimaru. Still, she could not hate him for it.

Sasuke sat on a pallet made of a single blanket and a pile of straw. His back was hunched in his dirty white tunic and the pale legs bared by his ragged pants glowed under the light of her torch. His head was bowed and his body was angled away from her, but she knew he would not be the first to speak.

"Hello, Sasuke." She propped the torch up on the wall and resisted the urge to rub the flesh above her elbows against the chill. It was the lowest point in the compound, entombed in layer upon layer of stone. Warmth would never touch this place.

"It's been…a while, hasn't it? I've been a little pre-occupied lately." The water in the small bowl she held sloshed gently as she approached him, almost masking the small sigh that escaped her as her eyes traveled over him. Even like this, dirty, unkempt, defeated, his silhouette inspired a sense of awe. His head didn't move as she knelt beside him and set the bowl on the stone floor, but he complied and shifted his body when she pushed lightly on his shoulder. With slightly shaking hands, she began to unwrap the strip of gray linen covering his eyes.

"I'm going to Suna tonight. A mission. It's been a long time since I've visited Sand Country. I still remember it well though, the air, the way sand got into everything." Sakura laid the unraveled linen on the pallet and reached for the waterlogged cloth resting in the bowl. Infusing a bit of chakra into her fingertips, she carefully probed at Sasuke's eyelids. That delicate flesh no longer echoed of the horrible jagged scar he had inflicted on himself, thanks to her diligent healing. The skin was smooth and pearlescent, and she paid homage to it by wiping the cool cloth over it again and again in what she hoped was a soothing manner.

"Open your eyes, please," she said finally and without a flicker of emotion, he did. What was once a hard, flinty gaze was now cloudy, dull, and gray.

"This may be the last time I'll be able to come here, Sasuke-kun. Most of the other missions I've completed up to now have been within the range of my abilities. But I'm not so sure about this one." She may have noticed a slight change in his posture, but still he kept quiet. She sent more chakra into his temples, this time in an attempt to relax him.

"I don't know if I'll be able to keep my promise to you. If I don't come back, I don't know what Orochimaru will do to you." In the back of her mind, she knew Sasuke must be bristling at the helplessness she ascribed to him, but the truth of the matter was, he was blind and Orochimaru had only spared his life because she offered to trade her own. As he was now, the young Sharingan user was useless to Orochimaru, his eyes irreparably damaged when Sasuke struggled to fight off the Snake Sannin's Body Transfer technique. Such a drastic, violent action would not have occurred if Sasuke had thought he could win, but it seemed he would rather mutilate himself than let Orochimaru have his body before he completed his revenge against Itachi.

Sakura had known that dealing with Orochimaru meant there was a high chance that every day may be her last, but she hadn't felt so aware of that fact until now. What had she'd been thinking when she made that desperate plea almost a year ago? That I could prolong Sasuke's life long enough to prove he wasn't as heartless as we all thought. The small glimpses of emotion she witnessed during her brief visits to the dungeons helped a little, but their conversations were always one-sided and he had yet to present her with a heartfelt apology for all the agony he put her and her teammates through. Family, really. They had been more of a family than a team, and as such his absence felt more like betrayal than defection.

She didn't know why she continued to come here, when Sasuke was as cold and self-absorbed as he ever was. Didn't he realize the sacrifices they had all made for him? Didn't he care that regardless of his motives, Team 7 had molded him and taught him how deep familial bonds could really go? Family didn't have to be about revenge and pain and sorrow. Why couldn't he understand that? Why had she given everything she had to make him see this when really, deep down below the trappings of honor and obligation, she secretly hated him for tearing them all apart, for treading so carelessly on her earnest feelings for him? Her sacrifices were meaningless. They were a mistake. But Naruto would have done it. He wouldn't have hesitated, for any of us.

"You're so selfish…" She hadn't been aware that she'd spoken aloud until she noticed the surprise registered on his face. She wanted to feel embarrassed for showing so much emotion in front of him, when she had tried hard to keep it together in the past. But she didn't this time. He deserved to hear her anger.

"I know you don't care. You've spent you're entire adult life caring only about yourself. And why not? Team 7 just held you back. Those silly bonds of friendship mean nothing to an avenger." His eyes narrowed, and she was sure that if he'd been able to pierce her with that hard stare of his she would have lost her nerve.

"But what you don't understand is the impact you've made. Naruto is likely the strongest shinobi in the village right now. That bumbling, foolish, loudmouthed idiot of a boy has become a legend in Konoha and beyond. Why? What pushed him so hard and so far?" Tears. She hadn't shed tears since the day of her 'death'.

"You, Sasuke. You. He was always measuring himself against you. The arrogant, beautiful boy with a single-minded passion who claimed he needed no one. He saw his own loneliness in you and understood what you needed even when you didn't. And Kakashi-sensei. Do you know he vowed that he would never get close to anyone again after the death of his teammates? Yet he always dropped everything anytime there was even a passing mention of your whereabouts.

"You were happy on Team 7, I don't care what you say otherwise. Naruto and Kakashi-sensei were important to you. But you used us. All of us. That happiness never had a chance in the face of your revenge." The tears were running freely now. Gods, it had been so long.

"I know you never asked for any of it. But you have it. Even if…if we all aren't able to see it, we all hope that one day you'll realize that." She quickly scrambled to her feet, splashing water on the stone floor as she retrieved the bowl. His face had returned to its usual smoothness. It had been irrational to think that he would be affected by her outburst now, when he had so resolutely ignored her since Day One.

She grabbed the torch at the door and turned back to him, allowing herself one last moment to drink in the sharp angles of his face, the raven-wing hair. His eyes were closed now and he was clutching the dirty strip of linen.

"Goodbye, Sasuke." She made it through the door without completely breaking down but if she didn't leave now, she would never find the strength she needed to prepare for her mission in Suna.

"You…forgot," a voice hoarse with disuse called out behind her, and she froze. Sakura whipped her head back to face him, but he was already turned and settling himself on the pallet, his back to her. "To include yourself in that little monologue."

"What?" she asked in a pitch much higher than her usual one. But, of course, there was no response. Sasuke was not willing to divulge more and she knew from experience that any prodding on her part would be met with silence. With nothing else left to say, she left.

Kabuto was waiting for her outside as she nudged the door closed with her shoulder. Wordlessly, he took both the torch and the water bowl from her shaking hands. She glared at him.

"You could at least make it a little less obvious that you were eavesdropping, you bastard." She followed behind him as he silently walked down the hallway, up the winding stair leading away from the dungeons, and finally to a nondescript metal door in a far wing of the compound. He placed the torch in a nearby sconce and dug through the pouch at his side for the key. When he had the door opened, he gestured her inside the darkened room.

She hadn't really been paying attention, too caught up in her effort to keep from sobbing to realize that they weren't in the armory room as she had originally assumed. This room they were in would inspire claustrophobic terror in a lesser person, it was so jammed with scrolls and equipment and boxes of unidentified items.

By the time she turned around with the question poised on the tip of her tongue, Kabuto was already on her, his hands cupping her face, his mouth against hers. The force of his kiss propelled her backwards into a stack of something hard. She was overwhelmed with the suddenness and her earlier misery, but the insistence of his lips on hers made it easy to fall into the familiar rhythm. His hands wrenched at the fastenings of her top, nearly popping a button in his urgency, dragging the silky material downward to expose her chest bindings. Sakura felt the breath momentarily leave her as his head quickly lowered, his mouth seeking skin between the wrapped cloth, his teeth tugging and loosening until she felt the hot brand of his tongue against the peaked flesh of her breast. He was moving so fast…That's right, Sakura thought fleetingly, this may be the last time…

This was the true Kabuto. Not the wielder of smug comments or malicious smirks. Not the subservient kiss-ass that bent to his evil master's every command. It was this man who clung to her like he was slowly dying. This man whose harsh breathing in this tiny room was so uncharacteristic of the stealthy killer she knew him to be. He was rough and tender as he removed her clothing and pressed her back, uncaring of her fragility yet wholly invested in her pleasure. He didn't handle her like a piece of fractured glass and he didn't treat her like a weakness that needed to be protected. He took from her what he needed, and offered the same in return. She was needed. The way he surged against her again and again with his hand buried in her hair told her that she was needed. The way his fingers dug into her hip as he spent himself inside her implored that she was needed.

Fingers smoothed over her cheek as their breathing slowed. He was studying those fingers with an intensity she hadn't seen before. Tears. More tears. Maybe this was the beginning of a new trend.

"I'm ready to die, Kabuto. I'm allowed to shed a tear about that, right?"

Because I'm sneaky, you may see this chapter reposted a few times for edits, because typos make me crazy. Also, credit where it's due: the "neat monster" bit came from Dexter. Thanks for reading!