The Infinite Perfection of Being
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
"Dead!"
Sakura couldn't help the satisfied grin that spread across her face at the feel of splintering wood beneath her gloved knuckles. The unadorned marionette broke apart like a house of cards under the brute force of her power punch and landed several yards away in a heap of disjointed limbs.
"Is that all you got?" she added, turning on her heel and ready to pounce once more.
Sasori pursed his lips in irritation. "You've already destroyed three. Who do you think will fix them after this?"
Sakura cracked her knuckles and jumped, twisting to avoid a punch from another puppet. He'd started with five, and now he was down to two. The second puppet flew up next to her as she gracefully dodged the first one's attack, only to punch her forcefully in her left flank. She grunted in pain, but it was just wood. Sakura could handle a few swipes from a doll.
"I thought you were supposed to be able to handle any puppet," she said.
The first puppet, whose punch she'd avoided earlier, materialized behind her and made a grab for her ankles, but one well-aimed stomp to the torso shattered it to smithereens.
"And dead!" she whooped.
"Stop smashing them!" Sasori said. "You know they have no weapons."
"Not my problem!"
Sakura had wanted to get some exercise in today, so she enlisted Sasori's help in the matter. The rest of the puppet brigade was busy working on their original puppets and Sasori's chakra string deflection technique, so Sakura fully intended to take advantage of his free time. Truth be told, she'd been itching for a rematch now that he had his chakra back. The fates, however, were cruel and unforgiving when it came to S-class traitors returned from the dead. Sasori's ANBU guards had outright forbidden him from using armed puppets in any capacity. Now that he had access to chakra, they argued, he was far more dangerous. Who knew what he might be capable of with a fully armed, battle-ready puppet at his disposal?
This is totally useless, Sakura thought. What's the point if he can't use armed puppets?
Without any hidden weapons or traps, Sasori's puppets had to resort to close range taijutsu attacks against Sakura. As a consolation, Sakura promised not to use chakra to enhance her strength. After she'd destroyed the first puppet with little effort even without chakra, he blocked her attempts on the remaining four with strategically timed chakra shields. It was at that point that Sakura decided to throw her promise to the wind and let loose at her full power. Sasori's unarmed puppets began to drop like flies.
It wasn't a complete waste of time, she supposed. Sasori was truly gifted with puppets in any event, and Sakura discovered early on that catching the little buggers was easier said than done. They moved with the grace of prima ballerinas, always twirling just out of range of her super powered kicks and punches at the last minute. Next to them, she felt a bit like a fat, pigeon-toed beetle.
But now Sasori was down to one puppet. The playing field was even and Sakura panted from the exertion. They had been at it for a while now and she felt healthily flushed and energized. But it was time to put an end to their little exercise; she had one more puppet to smash.
"Let's do this," she said.
Sakura and Sasori's remaining puppet clashed in midair. She tried to get a firm hold on it but Sasori artfully manipulated it out of her reach. A gust of wind blew her bangs in her eyes, blinding her momentarily. It was all her wooden opponent needed to land a nasty uppercut to her chin. Sakura's vision swam and her jaw felt like it might fall off, but she ignored the pain. How on earth could she let an inanimate object land such an embarrassing hit on her?
Without thinking, she reached a hand forward and closed her fingers around cool, smooth wood. With a force fueled by angry adrenaline, she yanked the thing up and over her head, twisting her feet with the arc of its trajectory. The sickening crack of wood clashing with earth and failing miserably resounded across the training grounds. The dust began to clear and Sakura loomed over the mess of wood and sand and earth.
"Dea—"
She didn't have a chance to finish her breath when a sudden force of wind and a prickling on the back of her neck alerted her to the impending collision. She barely had enough time to deflect the punch aimed at her left cheek, the force of which sent her staggering backwards. Just as she'd recovered and begun to realize what was happening, another blow honed in on her midsection and forced her to leap awkwardly to the side. She nearly lost her footing and tripped.
Sasori had decided to enter the battle himself, something she had not thought he would do. She knew he preferred fighting at a distance with his puppets, and now that he had chakra she'd assumed he would do just that. Apparently, she had assumed incorrectly. He kept coming at her with a flurry of jabs and kicks, moving too fast to give her a chance to properly recover. It was all she could do to sidestep and twist out of the way. Suddenly, he let up for just a moment, but it was all the time she needed to regain her footing and lunge. Honey met jade as Sakura extended her fist toward that too-perfect face. Closer and closer, and he wasn't even trying to block!
Just a couple more inches and her fist would connect…
And just like that Sakura's fist was moving past Sasori's face. But that was impossible! She hadn't seen him move an inch. Was her aim off? Instinct forced her legs to halt her movement, but they didn't react fast enough. She felt sluggish, like every command her brain was sending out was being ignored. Her fist seemed to be driving her motion of its own free will and her feet were not quick enough to keep up. Eyes wide, Sakura opened her mouth in a silent gasp. She knew this feeling.
In a blur of motion over which she had no control, Sakura found herself falling forward behind her fist, chasing after an unseen target. Or rather, she was being pulled from her fist while the rest of her body followed. Lashes of chakra slashed over her free arm and around her midsection, followed closely by a strong hand gripping her wrist. The force of the chakra strings brought her to an abrupt and unpleasant stop. She tried in vain to suppress the urge to gag at the sudden loss of air. Then, like a queer slingshot, her body recoiled against its previous trajectory until her back came into contact with something hard.
Slender fingers slid along her collarbone and came to a rest about her exposed neck. A soft squeeze made her freeze and abandon any thought of potential resistance. The only sound was that of the breeze rustling her hair. Sasori shifted behind her until his mouth hovered next to the shell of her ear.
"Dead."
His voice, usually so deadpan, was a mere whisper. And something in the way he said it sent shivers up her spine. All of a sudden she took note of their proximity. He was so close she could smell the desert wind in his hair and feel the steady, full beating of his mended heart through their clothes. His fingers were wrapped securely around her neck in a clearly threatening gesture, but their grip was delicate, almost like a loving embrace. He could kill her now, and she truly would be dead.
This man was dangerous, and she had forgotten that.
Sakura shut her eyes tight and tried to regain some sense. Sasori had her in a very compromising position and she was completely at his mercy like this. Pathetic! And she was letting herself become distracted by the soft warmth in his fingers and the firmness of his lean body behind her—
A blush crept up her cheeks and she began to sweat. Where the hell had that come from?
"S-Sasori?" It came out sounding meeker than she would have liked, but his grip on her throat was putting a little too much pressure on her windpipe.
His chakra strings seemed to tighten around her and Sakura sucked in a breath of air through her teeth. She pushed her back into him reflexively to escape the slight sting of his chakra and tried to turn her head toward his to get his attention.
"Yield," he whispered. His face ghosted hers and Sakura could feel his every breath on the shell of her ear.
The sound of his voice made her heart beat a little faster. If she yielded he would release her. That was what happened in spars—one person came out victorious and the other yielded. He had won. It was only natural to yield to him like this, she thought.
"Yield, Sakura."
She tried to swallow and the action returned her attention to his fingers laced about her throat. "I-I yield."
After a moment's hesitation he released her neck and wrist. His chakra strings dissolved on her skin and he took a small step back. Sakura tried to regulate her breathing as she rubbed a hand over her throat. Slowly, she turned to face him.
He was watching her with an unreadable expression in his honey colored eyes. The desert wind lightly tousled his hair and loose clothing. Wooden puppet parts littered the training area behind him. It was like they were a universe unto themselves on that lonely training ground. She was struck in that instant by how fragile he looked. It was strange—he seemed more likely to splinter under her touch now than he'd ever looked as a puppet. She took a step toward him and made to reach out a hand—
"Sasori-sensei!"
Yasude came running up to them looking excited despite the obvious bags under his eyes. Sakura retracted her hand and Sasori seemed to freeze over at the intrusion. The moment was gone, and their universe had been invaded.
"What?" He turned to his student.
"We finished. The original puppets, I mean."
Sasori blinked at the boy. "Where is Kankuro?"
"Ari went to find him. But come see, everyone's waiting."
The faint smile that graced Sasori's face then was not lost on Sakura. Maybe it wasn't quite the size of the smile in the photograph of him with his family, but it was something.
"Go," she said. "You hate making others wait, right?"
Sasori turned to her but made no move to speak. That unreadable glint in his eyes made Sakura feel a little self-conscious.
"I don't mind waiting. We'll continue another time," she said with what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
"Fine." He turned away from her and followed Yasude back to the puppet brigade's headquarters. His team of ANBU guards followed at a safe distance.
When he was out of sight Sakura sank to the ground on her knees and let her shoulders slump. Somehow she felt like she'd just gotten off a particularly violent rollercoaster. Her stomach was all twisted and her throat felt tight despite the conspicuous lack of Sasori's chokehold. She gripped her hair and dug her nails into her head.
"What's happening to me?"
Sasori was actually impressed.
The puppet brigade had presented their new creations one by one, eagerly awaiting his evaluation. He went down the line and tested each one for durability, ingenuity, design, and flexibility. When he asked them to demonstrate their traps and hidden techniques, he found himself raising his eyebrows in mild surprise at their creativity.
They were learning.
Gone were the rudimentary trap placements and the weak joints that had plagued the first prototypes. Before him stood a small army of almost-battle ready wooden warriors. And the most intriguing part was that they had picked up on one of the fundamental aspects of the puppet brigade without him having to tell them. Alone, each puppet surely had exploitable weaknesses, something that could never be completely eliminated. Sasori of all people knew the truth of that. But together, the puppets were practically indestructible.
Hachi's puppet was made for attacking at close range with giant stingers drenched in poison. But a well-aimed katana could split his puppet in two and that would be the end of him. Yasude's puppet made up for this deficiency by having enough arms to counter multiple attacks simultaneously. Its long body gave it the ability to spread out over a several yards and form a shield around Hachi's puppet, while supporting with attacks from all sides to keep enemies at bay.
Ari designed his puppet to split into multiple parts that could work independently to overwhelm a host of enemies. Alternatively, they could band together to create one puppet with skin of steel capable of withstanding most physical attacks. Cho's puppet supported brilliantly from the sky. Her puppet was light enough to catch the wind and fly, giving her the aerial advantage to cover Ari's puppet in a pinch.
Kankuro's puppet was a clever design uninspired by bugs. Upon first glance it looked like a ball the size of a tractor wheel. In that form it could bowl over enemies like a bulldozer. But when he worked his chakra strings, it revealed an interwoven network of arms and netting. Kankuro explained that each arm had a hidden trap or ability, but he refused to reveal them. Even while the arms remained tightly coiled, Sasori guessed there must be at least one hundred of them, if not more. The puppet looked like it had the strength of a hundred warriors, too. Kankuro's puppet worked as a close, mid, or long-range fighter, making it both an excellent support puppet to the rest of the brigade's creations and a capable front line attacker.
There were still minor flaws that could and should be improved upon, and truly a puppet designer's work was never finished. But Sasori was not above giving credit where credit was due.
"Well done, everyone. I'm impressed by your progress."
They whispered amongst themselves, but their happiness (and relief) was obvious. Finally, they had earned Akasuna no Sasori's praise.
"From today onwards, you will train constantly with your puppets. But don't get complacent. A puppet master should be able to wield multiple puppets simultaneously. You will have to create many more works of art before you can hope to assemble your final puppet armies. This is merely the beginning."
Normally, this would have elicited groans and various complaints, but they were too pleased with themselves to let Sasori's firm grounding in reality get them down. Sure, they would have to keep improving and create more puppets—it was a lifetime commitment. But for now they were happy to have earned Sasori's rare approval.
"Kankuro. Your puppet is unusual."
Kankuro wasn't sure whether that was a compliment or an insult. "You think?"
"It's an interesting design. What inspired you?"
"I once heard a rumor that you summoned one hundred puppets. I wanted to see what that kind of power would look like, so I created one hundred hands to do my bidding."
"Your method is different from what I used. My Red Secret Technique required one hundred chakra strings for one hundred puppets."
Kankuro smirked. "Well, this is my Black Secret Technique. I can accomplish with ten chakra strings what you accomplished with one hundred. I'd say that's proof that I've surpassed you."
Sasori narrowed his eyes at his self-proclaimed protégé. "Don't get cocky."
Kankuro laughed. "Maybe we should have a battle to settle this. What do you say?"
Sasori regarded Kankuro thoughtfully. He had come a long way in just a short time. No, that was wrong. Kankuro had already been far ahead of Sasori's preconceived assessment. He'd just failed to notice it right away. It was the same as that time Kankuro used Scorpion against Sakura a while ago. Back then Sasori had been surprised at Kankuro's skill, even going so far as to fancy the idea of wanting a rematch—a real one, this time. He still wanted that rematch, but not quite yet. The ANBU wouldn't even allow him to use an armed puppet.
"Some other time, perhaps" he said.
Kankuro shook his head. "I'm gonna hold you to that."
"I know."
The sound of steel on steel drew their attention. Hachi was launching an attack against both Ari and Yasude, while Cho looked unsure whether or not she should intervene. Sasori almost moved to stop them, but then he noticed that Hachi was doing well. He was a cocky little brat, but he was probably the most skilled at the puppet technique of the group.
"Cho," Sasori called.
The girl turned around nervously, as if afraid of a reprimand. "Yes?"
"Fight with Hachi. I want to observe everyone."
She nearly jumped out of her skin but quickly moved to obey. Sasori frowned. She was too skittish to be a shinobi.
"Hey, I saw the mess you and Sakura made on Training Ground Three. I suppose you're not going to clean that up," Kankuro said.
Sasori had forgotten about that. He turned to Kankuro and smirked. "There is that," he said. He raised his voice so the four younger shinobi could hear him. "You four. Whichever team loses the spar will clean up Training Ground Three and repair the puppets."
Whatever complaints they might have voiced were drowned out as the battle intensified. No one wanted to be on the losing team.
"I'm pretty sure you're abusing your position," Kankuro said.
"I prefer to think of it as strategic motivation."
The battle of the puppeteers raged on.
"Haruno-sensei, will Sasori-san be joining our class again?"
Sakura looked up from her microscope and found Dan looking at her with an eager glint in his eyes. Or maybe that was the glare of the fluorescent lighting reflecting off his gigantic goggles. "I'm not sure. The Kazekage returned half of his chakra, so I can't imagine that he'll be allowed near poisons at all now."
"Oh, I see."
He looked a little crushed by her words, but Sakura didn't think there was anything she could do to reassure him. The truth was that she highly doubted Gaara and the two sealing specialists recently assigned to Sasori's personal guard would be at all enthusiastic about letting him near toxic chemicals if they didn't even let him use an armed puppet for training. Something told her this was one battle she would not win if she brought her case before Gaara; she and Kankuro had already exhausted enough concessions. She was a little disappointed that Sasori would not be here to help her run the poisons class since he was clearly more knowledgeable about the subject than she could probably ever hope to be. And it was strangely exciting to hear him speak so effortlessly on the subject. He was a toxicologist of remarkable erudition, and she found herself completely absorbed in his explanations the last time he had spoken on the subject. It seemed the others shared her sentiments.
"It would be great if he could come back and teach us to create new poisons from scratch," Mihara said.
"Oh! Y-yes, that would be very interesting," Kawabata said. "Of course, if Kazekage-sama would allow it."
Maybe Sakura could at least talk to Sasori about any ideas he might have that she could bring to the class on his behalf? It would be better than nothing. "I'll speak with Sasori. Maybe he'll have some ideas we can explore together in our next class."
They nodded and thanked her, but Sakura knew it wasn't enough to completely appease them. Like her, they craved a deeper understanding of the topic. But she was no elite toxicologist, and she almost felt like she was holding them back from their studies.
It had been three days since she'd last seen Sasori. After their impromptu spar had ended abruptly, she had gone to the hospital for her regular shift. As luck would have it, Jounin and Chuunin teams were returning to Suna in droves from various missions, many of them sporting critical injuries. That was how it always was at the hospital. One day might be slow and she would be lucky to see a broken rib or two, and the next she would be up to her eyes in emergency surgeries. She'd had to reschedule this advanced poisons class twice because of the dramatic influx of patients and the shortage of skilled surgeons, and today was the first chance she had to make it up. Life in the hospital was like running a marathon that never ended, but Sakura loved her job and she would have it no other way.
Incidentally, her busy schedule had given her minimal opportunities to think about the most recent incident involving a certain redheaded patient of hers. Now that she had some time to breathe while the three advanced researchers ground herbs and took notes, she found herself replaying her last interaction with Sasori over and over and over in her mind.
Their spar had been going just fine until he decided to whisper in her ear. It was bad enough that she'd lost to him (again), but did he have to rub it in like a smug housecat that had just discovered the hidden cache of cream? He was such a jerk sometimes.
"Dead."
Damn him. That one little word had done things to her head and made her stupid. All she could think about when her very life was on the line was how nice his voice sounded when he said the word 'dead.' There had to be something wrong with her. When does the word 'dead' ever sound nice? Maybe she was spending too much time dissecting cadavers with her residents. Next, she and Sasori would be sharing candlelit dinners and while he elucidated the undoubtedly gruesome and bloody process of turning people into puppets, just to make her blush prettily.
"Oh my god, stop."
"Haruno-sensei? Did you say something?"
"Uh, no. Don't worry about it, Dan."
Sasori was attractive. Fine, she could admit that. It wasn't like it was hard to see or anything. It wasn't his fault that he was good looking. Just like it wasn't his fault that his voice could sound like melted dark chocolate when he wanted it to.
Goddamnit.
More importantly Sasori was dangerous, and that sparring session had reminded her of that fact like a collision at twenty-five hundred miles an hour. She would not forget it ever again. Unconsciously, Sakura raised a hand to her throat where Sasori had had her in a chokehold days ago. His grip had been steady but not particularly painful. It could have been, though. She swallowed the dryness in her throat at the thought.
I'm uncomfortable because he scared me. He could have killed me so easily, and I underestimated him.
But the unspoken words left a bitter taste in her mouth. Sasori was strong and capable, but he had never been hostile or violent with her since he was transferred from his prison cell. She didn't want to believe that he would actually make an attempt on her life at this stage of the game. They had come a long way since the beginning. He was just in a difficult position as a prisoner in a village he'd forsaken a lifetime ago. Sakura thought about her conversation with Ebizo. The old man had not been very forthcoming, but he had clearly conveyed his concern about Sasori's tendency toward solitude. Sakura wanted to think that Sasori would be the type to prefer being alone, but the more she reflected on all their time together the less weight that theory seemed to hold. When she'd gone to visit him after her talk with Ebizo it had been late at night and for no particular reason. But Sasori had not questioned her motives or asked her to leave. He simply let her talk to him and fuss over his recovery. He never got seriously annoyed with her to the point of wanting her to leave, even when they'd had their explosive argument. In fact, at the time he'd asked her not to go.
He was an intellectual and an artist. Once she got him talking, almost everything he said was thoughtful and carefully processed as long as he wasn't being rude. He didn't accept whatever she said simply because she said so. She had to defend her beliefs, and even if he found them unsound he never made her feel like a lesser person for holding an opinion. It was more like he had resigned himself to people not understanding or disagreeing with him. As much as he claimed to hate being human and the transitory nature of his current existence, he seemed able to adapt fairly well whenever she was around. It got better every day. In the beginning, he had been intolerant and unapproachable, but now he seemed content, even a little eager to listen to whatever came to her mind. When Ebizo told her how Sasori had always been alone and how painful that was for him, she immediately understood the problem. Naruto had been alone for so long, too, and she'd seen what it did to him. People needed each other like air, whether they admitted it or not. Sasori needed her and Kankuro and the puppet brigade and Ebizo. They were all the people he had left to connect him to this world and this life.
Every day she saw him, Sasori seemed a little more human. Every day she saw him, she cared a little more. She wanted to help him change because she knew he could, even though he despised the concept on a fundamentally philosophical level. He had confirmed her abilities and made her feel useful, even as they waged war against each other. He had been the one to encourage her to improve herself, whether he'd done it purposely or not. It didn't matter. His acknowledgement of her then and now gave her strength and she would forever be indebted to him for that. She had truly needed him, still did. Without Sasori she would not be who she was today. She would not be here training Suna's entire medical shinobi force. She would not have brought him back to life twice. She would not have come this far. She would not be racing closer and closer to Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi, and everyone else who had always been so far ahead of her. Sakura rubbed her neck where he'd held her life in the palm of his hand.
He frightened her.
He awed her.
He made her feel more alive than she'd ever felt before and she liked that feeling.
She cared about him. She wanted to talk with him some more, to spend more time with him and make him understand. She wanted to prove that he wasn't as selfish as he made himself out to be, that he didn't have to be if he would just let her in. She was probably breaking twenty different shinobi laws by simply entertaining such thoughts toward an S-class criminal, but that had never seemed to bother her before when it was Sasuke.
Sasuke…
Sakura used to love the way Sasuke talked. The deep timbre of his voice had always been pleasant to listen to, even if his words tended to hurt. But the last time she'd seen him and he'd tried to kill her, she thought his voice didn't sound so nice anymore. The way he looked her right in the eyes when they were only inches apart and said her name should have made her insides turn to jelly. But there was nothing rich or appealing about his tone of voice then; it was hard and cold and uninterested. It didn't help that he'd had a katana at her throat.
And yet, when she'd been in a similar situation with Sasori she had felt the opposite reaction.
"Yield, Sakura."
Sakura dropped the blood slide she had been examining earlier and stared at the stainless steel table, unseeing.
"Haruno-sensei, you dropped the slide. Here, I'll get the mop," Kawabata's voice drifted over to her.
Oh. God.
She felt like she'd just stepped into a sauna and had to brace herself on the edge of the lab table with a free hand. Her attraction was so obvious that she could have kicked herself for not realizing it before. No, that would have been impossible. It was hard enough for her to admit her feelings when she was honestly trying to be objective, but when she had refused to see them by her own machinations there was no hope at all. Until one little trigger opened the floodgates and swept the truth before her eyes, forcing her to acknowledge it or drown in it. How had she not picked up on it before? The way he made her nervous, the way he sometimes got close enough for her to see the faint freckles on his nose from too much time in the sun, the way fancied his eyes saw her like she was the only thing in the world worth looking at… She wanted to be afraid. She wanted to worry that this would be dangerous for everyone. One wrong move and the terrible effect would ripple outward until the shame and treachery of it all reached the highest levels in Suna and Konoha. It was selfish and unconscionable and wrong, wrong, wrong.
But she could not deny it any longer. Sakura had always been a bad liar, especially when it was herself she was trying to deceive.
"Haruno-sensei? Are you ok? You look a bit pale," Mihara put a concerned hand on her shoulder.
I have to deal with this. Somehow, I have to fix this.
"Yes, I'm fine." Sakura blinked and looked around. Kawabata was mopping up the shards from the shattered blood slide and Dan was watching her with a look of barely concealed worry. "I'm sorry, I think I'm feeling a little tired from the rush these past few days."
"You should go home and get some rest," Dan said.
"Oh, but we still have another hour of class time left. And I thought we would go over the properties of hemlock today."
"Haruno-sensei, you need to rest. Go home and eat something, take a nap. We can always continue with the lesson another time," Kawabata said with a reassuring smile.
Mihara and Dan nodded their agreement.
"At least let me help you clean up. I made the mess to begin with," Sakura said.
"It's perfectly alright. We'll make sure everything gets put away and lock up. Go home," Mihara said sternly.
Defeated, Sakura nodded and thanked the researchers, apologizing one last time for the inconvenience. Her legs carried her out the hospital and into the cool evening air on autopilot. It was getting hard to think straight, but one thought kept fighting to be heard above all others. She wanted to talk to Sasori about this. He needed to be aware of her folly. Surely he would understand the delicacy of the situation and work with her to mitigate the problem. Or at the very least, he would say something unpleasant and ruin it before it could get out of control. That would be supremely helpful for a change.
Before she knew it, Sakura found herself not at her own front door, but at Sasori's. She hadn't intended to visit him just yet, but now that she was here it was probably as good a time as any. She raised her hand to knock and noticed that her hand shook slightly. Why was she so nervous? It wasn't like she'd come here looking for something from him. She couldn't be rejected if there was nothing to confess.
He answered after three swift knocks. Honey eyes peered down at her through rust red bangs. He needed a haircut. The thought made her smile.
"You made me wait three days."
She looked at him, a little startled at his reprimand. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean…"
He stood aside and waited for her to enter. Sakura's feet carried her inside. He locked the door behind them out of habit.
"How are you feeling today?"
"Fine."
"Let me take a look, ok?" She closed the distance between them and palmed his chest. To her relief his heart was holding up much better than it had been before he regained his chakra. As long as she kept an eye on him and he didn't do anything drastic, his heart should continue to get stronger and healthier. "Your chakra is a little depleted. I guess that means you were training today?"
"Mm."
"No one hundred puppets, right?"
"Sakura," he said, his tone carrying a hint of irritation.
"Sorry." She reached for one of his wrists to examine the chakra suppressing bangles. Why am I stalling? "Are these still bothering you?"
He let his eyes flicker to the wrist Sakura held in her hand. "No."
Yeah, right. "Somehow I don't believe you."
Sure enough, the rashes still marred his skin beneath the bangles. She didn't like the sight of them. They reminded her of his cardiac emergency and how he'd almost died. Her hand wandered from the bangle on his wrist and found his hand.
"I was swamped at the hospital these last few days. I even had to reschedule the advanced poisons class twice." I wasn't avoiding you. "I just came from there, actually."
After a few moments of silence he pulled away from her and went to his desk. She couldn't do this, after all. He would probably ridicule her and tell her to grow up. She was a shinobi and she should act like one. There was no way he would appreciate what she had to tell him. She clenched her fists, wishing she could be stronger.
"Sakura."
Sakura looked up when he said her name. Sasori held out a thick stack of loose-leaf paper for her. She furrowed her brow. "What's this?"
"Take it."
She did. The handwriting was neat and small, done in black ink and organized into several columns. The leftmost column contained a list of strange words in alphabetical order, written in a foreign language. The next column's words were equally as unfamiliar but clearly written in her native tongue. Widow's Tears, Kiss of the Snake, Dream Draught…
Sakura's mouth fell open as understanding dawned. She flipped to the next page and the next. The third column contained listings of an array of plants, herbs, and spices, as well as mixing and storing instructions. Her hands shook and she lifted her eyes to look at Sasori.
"This is incredible."
It was pages upon pages of different poisons, their properties and effects, and how to mix them. A quick scan of just the first couple of pages told her that she recognized not even half of the names, let alone how to mix them.
"I left the last column blank. I've never had a use for antidotes, but I'm sure you can fill in the gaps."
Sakura almost wanted to cry. There must have been at least seventy pages of Sasori's compact handwriting and hundreds of different poisons identified by their scientific and common names. "How…? This is…"
"I invented about half of them. The rest I picked up over the years from enemies on missions. A few were developed by Orochimaru when we still worked together."
She had no words. It was so unexpected that she could not even think straight. Sasori must have spent days compiling this list. He had no books… How could he remember every poison in such detail from memory? His mental prowess was astounding. But more importantly…
"Why?" Her voice was strained.
He watched her carefully, as if trying to find an ulterior motive behind her words. "Compared to antidotes, your understanding of the poisons themselves is rudimentary at best. I suggest you take advantage of this opportunity and learn something useful."
She shook her head. "No, that's not it. That's not why you did it."
He frowned at her. "Sakura—"
"You did something pointless. There's no benefit for yourself in this because you did it for me." Sakura took a step closer to him, her jade eyes searching. "You did it because you knew it would make me happy."
His honey eyes flashed with irritation and something else she couldn't quite place. "It's not a big deal."
He wasn't denying it. Sakura laughed, not caring that a couple of tears had escaped. She'd come here to put a stop to her feelings before they got out of control. She'd come to remind herself that this man was still a criminal and a traitor and too dangerous and she couldn't possibly involve herself with him any further. She had not come here to close the distance between them and fling her arms around his neck. She had not come here to pull him closer.
But some things could not be planned. Or maybe it was that they had always been planned and were simply out of her control. She'd wished beyond wishes that he would care even a little, that he could look beyond his selfishness, but Sasori only cared about himself. She knew that in spite of her own feelings. She'd known it all along. But now, for the second time since she'd met him, he'd done something for her sole benefit. The first time may have been because he had nothing to lose in the face of death, but he wasn't dying now. He was warm and real and alive, and she felt him.
"Thank you," she whispered in the crook of his neck.
It was the second time she'd been so close to him. As on the training ground, she could feel his heart beating through their clothing and smell the desert wind in his hair. She hugged him tighter. His arm slowly snaked around her waist and she smiled.
"Thank you," she repeated.
Something warm and tentative tickled her hair, and she realized he had woven his other hand among her unrestrained pink locks. It was a gentle caress at first, but then his grip strengthened and he pushed her away a bit.
Sakura searched for Sasori's eyes, but they were downcast and partially obscured by his bangs. He still held her by the waist and she froze when she felt his fingers run through her hair, agonizingly slow. There was something both tender and melancholy about the action.
"Sasori."
His eyes flickered to hers and she saw that same unreadable glint in them from the other day after their sparring match. But from this distance, only inches apart, there was no mistaking it. She opened her mouth to say something but it was lost even before it had come.
Words no longer seemed important as Sasori swiftly touched his lips to hers and the stack of poison papers fluttered to the ground, forgotten.