BLOOD-STAINED CHERRY BLOSSOM
Chapter Ten: Surprising News from a Severed Head
Mad was an understatement. Furious was close to how she was feeling. Completely enraged was what she would use to describe her current emotional state.
After leaving the sparring room, Sakura stomped angrily down the hallway, wanting to distance herself as far from Itachi as possible. He should have not interfered with her fight with Deidara! Had she not shown him that she was perfectly capable of defending herself, that she was strong and competent? Apparently not, for he marched right into her battle, making her appear weak and incapable in front of the rest of the Akatsuki! Sakura let out an angered snarl as she rounded a corner, thankful that the man who evoked her fury was not following her, or she would probably attack him right then and there.
She contemplated going back to her room, but the Uchiha also resided in the same area and she did not want to see him for the remainder of the day. So she went to the next best place that she was allowed to be in: the infirmary.
Sakura opened the door to the hospital with more force that necessary as it ricocheted backwards after hitting the wall loudly. This fierce action earned a confused looked from the blue man-shark sitting up in the nearest hospital bed reading a book. Sakura sighed when she remembered that Kisame was still staying in the medical wing until his infected wound was healed. Oh well, she would rather hang out with the shark than his partner.
"Shit. What the hell happened to you?" Kisame raised an eyebrow at the girl.
Sakura realized that he was not talking about her present emotional condition, but rather the wound on her neck. Sakura lightly touched the tender injury with her hand, feeling the warm blood steadily streaming down her throat. Damn Deidara.
"Nothing. Just had a spar against Deidara," Sakura responded, feeling her face heat in anger as she recalled Itachi stepping into the fight. She quickly approached to the medical closet to hide her enraged expression from Kisame and look for supplies to treat her new wound the old-fashioned way, for her chakra was still sealed.
Although her back was turned to Kisame, she could easily detect the amusement in his voice. "Ah, that kid finally arrived, huh? You must have provoked him pretty bad to deserve that," he commented.
"I didn't provoke him," Sakura quickly snapped, her anger clouding her judgment, "He challenged me!"
Lucky for her, Kisame did not seem offended that she yelled at him, but rather more amused. "Could have fooled me," he said smugly, hinting at Sakura's touchy attitude. Sakura scoffed at him as she turned around with a bundle of medical supplies in her arms. "Anyway, did you win?" he continued.
"Technically, yes," Sakura said a bit haughtily as she sat down on the bed next to Kisame's, "But your partner, Uchiha, interfered and stopped the fight before I could." Kisame noted how her hands balled into tight fists, her knuckles white. So Itachi was the source of her rage? Women were so petulant.
"Why did he interfere?" the blue man asked.
Sakura's head snapped up to look at him, her eyes burning in rage. Kisame's smile instantly disappeared when he saw her furious expression. "Because he is an arrogant bastard that thinks he can do whatever he wants to people without consequence or a care in what the other people need!" she practically screamed, making Kisame flinch.
After a few moments of tense silence after her outburst, Sakura exhaled to calm herself and opened a bottle of disinfectant and began dabbing it on her neck, ignoring the sting of alcohol on her opened skin. "Damn Uchiha, thinks he's so great. Well he's not," she muttered to herself as she wrapped the injury in bandages, but Kisame could clearly hear her. He sighed at the small girl's ramblings and curses towards his partner. Not only were women petulant, but they were psychotic too.
"Anyway, how is your ankle doing?" she asked, needing something to distract her from her rage. And here she thought the spar was going to calm her afterwards. Oh how wrong she was.
Kisame swung his legs over the side of the bed and placed both of his feet firmly on the floor before he rolled up the left side of his sweatpants to his knee, revealing his wrapped ankle. Sakura scooted the bed she was sitting on closer to his and bent down to take his foot in her hand. She gently placed his extended foot on her seated form so she could better examine it, but she noticed Kisame tense a bit as she did so. She assumed that he was probably not used to being tended to or physically examined. Her medical instincts activated, she tried to make Kisame feel at ease, as if he was just an ordinary patient of hers and not an Akatsuki criminal.
"Relax, Kisame, I'm not going to bite," she said softly as she began unwrapping the bandages, her rage completely dissolved as she became distracted with her medical duty.
Kisame brushed his hair back with one of his hands. "Is it that obvious that I'm uncomfortable?" he asked sheepishly.
"Well, I've seen it a lot, though," Sakura began to explain, "Men sometimes tense up when female medics examine them, either because they think we are incapable of healing them or because of our… anatomical differences. I have to admit it can be a bit awkward for me too. But this is just an ankle, so it's all good."
Although Kisame didn't say anything, Sakura noticed his body relax a bit. He was probably thanking the heavens that the metal hunting trap didn't close around his manhood. She smiled slightly at the humorous thought.
Once his ankle was completely unwrapped, Sakura examined the wound. The swelling had decreased considerably and was no longer oozing pus. The red streaks under his skin that stretched to the injury were now gone, signaling that the wound was no longer infected. Even the gashes where the snare enclosed its metal teeth around his ankle were even mostly healed.
"Wow, it looks great! Or at least significantly better than before!" she commented, "You must be a fast healer."
Kisame shrugged as he observed his ankle. "Can I walk on it?" he asked, slowly rolling his ankle side to side.
Sakura began collecting the medical supplies. "I would still take it easy for the rest of today. Try putting some weight on it tomorrow," she advised as she put the supplies in the closet.
Kisame seemed to pout slightly as he pulled his legs back onto the bed and picked up the book that he had set down earlier. She found it surprising that he had been listening to her medical advice. Most male shinobi were impatient and tried to get back into the field before they completely healed, resulting in making the previous injury worse than before. Maybe she should not be so quick to judge the Akatsuki members, or at least not judge Kisame. Even though he was a complete dick to her yesterday, he seemed like a harmless patient. He may be amused by her brash attitude, but at least he didn't want to kill her, unlike the rest of the Akatsuki.
The girl yawned, stretching her limbs as she did and began walking towards the exit. Her spar made her exhausted. Sakura was about to leave when she realized that Itachi was probably back in her area of the hideout, waiting for her return. Well, she did not want to even look at the Uchiha, yet alone forgive him. So she turned her body away from the door and sat back down on the hospital bed next to Kisame's.
Kisame broke his eyes away from his book as he cast a sideways glance at Sakura. "What? Do you need something?" he asked.
"No," Sakura responded, "But I am sleeping here tonight, hope you don't mind. You are the only person that I can tolerate being in the same room with at the moment." Ending with that, Sakura slid her legs under the thin white covers of the hospital bed and rested her head on the pillow. "Don't try anything though!" she concluded, pointing a finger in Kisame's direction, eyes blazing an emerald fire before they quickly shut. Her voice was menacing, showing promise that there will be dire consequences if he did so.
As the girl quickly drifted to sleep, Kisame shook his head and focused his attention back to his book. Not only were women petulant and psychotic, but they were perplexing as well.
Sakura slowly drifted out of a dreamless sleep when she felt a presence next to her bed. She should have been more alert, living with six unpredictable criminals, but she kept her eyes closed as she adjusted her head on the pillow, hoping that whoever it was would just leave her be. She was far too tired to deal with anyone at the moment.
They weren't leaving. With each passing second, Sakura became more annoyed that whoever-it-was was still hovering over her, making her uncomfortable. Eyes still closed and eyebrows arched in irritancy, she finally spoke. "What?" she addressed the person. She hoped that it wasn't Itachi, coming to yell – or rather talk sternly – to her about sleeping in the infirmary, or Kisame trying to kill her in some shark-instinct freak attack. She wasn't really in the mood to be chastised or killed.
"Get up."
Sakura practically jumped when she heard that the deep, gruff, demanding voice did not belong to either Kisame or Itachi, but rather Kakuzu. However, when she opened her eyes, she was not staring at Kakuzu, but rather Hidan.
Or rather Hidan's severed head, just inches away from her face.
Too startled to even scream, Sakura leaped to the other side of the bed, trying to distance herself from the man's bleeding head cut cleanly at the neck. His violet eyes were rolled back into his head and his tongue was sticking out the side of his mouth, which was also leaking streams blood. Kakuzu was holding the dismembered head by Hidan's silver hair and his body hoisted over his shoulder, watching her reaction calmly, as if it was normal to thrust the bloody body parts of his partner into people's faces to wake them up.
As she scrambled away from the grotesque and disgusting scene before her, the covers tangled around her legs, she fell off the side of the bed, landing harshly on the floor. "What the fuck?!" she screamed at Kakuzu as she managed to sit up from on the floor, peering warily over the side of the bed, face flushed in anger, surprise, and embarrassment.
Sakura jumped a third time when Hidan's severed head started laughing. His tongue disappeared back into his mouth and his violet eyes rolled forward so they were facing the confused and frightened pinkette.
"You should see the look on your face!" Hidan managed to gasp between his hearty laughter, spitting out droplets of blood as he did so. Kisame, who had woken up moments before to watch the scene before him unfold, was sitting up in his bed, laughing his ass off as well. The only people in the room who did not seem amused by this whole act were Kakuzu and Sakura.
Everything Sakura was taught in the medical field was being defied right before her eyes. There was a severed head, laughing at her, clearly still alive despite being separated by its body. Even with Hidan still being alive, Sakura wondered how his head could even be laughing and talking without having any lungs.
"You are probably curious as to what is going on," Kakuzu addressed to Sakura over the maniacal laughter, easily reading her confused expression. "I shall explain. But first, I need you to attach Hidan's head back to his body."
The body that was slung over his shoulder was dropped on the bed that Sakura had previously occupied moments ago, the head soon to follow.
"Mind telling me what the hell is going on?" Sakura muttered, not bothering to censor herself as she received a large needle and thread from the medical closet. Although these supplies were normally used in stitching to close up deep gashes in flesh, Kakuzu insisted that it was the only thing that she needed to reattach Hidan's head.
"Well, first I had this brilliant idea," Hidan interrupted, his severed head resting on the pillow a few inches away from his body, "We were sparring at the time with weapons soon after Deidara's and your match, and I had just gotten my head chopped off by this motherfucker with a battle axe," he cast an annoyed sideways glance at his partner, who was watching Sakura carefully, his arms crossed in front of him. "Well, Kakuzu usually reattaches any limbs of mine, but I said, 'Wait, we should get the pink-haired chick to do it, since she is a medic anyway.' Then I could scare the shit out of you before telling you the news."
Sakura lifted an eyebrow. "News? What news?" she asked, rolling a chair next to the bed, needle in one hand and thread in the other. She prayed that it wasn't bad news. But if Hidan was the messenger, then it could only be bad news.
It was Kakuzu who spoke next. "A few hours after your spar, Itachi approached us with an offer," Sakura grimaced slightly at hearing his name, but continued to listen. "He said that it would be optimal to bring you along on our latest bounty mission. You have clearly demonstrated that your healing abilities are exceptional, and we need a healer to keep the bounty alive. We have a higher mission success rate when our bounties are required to be dead, but our client wants to interrogate the person. Hidan is a loose cannon when it comes to combat, and I don't exactly have a… calm temperament. Both are bad characteristics for our assignment. So it is ideal for you to accompany us on the mission to ensure that our bounty is kept alive."
Sakura was sure she was gaping at this point, but she did not care. She stayed in a frozen position as she processed the information that she just heard. She was allowed to leave the hideout? Sure, it was for a mission to aid the Akatsuki, but she was being allowed freedom, even if it was temporary. And of all people, the most paranoid person that was concerned about her escape, the Uchiha, was permitting her to leave! Well, he should be paranoid. She was definitely going to use this opportunity to escape or alert Kakashi and Naruto of the Akatsuki.
"Don't get any ideas," Kakuzu growled menacingly, as if able to see her plans of escape through her eyes, "You are going to be watched carefully, and if we even suspect that you are trying to escape, then we have been given permission by Itachi to take drastic measures to ensure that you arrive back here, more or less in one piece," he hinted. Sakura showed no fear as she stared defiantly back at Kakuzu, but his threat made her realize the severity of the consequences of her trying to leave. And Itachi was giving him permission to do this, after all this time of ensuring her safety? He really did not want her to escape, the bastard. But why? Why was it so important that she remained in his possession?
"I wouldn't dream of it," she muttered dryly to Kakuzu, who narrowed his eyes at her brash attitude.
"Hey!" exclaimed Hidan's head, gaining the attention of Sakura, "Are you going to reattach my head or not? This fucking hurts!"
Sakura scowled at Hidan's rudeness, but she lifted the needle to his bleeding neck and began to sew small stiches into his skin. She had to admit this was incredibly awkward, sewing Hidan's head back to his shoulders with him watching her do so. She went slowly, not wanting to do a bad job and have his head fall off from bad stitching. But in her defense, she never had to reattach a head to a body before.
After the fourth stitch, Hidan spoke, his voice annoyed. "This is taking way too long and it hurts like hell. Kakuzu, can you finish the job, eh?" Sakura happily stopped sewing as Kakuzu extended an arm in the direction of Hidan's head. Suddenly, thick black threads shot out from Kakuzu's arm and quickly laced around the skin, firmly attaching his head. Sakura gulped as Hidan sat up and rubbed the stitching on his neck. "Ah, much better."
"How is this even possible?!" Sakura exclaimed, mentally checking off all of the medical reasons why the reattachment of Hidan's head to his body was inconceivable. It infuriated her slightly that he was defying her medical logic, logic that she had spent years studying until she knew everything and more about healing. Now her knowledge meant nothing, and this irked her more than she could handle.
"They are the Zombie Combo," Kisame spoke, smirking at her, "They are immortal."
Sure, Sakura knew that the Akatsuki was composed of people with extraordinary abilities, but she would have never guessed that two of them were immortal. She tried not to act surprised, but Hidan grinned at her flabbergasted expression. "Impressed, aren't you?" he commented, a wide smirk stretching across his face.
Sakura crossed her arms. No wonder the guy was so confident and uncouth all the time; he was immortal and could avoid getting into serious trouble because of it. "Hardly," she responded, trying not to give him the satisfaction of her impression of his ability.
"We leave tomorrow morning for the mission," Kakuzu interrupted before walking out the door, soon followed by Hidan, "Be prepared by then."
Sakura had just left the infirmary, a bag of medical supplies in her hand for the mission. She was feeling strangely upbeat about this new turn of events. She should feel sickened that she was going to help the Akatsuki on a mission, but the joy of being able to go outside seemed like a miracle. She relished the fact that this proceeding was caused by her captor, Uchiha, for it would make it that much more blissful for her when she escaped and it was his fault.
Sakura rounded the corner to the hallway where her bedroom was only to see the Uchiha walking out of his bedroom. They locked eyes for a moment, abyss looking down at jade, both of them unmoving. Sakura suddenly had the urge to thank him for giving her this opportunity, but the words never came out of her mouth. After all, why should she thank him for granting her some freedom? It was his fault that she was in this predicament anyways.
The Uchiha noticed her lips part as if to say something, but she never did. He sighed and continued walking down the hallway, passing the unmoving girl who was debating thanking him. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards slightly, the conflicts of her inner debate outwardly showing her frustration on her face.
Before he reached the end of the hallway, Sakura heard him mutter a soft, "Your welcome." Sakura snapped out of her thoughts, automatically turning around to thank him, but he had already disappeared from the area.
A/N: …And another adventure for Sakura begins! I really enjoyed writing this chapter, probably because Hidan was in it, ha ha. I am most likely going to post a short Akatsuki story involving him at some point.
Unfortunately, I am going back to college at the end of this week, so I don't think I will be able to post the chapters as quickly as I did this summer vacation. Even though I posted weekly while working three part-time jobs, schoolwork and soccer are going to take over my life until winter break begins. But I might be more motivated to update earlier by reviews…
Stay awesome, my readers, and please review!