The Search For Saltwater Taffy
Subaku no Hime: been a while, ne? Sorry dears, I've been quite busy, and figuring out the plotline for my other story has been a pain in the butt.
Anywho, on with the show…
(Disclaimer: I own nothing…nothing I tell ya! Well, maybe a couple saltwater taffy candies that I bought after finally finding them)
Chapter 2
Sakura's plight.
Sakura had run around Konoha for hours, trying to put together a team of taffy finders. You'd figure in a village of ninja, finding two more idle shinobi would be easy, but nooooo. It was one big pain in the arse. She'd ended up begging Rock Lee to help her, and in his devotion, slavish as it was; he'd declined a well-paying mission to help Sakura.
Then she'd wandered around for an hour or so until she ran into Tenten sitting on a bench by the monument. She had tears in her eyes, and had placed some flowers. Sakura wasn't going to bother her, but Tenten turned around before she could make an escape.
'Sakura?' she asked, sniffling a little.
'You okay?' she asked quietly.
'Yeah. I'm fine. We've all lost loved ones.' She mused aloud, looking back at the monument. Sakura didn't want to ask who Tenten had lost, lest she disrespect the memory.
'But we have memories to keep us going,' she agreed, kneeling by the bench, hugging her knees.
'You need something?' Tenten asked, always frightfully perceptive. 'I can probably help you with it.'
'Are you sure? Isn't' this your day off?'
'Yeah, but I'm bored. This was all I had to do all day. What's going on?'
Sakura sighed. 'Ino wants saltwater taffy. Shikamaru is scared, and there's no taffy to be had in Konoha.'
'Sounds like a mission of mercy for poor Shikamaru,' Tenten chuckled loudly.
'Yeah, now I need a fourth person.'
'Where's Naruto?'
'Training. Rock Lee will be going with us, but I don't know where to start.' Sakura sighed, shoulders dipping dejectedly.
'Meet at the gates in an hour,' Tenten's eyes sparkled cheerfully. 'I have an idea.'
'Okay…'Sakura blinked at Tenten's swiftly retreating form.
Sakura packed quickly, three days worth of clothing, unsure of how long they'd be gone looking. She brought along bandages, since she knew she'd need them if she didn't have them.
She debated on the extra holster of kunai and shuriken, but decided against it, after all, they'd be in allied lands for at least most of their trip, and if they left, she still had her monstrous strength.
Sakura finished her tea, locking the pink and white apartment, deciding that she really needed to redo her color scheme. Pink was all great and good, but what about blues and greens? Black? White? Teal?
She ran hurriedly to the gates of Konoha, seeing Rock Lee and Tenten standing around waiting.
'Sorry I'm late,' she huffed. 'I had to pack that extra roll of bandages.'
'You're not late, Sakura san,' Rock Lee offered, doing his nice guy pose. Sakura and Tenten cringed at the audible shing when his teeth sparkled. 'Tenten was very early, and so was I.'
'Oh. I still feel a little late.'
'Don't worry Sakura chan. Let's just go,' Tenten replied.
'Alright, Tenten chan. Where are we going to anyhow?' Sakura asked, curious as to what the weaponsmistress had in mind for their first target.
'I'm thinking we go to the closest allied country.' Tenten offered as they started walking westward.
'Amegakure?' Sakura asked quietly.
'Yep,' Rock Lee replied. After that, we head off to Kumogakure in the Land of Lightning, and think about going to stone or sand afterwards.'
'Are we allied with stone at the moment?' Sakura asked as they took to the treetops.
'I dunno. But they might have taffy.'
'What does it matter if they have taffy if we die trying to get into an unallied country?' Sakura shrieked. 'I love Ino too, but I won't die for her.'
'Then Sunagakure it is.' Rock Lee replied quietly
They bedded down that night in the crook of a tree each. Rock Lee decided that he'd take watch all night, much to piss of Sakura and Tenten. They ended up bashing him over the head and knocking him out, so they split watch duty between themselves.
Sakura actually decided she'd heal the knot on his head while she was on watch, after all, the last thing she needed was one of her teammates dying from massive cranial hemorrhaging beside her.
She was relaxed, and it was almost dawn when she started hearing little noises.
Rookies, she thought to herself in disgust. I don't know if I want to bash them in for stupidity or just leave them alone because I'm tired.
Fatigue won out, and Sakura just lay back in the tree.
That is, until a kunai whizzed by her nose, thunking solidly6 into the trunk beside her.
'Baka, baka, baka! Baka no baka!' she yelled. 'You are the stupidest idiots that ever crawled out from under the great tree of stupidity to have your brains bashed in.'
'Let's play with her,' said one voice, coming out of the bush to reveal a shinobi with a scratch through his waterfall hitae-ate. 'She looks like she's hiding tits under that getup.'
'You'll never find out.' Sakura replied bluntly as she jumped down from the tree.
'Sakura san,' Lee chastised. 'Why are you hogging all the fun?'
'I thought you two were sleeping?' she replied, tossing a kunai at one of the six shinobi that just stood there watching the conversation as if the pair were mad.
The mist nin barely caught the kunai in time, and Sakura glanced over. 'Be glad that didn't puncture, baka,' she growled. 'I poisoned it.'
She watched the nin drop the kunai as if it would kill him, which it could. The poison was a contact solution, but only extended. It took about five minutes to get into the system through the skin.
'Umm,' one of the nins offered. 'Ano, are you going to sit there talking, or are we going to beat the hell out of you two?'
'Two?' Sakura chuckled. 'There's more than two of us, dimwit,'
'And, there's my cue,' Tenten offered, landing softly by her friends. 'Do you want to die? Or are you going to go away?'
'We have to kill them, Tenten san,' Rock Lee offered respectfully. 'They are missing nin. We don't have a choice.'
'But they didn't hurt us yet,'
'Hey, one of those bakas threw a kunai at my nose,' Sakura wrinkled said appendage in disgust.
'There, we have our reason. They assaulted one of our teammates. You can't argue with that one, Tenten,' Rock Lee guided her elbow so that she faced the enemy.
'But I'
'Ano, are you going to blather all day, or can we have the girls some time today?' one of the nins asked loudly. Sakura noticed that he was one of the smaller ones in the back.
'Do shut up, baka,' Sakura tossed at them. 'We're trying to decide whether or not you're worth our time to kill.'
'Decide this, bitch,' Sakura saw him prep his move ages before he actually executed, so she had more than enough time to fill her fist with chakra and smash him in the belly, knocking him into a tree, where he made a large dent.
'Hey, don't hurt the trees, dimwit!' Rock Lee yelled at the man. 'Trees are good for the environment.'
Assorted growls precursed the attack, which was en masse. The nins had decided that they could overpower the chuunin and jounin in numbers.
Rock Lee ran around several, twisting them up, making them dizzy as he went in for the occasional smack with his immense speed. The three he was taking care of stood back to back, trying to defend themselves.
Tenten looked disappointed. 'Why do we only get two?'
'We had three.' Sakura replied as she parried a kunai thrust. 'Can I, or would you like to?'
'I wouldn't want to get in your way, Saku chan.' Tenten shrugged.
'My way? Don't be silly Tenten dear,' she replied as Tenten smashed one of the buffoons in the face and she heard the sickening crack and scream of broken bone. 'If you want, they're all yours.'
'Kay, thanks, Saku chan,' Tenten replied, biting her thumb and leaping up.
Instantly, she had a scroll out of one of her pouches, and dragged her bloody thumb across it, summoning all her fun and pointy weapons to fall on the dimwits.
Said dimwits screamed blue murder and tried to scramble away as they were pierced with pointy, bladed metal things. Tenten couldn't help her smirk as she watched the bad, bad missing nin spurt blood out of the many new perforations she'd given them.
Their lifeblood spewed out on the grass, occasionally spurting out a chunk of organ that got diced by the piercings.
At least it was quick, if a little gory.
The trio took off after divesting the shinobi of anything that might be useful as a weapon, or a missing nin secret. Sakura summoned her bird friend and sent her off to Konoha with a message about the location of the nin bodies that they'd stuffed into a tree for the time being.
A few hours later, they found a stream to wash off the sweat, and kept going towards the land of rain.
Sakura estimated they'd be there by nightfall if there were no more… interruptions.
Subaku no Hime. Next chapter they hit Amegakure and Kumogakure in search of taffy. We'll go quickly through that, as there's no taffy to be had there, this is a sandsib and Konoha romance, so where is the taffy?
Luff and thanks for reading. Have an awesome day!!
