Sakura was a hundred pounds soaking wet, but it felt like a cement truck had run over Sasuke's foot. It was throbbing.
He gritted his teeth. That was twice now that she had emasculated him in so violent and unforgivable a way, but he would give her credit: the little hellion was much stronger and resourceful than she looked. He'd had her trapped in his own arms and she managed to find a way not only to escape, but to save the Yamanaka migraine as well, whom they'd been hoping to take hostage.
The little nightmare.
She was going to pay. She was going to pay a thousand times over. She was going to heal his damn foot, first of all. She was going to apologize on her fucking knees for dragging him around like a lovesick puppy. She was going to...
"I GOT ONE!" Kiba's voice called from below.
Sasuke ignored the agony in his foot and peered over the side of the rafter, lifting his face mask to examine what Kiba was talking about.
Sure enough, in his arms was an unconscious girl, face mask still on, short black hair spilling over her shoulders.
"Who the hell is that?" Naruto demanded. "That's not one of our girls, Kiba, put that one back where you found it! You don't know where it's been!"
"It's Hinata, you dolt," Shikamaru drawled. He stepped out from behind his hiding place in the uppermost corner, where he'd been chainsmoking, counting on the fog machines to camouflage the smoke from his cigarettes. "She cut her hair."
The four boys met on the bottom floor, and Naruto gently removed the girl's face mask to reveal an unconscious Hinata, as Shikamaru had predicted.
"YOU KNOCKED HER OUT, YOU PSYCHO?" Naruto yelled, aghast.
"No, you moron!" Kiba snapped. "She saw me behind her and passed out, you know how she gets! So what do we do with her?"
"We take her with us," Shikamaru replied as though it were obvious. "They had Ino for a minute, but Sakura came and got her away." Sasuke shot him an absolutely filthy look, but could say nothing in his defense. The ache in his foot humbled him somewhat. "But if we take Hinata with us, Sakura and Ino will have no choice but to come for her."
"This is kidnapping, you know," Sasuke mumbled, but in his heart he knew it was probably their only option at this point.
"This is war," Kiba corrected. "All's fair, remember?"
"Where's the emergency exit?" Naruto asked. "We can't just carry her out the way we came in...you know Sakura and Ino. They'll tell the workers here that we're stalking them and trying to kidnap one of them. We'll be right back in jail!"
Naruto was sometimes (on the rarest occasions) unquestionably wise. Sasuke's sharp eyes immediately pinpointed the glowing red EXIT sign over one of the doors, one that would surely sound an emergency alarm if shoved open, but right now, their best bet to flee undetected.
"There," he indicated. "Hurry up, while everyone's heading back to the waiting area, they're about to start Round 2."
With that, they stripped off their targets and guns and threw them on the floor, Kiba hurled Hinata onto his back and they took off like bandits for the emergency exit.
xoxoxo
The girls stayed long enough to learn three things:
1) Sakura was the overall high scorer for Round 1 of Ame City Laser World.
2) Jeweled sandals gave you blisters if you wore them during a high-stakes battle of laser tag.
and 3) The boys had made off with Hinata.
"You know that you can do 20 to life for kidnapping?" Ino remarked as they stalked dejectedly back to their hotel room to figure out their next option. They were huddled beneath an umbrella and their shoulders were slouched at their failure to keep all of their members present and accounted for.
God only knew what kind of torture the boys had in store for the gentlest, mildest member of their flighty little group.
Naruto would perhaps forcefeed her packages of instant ramen until she threw up.
Kiba would fart in her vicinity until she threw up.
Shikamaru would be so boring and useless that she would throw up.
And Sasuke would probably just decapitate her in a fit of misplaced anger at his inability to catch the slippery Sakura.
Each scenario was more horrifying than the last.
"They're gonna interrogate her for information on our whereabouts," Sakura sighed.
"You think she'll cave? Tell 'em where we're staying?"
"It's hard to say. I hope that Fancy New Hyuuga comes with a diamond spine. But if Naruto whipped out his dirty ass socks...well, to put it this way, if I had any government secrets, I'd spill 'em."
The girls both sighed in defeat.
"So what do we do now?" Ino wondered as they returned to their little hotel, tired and hungry and out of ideas.
Sakura sat on the edge of the mattress with her iPhone in her hand. "We wait for Sasuke-kun to call us with a list of demands," she groaned. "Oh, God, he's going to be fucking dreadful..."
Ino had to hand it to Sakura; she knew Sasuke pretty well. Not five minutes later did Sakura's phone ring; she exchanged a heavy glance with Ino. "Don't ever let him see us sweat," she said sternly, before answering.
"You could do serious time for this, Sasuke-kun."
He chuckled on the other end. She could just picture the smug look on his face, and the thought made her want to kiss him and strangle him in equal measure, and in that order as well.
"I win."
"Nope. The rules weren't to catch one of us. You have to catch all of us. Game's still on."
"Not quite. Your so-called friend spilled your location immediately."
"Liar!" Sakura hissed. "Hinata-chan would NEVER betray us!"
"Hn. Wrong."
"Let me hear her voice, you ape! Hinata-chan? Are you there? Are you alive?"
"Sakura-chan I'm so so sorry, I didn't mean to, but Naruto pulled his s-socks off, and I couldn't...the smell overcame me! It felt like...like all the happiness had drained out of the world and I would never s-smile again!" Hinata's voice was frantic and full of despair.
"It's all right!" Sakura said quickly. "We understand! Stay alive, Hinata!"
Sasuke put the phone up to his ear again. "Now here's what's gonna happen, Haruno, and I'm only gonna tell you this once. You're gonna meet us out front the hotel, and we'll give your friend back to you."
"So what's the catch, you dementor?"
"Watch your mouth," he advised, unable to conceal the amusement in his tone. Sakura really had some of the worst insults in the world at her disposal. "We've got a list here, see. Demands."
"You unimaginable creepass. Like what?"
"You'll see. Be out front in twenty minutes. Or your friend gets it."
"Gets what?" Sakura demanded.
"Shut up, Sakura, it's an expression. Don't be late."
The line clicked dead, and Sakura looked at Ino with dread.
They were now at the mercy of four guys, who in the past few days, had been dragged across the country practically against their will, played for fools, humiliated, disgraced, arrested, and physically abused...all because of them.
They were never going to survive the retaliation.
xoxoxo
Sasuke couldn't fight the grin on his face.
This was going to be so sweet.
Sakura had singlehandedly made a fool of him this whole week. She succeeded in taking his pristine reputation as the All-Star athlete, the golden boy, the kind of otherworldly deity most mortals aspired to emulate, and torn it to shreds with her tiny pink-painted nails. He now had a record because of her whimsicalities and refusal to think things through.
Well, she was about to get what was coming to her, and tenfold.
He leaned casually up against his car, hands shoved in his pockets, smirk in place. Kiba, Naruto, and Shikamaru were inside, Kiba guarding the prisoner, Naruto flirting with the prisoner, and Shikamaru ignoring the prisoner, and everyone else for that matter. Normally he wouldn't be so cautious, but as it was, Hinata was their only bargaining chip at this point. Not to mention, Sakura was crafty and devilishly resourceful, like a witch. He couldn't afford to let his guard down around her.
He checked quickly on the people crammed into his Jetta. Sandwiched in the backseat between Kiba and Naruto, Hinata glowed a violent red with nerves, and although she'd awakened from her dead faint, she still looked fragile and as frazzled as always. Satisfied, Sasuke redirected his attention to the front door, and his smirk widened when he saw two girls emerge from the foyer of the little hotel looking positively miserable.
Sakura was wearing a tiny pair of shorts and a cropped top, revealing more skin than he would have preferred anyone seeing (besides himself, of course. Uchihas were notorious for their pure thoughts about even the most appealing women. Or so he often told himself, to justify the hours a week he would lose to lusting over his pink-haired migraine of a friend.) That would have to be added to his list of demands...a complete overhaul of her skimpy little wardrobe.
She approached him cautiously, suspiciously, and also with a hint of resignation, as though she knew she had this coming. Sakura was not first in their class for nothing.
Then she paused, and muttered something to Ino beside her. Ino looked anxious, but nodded once, curtly, and began backing away.
"I'll meet you in the middle," Sakura called to him. "Alone, you future convict!"
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. Here she was, about to have her proverbial ass handed to her by the fire she was playing with, and she was still making demands? Exactly who did she think she was dealing with?
Weighing his options, though, he realized he had to agree, if only to save what little of his pride remained. It wouldn't do to have Sakura thinking that he was intimidated by her, and he wasn't, he reminded himself forcefully. Who would ever fear her? Five foot nothing, skinny as a rail, and lurid pink fairy hair? She looked about as ferocious as a kitten.
He mumbled a quick, "Wait here," to his friends (and Hinata), before kicking off from his car and walking towards Sakura with casual, almost lazy strides. She kept her arms folded across her chest, in an almost defensive gesture, and he was amused at the contrasting fire that flamed in her stormy green eyes. He recognized that look. She was thinking, and thinking quickly.
A twinge of unease erupted in his stomach that he completely ignored.
They stopped when they were five feet apart, and Sakura met his gaze as fiercely as if they were the same height, and he didn't tower over her by a full head. He doubted he'd be surprised if a tumbleweed blew between them, it felt that much like a wild west standoff between the sheriff (Sasuke) and the outlaw (Sakura.)
Or maybe it was the other way around. He did have a hostage locked up in his car.
Sakura seemed to be thinking along the same lines, if her suddenly chilly grin was any indication. Forcing himself not to think the worst, he addressed her calmly.
"You played well," he said coolly. "But it's over now."
"Wrong, Sasuke-kun. It's far from over. What we have here is a good old-fashioned Mexican Stand-off."
"Hn. Not a chance, Haruno. For a Mexican Stand-off, you'd need to have something we want as much as you want what we have."
Sakura's grin widened, and Sasuke reasoned that a girl as uncommonly pretty as she was should not be able to be so devious. "Oh, but we do. See, back behind me, Ino has dialed the Ame Police Department and is one stroke away from pressing 'Call.' Then, we will inform them that a dear friend of ours, Hyuuga Hinata, has been kidnapped by strange boys who have been stalking us on our innocent crosscountry road trip, ever since our departure from Konoha on June 14th, 2012." Her eyes flashed menacingly as his narrowed.
"You're bluffing," he said coldly.
"I'm not. We already got you assholes arrested once, what's to stop us from doing it again?"
"You wouldn't survive to tell the tale," Sasuke growled, taking a step towards her, but she quickly danced back out of his reach with a tinkling laugh.
"Oh, look at the bright side, Sasuke-kun! You'll be so popular in prison!"
The glare he shot her promised murder, and she laughed again at how easily he was ruffled.
"Oh, just relax, Sasuke-kun," she sighed finally, realizing that he did not find her nearly as funny as she found herself. She put her hands on her hips (doing little more than drawing his attention to them, and how neatly they filled out her shorts) and tossed her long pink hair over her shoulder. "We're not gonna call the police, if you let Hinata go. Matter of fact, we can call a temporary truce right now, if you want."
"Explain," he demanded.
"Well, the game's still on, obviously. Just for tonight, though, we'll hang out with you guys like normal. All of us together. We can grab dinner and hang out at the hotel, or go somewhere and fuck shit up like always, whatever. A one-night truce before tomorrow, when the game's back on and you'll go back to chasing us uselessly because we're way too smart for you."
"Tch. Sounds like a copout from someone whose back's up against the wall."
Sakura did not deny the charges against her; indeed, this idea was nothing more than a desperate, last-ditch attempt to reclaim their kidnapped comrade and stall for time while she came up with a better idea. She smiled nonetheless.
"Maybe so, but admit it, Sasuke-kun. You're having as much fun as I am."
Sasuke's eyes darkened as he thought of Kiba's challenge the night before. But besides that small hiccup (that he privately vowed to annihilate at the earliest possible convenience), he couldn't lie to himself that this trip was definitely a good time. Stints in jail and broken air conditioners aside, of course.
"Fine," he bit out. The idea of spending time with Sakura where she wasn't trying to run away from him was a draw in and of itself, not that he'd ever be telling her something like that. "One night. But we're going to make some rules first, you slippery little troll."
"Don't call me a troll, you maggoty crotch pheasant," she hissed back.
Sasuke rolled his eyes and extended his hand, trusting that Sakura wasn't pathetic enough to back out of an official deal, handshake and all. She met his gaze with something unreadable in her own, before flushing a cute shade of pink and sliding her hand into his. They shook on it, and Sakura nodded firmly.
"All right. Come on inside, all of you kidnappers. Let's find somewhere to eat."
"Fine. But you're sticking with me." She blushed at the possessiveness in his tone before he clarified. "I'm not letting you sneak off on your own."
Sasuke gestured to the guys, who piled out of the Jetta dragging a mortified Hinata behind them. Leisurely, all seven of them returned to the hotel as Sakura explained the temporary stalemate she and Sasuke had agreed to. Sasuke was satisfied with this armistice, even as he saw a look of unease pass over Sakura's face. Frowning, he followed her nervous gaze as it drifted between Ino and an anxious-looking Shikamaru.
His eyes closed.
This was going to be much more troublesome than he expected.