Heist
Callista Miralni
Disclaimer: I don't own Heist Society or Naruto.
IMMA FIXING SASU-CHAN'S CHARACTER! Even though he seems to be OOC and super nice previously... he's still everyone's favorite emo. T_T *must make that distinction clearer* He is by far, the most difficult character to write.
Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, favorited, and added to alerts! You guys have overwhelmed me and brought my hopes up for this crack fic (well... crack for me at least XD).
Two: The Crew
-Thirteen Days until Deadline-
-Kyoto, Japan-
Iruka dropped them off at the Kyoto Memorial Park.
Buttoning up her coat against the bitter winter wind, Sakura cupped her hands around her mouth and let her breath warm up her hands. A stray lock of pink hair escaped from under her hood and danced freely in the wind.
Beside her, Sasuke's ears were turning pink but other than that, the teen gave no indication of how much the weather affected him. They walked side by side in silence, looking for someone who could be anybody and nobody at the same time.
Then, they saw him.
To Sakura, the man was attractive. But in her world, attractive was not synonymous with handsome. Handsome described people like Tou-chan, or Narimiya Hiroki, or Sasuke. This man was attractive and perfect.
He chatted away on his Blackberry, making some sort of business arrangement with his secretary when a rumpled vagabond crashed into him.
"Are you alright sir?" The man asked in alarm, wrenching his phone away from his ear.
The hobo steadied himself by grabbing the lapels of the other man's coat. "I'm... fine." He grunted. "Sorry about that."
The perfect man gave him a bewildered look before continuing down the path and carrying on with his arrangements.
Beside her, Sasuke smirked and his eyes shone with suppressed mirth. Oh that was a good one.
His companion saw the amused gleam in his eyes and rolled her own. "Whatever. C'mon, we gotta catch up."
The hobo sank down on the nearest park bench, completely ignored by the passerby. Sakura pulled Sasuke by the arm and stood before him, blocking his view of the scenery.
"Hello Sarutobi-jii-chan." Sakura greeted politely.
The old man—her great uncle—grunted and beckoned for the teens to follow. They followed him out of the park and to the station. Exiting the train, the two teens wove through the crowds and walked down the street after him. The neighborhood was quiet.
Thieves have a few simple rules. One—don't do anything that would get you caught. That means no permanent addresses, no using personal bank accounts on jobs, and no revealing your true name while incognito.
The second rule was don't betray a fellow thief.
However, Sakura learned early on that if you knew the rules well enough, it was okay to break them. She guessed that this is why only Sarutobi-jii-chan was allowed a permanent address, a sure sign of his remarkable legacy and ability as a con artist.
Sarutobi-jii-chan's house was the base of operations for the Senjuu clan and the one place wayward and displaced Sakura called home.
Stepping inside the modest two-story home, Sarutobi-jii-chan barked, "Take off your shoes," as he withdrew the businessman's wallet from his pocket and threw it on a pile of similar looking ones.
Sakura slipped off her worn Pumas and was about to follow Sasuke down the hall when she noticed he hadn't taken off his. That asshole, she grumbled as she wrenched his arm back and forced him to remove his brand new Nike sneakers.
"They're just shoes Sakura." The boy grunted as he grudgingly unlaced his sneakers.
"Not in my uncle's house you overly pompous rich brat!" Sakura hissed.
Sasuke rolled his eyes at her but said nothing as he brushed past her and made his way down the hall. Painfully, Sakura was reminded of how Sasuke used to be when the first met. Cold, uncaring, unfeeling. Did he need to be a thief in order to learn how to smile? Did he need to steal someone else's joy in order to find his own?
Did she?
Sakura already knew the answer to that one.
"We practice an old art Sakura." Her uncle threw Sasuke's wallet at him when they entered the kitchen. "It is kept alive not by blood"—He slid her passport towards her on the counter—"but by practice. I suppose you were absent the day your teachers presented that particular lecture."
The back of her neck flushed from the embarrassment of being conned so easily. She distracted herself by studying the room; the kitchen was the same as she remembered it, with an assortment of cooking utensils hanging from the ceilings and walls. There was a pot simmering on the stove and her uncle stood before it, ladling out bowls of his signature shiitake mushroom soup. He handed one to Sasuke and shoved another into Sakura's hands.
"Sit." Sarutobi-jii-chan commanded.
The two teens sank into the mismatched chairs around the heavy table. The kitchen—more specifically, the table—brought back so many memories. This was the room where her uncle planned the hijacking of 90% of the world's gari supply for the year. This was the room where her father assembled a crew to steal a painting of the last emperor from the Indian Parliament building.
This was the room where Sakura announced to her family that she was leaving to steal an education from one of the finest schools in the world.
Sakura never thought she'd be in this kitchen for the reasons she left it. It was hard to walk away from its warmth but coming back three months later was even harder. The kitchen was a blazing inferno and Sakura felt suffocated.
"This soup needs tomatoes to be good." Sasuke muttered out of the corner of his mouth, mostly for his own benefit.
Sarutobi-jii-chan "Hrumph"-ed and made some muttering comment about how Sakura brought home no better men than her mother did, even if this one dressed better. She ignored the jibe at her father.
"Yo Sarutobi-jii, we're back!"
The back door slammed open and two teenagers wrestled with a large shaggy dog through the door.
"They didn't have anymore Sinhala hounds but we got a... hey! Sa-chan's here! With the bastard!"
"Dobe." Sasuke growled from the table.
Uzumaki Naruto and his cousin Inuzuka Kiba grew up in the Hokkaido countryside and could have passed for twins if it weren't for the differences in eye and hair color. They were both tanned, muscularly built, and had the loudest voice-boxes Sakura had ever heard. Which was saying something considering she grew up with Ino.
"Hey Sa-chan..." Kiba studied her. "I though you were at Konoha."
The girl felt the back of her neck flush and didn't know how to reply but Sasuke saved her by asking Naruto:
"How's your ass doing after that job in Manila?" Sasuke sneered. "I'm surprised that dog in your hands hasn't bitten the rest of it off."
"HEY!" Naruto exploded. "The doctors fixed me up no thanks to you!" The teen let go of the dog's collar, forcing Kiba to dig his heels into to ground to keep him still. Unzipping his pants, Naruto yelled, "You wanna see the scars?
"Oh my God, Naruto, no!" Sakura shrieked, covering her eyes. "I don't want to see you with your pants down! GROSS!"
Even though she said that (and it was true), what Sakura was really thinking was they did a job without me?
They did a job without me.
"Hn. You might want to remember that it was my money that put you through surgery to fix your useless ass Naruto." Sasuke reminded the blond boy.
"I wouldn't have needed surgery if you hadn't decided to use me as bait!"
"Boys." Sarutobi-jii-chan cut in.
"Sorry Jii-chan." Naruto mumbled.
Sakura looked around the kitchen. There was Sasuke, leaning back in his chair and looking triumphant over his latest victory over Naruto, Sarutobi-jii-chan was finishing his bowl of soup, and the loudmouthed cousins were standing by the back door. The girl focused instead on the dog between them and realized-
"Dog in a bar."
"You want in?" Kiba perked up at the mention of the classic con.
"Boys." Sarutobi-jii-chan said again.
"Okay! Okay! We'll see you later Jii-chan. Sa-chan! Does this mean you're back for good?" Naruto hollered over his shoulder as he and Kiba dragged the dog out the back door again.
The door slammed shut before Sakura could respond. "I have no idea what it means dobe."
Sasuke made a noise that sounded like he was trying not to laugh but her uncle gave her a piercing stare instead.
"Nothing is free in this world. You are going to have to ask if you want something from me." Her uncle continued to stare as he picked up the threads of their conversation.
Begging time—Kiba once quipped in a similar incident involving Naruto and a particularly persistent female from a rivaling con family.
"Jii-chan... I need your help. We need your help."
"Eat your soup Sakura."
Sasuke was already on his second bowl. Sakura envied how comfortable he was in Jii-chan's house, as if he were a legitimate member of the family rather than an incorporated partner.
Sakura ate a spoonful of her soup and its warmth thawed out her fingers and nose. She took in another bite.
"Who is this we you speak of?"
"Me and Sasuke." Sakura answered hurriedly. "I saw Tou-chan, Jii-chan. He couldn't have stolen them and..."
"Rinnegan Pein paid her a visit in Singapore." Sasuke finished for her.
Sarutobi-jii-chan's attention shifted to Sasuke. "You were to deliver a message."
"And I did." Sasuke answered cooly. "It's not my fault that this stubborn girl has a habit of leaving in the middle of the night and dismantling my security system."
"Nineteen fifty-eight was a good year for Porsche Sasuke."
"So I've heard."
"Rinnegan Pein is not the sort of man I approve of visiting my great-niece."
"I'm right here!" Sakura yelled. "You don't have to talk as if I'm a child!"
Her outburst startled Sarutobi-jii-chan and his eyes shifted to her. He had the look on his face of an old man who is unaccustomed to being yelled at.
"I'm here." Sakura repeated softly.
There were a million things she could have said to ease the tension between her and her uncle. But she never said them. Instead, she said the only thing that mattered the most.
"Pein wants his paintings back."
"Of course he does Sakura." Sarutobi-jii-chan chewed on a piece of mushroom.
"But Tou-chan doesn't have them."
"Your father can take care of himself. He is not one to ask for help, especially from me."
Frustrated, Sakura retorted, "But he's not asking—I am."
"What could I possibly do?" Her uncle sighed in his I'm just an old man tone.
"I need to know who did the Rinnegan job."
"And why, pray tell, do you need to know that?"
It was a test—to see how far Sakura was willing to go. To see how far she was willing to take back her old life as Hatake Kakashi's daughter and Senjuu Sarutobi's great-niece. This was a test of her loyalty to the old family business.
"I need to know," Sakura found strength in her words. "-because we're going to steal them."
Her uncle stared at her impassively before getting up from the table and going to the pantry. Sasuke shot her a small smile of reassurance, one that she would never know was a smile reserved only for her.
"This is a serious matter you ask me about." Her uncle pushed their bowls to one end of the table with a rolled up piece of paper. "The man who did the Rinnegan job is a mystery to us. We do not even know where he is. But..."
He flicked his wrist and roll unfurled. Printed on it were the most complicated blueprints Sakura had ever seen.
"We do know where he's been."
When they finally left Sarutobi-jii-chan's house after brainstorming for hours on who the real culprit could be, the sun had already set and Kyoto was coming to life. Without the warmth from the sun or the heat of Sarutobi-jii-chan's kitchen, Sakura finally felt winter settle into her skin despite her thick coat.
Sasuke walked beside her, his own coat buttoned up to his chin. When the last gust of wind sent Sakura into a frenzy of shivers, Sasuke wrapped an arm around her and brought her close to his side. The passerby didn't question the uncharacteristic move—after all, he was the notorious and arrogant Uchiha billionaire and she was just a slip of a girl-thief turncoat at his side—to them, Sasuke and Sakura were just another couple out on the streets of Kyoto.
It started to rain.
"Hey." Sakura broke the silence. "Have you ever seen anything like that before?"
Sasuke grunted. "Hn. No."
"Really?" She asked. "So that must mean that who ever did it was really smart."
"Or really stupid." Sasuke shook his head, sending raindrops flying off his spiky locks.
"Or that." Sakura conceded. "Remind you of anybody?"
Sasuke snorted. "Too many people."
-Twelve Days until Deadline-
-Osaka, Japan-
People went to Osaka for different reasons.
Some saw it as an opportunity to cheaply escape from Tokyo's confines without loosing the conveniences of the modern world. To the new capital's residents, Osaka was exotic with its varying food, its fast-talking, almost rude, slang, and its vibrant night life.
Osaka was the perfect place to hide without leaving Japan.
Osaka was a thieves' paradise.
The hotel was crowded with tourists but they didn't matter to Sakura. The only thing that did was the lecture on algorithmic functions, second degree derivatives, and calculus theorems.
"Is it really necessary for us to sit through this lecture?" Sasuke sighed in aggravation. They sat in the very back corner of the hotel's darkened function room as inconspicuously as possible.
"This room is filled with the smartest people in the world." Sakura answered, nonchalant.
The other teen scoffed. "Well," Sakura amended. "At least is contains the smartest person in the world."
The professor droned on, using a laser pointer to circle a particular equation on his presentation.
"Where is he?" Sakura asked.
"Third row, center aisle. He's asleep like usual."
Raising an eyebrow, Sakura craned her neck to take a closer look. "No he's not. He's awake."
The room full of men and women with thick glasses, bad suits, and an obsession with Folger's Coffee erupted into laughter at something the professor said. If Sakura and Sasuke actually understood a word the speaker said, they probably would have laughed too.
"Hey." Sasuke murmured in her ear. "Does any of this shit matter in the world?"
"Unlike you," Sakura retorted. "Some people appreciate the importance and value of a well-rounded education."
Sasuke yawned and stretched his arms out. Settling one arm around her shoulders, Sasuke smirked. "How responsible of you Sakura. Maybe I'll buy you a university so you can be as well-rounded as you like. And ice cream."
"I'll take the ice cream thanks."
Sasuke shrugged. "If that's what you want."
For the next two hours, they stayed in the function room waiting. The second speaker was just as uninteresting as the first. Halfway through the third lecture, no one paid any attention to the lone A/V staff member who slipped out the service door.
"C'mon." Sakura tugged on Sasuke's hand and followed the man in pursuit.
The hallway was completely empty but the noise from the tourists a floor below echoed through the open atrium. No one was around to hear Sasuke casually greet the A/V man.
"Shikamaru."
The sixteen-year-old yawned and scrutinized his visitors. "Sasuke. And Sakura. What a surprise. I thought you were at Konoha?"
The girl groaned. "Why is that the first thing everyone says to me? Do I not even get a 'hi, hello, how are you doing today' from anybody anymore?"
Shikamaru smiled sheepishly at his childhood friend. "Sorry. It's just... well... you left."
"Don't remind me." Sakura muttered darkly. "Don't remind me."
"So what'd you think of the lecture Shikamaru? Or is it Hayate now?" Sasuke swiftly changed the subject, nodding towards the name tag Shikamaru most likely swiped from the real A/V man.
"Boring. He said nothing new."
"Nothing new to you. Let's go find a blind spot." Sakura retorted, recovered from her earlier irritation.
They took the escalator downstairs to the lobby. A wave of school children—probably on a class trip—drowned out their voices as they crossed paths.
"So how's your dad?" Sakura yelled over the din of the crowd.
"Retired!" Shikamaru shouted back.
"Retired?" The girl asked incredulously. "He's forty-five."
"And lives by the Nara park to boot." Shikamaru rolled his eyes. "Like he needed a reminder of what our name really means. People go eccentric when they hit their prime, acting as if they're going to die tomorrow."
"What does he do now that he's... retired?" Sakura asked, making casual conversation while Sasuke looked for a blind spot in the crowded lobby.
"Consulting with some security company."
"Freakin' traitor." Sasuke shook his head in disbelief as he stopped at a table. "A thief now consulting with a security company. No shred of dignity whatsoever."
Shikamaru chuckled at Sasuke's mutterings. "No kidding. So what's up? Is it a job?" His lazy expression brightened with anticipation.
"Sorry kid." Sakura smiled. "Just a favor."
The teen deflated. She slid the tube Sasuke had been carrying off his shoulder and unrolled a copy of the Rinnegan blueprints on the table.
"Holy shit. What the hell Sakura?" Shikamaru studied the blueprints intently. "Is this a bank? It has to be with the amount of security measures it's got."
"Nope." Sasuke shook his head.
"Government?" Shikamaru guessed again.
"Nope." Sakura answered this time. "Private collection. Art."
"Yours?" Shikamaru directed to Sasuke.
Sasuke smirked. "I wish."
"So is it our objective to make it yours?"
Exchanging a look with Sasuke, Sakura breathed deep. "It's not exactly a typical operation." She answered vaguely.
Shikamaru continued to study the blueprints, muttering unintelligible things to himself as he went through all the plans. After five minutes, the teen looked up at them again.
"I'd say it's a pass. Unless, of course, it's Fort Knox." Suddenly, the thought occurred to him. "Is it Fort Knox?" Shikamaru asked hopefully. "Do the Americans keep plans of their forts lying around?"
"It's not Fort Knox." Sasuke snapped.
Shikamaru rolled up the plans and handed them back to Sakura. "I wouldn't hit it in that case."
"Too late." Sakura sank into a chair glumly. "It's already been hit."
"By your dad?"
"And why does everyone assume that as well?" Sakura exclaimed.
Shikamaru held his hands up defensively. "Well... it's the kind of place your dad would hit just because he felt bored and thought he needed a challenge."
Sasuke shoved his hands deep in his pockets. "We need a list of who would hit a place like that. Besides Kakashi."
The other teen yawned and pulled up a chair. "It's not a big list."
"Even better." Sasuke answered curtly. "The smaller the better."
Shikamaru looked around the room and stiffened when he caught sight of something unusual. "Can I... keep those?" He asked without taking his gaze off it.
Sakura tossed the roll and its container back at him. "We've got a spare."
He returned the smile uneasily before looking across the lobby again. Sasuke checked his watch and told his companion, "We need to go. Iruka booked our flight for noon tomorrow. It'll take us a while to drive back to Nara."
"Thanks for all your help Shika." Sakura smiled gratefully as they began to walk away.
"Hey Sakura." The other boy called them back. "Is this why you're back?"
Her smile faltered. "Sort of."
Shikamaru didn't smile as he pointed out the thing he had been studying for the last few minutes. "I was just wondering if it had anything to do with that tail of yours. They've been following since we left the conference."
Whipping her head around in the direction of Shikamaru's finger, Sakura recognized the two people he pointed out as the two muscles that followed Pein where ever he went. One of them raised his arm in the air and tapped on the expensive Rolex watch on his wrist.
"Sakura?" Shikamaru asked, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay?"
Turning back around, Sakura pushed the two boys out the door and onto the Osaka city streets. "Keep walking and don't look back." She hissed.
Pein's message was startling clear.
Time is running out.
-Eleven Days until Deadline-
-Hong Kong, China-
Oh hell no...
That was all Sakura could think the moment the plane touched down.
It didn't matter if she was standing next to the most handsome boy she knew, on his private plane, in his private airstrip. It didn't matter if she was in one of the most mysterious places she'd ever have the privilege of visiting. It didn't matter if there was a girl with her hand sassily placed on one cocked hip with flowing blond hair and bright blue eyes standing at the bottom of the stairway. All Sakura could think was oh hell no and she wondered why the sight of the girl sent chills down her spine.
"Hello Forehead."
Oh yeah... that was it.
"Can I talk to you Sasuke?" Sakura hissed between her clenched teeth as she yanked on Sasuke's arm to pull him back inside the cabin. But no matter how hard she pulled (and Sakura had a decent amount of strength), Sasuke would not budge from his place at the top of the plane's stairwell. Damn him and his workout routine that gave him his lean sexiness. Damn him.
"Cut it out Sakura." Sasuke slipped his arm out of her death-grip and descended down the stairs.
The girl squealed at the sight of him and launched herself at his form. "Sasuke-kun!" She chirped in that high-pitched voice that made Sakura cringe. "Did you miss me?"
"No." Sasuke answered curtly as he pried her arms off his neck. "Get off me."
The girl had to jump in order to wrap her arms around the boy's body. Sakura wanted to point out that she was flashing everybody within a two mile radius with that short skirt on and those high stiletto boots were impractical for jumping. Sakura longed to say all those things and more but for now, all she could do was stand frozen at the top of the stairs. She didn't move until the girl pouted and slipped off Sasuke's back, directing her attention to Sakura instead.
"Oh don't be so frigid Forehead, don't you have a hug for your cousin?"
Yeah... that was it. How could Sakura forget.
Families are the weirdest things—she finally remembered. Especially family businesses. You always get those classic shojo manga situations where someone doesn't want to take over the family business in order to pursue their own dreams. In order to get the girl. In order to make a name for themselves. You know, that kind of thing.
But Sakura always wondered if in every family, there spawned a generation of two lone teenage girls who couldn't stand to be near each other. Who couldn't be in the same room without a verbal fist fight erupting. Without some kind of rivalry between them. Did the restaurant in Jakarta suffer from their refusal to work the same shift? Did the clothes shop in Okinawa suffer from their intense and bitter rivalry?
Sakura would never know the answer to that one since she had no other family except her own. These feelings were probably only confined to families who had a higher likelihood of being shot at than others. Yeah... that was probably it.
"Sasuke-kun..." Yamanaka Ino whined as she tucked her arm in the crook of his own. "Sakura's not being nice to me."
To Sakura's satisfaction, Sasuke pulled his arm out of Ino's grip and glared at her. "Not my problem."
"So cold!" Ino exclaimed. "It still makes you hot though Sasuke-kun."
Sasuke shot her a look, one that could have been read as apathetic. But to Sakura, she knew he was disturbed beyond belief at her cousin's comment.
Why did it have to be her? Sakura wailed to herself. But unlike Ino, she refused to voice her complaints. Maybe it had something to do with losing her mother at a young age. Or maybe it had something to do with her upbringing as a thief. Like bad habits, unused skills tended to vanish over time.
"It's nice seeing you again Ino-pig. I thought you were in Beijing. You know, the hooker district." Sakura calmly said.
"And I thought you were stuck in study hall. I guess we were both wrong." Ino answered snottily as they walked through the small airport to the waiting car.
Taking another look at her cousin, Sakura wondered how it was possible that they were only six months apart and yet Ino looked like she was six years older. Ino was taller, curvier, and just... more in general. She felt like a third-wheel trailing behind them as they navigated through the business and nouveux riche crowds, since Ino insisted on staying by Sasuke's side.
"Where's Kaiso?" Ino asked.
"You mean Iruka?" Sakura rolled her eyes.
"Whatever." The girl brushed off the correction. Sakura thought it was a pity her cousin's head hadn't filled out as well as her bra had.
But then, Ino said, "Happy birthday," and the package in her hands suddenly reappeared in Sasuke's blazer pocket.
The pass was smooth and effortless, the seasoned trademark of a member of their family.
Unwilling to let Ino's display of skill get under her skin, Sakura decided to make peace with her cousin and asked, "How's your mom?"
Ino rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation. "She's engaged. Again."
"Congratulations." Sasuke drawled.
"Sure, if that's what you think. He's a European count. Or a marquis. Which one's better?" The two girls looked at Sasuke for clarification but he only shrugged.
"Like I would care. That's on the other side of the world."
They stood waiting outside the regional airport, waiting for Iruka to get through the unusually long line of cars. Leaning against the wall, Sasuke pulled the pictures out of his blazer and thumbed through them with Sakura at his shoulder. The lines they had only seen on paper suddenly came to life, zooming in closer and closer to to Pein's mansion when the photos suddenly stopped fifteen hundred yards from the wall.
"This is it?" Sasuke raised his brow. "This is as close as you got?"
Ino popped the bubble of gum. "You mean to the fortress? Of course it was; any closer and my head would be gone. Great pick guys."
"We didn't pick it." Sakura reminded her.
"Whatever. The place as a twenty foot wall."
"We know." Sakura told her.
"With cameras covering every blind spot and a guard station at each corner."
"We know." Sakura snapped.
"And it has a river. Did you know that Forehead? What kind of mansion in Hong Kong has a freakin' river running through it? Do you know what could be in that water? There's... things in there... gross things..." Ino shook with fright but Sakura couldn't help but notice how comical it was that parts of her cousin shook more violently than others.
Sasuke shoved the pictures back in his pocket just as Iruka pulled up to the curb. "Forgive me Bocchan. There was a line."
"It's not a big deal." The billionaire murmured. "Just... get us out of here."
"Fine." Sakura was unwilling to let Ino win this argument. "Did you check the police report?"
Her cousin's mocking laugh didn't restore her confidence any, especially when Sasuke was smirking in amusement as well. "Well?" She demanded.
"Oh Sakura." Ino continued to laugh. "Men like Rinnegan Pein don't call the police. People who don't abandon their families would know things like that."
"For the love of God, I left for a few—"
"You still left." Ino's voice was cold with no trace of her earlier flirt. "And you'd still be behind your precious ivy-covered walls if we hadn't... if Sasuke hadn't... you'd be there."
Ino's slip in speech put Sakura on edge.
"Ino," She said slowly. "How did you know there was ivy? And how did you know Sasuke was the one who pulled me out?"
Ivy, as most people knew, was not indigenous to Japan. Konoha only had it by export and careful cultivation.
Ino rolled her cornflower blue eyes and scoffed some flimsy excuse about a lucky guess as she studied her nails. There was an irritated glint in Sasuke's eyes.
But she was too busy watching the surveillance tape in her head. A girl in a black hoodie streaked across Konoha's grounds with Danzo's keys in hand. Now that she thought about it, Sasuke was too tall and muscular to pass as Sakura in those clothes.
"You." She narrowed her eyes at him. "I can't believe you! Ino? You had to use my cousin to expel me? It's Ino for the love of God!"
"I can hear you~!" The other girl sang.
Sasuke glanced at the livid girl and smiled crookedly. "You're jealous." He stated bluntly.
"I. AM. NOT. Jealous." Sakura clenched her teeth as she continuously punched him in the upper arm.
Stopping her fist with his hand, Sasuke defended himself with, "I don't know that many girls."
The two went silent.
"Okay—so I don't know that many girls with your skills. But it doesn't matter. You're here."
Ino smiled flirtatiously (Sakura thought she looked like an ugly cow about to go to slaughter) and battered her mascara-covered lashes. "Oh Sasuke-kun... you sure know how to make a girl feel special."
Sakura felt like an idiot.
The car stopped a block away from the hotel. Sakura bolted out the door and blocked the exit.
"I'll see you at the hotel." She said to Sasuke. "And I'll see you at New Year's." She waved to Ino. "Or at your mom's wedding. Thanks for coming and for the initial stakeout Ino. I'm sure you'd rather be in Fiji with some guy at your side. Sorry for taking up your time, but I'll let you go back to tanning."
She ran off so fast that Sasuke didn't have the time to catch her and drag her back to where she belonged—at his side. Except, the girl made it to the corner before her cousin called her back.
"You think you're the only one who loves your dad Sakura?"
The girl stopped and turned around in time to see Ino emerging from the car. For the first time in her life, she swore Ino wasn't trying to con her. Ever since she was six, Ino learned to call five different men daddy, all of them rich, all of them influential, all of them art collectors, and all of them cons. In most ways, Ino had no other father than Sakura's own.
"You need me." Ino marched over to her and used her height to tower over Sakura.
There was no flirt, no glitz, no glam, no lie in her voice. In every way, Ino was Sarutobi-jii-chan's great-niece, the carrier of his blood. A thief of the highest pedigree.
"Like it or not Forehead Girl, our lovely family reunion stars now."
They rented a car using Ino's fake ID and one of Sasuke's credit cards. Parking the Mazda a block away from Pein's mansion on the fringes of Hong Kong, the three teens got out and walked the rest of the way. The moon was rising overhead, peeking every so often through the clouds. The darkness made in near impossible to watch her steps, and Sakura felt like an amateur out on her first casing by the way she stumbled over the smallest pebbles and nearly crashed into Sasuke several times. Crouching behind the bushes of the property across the street, they tried to think of ways to get past the guards and through the heavy iron gate.
"Groundhog?" Sasuke suggested softly in her ear.
"Too long." Sakura shook her head. "And too much noise."
"Fallen Angel?" Ino suggested.
Taking another look at the sky, Sakura sighed and shook her head again. "That would work because there's enough cloud cover but there's too many sensors on the ground and four mastiffs. Too much of a risk to any of us."
The guards were yelling something at each other in Cantonese and the gate swung open. A delivery truck went through and the iron shut immediately.
Suddenly, Sakura was on her feet and moving towards the gate.
"What are you doing?" Ino hissed. "You're going to get caught!"
She flashed them a smile just as the moon illuminated her pink hair.
"I know."
And she rang the doorbell.
"State your businesses." A clipped voice echoed from the speaker.
"My name is Haruno Sakura and I'm here to see Rinnegan Pein about his paintings."
The gate swung open and Sakura was in.
Across the street, Ino struggled against Sasuke's iron grip on her shoulder. "She's going to die!" The girl was hysterical.
"Shut up. You're going to get us caught." Sasuke growled as he pulled Ino back to the cover of the bushes.
They sat their waiting for Sakura to come out.
If she would ever come out.
A butler took her coat and ushered her through the darkened mansion. Everything was in pristine order and condition; Sakura got the feeling most of it was for show rather than practical or nostalgic purpose. He opened the doors to the second floor study and one look at the room told her this is where the master of the house truly lived.
A dark wood paneled walls were covered with paintings but the space behind Pein's desk was oddly bare. In a corner by the window, a white grand piano stood with the cover propped open. The windows reminded Sakura of the old British country homes—thick glass laid out in a diamond pattern.
"Sakura." Pein sat down at his desk. "What a surprise. Do you have my paintings?"
"No." Sakura leveled her gaze. "I told you already—my father doesn't have them and neither do I."
Pein sighed. "A pity. What did you hope to accomplish by coming here then? Did you come to steal my Aphrodite statue?"
Snapping her fingers, Sakura couldn't help but sarcastically reply with, "Damn. I knew I should have brought a big purse," even though she had no bag on her.
Pein laughed and the sound sent chills down her spine but she refused to show her fear. "I like you Sakura—you're highly entertaining. In most ways, you and I are a lot alike. We could have had a prosperous friendship."
CREEP! Sakura's mind screamed.
He reached out to pick up the phone on his desk. "But... since you don't have my paintings, it is regrettable that I must resort to this..."
"Wait." He stopped.
"Let me help you." Sakura bargained. "Help me get your paintings back. There is no profit for me or my family if you do not have them. You'll just continue to blindly hunt us down even though we're innocent."
Pein studied the teen before him. After a tense minute, he relaxed his arm and laughed again.
"Ah... you are amusing indeed Sakura. What do you want from me?"
"Information." She answered quickly with a smirk she could have only learned from Sasuke. "Show me everything you've got. You say you have proof my father did this job? I want to see it."
Hours later, Sakura would walk out of that mansion completely unharmed with a CD tucked under her arm. Years later, the story of Sakura's meeting with Pein would be retold around Sarutobi-jii-chan's kitchen table. Some people said she had to dodge a volley of bullets and used an advancing mastiff to open the gate for her when the dog missed his target to escape. Others would say she slipped out through the water gate in the river. And still others claimed that her conversation with Pein that night involved an antique set of shinobi shuriken and kunais hanging on the walls of Pein's study (which, according to stories, Sakura also stole that night). But none of that would have been the truth.
It had begun to rain while she was inside the mansion. Ino, Sasuke, and eventually, Sakura were soaked through when they arrived at the hotel Iruka booked for them. Toweling her hair dry, Sakura looked at her cousin sprawled out on one of the penthouse's couches in a terry cloth bathrobe. She pulled on a pair of dry sweatpants and a tank top but her skin crawled with goosebumps so she added a sweater on top of it. The television in the living room had a DVD player and she popped in Pein's disk.
"We need munchies." Ino suddenly said. "Am I the only person who's famished?"
"Tomatos." Sasuke grunted.
That's when Sakura realized why she was so cold. Sasuke hadn't spoken to or looked at her on the walk back to the car, on the ride over to the hotel, or on their way up to their room. When he spoke, he spoke with Ino. When he looked at them, he focused his eyes on the wall over her head. Uchiha Sasuke was the boy who had been walked out on too many times in his life and that stunt Sakura pulled probably didn't help his memories.
Deciding to ignore the chill, Sakura pulled the complimentary notepad and pen towards her and settled in her chair to take notes of the surveillance video. She tossed Ino the remote after pushing PLAY.
Grainy black and white images flashed in sequence on the screen, first showing the entry way, then the kitchen, the parlor, the cellar, the grounds, Pein's study, then...
"Stop."
Ino hit PAUSE and the screen displayed a room Sakura hadn't seen on her brief tour of the house. Something in her stomach told her that very few people had seen that room.
An entire stone wall room with a single bench in the middle filled the screen. The ceiling looked like it was in need of repair and the floor was solid marble. The thing that caught Sakura's attention though were the five paintings hanging on the wall.
"Blueprints." Sakura called to her cousin but Sasuke was already unrolling the copy they brought with them on the coffee table.
Her finger traced the outline of Pein's study before it stopped on a ghostly rectangular shape they had previously assumed was part of the cellar two floors below. "Here." The girl swallowed as she quickly mapped out the dimensions of the room on the screen and matched it with the ghost room on the blueprints. "It must be underground and accessible only by a hidden elevator in Pein's study, right behind his desk."
"How do you know that?" Ino gaped.
Sakura thought about the wall space behind the desk and now knew why it looked so odd in the room. "Because I'm pretty sure I was standing in front of it the entire time I was there."
On the floor beside her, Sasuke tensed but he said nothing as he grabbed the remote Ino abandoned on the table and pushed PLAY again.
The tape continued rolling through the clips of the entire estate but two minutes later, just as it transitioned to Pein's study again, a flash of thunder lit up the entire room and the lights illuminating the paintings on the walls went out. As the tape cycled through all the pitch-dark rooms, someone in the kitchen complained about the ancient electrical wiring throughout the house.
A collective groan went around the table. "Benjamin Franklin." Sakura exclaimed. "How simple!"
She knew it was having done it on several occasions herself. The thief would book a room in the city, somewhere close but a hot spot of travelers and wait until a stormy night. Then, he would make his move.
"How long before the generators kicked in?" Sakura asked.
"Forty-five seconds." Ino answered promptly. It was, after all, her job to know things like that in the family.
"That's not bad." Sasuke leaned against Sakura's legs.
"For who? Pein or the thief?" Ino asked.
The boy shrugged, as if the forty-five second delay didn't really matter who it benefitted. "So we know how he got in. Now how did he get out?" Sasuke murmured the next question on everybody's mind.
The rooms were all dark except for one. The camera in the hidden room continued to record with perfect clarity.
"Wait a minute..." Ino pointed out. "Why is this the only camera still functioning? Every other room is so dark, the cameras can't pick up anything."
"It must be on a separate line or loop or power feed." Sakura suggested. "That way, it continues to run even if there is a power failure. This room is probably underneath..."
Suddenly, water started dripping through the ceiling and the paintings were gone.
"... the river." Sasuke finished for her dryly. "Think of anything?"
"Of course!" Sakura realized. "The thief rode a mini-submarine onto the property through the river because there is no security where the walls meet the water. Then, he seals it to the roof of the room, sneaks into the house, and steals the paintings by opening the hatch and cutting open a hole in the ceiling. The paintings would stay dry and he'd be able to... oh my God. A mini-submarine."
"How did you know all that?" Ino demanded. "I'm still trying to figure out how you seal a submarine to the roof of a room!"
Sakura shook her head weakly. "Because that's exactly what Tou-chan did." She got out of her chair and started pacing the room. "Two years ago. We were in Malaysia. It was—"
"Brilliant." Sasuke filled in for her.
But Sakura had another word in mind. "Risky." She shook her head.
"Well..." Ino cleared her throat. "At least we know why Kakashi-jii is Pein's leading suspect."
"Only suspect." Sasuke corrected her.
Sakura sank back down into her chair. "The thief must have not known about this off-site system. He probably only looped the feed in the security rooms. Nobody even knew the paintings were gone until Pein came back from a business trip in Beijing."
"Speaking of which-" Ino interjected. "What kind of business is Rinnegan in anyways?"
"The business of being ridiculously scary," Sakura answered at the same time Sasuke said, "Evil."
The two girls looked at him. Sasuke's onyx eyes seemed to smolder when he repeated, "Rinnegan Pein is in the business of being evil."
She knew by the way the usually collected teen swiftly went back to studying the blueprints that Sasuke knew things about Pein he wasn't telling. And Sakura didn't want to know. Those were the tales told in darkened rooms filled with cigar smoke. Those were the tales no one wanted to hear on a dark stormy night, much like the night the thief stole Pein's paintings.
Sasuke pushed aside the blueprints and audibly muttered, "With that, I think I'll hand cuff myself to you the next time you decide to take a late night walk."
"Hey!" Sakura cried out. "I was fine." Her voice grew desperate as she tried to convey to Sasuke that he was being overprotective. "He... likes me. Thinks I amuse him. And he says... that I'm just like him."
"You're not." Something in Sasuke snapped. For the first time that night, he looked at her as he softly whispered, "You're not... anything like him."
Sakura couldn't help but stare at him. Most of the time, she thought she knew everything about Sasuke, except for the exact details of his sad family history. But some times—like this time—Sakura felt as if she knew nothing about the boy at all. He hated people, but liked her family enough to converse and work with them. He was rich without working and and his coiffeurs filled themselves even without his underworld dealings. He loved to tease her and make her feel insignificant but his silence cut her deeper than his insults.
Ino watched this exchange silently. She ducked her head down and hid a knowing smile.
Oh Sasuke-kun...
"Well," The other girl brought their attention back to the matter at hand. "How deep is that river at its shallowest?"
"Eight?" Sakura guessed.
"Ten." Sasuke said. "It can't be less than ten feet at its shallowest."
"Okay..." Ino rolled her eyes at Sasuke's quick recovery from being sentimental to his usual arrogant self. "How small does a sub have to be to navigate through it."
"Small." Sakura emphasized. "Really small."
"That doesn't answer the question of how small." Ino shot back.
Pressing PAUSE on the remote, the TV froze on the image of a masked man carrying off the five priceless paintings. Sakura stole Sasuke's iPhone and did something with it before tossing the cell phone at Ino. The other girl caught it with ease and looked at the screen. A map of Taipei, Taiwan filled the screen.
"Why don't we find out?"
Author's Notes:
That took forever. And I'm behind schedule by a day. CRAP.
I would say more but... I'm running late. So ciao for now.
Thank you for reading!
Ja ne-
Callista Miralni
