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Disclaimer: I do not, nor have I ever, owned Naruto. I simply play in their world.

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The Edge of Rage

Chapter 2

Twenty-four hours ago...

There, that looks like the marker. Two tree's growing from one base shaped like a

'v' with a polished gray stone at the base, Sakura narrowed her eyes and confirmed that it fit the description that was on the scroll. The scroll said to take the path that forked to the left, in two kilometers I would come upon a single hut and to look for the leaf emblem that would mark it as a safe house.

Sakura adjusted her course and took the path to left that looked like nothing more than a game trail and counted her steps until she estimated she had come the two kilometers.

She was surrounded by thick, wild forests that she hadn't know existed in Grass. She also knew that she was very close to the Land of Cloud border. So where is that...ah, that must be it. She had just spied the 'hut'. It was so faded and worn that it completely hidden in the dark foliage of the forest. Had she not been actively looking for it, she would never have known it was there.

She stopped short of the steps and kept herself hidden in the shadows and scouted for the leaf sign. There, her eyes found the emblem scorched just above the door frame, this is the place. So now I make myself known and find out who sent me that scroll.

Sakura stepped out of the shadows and made her way cautiously to the steps. She sensed no traps, nothing to mark this place as a dwelling of Konoha shinobi. She had made the third step when the screen door slid open of its own accord. The sun had not yet risen in the sky and she could not see into the shadowy depths of the hut.

It's not that big of a dwelling, probably no more than a sleeping area, bathroom and if the architect was feeling generous, a small kitchen.

Still she moved slowly, and still she could detect no activity. No chakra, no sense that anyone had been here. Sakura had just crossed the threshold when the screen snapped shut and a blade cut across her throat.

"Password."

Sakura did not fight the blade across her throat, nor make any aggressive movements and instead spoke four simple words. "Where there is Light..."

"...the Shadows are deep. The scroll?"

"Burned, as instructed."

"Good." Abruptly the blade was removed from her throat and several fat candles lit at once, sending a flood of light into the small hut. Sakura turned sharply on her the heel of her boot.

"You follow orders well, Haruno." Sasuke Uchiha told her, as he unwound the black cloth that had covered most of his face and muffled the silken tones of his voice.

Sakura crossed her arms over her chest. "Why all the theatrics?" He might be her Captain, but that didn't mean she would follow him blindly.

"I see four months in the ANBU have not cured that mouth of yours."

Now that she could see him, she saw that he was dressed in black ops clothing, minus the white armor.

No wonder I didn't sense him, she realized, he's cloaked. The clothing of the ANBU masked a shinobi's chakra, allowing them to walk 'unseen' before the enemy even knew they were there.

However she wasn't looking at his clothing, it was his eyes that held her gaze. They were not the blood red of his sharingan, but the black pools of drowning darkness.

She knew those eyes well. They haunted her every waking dream, since that day in the woods.

"And why should it?" she retorted, well aware she had been staring at the enticing form of the Uchiha.

"Perhaps you're looking for a repeat experience?" His eyes glittered in the candle light, making him appear like some demon prince.

A deliciously bitable demon prince, her subconscious all but purred in her mind and Sakura shoved away that image with a vicious shove.

Somehow she doubted Sasuke had lured her away from Konoha to play mind games with her.

"In your dreams," she muttered and shot him a hard look. "Why am I here and why did you send me that scroll?"

"I didn't send you the scroll," he told her, ignoring her earlier remark, "Tsunade did. Now that you're here, read this." He tossed her a scroll and she snatched it out of the air.

Several minutes of silence ensued as she read the scroll, her face becoming darker with each word she read. "So, several women from the Land of Fire have gone missing and all last seen in the Land of Cloud," she muttered, "Kidnapping? But what could be the motive behind it?"

"Unknown and at this time, I don't care. Our orders are direct. Find the missing women and free them."

Sakura frowned at him even as she handed the scroll back. "Seems straightforward so why send the ANBU? Why not a jonin cell unit?"

Sasuke crossed his arms over his chest and studied her for several long moments that under any other circumstances she would have felt like a bug under a glass jar and balked at it.

But not this time. She sensed that he was weighing something in his mind about her and if she spoke about his scrutiny, it would go bad for her.

So she waited and was rewarded for her silence and her patience.

"What do you know about the city of Kuronan?"

It was not the answer to her question but she didn't point this out but answered her Captain. "It is the capital city of Cloud. Two weeks ago the old king died, leaving the crown prince in leadership. His reign has not been contested and his coronation will take place later this week."

"Precisely."

Sakura's eyes widened as she realized she had just answered her own question regarding why the elite ANBU had been called in instead of the usual jonin cell.

"Is the prince suspected in the disappearance of the women?"

"Undetermined," Sasuke told her curtly, "which is why discretion is needed for this mission. Many of our jonin are well known to the five nations."

"And ANBU always go masked." Sakura finished up with a nod of her head. "Kuronan is a big city, at least a hundred thousand people live there. Do we have any other information than they were last seen there?"

Sasuke shook his head. "None of our informants have been able to pinpoint exactly where they were taken. Nor do any of them have anything in common physically except they were all between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two."

Something was bothering Sakura about the information she had read. "Sasuke, can you hand me that scroll again..." her tone was distracted but he still blinked when she used his name and not his title.

Without word he threw her the scroll. She caught it deftly and quickly scanned the contents unaware that her captain was admiring the grace of her movements. Despite the severity of the mission, and the importance, he still could not ignore the impact she made on his senses.

Focus Uchiha, he reprimanded himself, you have a mission. You're not here to play games with this woman.

Oh but the games they could play together...

"I knew it!"

Sasuke snapped out of vision that had been playing in his mind, of tangled sheets and flashing jade eyes.

"Knew what?" His voice came out more of a snarl than a question.

"I think I know what all these woman have in common and where we can begin our search." Sakura told him, her jade flashing triumphantly.

Sasuke frowned at her. "Explain." Even his spies had not been able to figure out where these women had gone missing in two weeks and in just fifteen, she had the answer.

"This woman, Kana, I thought there was something familiar about her. I saw her in Ino Yamanaka's shop nearly three weeks ago."

"So?" Sasuke did not see where she was going with this. Many women frequented the Yamanaka flower shop.

Sakura frowned at him. "She was telling Ino that her family was sending her to the gem festival. Her family wanted her to pick out a gem for her elder sister's wedding."

Sasuke stared at her, still waiting to see where she was going with this.

Sakura made a frustrated sound, "This woman here," she stabbed at the scroll, " Etsu is from a clan of jewel makers, their work is some of the very best in the Land of Fire. I would wager a month's pay that her family sent her to the gem festival to sell their work."

"How do you know they were going to the same festival?" But Sasuke was already connecting the points, running through his mind all the information gathered on the three remaining women.

"The reason Kuronan was chosen as the capital of Cloud is because of the gem mines surrounding the city. Each year the city holds a three week festival and anyone can come and look and the famous gems that have made Cloud rich."

"And all the women who went were single, unaccompanied by any male." Sasuke murmured softly, remember that piece of intel. It was why the spies could not specify the time frame of when the women went missing. There was no one else in the city who would have been waiting for them to come back to whatever hotel they had rented for the duration of their stay.

"Young women, between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two, alone and at a gem festival..."

Sasuke snapped his head toward Sakura. He had heard the undercurrents of anger threading through her voice. "Haruno? What else have you found?"

"What if this wasn't simple kidnapping for ransom like we thought?" she said softly, her verdant eyes glowing, "what if...these women were taken for something else, say to be sold as slaves?"

White slavers and if their merchandise is female, then it takes no great leap of logic to presume that these women are being sold as sex slaves.

Sasuke realized that the pattern fit the motive. What better way to procure new merchandise than from a festival that mainly attracted the female body. Especially if that merchandise is not from one's own Land.

"We won't know that until we find the missing woman," Sasuke told her, his voice like ice. "Until we have definite proof, do not let your anger get the better of you."

Sakura glared at him and he half expected her to lash out at him. If she does, I will have to cut her from this mission. This calls for discretion and guile, not emotion. It was the reason he was glad Naruto was on a mission with Hinata. His partner was powerful, but hot headed. He had a tendency to react first before thinking logically about the situation.

But she surprised him. Instead she closed her eyes and Sasuke counted the seconds and when he had reached ten, she opened her eyes and once more she had banked the jade fire in her eyes.

"Agreed," she told him, her voice as cool as his own, "I will not slip again."

Sasuke gave a nod of his head, impressed despite himself. But then, he reminded himself, this is the same female who had the pertinacity to taunt an Uchiha. There is a core of steel in this flower of Konoha.

He was starting to believe that Tsunade had indeed chosen wisely when she ordered him to take Sakura as his partner for this mission.

"Good, see that you do not."

"Do we have a plan?"

"How much longer will the festival last?"

Sakura did a quick calculation in her head, "four days. We are in the last week of the festival. Why?"

Sasuke nodded his head, "There are provisions here. Changes of clothing, food and medicine. We go in disguised. Someone in the city has seen these women and I mean to flush them out. We have only four days before this festival is over and by then the women will have been moved...if not sold, and should that happen, they will be as good as lost."

Sakura nodded her head and began searching through the clothing when several articles of clothing gave her the perfect idea.

It was insane and risky but if it worked, she would get an exact location of the women. "I think I have a way to find these women faster."

"Then tell me. We don't have time to waste."

"Use me as bait."

Sasuke snapped his head once more to look at her. "Say that again?"

Sakura lifted her chin and stared into his eyes, cold and arrogant, but did not back down. "I said use me as bait. If these people really are slavers, then I will fit the profile."

"Not if I'm with you," he pointed out, his voice harsh and cutting as only a blade could be, "they only go after women who are alone in the city."

"Which is why you will stay hidden." she told him, her hands on her hips, "No, listen to me before you say another word. I can find these women but only with your help. I can wear the transmitter disguised inside a jewel. No one will wonder why I am wearing a jeweled necklace at a gem festival. If I present myself as an attractive target, I am sure to get noticed and taken to where they are holding the others. After that it will be easy for you to follow the transmitter to my location."

"And how do you plan on getting 'noticed'? The festival will be crawling with women. Thousands of them, if I don't miss my guess."

"By dropping hints, loud ones, that I am searching for one of the women. A friend who I was suppose to meet up with. I can use Kana, she would recognize me from Ino's."

Sasuke let the frown show on his face, a scowl that darkened his eyes to shards of night and made his face seem of carved marble. It wasn't that he thought her plan ridiculous, quite the opposite.

It was, by all rights, the perfect set up. If it worked, they would find the women and free them and be gone from the city before anyone ever knew that the leaf shinobi were there in first place.

But these are white slavers and she is willing to put herself in their hands. He knew exactly what slavers, especially those who trafficked in sex slaves, could do to a woman. It made him clench his hands into such hard fists that had he not been wearing gloves, the nails from his fingers would have let blood from his palms.

Sakura saw the clenched fist and mistook the gesture as a lack of trust in her. That made her angry and an angry Sakura was not a quiet Sakura.

"It will work," she snapped at him, "I can do this. Why do you think Lady Tsunade chose me? I have been trained as a medic nin, so if any of those women are hurt, I can heal them. I am ANBU, I will not fail."

Sasuke looked at her then, his eyes like chipped pieces of the night sky, and Sakura sucked in a sharp breath. They were devoid of all emotion and he looked more like a shinigami, a death god, than a living, breathing male. "Very well, I will allow this plan. You have twenty minutes to change and then we will leave."