Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliations…I am merely borrowing its characters and settings to indulge my own fantasies and then share said fantasies with other people who equally do not own Naruto. I am not making any profit off this.

O O O

I was gonna let you know, but my voice was strange, it changed before I let it go

O O O

The morning sky was red in the east, turning with the coming of the sun.

Sakura was standing on the studio's rock wall next to Deidara. It was a brisk, late-winter, early-spring morning and they each watched the mountains dark in shadow on the right and the mountains molten with dawn on the left. The Hidden Village in the centre was tucked away, not yet ready to rouse.

"There's that moment, yeah, when the lighting is just right. That's a good moment," Deidara said of the view, basking in it. Standing where he was, the sun gave Deidara's blond hair an orange glow. He caught Sakura staring and gave her a wink. "Any way. Wanted to share the sight, yeah."

He had dragged her away from the end of her warm ups to make sure she saw it.

It had been five mornings since that time, and now it was three days until she was supposed to leave. Everything seemed so surreal to her. But at least she and Deidara were speaking normally once more. Sakura had never been one to let apologies draw out, and perhaps because of his own philosophy, her sensei seemed to feel the same. She could feel a smile on her lips and it wasn't forced.

"It's nice."

"Well, now it's not, yeah, but a few seconds ago maybe."

She laughed quietly. It felt good.

"Finish warm ups and get something to eat?"

They dropped down to the garden and spent the next hour on their various exercises, punctuated with the daily run around the forest. For breakfast they had omelettes and they talked over a black coffee and a spiced tea.

Deidara waited for a lull in the idle conversation before he cleared his throat, "so, yeah. I'll need you to pack a bag for an overnight."

"What? Where's that coming from?" Sakura put down the bowl she was drying to raise her eyebrows at Deidara, whose elbows were deep in dish suds.

"It's time for a spiritual retreat, yeah."

She let her eyebrows fall and narrowed her eyes, unconsciously reached out to pop a wandering bubble.

Seeing the expression, he grouched, "I said spiritual, didn't I? Nothing's going to explode, yeah. Always with those sceptical looks."

"Full gear?"

"Sprout, never leave for anywhere, anything, without your gear. Shinobi Rule five."

"Shinobi Rule five is to never reveal the mission to outside operatives," she insisted, partly for the fun of being contrary.

"Just. Sprout. Meet me on the bird in ten, yeah."

Sakura gave him a smile, excited and curious, before heading to her room to seal a scroll.

Some time later and they were both huddled on the back of Deidara's clay bird, flying through the air, cursing about how it was damnably cold and how it was utterly annoying to readjust their travelling cloaks every other second. They had watched the Village Hidden in the Stone become a mere dot as they flew, eyes watering. But they were laughing too, around chattering teeth and reddening cheeks as they talked.

"How is it you've been on, not one, not two, but three different dates with sweet little Obaa-chans?" Sakura couldn't help but giggle at the story Deidara had just recited.

"What? I can't help it if they find my company delightful," he said, completely smug. Then taking on a softer edge, reminiscing, "sometimes they have interesting stories themselves, yeah. You get to talking with almost anyone, after a while they'll have something worth saying."

For some reason, this little murmur made Sakura forget she hated Deidara sometimes. He appreciated things where appreciation was due. It was a rather optimistic view of people, she thought.

"Except for inartistic assholes. Those people are worthless."

She rolled her eyes and huffed at her premature sentimentality.

"Any way, for some reason Obaa-chans always frequent the same baths I like in the village. It's like they have a tag on me or something, yeah." The humour returned.

"Obaa-chans can be kunoichi, too," Sakura chimed in around the hitai-ate in her teeth, trying to keep her hair back and out of her face. At least it was easier for her to sit on the bird, she'd been able to figure out producing a chakra grip throughout a good portion of her body. Finishing with her hair, she hoped Deidara was at least a little envious, as he was sitting with only his palms and feet as anchors. She thought about his stories, "maybe it was the dates with those Obaa-chans that made you so smooth."

"Eh?" The air rushing past them made it hard to hear. He leaned closer.

"Don't 'eh' me!" Sakura said, leaning away, her face feeling hot. She twirled her hand in the air, elaborating what she felt was obvious. "That time at the inn, and then after the Mock Ups. Your hair was all...and around your neck again you had..."

Deidara smirked, shook a little with restrained amusement. "Someone sounds a little jealous, yeah. You sure pay close attention to your precious sensei."

Sakura adamantly had nothing to say to that, which made him laugh.

What had she been thinking, saying that out loud?

And she wasn't jealous. It was just that – she'd never so much as held her crush's hand and Deidara goes off and randomly kisses two different people as if it were the easiest thing. And apparently he's the charmer of sweet little biddies as well. How was it so easy to interact with people in that sense? Any time she had approached the one she liked it was like talking to a wall.

And yet Deidara seemed to so effortlessly pull people to him.

Ugh, why was she letting this train of thought go on more than necessary?

'Coping mechanism? People often look in such a direction for relief...'

That must be it, she decided. But it could stop there. No more musings.

Their destination was a temple, not very old but clearly abandoned, sitting on a small hillside over an adjacent hamlet.

"Used to be there were monks here, but the Earth Daimyo wanted them closer to his estate. Can you believe that, yeah? The most entitled of men orders the humblest of people to move for him. Figures."

The bird landed directly outside the tall wooden doors. Old leaves flitted over the worn stone path, colours of brown and grey running together in a desolate palette. Sakura eyed the buildings hesitantly, felt her skin dance in place. "Haunted."

Deidara slapped her shoulder and grinned. "These ghosties won't bother you, yeah."

"What do you mean 'these' ghosties?"

Pushing open the doors with familiar ease, "well, they're more like relics than ghosts."

The temple wasn't as empty or as unkempt on the inside as she had expected. Most of the former occupants had moved on, but it was obvious someone stayed behind to keep tidy what wasn't brought to the new temple location. For the first hour or so Deidara showed her around, narrating things, bringing her to a few of his more favoured spots. He had a canister of tea that he heated for them and they sat high on a support beam for the roof and looked down the hillside to the town and beyond.

Sakura was trying to cool her tea before she sipped it. Smiling into the steam, "that's two beautiful things for today."

"Eh. Since it's your birthday, yeah," he offered.

Straightening, she blinked at Deidara, experiencing a loss for words. Then, eloquently, "Eh – ?"

"Your dossier."

"What?" Eloquently, again. "No, I mean. I get the part about the dossier. But –"

"Life needs little celebrations, yeah." He was sitting next to her on the beam, legs hanging over the edge and swinging idly like her own. The two of them were an arm's length apart, cannister of tea sat between them.

Her chest swelled again with the same emotions from the garden, the ones that made her toes curl in her sandals.

Ah, but then back at that time he had said those things...

Sakura didn't have time to dwell on what was stirring inside her. She straightened, hearing something. Deidara picked up on it as well, his actions mirroring her own. At the same moment they located the source of the noise.

From above them.

"What the..." Sakura felt an intense wave of eugh go through her at the sight of a ball of coiling snakes balancing on another, smaller beam up in the corner of the rafter over their heads. "I think I've seen this in a nature documentary. Feel like more of a voyeur in person."

Deidara's response was much more hardened. "There's something not right about that – where the hell did they come from? And this early in the year, yeah."

The coiling ball loosened and Sakura shrieked as several of the snakes descended on them. Without warning Deidara pushed her from the beam and they were both dropping to the temple steps below, Sakura landing a little less fluidly than her sensei. But Deidara was stiff with a realisation she was one step behind in making, too occupied with the fact that the entire premise was suddenly writhing with the twists and weaves of thousands of snakes. She'd landed on several.

She managed to not shriek a second time, but her language was colourfully surprised. Then, sensing trace amounts of chakra within the animals, "is this a ninjutsu?"

"Summons," Deidara said, sounding mentally far away as he swiped and kicked at the snakes attempting to curl up his legs. His eyes darted around the buildings, as did Sakura's.

The chakra presence, the man to whom it belong, appeared faster than either Deidara or Sakura expected, each starting a bit with his overwhelming arrival in the entranceway above them. It was no wonder, she thought, the snakes had been almost lethargic in their attempts to wrap around them, the man's stare was enough to paralyse them into place.

It was one thing to learn about killing intent, to conceptualise it and tell herself she could overcome it, and it was another to be surrounded by its suffocating embrace. The feeling that it would be a delight, a simple thing, to end her life.

"Are you wondering who I am? But you must know. Then – why am I here?" The man was ghost white and black, his voice as smooth and terrifying in kind. He tilted his head, golden yellow eyes thoughtful as he smiled, alluring and arresting.

The snakes were too many and Sakura's vision was shrinking into darkness. She couldn't look away and she saw in his eyes, I'm not interested in you. And she had never been so insignificant in her life.

"I was informed you might be interesting. Was I wrong, boy?"

Darkness and insignificance.

'So soon?'

There was the sound of metal running against metal, the thunk of something hitting the ground. Explosives tags set off.

One of the explosions was close to her, enough force from the blast of wind and heat and smoke to knock her over. The movement broke her paralysis and freed her mind from the debilitating thoughts, like coming out from a genjutsu. Sakura made seals for a substitution technique, landed on one of the posts lining the steps.

She didn't know why, but she knew they were in a battle.

'Assess the situation; observe and analyse. Determine weakness, formulate a plan of exploitation. Prioritise speed and effectiveness.'

First: clear the snakes from her body – check. Locate Deidara: he was still on the steps, snake carcasses around him – check. Move for high ground. Deidara was a second ahead of her, but they both appeared standing opposite each other on either side of the entrance to the temple, the man between them.

A tall, lithe person; there was a certain decrepit elegance to him. Looking back and forth between Sakura and Deidara, the man purred, "oh? But I am only here to test one of you."

Laughter, ease, dismissal.

Sakura eyed the man, listing what knowledge she had on him. No hitai-ate visible. Extremely skilled; he had completely masked his chakra signature to the point even Deidara, a jounin, missed it. Very experienced fighter, obvious in more ways than she could easily acknowledge. Could control snakes, but they weren't all summons judging from what she could sense of their chakra. And the man had come, inexplicably, with an objective to engage in a fight with Deidara.

But he was arrogant too, made a bit of a spectacle out of his entrance. A terrifying spectacle and it worked.

So far, a short list, really.

She waited for Deidara to do something as the man leisured, arms crossed and weight shifted to one leg. He wasn't looking at either of them, but he had a twist to his lips as if he didn't need to see them to know what they were doing and thinking.

"What's your name, yeah?" Deidara asked, eyes widening with his own interest.

Sakura remembered that expression; he had worn it while fighting in the opium den. Only this time Deidara was excited. For all the reasons she feared the man, Deidara looked positively happy. She wanted to blanch at his bravado but settled for frowning a little. She wondered if his enthusiasm was a result of his opponent being stronger this time.

"You act eager. Are you truly? Are you reassuring yourself by pretending you do not already know who I am? Such is the state of the young, I suppose." But the man sounded amused, unfolding his arms as if to shrug in disbelief.

Sakura had been waiting for them, so she saw the hand seals as the man feigned the gesture, and without knowing what the hand seals would produce, she loosened her stance and prepared herself.

The snake came from nothingness at the man's wrist, faster and larger than any of its predecessors – and it was flying out straight towards her. Sakura dodged, eyes open and she refused to blink as she sprinted backwards as the fangs pursued her. She threaded around a column at her back, satisfied when the snake latched into the wood instead of her neck as she used a shunshin to avoid its lunge.

The snake's tail end thrashed out and wrapped around her middle, constricting her. One of her arms was free. She grabbed a kunai from the pouch on her back and she slammed it into the snake, making to slice its head off, when the snake dispersed in a smoke cloud. Sakura flinched though the hot splash of blood never came.

Looking up to see Deidara's state and she grinned as he landed a kick on the back of the man's neck. A knock out for sure.

Sakura felt her lips tremble and the smile slip away. Actually, having a moment to really observe the situation, the man wasn't reacting to Deidara's attacks at all.

"Yes, yes. Proficient in this area as well. I'm not here for this – I want to see your art. Isn't that how you call it? The way you use your kekkei genkai?"

"What?" Sakura felt her own surprise at the prompt paling compared to Deidara's. He looked shocked and furious.

Distance restored between them, after the taijutsu failed to produce any damage, the man went on, "I see. So that is how it is. Inheritor of the Blast Chakra and no one bothered to talk to you about your lineage?"

Sakura was still, looking between the two, trying to grasp the situation and the insinuation. There was so much going on and she was too out of depth. She had to do something. But what?

The anger on Deidara's face was smothered by a sudden, cool detachment. "Hell if I care about that. I'm only interested in my art, yeah. And you'd like to see it? Better yet– how about you live it? Katsu!"

It was a good thing, then, that she hadn't rushed forward to intervene in some way. She realised Deidara must have been planting clay on the man whenever his seemingly ineffective hits landed. She clenched her fists and braced for the explosion that had been the man's body, grimacing when chunks of snakes smacked into her.

Glaring at the slowly clearing smoke, she wondered aloud, "substitution jutsu? But how could he have avoided the bombs?"

"Not substitution, no."

Her body went rigid, the return of the man's killing intent immediate and paralysing. Her throat was tight, her chest seizing. The man was right next to her, carefree in his slanted posture. A clone? But he didn't seem invested in fighting her at all. Feeling every muscle and tendon fight the action, Sakura turned her head to stare up at her company.

"He's quite beautiful, do you agree? Though the picture I had showed him with longer hair. I think I preferred that style more." Golden yellow eyes moved over her face. A minuscule measure of regard in the twitch of his eyebrow. "Breathe, girl."

The action was too costly, she'd forgone it in her terror. It seemed foreign and painful when she gasped. How had Deidara managed to break her from this miserable experience before? It was impossible, she thought. Her hands shook and she couldn't bring herself to move them. She needed something to shock her back to her senses, and she knew that, but if she knew as much – why couldn't she?

'Only –'

"You never answered the question, though you might have thought it rhetorical. " The man said, making her eyes jump from where they had settled on his shoulder back to his face. His expression could have almost been friendly if not for the atmosphere promising a painful death if she so much as blinked in the wrong way. "What do you think of that specimen, Haruno Sakura?

"You...also know my name?"

"I like to know the variables in play. Leaf kunoichi, graduated top of your class academically, strengths in tactics and memorization, age – ah, thirteen, is it?"

"How did you know –?"

Eyes back to watching the fight, cutting her off. "Copy of your dossier."

Sakura was incredulous, and her mouth quirked with an instinctive bitter smile, but the feeling was short lived. A gleeful 'katsu!' grabbed her attention and she looked up at the word, covered her eyes at the expected blast from the explosions, then frantically checked for the clone next to her to disperse. He didn't. Instead, he was forming hand seals.

It was the trick to ending her temporary paralysis – knowing she needed to act. She must, so she did.

'Strike at the forearm, damage the tendons there, rip it off, take away his hand seals.'

Sakura had taken a step and the man's foot caught her in the stomach, stopping her, then another kick to drop her to the ground. Stepping on her, he stood leaning his weight on her throat as he finished his seals. He dissolved at once into a pile of snakes, and she tried to leap to her feet, but just as quickly he reformed from even more snakes, trapping her once more.

It was hard to think about chakra control when she couldn't breathe. Thinking, too, seemed so difficult. She only knew the struggle.

"I have seen enough, now," the man above her said, but he was speaking to Deidara who was beyond her line of sight. She could hear him struggling with something and she wondered what was happening. His illustrative language did little in the moment. "Oh, I should tell you not to do that."

Again, he wasn't talking about Sakura, who had finally gathered enough wits to move her hands to the man's ankle – about to break it.

"This clone here has absorbed one of those sneaking clay snakes you made just then. Ah, unless, should she become part of your work as well?" The man's eyes were back down to hers. And then he was leaning down, hand extended to push aside her fringe; a cold touch to freeze her pulse. Her breathing hitched and he had a peaceful smile. "You squander your gift with those crude sculptures when you could put your chakra directly into people. Directly into her – why, you could make real art out of this one."

Several things happened, the man taunted, Deidara yelled something, and Sakura summoned chakra into her hands and chopped the leg crushing her. Her hand faltered, the chakra gathered wasn't enough for a clean break. The hit connected, and there had been too much give for some reason, but it was enough for her to roll free and get space to think.

"Deidara!"

But the man's play had worked. Deidara was immobilised, eyes open but unresponsive. Sakura made to reach him, but felt something hot and wet slip around her neck. Rough and strong. A tongue, she saw, as the appendage wrapped around her spun her to face the man again. Damn, she'd at least like to know the name of the asshole who was going to kill her.

He was finally looking at her with something akin to curiosity, letting her dangle as he brought her closer for inspection.

Sakura swung a fist for his head. He caught her wrist and the chakra she had gathered there with the intent to release it burned off through her skin with no small amount of agony.

"Oh," the man humoured, drawing out the sound. He spoke clearly from around the engorged tongue coming from his mouth. "For a second there I thought you were going to do something interesting."

She gathered chakra in her hand and feet, swung out in succession, each strike finding its home.

It did no good, he anticipated the chakra surge and counter-acted with chakra of his own to negate the effect.

Crying from the pressure around her neck, from the frustration, she went to grab at the tongue holding her with the intention to rip it apart. The man stretched his arms, too far to be a normal reach, grabbing to get both her wrists, and angled the tongue away from the reach of her feet.

"Unfortunately for you," he said, bored again, "I have seen a technique like this before, and that person is much more capable."

"Dei...Deidara!" Shit. She hadn't meant to call out. She didn't want to be in this position – helpless. She didn't know what to do, she couldn't calm down and focus. She was – she was too uninformed, too inexperienced, too outclassed. Too scared –

Something crunched. The bones in her wrists. Sakura screamed out, choked on her own saliva, jerked and yelped again.

"You went for my forearms earlier, correct? I shall return the favour. Note how I can make a cut here," – glowing and a piercing, throbbing sting on the insides of her forearms – "here," – the undersides of her upper arms – "and snap this part here," – a strike to each of her collar bones – "and how is that now?"

Unbearable. Thoughts were beyond her. Her system went into overload, shock from the sudden trauma, and then she was dropping, hitting the ground and her throat was raw and burning. But crying out hurt too, so she was left to whimper and gasp. Blood, snot, sweat, saliva, tears, she didn't know what exactly, but her face was wet and pulsing and her hair stuck to her cheeks and forehead.

Footsteps. The man was walking away. Flat on her back, angled away from Deidara behind her, she cast her eyes around wildly to see what was going on. No shadows, no reflections, no way to see.

"Stop..." but her voice was barely a whisper. "...Stop"

Her gut jumped, her insides seemed to think it was time to flee, but she swallowed back the sensation.

The air went still, it took a moment for her to notice, but there was something off about the quiet that had just then fallen over the temple. Her panicked breathing was loud in the open space.

"I suppose I must have been too indulgent if you two are arriving now. Or perhaps this is simply your ever charming punctuality?"

Sakura wanted to frown in confusion, but all she could manage was catching her loud breaths and hissing them into something quieter. Too much information going through her, too sensitive to everything to process anything properly, but the man had spoken and she tried to make sense of his words. Only, he hadn't said anything to Deidara or herself, she knew. Someone else had arrived.

A new voice. "You have interfered with our organisation's property. Does this mean...I will be taking the other hand as well, Orochimaru-sama?"

Sakura felt a shiver passed through her. Fear, anticipation, hope. Hope. Help.

'Keep breathing, listen.'

They were talking, but their words went in and out in a numb static, like a frequency being tuned.

A third voice, deep and clear. "That one isn't very far. There seem to be some big players gathering here today." A pause she felt very acutely for some reason, and then, "well. And the girl, too."

Hah. She was the girl. It was absurd to laugh and it would be too painful, but she wanted to snort and say how she wouldn't be around for very long...she was starting to...Blackness.

But she had to listen. Her eyes had closed and she forced herself to open them again. In that brief moment, really, she thought it had only been a second, someone had moved to stand over her. More time than she guessed had passed. A crash in her ribs as she felt her heart jump, but it wasn't the man again.

Another stranger. He looked young. Thoughtful. Tired. She wished she could see him without the film of tears.

Trying to calm herself, Sakura pushed out what words she could. "My...sensei..."

A second man joined the first, a pace away. So tall, grey skin, beady yellow eyes. He was wearing the same cloak as the first one. But it was what he was carrying that caught her attention; folded over his shoulder, face obscured into the crook of the man's long waist, was her sensei.

"Don't tell me," she rasped at the sight, closing her eyes and feeling cool tears trace down her face, "that guy...goes on about his art...and now he's passed out!"

She wasn't showing emotion, just ire. No tears of worry to be found here, sirs. No emotions. Just frustration. Just...

Just tell her he's not dead already. Sakura tried to focus on the man closest to her. He had a soft voice, lilted with the inflexion and habits of a cultured background. But it wasn't reassuring.

"We are taking him back to Iwa. There is something he still needs to do." The first man might have been talking to her or to the stranger next to him, Sakura didn't know.

She wanted to pass out herself, join Deidara in his blissful, unconscious reprieve. There was too much pain, too many questions, she didn't think her mind could handle it. She just wanted to hug herself, curl up, and most of all she wanted to stomp-in the face of the man with the golden yellow eyes.

Orochimaru. The name sounded so familiar, but it was beyond her mental grasp. Too much else going on.

"And her?" The second man. "Looks a bit rough."

She could have laughed. Well, she couldn't have, actually, so she didn't. Crying was becoming too much. She stared at the man staring back down at her. He had such delicate features and such a strong glare. She felt the hope that had tried to bloom in her chest wither. "Don't. Don't..."

They were going to take him, they had said. She would be left in the temple, alone. Alone in the Earth Country, unable to even move. Deidara wasn't supposed to let this happen. Why had that man –

Blinking her dry eyes, they felt burned out, Sakura kept them from rolling into the back of her head, very consciously looked at the man at her side. Not too tall, slender, standing with disinterest. He had saved them, somehow, in some way that she didn't completely understand. She shouldn't trust him, though, she felt that much was certain.

But she couldn't help herself from saying, "it's just...that guy..."

And she glanced over to Deidara's prone form. She didn't know what to do. She met the cool black eyes watching her. Deidara was really leaving. She couldn't stop him. Her voice was tired, rough, it broke on her little gasps. "Actually...I really...hate that guy."

Someone laughed and it sounded like the bark from a dog. Sharp laughter. Was she crying again? They weren't supposed to separate like this. She thought it would be different. It was too soon, they hadn't even said goodbye. Who were these people? It was painful.

Something cool pressed against her forehead. Fingers, thin and calloused. Her eyes were shut again. She felt the earth as it spun on its axis beneath her, as if she'd just spun in circles for a solid minute.

"She's from the Leaf. Like you, eh, Itachi?" The voice that belonged to the other one.

The touch disappeared, leaving her face flush and uncomfortable. "It is as you said, that man will be here soon."

"So she'll be left behind then? Aa. Some birthday."

Despite everything, Sakura felt her eyebrow twitch. For the love of – "you couldn't have – "

"The dossier," two voices rung out.

Darkness again, and it made her cold. Her mouth was thick with dryness, her tongue too big for it, her throat too constricted. She was waking up. It took her a moment to remember where and how she had fallen asleep, or passed out, rather. If her stiff and unresponsive body was anything to go by, time had passed. The sun was weak and the heat from its rays did little to warm her. Her eyes were crusted shut and she had to wait for her vision to right itself.

She realised why she had woken; there was something above her. It looked like an animal with its white, ragged hair. The face was slow to come into focus, but it was another person she didn't recognise. He had a nice smile, as worried as it was. Stress and age lines. Kind eyes.

Sakura felt her lips tremble as the sensation from her arms and upper chest returned. But that wasn't the important thing. Deidara was gone and she didn't know why. Someone had attacked them and she had failed to do anything. She failed.

It was a heavy confession to the man sitting next to her. "I couldn't stop him."

O O O