Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
"Sakura-chan!" a familiar voice called. "Why are you sleeping on that Akatsuki guy?! Sakura-chan!"
She heard footsteps hurriedly approaching. She didn't want to move, she was so comfortable on this warm pillow. She could hear a strong heartbeat, and felt something warm against her cheek. Oh right, I was healing someone... She was so tired that she didn't even blush when she realised what she was lying on.
She dragged herself into a sitting position and squinted at the figures surrounding her. It was Naruto, Kakashi, and Sai. Kakashi's expression was unreadable as always, Naruto looked furious, and Sai, as usual, looked very pleased.
"Sakura, are you all right?" She heard Kakashi ask, his words sounding blurry in her head. She looked down at the man she had healed, and seeing that he was unconscious, she looked up at Kakashi.
"This is the man I found here. I figured he might know something about Sasuke or at least something about Akatsuki. I healed him." She sighed in frustration. "I ran out of chakra and fell asleep. Can you tell if Sasuke's near?"
"I see." Kakashi said softly, looking down at the unconscious man. "I don't think Sasuke was killed in the blast. He was here not long ago, and it smells as though he may have had comrades with him, but we should get you to an inn to rest up first. We can't travel with you like this." Kakashi paused, looking down again with a slight smile on his face. "I thought he was dead."
Disappointment and more frustration made her posture slump further. Although she hated for them to think of her as a burden, they were right. Right now, she would only slow them down. She was certain Naruto wanted to go straight after Sasuke, and she didn't want to hold them back. She would shoulder this responsibility on her own, doing what she could for her village.
"I want you to go and look for Sasuke without me. I don't need help taking him to Konoha; with these kinds of wounds, he'll be out for a good few days." She assured them. "I can always knock him out with some anaesthetics if he wakes up before we reach Konoha." She tried to look confident, smiling up at Kakashi through her chakra depletion. He looked thoughtful.
Kakashi knew she'd rather be out in the field with her team, helping to find Sasuke instead of babysitting a wounded enemy, but he also knew that the thing she hated most in the world was the be a hindrance to her team. She'd rather be on her own than cause them trouble. If they waited for her to regain her chakra, and lost track of Sasuke, then he knew she'd blame herself. And that would still leave the problem of the wounded Akatsuki. They couldn't take him with them, but they couldn't leave him or kill him either. This man was a valuable information source Konoha needed. He would have to leave her, but he wouldn't leave her unprepared. He pulled something shiny out of his pocket.
"Take this." He placed what appeared to be a bracelet in her hand. "The Hokage originally gave me this for Sasuke, but I'm sure we can manage without it. Put it on his wrist and focus your chakra into it until it shrinks to fit his wrist. It will make him unable to access his chakra, but also, if the flow of the chakra in the bracelet stops, like if you die, then it will cut into his skin and release two grams of liquid cyanide into his bloodstream. You can take it off by using your chakra to make the metal expand. I'll tell you what to expect from him on the way to the inn." Kakashi picked Deidara up bridal style which made Sakura smile a little despite the situation. The unconscious man looked very feminine being carried like that.
Sakura smiled as she inspected the chakra bind. Even though it was getting dark, she could tell that it was very pretty, its coloured sheen reflecting the dimming sky. She was sure the criminal would object to wearing it, especially since it was pink.
She turned to her team members. "Good luck Naruto, Sai." She told them sincerely. Naruto nodded and darted off with a whoosh of air.
"You've got blood on your face, ugly." Sai replied, before following Naruto. She wiped it off with her sleeve. Sai's nickname bothered her a lot less than it used to.
The inn they arrived at seemed like a respectable place, looking around at the polished wood floors and noting the sweet smell of fresh flowers.
"A room for two, but separate beds please." She asked the aged innkeeper, who smiled and handed over a key.
"Sakura, is this really okay?" Kakashi suddenly felt like maybe this wasn't such a good idea, as he carried the Akatsuki member up towards the room. Sakura may be strong but right now she was vulnerable without her chakra, and she was a girl after all. There were things that men could do which would leave damage that lasted longer than scars.
"Kakashi, I promise I'll put the chakra bind on as soon as I have a little to spare. I'll tie him up as well." She wanted to be useful, and this was all she could do. "I'll set off for Konoha in a day's time. I can do this Kakashi, let me try?" She pleaded with her big green eyes.
Kakashi laid the sleeping man on the bed furthest from the door. "If anything goes wrong, we're both screwed. Don't mess this up." He warned her. He put his gloved hand on her shoulder, looking at her resignedly with his dark grey eye. "Be careful Sakura."
And with that, she was alone.
The man on the bed mumbled something that sounded like "Cats..." and giggled in his sleep. Well, almost alone.
She had learned from Kakashi that his name was Deidara, and he liked to blow things up with explosive clay. She also learned that he could manoeuvre his explosions and detonate them with his chakra. He sounded like he could cause a lot of problems if you gave him some clay, and she would definitely rather not meet him in a serious fight.
She put down her pack and went to the bathroom across the hall to get some hot water, carrying the full bowl carefully to her room. She walked over to him and placed the water by his bed. She had not been able to fully heal him, so she would have to do what she could traditionally. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she unclasped her medic kit from her belt, and began to treat the wound without chakra. First, she cleaned the area with a cloth from her kit and some hot water. She rubbed some antiseptic cream on the open area which was weeping slightly. It didn't look good, the sooner she got her chakra back the better. She dressed the wound quickly, taping the bandage onto his chest, which she noticed was a very nice chest. From what she could see beneath the dirt, he was a little tanned, with defined muscles. He looked lithe, and just a little boyish. She thought, just for a second, that he was a little like Naruto.
She touched his forehead gently, brushing away a few strands from his dusty face to check his temperature. It was a little high, but there was not a lot she could do about it. She used another wet cloth to wipe the dust from his face, starting at his eyes, and working outwards. When she had finished, she was a little surprised at what she saw. He looked around twenty, maybe a little younger, and he had what looked like scars from burns across his left eye. Other than that, he had a very pretty face, and if it wasn't for the masculine jaw line, he really could be mistaken for a girl. As it was, he was actually very good looking. She reached to touch the scars, wondering how he got them. Her fingers traced the soft bumps. They looked a few years old, definitely from a burn of some sort. They could be fixed with chakra, she thought as she looked at the marks closely.
Suddenly, his left hand grabbed hold of her wrist with a very strong grip, his luminous blue eyes open and looking straight at her.
"Why are you touching me, hm?" He asked, clearly amused, but not entirely lucid. "Not that I mind, but it's a bad habit to assault people in their sleep, yeah." She realised how close her face was to his and pulled away, flushing pink at the overlap in personal space. His grip on her wrist loosened, and he traced his hand up her arm, towards her neck, watching her reactions with a smug smile on his face. Did something just lick her?
He definitely knew he was good looking, Sakura thought as she firmly removed his hand without saying a word. She took out some soft ties and used them to secure his left hand to the bed post, followed by the right. The look on his face as he found himself too weak to fight back was something she would always treasure. "What are you doing?" He tried to wriggle out of her firm grasp. "I was only joking, un, I don't like to be the one tied up."
"This is so you won't escape since you can move a little now, and this:" She pulled out a syringe and a small vial of fluid, "is so I can sleep." She filled the syringe with about a centimetre of the drug and looked for a good vein on his helplessly stretched out arm. He tried feebly to pull it out of her reach, but failed miserably. She poked the needle into his vein, and smiled in relief as she saw him start to lose consciousness.
Scooting further up the bed, she untied one of his hands, confident in the effectiveness of the drug. She slipped the pretty poisoned bangle over his slender but strong-looking wrists. She felt a little guilty as she focused a small amount of her already depleted chakra into it. He looked so vulnerable like this, a far cry from the man she had seen briefly at the Akatsuki hideout. Then she thought of all the people he'd probably killed with his explosions, and felt a lot less guilty.
Now to look at what had licked her. She turned his hand over, and there, on his palm, was a line that looked like lips. Kakashi hadn't told her about these. She poked them experimentally, and a tongue rolled out lazily. She jumped a little in surprise, but was intrigued as she saw little white teeth behind the tongue. She poked the tongue gently, and flushed when the hand mouth gently sucked her finger. She withdrew her finger with a soft pop, and rebound his arm to the bed post.
She went over to her own bed, and lay down with a sigh. She was too spent to even get changed. She curled up under the blankets, tucking her knees into her chest like a child. She hoped her team would be alright. If anything happened to them, she was sure she would break. She had lost her parents last year, before Naruto had returned from training with Jiraiya. Naruto, Kakashi, and to some extent Sai, had become her family. They fought together, ate together, and trusted each other. She was rarely sad when she was with her boys. They were her world.
She slipped easily into sleep, but the sleep was not pleasant.
She dreamed gruesome dreams where the people she loved were slaughtered before her eyes, crying for help. She could only watch.
"It's all right Sakura, yeah."
She woke with a jump, falling out of bed directly onto her medic kit, which crunched.
A chuckle came from other side of the room. He was awake, and laughing at her,
She sat up, thoroughly embarrassed, and shook her head to get rid of the horrible dream, forgetting it at once. He may be an enemy, but right now he needed to be treated as a patient. Since quite a lot of her chakra had returned, she could hopefully fix the remaining problems. "How do you feel?" She asked him, opening the pouch to see what had made the breaking noise. It was the vial of anaesthetics. Shit.
"My chest hurts, yeah, but I can breathe better than before." He demonstrated by taking a deep breath, his bandaged chest rising as he did so. "But what I'd really like to know is who you are and why I'm tied to a bed." He seemed as if he knew what was going on today, so maybe she could ask him some questions. She padded barefoot over to his bed, and sat down to take a look at the chest wound. From the red and yellow discolouration of the bandages it looked like an infection may have set in.
"My name is Haruno Sakura. I'm a medic, so I'll be treating your wounds here until you can travel. The restraints are to stop you from escaping or killing me in my sleep. " She told him as she pulled off the surgical tape, noting him wince a little as it pulled out some chest hairs as well, not that he had very many; his chest was very smooth, apart from the obvious semi-healed abrasion over his heart.
"I'm Deidara, yeah. Why you think I'd kill you in your sleep? A bit paranoid aren't you, hm?" He gave the flimsy-looking restraints a tug, wincing at the jarring motion it gave his broken ribs.
"They're chakra enforced, so don't waste your time." She told him as she pulled out some fresh dressings. "You're Akatsuki, isn't it just common sense? It's what you do isn't it? You kill innocent people." She shouldn't be baiting him, she knew she'd be the one that ended up getting angry. She needed to remain clam and detached.
She looked at the slight discolouration around the scabbed area, it could definitely cause problems later. She was so focused that she missed the amused smirk that briefly crossed his features.
"Does this hurt?" She asked, pressing down a few inches below the wound on his lower ribs.
He made a noise in the back of his throat. "It tickles." He told her.
She pressed a little higher, her fingers sinking slowly into the slightly swollen flesh.
"Hurts." He said grunting a little at the pain. It looked like a mild infection. She closed her eyes and summoned her healing chakra. She used it to first expel what infection she could, then pull the skin together and repair the cells. She could feel him tense slightly; she knew this technique was very itchy, and smiled at the thought that he was pretending it didn't bother him.
She decided to heal his ribs this time. Since he would be conscious from now on, she doubted he would let her carry him, which she didn't particularly want to do anyway. He would need them fixed to travel at a good pace. She kept in mind however, that he was definitely dangerous now that she could no longer keep him sedated. Even though he was wearing the bracelet, he could still knock her unconscious and escape. She finished closing the wound and looked at the end result. There wasn't even a trace of a scar. There was simply very touchable looking skin. He looked down at his chest, as if something was different.
"I'm going to take a shower." She got up to leave, taking one of the inn's towels and a change of clothes with her.
"Wait, yeah." She paused halfway to the door and turned to look at him. His huge blue eyes seemed more than a little concerned. "Why are you helping me?"
She frowned, unsure of what to answer. If she told him the truth, he was unlikely to be as easy to deal with, but what else could she tell him? Any lies she made up in order to gain his cooperation were sure to be found out once he realised what direction they were travelling.
She sighed. "I'm not helping you. I'm kidnapping you."
A/N: Thankyou to all who reviewed the last chapter!