Take It Or Leave It

XI.

A/N: For information on the Take It or Leave It contest, please visit:

korinacaffeine(dot)deviantart(dot)com/journal/21794758/

O O O

Sakura plucked the last of the kittens from the box she carried, depositing them with care into the back of the wagon that would be the transport to her knew home. She clutched a large bundle of blankets in her arms from where it sat on the ground by her feet, tossing that in, as well. The last week, from filling out homeowner papers with Kakuzu to boxing up her belongings with the boys and sighing over all the work she'd have to do to fix up the new house, had really worn her down. For now, at least, she'd have the Akatsuki out of her hair.

When she went to check out the plot Tsunade had suggested—luckily for Sakura, she heartily approved of the change in scenery—Sakura realized that she'd have her work cut out for her. The house had belonged to a wealthy family, meaning in square footage she was purchasing a steal, but on closer inspection to the leaks and crannies in the walls, the rest of her paycheck would start on facelifts for the place. Oh, well, at least nothing was wrong with the land.

But today, she had decided to move the kittens to the house first, leave them there, come back in the wagon, and then begin shuffling her things from one place to the other. Sakura gave one more glance back at the first place she ever lived alone and then vaulted herself into the seat right behind the driver where she could monitor the kittens' behavior.

They were all getting very ornery lately with the exception of Deidara and Hidan, who needed to be moved as soon as possible. The sooner they got back to their human forms the better, because Sakura didn't know how much the human pneumonia wore on their kitten transformations. It shouldn't have breached the species, but the lethargy and watery coughing still remained.

"I'm ready," Sakura briskly informed the driver, and with a jerk of the horse, they were off.

In the end it only took an hour and a half to get there, which was good for Sakura because she still had work regardless of living status. With as little fuss as possible, Sakura motioned for the driver to wait outside and took the blankets into her arms, calling to the kittens to follow. Thankfully, they complied obediently.

Inside the house, Sakura shut the sliding door behind her and immediately spread the blankets out in one of the guest bedrooms, creating two mattress and pillow sets with what she had. Using moisture dripping languidly down the wall, she wet both Deidara and Hidan and—ignoring the protests—situated them in their temporary beds. There was no need for the water contact, she soon observed; the sheer amount of sweat conjured by the fever kept them damp enough. Still, as an afterthought, she placed a small amount of chakra in their system to keep their adrenaline down, hoping they wouldn't be idiots and try to get up and move around.

Quick successions of pops came from behind her, and she dashed toward the door without looking to see who it was.

"Take care of them, or you're all going to get it!" She yelled over her shoulder, and skidded to a stop before the bewildered farmer, who was possibly considering whether it was worth the money to transport such a strange woman back and forth to this place for the next two days.

But of course it was. Sakura flashed a quick smile and without another hitch, they trotted in the direction of Konoha to pick up Sakura's kitchenware.

O O O

Hidan coughed and shuddered, rolling onto his back and spreading his arms out as far as they would go. He found some slight amusement in the lingering numbness from sleeping on them the wrong way for so long, and flopped his right hand back by the elbow so that it hit the man sleeping beside him. Really, it was sad that this was the only way to have fun these days—and now with a whole expanse of land at his fingertips! Wasn't this a damn good time to get sick.

"Mmph. Stobbit," Deidara mumbled. "Kill you."

Hidan coughed weakly. "Fuck you."

"Mmm." Deidara jerked the length of his body so that the mattress and pillow scooted away from the silver-haired man. The shuffles ceased somewhere on the opposite side of the room, and Hidan heard the deep sigh people made right before they fell asleep.

So there went a previously constant source of amusement.

Tobi poked his head in the door curiously.

"Hidan? Just checking on—"

"Go the fuck away."

"But Miss Sakura said she would—"

"Go. Away."

He left. At least someone allowed him to boss them around. It was a nice feeling, being obeyed. Seemed like his whole life was a stream of bossiness from a pink-haired bitch who currently ruled his entire world. And oh jeez, the boxes. That was officially the most miserable day of his existence. Two lungs full of white shit and she still made him tape those things. He remembered it very clearly. Too clearly, in fact, and he groaned and rolled over, playing the memory one more time over in his head. He had to make sure he got all the details right so he could veritably punish someone for it later. (Whoever that someone happened to be, whether it be Sakura—yeah right—or Tobi.)

"Okay guys," the harpy—Sakura—had screeched from over a finished box of pillows. "Everyone keep boxing. You too, Hidan!"

"What?" he'd whined in response, rolling his head back. That bitch hadn't given him one minute of peace since the healing incident. And to top it all off, she'd acted a little different around him. Sometimes more wary, sometimes a little giggly, and sometimes just downright confusing. Not that she wasn't downright confusing anyway, but any more so threatened to give him splitting headaches that normally didn't happen when he'd been immortal.

"You especially, Hidan. Yours are all terrible!"

And then he'd known she was going to die. Slowly. Painfully. "Hey! I am fucking dying here, and you expect me to know exactly how to do this shit? Seriously, I'm not a damn miracle man."

"Hidan." She'd put a hand to her pretty little forehead, groaning his name, though not in the way he'd like. It was more of an exasperated groan. "Look at your boxes. Come on. Just look."

He'd looked. Okay, so some of them had flaps that stuck out from over the pieces already taped down, and half the time the tape snaked towards the edge instead of down the middle of the seams, but so what? They were taped. She should have been happy that he'd been helping at all when he very easily could've feigned sudden sickness or just gagged all over someone and then been sent to quarantine, AKA the bathroom. "Yeah, well—hey, you can't expect me to be good at this crap."

Deidara had glanced up from his corner of assorted dishes and silverware, quickly resuming his concentrated care upon box number seven. Which had perfectly straight lines of duct tape. At exact ninety-degree angles when viewed from the side. That bastard, with his artistic propensities and his ass-kissing and his stupid fucking expression.

It had really been a breaking point, anyway, because he swore at three quilts and a pillow set. "Just because I'm not perfect like Mister Pussy Artist over there doesn't mean I can't get it done." And so instead of finishing his third box at medium crappiness, Hidan had gone the whole nine yards and finished seven at maximum suckage.

He rolled over in bed again, kicked Deidara none-too-lightly when the girly man groaned in protest at his movements, and harrumphed. He vaguely remembered something about Sakura yelling again, and then she took apart all of his boxes, imploring Deidara with huge quivering eyes if he would finish Hidan's because he was just so talented and patient and weren't you just the most helpful of them all?

Son-of-a-bitch. Deidara had smiled at her. With teeth. And then when she turned around he sneered at poor, inartistic Hidan.

Feeling severely wronged, Hidan peered over his shoulder again at the softly wheezing blond and glared, making mental note to punch him in the dick as soon as possible.

O O O

Back crying out in protest, Sakura leaned down and grabbed the soles of her feet, leaning slightly and wincing at the strain of a whole day's worth of back and forth, back and forth. Finally, all of her boxes were here, and finally she could start to unpack. Now, the whole idea of packing seemed a bit extravagant with the full implications of the unpacking necessary to negate, but she could, at least, hopefully get some sleep.

Actually, unpacking could wait until tomorrow. It was late and dark and there was no electricity, so…bed sounded best. Sakura sliced open a single box with a kunai and removed two quilts and a pillow, all thoughts of peaceful rest flying out the window (shattering the glass and making a crash-landing in the grass outside) the second she turned around and saw the welcoming party. They, all five of them, with Deidara and Hidan already missing, were all waiting, shuffling awkwardly. What would they be waiting for? All of the boxes had been brought in. They were done for the night.

Oh, right. Rooms.

The house contained nine bedrooms in all, sectioned off into two different portions. The front portion contained a large "master" bedroom, the dining room, kitchen, main bathroom, and den. There was a small walkway to accommodate the split in the house that led to the back portion. The back portion contained the other eight rooms, two bathrooms, and a series of what seemed to be hall closets. It was a one-story, sprawling house that had most likely been used as an old clan headquarters. Now, though, it was slightly run-down and rife with rumors of ghostly activity. Sakura, of course, did not buy into the ghostly activity part, mostly because the house was laughably cheap and there had to just be something wrong with the pipes or something.

"Well?" She put tired hands on her hips. "You all can pick your own rooms. Except the one in this portion of the house. This one is mine."

Nobody moved. She could see Tobi chewing his lip thoughtfully.

"Just make sure you let Hidan and Deidara know they have to choose their rooms. If they're asleep, leave them be until the morning."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Zetsu finally said, rubbing the back of his head.

"What? Leaving them until morning? They'll be—"

"No. You shouldn't stay in this room up here alone."

"He's right, you know," Tobi piped in, softly. "What if Sakura was attacked? We would be all the way on the other side of the house and across the walkway. We wouldn't hear you!"

"First off," Sakura said, laying down the law with a tap of her foot, "I can take care of myself, thanks. If I need your help, then I'll definitely notify you. And secondly, I sincerely doubt that there is anyone out there at the moment that would have a reason to attack me."

Zetsu turned and looked pointedly at Kakuzu. He wasn't hiding the contempt in his expression.

Kakuzu's expression remained frightfully blank.

Kisame, ever-observant, did not miss this exchange. He looked slowly from Sakura, to Zetsu, to Kakuzu, and then back to Sakura. "Who attacked you in Suna?" he asked. He did not sound angry or disappointed or even offended. It was a simple, level question, and that was what startled Sakura the most. None of the Akatsuki were ever simple and level. Well, except maybe Itachi, but Itachi was currently watching the scene play out with a very mild interest. He seemed more concerned with the cream-colored wallpaper, to be completely honest.

Sakura spoke, hoping to beat Zetsu and his mouth to the jump. "N—"

But apparently Zetsu did not care that she had spoken first, as he cut her off loudly. "Someone attacked Kakuzu." He left the answer vague, thankfully, though Tobi looked at Kakuzu with an expression that Sakura had never seen on him. Tobi looked more like the dangerous criminal she knew he was in that moment and the image scored itself into Sakura's mind.

"You should have said something," Tobi said, and every ounce of boyish innocence had since dripped from his voice. "This involves all of us."

Even Itachi looked dismayed at this new information, though he did not speak. He merely watched.

At that moment Hidan stumbled into the living room, with Sakura and her quilts and pillows and the other conscious Akatsuki members staring accusingly at both Kakuzu and Zetsu.

"What the fuck?" he interjected, stuffy nose and all. "What did they do this time?"

"Kakuzu and Zetsu have failed to deliver vital information," Itachi spoke coolly.

"About what? The curse? Well what the hell, why are you two holding out on us?"

"No," Kisame said, and he stepped to stand beside Itachi. "Not about the curse. About a battle that occurred in Suna. Zetsu was just telling us that Kakuzu was attacked."

Sakura could feel the tension. Zetsu was looking fine with the situation, but the glower on Kakuzu's face was darkening by the second. He was feeling cornered, of this she could tell. Not intimidated, but increasingly cut off, and she didn't like it that he was being targeted.

"Enough," Sakura said, marching up to the agitated group of men and stepping between Kakuzu and the rest of them. "What's with the third degree, huh? It's as much my fault as it is theirs."

"You aren't expected to know to relay such information," Itachi said, and out of habit, when he looked into her eyes, Sakura looked away. "You had not been, at any point in the past, a partner or a comrade. I did, however, expect Zetsu and Kakuzu to relate any pressing details." That was Itachi, all right. Never speaking for anyone else.

"Still," Sakura said, looking behind her at Kakuzu, who was looking at absolutely no one. His jaw was set, though, and she could tell it was all he had in him not to lash out. These men were still veritable killing machines, cursed or not. Something could set them off at a moment's notice, and then she'd really have trouble on her hands. "You can't…" And now she had forgotten what point she was trying to make. Why was she defending Kakuzu in the first place? Did he even need defending?

"It was my business. I wasn't aware that I was expected to relay personal details," Kakuzu bit from behind her, putting an almost mocking emphasis on "relay." He was facing the group now, positively looming. He put a hand on Sakura's shoulder and shoved her out of the way, but there was no force in the shove. It was, nonetheless, still a shove.

She didn't stumble or anything, but Tobi stood beside her, holding her arm and glaring at Kakuzu like he'd just committed some crime most foul. It was probably Sakura's fault that Tobi reacted the way he did, because after the shove she looked up at Kakuzu like he'd just rejected a declaration of love and then kicked her puppy. Which, in reality, was very much how it felt. She had formed a morbid tryst of sorts with Kakuzu, or at least a pact of friendship, and he'd nearly broken it with that action alone. Besides, she'd just been defending his ass. He should have at least been appreciative of that.

Kakuzu, leaning most of his weight on one hip and staring at Zetsu intently, said very, very little. He also moved very, very little. His eyes were a dead giveaway, though, and Sakura, not for the first time, felt very, very frightened of Kakuzu. She didn't feel frightened in the sense that she thought he was going to physically harm her; no, no, that was, without a doubt, one of the last things on his mind. She was frightened, however, of what his next actions would be. If he started a fight with someone, she didn't think she could stop it. And she didn't think anyone else would be willing to help her stop it. Tobi seemed to sense this, because he drew Sakura protectively into his chest, his arms wrapped full around her upper body. Sakura didn't have the will to protest. She was much too focused on Kakuzu and his cocky stance.

"So why the fuck didn't you tell us, Zetsu?" Hidan supplied, and Sakura wanted to kiss him out of sheer gratitude.

Zetsu shook his head, disengaging himself from the group. He scooped up a box filled with bedding material. "Like Kakuzu said, it was his business. I don't enjoy telling things that someone might not want to be told. But it needed to come out eventually."

Sakura pulled away from Tobi, who released her without a word. Kakuzu had since disappeared down the hall and toward the lower section of the house. Slowly but surely, the situation was calming down, and everyone milled about, picking up blankets and pillows and heading for the back of the house.

Sakura sighed and put a hand on her forehead, closing her eyes. When she opened them, Itachi was standing in front of her, staring. She almost jumped out of her skin.

"You'll have to hold a brief meeting tomorrow," Itachi said, ordered in that condescending damn tone of his. "It is Zetsu and Kakuzu's responsibility to tell us the details of the attack so that we can be certain we will not be targeted here."

"No one is going to attack us in Konoha," Sakura said resolutely, still refusing to look at his eyes. "I can assure you, Itachi."

"You have no way of knowing that."

Before she could tell him to shove his eloquence and his aloofness and his likeness to his fucking brother right up his ass, Itachi was gone, and Sakura was alone in the living room. A drip of water fell into a puddle near the door like a drop of glass on a metal sheet, echoing in the lifeless corridor, reminding her of the months and months of remodeling ahead of her. Finding no other woes currently available to cling to in sorrow, Sakura slowly picked up her quilts and pillow and tiptoed across the den to her new bedroom, well aware that every man in the house could hear her every movement. Damn ninjas.

Pleasantly, her room actually wasn't all that bad as far as condition went. No pipes poked out garishly from faded wallpaper, the hardwood floors stretched even and smooth across the whole span. No doors or windows hung from hinges, and even the curtains appeared recently dusted. In fact, it looked almost immaculate. The moonlight filtered through the black gauze shifted, and suddenly Sakura knew why. She clutched her makeshift bed to her chest as a sudden chill swept down her spine.

Huge bloodstains swept across the floor, imbedded in the wood, splattered out at odd angles and sometimes drug out in a wide line as if someone had tried to get up and fell repeatedly. Sakura shuffled into the room slowly, every creak and moan the house made shrieking loudly in her ears. Upon closer inspection, the stains could've been nearly antique—now they appeared merely a part of the whorls and concaves of the wooden floor. Still, the starkness of their placement and implications of every bloody handprint unnerved her in a way it shouldn't have.

As she skirted the framework to avoid the largest spot in the middle a flash of silver caught her eye. A fire poker, in the corner, rusted and tarnished across the whole of its slender length. Apparently the family decided to leave the murder weapon here as a reminder of sorts. The same curious stains coated the dainty apparatus, producing an almost vulgar effect: the colors of old death blanketing the femininity of the device's sinuous extremities. She moved closer.

"I guess this is why I got this place so cheap," she breathed, then felt guilty at breaking the ancient reverence.

"Looks like it, yeah. Are you scared?"

Sakura immediately dropped her linens and tensed, nearly jumping out of her skin. She bit back a scream and spun around to face Deidara, in all his sniffling, red-rimmed-eyes glory, smiling smugly at her panicked reaction.

"Deidara."

"Me."

"Why did you do that? God, I oughtta—why aren't you lying down?"

"I got bored. And Hidan's an asshole. I feel a lot better, yeah."

"Thanks to me."

He rolled his eyes languidly. "I suppose if you want to rub it in, yes." He turned his eyes back to the room. "I wonder who beat her to death. And why. Guess we'll never know. Well, you might, if what's-her-face lets you check the archives, yeah."

"Tsunade? Wait, how do you know it was a woman?"

"I'm not being sexist, if that's what you're implying. Look." He stepped confidently into the middle of the discolored space and pointed to the side. "These handprints are small, but too matured to be a child's. This footprint, here. It looks like a slipper a noblewoman might wear. That smear over there." He strode nearest the far wall and continued. "It's wide and smooth, like someone was dragged across it, and there's a little piece of silk from a woman's nightdress at the end of it. It's all speculation, but I'm pretty sure, yeah." He coughed and returned to Sakura's side.

"Wow," she mumbled. "You're good. Experience?"

He gave her a dirty look.

"I don't mean like that," Sakura bit back disparagingly. "I mean, like, forensic science."

"Oh. No. That was just guessing, not science work. Having you react like that I definitely know you weren't on a forensics team. It's never that easy. You have to do blood work, and sampling—"

"I know, I know!" Jeez, every time she tried to compliment one of them… "I was just…flattering you. Trying to not act like a bitch on my period, you know?" She glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, wondering if he'd remember that particular incident.

He did. "Yeah…but that's some shitty flattering," he snorted, and then paused. "So…what went on back there? That was pretty exciting. Isn't it great how they get all worked up and dramatic like that? It's like watching court TV. When Kisame's not watching the cooking channel, anyway, yeah."

Sakura's brow furrowed. "You think that was funny? Did you hear how they were talking to each other? Did you see how they treated me? I seriously thought they were going to kill each other, yeah—um, I mean…you know."

Deidara laughed, a real laugh this time and not a mockery. "Rubbing off on you already? You should've seen Sasori the first time he did it, yeah. Priceless."

"Why do you do that? Moving on, it was horrible. And Kakuzu shoved me. And Tobi freaked me out really bad. Zetsu was an ass. He never should've said anything. For once I'm grateful Hidan was here. He actually kind of broke things up, believe it or not."

"I know. I was there, right? I told you that. But you shouldn't be—are you crying? Over this?"

"No." Sakura sniffed loudly, covering her face with shaking hands.

"Just dirt in your eye? Whatever, but don't get worked up over that shit. Trust me; they do it all the time. If I felt up to it, I'm sure I'd join right in, yeah. Don't be scared of us. We can't kill you, remember?"

"I'd rather you not want to kill me rather than can't, but fuck it. And I'm not scared, I'm worried. About what would happen if this got out—and trust me, I'd toss most of you out the second I could if it weren't for the fact that it's not possible. The curse keeps me from getting rid of you."

At this Deidara looked genuinely surprised. "Really? Why didn't you say something?"

"Well…" Sakura sighed, leaning against Deidara's shoulder unconsciously. She hadn't remembered sitting down, to be perfectly honest. "At first I thought it was some fucked up maternal instinct, but after a while I was just like…no. Something is keeping me from dumping you all on the Hokage's desk."

"It's love, isn't it."

"Oh, shut up." She briefly considered slapping away his grin, but resumed. This needed to come out. "It's like every time I feel like strangling one of you this uncomfortable feeling wells up in me. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I think it's part of the curse. But while I can't do anything about it, I might as well do what I can to make this as mutually beneficial as possible, you know?" Deidara nodded slowly. "I got some books in Suna. About cats and curses and stuff. Maybe it'll work, maybe not."

"Hmm."

"…Deidara?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's get out of here."

He immediately tensed and whipped his head around to eye her warily. "What?"

"I mean it. Let's leave."

"But we—" He ran a hand through his bed-mussed hair. "We don't even know each other that well. Are you okay?" He ran the same hand briefly over her forehead.

"Deidara, what the hell are you—oh. Oh." And the room's dark aura broke. Sakura tipped over on her side laughing, laughing until it hurt unbearably.

"I don't mean—" She giggled madly. "I don't mean I want you to run away with me, I meant I want to leave this room. Come on, it's creeping me out." She stood and stretched, held a hand out from Deidara—this was ignored with a light glare—and padded out of the room with him following closely behind. Once they both got out he shut the door behind them and sighed deeply. Sakura turned back around and blinked. Was he upset?

"Hey, are you okay? I didn't hurt your feelings, did I?"

Another nasty look. "Fuck no. You scared the shit out of me, yeah. 'Let's get out of here,' damn." He peered over her shoulder and met her eyes again. "Company, miss," he mumbled sarcastically, and then he disappeared back down the hallway toward the sick room. Sakura circled to meet her greeter, already having a good idea of who it would be. Zetsu would probably come to apologize or try to make amends, and Kakuzu would come to…well, be Kakuzu. Maybe.

Neither Kakuzu nor Zetsu slunk out of the shadows of the darkened hallways, though, and instead Tobi's face became vividly clear to her in whatever moonlight dripped through the windows. He carried himself in a considerably different manner, though, with his back straighter and his steps more confident. His features, somehow, seemed sharper, even—more hardened. Here was a Tobi that she didn't know, had only seen maybe once or twice, and he walked toward her with an assertive, deliberate sort of promenade.

Sakura felt quite trapped in that moment, but she held herself high and stood her ground. And yet the closer Tobi strolled toward her, the more something seemed off. He—

It hit her in the same way a cold tidal wave would, and she faltered, if only for a second. Tobi's chakra was different. It was untapped. All of the other Akatsuki members—when under the curse—hampered chakra!—but Tobi had no such hampering, with full, flaring chakra that surged in a hot, bubbling mass down the hallway and around her and she could feel it in her toes, in her fingers, in her very bones—something wasn't right with him.

Acting on a pure instinctual, adrenaline-fueled urge, she stretched trellising fingers of her own chakra across as much of what she could reach of the house. She was searching for one of the other boys, and wanted to hopefully gain their attention with her net. She had no idea what Tobi was capable of. They, however, did. And she especially was wary of Tobi when his chakra was just about boiling and suffocating and everywhere all at once.

She'd known there was a different side to Tobi, one she thought he was very likely hiding, and now she could see that side in full-view. Whether he was showcasing it to her as a threat of some sort or for some other undecipherable reason, Sakura could not tell, but she stretched her chakra as far as it would reach. Tobi's chakra completely encompassed the net, and she knew he knew what she was doing, but he didn't seem to care.

Finally, after a minute of holding that had Sakura sweating and furrowing her brow, someone stepped into the very outer edges of her senses. She couldn't tell who it was exactly, but their chakra, familiarly restrained and very cool and calm in nature, immediately reacted with a slight flare to hers. Oh, the upsides of living with seasoned shinobi.

Once she retracted the net, Tobi stopped walking. He was less than ten feet away from her now, where before he'd been clear across the hallway. She was still sweating from the strain of holding her chakra stretched for so long, but now that it was once more concentrated around her and not draped across the house, she was able to keep herself and her concentration steady.

Tobi cocked his head to the side. And just like that, the chakra that had at one point been swallowing Sakura disappeared. The only thing she could feel now was Tobi's normal, tapped chakra, humming and hovering around him like an aura. She didn't have the Hyuuga clan's Byakugan, but she didn't need it. She was super-sensitive to chakra as it was, and explaining how to "see" chakra without really seeing it was like explaining the color orange to a blind man. She could only describe the emotions that followed.

At that second, Zetsu appeared like an apparition, materializing from the wooden floorboards. He wriggled upwards until he was standing on two steady feet, staring curiously at Tobi.

Tobi blinked at both Zetsu and Sakura. Sakura couldn't remember the last time she'd felt more unsteady.

"I—" Tobi began, but Zetsu looked at him the moment he spoke. Tobi didn't speak again. Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of the situation was that Zetsu's look had not been a glare or a warning. It had simply been a look, like Tobi had said or done something interesting. But the way Tobi responded, immediately cutting himself off and closing his mouth so tightly, seemed off. In fact, the whole Zetsu-Tobi situation seemed off. It always seemed like Zetsu was looking at Tobi, always directly in the center of any conversation Sakura found herself in with Tobi. Tobi wasn't following orders, though, or being pushed around or even being subservient toward Zetsu, so—

"Are you alright?" Zetsu asked, taking a hesitant step toward Sakura.

Sakura resolved herself to her confusion and took a step. Zetsu took another step forward and Sakura took another step back accordingly. She had yet to unclench her fists. She kept a wary eye on his water contact; though she showed no signs that she was doing so.

"Sakura—"

"Maybe Zetsu should leave Sakura alone," Tobi said quietly, turning his back to Sakura and walking sullenly down the hallway. Zetsu paid no mind to Tobi's suggestion, though, and continued to stare at her. He didn't look like he understood anything any better than Sakura did. Sakura's head was swimming, though, and a curious weight sat on her chest.

Zetsu was in front of her before she could respond, though he didn't touch her. And for that reason, Sakura didn't move. He was significantly taller than her, she noticed, now that they were standing so closely. She stared at the color split at his neck and then his jaw and then his lips. Pointed teeth became alarmingly noticeable when he opened his mouth to speak.

"You—"

"Don't," she bit, inhaling sharply. When he sighed, his breath ruffled her hair.

He brought a hand up and laid it delicately on her neck, then traced her collarbone from shoulder to shoulder.

"Don't," Sakura warned again, and this time she grabbed his wrist, jerking it away from her. Her fingers tightened, undoubtedly using enough pressure to leave decent-sized bruises. When he brought his other hand up obstinately, she ripped the water contact form his wrist.

The look he gave her was almost a look of betrayal. "You're afraid of me?" he asked, eyebrows down-turned. It was a moment before the water on his wrist dried, and he regressed into a kitten, now much more of a cat than anything, with that habitual subdued pop. The smoke from the transformation curled around her bare ankles before dissolving entirely, and Zetsu rubbed against her shins, a purr welling in his throat.

She knelt down, face in her hands, and though Zetsu mewled and growled for her attention, she ignored him as thoroughly as possible. She was scared. For the first time since she'd initially taken them in, Sakura was scared. Zetsu was obviously doing something behind her back, Tobi had a full grip on a staggering arsenal of chakra, and Itachi was becoming bolder with her by the day. None of them were safe. She had to drive this point home as efficiently as possible. She felt more and more fenced in by them every day. How long had it been since she'd seen any of her friends, Suna incident aside? She'd even moved out to the country to house these men. Why did no one notice her absence? Her change of heart? Why had no one questioned her? And worse yet, why hadn't she been assigned any missions since Suna? Why was she assigned so little hours at the hospital lately? Why was she slipping from that decadent shinobi lifestyle? Where had her life gone? There was something intrinsically bizarre about the whole situation, disregarding the kitten curse-slash-jutsu entirely.

She growled into her hands in frustration, palming away tear streaks and holding back sobs as best she could. This caused her to take on a very violent hiccupping episode, though, wherein Zetsu continued to rub figure-eights around her legs and meow loudly for attention. The dark, quiet aura of the house was not helping matters. Zetsu's soft pattering and purring was the loudest sound in the room. She scooped him abruptly into her arms, distressing him, and marched down the hallway. She sidestepped and shuffled her way through two sets of doors and over the walkway, her feet stinging from the cold outside, and then into the boys' portion of the house. It was mostly quiet except for the occasional soft drone of one or two voices.

She didn't know who was where, but she walked into the first bedroom she could find, which happened to be, perhaps unfortunately, Kakuzu's room. He was shaking out a dusty quilt above a makeshift mattress of sheets and blankets when she strode in and set Zetsu unceremoniously on the bed.

Kakuzu dropped the quilt and looked at her slowly, one eyebrow raised.

"Keep him in here for the night," Sakura said, unsuccessfully holding back another hiccup. She put the back of her hand to her mouth. "Don't give him another water contact until the morning, okay?"

Kakuzu said nothing, and when Sakura regained her composure, he was watching her quizzically. Zetsu had since curled into a content ball on Kakuzu's bed.

Sakura's lower lip trembled, especially when Kakuzu kept silent. He just…watched. Waited, with his weight on one hip and his fingers lax and his mouth calmly closed. She fell quite literally against him then, hands fisting the fabric at the front of his shirt, burying her nose into his chest. She clenched her fists just as hard as she squeezed her eyes shut, taking a deep, shaking breath. And still Kakuzu did not react except for the wary tightening of his stance.

"I made the right choice," Sakura mumbled to no one in particular, rather ambiguously, and then wrenched herself off of Kakuzu to storm out of his room, across the walkway, back through the hallway, and into her own quarters. The storming faded to pathetic shuffling eventually, and she barely felt that she had the strength to slide open her own bedroom door. Once inside, she managed to calm herself down and dress the futon decently. She felt silly and embarrassed for her previous actions in the process, and all at the same time, the confusion about Zetsu and Tobi still reeled tauntingly in her head. She suddenly wished it hadn't been Kakuzu's room she'd first found. If it was Kisame's room, would she have done the same thing? If it was Deidara's?

The moment she crawled into bed, bloodstained floor and possible murder weapon completely forgotten, there was a knock on her door. Nobody ever knocked. Everyone in the house must have known she was on edge. Did they see her exchange with Kakuzu? Did they see her storm off or break down? She didn't even care anymore whether she showed weakness in front of them. They knew more about her now than even some of her closest friends. She was too far gone to give a damn.

The culprit at her door slipped inside wordlessly, without an answer to the knock.

"I figured now would be a good time to get some fresh air, yeah."

Sakura felt monumentally grateful that it was Deidara. She shifted slightly under the blankets. "Okay."

"We're going to go out onto the grounds and feel it out a bit," he said, leaning casually against the wall opposite from her. "Find out how far we can go before it's considered out-of-bounds, yeah."

"Okay," she said again. She didn't feel like saying much else, incidentally. Her head was pounding.

Deidara lingered for a second longer, though he didn't say anything. The Akatsuki had an acute sense of other people's emotions. Or maybe they just had an acute sense of her emotions. The thought brought another unsettling upsurge of nausea.

He was completely silent when he left, just like when he had come. She fell asleep hoping, somewhere in the back of her mind, that they'd all find a way to escape tonight.