SaphiraEragon and OrganizationkhII - Thank you for the advice on my dialogue. I kind of knew that I had to start a new line when someone spoke, but didn't really think it would look good. However, after trying it and getting great reviews, I know that it's better this way and make's it less confusing. Your opinion's really helped XD
Thanks to everyone else who's been reviewing as well! Hearing that my stories good (so far) makes me want to write more :)
Chapter 8 - The Akatsuki... Who?
Recap
Smirking widely, too widely to be exact, Sakura leaned back in her seat with her hands folder behind her head. She licked at her suddenly dry lips and made eye contact with everyone, before stopping on Temari alone. The flicker of mischief going through the pinkette emerald eyes not going unnoticed by everyone else sitting there, waiting for Sakura to explain just what she had done. Naruto was probably the most nervous of them all.
'What if Sakura-chan had gotten herself into trouble? What if-' His mind was cut off by the person in the center of his thoughts as she finally spoke, her voice holding amusement and excitement in one.
"You'll never guess what I just did"
...
"You did what!?"
Every other student inside the lunch room stopped what they were doing and immediately turned towards the source of the noise - in this case, it was Naruto, Temari and Ino. Although the whole table was listening in on what Sakura had done, no one was idiotic enough to catch the attention of everyone in the lunch room... except for the loudmouths of the group.
Sakura had just finished telling her story of what happened between her and Hidan in chemistry, when the three had hollered out their responses, shocked and surprised looks honing their expressions. She didn't really understand why they were that surprised. I mean really, they should know by now that the pinkette was the type of girls that attracts attention (mostly in a bad way) almost everywhere she goes. She shook her head at them and gave them a look that blatantly said 'shut up!'
Finally, after a few more moments of mouths agape and eyes wide open in horror, Sakura and her friends continued on with their previously interrupted conversation. Although this time, in a much quieter tone; They wouldn't want anyone listening in and getting themselves in the middle of the whole school's attention now would they.
"Sakura-chan, please tell me that this is all just a practical joke you're pulling on us. Tell us you didn't order Hidan of the Akatsuki to stop swearing and deny us the fact that you..." Temari slowed down at the point and smacked the palm of her hand onto her forehead, a frustrated sigh leaving her lips. "stabbed him with a mechanical pencil..." an awkward silence passed through the group like a hurricane; they all craned their necks in the pinkette's direction as she scratched at the back of her head, a nervous laugh echoing through their speechlessness.
Questions passed through their minds, the most common one being: "Is she an idiot?" 'Cause that's definitely what it looks like from the story that she had just told.
Temari couldn't help but want to smack her head against the lunch table due to the idioticness of her new roommate and friend. 'Who in their right mind would mess with Hidan when they know he's an Akat-' She gasped audibly, catching everyone's attention and looked at the pinkette across from her in understanding.
"Sakura..."
"Huh? What?"
All stopped to stare at the sandy blond-haired girl as she spoke in such a serious tone that she barely ever spoke on "You don't know who the Akatsuki are, do you?"
Sakura didn't answer for a moment, but she did give a curt shake of her head "Yeh, I've been wondering for a while now. You guys keep telling me "the Akatsuki are bad" and "you're an idiot for pissing off an Akatsuki member" but I have no idea who or what your on about"
Shikamaru, one of the smartest member of the group, groaned. He was the most intelligent one here when being able to figure things out and he didn't even take in the fact that Sakura had just moved to Konoha so there was no way she could have heard of the schools, even the whole cities, most fearsome gang - the Akatsuki.
Sakura, who was just sitting there, clueless about the situation she put herself in, tapped Sasuke's shoulder. The reason why she didn't tap Naruto's shoulder was because 1) he was a clueless idiot (though she still loved him, no matter what) and 2) because he would just go all over the top like he does with everything when the situation includes her. Also because she was sure that he would answer her since everyone else at the table was looking at Temari and arguing with each other about what they should be doing about the situation.
As soon as Sasuke turned around to face the pinkette, he raised an eyebrow as if asking 'what do you want?' but in a more polite way.
"Who are the Akatsuki?" The raven haired boy sighed audibly and took out an earphone, an earphone that Sakura didn't know he had in, before answering the question.
"The Akatsuki are a 'fearsome' gang that had taken over the school in their first year. They normally don't do anything to harm the other students but if someone starts something with them, they won't bother holding back. Even though they are a gang of only 10 members, they're feared throughout Konoha. You can tell who they are by the red clouds they have on some of their clothing" He stopped to let Sakura take the information he had given so far in and, as soon as she gave a strict nod, he continued.
"Hidan, the one you 'stabbed' and argued with in Chemistry is one of these members; one of the most feared due to his aggressive attitude and bad habit of swearing every time he speaks. You see the weird symbol hanging from the chain around his neck?"
"Yeh, it was a circle with an upside down triangle inside" Sasuke gave a short nod and took out a notepad and a pan; drawing exactly what Sakura had spoken of - a circle and a triangle.
"This is the 'religion' Hidan believes in. I dont know exactly what it is that he does, but I've heard that he's killed people 'cause his god 'orders' him to" Sakura rose an eyebrow before turning to Temari, who had already stopped arguing with the others and had began to listen in. Said girl nodded her head in confrontation.
"He's right. And because of his influence in the Akatsuki, they somehow cover the deaths up. But, I don't know if this is just the rumors of if he actually does kill people. In my opinion, it's just a hoax to get people more afraid of them then they already are" Ino and Hinata each gave a nod in agreement from their spots on either side of the tough sandy blond-haired girl.
Sakura pondered on the fact that she had actually done something so foolish to an Akatsuki member for a moment before coming to the conclusion of 'Oh well' She didn't really care whether Hidan was in a bad-ass gang or not; she wasn't just going to let the silver-haired boy get away with calling her a b*tch and insulting her multiples of times - especially calling her forehead 'huge'
From the others at the table's point of view, they could see a dark aura surround the pinkette as her head hung and her hair covered her eyes, leaving only an ominous shadow. As though they could hear her voice as she thought it, the group shivered uncontrollably, shivers crawling up and down their spine and they all slowly began inching away from her in slight fear that they would end up getting hurt.
'No one calls my forehead huge!'
Snapping out of her slightly (Ok... very) scary thoughts of how she might end up killing a certain someone (*cough*Hidan*cough*) due to someone tapping on her shoulder, Sakura turned her neck to the left only to come face to face with baby blue eyes and a whiskered face. squeaking out her surprise, the pinkette brought her hand up to her chest - where her heart lay - and slowly backed up; she accidentally ended up knocking into Sasuke's shoulder in the mean time, but didn't take any notice to it as she thought that the raven-haired boy wouldn't care. What she didn't see, which Temari did see, was the slight tense in the boy's body and the thick swallow of his throat.
"What's wrong Naruto-kun?" The blond boy grinned widely at his childhood best friend and crush and took a hold of her hand very tightly in those of his own. "Don't worry Sakura-chan. I'll protect you if those Akatsuki guys try and get back at you"
The pinkette stared intently at her blond childhood friend before her gaze softened and a small, yet gently smile crawled onto her face "...Thanks Naruto-kun, but you don't have to worry at all because I can very much take care of myself. Also, I'm pretty sure that they won't do anything too rash, if they do anything at all" Giving the boy a pointed look when he was about to say something against her jurisdiction, Sakura smiled sweetly before standing up to leave.
It seems that her story, as well as talking about the Akatsuki had taken up longer than the pinkette had expected; and she had only eaten one chocolate muffin.
'Oh well... what's done is done'
"Well, I'm gonna go. If I leave now and get lost then I won't be too late" Temari gave a nod and a wink as she, as well as Ino and Hinata stood up to go to their lessons as well. "That's good. I'll see you in Gym" Just before she and the other girls turned away, Hinata stopped and stuttered out something that could help the pinkette. Although, something that could probably only give the girl a small but of comfort. "U-Urmm... M-My cousin should have t-the same next l-lesson as you. He's called N-Neji and I just thought t-that if you see him you could get to k-know each other so you d-don't feel too lonely..."
Giving the shy girl a heartful thank you smile, Sakura waved goodbye to the guys (Naruto wining after her, begging her to stay longer so that they could catch up and talk) and began her way to her next lesson - Physics in room 54 with Kabuto Yakushi. However, before she could even get 10 meters away from the table, a familiar red-head blocked her path.
Sakura raised an eyebrow at the girl before her and gave an innocent look as she tilted her head to the right in 'confusion'.
"Urm.. who are you and why are you blocking my path?"
Now, Sakura wasn't usually the type to just start up an argument or a fight; she was normally the one who would await the moment the fight came to her. But, with the red-haired, hot-headed, glasses wearing girl, Sakura just couldn't help herself. She wanted to start something that would put Karin in her place once and for all. Sure, the pinkette didn't know the girl for long. Hell, she didn't know the girl at all. However, that didn't mean Sakura didn't know her type and she didn't like said type one bit. In the past, our pinkette would try to stay away from the girl's who were Karin's type. Nevertheless, it never helped; they would keep coming back for more pain and humiliation - which was something that Sakura definitely wouldn't mind giving.
Karin seethed in anger, which Sakura smirked evilly at (Inwardly of course. She wouldn't want to blow her innocent cover) and a large red vein began it's journey of popping from the left side of her neck.
"What the hell you b*tch! Stop messing around! You knocked into me yesterday night and now I've come to repay the favour. You should know that i'm not someone you can mess with" Although then and there the pinkette would have loved to smash the red-heads face in, she kept her mask on and merely blinked in fake confusion.
"I'm sorry but I really don't remember 'knocking into you'. Perhaps you have the wrong girl and if so, then you should get your ass out of my way before I make you" Sakura's voice changed, as well as her expression, by the end of her short speech; her tone becoming much colder and her eyes narrowing into dark and angry slits. She had quickly checked the time on her phone and had noticed that there was only 5 minutes before the bell for next lesson went - this is what caused her attitude to change. She did not, did NOT, want to be late for advanced physics - one of her most favourite science lessons of all.
Almost speechless, It took a moment for Karin to reply. However, before she was even finished with the first word, Sakura had stomped right up to her, pushed her roughly out the way and made her way out of the rich lunch room; a very shocked Karin standing there, unmoving, mouth agape for all the flies in the world. That's if... any of the flies likes Karin's type, which Sakura doubted.
Unbeknownst to the pinkette, or anyone else in the lunch room for that matter, a few certain people had observed everything the girl had done...
Physics lesson, in Sakura's opinion, had also gone by rather fast. However, the teacher was more creepy than Orochimaru and he didn't even carry around weird reptiles everywhere he went.
Kabuto Yakushi was probably the youngest teacher in the whole school with dark silver hair that he kept up in a ponytail and dark grey, almost black eyes that he kept behind a pair of circular glasses. His clothes consisted of the usual smart black trousers and white button up men's shirt; however, he wore a long lab coat over the top for some weird reason that Sakura couldn't figure out - you normally don't need lab coats in anything other than Chemistry and biology. Perhaps he just liked the long white protective material?
Anyway... Just like Hinata had informed her, Neji Hyuuga was a member of her advanced class and had taken up a seat at the back where the boy was sure he wouldn't be disturbed. The boy had long chocolate-brown hair that was tied into a low ponytail from the base of his neck and he had the same lavender pupilless eyes that the shy girl - Hinata - had. His clothing consisted of the usual school clothes, which he wore smarter than Naruto and Sasuke both put together. However, he did have his tie left hanging slightly lower than school regulations allowed.
The air surrounding the brown-haired Hyuuga was one of pure confidence and arrogance, which explained why Hinata had that more than usual nervous look in her eyes when she was talking about the boy.
It looked like, to Sakura, that the boy wasn't sure what to do, when the pinkette had taken up the spare seat right beside him other than to ignore her, so said pink-haired girl had forced it upon herself to start up a conversation and introduced herself as a friend of Hinata.
This had managed to gain the boy's attention, although not for very long as after introducing himself as Neji Hyuuga, he'd 'politely' asked Sakura to stop talking to him and to instead focus more on the lesson so that they both could achieve their best grades. At this, the pinkette's eye had twitched and she had stealthily stomped on his foot without anyone else seeing; although she'd receaved a rather harsh look from the Hyuuga boy in return.
Other than that, the lesson had gone surprisngly well... except for the part when Kabuto had walked up to Sakura as soon as she was about to leave and greeted her to the school much to kindly than she could have wanted. Even though she wanted the teacher and students alike to like her and get along with her, Sakura didn't quite get that feeling with her physics teacher; he would always have this glint in his eyes every time the two made eye contact - the circular glasses had made that gleam even brighter. She shivered at the mere thought of having him as her teacher for the rest of the... year. 'Greaaat!'
As the pinkette strolled into her maths class, her thoughts were so focused on her creepy Physics teacher that she didn't take any notice to the other students that she would be sharing her lesson from now on with; the students, however, took great notice of her and studied her closely as she took the free seat at the back of the class, right by the window.
This was something Sakura did take note of; in every advanced class she's been in so far, the spare seat was always in the back by the window, or just anywhere in the back row. She couldn't help but wonder if there was something wrong with the seats in the back of the class, or if everyone just loved to sit closer to the front... closer to the teacher.
'Why would they want to do that?' She pondered on the thought for a while five minutes until she decided to stop as she couldn't come up with a fundamental conclusion.
Snapping out of her thoughts as a hand slammed down harshly onto her desk, Sakura twisted her neck around to face what had disrupted her peaceful moment, only to stare in a mixture of awe and surprise. The rather familiar man standing before her was... blue.
It all seemed to click as Sakura's mouth opened to speak, however she was interrupted as the blue guy got to it before her.
"Well, well, well little kitten. Didn't think we'd be seeing each other so soon"
Kisame hadn't felt as happy as he was then, for ages. Not only did he get to see his little kitten again (finally) but he also got to sit next to her for the whole lesson as his seat was right next to where she was sitting. At first, he was surprised to see her walk into his Advanced Math class so far in her thoughts that she hadn't even noticed taking a seat right beside him. But then, that surprise turned into glee as he jumped up and tried to get her attention.
Seems as though making a loud noise did just the trick.
A small grin spread across Sakura's face as Kisame's own was reflected, although much wider.
"Didn't want to be seeing you so soon either, Shark-boy. How'd you even get in this class with that fish-sized brain of yours?" Kisame's eyebrows shot up in shock at how she so easily insulted him, right off that bat as well.
Didn't she listen to her friends when they told her that the Akatsuki weren't to be messed with? (Yes, he was listening in at lunch) Though... they never did tell her exactly who was a part of the group, so it's understandable. Nevertheless, if she was observing him as much as he thought she was, then she should have noticed the black hoodie with multiple red clouds. Maybe she wasn't as perceptive as he thought her to be...
A rumble of laughter spread throughout the classroom, startling all the students already there as they turned around to look at the reason for the suddenness of said laughter. Kisame couldn't help but keep on laughing, so much that his insides were beginning to hurt; tears were even beginning to form from the corners of her beady fish-like eyes.
'Oh, how hilarious this one is!'
Soon enough, when he had managed to stop, he stared down at Sakura with an equal grin of his own, albeit slightly (much) wider, and gave her a rough pat on the head which rustled her hair and annoyed her to no end. There was one thing that really pissed Sakura off (Other than people insulting her due to her hair colour/height and calling her names like Hidan did earlier) and that was messing up her hair. She had a mild case of OCD and hated it when her hair was messy. Hell, even mess up how she organises her desk (pencils, pens and books) and she'll kick your ass until your far over the ocean.
Keeping his eyes on Sakura always, Kisame moved back to his desk which was right beside that of the pinkettes. Taking a seat, rather slowly, the blue-haired fish-like man gave Sakura a scary, sharp teethed smile (Something about him that Sakura hadn't noticed before - how sharp his teeth were) and began slowly.
"You keep surprising me, little kitten" It was true, never has anyone before been so straightforward in insulting the blue man before; he couldn't help but kind of like it.
"No one has ever insulted me before when knowing just what gang I'm in" The pinkette tilted her head to the left in confusion and raised an eyebrow; Kisame found this a rather cute gesture but shook off the unnecessary thoughts quickly so that he could continue what he began.
"Have you heard of the Akatsuki, little kitten?" Sakura gave a nod instantly, not being able to forget what her friends had spoken to her about - the Akatsuki - as it was just during lunch that they had told her; they were quite detailed about it as well.
"Well, I'm a part of that gang and people don't normally insult me like that 'cause..." A malicious grin spread across his, rather attractive features for a fish-man. "There are things that I can do that no one will ever find out about..." He decided to leave it like that - let her imagination do the rest for him.
However, even though he was sure that he would have scared her off by now, it didn't seem to work.
With an 'I told you so' look in her eyes and a wide smirk spread across her lips, Sakura spoke - her voice calm yet playful and mischievous in one; she somehow made it work.
"So? Do you honestly think your going to scare me away with that? Who cares if your in a gang, certainly not me. Besides, I'm pretty sure I can take care of myself" With a wink, Sakura turned away from a gobsmacked Kisame and settled on focusing her attention on the whiteboard at the front of the room. She only hoped that the teacher - Sarutobi Asuma - would arrive shortly so that she wouldn't have to deal with any more 'Akatsuki' members'
Kisame, finally over his shock of what the pinkette had said to him, turned around to face the other person sitting in the seat to his right and grinned. In anything below a whisper, an even larger grin inching onto his face (though it must hurt to grin so widely), he spoke to the raven haired boy with equally matching raven coloured eyes that seemed to just suck you in like an abyss at the bottom of the ocean.
"Told you the kitten's interesting"
His friend merely 'hn'd' and looked back towards the board at the front of the class; although it didn't look it, his mind was more focused on the conversation he'd shared with his dear brother last night in the dark corners of the underground bar...
