Story Title: Unfortunate Circumstances
Chapter Title: 9. Liquid Confidence
Chapter 9 of 11
Arc 1 of 4
Pairing: ItachiSakuraKisame
Rating: M (Swearing, Later chapters)
Author: Backlash Symphony
Summary: Sakura is sent to a tiny village in need of medical help after the death of her husband, Kakashi. The Akatsuki attack, taking control of everything. Due to her reputation, she is forced to help the Akatsuki. More specifically, Kisame.ItaSakuKis
Disclaimer: Nope. Don't own Naruto.
Extra: Tsunade tends to be the bad guy in most of my stories, but honestly I love her to pieces because she made Sakura as strong as she is. But hey, somebody's got to do it, right? So here's the next chapter, a little more romance (not much detail since it's not exceptionally important to this chapter), a little more hintage of the upcoming plot twist, and some more info on our mystery page. Read on, story lovers, read on!
Sakura, Naruto, Sasuke: 20
Itachi, Kabuto: 26
Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Tsunade: 58
Text means normal writing.
'Text' means thoughts.
'Text' means Inner Sakura's thoughts.
Text means flashback.
-Text- means something written.
Two million, four hundred and nineteen thousand, two hundred seconds.
One hundred thousand, eight hundred minutes.
Six hundred and seventy-two hours.
Twenty-eight days.
Four weeks.
One month.
One month.
One month was the total of her imprisonment so far. One of twenty four months completed in this place that was more than Hell could ever beg and pretend to be worse than, because even on the Devil's worst day, he couldn't beat what Sakura had already been through in her single month here with the Akatsuki.
She recounted the events in her head while she busied her hands with dishes from that day's lunch. Technically, she was on month one, day two, but who was counting?
She'd fought Kisame and brutally insulted Itachi more than once, and not to mention the fact that she'd fought with Itachi more than once, also. Add in the Kabuto incident and catching Sasuke with Itachi, the whole Mangekyo experience, and she'd had enough to keep her in bed for another week, but the fun still didn't end. Combine those horrific tests with Itachi and one of her Kakashi-Trauma Episodes with her absence of her inner self and she could definitely say she'd be more than willing to go home and stay there forever. And that kiss. But she wasn't going to even begin to go there.
She dried the last plate in her hands and set it aside with a heavy, drawn out sigh. She was gong to die before she was twenty-one if this kept up.
'Wait, didn't I turn 21 this year?'
This question was followed by some more math and Sakura nodded, yes, she had turned 21 this year. She had turned 21 a few months before, during her mourning period.
'Which explains why I didn't remember if I turned 21 or not. So I'm already in the beginning of June, just lovely. The asshole's day of birth will be in eight days.'
Sakura's eyes slid shut and she nearly collapsed with the irony of the situation. Typical, she'd be stuck doing something for his birthday. She could already picture him waltzing down to breakfast and holding a skimpy leather outfit in his hands, commanding she put it on. She shivered at the thought and had to hold back the nausea in her stomach.
"Oh God, please let me miss it or have him be gone," she prayed, hand splayed across her stomach.
Sakura jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She had to bite down on her tongue to keep from screaming. Abruptly turning on her heel, she knocked the hand off of her shoulder and glared at the towering figure behind her.
"Deidara, what have I told you about sneaking up on me?" she growled at him.
Ignoring the exhaustion that crept through her words, the blonde shrugged and gave a grin that made Naruto look depressed.
"You looked like you were working in auto-pilot, yeah," he explained. "I figured I would help you with the dishes, yeah."
Sakura picked up the plate she'd just put down and waved it in front of Deidara's grinning features with a smirk of her own.
"Just finished the last one, yeah," Sakura announced, raising her brows to emphasize the last word she spoke.
Deidara's face contorted with mild irritation and Sakura let out a soft giggle, nose scrunching. She pressed the dried plate to Deidara's red and black cloak-clad chest and stepped around him, surveying the otherwise empty kitchen on her way to the exit.
"Wait a second, Pinky…yeah," Deidara said suddenly, and before she could turn to look at him he was standing directly in front of her, the plate gone from his hands which were now gripping her upper arms.
"What is it, Deidara?" she responded, her tone betraying her lack of sleep.
All she wanted to do was finish her work for the day and go to sleep. She had already cooked her two meals of the day. She deserved a little rest, right?
'Unless karma decides to be a bitch. AGAIN,' she thought grudgingly.
"Oh, well, you see…I was kind of…yeah, hoping we could spend some time together today…yeah? You can get back to work a bit later, yeah!" he exclaimed, overly enthusiastic to the point that Sakura wanted nothing more than to sock him one right in the face.
"And how is that supposed to appeal to me?" she countered, irritated, as she shook his hands from her arms. "If you'll excuse me, I have work to-"
"But we'll do something you want! Yeah! We can go train! I know you haven't trained in a while, right? Yeah! Or I can get you some new books to read, like this really cool fantasy book about this heroine who falls for the enemy leader of another country when she's kidnapped and it turns out she's just as strong as he is and they're-"
"What part of 'I have work to complete' don't you understand!" Sakura snapped, glaring harshly at him as he moved in front of her again, blocking her way out of the kitchen.
"Um, well Sakura, you should probably get some rest seeing as how you've worked yourself too hard th-"
"Deidara, I swear to GOD if you don't move out of my way I'll punch you so hard every person in this complex will pass out when you do," she threatened, fist looming in the air.
She was closing in on him and he was stepping back. His attempts of making her calm down were to simply hold his hands in front of him and keep talking to her.
"Now, now, Sakura, don't get too hasty, yeah!" he whispered frantically, backing up some more as she drew her fist back.
"If you don't get out of my way I'm going to-"
"Be logical, Sakura, don't do this yeaaahh!"
The blonde man ducked down as a fist barely whizzed over his head. The pissed rosette-haired woman took her chance and maneuvered around Deidara's huddled body and jogged for the door across the hall that would lead her to her lab and that horrendous work she would finish before she'd catch some well-deserved sleep on her relatively comfortable mattress.
Her hand circled the door handle and she managed to open it a few inches before a very masculine hand slammed the door shut. She jumped, startled, and then turned to look at the panicked features of Deidara.
"S-Sakura, you shouldn't be so violent, yeah," he nervously stated, and Sakura simply gazed at him.
His single visible eye was wide, the blue that was once a deep color slightly paled, his pupil dilated. His skin was paler than his normal tan shade and she could spot the little drops of sweat around his eyebrows and above his lips. From this and his stuttering of her name, she could tell that he was either scared shitless, or keeping one very immense secret that would in the end leave him in a bad position.
Emerald eyes narrowed, she queried, "What exactly is it that you're keeping from me, blondie?"
He opened his mouth to respond but Sakura cut him off quickly.
"And know that I will know if you're lying to me or telling me the truth."
She tried to open the door again but he pushed hard, keeping it shut. Sakura knew that whatever it was that he was afraid of her seeing, it would be found in her lab.
'Looks like I'll need a plan,' she thought.
"Well, nothing thatI'm keeping from you, yeah, you're just over-worked, is all, so you must be paranoid, yeah!" Deidara muttered rapidly, then continued. "Which means rest is what you need! And maybe another one of those pills in your bag," he suggested.
"Paranoid like you were when you first started killing here, you mean?" Sakura retorted callously.
The blonde's eyes widened considerably and she felt his strength leave the door.
'Going for it!'
With an additional burst of chakra to her hand, she yanked on the door handle, hard enough that it opened more than a foot and Deidara couldn't close it in time before her eyes took in what had been hiding behind her door. Her shoulders dropped and she slumped forward, barely feeling Deidara's arm encircling her waist to prevent her from falling.
"Tell me I'm seeing things, Deidara," she murmured fearfully, unable to quell the tears building around the rims of her eyes.
"I'm sorry Pinky, yeah, but you're not," he apologized, hoisting her up and gazing over her shoulder at the damage within the walls of her lab.
"All my work, Deidara…all of my work!" she gasped, clutching the arm at her waist as if it were her lifeline. "Oh God, I'll have to start from scratch, all those tests and samples…"
She took a shaky step forward, hardly registering where she was going, only that she needed to be inside her lab, to be in the midst of the explosion of items littering her floor. She needed to look at everything, see if anything could be salvaged from the destruction in the only place she felt she had total reign over, total safety from the peering, prodding eyes of them.
She felt pieces of glass crunch beneath her sandals, emerald orbs surveying her surroundings with utter grief and distress. Her carefully stacked books were all lying in various positions on the floor and her desk, pages ripped out and scattered amongst the debris of glass shards from shattered test tubes, broken microscopes and stethoscopes, and puddles of coagulating blood mixing with chemicals and ink.
Those notebooks she had so tediously written her meticulous notes and thoughts in were ripped, page by page, some sitting in the puddles of liquids, others sliced by the fallen shards. Some pages were ripped, the rest lying at random about the room. The medical records that had been sitting on the desk were gone, along with nearly half the books that had been on her bookcase before.
All of her work from the past month, down the drain it went. All that hard effort she had given to discovering what Kisame's condition was would no longer have proof, despite the notes she could remember in her head. She would have to start from scratch, deal with Kisame after they had kissed and Itachi after they had fought, and Deidara? Where would she get their medical records again? She would need those, too!
The blonde was silent behind her, still waiting at the door and simply watching as Sakura nearly stumbled through the room, picking remains up and dropping them after inspecting them. She treated her things like human remains, with care and concern and feeling, as if the glass shards could tell that Sakura was upset that they were broken and could never be fixed again.
He watched as the younger woman bent down and began to pick up pieces of a ripped page, slowly, painfully.
'She didn't even make the mess and she's cleaning it up, yeah,' Deidara thought with something akin to respect flaring in his chest.
Minutes went by and he thought about offering to help her; suggesting that she should go rest; discuss that evening's meal since it was his turn to cook and he wanted to know what she'd like to eat. Nothing came out, though. He remained silent, studying her slender form move to gather shredded papers in one pile and glass remains in another pile. The areas where substances were spilled she left alone, working inch by inch with grace and care, with honest respect for items that never felt, nor would ever feel.
He would never, ever, admit to anyone, but the sight he was witnessing had to be the most beautiful and painful he'd ever experienced.
He wasn't ignorant enough to believe Sakura was mourning for broken pieces. He understood that one month's worth of work was destroyed, never to be seen again. He knew that she would go back to the beginning. She would have to deal with Itachi all over again. He knew, by God, he knew, and he couldn't stand the knowledge he had.
He observed as Sakura crawled forward to the corner of her desk to begin sorting piles out there, but he saw the expression on her face change from one of mourning to one of curiosity and disbelief. His eyes narrowed simultaneously as hers did, and at that very moment he knew the words that would come out of her mouth when she next spoke to him. Her trembling fingers snatched a thread-like hair from a pile of papers, and the color, she knew, wasn't hers, nor was it one that belonged to any other person in the Akatsuki.
She rose smoothly to her feet, clutching the tiny hair tightly between her fingertips, making sure that little piece of evidence she had didn't stray, because she'd be damned if she let that bastard get away with something like this!
'I KNEW that rat was looking for something!!' she screeched in her head, twisting on her heel and stalking towards the door where Deidara stood.
"Sakura-"
"Where's thatasshole Uchiha!" Sakura seethed.
"Sakura, calm dow-"
"Don't you fucking tell me to calm down!" she hollered, giving the hardest of shoves to the blonde, nearly making him fall backwards had he not grasped onto the doorframe for balance. "Where is he?"
Deidara struggled to come up with something to say that would calm the woman's nerves, but nothing appeared in his head. He couldn't tell her where he was, either, for Itachi had been gone since that morning in a meeting, and she wasn't supposed to know that, at all costs.
"You knew my lab was like this, you knew!" she bawled, shoving him again. "And you were trying to keep me away! Why the fuck would you do something like that, I wonder?" She shoved him harder, and this time he did fall.
"Sakura-"
"Useless, worthless bunch of you, all of you!!"
The blonde winced at her loud voice and attempted to stand but Sakura wouldn't settle for it. She thrust his shoulder backwards, causing him to fall once again. Then she gathered her chakra in her main focus points and let it take care of the rest. If Deidara wouldn't tell her where the Uchiha was, then she would use her skills to find out, because that monster was in for a heavy pummeling when she found him.
The threads of her chakra surrounded her before they darted out in every possible direction, each connected to a sensor that would link her to Itachi's form should one of them run into him.
Those sensors were slithering through walls and up the stairs, dissecting every little thing they came across in the hopes to find the object that would soon discover that the wrath of Sakura Haruno was not something to be toyed with, especially in the state she was already in.
'Come on, come on, where are you, you son of a bitch…GOT YOU!'
One of her threads sent waves of alarm back to her body, alerting her of his presence on the upper level. She summoned the remainder of her chakra threads into her body and raced up the stairs, clenching the silver hair in her hand, following the final thread that would take her to him.
The familiar hallway was a blur to her peripheral vision as she dashed down it, taking a short right that brought her to a door beyond which she could sense the chakras of three separate people. She slammed her fist into the wooden door, sending it bursting open.
"Found you, you son of a bitch," Sakura growled, striding through the doorway, evidence held safely in her palm.
The room was one with a simple table and enough chairs to fit at least a dozen people. Two of those chairs were occupied by a talking Sasuke Uchiha and ill-looking Itachi Uchiha, and the latter of the two was looking exceptionally pissed off at the unwanted interruption. When Sakura's hand descended upon the tabletop, the whole room shook and the two men thought momentarily that the table would snap into pieces from the sheer force Sakura subjected it to.
"What is that you wan-"
"You fucking crossed the line this time, you fucking liar!" Sakura furiously exclaimed. "'Your business is with medicine. My business is with Kabuto and Sasuke. That means you stay out of my business, and we're all happy, got it?' Does that sound fucking familiar, you cheapskate son of a bitch?" she reminded the elder Uchiha.
"If all you had to say to me was that, then I don't want to see you until I expressly call for you," Itachi said with a tone of absolute annoyance and fury.
"Oh no, you aren't getting out of this that easily. You don't send that ass-kissing bastard into my lab and have him destroy everything I've been working on and then expect me to start from scratch without so much as a word about how it happened to get that way," Sakura cried out, voice escalating with each sentence.
"The lab was destroyed?" Itachi asked in curiosity.
"Don't fucking play with me, Uchiha! You said my job was to stick to medicine, yours was to stick to Kabuto, and I planned to abide by those wishes up until the point where you decided to cross into my section of the deal and meddle with things that don't concern either of you!"
Itachi's eyes narrowed severely, to near slits of pulsing crimson aimed with the intent to kill towards Sakura's person. He swiftly stood, his towering form intimidating to none in the room over Sakura's flourishing fury. He took calculated steps towards her trembling body, never once pulling his gaze from hers.
"You dare to accuse Kabuto-"
She slammed her hand onto the table once again and the crack that resounded throughout the room had Sasuke rising to his feet a few yards from her. She removed her hand and pointed down at the shining strand of silver-grey hair lying innocently on the tabletop.
"I'll dare when I've got the evidence to prove that sneaky little bitch was inmy lab!!"
Two sets of Sharingan eyes flickered towards the shimmering hair on the table before moving back to Sakura's heavily breathing form.
"Hidan has-"
"Hair too short to have produced that and is closer to white than grey, Uchiha," she countered defensively. "Do you understand that by sending him to destroy all of my work, I now have reason to believe not only that you're trying to prevent me from finding something out, but that by making a deal with me under false pretenses you are voiding our agreement?" she snarled as sweat began to build at her brow. "Quite frankly, I don't think you seem to comprehend that by these little pranks you keep pulling to throw me off course, you're only damaging yourself in the long run."
The only noise in the room after that were the sound of Sakura's heavy breaths, and despite her grave accusations, she still had yet to finish.
"Believe me when I tell you that I will figure out what it is that you're hiding from me. I will get you caught in a lie. I will get all that information you had destroyed returned properly, and believe me, Uchiha," Sakura paused, gauging his reaction as she prepared her words, "I will prove you wrong."
The tense air between them was tangible, and Sakura felt that she only had one final sentence to say to him before she went to her room for some well-well-well-deserved sleep.
"If you pull one more of these, then our deal is officially null and void, and you can kiss my ass goodbye and find yourself a new medic."
The pink-haired woman was sending one final glare towards the elder Uchiha, who cocked his head slightly, before she made to turn and exit the room. She was out of the room before Itachi or Sasuke could make any remarks about her behavior.
Sasuke turned to look at Itachi, registering the intensity of his gaze in Sakura's direction. He chanced a look at the hair on the table and felt a small smirk of triumph cross his lips.
Sakura could feel his presence beside her bed the moment he had appeared in her room. Had this been any other time when she was younger, she would've enjoyed him being there, but now that she had outgrown her feelings for his emotionless self and moved on, the only wish she had concerning him was that he get out and leave her to her rest.
"Get out of my room, Sasuke," Sakura muttered in a tone of authority, snuggling into her sheets more deeply, craving the warmth they offered her.
When she felt the bed dip with an additional weight, she knew that karma had decided to butt in where she didn't belong and prolong her precious sleep. Sasuke also hadn't figured out that the world didn't revolve around him, either.
'What good is Orochimaru for, then, if he couldn't even teach him such a simple little thing?' she thought, snickering in her head.
"What, you don't miss me, Sakura?"
The humor in his voice –she would hardly call it that considering how little of it there was- didn't go unnoticed by Sakura. She twisted in the sheets, flopping unceremoniously onto her other side so she could face Sasuke and set him with a look of complete irritation.
"No more than I'd miss a poisoned wound," she deadpanned. "Now, do me a favor and get out of my room. I'm tired, and people who are tired sleep, and if you don't let this woman sleep, you'll be lucky if you get out of that door with everything intact, and since we both know how much Sasuke Jr means to you, I'd suggest a very hasty getting out, don't you agree?"
Sasuke, disgruntled at her comment about his 'family jewels', crossed his legs protectively and went back to talking to her.
"You've changed a lot since we were teens."
"Oh God, Sasuke, just get out!" Sakura cried, snatching her pillow and sitting up. "Reminisce later, let me sleep now!"
She began swatting at him with the pillow, aiming to smack him right in the face, but before she could get a decent swing in, he caught the fluffy object and held it in place. Sakura glowered at him, still half-asleep. However, she dropped the pillow immediately when his fingers brushed across her own. She wasted no time in kicking the blankets from her body and standing beside the bed, eyeing him with brewing anger and recovering hatred as her sleepiness reversed and converted her into a fully alert, fully pissed, medic.
"Just what was that?" she snarled.
Sasuke rose to his full height, straightening the white robes he wore that opened to expose a glimpse of his chiseled upper body.
'Looks like he's been spending too much time with Hidan.'
"What was what?" he asked, sparing a few moments to glance appreciatively at her pajama-clad body.
That look definitely didn't go unnoticed by the rosette-haired woman who immediately began to regret wearing thin-strapped tank tops and girl boxers to sleep in. Just like she was under the impression of her lab being her safe haven, her room was nothing more than a room to be broken into. How she let herself believe anywhere in this cursed complex was safe was utterly beyond her comprehension at that moment.
She simply hoped that the heat she felt on her skin was due to Sasuke's gaze and not her own embarrassment. Hell, she could fight the Akatsuki and survive. She could solve rubix cubes in mere minutes. She could heal a fully mutilated body in under two hours. She was Sakura Haruno, former apprentice of the current hokage. She could handle a glance of appreciation of her body from the man who she had believed to be gay once she initially got over him due to his lack of interest in the female population.
However, karma be damned, if he tried anything she would hurt him where it really counted.
But God did she wish she had pants on, at least. It would make her feel safer, it honestly would.
"You could, you know, stop staring at my body like you've never seen a woman before?" Sakura suggested, crossing her arms over her chest in an attempt to give her some much-needed warmth.
She wouldn't admit that she had looked at him at least once, but with a woman looking at a man's upper body, it was different. Women didn't look at men's naked legs and exposed waists for any reason near identical to the reasons why men gazed at those spots on women.
When his onyx eyes slid back up to match with her jade ones, she could see that what he had been doing was simply an introduction to something exceptionally serious, something she wasn't sure applied to Sasuke Jr or something else. Regardless, the weighted look in his eyes was more than enough to tell her she needed to keep her guard up.
"It's been a long time since we were 15," he explained, beginning to walk around the perimeter of the bed. "We've matured, changed, advanced. You look like someone who I would bother my time with. You have strength you severely lacked when we were younger. You have maturity that is overly becoming."
"Sasuke, if this is some sort of prelude to wooing me into letting you get into my pants so you can revive your clan, then I'll have to stop you where you are," Sakura hurriedly stated, keeping in mind the close proximity Sasuke was beginning to get to her. "In case you've forgotten, I already married Kakashi and my feelings for you are completely gone. I grew out of it, and I'm not the type of woman who believes in one-night stands, either."
'And if he gets any closer, I'm going to be against that wall. Shit!'
Sakura sidestepped and began to walk back, continuing to talk to Sasuke in the hopes to avert his attention to her lack of interest. He simply followed after her, however, like some hungry puppy that could smell the food in a person's bag.
"Apparently you've become a little more self-centered in our time apart," Sasuke remarked.
Huffing indignantly, Sakura stared angrily at Sasuke.
"And apparently, our time apart hasn't dulled your egotism one bit," she countered. "Before we get on the wrong track again, what is it that you actually want with me? I know that the snake must be missing you terribly, and I'm sure Kabuto is wreaking havoc, as usual. Shouldn't you be meeting with Itachi or something?"
"I would've been if you hadn't barged in and interrupted us. Now he's off somewhere with Kabuto, probably talking to him about patience and plans," Sasuke explained.
Sakura rolled her eyes and said, "That asshole thinks he can get away with everything but he's just a selfish bastard with nothing better to do than make people's lives miserable."
A smirk crossed Sasuke's features and he let out a short, low chuckle.
"Now you can get some understanding regarding what I've been talking about."
Sakura stared at Sasuke for a few moments before she shook her head.
"No, actually, not in the slightest. He killed your family. He killed-" Sakura paused, remembering the theory she'd had about Sasuke being the murderer of Kakashi. "He only forced me to make a deal with him to work with him."
"I could've sworn he'd killed Kakashi, however," he mused, his tone expressing that he was baiting Sakura.
She scrunched her nose in annoyance and started to rub her arms.
"I don't have enough evidence to prove that yet. While I was told he was the one, and he admitted to doing it, I'm still seeing…other possibilities."
Sasuke stepped closer to her and Sakura stood her ground. A thought crossed her mind that he was trying to intimidate her out of information, but he had crossed into territory he knew better than she did. This was only proving he knew something about Kakashi's death which was a plus for her.
"Other possibilities? Such as?"
Sakura paused again before saying, "Other possibilities." Before Sasuke could say anything else, she continued. "Are you here to interrogate me about Kakashi or did you have something you actually wanted?"
"When did you become so perceptive?"
Sakura scoffed, rolling her eyes.
"When did you become all buddy-buddy with the man you swore you would kill?"
Sasuke looked down at the ground, seemingly contemplating the question. Minutes of silence swept by, Sakura still on guard, still thinking about her situation and possible questions she could get away with asking and having answered.
"I've got nothing to worry about," he spoke finally, tilting his gaze up to Sakura's eyes. "My brother is…not himself anymore."
And the way he spoke those words sent shivers throughout her body. The way he held her eyes with intensity told her there was more to his words than he let on and he didn't intend to share with her what that other meaning was.
Narrowing her eyes, she noted, "Any normal person could see that he's got severe personality issues, possibly even schizophrenia, so yeah, he's definitely not himself anymore, I've noticed."
"His birthday is coming up, so be alert. He'll need some time to himself."
"Wait, what?"
Sasuke nodded to her, bidding her goodbye, and made his way to the door.
"Hey, where do you think you're going!" Sakura cried out, chasing after him.
His hand on the doorknob was knocked off by hers as she spun him around, planting his back roughly against the wall beside the door and holding him there with one hand around his wrist and the other pressed against his chest. He looked down at her with disinterest but he didn't try to get out of her hold.
"You don't just come in here and prevent me from my sleep and then leave after giving me these stupid cryptic messages to figure out!" She shook him slightly. "You're just like your damn br-"
"Sakura?" a voice called out from the other side of the door.
She jerked her head to look at the door and released Sasuke's wrist, turning the knob so the door would open. Deidara stood there, a guilty look plastered on his face. Sakura suppressed her anger and pulled away from Sasuke, motioning for him to leave.
"I'll be seeing you again, Sakura," he said matter-of-factly before he brushed past Deidara on his way down the hall.
"No, Sasuke, you won't," she whispered, inhaling deeply to deter her remaining emotions.
She turned her gaze to Deidara and said derisively, "I'm going to go to sleep. Talk to me in the morning," and she slammed the door in his face.
Breakfast had a pleasant absence that morning. There was no Itachi sitting at the table and Sasuke's presence seemed to have disappeared entirely. Deidara and Kisame were the only two at the table who put Sakura's nerves to the test, but she would clean her lab later and get as much information back as she could without thinking about the two of them or Sasuke's half-assed attempts at scaring her.
She left her dishes in the sink and left the kitchen, preparing herself for the destruction that was her lab. As she entered the room, a tiny part of her imagined the lab to be entirely cleaned and as normal as it was before it had been destroyed, but the scene she found reminded her that such fantasies were for fairy tales and the mentally disturbed.
She shut and locked her door behind her, knowing she would skip lunch and spend the rest of the day cleaning and organizing the remnants of her hard work. With a sigh, she decided she would continue from where she had left off the day before.
Stepping over shattered glass and paper scraps, she settled herself on the ground at the corner of her desk and began sorting through the debris as she had the previous day. Glass went to her left, paper went to her right. She was determined, more than any other time in her life, to figure out what the meaning was behind the occurrences at this place.
'I will figure this out. I swear it.'
She finished quickly with that area and continued to shuffle across the room, foot by foot, separating glass from papers from chemicals. She dismissed Deidara's call for lunch and about an hour later, she had completely cleared all the broken shards and pieces of equipment, disposing them into a trash can that she had covered with a few trash bags and a layer of duct tape. She had washed the floor and counters, scrubbed the tables of chemicals and ink and blood, and rinsed everything that was salvageable, leaving them to dry on a rack next to the sink.
Surveying the room one final time, she dropped her rag into the sink and sighed in relief. Everything was clean and despite the lack of objects that once filled the space, it was comforting. With another sigh, she walked over to the table and began sorting through her shredded papers. It would take a while, but she would piece each section back together and get her data back.
It would have been easier to just ask Itachi for his copies of her notes and make more copies of them, but she was going to do this the right way. She was going to win this little game he had started, and she wouldn't rely on him to assist her in any way.
She dragged a chair and a roll of tape from the desk to the table and sat down, continuing to slowly but surely reconnect the pieces of the pages like an intricate puzzle. She could remember the layout of over a good two thirds of the notes she'd kept, and putting pages together wasn't hard compared to finding the pieces that would fit.
Pieces with straight edges were sent into one pile, fastened together if they matched by a piece of the clear tape. Once she had the borders completed, she worked on filling the whole picture in. Soon she had a stack of papers, horridly crumpled and wrinkled, but whole sheets of tape-connected pages were sitting beside her.
By sight of the small pile of pieces left, she figured she would only need another twenty minutes or so to completely finish this puzzle, and as she moved to start sifting through those pieces, a knock resounded throughout the room. Sakura vaguely recalled the time and realized, to her dismay, that she would have to take a break and go cook dinner before she could finish this project.
"I know, I'm coming," she called out, and she rose, stretched, and stiffly stalked to the door.
She knew that no one would dare come in without her kicking their ass, but that didn't stop her from observing the room one final time and burning its image into her head. If anyone touched anything, she would know. She opened the door and locked it once she was out. She made her way into the kitchen and was surprised to see Kisame sitting at the table, reading a book.
"I'm going to start dinner, so…you can stay, if you won't mind the noise," Sakura said awkwardly.
Kisame looked up from his book before dog-earring the page and setting it down.
"Do you mind if I help?" he asked, standing.
"I'm sure you've got other things to do that are more important," Sakura replied, trying not to seem like the utter fool she felt like she was.
'Honestly, get a grip! You've kissed other men before! This isn't any different!'
"This book isn't so important, and I'm sure you've got other things you want to get back to," he explained.
Sakura nodded and then gave him and nervous smile.
"Alright then, as long as you're positive."
She headed for the fridge, opening the door and scanning the insides for her items she would need to prepare the meal. Making a noise of triumph, she snatched a few bowls and a package, clutching them to her chest and stacking some more items atop the ones she had. She nudged the door shut with her foot and set the items on the table.
"Get the rice started for me, would you please, Kisame?" Sakura asked, spreading the food out.
"Sure," she heard him say before the sounds of clinking pans and scratchy rice permeated the kitchen.
She found a cutting board and a knife and began opening the packages and bowls, separating marinated meat and letting it sit in a bowl. She sliced up some vegetables and dipped them into batter, coating them thoroughly. Kisame appeared behind her and started to take the meat and place the strips into a pan. Sakura brought the veggies into a separate pan, placing it atop the flame on the stove.
She moved to the sink to wash her hands and said, "Now we just wait for it all to cook. Will you empty out the dishes and-"
"Already two steps ahead of you," he said, and Sakura glanced over her shoulder to see that the bowls and cutting board were stacked and he was setting the table.
Sakura couldn't hold back the smile that lit up her face. This was something that felt right. This felt comfortable and safe to her, and no matter how she tried to make herself believe this was fake, she knew it wasn't.
"Is something the matter?" Kisame's voice brought her from her thoughts and she abruptly shook her head.
"No, I'm fine."
'Was I staring at him or something?'
Sizzling erupted from the pans as the food cooked and Sakura dried her hands before she helped Kisame with setting the table. The silence, to her, wasn't entirely awkward, but bringing up what had happened, just talking to him regularly, was a difficult thing to do. She wanted to talk with him, but she was afraid that saying it would make it all real. She still wasn't even sure if it was a good thing or not, what had happened.
"Sakura?" Kisame asked, tone soothing to her nerves.
"Yes?" she replied, wishing, wishing.
"I think we need to talk about what happened the other day."
'Shit.'
Sakura placed the last bowl she had down, gripping it with both hands. Her eyes seemed to find the tabletop interesting and she bit her lip in unease.
"We're both adults here, Kisame," she explained, not paying much attention to the shuffling of his feet. "We're enemies, and what happened, no matter how wonderful it was, shouldn't have transp-mmmh!"
'God, if lips could kill…'
She could imagine him apologizing in his head for kissing her again, but she wasn't going to accept it when he said it out loud. Her fingers released the bowl and ran through his hair, over the sides of his face, his neck, his shoulders, whatever she could grab a hold of, she did. She ignored the part of her that said they shouldn't be doing this, especially when the smells of cooking food were wafting throughout the complex and they were in the middle of the damn kitchen and-
'God, he's not supposed to be able to do this to me…'
But it was over just as quickly as it began and she was stumbling in her mind for words that were irrelevant but she needed to say something.
"Kisame- oh, hey Pinky, yeah," Deidara called from the doorway, eyeing the pair that was now separated by yards and breathing faster than they should be for cooking.
"Blondie, sneaking up, we've had this discussion a few times before, I know," Sakura explained, partially breathless and mostly angry at herself for being unable to sense him.
"Right, you've mentioned it before, yeah," he said suspiciously, but kept that grin on his face for support. "What's for dinner, yeah?"
"Lamb, breaded veggies, rice. Call everyone down, will you?" Sakura asked, moving over to the stove to flip the veggies and the strips of lamb.
Kisame was stirring the rice in the pot and she caught, from the corner of her eye, the smirk aimed in her direction. She choked back a laugh and looked away, trying miserably to stifle the blush conquering her cheeks.
"Everyone can smell the food, yeah. They're on their way down, yeah."
"Alright, just take a seat until they get here, then," Sakura said, switching the heat off on the stove and pouring the separate dishes onto plates to set in the center of the table.
Kisame finished with the rice and began spooning it into a large bowl. One by one, the members of the Akatsuki arrived into the kitchen, taking seats and preparing their dishes for their next meal. To Sakura's surprise, Itachi showed up for dinner, but he looked worse than he did the day before.
'Serves him right.'
In the midst of everyone eating, Sakura received compliments on her cooking. She nodded in response but was busy thinking about how she would go about getting the blood samples she had before. She needed to find the medical records, also, and seeing Itachi sitting at the table reminded her of the events in the library.
She knew him using his Sharingan on her had messed her up a bit, leaving her ranting on more than one occasion about difference in the sun being out and the sun having set. The whole experience was bugging her, and the more she pondered on it, the more confused she became. She knew from Kakashi that the whole thing would happen in less than a second while the mind and body thought it took place over the course of 72 hours. It didn't explain why the window showed it being light out when she had first entered his world, and when she came out it had been dark out.
'Unless…would he have done that? But why?'
"Uchiha, I'm going to ask you some questions and I expect you to answer each one honestly," Sakura commanded, placing her chopsticks down and looking over at the ill-appearing man across the table.
She saw his shoulders sag slightly and heard him let out a sigh of annoyance, but she was persistent.
"If it means I won't have to deal with you the rest of the night, so be it," he replied, agitated.
"When was the last time you could see things clearly?"
Itachi's eyes slimmed in a glare at Sakura but he answered, "When I was 23."
Noting that mentally, Sakura continued, "And when your vision was starting to get bad, did using any specific techniques of your Sharingan make immediate damage?"
Itachi nodded slightly, replying, "Mangekyo," while still glaring at her.
Sakura felt her lips quirk up at the corners and she knew her theory was right. By the deadly intent coming from Itachi Sakura knew that he understood she was aware of the actual happenings in the library. He probably already knew her next question.
"And the last time you used the Mangekyo Sharingan?"
He paused, not wanting to answer the question but knowing he didn't have a choice.
"When I was 23."
Sakura nodded to him and stood, gathering her dishes and strolling to the sink to rinse them. After tucking them away on the rack, she walked back to her seat and pushed the chair up against the table.
"I knew there was something off about you."
Sakura wasn't sure what exactly it was that she was seeing. She knew that the paper it was printed on wasn't the paper she used in taking notes. She could see that the printing on the sheet was typed, not hand-written. She saw the words 'no Orochi' printed on the very first line.
The first thing that popped into her head was 'Yamata no Orochi' which just so happened to be the snake from Japanese mythology, and 'Yamata' was the last word on the page that she'd had from that mythology book.
Her nerves got to her and her anxiety rose, leaving her with a look that was partially a grin, partially wide-eyed in shock. She ripped off a piece of tape from the dispenser and began sifting through pieces of paper in the last pile she had. She matched the 'warrior' to 'from', 'Isonade' to 'Samehada', and some more scattered sentences until she finally had a complete page from the mythology book.
Her fingers trembled as she carefully laid the crinkled sheet flat on the table and began to read.
-no
Orochi. The gods of these earthly subjects battled fiercely and the
outcomes of these battles gave name to their
ranks and strengths
which are used in the most modern of our research and societal
applications.
Isonade,
the god of water, fell into the sixth place ranking in strength but
the seventh place
ranking for chakra and stamina. His last recorded
appearance was of a large shark with three tails and three
fins. His
skin had a deep blue shade to assist in remaining hidden from
mankind's peering eyes.
500
years after the Great War of the Biju, a fisherman and brave warrior
from Yokohama, called
Takuma Muramasa, sacrificed himself on behalf
of the two villages, Hi-i-gawa and Izumo, in a courageous act.
He made
it close enough to Isonade to seal his personal servant, Samehada, in
the "Tool of
Power" by use of a seal from the Water shrine.
Isonade lost his ability to draw his
massive chakra from Samehada and
became exhausted, losing his power.
From
this lack of power came the loss of each of his three tails and three
fins.
His horns sunk into his head and he sprouted arms and legs like
a normal human
being. His once dark blue skin lightened to a softer
blue. The worst consequence
of this defeat was that he was banished
to live his remaining years of his life-
Immersed in the story, Sakura flipped the page over only to find that the back, where the rest of the story should've been, was blank save for the few random parts of letters around the page. Sakura struggled to hold in her anger. She had found the next page that she needed to figure out more about this history, and the back wasn't scribbled out or ripped from the book, it was blank.
Her breathing became harsh as she stared at the back of the page, convincing herself that if she stared hard enough, the words would rewrite themselves on the paper. Minutes passed and her shaking the paper and threatening it revealed nothing to her but those tiny little letter fragments.
Everyone in the Akatsuki building then heard a shrill, piercing scream.
Chapter 9, timely and complete! And that whole lab being destroyed thing? I put it in this chapter randomly because the idea just popped into my head and I thought it would make the story a little more interesting.
Anyways, for those of you who thought I wasgoing to disappear again after that last update, obviously I've proven you wrong! Haha, I am victorious! Erm, yeah, I wrote this chapter in about a day and a half. We're closing in on the end of this arc, only two more chapters to go!
So far a few of you have figured out what's really going on, and I give you ginormous congratulations on it because it was a difficult concept at the beginning when most of you got it, so kudos!
Happy belated Thanksgiving to all of you, too!
And thanks to all my lovely reviewers (you guys make my world go round): Chryseis Wyvernsen, SweetAssassin, Serenity Fey, Kisshi-chan, Teslyn, Zamos, Crimson-nightwind, Just me and myself, Manipulated Insanity, Jill BioSkop, Mizu Rei, Marsgoddess1, SpeedDemon315, and Iskah.
Leave reviews, please, and let me know what you guys are thinking. Until later!
Backlash Symphony
