Chapter 12:
Things settled down a bit after that. Sakura seemed to have calmed down, so Sasuke went back to join her again. Naruto wasn't very pleased to have to be in the front again, as he knew that would attract more attention from Ayumi, but Sasuke stated quite firmly that it was his turn again and that was that.
Then Sayuri woke up.
Everything went all right for a little while; she was fussing a bit, but was much more content after Sasuke had fed her. Sakura also cheered up considerably as she started chattering to the baby—Sasuke still failed to see the point in this (even though he did it too, just not when anybody else was around), but Sakura didn't care about Sayuri's lack of conversational skills.
After a little while, Sayuri started fussing again.
"What's the matter?" Sakura said, crouching a little so that she was at Sayuri's eye level. "You can't be hungry after all that, and I don't think you need a change."
Sayuri continued to whimper, sounding very much as if she would soon begin properly crying. What was their client going to think, if they couldn't even take care of a baby?
"How about your butterfly?" Sakura suggested. "Let's get that for you, okay? It must have fallen down, I can't see it. Sasuke, hold still and let me get it out."
Sasuke complied. The others weren't that far ahead, and as they weren't going too fast anyway (however much Ayumi was struggling with the pace) Sasuke and Sakura would be able to catch up without any trouble. "What are you doing?" he asked after a moment, when Sakura still hadn't pulled her hand out of the mei tai.
"I can't find it," Sakura explained, sticking her hand farther in.
"Stop it, you're tickling!" Sasuke protested.
"Ooh, you're ticklish?" Sakura said with a mischievous grin.
"Sakura..."
"Fine, fine." The gleam in her eyes made Sasuke think that she had definitely filed that little bit of information away for further use, though. "I don't think it's in there. Did you put it in the bag while you were feeding her?"
"I don't think so," Sasuke said, as she pulled the bag off his shoulder and began searching through it. "Sayuri must have pushed it out when I wasn't paying attention."
"Looks like it," Sakura agreed, "it isn't in here."
Sayuri promptly began to cry, clearly distraught to hear of the loss of her beloved toy (either that or annoyed with Sakura for poking at her while looking for it, but she had the timing more correct for the former).
"I'll go back to look for it," Sasuke said. "You go meet up with the others. It shouldn't take very long."
"Okay," Sakura said. "But be careful, okay?"
Sasuke wasn't sure whether she meant that instruction for him or Sayuri, but it was nice to know that somebody cared, in any case.
Apart from Sayuri's unhappy crying, the forest was quiet as Sasuke traced his way back. He hadn't exactly been paying attention to where the toy was while they were walking, so he wasn't sure when it could have fallen out. It might have been knocked down while he was feeding her, but that would mean going most of the way back to the village.
Still, it was clear that Sayuri was not going to be easily consoled, so he quickened his steps, hoping to find the toy before the others got too far ahead.
Sayuri didn't like this, either, so Sasuke stopped to rock her for a bit, hoping to get her to settle down just a little. "Hey, shush, okay?" he whispered, his breathing ruffling up her reddish hair. "You'll scare off every bird in the forest if this keeps up."
This didn't faze Sayuri one bit, as she kept on crying. Giving up on quieting her down, Sasuke stood to begin looking for the toy again, then froze as he heard a rustling in the trees that was most definitely not birds flying away from a noisy infant.
"Who is there?" he demanded, crouching down to protect Sayuri with his body as he reached for a kunai.
That action had probably been somewhat pointless, he decided, as he was surrounded by six hooded shinobi with drawn weapons. There were more in the surrounding trees, as well; even alone he would have been hard pressed merely to get away without severe injuries, and with Sayuri to think about he didn't stand a chance.
"What do you want?" he said, stalling for time as he scanned around with the Sharingan for any avenue of escape. There was a space where he would only have to fight past two of these people to get clear, but that would still be at enormous risk to Sayuri.
"We've been waiting a long time for you to wander off by yourself," said the apparent leader of his mysterious assailants; all he could tell from her voice was that she was a woman, and most likely not from anywhere near Konoha by her accent. She hadn't exactly answered his question, but Sasuke could guess pretty well what was intended.
One of the unfortunate side effects of being the more vulnerable half of the only two survivors of one of the most powerful clans ever was that Sasuke had the dubious honor of being one of the top kidnapping targets of the world. While he had known about this for some time, he hadn't thought he had anything to worry about this close to his home village. "You're very bold, aren't you?"
The woman shrugged. "Your teacher's distracted by that flighty little ditz we set up for this escort, your girlfriend won't say anything about you being gone for at least an hour, your other teammate's an idiot, and you can't fight because you're hauling around some brat. Now put that knife down and take your weapons belt off, and don't try anything."
She really did seem to have thought everything out very well, so Sasuke complied. Sayuri started to cry again and he tried with limited success to shush her. The situation was bad enough without her calling attention to herself and making it worse.
"All right, let's go," the woman said. One of the underlings pulled Sasuke to his feet while another retrieved the weapons he had discarded. Sasuke started to protest as his headband was shoved down over his eyes, effectively blinding him, but there was little he could do about it as he was dragged off into the forest.