Hello again. I know it's later than I promised but I was busy and life is hectic. The school play is in one week and the people need serious help. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter. This is different from how I planned it so... who knows what'll happen. This chapter actually ends my prewritten chapters so the story might be a bit slower. Enjoy!
Chapter 5 (Sakura's POV)
My head was throbbing when I sat up on the soft bed I'd been laying on. I remembered everything painfully well, about when Sasuke had knocked me out. Damn Uchiha, I thought and let out a groan. Just then, I noticed a pair of blood red eyes staring at me from the corner of the room. Sasuke stood up and walked towards me. Every part of me said to run but my body wouldn't move. All I could do was sit there and look at my approaching nightmare.
I looked away and stared at his feet as he stopped at the foot of the bed. His hand reached toward me. This was just like a nightmare I had for the longest time after the Haruno clan had been killed. Waiting for the hand to wrap around my throat, I flinched when it gently lifted my face up to meet his gaze. The moment my eyes met his, I felt myself fall into his genjutsu.
I was on a hill with a single sakura tree perched on its crest like a pink crown. Standing underneath it was Sasuke, my Sasuke. He beckoned to me to come. I walked closer to him, and we sat on a branch of the tree. Being beside the Sasuke I knew and loved comforted me and, for a while, I forgot that it was a genjutsu. But that fantasy was soon ended when I found myself gazing into Sharingan eyes. "Have you calmed down now?" He asked, raising one eyebrow.
"What do you want? Why didn't you kill me?" He cocked his head at my harsh tone of voice.
"I need your help." That was his simple reply. He said it with a grudging look on his face, so I guessed that the request was genuine.
"What for?" I inquired. I wondered what was so important he would need me, of all people, for. It had to be important; otherwise he wouldn't have come for me. He would have avoided me for the rest of his life.
"That is a need-to-know basis, and right now you don't need to know."
"You won't get an answer until I know what you need me for." I told him firmly.
He leaned closer, pressing me against the bed. I pushed him off of me and got up. In a flash he was in the doorway, blocking my exit. I walked right up to him, trying to squeeze through, only to fail. "You know, if you help me, we'll get the mission done quicker, and then there more time for us."
"Us?" I asked, incredulous. After all he did to me, he still thinks there can still even possibly be an us? My anger gave me extra strength and I pushed past him. "There's no such thing." I stated flatly.
I started to walk down the hall, only to realize that I had no idea where I was going, but I didn't care. I was looking for a way out. After a while, I resigned to the fact that I couldn't find a way out. The walls all had the same swirling pattern and the doors were in the same uniformed order, and yet…it felt like I had been here before. My brow furrowed but I kept on walking.
I arrived at a hall that had two doors at the end of the corridor. The door on the left read "Men" and the one on the right had "Women" on it. Except the women's door had "Women" crossed out and "Karin" written in a messy scrawl. Gingerly, I opened the door on the right. The inside revealed to be a bathroom with a small, contained hot spring adjoining to it.
Nodding in approval, I glanced at the mirror and suddenly became aware of how I looked. Deep purple bruises covered a large amount of my body and I had bandages wrapped loosely around my arms and legs, spotted with brown blotches. Whoever bandaged me up obviously didn't have much, if any, medical training. Shaking my head, I unwrapped the bandages and set to work healing my wounds. I hadn't noticed what I had been wearing until I stripped to take care of my back.
Removing my shirt, I noted that it was one of Sasuke's old shirts, the ones he wore in the village. It smelled of dust and mildew, but I didn't care. Actually I was more worried about what I saw after removing the shirt. My entire midsection had been wrapped in bandages. I wondered who had done it. I hope it wasn't Sasuke, I thought as I healed my wounds, cleaned up, then grabbed a towel and entered the bath.
After soaking for a while, I had calmed down enough to try and think of a way to escape. I decided to walk around, or maybe see if I could get one of Sasuke's teammates to give me a tour. I guess those were my only options, other than to accept Sasuke's offer.
Climbing out of the bath, I made sure all of the brown was out of my hair and replaced the clothes I had worn in, and then set out to my room. After getting lost several times and hitting multiple dead ends I finally managed to stumble into the room I had awoken in. I pulled on a spare outfit I had brought in case we had to work undercover. I then set out in the other direction. I turned to a big door that looked a bit different from all the others.
The door opened with a soft creak, and I stepped into the roomy kitchen. A man rummaging through the refrigerator startled me. He straightened up, a water bottle in his mouth, and then spotted me. "Hey!" He said warmly, "You're finally awake. You've been out for three days. Thought you'd never wake up! Sasuke might of overdone it taking you." The man seemed pleasant enough. "Oh, I suppose I should introduce myself. I'm Suigetsu, one of Sasuke's teammates."
"I'm Sakura." I offered my hand and Suigetsu shook it, smiling a goofy grin that reminded me of Naruto. "So…Where is everyone?" I asked.
"Well…Sasuke is probably in the training hall, Karin is probably there too, drooling over Sasuke, and Juugo is probably in his room doing who knows what. We're the only ones here."
"I'm kinda new around here and I keep getting lost. Can you show me around?" I asked.
"Oh! Yeah, sure." He said, scratching his head. We left the kitchen, heading in the direction I had come from. He took a corridor on the right, another right, a left, a right, and finally a last left to get to the hall before the area where my room is.
"The first one on the right is Karin's room, the left is the bathroom, and the next right is Juugo's room, and the last one on the left is my room." We continued through the place and he pointed out useful rooms such as the training hall, and the library while showing me rooms to avoid such as Orochimaru's labs.
We then went to the baths. Seeing the "Karin" door, I smiled. I think I figured out who did that. "Are you by any chance involved with what happened to that door?" I asked, playfully.
Suigetsu laughed, and I couldn't help but to join in. "Guilty as charged." He laughed, raising his hands in mock surrender.
"You know," I said once our laughter had died down. "You remind me of some one I know." I smiled wistfully.
"Oh?" He said, interested. I nodded. "So…you're from Sasuke's village, right?" He asked. I nodded sadly. I was starting to feel homesick. "How did you meet Sasuke? And what was he like?"
His questions were bringing back memories I had spent years trying to repress. My voice was strained when I answered Suigetsu's questions. "Well…I was just like any other girl in Konoha, a fangirl of Sasuke's. And he's probably the same now that he was back then. A cold, hard, perfect at everything, impassive jerk."
Suigetsu laughed at my response. "Geez. You really hate him now. What'd he do to you to make you so angry with him?"
"He left me." The response jumped to my mouth. I was surprised. That wasn't the only reason. He destroyed my clan, he tried to kill Naruto twice, Sasuke betrayed everyone he knew and abandoned all he had just for revenge. I hated him for that, right? "And other things as well." I quickly added.
"Hmmm." Suigetsu said. "Who do I remind you of?"
"Oh! You remind me of my best friend, Naruto. He's kinda the village mischief-maker. Naruto was the third member of Sasuke and my team. Team 7. Along with the old pervert, Kakashi-sensei."
Suigetsu laughed. We came to the hall where my room was. Stopping at a pair of doors, curiosity got the best of me. My door was on the left, so whose was on the right? "Whose room is that?" I asked, pointing to the other door.
"Sasuke's."
"WHAT?" I shrieked. HE had a room next to mine?!
"He says he has to watch over you so that you don't run away."
"Probably true." I admitted. But why did it have to be Him. Any of the others could have watched me. I sighed.
"Oh. Well." Said Suigetsu, making a face. I laughed. "Well, it's getting late. I should go. You should probably go back to your room before Sasuke finds out that I gave you a tour. He thinks that if you know how to get out, there could be trouble."
"Again, probably true. I just want to go home." I sighed. Waving good-bye to Suigetsu, I entered the room. Greeted by the sad reminder of home, I stuffed my backpack in the closet and sat down on the bed. I closed my eyes and imagined what everyone back in Konoha was doing.
About an hour later the door that connected my room to Sasuke's opened. "What do you want?" I asked, eyes still closed.
"I came to see what your answer to my offer is."
I opened my eyes. "I already told you. I won't give you an answer until I know what the mission is."
"Well then, good night. Oh, and by the way, the doors are locked from the outside." And with that he closed the door to his room and walked out the main door, closing it behind him.
I waited about half an hour then retrieved my backpack from the closet. Taking out a set of lock picks I set to work on the door. Humph, I thought. Sasuke has grown careless. He seriously underestimates the abilities of a leaf ninja.
It took me only minutes to pop the lock. That kind of worried me. There was no traps, no alarms, nothing. I replaced the picks into my bag and slipped it onto my back. I was free.
Well, that's it. For the record, I don't know how to spell Juugo's name so forgive me if it's not spelled right. I might go on a small hiatus with this story so please be patient with me.
Reviews might inspire me. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. XD
