A/N: I don't know if this can happen in the storyline. And if it's not (which is likely) I'd like to call this AU.
P.S The title doesn't make sense I know. I was just listening to Shiny Toy Guns' Don't Cry Out and...Okay, whatever.
Ceasefire
He wonders why her throat hasn't exploded yet.
The sun has completely hidden itself behind the mountains. The birds have long since soared away when they heard her penetrating wails. Here in the trees, beside the silent whimpers that more sound like whines from his wounded teammate behind him, and her cries, of course, all there is silence.
Sai flattens his palms against his ears harder as her scream, again, pierces the heaven above.
"...Make...Her...Shut...The hell...Up!" His teammate, Kanoto, yells powerlessly behind him. His garments are torn apart, ensanguined swathes bound clumsily around his lesions.
"I. Don't. Know. How!" Sai shouts back firmly, finding it hard to get it out hearable among the mighty sounds she produces.
They were expecting the mission to be a cinch, it was just another C-Rank of escorting a hardly-believable important person to another village: a 4 years old so-called princess of whatever from another so-and-so family, yadda yadda, Sai's always forgotten to memorize. But alas, how wrong they were. A few hours ago, halfway to their destination, a group of missing-nin attacked them and intended to take their client hostage for ransom. Apparently, they were too underestimating the mission they were unprepared for such legion of thugs. The girl was instantly scarred for life, Sai knows for sure. After all, they were so much, much blood there, fresh corpses - one of which his other teammate, and horrifying cuts of his and even more of his miserable remaining teammate sprawled by the fallen tree trunk behind him.
"Entertain her or something, idiot!" Kanoto shouts, vexed, exhausted. If only he can move one of his hands, he would have stuffed his fingers into his ears. They're ringing. Ringing loud in his brain.
Sai hastes for a way. He never knows how to amuse a child. He's never been good with children. And it seems like he never will. One day, he tried to play peek-a-boo with a random toddler in a market, his mother was nowhere to be found and he was crying. Despite his determination, the boy ran off right off the bat once he saw his face. Sai had never heard such a horrififying scream before.
The girl's scream crescendoes and her heels start to pound the ground below. Sai feels like his soul is slowly seeping out from his body. He wonders if Kanoto's dead now. The poor guy can't budge any of his limbs.
"Please..." He begs miserably. "...Don't cry."
The girl continues to screech like a 10 feet tall cicada, and Sai quickly recoils a few meters back.
"KAMIIIIIIIII!" Kanoto screeches, desperate. "HELP MEEEEE!"
Sai returns to search for a way. What will others do at times like this? What will someone - like Shin? - do at time like this? He remembers himself crying beneath a tree one day, when he was younger. He remembers staring at Shin's feet before looking up to see him holding out very colorful paper cranes he just folded. He remembers smiling. It made him him feel safe and reminded him that he was not alone.
Maybe that can work.
He doesn't know how to fold paper cranes, but...
Sai pulls out his scroll and ninja inks. Frowning a bit at how light the bottles are. He just realizes how much he'd used the ink in the battle. It also reminds him that some of them had spilled in their messy escape.
Stepping away, but not too far, and still her screams banging at his eardrums. Sai begins to dip his brush to the ink bottle, after pulling it out and notices the ink isn't thick enough, he dips it again and sweeps all the ink inside. He carefully runs the bristles through the paper, and back on sweeping what little ink is left to him. Once he's done, he does a handseal with one hand and a papery butterfly flutters to life and out from the scroll, soaring towards the girl who's throwing her head back in yet another deafening wail.
With all his palms presses against his ears, Sai watches the butterfly gyrate around the girl who's yet noticed it. He swears his heart feels like it wants to explode when the girl finally lowers her holler when she sees the paper critter hover pass her eyes.
'That's it, that's it. You're not alone. We are still here to protect you! Don't worry!' Sai thinks, giddy with happiness that the hellish minutes are coming to an end. At last, his ink won't go to waste.
To his ultimate surprise, however. The girl snatches the creature from the air, blows her nose into it, throws it to the ground, and resumes to cry like a hungry baby.
Sai vows he can hear his jaw clatter on the ground.
"Ahah! There, found you!" A voice echoes from behind a three branch. He recognizes the voice.
"Heh, sitting duck," Another familiar voice emits from behind a tree. "Well, well. So much for hiding together with a bawling little brat. How lucky."
"Now, I'll finally get some nice heads for furnishing my room, wooooh!" A gruffly cheerful voice emerges along with nothing less than ten familiar faces from the shadows.
Sai watches the thugs around him crack their knuckles in unison and is suddenly reminded that he didn't bring any spare inks.