Inquisitive eyes trailed after Enemy Number One.
A growing smile.
"Stalk like a pro? You're not the only one."
Laughter.
"Oh, how blind you all are."
Twirl, twirl.
Laughter.
"Leader-sama?" Another voice.
"Yes?"
"Shall we go?"
A pause, and another glance out the window.
"Follow her."
Nods.
Poof.
Sakura mentally cursed herself violently as she crept through the underbrush with exceptional stealth.
Why the hell did she take up this mission, anyways?
And why the hell was Sasuke prowling through the forest? Was he some kind of animal, hunting for prey? Dear god, this was not her idea of an easy or fun mission. The rank of this thing deserved to be S, not something as puny as B.
Amidst her inner grumblings and scouring the ground for leaves to avoid, Sakura failed to notice the slim twig, sharp at the end, but otherwise fragile enough, sticking out of the tree, level with her head. With an abrupt, sharp sting, it scraped across her forehead, drawing a small line of blood.
She made no sound of pain, still in stealth mode, but the blood was on the twig. Her blood.
Sasuke may not have been from the Inuzuka clan, but like all ninja, his sense of smell was sharp. It was only a matter of time before he noticed—
—and, bypassing the panic button, she automatically reacted to do damage control with a calm expression plastered on her face.
If there was anything worse than making a mistake, it was panicking about it. People seemed to have an innate feel for the vibe that others gave off. And the last thing she wanted to happen was for the world to screw her over and have Sasuke glance in her direction.
With cloaked chakra blazing through to her finger, she efficiently sliced the twig like she would slice a body—with silence and precision. A chakra scalpel, indeed. The twig dropped from the tree into her awaiting hand, and quickly, she stowed it in the weapons pack on her thigh.
She healed the open wound on her forehead, but made no move to wipe away the blood, lest it transfer from her hand to the forest around her.
Peering ahead, she noted that Sasuke had already gone far and, jumping from the ground to land on a thick branch above, she made haste to catch up.
She ran through the trees, silencing her footfalls with carefully melded chakra in her feet, approaching the thicket of greenery with caution. Dropping down to the ground again, she slid through a small opening in the vines and found herself...
…in the middle of a dream.
.x.
The Fan Club
of growth and decay
(written by seleneswan)
…
"Because he's got an eye for beauty."
(admiring glow)
.x.
The only word that could begin describe the place that she found herself in was "ethereal".
She was on the edge of a familiar river that she had never before seen in such a light. The Nakano River.
The water was blue.
That wasn't an easy thing to have, being that most of the water in all of the lakes and rivers surrounding Konoha were clear at best and a grayish brown at worst. The only blue water she had heard of was on the border of Earth and cresting around the southern islands of Water.
It was like a fairy tale.
Across the river was an open, grassy field with a few almost strategically placed large trees and dummies.
A training field.
Sakura didn't know whether to fall over in shock or be completely unsurprised.
There was only one thing she was sure of. Sasuke had a thing of beauty all to himself, and he wasn't even paying attention to it.
No, he was running chakra-less laps around the borders of the clearing across the river.
The idiot.
If she had a place like this all to herself, she wouldn't waste it on something that she could perfectly well elsewhere. She would…she would…have picnics! And frolic in the wildflowers.
And take naps under the sun. And read a good book.
With a sigh, Sakura settled in the crook of the branches, leaning against the trunk. She was quite sure, with the amount energy that Sasuke was exerting on his warm up, that she would be there for a long while.
The wind blew gently against the pages of her notebook in which she was diligently taking notes. Her nose scrunched up at the thought, distaste on her lips.
She was taking notes. On Sasuke. Without his knowledge.
She never did think she would have to use her stealth knowledge for such…unsavory matters. It felt like abuse of everything that she had been taught.
Her eyes tightened. She didn't like abusing knowledge or power.
She sighed, eyes trained on Sasuke as he did sets of vertical pushups. It was for the mission.
He tilted then, feet touching back on the ground with grace.
Sakura supposed, even if she was, in essence, stalking him, she could appreciate the agility and the way that he almost made…the way that he made acts that were generally considered violent look like an art. Like a complex dance.
She watched as he attacked a dummy with incredibly force and power, with such precision. Somehow, even though it was something that Sakura looked at every day, she felt as though she were really seeing for the first time.
It was beautiful.
All of a sudden, she was taken back to the question from the exam, the one about where Sasuke would rank on a scale of one to ten as a shinobi, and she knew, clearly and definitively, what she would have written there.
She would have written what she saw.
As she lazily penned a few taijutsu moves on the paper that Sasuke was practicing, she thought, perhaps, that maybe the club wasn't as superficial as she thought. Maybe, after she got home, she would read through the textbook.
Maybe she would be surprised.
By the time she looked back up from her paper, Sasuke's shirt and shorts had disappeared, as were his shoes. Barefoot and clad in a pair of boxers, he was walking towards the river below her.
Her eyes widened. He wasn't wearing clothes. Well, except for underwear, but…
Dear god, he wasn't wearing clothes.
Was he—
—no, he wasn't bathing. Thank goodness.
She let out a huge mental sigh of relief and her face, previously flushed, began to slowly discolor again. She told herself that she had no idea why she was, of all things, blushing. It wasn't as if she hadn't seen everything Sasuke had before. There, logically speaking, should be no relief at all.
She shouldn't have panicked.
She was a med-nin, after all, and her teammates were particular about who was treating them, the spoiled babies. For every life-threatening injury, for some absurd reason, they absolutely refused to see anyone about it…except for her.
She didn't know whether to be flattered or not. Sasuke and Kakashi were always rigid in this practice. Naruto was marginally more easygoing, but if she wasn't showering or dying, he would always press her to heal whatever it was that was broken.
So naturally, because of their idiotic tendencies, she had seen every part of all of them. Not all at once, but in pieces. She had performed surgeries for the removal of shrapnel and glossed over bruised skin. She had done physical exams and given them injections.
She had even seen, and she was quite proud of this…Kakashi's face.
Incidentally, he was quite attractive, despite the horrendous tan line that had formed from where his mask rested all the time.
And on the subject of attractiveness, Sakura could and would freely admit that, by all standards, Sasuke was conventionally gorgeous. But she had seen it. It wasn't new.
She had seen the muscles and the bone structure and the lean body up close and personal. She'd seen his curved forearms and his abs and the V in his hips that was, she had to admit, just a little mouthwatering.
But still…she had seen it.
So, logically, it didn't make sense for her to be blushing like some…like some perverted peeping tom. She had seen it all. Every last inch of skin she had viewed at one point or another. There was nothing to be embarrassed about.
Except, with a startling realization, she was, in this situation, the perverted peeping tom. No, worse: she was the peeping Sakura.
And all for a mission.
With sudden realization, Sakura almost began to feel as though she were…crossing a line.
Thinking quickly, her eyes slid towards the sky, estimating the time she had left until her shift was over, the time she had left until some strange girl had to come and stare at half-naked Sasuke and be a legitimate peeping fangirl.
The sun beat down on her face and she had to squint to see, but she could estimate that she had about forty minutes left.
That was enough time.
Hopefully.
She could only hope that Sasuke wasn't girly enough to take long showers…or whatever it was that he was doing.
Glancing back at him from above, she readjusted her position so that more of the leaves would cover her still form. He was bent over, skin stretching over his shoulder blades and spine, folding his clothes neatly on a nearby rock.
Her lips twitched, wanting to laugh.
He would make a good housewife. A good homemaker. His folding was immaculate, all the edges neatly lined up and not a single wrinkle in sight.
An image of Sasuke, clad in an apron, materialized in her mind. Her lips twitched again. She wondered if he could cook well, she thought idly as Sasuke placed his shoes next to his clothes and walked down to the river.
He stepped in the cool water and, all at once, all the tension in him dripped away as he waded deeper in the river before kicking back and floating, relaxing, on the water.
With a soft smile on her face, she turned her eyes back to the notebook. As she wrote down "went for a swim" in lazy penmanship, all she could think about was that he truly had changed.
As he floated down the river, water sloshing up at his sides, an indescribably sense of pride welled up inside of her. She was proud.
Proud that, for once in his life, Sasuke was happy.
Happy and…free.
He had swam for exactly twenty minutes—a smooth and easy set of laps back and forth. There was no speed or energy being expended. He was just swimming, gliding along what was sure to be refreshing water.
His hair stuck to his head like every normal being, and Sakura was mildly surprised. She would have thought his gravity-defying hair would have defied gravity forever. With all of his hair flattened out, the supposed resemblance to Sai was slightly clearer to her…but still not incredibly apparent.
Amidst her musings, Sasuke had waded back to the edge of the river, slipping his clothes back on over his only slightly damp boxers. She could only assume, just as how most kunoichi bought elements-resistant panties, most shinobi purchased the same type of underwear.
Fully clothed again, Sasuke began to walk startlingly close to the tree that she was perched in. Silently shrinking back against the tree trunk, she kept her eyes trained on him as he came to a stop just at the base of the trunk before crouching.
His voice reached her ears immediately despite the soft tone. "Hi."
Her eyes widened imperceptibly as she peered under the branch she was sitting on, leaning over just enough. Was he talking to her?
But no. For resting between the curled roots of the tree was a stone, indecipherable things engraved on it.
"I miss you, Aniki."
Her eyes welled up, unbidden, with tears.
It was Itachi's grave.
A/N: Firstly, I adore you all. I could kiss you.
Secondly, this was a rush, seriously. I had written a good thousand or so words up until a few nights ago when I decided the reason I was so stuck and couldn't write any more was because I hated everything I had written. So I deleted the whole thing and started from scratch and now, here we are, four days later. Two days of writing, one day of dawdling, and one day of beta by the ever-lovely AkieriN.
Thirdly, I sincerely apologize for the lateness...but because of the lateness, I had the ability to make this better than it would have been! Mm, I love you all to pieces. Thank you so much for your patience and encouragement.
