A/N: Thanks for the support in following/favoriting this story, y'all are giving me courage to keep writing, and I want to give a special shout out to MrTicklesMMM for my first review, I appreciate the words of wisdom!
Cheers, and enjoy!
Disclaimer: I still do not own Naruto. Sad face.
Chapter 2: The Unbridled Spirits
The next morning, Sakura awoke groggily at first, her tail bone cramped from having slept in an upright position all night. Her thoughts were slow to come back to her, her eyes trying hard to open and stay open.
Chiyo, Sasori, Naruto's red chakra... Hiding from a blonde ninja, bursting from the tree line... Tried to attack, tried to- oh no.
Sakura jolted awake now, her panicked emerald eyes scanning the area around her, heartbeat racing rapidly as if trying to beat out of her chest. Her arms were still tied, though now positioned in front of her instead of behind. Her feet were bound, her midsection was tied to a tall oak tree behind her, the ropes digging in painfully to her lower ribs.
Her brief inspection of her surroundings brought no more information as to her whereabouts. She heard a stirring, however, and glanced to her right to see a small tent open, with a blonde head facing outward.
Deidara's dreams were troubled that night. He could hear the pink haired girl outside panicking, as he'd been awake for hours now, but he allowed her a few moments to gather her bearings before rising up as to not startle her as harshly. He almost felt guilt in his stomach as he thought about what it would be like if it were him.
'Damned woman shouldn't have given away her location with such a forward attack, as well as gone so far as to piss me off by smacking down on my bad arm, yeah.' He thought darkly.
His irritation now returned, all traces of any guilted feelings erased, Deidara stretched out his arms, wincing as his muscles protested in sheer agony on his right side, and proceeded to get up out of his sleeping bag and out to the open air.
Sakura regarded the male approaching her cautiously still, not bothering to give him any leeway in regards of trust.
Deidara merely dropped a container of water at her side and a pouch containing the last of the fish, before sitting down across from her, his back also propped against a tree that was behind him.
The pink haired woman eyed the offering very attentively, not understanding why he was being as kind as to offer the last of the food. Sakura glanced up as she reached towards the meal, her hands not being trapped under the rope at her midsection. She received a low noise of approval from the blonde haired ninja across her, which prompted her to begin eating.
Deidara watched as the girl started to eat, slowly at first, then more vigorously as she realized how hungry she was. Looking around, he began takin in the deep green scenery encasing them with a deep breath. He figured it was a start, he may as well be treating her at least as another shinobi and not like a dog. She was, afterall, now a valuable asset to him. His blue eyes travelled back to her, regarding her. He might even get to convince her to heal his injuries on their way back to base...
"What's your name?" Sakura's voice was muffled slightly, as she was still working on a piece of fish. She figured she could at least learn as much intel as possible while she was, for lack of better terms, a captive audience.
"Deidara."
She nodded to herself, chalking it up to memory. "What were you doing? We know the Akatsuki were plotting to take the Bijuu, we had been on our way to the Sand to lend aid to them but were then directed to instead pursue you and Sasori."
Deidara's eyes narrowed. She knew more than she should already, as their organization was not supposed to be widely as heard of to the point of their plans being discussed.
'Not as though it actually matters, you know where your heart is here.' a voice spoke softly in the back of his head.
Deidara shook his head slightly to clear it. "I failed in my attempt of capturing the Kazekage, clearly, and your lot was in pursuit. We weren't intending on running into you and merely were traveling back, but alas, that old hag had to tag along with you in hopes of seeing Sasori, who in turn couldn't resist a fight with the woman, yeah."
Sakura listened while she ate, taking in as much information as she could, however it didn't do much as she was already aware of most of this. Her heart aches painfully at the mention of Chiyo though, but she steeled herself to continue listening, not allowing her emotions to take over.
"Sasori was also quite interested in that blonde haired one of yours, and wanted to make an advance, however became distracted with you and that woman, leaving me to have to deal with the mess. Once you caught up, you know the rest."
Deidara was unsure why he was okay with relenting this information to her, but he justified it by knowing that most of this was already in her knowledge pool, and that she was either going to be dead within a few weeks once she trains Konan, or stuck as a live in medical prisoner.
Sakura nodded to herself, and leaned down to drink the water next to her. Before she could respond, Deidara started again.
"Now, I've given you some intel, which I'm already aware that you're hopeful you'll be able to relay to someone when you're free, keeping your hopes high in my opinion, but now I've got questions of my own."
Sakura's eyes narrowed at him, irritation settling into her stomach with the meal she had just eaten, and anger started to seethe under her skin, however she held her temper for the moment. She feigned disinterest, focusing instead on a yellow and black bird above his head in the trees, watching it hop along its branch.
"As I'm aware, you're Sakura Haruno of the Leaf. Medical nin, ANBU specialist, ranked best in Konoha for your medical skills only second behind Tsunade herself. With that being said, you're either going to be training someone in the Akatsuki until you're no longer of use, or you'll be staying with us and being our medic. Hey! That's just the orders you'll be given by Leader-sama, yeah!" His voice raised as soon as Sakura's eyes blazed with indignation and she raised her voice to yell at him.
"The hell with that kind of plan! Like I would ever-"
"Who said you had a choice here, yeah? What part of 'its orders' do you not understand, pinkie?!"
Sakura glared reproachfully at him, her baleful emerald gaze willing him to shut up. Tears once again threatened to spill over at the prospect of never being free again, but she stiffened her upper lip and resolved not to let them spill over. She focused her attention stubbornly at the tree branches above him again, now empty as the bird had taken flight at their sudden outburst of yelling.
Something inside of Deidara cracked, in the tiniest of ways, as he saw her face start to break down, and he sighed. "Look. The way I see it, I did you a favor by sparing your life. You killed my teammate, and I didn't take your life in return. I've continued to be, at best, civil and humane towards you, yeah. The least you could do is cooperate here for a bit, because just as you followed orders to take off after me, we were following orders to go after the Kazekage."
Sakura hated herself for seeing the reasoning behind his argument. She knew with the predicament she was in, there was no chance of escape. Her eyes calculated Deidara for a moment, and despite his injuries, he was a formidable opponent whom she could not hope to bring down alone or escape from, bound up or not.
"If you'd be so obliged as to actually help the situation here instead of making both of us more miserable, we might actually get farther, and you might get to live longer as well." Deidara said contemptuously. "Regardless of if you believe me or not, I wanted to kill you yesterday. In fact, I was about one movement away from snapping your neck if it weren't for my companion stopping me. Today, not so much. I'm irritated in the fact of your existence, but it's more tolerable as long as you're not pushing my buttons, yeah!"
Sakura still disliked the man, but allowed him to speak. Everything he said, afterall, was true.
"Now. What was your mission and how was the old hag involved with Sasori?"
She was hesitant to speak, and decided to edit information as she was able to, if not just omit it entirely to prevent giving away intel. "We were told to come to the aide of the Sand, all we had was that there was one ninja in particular who was in a pursuit of you, we knew that there was an attack unsuccessful on the Kazekage by members of an organization known as Akatsuki." Sakura could picture everything playing out in her head as she spoke.
They were running fast, as hard as they were able to. Team Seven lucked out by running into Temari on their travels to the Sand and she guided them through the sandstorm.
Entering the village, everything was in organized chaos. Traps around the village were being defused, ninja were scattered around the village inspecting for more explosives and further traps, children were nowhere to be seen, presumably locked up inside with mothers.
'This way!' A tall Shinobi waved the Leaf ninja and Temari to follow him, as he darted away to the Sand's hospital.
They were led into a room, where the third Sand sibling was laying in bed, with very labored breathing, his entire body covered in sweat. Sakura's instincts kicked in almost automatically, tying her hair up and striding confidently into the room. 'Allow me.' She had said, not waiting for an answer from any of the medical nins in the room.
An indignant outburst sounded from one of the council men, but Kakashi waved him off with confidence and pride in his eyes. 'Trust me, you want her to take a look.'
Sakura tirelessly worked all day, making sure she didn't miss a single detail for concocting an antidote to the strange poison. She had never encountered anything like it, but nevertheless persisted, and due to her high class training under Tsunade, was able to crack the poison within a half day.
Deidara listened closely, picturing everything in his head as she spoke. She continued on to learning of the attack they had made, and how they were then ordered to follow him and Sasori. He noticed when her eyes narrowed slightly a few different times, and he could tell when she was editing or changing certain aspects in her story.
She's ANBU alright, yeah. Though the fact she's gone this far with me in such a short span of time is just showing her softer side. She may not even be all in with the idea of ANBU and war. Female shinobi, afterall, usually tire of the ninja life and long to have their own families after enough time in the workforce.
Deidara was thinking deeply until he noticed Sakura staring at him, a moment behind of realizing she was finished speaking. Her emerald eyes narrowly watched his own blue ones cautiously, as though not sure what were to come next.
He picked at the ground with a stick absentmindedly, mulling over his thoughts. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to signal behind him. "Got about another 2-3 days trek back that way to base. All depends on how cooperative you are, yeah. I'm willing to put some trust in you, but understand this now," his eyes flicked up to hers and darkened menacingly. "You don't want to find out what happens if you don't cooperate. And I can guarantee you there won't be pieces left behind for your comrades to find."
Sakura felt a shiver run down her spine but proudly stared back at him, not willing to back down now that she'd already shown a brief action of fear.
Watching the shiver run down her spine, Deidara smirked. With a flick of his fingers, he pulled his chakra strings loose from her bindings, allowing her to break the now plain ropes binding her.
"Better, yeah?"
Sakura couldn't help her small smile of relief as she stretched out, her arms extending in front of her, and she watched her smooth muscles ripple appreciatively before closing her eyes and enjoying the sensation of blood flow.
Deidara watched the kunoichi as she stretched out each limb, and he couldn't help admire her figure slightly.
She kept up. She didn't falter in training, she didn't crack or break and kept in line with ANBU standards. Something short of a miracle coming from such a small shinobi.
Sakura's eyes opened and she saw Deidara watching her, and raised an eyebrow with a slight cough, alerting him that she had caught him watching her stretches.
Deidara startled, leaning his head down and scratching the back of it as his face turned faintly pink. She smirked as he looked away, almost endeared with the action of catching him staring at her. Sakura had often seen Naruto staring at her in moments as these, and it was the exact same look of admiration, so she didn't tend to get too upset as long as there wasn't a followed perverted joke.
"Come over here, let me take a look at that arm."
Deidara looked up with slightly wide eyes, not sure he heard her right.
"Come on. I'm sure I did a number, and it didn't look like it had been too good to start with. You don't want your muscles to start rotting. I'm sure you need that arm so I'd hate to amputate it in the field." She stood up and walked to him before she knelt down next to where he was sitting. Her hands pulled off the gloves covering her slender fingers and she grasped his arm, earning a cough of pain that Deidara tried to cover in a grunt.
Sakura looked up at him apologetically. "Sorry. The bad news is, I don't have any splints on me to hold this in place, but the good news is if we have such a long travel time in front of us, as long as we don't encounter issues and you let me work on it everyday, it'll be good as new within a week." Her cheerful smile looked up at him, and Deidara felt a stir in his chest.
'She's willing to do all of that... For what, yeah? I haven't exactly been that nice, have I?'
As he looked down at the kunoichi, he settled into a better sitting position, dreading what was coming next. He'd had his share of Konan and her half learned medical jutsu, and though this girl was widely known for her abilities, he was distrustful.
"To what action of mine was it deemed highly enough for this sort of treatment?" Deidara asked suspiciously. He almost was expecting her to break his arm worse than it was before. Sakura sat back on her knees, not wanting to lose her concentration, and didn't look up at him as she thought of her answer. She slowly and carefully pushed his arm sleeve up the length of his arm, rolling it slowly upwards, until it sat neatly at the top of his shoulder, past the damage.
"I feel as though this will even us out. After all, you didn't have to unbind me. Frankly, you didn't have to do anything. You could've kept me knocked out and dragged me the whole way without food or water and I'm sure the travel would've taken far less time," her hands softly probed along his arm, starting from his shoulder and working their way down, earning a few flinches of his muscles. "You treated me as only a fellow shinobi would. Not as a dominating and condescending captor. I was surprised at that, and insofar your actions seem genuine of your nature, so I decided it's only fair to treat you of the same respect."
Deidara stared at her, his mind blank except for a twinge of gratefulness. His wide blue eyes which now looked down at her hands, were the only thing displaying his shock. as she experimentally moved his fingers about to test their mobility.
"You're not gonna like this." She said gravely.
Deidara had only processed her statement in his thoughts and looked down at the hand she had grasped in her own, when he felt a sharp crack in his thumb and yelled in indignation. "The HELL." He cursed, feeling his thumb throbbing for the first time in days, not realizing that he hadn't felt it till now.
"It was broken, that was me resetting it."
Deidara felt even more anxiety mounting in his chest as he watched her feel for more breaks. He was beyond nervous of her hurting him again, and he was in such a compromised position that she had an edge if she decided to attack. His free hand worked the earth next to him, digging up little mounds of hard dirt under his fingers. Deidara focused on that hand until he felt a soft warmth travel along his shoulder blade, down his arm.
Daring a peek over, he saw Sakura illuminated in soft green light, her hands on his arm. Pouring from her delicate hands, was the source of light. Her green chakra softly and smoothly pulsed into his arm, her almost exactly same color of green eyes staring intently at her hands as she worked. Now allowing himself to focus on the feeling in his arm, Deidara felt warmth as it pooled under his skin, and he could almost feel his muscle strands stringing back together again. The dull ache in his upper arm started to recede ever so slightly. The numbness moved it's way further down the limb as he regained feeling in the upper muscles.
As his eyes scrutinized closer, he saw his dark purple and yellow bruises start to lighten up and disappear completely. It was just so... Relaxing and warm. With a soft groan, Deidara closed his eyes and leaned back, a deep hum of content resounding in his chest.
Sakura's eyes flicked upwards when the man in front of her made a noise. As her eyes laid on his face, he had leaned back and she could hear a soft thrum of relief and content coming from deep in his chest. She couldn't help but smile as she looked back down at his arm and continued working.
"There. That'll help enough for now." She said, after about an hour of healing the muscles in his upper arm. "You still shouldn't use it too much but it'll only get better from here." Looking up however, she noticed Deidara was in a deep sleep, his head rested back against the tree that was opposite of the one she had been tied to. Regarding him cautiously, she saw the faint rise and fall of his chest, and realized this was probably the first time he's slept comfortably in a fair amount of time.
With a sigh, Sakura now saw her own predicament. She had no clue where they were and couldn't leave without waking him, as her body was close enough to his that they were touching and her legs were currently the place where his injured arm was resting. She was well aware she couldn't move that easily without him waking up from the pain of his arm being shifted, and she didn't want to hurt him.
Slightly irritated, she however resigned herself to a nap as well. Sakura had, afterall, worked for about an hour repairing the muscles in his arm. Concocting antidotes and administering them was one thing. But reconstructing and healing muscles was fine detailed work that she soon grew tired from performing. Tsunade-sama often berated her for her easily tired spirit, but Sakura would usually argue back that she ignored her exhaustion when she had to... That it didn't impact her studies or healing capabilities, she still could... Do her job, she wasn't lazy, she...
Sakura hardly noticed as she drifted asleep. Her head fell forward and her breathing deepened to a pace as slow as Deidara's, and her mind slowly dissolved into dreams.
The first thing Deidara noticed was the darkening sky when he awoke, groggy but feeling more refreshed than he had in days. He felt a faint pressure on his newly healed shoulder and lazily looked over. His narrowly opened blue eyes faintly saw a pink splash of color resting on him, his arm laying across the kunoichi's legs and his hand hooked across her knee, her legs turned on their side towards him.
Deidara's eyes travelled back to look up at the sky, which was now darker in color than when he woke up. A chilly but light breeze brushed across his face, and he tucked his head further into his cloak, not noticing his hand subconsciously pull the girl next to him closer. He could hardly string together a coherent thought before sleep took over him again.
It was not until very late in the night when Sakura awoke, having slept fully for the first time since they had left for the Sand Village almost a week ago now. Her bright green eyes were not too sleepy as they opened, only taking a moment to adjust to the darkness before her, not yet registering how long she had been asleep for. Her last thoughts started going across her mind again, and her eyes now flew open wide as she realized it was day time when she was last awake.
The next thing her body assessed was the hard and lean shoulder her head was perched on, and the long arm that was draped across her legs. Alarmed, she froze, not wanting to alert Deidara to her being awake, and not wanting to disturb him while he rested.
"Hey. Deidara?" Sakura's voice was soft, and she dared not move a muscle, afraid he'd lash out if she moved. A low noise sounded from Deidara's chest, and she could feel it resonate in her skull as she was still leaning on his shoulder. "Deidara?" She tried again, this time earning a twitch from his shoulder, as though he was irritated and trying to wave her off.
Sakura's own irritation sank in, and her voice was a little louder this time. "Deidara, wake up." Her impatience was growing when she only heard a sigh in response, not noticing that his breathing had quickened to being awake. "It's nighttime, I thought we were supposed to be traveling-"
"Could you try not to ruin the moment, Pinkie, I was just dreaming about how perfect our new found relationship is." Deidara said dryly, a smirk now on his face. Already feeling Sakura's temper boil over, he lifted his arm off her leg, expecting and correctly assuming she'd bolt up to her feet.
"You were awake this whole time?! And you didn't bother getting your lazy ass-" Sakura was fuming even more as he cut her off with a raise of his hand as he stood up.
"Relax, I had just woken up about an hour ago and was dozing till I knew you were awake. I figured you were tired and didn't want to move you if you were comfortable, which, by the way, it seemed you were immensely so, yeah?" Deidara smirked at her, which turned into a full on grin as he saw her proverbial lid bust open. "Hey now, easy girl. You were exhausted, and I'm playing by your rules. Evening out the playing field. You helped heal my arm, I let you rest a spell and didn't complain having your annoying snoring on my shoulder."
"I do NOT snore-!"
"We should get going." Deidara had been packing his tent while they spoke and was now heading in the direction of the Akatsuki base, leaving Sakura to hurry along as she fumed quietly to herself.
They took off into the trees, traveling through the tops of the branches, dodging the leaves threatening to cut into their faces. Deidara glanced back every now and again, surprised he hadn't seen Sakura make a break for it. He knew she wasn't entirely stupid and the more she healed his arm, the more fit he was to bring her down if she decided to run, but all the same, he at least expected an attempt.
"I should warn you," Deidara called back to her, his voice carrying its way in the wind to where the kunoichi followed behind him. "There are a fair amount of us. They're not going to take kindly to you at first, and you're going to have to prove your willingness to work with us in order to spare your life and live somewhat comfortably with us."
Sakura heard without really listening to what he was saying. "Yeah." was her faint reply, that barely carried its way up to him. Her thoughts were lost in Chiyo at that moment, having wandered their way there after processing the past few days she had been through. She had grown quite close to the elder, and missed her painfully. It was hard to get close to Chiyo as her resentment for Tsunade was directed at her student as well, but Sakura had managed to find a way to unknowingly be dear to her. Through their shared knowledge of medicine and time spent together in the Sand and after, they were more than comrades in battle, and Sakura found herself wishing she had more time with the older woman.
Deidara looked back, seeing the pink haired girl lost in thought, and he could see the flicker of emotions crossing her features. First thoughtfulness, then almost a focused drive, and slowly, without registering it until he saw the sparkling trails leading down her cheeks, did he see sorrow. A part of him nudged him to ask her what was wrong, but he then decided it wasn't his business. They weren't his issues to get through and she needed to figure out how to deal with them herself.
Continuing on like that for a few hours, Deidara halted them once he realized day break was starting to come, and they crossed over another clearing. This one was smaller, however it did have a small stream down the edge of it that he decided they could take a stop at. "Down there for now, yeah." He called back to the girl behind him, her face now dried of her tears.
Sakura descended down to the clearing below, landing neatly next to Deidara as he kneeled down to fill up a water bottle. Glancing up, he tossed it to her, before settling down next to the side of the stream and staring intently at the water, waiting to see the glint of fish scales flash.
The pink haired girl looked around their surroundings, and after breathing in a lungful of fresh air with her eyes closed, decided to sit on a warm rock about 50 feet down from Deidara. She lifted her face up as she leaned back, lazily enjoying the sunbeams on her face. "Where are you from anyway?" She called over.
Deidara flinched as he grabbed a fish from the stream, not expecting her question. "I don't do backstories, Pinkie." He said gruffly, snatching another fish cleanly from the depths below. He glanced up to see her sun bathing, and decided to relent, at least a little. "I am from Iwagakure. Usually, the ninja there have better senses of perception and analysis though." With a smirk, he flicked the slashed headband on his forehead, making Sakura look over at the sound it made.
Feeling a vein throb in her temple, she decided to give him a hard time back. "I used all that perception trying to figure out if you were a boy or not. The hair makes it difficult to tell and it covered your forehead protector."
She saw she hit a nerve when Deidara fell silent, looking darkly at the water in front of him with gritted teeth. She feared she pushed him too hard, when she felt something crawling on her hand. Sakura looked down and saw a huge centipede crawling across her hand, and it looked up at her with gaping fangs.
Deidara glanced up when he heard her shriek and started laughing as she fell off her rock and into the stream. His belly threw the joyous sound far, scattering a flock of birds above his head, not having had as relaxed of a moment until now. "Oh Kami, Pinkie, did you think that was a real centipede?" He laughed, watching the girl stand up from the stream and glare at him.
With a quick hand symbol, he exploded the centipede, which had now been wrapped around the rock. This caused a fairly large explosion and shrapnel of stone to fly outwards, but Deidara hardly noticed the bits due to having used a smaller detonation clay.
Sakura got out of the stream and made sure to shake out her limbs and hair close to Deidara, who protested in annoyance. "I'm sure it was all funny, but how about we stop messing around because frankly, I'm starving and you're taking entirely way too long to fish!"
"Did you seriously just stamp your foot?" Deidara smirked, forcing back another laugh. He felt an unbridled joy in his chest having someone to banter with. He had been young when he was forced into this life he lived and never had a moment where he was able to just exist and enjoy the act of merely existing. He especially had never had a moment to laugh and truly be happy about anything.
Sakura looked down at her foot, watching faint cracks spread out from the impact of her stomp, not even noticing she had done it. With a giggle, she looked up and scratched the back of her head. "Yeah I guess so. Sorry." She said, her cheeks faintly turning pink.
Deidara let out a crooked smile, watching her face start to get embarrassed and refocused himself on catching their meal. "Start setting up a fire so we can eat then, yeah?"
Miles away, Naruto was in mid battle with Leaf ninja, still not in his right frame of mind. Yamato, who had been sent along specifically for the purpose of containing Naruto, was leading the team in charge of minimizing the threat he currently posed. He had watched Naruto throwing his team to the side, despite their best efforts. He knew he had to do his Wooden Justu now before he, too, was incapacitated by the growing nine tails in front of him.
Forming seals rapidly with his hands, he slammed his hand down on the ground and surrounded Naruto in spiked wooden posts. A loud roar erupted from Naruto's mouth as Yamato covered his face with his arms and tried to block the sound waves throwing debris at him. Naruto's long tails swept around in a circle, shattering the wooden towers surrounding him.
Yamato's eyes grew wide as an angel flew down from the sky. The strange woman had blue hair, with a long cloak and her wings were made from paper it seemed. In her arms, she carried a man with bright orange hair, his entire face had small glints due to the smattering of piercings sticking out.
Yamato held a hand over his head when he looked up, trying to block the sun from his face to look at the descending pair of shinobi. His eyes widened in fear as he was able to make out a single red cloud on a background of black in their cloaks. Before he could react, the orange haired man spoke in a deep but calm voice.
"Shinra Tensei."
Yamato felt like what was a large explosion in front of him hurl him backwards into the tree line. Covering his head in his arms, he took multiple blows from the tree trunks he flew through before he finally slammed into one without it snapping. Looking up, Yamato's eyes were dazed and he tried to focus on the scene unfolding in front of him. He could make out six orange haired figures walking towards where Naruto was thrown. All six bore the dreaded black cloak with red clouds.
"No..." Yamato started to get up but fell back to the ground in defeat. As his eyes started to close, he saw the blue haired woman walking towards them, a frown on her face directed towards him.
Konan raised her hand towards the Leaf ninja in front of her, and small pieces of paper started to encase the man. His legs were covered when she felt a chakra signature she did not recognize dangerously close to her. Her amber eyes widened and she raised her arm to eye level, deflecting the blow aimed to her head.
Glancing back, Konan saw a flash of black hair that vanished as soon as she looked back. All she could make out was a pale face that matched it before it darted in front of her. She jumped backwards, arms raised for an attack, but in the time in took for her head to swivel back forwards, both the pale faced boy and the ninja she was about to kill were gone.
With a sigh, Konan lowered her hands and turned back around to face the six Paths of Pain. "This one got away with an accomplice. I don't sense any further signatures close by, but I suggest that we hurry up here."
The Animal Path looked up at Konan, her expressionless face having no signs of life beyond her mouth moving to respond. "They will be done soon."
As she spoke, Konan's amber eyes looked up, taking in the battle scene in front of her. She knew Nagato would not be long, but her senses were on high alert as she was aware of the help being sent for back at the Leaf village. They did not come prepared for a war and merely were here to take the Nine Tails.
Within the hour, Pain had successfully detained Naruto, who was now a boy again due to Nine Tails having depleted his store of chakra using it for attacks. As well as chakra being sucked from him by the Preta Path, Naruto had been no match and was now sling across the shoulders of the chakra-eating man.
"There must be no delay. Let us leave." Tendo, the Deva Path said. "Do a perimeter of the area. Make sure there are no reinforcements to hinder our travel." Konan nodded curtly, and flew off into the sky above, her paper wings flapping gently in the summer breeze. Her dark yellow eyes scanned the area as she felt around for any chakra signals. She could feel the one she encountered earlier growing fainter, and next to it were two weaker signatures.
Picking up fallen comrades. But to what cost? And why leave the Jinchuuriki?
Konan was deeply puzzled as she gazed down as her dear friend. She was worried and concerned and wished for them to be home. She knew the journey would be taxing, especially for transporting Nagato as well as keeping a Jinchuuriki in check.
The black haired man was darting through trees, not even bothering to glance back. He had no concern for his own safety, as he was quite sure of his own powers, and he had had a long journey to get here. It was taxing emotionally, but more than that, it was dangerous for him to be making this decision. Glancing down at the two unconscious men at his sides, he was aware that his welcome may not be as warm as it could be. He very well could be killed.
But her... I had to come back for her. I couldn't live leaving things the way I did. And my comrades here, they were too important, and I can't keep pretending as though they aren't.
He could picture her. A young face, framed by short, soft pink hair. Tears streaming down out of her eyes, her cheeks bright pink with emotion. Her emerald eyes showing how broken she was, how broken he had made her...
With a shake of his head, and a now determined mind, the bright red eyes faced forward once more to continue their journey, the Sharingan shining brightly in the sunlight.
A/N: Ahhhh! Finally finished this chapter! Sorry for the wait everyone, but I wanted to make sure I had a good chunk to give you this time around versus the first chapter. ' Anywho. Leave me reviews, love me~
I know I left a cliff hanger, it's because I love y'all. I'll get more into detail about the events outside of Sakura and Deidara as well as our not-so-mysterious hero saving the day at the end there!
Also, updates will be /twice/ a month if not more.
P.S. If this chapter comes out all centered, and not to the side, I'm sorry. T-T I wrote everything on my phone through the app, and it wouldn't let me fix it, as well as I KNOW I COULD'VE HAD BREAKS. Dx But those are not on the app. And it kept deleting my attempts at making my own breaks. If anyone has a fix for this they can inbox me, plz.
Rant over. Byes~
