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The Longest Road
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~Chapter 28. Surprised~
Matsuri didn't want to wake up. The darkness behind her eyelids was cold but somehow welcome. No violence there, no hurt. Her nightmarish life would be finally over if she could only plunge a little deeper. However, the ultimate relief was another thing she had been denied. Her body was pulling her back, grumbling at her to come back and take care of it. Her mind seemed to be wrapped up with thick layers of cotton wool, which were disappearing one by one so she could settle inside her body again.
Awakening felt awful. Matsuri's entire body ached like she had been flogged. Curled into a ball, she was closed in some kind of round wooden trunk. She tried to disentangle her legs and arms but it proved to be near impossible since an entire bin she had been locked in was moving up and down in a steady pace. At first, she was too bemused to be scared. Last time she checked she had been in the cave. Paralyzed, she had been lying on the sand while the monster - and she hadn't meant Gaara that time - was working on pulling her pants down. The next moment, she was locked inside the barrel rolling down the paved road.
Only there were no pavements in Suna.
Matsuri couldn't decide what to do. Apparently, she had been saved from being raped by some miraculous appearance. Even if her entire body hurt, its certain parts didn't; at least, not as much as they would surely have if they had been violated. But still, the part of the mystery remained. Was it an ally or a foe who had scooped her numb frame and carried it away from the cave? It could take only to scream or thump her fists against the wooden walls to find out what had exactly happened. But for some reason she was reluctant to give away that she had fully recovered from the drug's effects.
She tried to distinguish the noises from the outside instead, but there was only a fast, steady rhythm of soft pats accompanying the jerking movements of her prison. Matsuri recognized the noise immediately. It was a sound of somebody's footsteps against the sand.
Matsuri held her breath if only for a second. The next moment, another jolt forced the air out of her lungs. However, the hope and disbelief remained. She reasoned with herself that there could be more people using wooden puppets. Sunagakure had always been quite famous for its Puppet Corps after all. But why would any random puppeteer take her with him instead of following orders and killing her once the monster had been captured? She had no clue. For that reason, she couldn't entirely extinguish the hope. Arguing with herself that there was absolutely no reason Kankurō would come to his brother's hideout all of a sudden, Matsuri finally found an answer when the bounces stopped. The wooden planks swung aside, letting in some light, and she squinted, shielding her eyes against the brightness with her hand. There was a dark, blurry silhouette in the middle of the glow, and Matsuri desperately tried to bring the stranger's face into focus.
"Matsuri?" the female voice called her name with worry, and Matsuri felt relief wash over her in warm waves as she recognized Temari's voice. "Let's get you out of here," the kunoichi continued, and pulled the younger girl out of the puppet. Matsuri winced while Temari's fingers unintentionally dug into her bruises, and rose to a standing position at last. "Here." Temari shoved the mug into her hands. "Drink."
Matsuri glanced at the water suspiciously. Temari noticed her obvious reluctance and took the mug back, swallowing a few gulps before she gave it to Matsuri, wordlessly showing her to drink.
The younger girl pursed her lips, thinking. Temari shrugged in response and turned to her brother, her teal eyes demanding and impatient.
"The council's plan succedeed," Kankurō explained in short, clipped sentences. "The pursuers managed to seize Gaara, and took him back to the village."
Temari bit her lower lip, nodding. She glanced at Matsuri, who had finally decided to take a small sip of water by then.
"I was going to search the cave where Gaara had been obviously hiding," Kankurō said as if replying to Temari's mute questions. "I heard voices speaking." He let out a scornful snort. "Fumei and Fuka," he added, and Temari's lips curled in disgust. The puppeteer's gaze flickered at Matsuri as she rubbed her shoulder absent-mindedly, staring at the siblings.
"Why didn't you come?" Matsuri shot suddenly, her fingers tightening on the mug. "I thought you would come and bring me back. You told me you would take me in, and I ended up living with the monster instead." The girl's knuckles whitened. "You were just lying, weren't you?" she accused. "Just like anybody else."
Temari blinked, surprised.
"You mean, you've been with Gaara?"
Matsuri shrugged.
"Why would I tell you anything?" she replied, walking away to put the mug on the table.
"What about showing some gratitude for saving your—" Kankurō murmured, and his unspoken words hung in the air.
Matsuri flinched slightly, her shoulders tense. "Answer to my questions, and I will answer to yours," she said after a pause. Turning around, she briefly scanned the familiar surroundings. They were in the hut where she had lived with the siblings not so long ago. However, it felt to her as if it had been a lifetime since then.
"We don't have time—" the puppeteer began, and his sister held her open hand up, as if telling him to cease speaking. Kankurō slanted a glance at her, and she nodded slowly.
"We only managed to cover up your tracks a little," Temari started explaining, her expression calm and thoughtful. "We wanted to mislead any pursuit, and bring you back later. "The kunoichi's fingers grazed against her folded fan. "Then the Kazekage summoned us. We couldn't disobey."
Matsuri leaned her bottom against the table and crossed her arms, watching the siblings wordlessly, her eyes narrowed. Only when she realized she had just adopted the monster's attitude, she lowered her hands quickly.
"What did he call you on to do?" she pressed.
"We can't tell you," Kankurō interjected immediately. "There are things we can't reveal to anyone. We would be punished if we did otherwise."
Matsuri wondered if she cared at all about siblings' supposed punishment. Finally, she shrugged and sat down on the floor with her legs crossed. She should have known better than to rely on ninjas to help her. Temari and Kankurō, even if willing to look after her, were still ninjas. Their loyalty lay in the village first. Everything else would always come second.
"Why save me, then?" she inquired wearily. "Won't it end up with the punishment, too?"
The puppeteer looked bewildered.
"It was a right thing to do," he muttered at last, rubbing the side of his nose with his index finger. "Besides, I thought you might deliver some intel on Gaara."
That incited Matsuri's instant curiosity.
"I dosed him with the drug," she admitted bluntly. "They said they would let me return to the village if I helped capture the monster." The corner of her lips curled in a disdainful smirk. "Apparently, they lied," she added cynically, her fingertips drawing spirals in the thin layer of sand dust covering the floor.
Temari's alarmed eyes snapped to Kankurō's face.
"What do you mean, the drug?" the puppeteer insisted, leaning forward with a grave expression. "Did they poison him?"
"The poison wasn't meant to be lethal," Matsuri explained indifferently, watching her bruised knees with half-hearted interest. "They wanted to take him alive."
The siblings held their breath, staring at each other in silence. The younger girl gazed up at them. Temari closed her eyes, breaking the eye contact with her brother, and pressed her fingers against her temples. Kankurō turned a little so Matsuri could see only his profile, the muscles in his jaw visibly working. Both of the siblings looked like some kind of an overdue realization hit them. The next moment, their gazes reconnected, fiery and determined.
"Listen carefully, Matsuri," Kankurō said in a hushed tone. "We can no longer take you in. I'm sorry. Suna is not a safe place for you, just as you have said earlier. You can't stay here. Do not go westwards like you did before. It would be the best if you took a roundabout route to Kawa no Kuni."
Matsuri glanced at him, listening even more carefully to what he didn't say. "Roundabout route?" she repeated. "You mean, via Hi no Kuni?"
The puppeteer shrugged. "Whatever," he said impatiently. "We'll get you some rations and water—"
"Wouldn't be there any pursuers?" she asked conversationally. "I happen to be quite a wanted person lately, found guilty of a crime of knowing too much," she continued to Kankurō's apparent surprise. "Yes, I gathered as much," she snorted faintly at his dumbstruck expression. "The monster - that is your brother - helped me put all the pieces together."
"Gaara did?" Temari furrowed with disbelief but Matsuri only waved a dismissive hand at her question, her eyes sticking to Kankurō's face.
"Most likely, no," the puppeteer replied to the question Matsuri had asked before interruption. "They will be busy with... something else."
Matsuri pursed her lips, her eyes staring into space as she nodded to herself knowingly. "I'm willing to help in case you deemed it necessary," she said slowly, her resolve strengthening once she had spoken those words aloud, and the siblings shot confused glimpses at her. "Are you going to leave him here and go back to the village so your absence wouldn't be noticed?" Matsuri went on, her words causing Temari slightly wobble on her feet.
"What are you talking about?" Kankurō inquired, skillfully concealing shock behind an emotionless façade.
Matsuri smirked in response. "First you say you don't have time, then you start playing games," she commented. "I'm talking about your brother, of course. You're going to try to save him, aren't you?"
The siblings gasped in unison, and Matsuri leaned backwards a bit, pondering. This or either way, they would need some time to recover and question her decision. Prior to that, Matsuri needed to answer some questions herself. Why would she even want to participate in a rescue operation? She hated the monster, and gladly brought that misery upon him. Maybe it would do some good to him to get a taste of his own medicine. However, there were people Matsuri abhorred even more than him, and they happened to be the village's councilmen, Jōseki in particular. Matsuri would do anything to thwart their plans.
Literally anything.
The end of the chapter 28.
The next chapter: Helpful
Fuka was an OC. In japanese 'fuka' means amongst others wrong, bad, improper, unjustifiable, inadvisable.
Fumei was also an OC. In japanese 'fumei' means amongst others unknown, obscure, indistinct, uncertain.
