You guys, I'm so sorry. My life sort of exploded for a few months there. It was messy. There were many pieces to pick up. But things are (hopefully) calming down now! Thanks for being patient with me as I got my act together to update. I really appreciate all your sweet reviews and PMs.
In this chapter, we introduce one of my favorite side-characters of all time: Karin!
Enjoy ;)
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Wishing on a Star
Karin wasn't a fool—no one could accuse her of being a half-brained fish spawn like Suigetsu. Something was wrong with Sasuke, but she couldn't figure out what it was.
She cast surreptitious glances at Sasuke as the chakra-removal mechanism whirled and coughed as it spun the scroll to remove any seals or traps. The machine beeped loudly, drawing Karin's gaze away from her beloved, her eyes widening as she checked the computer console.
"Look!" she exclaimed, one red manicured fingernail pointing to the text, "if we had tried to open this thing without deactivating it first, it would have detonated with the force of a two-ton explosion!"
"A powerful sealing jutsu indeed," Orochimaru said, his face beaming with excitement. "Perhaps too powerful for this device to remove completely. Karin, set the machine to dissolve any other residues, but leave the primary lock. We'll decontaminate the rest, then decipher the code to open the scroll."
"Excellent," she replied, smiling to herself. It had been boring before Sasuke had shown up. She was happy to have a difficult puzzle to solve, and twice as happy that her work would be helping Sasuke.
"Get me once you've opened it," Sasuke said as he retreated, a yawn cracking his jaw.
"Of course!" Karin chimed before she turned the full force of her concentration on the machine. She programmed it to skip the main lock and to unravel the other jutsu on it—no less than three other traps, judging by the pretest readout. As she set the scanners, she chewed the inside of her cheek.
"Don't you guys think something's wrong with Sasuke-kun?" she asked.
"Wrong?" Jugo replied.
"He wasn't as, I don't know…assholish as he usually is," Karin said.
Suigetsu quit leaning against the wall and came toward them, his eyes widening. "It's true. He was almost nice to Karin. He was even smiling… You don't think he's sick or something, do you?"
Karin snorted. "I'm sure it's not that. What did he go back to Konoha for? A wedding?"
"Naruto's wedding," Jugo offered. "Maybe it cheered him up. I don't think that means something's wrong with him."
"Jugo, the man was smiling. Didn't you see it?" Suigetsu demanded.
Jugo shrugged. "What's wrong with smiling?"
"At first, I thought it was because he was happy to see me," Karin mused, ignoring Suigetsu's snicker, "but it wasn't that."
"Maybe that scroll's just a big deal," Jugo hazarded.
"Maybe," Karin said. She glanced up at Orochimaru, but he was engrossed with readying the chakra decoder unit—a machine Karin had developed with her brilliance. If only Sasuke could see just how spectacular she really was, how much of an asset she could be for him to use…
Karin's machine beeped, and she read the warning message. "It's having a tough time with this scroll," she said. "I'm going to run another algorithm."
"Try the prime sequence," Orochimaru offered. "That's worked before with intel from Lightning."
In the end, it took three long hours to decontaminate all the secondary sealing jutsu, with Karin and Orochimaru using their combined intellect to combat the codes. By the time they finished, Karin had drawn her hair into a messy bun, sweat dripping down her face and making her glasses slide down her nose.
"Finally," Karin muttered, stretching her shoulders back with a pop. "But we still have the main lock."
"This is going to be outstanding," Orochimaru said, licking his lips. "With jutsu like this, the contents of the scroll will be extraordinary."
His excitement was contagious. "Come on," Karin said, releasing the scroll from the metal chamber, "let's crack this thing."
The deciphering device looked like a huge pipe organ, with hundreds of tubes jutting out of a metal box at crooked angels. Each branch held a cipher code, but it could also be used to hack through a chakra combination.
Of course, it was usually better to decontaminate the scroll first before trying to unlock it. Last year, Karin had accidentally triggered a jutsu when trying to hack a sealed scroll, and the reaction had started a small fire that had busted the machine and burnt away one of her eyebrows (Karin couldn't say which was more embarrassing). It had taken months of work to get the machine working once more. Karin would not make the same mistake again, not when Sasuke was counting on her.
"If we're lucky, this will only take a few hours," Orochimaru said, placing the scroll inside of the metal housing and clicking the door shut. He was like a child rubbing his hands together in anticipation of a birthday present.
Grinning, Karin eyed Suigetsu, who was slumped over a chair and snoring softly, and Jugo, who silently watched the proceedings from the back of the room. Fingers shaking a bit in trepidation, she fired up the machine and executed the command to begin.
Lights whirled, gears hummed, and the monitor flickered to life.
"The trick will be to test the lock without triggering it," Karin said with a grimace as she settled into a chair, the fluorescent glow of the monitor bathing her face in blue light. Time ticked by, but she hardly marked its passage as she was completely engrossed in tracking the programming commands cascading down the screen, Orochimaru by her side, equally engrossed.
It wasn't a bad life, working with Orochimaru. Karin admired his intelligence, and she appreciated him even more now that she and her former master were on equal terms. She was the only one Sasuke could trust to handle the mad scientist, to keep him in line and assist him with his projects.
Sure, they were no longer allowed to run medical experiments on unwilling subjects, which took some of the fun out of their research. But now, they could focus on the new and promising field of jutsu hacking and chakra mechatronics. Karin had already invented not one but two programming languages and, paired with Orochimaru's wealth of knowledge and experience, the two were an unstoppable team.
Karin barely noticed when Jugo leaned against the wall and fell asleep or when Suigetsu crawled under a desk to doze. Those two oafs could never understand the beauty or the power these devices promised.
"Ah, it's written in cipher 4-A-C," Orochimaru said, a grin splitting his pallid face.
Karin nodded. "Let's switch to operating system CodeX, instead of Decrypt0n. The fourth-generation cipher code has a harder time standing up to those."
Orochimaru punched in the commands then settled back in his chair, eyes gleaming blue from the screen.
"You seem happier than usual," Karin said, her eyes never leaving the screen.
"Happy?" Orochimaru mused. "Hmmm. I suppose I could say the same about you, Karin-chan. Sasuke does have that effect on people. I suppose it's his scathing wit and his charming sneer."
Karin snorted. "No need to be sarcastic."
"I wasn't," Orochimaru purred.
Karin rolled her eyes and didn't bother replying. Her gaze followed the script on the screen, her mind on Sasuke. If she could unlock this scroll for him, he might finally realize that he loved her.
She smiled softly, knowing that this time, it would be different. He'd take her with him on his next mission because she was smart, strong, and capable—not to mention beautiful. She would be of use to him; he had to see that.
The machine beeped loudly, whirled, then spat out the scroll, now partially unrolled, the seal pried off of it. Orochimaru reached for it greedily, but Karin dove in and beat him to it.
"I'll be the one to give this to Sasuke-kun!" she said in a sing-song voice, a grinning madly. "Jugo!"
The large man woke with a start, bumping his head on the wall in the process. "Get Sasuke!" Karin ordered. "We're ready!"
#
Sakura stood on the porch, looking at the garden and inhaling its fragrance. Crickets chirruped out in the night, and by the pond, frogs croaked in a cacophony. She gazed up into the dark sky. There was no moon tonight, and the stars were hidden by clouds. She let her hands drop to her belly; she wasn't showing her pregnancy yet, but she felt heavy all the same.
Her thoughts traveled, like they always did, to Sasuke. She had been a fool. She knew that, and yet her only regret was not going with Sasuke when he left the village. She should never have let him leave without her.
The clouds shifted on the wind, and a star streaked across a patch of black sky in a brilliant flash of light. On an impulse, Sakura made a wish, her eyes still burning with the afterimage of the star.
If there is a way to find Sasuke, let me find it, she wished, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. Her hands balled into fists. He would be with her when their child was born! Even if she had to scour half the world to find him.
She regarded the sky one moment longer before returning to the empty house.
#
Sasuke peered at the scroll with his Sharingan and Rinnegan. "Can you build this, Orochimaru?"
Karin sniffed. "I did all the work decoding this thing. A little appreciation would be nice."
Orochimaru chuckled, patting Karin's arm. "See here, Sasuke-kun?" he said, pointing to the blueprint with his free hand. "The weapon charges with chakra; the notes say any strong shinobi will do, but later annotations recommend that for the displacement canon, those with strong ocular powers are required for optimal results."
Orochimaru paused for a moment to stroke his chin, then laughed deep in his throat. "I'll bet Lightning couldn't have actually transported the moon; it was too ambitious of a target for one, and for another, they lack clans with superb ocular jutsu. Now, if I had members of the Hyuga clan, I might be able to transport, say, something the size of a large building."
"But these plans rely overly much on having enough shinobi to generate a powerful current," Karin complained, frowning down at the scroll. "How would you ever find that kind of manpower in the middle of a war, when everyone is exhausted? That's the main flaw with this device, in my opinion."
Suigetsu squinted down at the plans over Karin's shoulder. "No one asked your opinion," he muttered, looking more confused than annoyed. She ignored the idiot.
"Karin," Sasuke said as he looked up from the scroll, his eyes meeting hers, "what would you suggest?"
She nearly swooned from the heat of his attention, not to mention the satisfaction of proving Suigetsu wrong, but she controlled herself. She wanted Sasuke to think she was strong as well as smart, after all.
She forced herself to look away from his dreamy eyes and studied the plans, chewing the inside of her cheek. "You mentioned the Lightning guards were waiting for a scroll about the Tenseigan," Karin said, brow creased in concentration. "I wonder if they had already gathered intel about how Toneri used his hoarded Byakugan to fuel a weapon, and they were planning to do the same."
She glanced up at Sasuke; he nodded. Flushed with pride, she went on. "What if we could mechanically simulate the effects of the Tenseigan without having to rely on someone possessing a rare jutsu like that? If we could create a battery that stores chakra," she concluded, pressing a finger to her lips, "that would make this weapon more effective. It's not if we can build this weapon, Sasuke—it's how we can build it better than Lightning." She met Sasuke's eyes again and blushed furiously at his look of approval.
"We need more information on the Tenseigan," Karin said, keeping her voice calm and authoritative despite the skittering of her heart. "Orochimaru?"
"I've already taken the liberty of collecting information on the subject," he replied, his tongue flicking out to lick his lips. "Suigetsu?"
"Aw, but it's dark and super creepy in the vaults," Suigetsu groused, picking wax out of his ear.
"Come on," Jugo said, grabbing Suigetsu by the arm. "I'll go with you."
"How come Karin isn't forced to be a lackey?" he protested as Jugo dragged him away.
"Because Karin is actually doing something," Jugo explained patiently, as if to a particularly slow child.
Karin could no longer hold back her smile. "Sasuke-kun," she purred, "don't you see how hard I'm working for you? We should go out and celebrate."
"It's eight in the morning, Karin," Orochimaru offered with a toothy grin. "A bit early for sake."
Her eyes widened. "Well, I didn't go to sleep last night," she huffed. When had it become morning? It was always so hard to tell these things when there were no windows in their hideouts. "Sasuke-kun, what do you say?" Karin tried again. "A little nightcap?"
But he wasn't listening to her. He was intently studying the plans, his Sharingan eye whirling.
"How long will construction take?" Sasuke asked.
"It's too early to tell," Orochimaru replied. "We'll need to draft our own plans, then make a formal request for funds from Konoha—"
Sasuke withdrew a slip of paper from his breast pocket and slapped it down on the table. "This voucher should get you a line of credit with any wholesale distributor. There's a network of third-party banks we'll be using for this operation. Spare no expense."
"Oh, I won't," Orochimaru said, sliding the paper out from Sasuke's hand and into his own. "And as a reward for our efforts?"
"You'll be paid amply once the weapon is complete."
"I want more than just money," Orochimaru said, almost too calmly, his tone making Karin's hackles rise. "If we could lift some of my restrictions—"
"Orochimaru!" Karin barked. "How many times do I have to tell you that raising people from the dead is not only illegal but also creepy and gross—"
"Not that, Karin," Orochimaru interjected, sighing through his nose. "Rather, the restrictions on medical experiments." He lifted a hand to stall interruptions. "If the test subject is willing, I see no reason why I shouldn't be allowed to conduct experiments."
Sasuke met the man's amber eyes, and though his Sharingan was active, Orochimaru didn't flinch. It seemed like a straightforward request, but coming from Orochimaru…
Suigetsu and Jugo bounded back into the room, arms full of scrolls. "We'll discuss your terms later," Sasuke answered at last.
Orochimaru's smile never faltered. He turned to direct Jugo and Suigetsu to dump the scrolls on a nearby table, then sifted through them until he found what he was looking for. He handed it to Sasuke with a flourish. "The evolution of the Byakugan," he declared. With a nod, Sasuke opened it and scanned its contents, his eyes widening.
"Karin," he said, handing the scroll to her. She flushed with happiness when their fingers brushed, sending a thrill through her. "Copy this scroll right away." His expression turned grim. "We need to send it to Konoha immediately."
"Konoha?" Karin asked with a frown. "Why?"
An emotion flickered over his face, but it was too fleeting for Karin to read. "Because," Sasuke said cryptically, "there's a young kunoichi whose life depends on this information."
Plot-twist-no-jutsu! :) Thanks for reading friends, and please, review!
