Lost Year
Revealing!
We keep running after people who least care about us.
Why don't we stop, turn around, and see the ones running behind us?
During the Third Shinobi World War, Sasori had earned himself a nickname, Sasori of the Red Sand. He was being called like that throughout the world for using his ingenious puppets so successfully that he had dyed the sand red with blood when he was serving for Sunagakure.
When he was young, he had promised to himself that he would become one of those famous puppeteers in the world, so that his parents would hear of him and come back to his side again.
Bullshit.
Total bullshit.
He left the Wind village, thinking how naïve he was back then to believe in such dreams, crap and stuff. He set off, leaving Chiyo and the Puppet Brigade behind after killing the Third Kazekage.
As he sort of travel alone, Sunagakure tried to pursue him, but their efforts were fruitless so they gave up, thinking it was a pity to loss such talent. They only became desperate in wanting Chiyo's only grandson back when they realized that their Kazekage had gone missing for two whole weeks.
Having to sacrifice their ninjas to bring back Sasori was already troublesome, and even having the need to fork out their country's fund to get a bounty hunter to retrieve one of their Shinobi was quite a mockery already. Now they had to deal with the low rates of Shinobi, their money, and who on earth was the abductor who had took their future Kazekage. Sunagakure weren't going to sit back and relax now.
The leader of the Akatsuki, who had claimed himself as Pein, was quite impressed with Sasori's skills and took a keen in taking in the redhead into his organization to strive for peace. He knew what Sunagakure was planning and he wasn't going to sit and stare too, so he had assigned one of the available members to set out to recruit Sasori in.
And it had upset him for two whole days when he was noted that Orochimaru had killed Sasori — in his female partner's opinion when he was staring in a displeased manner out at Amegakure.
The leader silently nodded. "I've also got news that Sasori was taken away from the Sunagakure's cell after they were exchanged for money." He gave a slight pause, looking intimidating at Kakuzu.
"The nickname for the bounty hunter is… oyster."
To keep their identity a secret, many hunters were enlisted with different names and weirdly, Kakuzu had to be called oyster for who know what reason.
"The reason why I had called you here was to know, if you have heard of him."
"No." The said man gave a short pause before answering, trying to feign that he was actually thinking about it.
After a dreadful long silence, Pein finally replied, "Fine," his pair of Rinnegan turned his attention away from Kakuzu. "Finding the bounty to kill him off is a waste of time too, since he might not be the capturer."
The Rinnegan user flicked his gaze back at the masked man one last time. "For now, just keep a lookout to any suspicious people involved in abducting Sasori. If possible, extract any information regarding them and what they exactly want from Sasori."
Kakuzu didn't voice out his displeasure or anything. He just stood there in silence without arguments about not wanting to do his given job.
Pein had already planned out everything, who to recruit and all, so there's no way he'll let some idiotic abductor to ruin his plans.
"Orochimaru."
In a second, a screen projection of the snake-man appeared in the dark cave.
"Sasori's alive." Kakuzu could sense the harsh glare the leader directed to the snake man even though the cave was dark and they were communicating through screen projection. It seems to be a sort of warning glare for Orochimaru, telling him that he did not wish for any more failures.
"I want him in my organization, Orochimaru. Eliminate anyone if they are a nuisance. However, I don't want Akatsuki to attract any attention, yet."
The sound of the snake summoner licking his lips could be heard even from the distance Kakuzu stood away from him. But whatever, like what Sakura had said earlier that day, the snake summoner would soon be defected from the organization, which Kakuzu was waiting pleasantly for.
"There's something I want to report too."
The silence let Orochimaru realized he was supposed to continue.
"Sasori has a companion. A girl."
"Does that mean you aren't capable of taking Sasori with us because of this girl?"
"No." Orochimaru sounded offended, but he never mentioned about his displeasure. "The thing is, she know about the existence of Akatsuki before I even tell Sasori about it."
So Orochimaru had met that pink brat... Kakuzu raised an eyebrow, making an effort to look surprise when no one bothered to give him a second glance.
"Who is she?"
"I'm not sure." Orochimaru admitted. "But she seems important to Sasori."
Kakuzu raised his eyebrow even higher, but this time he wasn't acting it. He regretted for not betting with someone that Sasori had something for Sakura.
"I won't allow this." Pein stated.
Kakuzu's thought was immediately snapped back to the dangerous tone the leader had given. The masked man didn't like how the atmosphere tensed up suddenly, and he knew how discomfort Orochimaru was too.
"If there's a need, use her to make Sasori join. Kill her if she's a hassle. I do not need anyone to disrupt my plans."
Kakuzu doubtfully turned to Orochimaru who was licking his lips pleasantly and nodded in agreement.
"Then, dismiss."
0o0
We would have to lie low for a while. Kakuzu thought, wandering down the dark and quiet street. Having Orochimaru sneaking on them would not do great for anyone, especially himself. Even though money was the most important thing in the world, he still had to make sure that his head remained attached to his neck.
Walking into the quiet inn that Kakuzu had specified Sasori to rent, he walked up the stairs to sense his two companion's chakra signature. After managing to sense one of their's, he walked up to the room and stood before the door.
A thin thread slowly slipped out under his sleeve and went into the lock, and in a few seconds, the door was unlocked. Kakuzu nodded gratifyingly and turned the doorknob silently.
His eyes widened a fraction as he stared at the two in the room.
Sakura was lying on the bed, motionlessly because she was sleeping, which was perfectly fine and normal. But Sasori, whose body was still on the floor, had his arm and head rested on the same bed Sakura was sleeping on. And if his chocolate brown eyes were to be open, it could be perfectly pictured that Sasori was watching Sakura sleep.
As Kakuzu took another step, a soft creak sounded from the wooden floor and Sasori's eyes flung open, his arm extended towards his unfinished human puppet on the floor before he realized it was just Kakuzu. His light blue chakra strings vanished on the spot as he had easily returned back his composure.
"Only guilty conscious people are startled to noises." Kakuzu stated.
"Every ninja does, Kakuzu." Sasori argued.
They both then turned to stare at the pinkette who was still soundly sleeping.
0o0
"Your drink, miss?"
"Green tea." Sakura nodded after giving the menu one last glance. The waiter repeated the orders before taking his leave.
No matter how much Sakura had eaten in the previous store the trio were in, she still missed the other delicacy in Konoha. She had kept it from Sasori because she didn't need a guy teasing her fat.
"Table 46 wants a bottle apple sake." Another waiter told his collogue who was the one that had took Sakura's order.
After a while, a trainee who had started working just yesterday approached to the busy counter after cleaning the dishes to see many trays ready to be collected and served to the customers, but many other of his seniors were busy working.
"Boss, can I help?" He called out.
"Take this to Table 64 and this to 46." The supervisor pointed casually without looking up from the counter while he was busy counting the money his current customer had gave him for the food.
"Alright." He picked up the tray before looking at the drinks on the tray he was holding onto tightly. "Table 64: apple sake. Table 46: green tea." The newcomer nodded readily, bringing the round plate and approached to the individual table.
"Here is your drink." The teenager placed the sake bottle on the table.
"Eh?" Sakura stared curiously at the bottle before watching the boy bustling away to another table.
"Excuse me?" Sakura called out again, but everyone was very busy with their work so no one had noticed Sakura calling for assistance.
She sniffed around the top of the glass bottle while swirling the content. There was a sort of sweet smile that Sakura couldn't remember where she had smelt it before. But she was pretty sure it wasn't green tea.
Sakura just shrugged, pouring the content out of the sake glass bottle and into the small cup. The pinkette took a cautious look at the clear liquid in the small cup before sipping it. She blinked, staring in disbelief at the drink she was holding to, it was surprising nice.
She took another sip, another cup, and soon the entire bottle was emptied.
"Waiter!" Sakura screeched, swinging the sake bottle in the air just like how her female teacher did when she was drunk. "One more of this!"
"Table 64 wants another bottle of apple sake!"
Sakura groaned, faint memories slowly flooding back to her. She continued rubbing her temple as the throbbing pain returned to her again. As she continued staring at the ceiling, having her legs dangling off the bed, she recollected a few scenes from last night.
"Sasori, the evil man!"
"DANCE DANCE!"
"Let's go for an adventure!"
"Be my bolster!"
Sakura gave another loud whimper as she buried her face deep into both of her palms and gave a muffled scream. How much had she embarrassed herself in front of the redhead?
"What are you doing?" Sasori asked, just like what Kakuzu was about to question her too.
Sakura sat up on the bed swiftly, staring straight at the redhead who was gazing at her curiously just like every single day.
"N-Nothing." Sakura perked up a smile, trying to hide how humiliated she felt last night. Although she couldn't really remembered what she mostly said, she could faintly recalled most of the stupidest thing she did like hugging Sasori randomly and pushing him back to the windowsill.
"Let's go and get something to eat. There's a special discount for the food before noon." Sasori spoke, realizing how much he had sounded like Kakuzu, which was something he didn't want to happen.
"Alright." Sakura stood up from the tidied bed, whirling back to look at Kakuzu, wondering if he was ready.
"I'm resting for a while." Kakuzu said from the couch, lifting the newspaper to his eye-level.
"Do you need anything to eat?" Sakura inquired.
"No."
Sakura shrugged at Kakuzu's indifferent attitude towards her, knowing that she should get use to it soon. Wanting to take her pouch and leave, she realized they were in Konoha because she was going to restock her weapons as it was taken away by Sunagakure. She inwardly sighed and leave the room with Sasori kindly opening the door and waiting for her to get out already.
As she was carried on rubbing her temple, she tried to hide her abashment by starting the conversation first. "Yesterday, I got a little high, isn't it?"
"Too high that I felt embarrassed walking with you."
"Why must you always be so mean?"
"And since when I'm not?"
Sakura sighed, proceeding back rubbing her head. It would be perfect if they stopped talking for now.
0o0
The pinkette softly put down the small glass cup on the table, taking in another deep breathe to stop her headache from getting worse. It seemed that this tea she was drinking actually helped her headache to lessen pretty much. Maybe she should ask what kind of tea this was so that she could brew it for Tsunade whenever she had a hangover every morning.
But soon, her attention was drawn towards the two Konoha-nin sitting at the corner of the restaurant. She mindlessly lifted up the cup and sipped on the tea again.
"Sasori." Sakura whispered.
"I know." The redhead started tapping the table with his five fingers continuously till it sounded like a rhythm. "They had been looking for more than five minutes." Sasori spoke, his back facing the two Shinobi while Sakura's side was facing them instead, making it more than obvious for the Slug Princess's apprentice.
The two Shinobi signaled a waitress towards them, whispering some sort of secrets to her. Even though her expression was emotionless, the number of times she glanced at the two travelers sort of gave her away.
The waitress gave a firm nod before proceeding towards their table, taking out a pencil and a pad to take their orders.
"Excuse me, what would you like for today?"
Sakura began pointing at the menue for her order while Sasori just shrugged, leaving everything for his companion to decide.
"Anyway, are you two travelers?" She continued writing down their orders, keeping a close eye on Sasori. "Never seen you two here before."
"I'm from Konoha." Sakura smiled politely.
"Really?" The owner gave a tone that Sakura highly suggests as suspicion. "I've never met any girl that have pink hair, even in my home town."
Sakura kept that smile up and lifted up her skirt, revealing the shiny headband tied around her thigh. Sasori refrained from looking as startled as he could. It wasn't a surprise that he didn't know she had her headband with her all along since he couldn't have possible looked down to observe her hips and thigh or something…
Furthermore, the redhead always thought that she kept her headband in her weaponry pouch. It seemed that she had kept it somewhere safer like tying them onto her smooth-looking thigh…
Sasori looked away, the reason partially was because he was being respectful and all, even though Sakura was wearing shorts under her ninja skirt. When the medic knew the waitress had seen enough proof, she went back to cover her thigh with her apron-like skirt. "I'm on a mission, so putting it out to let others see could be dangerous, guess I've forgotten it when I had returned."
"I'm sorry." The waitress gave an apologetic look as she held the brown tray up to her nose to cover her embarrassment. "And this is?" She looked over at Sasori.
"He is-"
"Her husband. My name is Hasuko, and she's Yasumi."
Sakura blinked rapidly, turning to face Sasori with a blank look.
"I've forgotten an introduction! My name is Madoka." She gave a soft smile before tilting her head as if she remembered something. "But if I recalled back, I could have sworn you called your wife 'Sakura' last night."
"Her pink hair influenced the nickname I gave her."
"How sweet…" Madoka sighed. Sakura gave a shiver.
"So you're both married at such a young age?" The waitress stared down at Sakura's stomach and Sakura followed her gaze.
"It's not what you think!" The pinkette blushed tremendously, covering her abdomen and gave a quick glare at the redhead before turning immediately to Madoka to stop her from giving a puzzled frown at her.
"We- He's from Sunagakure and I- we met during a recent mission… and fell in love." Sakura attempted a laugh.
"What happened?" She asked excitedly.
"Something happened along the way, and Hasuko came to save me." Sakura turned to give Sasori an assuring smile. "Thanks to him, I'm living."
"Aw…" Madoka made a jealous face, turning to stare at Sasori heroically before turning to Sakura to hear more.
"Having a long distance relationship was hard, so we decided to settle down together. We are visiting my parents later."
Madoka gave a long lovely sigh after staring dreamily in space; she turned to Sakura when she realized she was just standing there for a whole awkward minute.
"Excuse me while I'll get your food." Madoka smiled hastily before walking off.
Madoka approached the two loyal Shinobi from fire country and told them her short report. The two men stared at each other before glancing at Sasori and Sakura before nodding and thanking Madoka for her cooperation. Bowing politely, she went back to the kitchen to get the orders.
"Didn't know you actually have such wild imagination for our love story." Sasori scoffed.
"Under the effect of reading too much romance novels." Sakura smirked before wiping it off and turned it to a glare. "Why are you doing this anyway?" She pouted, almost forgetting how angry she was supposed to be previously.
"I've thought of disguising myself as a person who need some escort from this village. But it would be rather stupid for someone to believe this after the scene you had caused yesterday."
"So this is my fault?" Sakura bellowed.
"What else? You have a better idea?"
"And seriously… Yasumi?"
Sasori blinked confusingly, not understand what was up with Sakura suddenly until he thought that maybe Sakura was displeased at the fact that he didn't use their original name.
"Well, if you were to come back from the past, with pink hair and the exact same name, I don't think that would actually make any sense."
"I already know that." She said in a huff.
"Then what's with the pout?"
"Don't you have like a better name to call me? " Sakura fumed, "I could name better than that, Hasuko."
"Then what do you want to be called? Sakura."
A small shiver went down her spine while she continued glaring at the redhead. The way Sasori had just called her made her so tensed that probably not even Sasuke could make her.
Her pair of eyes slowly moved down to his lips that seductively called her name and a sweat tricked down her face, her face turned as pink as her hair almost as fast as she blinked.
No dirty thoughts, Haruno Sakura! The said girl screamed in her head, turning her head stubbornly away from Sasori who still could not understand what on earth was she thinking.
After a while, Madoka returned, settling the last bowl from her tray as she proudly pointed out. "And here is your last order, our restaurant's specialty; red bean soup!" Madoka exclaimed, "Anyway, I'll get one of our famous buns in town, on the house! I'll be right back!"
"You don't have to Madoka." Sakura called out.
"It's fine, think it as a small wedding gift from me." The waitress gave a wink before walking back into the kitchen. In fact, Madoka was giving them free food while docking it from her pay was because she felt guilty for even suspecting them that they had infiltrated the fire country.
As she disappeared into the kitchen again, Sakura stared amusingly at the spoon that was placed on the plate just beside the bowl. She scooped the red bean soup with the spoon and attempted stuffed it into Sasori's mouth.
"It's one of their specialty here. I hope you like it, sweetie."
Sasori glared, grudgingly opened it before it was spilled onto his clothes, only to give Sakura another chance to mock him further. "Is it sweet enough?"
"Yes." He muttered, still glaring. If he were to reject Sakura's offer, the two ninja behind him would start to get suspicious.
"I can't hear you, honey."
"Yes, it's sweet enough, darling." His tone sounded force.
Sakura nodded approvingly, putting down the spoon to grab a napkin on the table.
"I can do it myself." Sasori went out to reach for the table napkin but Sakura was faster. She pulled her hand away from Sasori's grasp, not letting the redhead to take it.
"Let me do it for you." Sakura broke into a huge smile and lifted her arm nearer to Sasori's chin.
Sakura could easily make out the translation fuming in Sasori's eyes. "Are you wishing for death? Brat."
She beamed, softly tapping the corner of Sasori's mouth with the side of the napkin as her sweet smile translated to reply Sasori. "Please don't ruin the moment my dearest."
After the longest moment Sasori had ever waited, Sakura finally finished what she was doing and settled the napkin down, dragging her stool a little bit closer to Sasori. "Since you said we are husband and wife, we should totally act this out, no regrets!" Sakura murmured softly, keeping that same cheerful expression on her face.
This was just pure revenge. There's no way could Sakura ever willing claimed to be anyone's wife just because someone had or wanted to; not even this hot redhead who was sitting beside her.
"Oh?" Sasori flicked his gaze back at her, their face just a few inches away from each other. But no matter how close they were now, it could not be compared to Sakura's I-should-embrace-everyone-I-see mode, which happened just yesterday night.
"I never knew you are so enthusiastic about this, Sakura. Since you say we should act this all out without regrets, I don't see why I should hold back either."
Sakura didn't like the smirk forming on Sasori's lips, neither did she like that small glint of mischief firing in his eyes. But then his face soon fell lax and a serious expression engulfed him.
"Actually, there's also been something I wanted to tell you for a long time…" He scooted his seat closer.
In the corner of her eyes, Sakura noticed that the two Shinobi had finished their break and left the eatery. But she didn't care about it anymore. All her attention was focused on the nearing redhead who was inching his face closer and closer — to be more precise — moving his lips nearer and nearer to her own.
Sasori rested one of his arms on the table, while he's leaning forward, his other hand was reaching out for her ear; and like every romance novel Sakura read, the main male character will always put the female main character's hair behind her ear before they kiss, or so, that's what Sakura thought.
I'm not ready… I'm not ready! Sakura's heart started beating faster, more furious. Sakura's eyes slowly closed on its own, her palm was getting sweaty and her breath hitched. Although she was always saving her first kiss for someone worthy, someone she loves, it was still a wonder why she hadn't punched him like what she always do to Naruto.
"Done."
He flicked the small feather as it floated along the small breeze in the eatery that was caused by the fans hanging on the ceiling.
"W-What?" Sakura stuttered after she had flung open her eyes, watching the soft feather drifting out of the inn. She turned to stare at the redhead who had gone back to his original seating position.
"There's a feather in your hair." He muttered, scooping the red bean with the spoon and putting the metal utensil to his mouth.
"H-How could you tease me l-like that?"
Sasori turned to stare at her, having the spoon hanging in his mouth. "Oh? I was kindly picking a feather from your hair, how does that tease you? Yasumi."
Sakura wanted to say something, but her mouth opened and closed just like a sick goldfish, five fingers grasping tightly around her table.
"Or…" Sasori took the spoon out of his mouth and used it to point at Sakura who was sitting at the edge of the stool, still fuming and blushing hard. "…Are you having some weird thoughts? Sakura."
Sakura was about to burst any moment. She had never been teased so badly before since everyone knew her temper wasn't any far from Tsunade's. Naruto's whacking and smacking served everyone as a warning so no one was that brave to make Sakura furious. Except for Sasori, that's for sure.
"You-"
Kakuzu raised his eyebrow, trudging slowly towards the two when he immediately spotted a pink and a redhead sitting in the middle of the eatery. As he got closer to the pair, he noticed the small blush tinted on Sakura's cheek while Sasori was fiddling with his food, smirking in fact.
"What are you two doing?"
"-Kakuzu" Sakura stared back at the other man approaching them, her emerald eyes wide and filled with panic and embarrassment, hoping that he never seen how badly Sasori had just mocked her. She was planning to make fun of Sasori, seemed that the table had turned and it ended up her blushing instead.
At that moment, Madoka appeared from the kitchen with new sets of food just for Sakura and Sasori, and when a new customer appeared by the table with her new friends, she raised an eyebrow, not sure if she should continue her suspicion when she noted the weird cloak Kakuzu was wearing.
"This is…" Madoka wiped her hand on her bright yellow apron after she had placed the food, staring uncertainly at Kakuzu who had took a seat opposite Sakura.
"He's Dento, a relative of mine." Sasori stated calmly. Kakuzu just gave a curt nod at the waitress, knowing what Sasori was doing.
"Distant?" Madoka commented, adding something that Kakuzu found it very unnecessary. "You both look quite… different."
Kakuzu's eye twitched unhealthily as he turned to face the waitress. "Is there a problem with that?"
"Anyway, en-enjoy your me-meal." Madoka stammered, scurrying towards another group of customers who wanted to order their food.
0o0
"Please take a look. If you need my assistance, just tell me" The salesperson called out while Sakura gleefully nodded in reply, staring in awe at so many weapons neatly stacked on the shelves. It's been quite some time since she ever went to restock her weapons even when she's in the future.
Not needing any of these, both Sasori and Kakuzu stood outside the store, trying to wait patiently as they could for Sakura to finish shopping her things. And when it comes to shopping, every man would be afraid when they had to come with women.
"Trouble's brewing." Kakuzu started speaking after a long silence.
Sasori looked up to the tall man who was staring down the street, deep in thought.
"We need to lie low. Orochimaru is beginning to move. He's going to find you again."
The name of the famous snake summoner made Sasori awake suddenly. He gave a sidelong glance at the pinkette who already paying for her weapons before gazing at the tall man beside him.
"So he came to pick me up after attempting to kill me?" Sasori scoffed before adding behind.
"Then again… Why are we following you?"
"Done." Sakura called out as she bustled out of the store, with two pouches that was similar to her previous ones but different colour.
"Where are we going now?" Sakura stretched.
Sasori took out his hand, wanting Sakura to let him see the weapons she bought as the pinkette gave it to him silently.
"Other small villages within the fire country." Kakuzu stated.
When Sasori remained poking through the weapons in the newly bought pouch, not bothering to cut Kakuzu's suggestion of place and continued questioning him, the masked man inwardly snorted.
"We'll take cover in Tanzaku Town."
0o0
"Shizune~"
"…"
"Shizune!"
"Tsunade-sama. Everyone's looking!" The young teenager who had newly become a chunin just two months ago cried out, trying to hush Tsunade down from yelling any further.
"Hmm, I know that!" Tsunade continued swinging her sake bottle, her breast bouncing with every step she took, attracting all the men that were walking past the two of them.
"I think we should move to another town, Tsunade-sama." The 13 years old girl suggested, clinging tightly onto her master's arm before she fell on the ground. "Tanzaku town is full of lechers and idiots."
"But they have fine bars and gambling dens." Tsunade swooned, swirling her sake in the glass bottle she was holding. "I'm not going to go anywhere unless I win back my money."
"Does that mean we are going to be stuck here forever?" Shizune muttered sorrowfully.
"What did'cha say, my brilliant student?"
"Nothing at all." The Slug Princess's student replied, trudging back to their inn and shooting glares at everyone that was staring seductively at Tsunade — boobs.