Third chappie! --is happy--
...I can't think of anything to say... o.O
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, blah, blah, blah.
--Sanded Silk--
The mathematician took his time arriving and doing the calculations. When he finished, the guards hurried to mark the range on the map of the castle courtyard and began the search. Before Neji and Sakura could leave the room to help the guards in the courtyard search as they planned, the head warder of the prison burst into the room. "Sir! It's unbelievable, sir!"
Neji blinked calmly. "Yes?"
"The professor, the two other guards, and the royal photographer escaped from the prison! They had accomplices among the warders!"
Neji's eyes widened. Crap. "Accomplices! Accomplices! They're everywhere, sire! The plot is well-laid; all is lost, sire!" The head warder looked on the brink of tears.
Sakura held out her hand to quiet the warder. "When we have time, we still have hope. Sir, you say that we have today and the day after tomorrow to retrieve the sceptre, correct?" Neji nodded. "And the third day from now is the coronation day. If I don't have the sceptre by then, I will have to hand the throne over to someone else."
Sakura bowed her head, thinking. "All right. Sir, I will go out myself to search for the sceptre at the ramparts. If that is all right with you."
Neji nodded. "While you do that, I will drive out to the roads around the courtyard and see if there's anything out of order."
Sakura nodded. "All right."
They stared at each other for a moment, nodded to each other, and turned to their separate ways. "B-But... what should I do?" Asked the confused warder. He received no answer.
Sakura walked calmly into the woods and began to walk around slowly, looking for any hint of a person nearby or a glint of gold. Suddenly, she heard voices behind her. She whipped around, and dove behind a bush, listening intently
"If that royal idiot of a photographer aimed at the bunch of birch trees we agreed on, we would have found the sceptre a long time ago..." It was a man who spoke. He had raven-blue hair and onyx eyes. Another man accompanied him; a fool-faced blonde, with big blue eyes and strange whiskers streaking his cheeks.
Another voice came from Sakura's right. She silently pushed herself further into the bushes, and listened. "I found it! I found the sceptre!" A brown haired young man with red, gangly marks on his cheeks and a white dog padding at his side ran into view, waving a sceptre in his hand. Sakura grabbed a rock, and threw it at the bushes behind the brown-haired man. She made sure to throw it fast enough for no one to see, but light enough for only the brown-haired man to hear.
He turned around, confused. "Huh?"
Sakura saw her chance, and dashed out. She snatched the sceptre as she ran by him, ignoring the cry of rage and confusion he uttered as she flew by. She ran as close to the ground as possible, bobbing up and down as little as possible too, trying to keep her striking hair from view.
Gunshots rang out behind her. Oh, great. The brown-haired man had been armed with a gun, it seemed. One bullet whizzed close to her ankle. A thin stripe of blood slit open at her ankle, and she winced at the surprisingly fiery pain it brought. Ignoring the pain, she continued running for the river that bordered the royal courtyard.
To be safe, she turned around to look to see if her attacker had caught up. He did, in fact. But it wasn't the brown-haired, doggish gangster who caught up with her- it was the onyx-eyed stranger. Sakura gasped, caught off guard from the dark depths of his emotionless eyes. He took the chance, and hit her directly on the area of her neck where a vital blood vein ran. She bit back a cry of pain, and fell forward.
She felt him lean over her, his chest brushing her back, to grab the sceptre from her loosened grip. "Sorry," He whispered into her ear- much to her surprise- and he was gone.
Groaning, Sakura stood back up shakily, and ran after the man. She followed the noise he made as he ran through the woods to the edge of the road, where she heard a car start up and the screech of rubber against asphalt. She stopped at the edge of the road, panting, just in time to see the rear of the car disappear from view.
Just when she thought all hope was gone, another car came into view- a black one. She recognized the driver at once. Neji! "...Uh..." Not knowing exactly what to call him, she waved her arms wildly instead. He came to a stop beside her. "Something wrong?"
Sakura pointed down the road towards the direction that the other car had sped off in. "I found the sceptre, but three other men were looking for the sceptre too! They fought it from me, and drove off!"
Neji's eyes widened. He indicated at the car door. "Get in."
Sakura opened the door, jumped in, and slammed the door. Neji slammed on the gas pedal, and they drove off frenzily.
When they came near to a gas station, she saw three men standing outside of their car impatiently, their dark blue car being pumped. She gasped, and pointed frantically at the three men. "That's them! The one with the blue hair has the sceptre!"
Neji skidded to a stop in front of the three men. They looked up, and their eyes widened when they recognized the king. They made a dash for the rocky mountain the gas station was by, and began to scramble up the rocks.
Neji whipped out his gun and shot at the rocks above two of the men- the brown-haired man and the blond-haired man. The rocks came loose from the impact of the bullets, and sent the two men that were on the rocks sliding down to the ground. Each landed with a sickening thump, and lay still.
Neji quickly gathered the two bodies. "Sakura!" He yelled as he did this, ignoring the confused cries of the gas station's owner. Sakura, at the edge of the mountain, turned obediently.
"Go after the blue-haired one! I'll take care of these two. Remember, you only have today and tomorrow to get the sceptre!" Sakura saluted, smiling as cheerfully as possible. "Right!" And she was off.
As soon as she scaled the almost-vertical side of the mountain and was able to get her footing, she kicked up her heels into the fastest sprint she could manage on a rocky path. She followed the blue-haired man's footprints, running as fast as her long legs would let her.
This chase lasted for a long time. It lasted, in fact, until the end of the day. Sakura was still up and running and following the footprints long after the sun set. She stopped only to stoop over on her knees and to pant a few pained breaths, before starting off again. Finally, when the moon was almost exactly overhead, Sakura stopped. She flopped down onto a farely flat face of rock, and stared at the moon. Midnight...
After a long time, she rolled over and went to sleep.
The next day, she woke up when the sky was still dark. She looked arond for the moon, but couldn't see it. Probably around five in the morning right now... She got up and stretched, ignoring the pain deep in her hip bone from sleeping on her side. Yawning one last time, she began to run down the path again, wincing at the pain.
Suddenly, she tripped, and went sprawling into the dirt with a cry. What...? She looked down at her ankle, which was the source of the pain that tripped her. The area around the thin bullet wound looked infected. That bullet... had poison on it! Wincing, she stood up. Testing her ankle, she got up and rotated it.
Thinking it was fine, she set out to run. But just before she could place a foot on the ground, something caught her ear. Someone groaned from the level of mountain under her. She ran to the edge and peered down.
There, getting up from a good night's sleep and rubbing his head, was the onyx-eyed man. Sticking out of his coat pocket gleamed the golden sceptre. He looked up, and met eyes with her for one split second. Without hesitating one moment, he got up and ran down the path.
Sakura didn't give her ankle a second thought. She placed one hand firmly on the rock at her feet, and flipped over the edge, landing as lightly as possibly on the spot that the man had been on seconds ago.
As she ran after him, he looked back and continued running. "Geez," He called without turning around. "Are you some kind of secret agent? Who taught you those moves?"
Sakura ignored his teasing and continued running.
Suddenly, he halted with a screech and turned a sharp corner, which led almost straight down the side of the mountain. Beside the mountain, between the rocky wall and a crashing river, was a sign post. In the direction of the mountain pointed a sign that read "Konoha". The other sign, which faced the river, read "Suna".
The frontier! Sakura knew she had no time to loose. If this man got over the border, she would have no chance of stopping him.
She skid to a stop on the edge of themountain path and waited, biting her lip. She watched the man touch his foot to the ground, and run for the frontier.
Not yet...
Sakura forced her heart back down her throat as she watched.
Not yet...
She slowed the movements of his legs with her mind, focusing as hard as she could, waiting for the right time to move.
NOW!
Sakura flung herself over the edge and fell towards the man as he ran by, landing smoothly- but painfully- on top of him. He knocked his head against the edge of a rock on the ground, and passed out.
Breathing hard, Sakura rolled off the man and sat still for awhile, catching her breath. She could almost feel the bags under her eyes, and sighed. The sun was peeking over the horizon now.
The pain in her hip and ankle brought her back to her senses. She crawled over to the side of the man and flipped him over, searching his pockets. She grabbed the sceptre and stuffed it down her pant leg, until the tip of the sceptre reached her knee. She needed to be able to stretch her legs and run when need be, and didn't want the sceptre to interfere with her leg movement. Tightly securing her belt so that it pressed the sceptre painfully against her good hip, she reached over to search his other pockets.
In one pocket, she found a compass with a built-in watch. She stuffed it into her own pocket, and continued searching.
In his pants pocket, she found a wallet, brown and leather-made. She opened the wallet, ignoring the money, and found a few sheets of bluish, strange-looking paper. She unfolded the papers, and read them.
On one sheet, someone had written the plan for the entire plot in detail. The plot included stealing the sceptre, as well as many names and headquarters. Sakura caught the name "Anatsuko" on the paper, and her mind flew back to the ethnics professor she had heard about in the restaurant. She shook her head slowly, and continued skimming. The letter also included a bit on taking over a radio station and broadcasting the signal to attack the palace in code.
Then, she came to the part where the letter described the three people who were to find the sceptre and cross the frontier; Uzumaki Naruto, Inuzuka Kiba (with his dog, Akamaru), and Uchiha Sasuke.
The other paper was written in the same neat handwriting. This was merely a reminder, and contained a few more names than the first one.
Both papers were signed by the same messy signature: "Akatsuki". Underneath this strange word was printed a more specific name: "Uchiha Itachi."
Sakura held up the first paper, and found that the last names of the person who signed the letter and one of the people who were to find the sceptre in the woods and escape with it had the same last names. Relatives, hmm? She looked down at the man before her, still unconscious, and wondered which one this man was.
Inuzuka Kiba had a dog, and it didn't look like this guy had a dog. So this guy couldn't be Kiba for sure. That left Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto sounded too much of a nerdy name for this mysterious-looking one. But she couldn't rule that out completely yet.
Sakura folded these papers, and placed them into the pocket of the wallet. She stood up, gave Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto one last look, and looked up.
The sudden movement caused a sensation deep in her head and her eyes. She leaned heavily against the side of the mountain, gasping. What was wrong with her?
...Ah. She hadn't eaten for all of yesterday and today. She was starved.
Looking around, Sakura caught sight of a house across the river. Across the river? There was no way she could cross the frontier without getting in trouble. But she was too hungry; one little visit couldn't hurt.
Sighing, Sakura began using the various flat rocks in the river to cross to the house.
A/N: Lol, I use "..."'s so often, it's not even funny. :-P
Whatever. Please reviewwww!
--Sanded Silk--