Chapter 7
The ersatz night sky was reflected in Neji's eyes, turning them into replicas of Sasuke's. It was a cruel mockery. She hadn't noticed how similar the two looked, both with noble, aristocratic features. But while Sasuke was fire, Neji was like water. Even now, with his life balanced on a razor's edge, he offered no resistance to her.
It would be so easy. A mere twitch would be all it would take to snap his neck. A twitch, and Ino, Kiba and Sasuke would all be avenged. And yet, under the cool regard he leveled, she hesitated.
"Why?" she asked, her voice trembling with barely restrained fury, "Why did you kill them?"
"Ino was an unfortunate witness," was the neutral response. She was stunned. He knew their names? "Kiba had to be eliminated to isolate you." So pragmatic. It was all business to him.
"And Sasuke?"
"Sasuke had the misfortune of being loved by his brother," Neji sighed faintly, "Before he died, Itachi Uchiha gave to him his eyes, the last pair of Mangekyou Sharingan in the world after Madara systematically neutralized each of the Akatsuki. It was for this reason, and this reason alone, that Madara allowed Sasuke, as well as yourself, to survive." Thoughts ran wild in Sakura's mind. How does he know all this? "Madara has something planned. Something that will require a new set of eyes for him, when he is done. I imagine he has no intention of being blind in the new world he's trying to create, and so I took steps to delay his machinations."
There it was. Every reason laid out, every motivation thought out. She calmed her breathing, and her thoughts fell in line.
"Where are the eyes?" Those were the key. If she could get those back, then all was not lost.
"I destroyed them as soon as I was able." The response was delivered with impersonal coldness. "I could not risk letting them fall into Madara's hands again." The words were like a funereal knell to Sakura's ears. If the eyes were gone, then her fate was sealed. "I made it appear as though they were intact so that you would pursue me."
"Why?" she asked again, "Why me?"
"Insurance," came the answer, "Information. Madara needs you to extract the remaining tailed beasts, and no one knows his plans more intimately than you, save Madara himself." Rage, hot and bitter, boiled over in Sakura's chest.
"I could kill you," she snarled, "I should kill you. You've trapped me in a situation where going back means death. You've killed my friend, my teammate, my..." She stopped. Her what? Her true love? Hardly. The man he killed was one who could barely stand the sight of her.
"You certainly could," Neji said quietly, "I have never imagined that I would live a long, fulfilling life. If this is where it must end, then so be it. I do not think that Madara's world is the sort that you would want to live in, however, and the ability to decide your own future is the incentive I levy for your aid."
Her first instinct was to say no. She could run. Hide. With her talents and abilities, she could surely eke out an existence elsewhere. It would not be a glamorous life, granted, but she would survive. Yet, there was a part of her that tired of merely surviving. How many had she sacrificed for the sake of survival? Was life so precious to her that there was nothing she valued more?
"The ability to decide your own future." Sakura had scarcely considered the possibility before. Madara's dystopian visions had always been an inevitability in her eyes. She had lived her life believing that her fate was set in stone. But now, with this stranger's life in her hands and nowhere to go, she dared to hope.
"You have no reason to trust me."
"Nor you, me," Neji agreed, "But desperate times call for desperate measures, as it is said, and I am willing to take the mutual leap of faith, if you are."
How surreal life is, Sakura thought, How quickly it changes. And so, Sakura, the realist; Sakura, the survivalist; and Sakura, the one who now held the most fragile spark of a dream in her heart, stood, and offered Neji her hand.
o
They left the restaurant as surreptitiously as possible. Neji had reassured her that the damages had already been more than paid for in advance, and she found herself believing him. She wondered how far in advance all this had been planned. It was fortunate that no one had noticed the commotion; all it took for her to disappear from the public eye was a simple illusion that masked her hair to a mousy brown.
There were still a few points that she would have to inquire about, but those could wait for the journey to Kumo. For now, they had to make their exit from the city. While some of the personnel had been bribed or otherwise coerced into cooperating, there were many who hadn't, and mistakes this close to Konoha would be very costly indeed.
The guard that met them at the wall greeted them with a cheery wave and removed his helmet to reveal tousled blond locks.
"This is the medic, then?" he asked, his dark eyes lingering on her perhaps a moment longer than necessary, "I've heard of your feats. I know a few techniques, myself."
"Indeed," Neji acknowledged tersely, "Is everything prepared?" The guard's eyes shifted to Neji for the first time.
"You're not going to introduce me, Neji?" the guard asked through his grin. He sighed when the Hyuuga remained silent. "Come with me, then. By the way," he flashed Sakura an even broader smile, "My name is C." Sakura nodded politely in greeting. "Ah, a shy one," he said, undaunted, leading them through the guard station, "Well, this is it." He indicated a small door, next to a sleeping guard. "Your ticket out of this dump."
There were two chestnut horses patiently waiting on the other side, close to the tree line. Neji swung up easily onto one, but before Sakura could mount hers, the blond caught her hand. Under his Shimo surcoat, she could see that he was wearing the gear of a Kumo jounin.
"I'll be going on ahead of you guys," C said, his beaming smile never fading, "But you'll be seeing more of me in the future, I promise." Without addressing Neji, he departed, flying through the treetops.
Sakura settled into the saddle of her mare and frowned.
"We'd get to where we're going faster without these," she said.
"The road to Kumogakure is neither a short one, nor an easy one," Neji replied, his eyes watching C's retreating figure long after Sakura could no longer see him, "I imagine you'll want an opportunity to recuperate. It has been a long day for you." The horse nickered faintly when he tapped his heels against its sides, and started off at a trot. Sakura's steed kept pace with that of the brooding Hyuuga, and in moments, they were safely enveloped by the trees and darkness around Shimo.
There's some kind of deep-seated tension between those two, she noticed. She wondered if it was a historic grudge or general mistrust. The thought occurred to her that the Hyuuga lived in a city that very much valued him only for his eyes. That would make it very difficult for him to trust anyone. Maybe that was why he was so willing to invest his faith in her. A lifetime of solitude after a cataclysmic tragedy would certainly leave a hollow in anyone. Those same words could be used to describe my life, she speculated. Really, she had only ever had Lee to talk freely to, and she held things in reserve even from him. Lee. She hoped he was all right.
Even if the Hyuuga's circumstances are similar to mine, his motivations are very different, she noted. Everything that had happened so far had been at his manipulation, including her continued presence. There were things that she was willing to trust him on, but it would still be important for her to keep a certain distance from the unknown quantity that was the Hyuuga.
The medic recalled the way he had shrugged off a punch from her strong enough to put down any number of other shinobi. If things went sour between them, she would have to have a better angle of attack to deal with him, especially now that she was aware of his expanded capabilities. She had seen with her own eyes what he had done to Lee and Kiba, both skilled hand-to-hand combatants, without tapping into his latent abilities.
She had her own ways of crippling targets, of course, as well as her ace in the hole, but she still had no idea what other abilities the Hyuuga might have in store. Caution would be the name of the game, for now. The medic resolved to learn more about him, both directly from the source, as well as from the people around him, in Kumo.
Luckily for her, she already knew where to start.
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