Disclaimer: Have the evil plot-bunnies been gnawing on your brain? If not, then you should know the answer. If so, then doom on you.
Chapter 29: Birthdays, Conversations, and Dreams
To Sakura's great relief, the birthday party remained a small matter, tucked away in a windowless room that no one aside from those people she was already accustomed to entered. Megumi had made up all the pink-haired girl's favorite snacks—and then some—with the centerpiece being a cake so large Sakura feared for a bit that Megumi had invited a bunch of strangers to the event. Sakura only relaxed once she was sure that the party would only include Megumi, her children, Kirsche and Karura (apparently Yashamaru had been sent on a mission and so he couldn't make it).
After blowing out the birthday candles, Sakura received her presents. From Youko she got the book on first-aid that she had noticed in the bookstore's window the other day (which explained why it had disappeared when she had gone to buy it herself); similarly, from Karura she received the book about finding your ninja way that had also vanished (apparently, as soon as Karura found out her brother had left on his mission, she ran out to buy it, since she knew Yashamaru would have stopped her from giving such a 'dangerous' book to such a 'weak' child). Kirsche's present was a lovely red leather bookmark imprinted with some viney, flowering, prickly-looking plants (which fit so perfectly with her two new books that Sakura had to wonder if Kirsche had Seen what those two would get her) and the knowledge that there would be no lessons tonight, to commemorate her 'birthday'. Shin's gift was a beautifully carved wooden hairpin of cherry blossoms and butterflies—and after some not-so-vague hints from Youko, the blushing Shin was persuaded to explain that he had worked all night to make it just for Sakura's birthday.
Sakura's final gift came from Megumi and consisted of a small, white wooden pendent with intricately etched designs on both sides and a slit through its center through which passed a dark blue ribbon. Megumi had explained, while rubbing her head self-consciously, that unlike her son, she wasn't good at doing delicate woodwork, so she had asked an acquaintance to make this for her—but, she assured Sakura, the design was all of her own making. She also explained that the ribbon was replaceable and that the pendent could be worn as either a necklace or a bracelet—or, as Youko pointed out, if she used a long enough ribbon, it could even be a belt, or a sash, or—Sakura didn't get to find out what else since just then Megumi interrupted her daughter, saying she had already made her point.
After that, the small group ate dessert for dinner, played games like pin-the-kunai-on-the-assassin (using a paper kunai, of course), and in general had a good time. As the party wound down to an end, Karura announced that she should start heading home. The door to their small room was opened, however, only to reveal the sound of howling wind and, when a window was sought out, that the air outside was filled with sand so thick that nothing else could be seen.
"Well," huffed Megumi, one hand going to her hip, "looks like you're going to have to spend the night, Karura. I'll—" This time it was Youko's turn to interrupt her mother.
"I've got it, mom!" The exuberant preteen shouted above the wind, then added, "Come on—Karu—Kura!" Sakura didn't realize at first that Youko had been speaking to her—she thought Youko was just calling Karura Karu-Karu again—but then her future aunt gabbed her hand and proceeded to drag both her and Karura up the stairs at a run that didn't end until they had reached Youko's room.
As Youko threw her door open and ran straight to her dresser, Karura sighed, "I take it we're having a sleepover, then?" Sakura noticed she was smiling even if she sounded and otherwise acted as if she were annoyed.
Youko's response was to throw an extra nightgown of hers at Karura's face. Then, turning to Sakura, Youko said, "Hurry and go get changed. We're all sleeping in here tonight." Sakura raced to obey, having caught some of Youko's excitement. By the time she left her room in her night clothes, Sakura found Shin just reaching the top of the stairs.
"Hi!" Sakura said as she bounced up to him with a large smile, "Thank you, again, for the hair pin. It's beautiful. I love it!" The corners of Shin's mouth twitched up in the barest of smiles that—had Sakura not known her 'daddy' for all of her life—she would have missed entirely. She did miss the slight tinting of his cheeks at her praise.
After a brief pause—that some might have called hesitation—Shin patted Sakura's head affectionately. "You are very welcome. I take it that Sis is insisting on turning this sandstorm into a sleepover." Sakura nodded jubilantly—this was only her second sleep over ever, and the more she thought about it, the more excited she became. "Ah," Shin sighed, "then I suggest you go get your pillow and some extra blankets so you do not get cold." Then, when he noticed Sakura's questioning look, he explained, "Sis only has two pillows, one for her and one for Karura—and she steals the blankets. Here, I will help you carry things." In the end, the only thing Shin let her carry was the pillow while he held all of the blankets from her bed.
As they neared Youko's room, the over exuberant girl's voice carried to them—only slightly muffled by the door—as she exclaimed, "I can't wait! We are going to stay up all night even if it kills us! Oh, and let's try to find out more about that boy from Kura-Kura—" At this point, Sakura heard Karura try to say something, but Youko either didn't hear, or didn't care, because she continued, "I want to figure out for sure who has captured her attention and whether he's worthy of her—"
"Youko!" This time Karura forced her way into the conversation and the anger in her voice made Sakura stop dead in her tracks—her fist an inch away from announcing her and Shin's presence with a knock. Sakura couldn't remember having ever heard Karura yell, let alone sound truly angry. Beside her, Shin had also frozen. Karura then continued speaking in a lower voice that Sakura had to strain to hear. "Please, be more careful—what if he overheard?"
"What in the world are you talking about?" asked the ever loud Youko. "We know that Kura's so-called friend isn't here—she would have pointed him out to us if he were."
Sakura wasn't sure, but she thought she heard Karura sigh. "That's not who I meant, Youko. I know he's not here—I'm talking about the one person we both know and care about who is here and who would be devastated if he heard."
After a brief pause, Youko responded, "I still don't get it. Are you talking about…?" Since Sakura didn't hear anything, she guessed that Karura had either done something to express her point or said something too quietly to be heard in answer to Youko's question. Youko continued loudly, "Even so, why would he care—well, not to say he shouldn't care, I know he wouldn't want Kura-Chi's 'friend' to be a bad guy either, but I don't see any reason why he'd be devastated."
This time Sakura was sure Karura had sighed. "You really are dense, my friend. I really feel for your—"
Whatever else Karura would have said was lost to Sakura as Shin, having freed one hand from his bundle of blankets, reached around Sakura to rap on the door loudly. When his sister opened her door, Shin stuffed the blankets in her face, then turned around without a word and hurried down the hall to his room.
This time Sakura saw Karura shake her head sadly as Youko asked around the bundle in her arms. "Well, what got into him?"
As Sakura expected—thanks to what she'd overheard—Youko's main objective that night was to interrogate her about her mysterious new red-headed friend. His habits, his mannerisms, what he and Sakura talked about—anything that Youko thought could better point out who the mystery boy could be was asked—and then asked again when Sakura's answers were 'insufficient'. After more than an hour of this, Sakura started to feel like crying in frustration. She didn't know who the boy was, she had only met him twice and he didn't talk much, so she didn't know much about him either. All she wanted was to be his friend—and for the life of her, Sakura couldn't understand why Youko was so persistent with her inquiries and why she kept acting as if Sakura were purposefully holding back information.
"But seriously, Kura…" Youko repeated for the fifth time, "…what do you two talk about? And don't just say he's the tall, dark and silent type—silence doesn't form attachments!" This last part Youko yelled feelingly—but only the word 'silence' went unmuffled, since Karura had stuffed a pillow in the loudmouth's face.
As Karura shushed her friend, reminding her that other people were sleeping, Sakura stared down at the pillow she had clutched in her hands through blurry eyes. Part of her held-back tears were due to her injured hand hurting—she had been grasping the pillow tightly since the beginning of the Youko's investigation—but the biggest reason for her unshed tears was the fact that her future aunt didn't seem to believe her. Sakura didn't realize she was sniffling until Karura wrapped an arm around her comfortingly.
"There, there, Kura," the blond mumbled soothingly, leaning her head on Sakura's, "don't mind Youko, she's—" Without warning, Karura jerked away from Sakura with a gasp. All Sakura could do was look first at her ashen face, and then turn to see that Youko was also looking at her in a similar—if less pale—way. Before she could ask what was going on, though, Karura's head had snapped towards Youko. "Get bandages, quick." Sakura barely squeaked out a one-word question, some sort of mix between 'what' and 'why', when Youko hastily exited the room. It was then that Karura turned back to her, her eyes full of worry as she reached out to Sakura's hand. "I'm so sorry, Kura. I shouldn't have let her push you so hard—I should have realized sooner that she was baking you into a corner and you—your poor hand! I'm so sorry!"
And with this Sakura finally thought to look down, not at her pillow, but at the bandaged hand she was grasping it with. What she found was that both pillow and bandages were turning bright red. The pain that Sakura hadn't thought much about before came rushing to meet her head on as she stared at the spreading red patch on her pillow. It was then that Sakura did what any normal five-year-old would: she burst out crying. Sakura cried through Youko's return, through the rebandaging process, and then through the lecture that the motherly Karura gave the penitent Youko
By the time Sakura quit crying, Karura had somehow maneuvered the conversation so that it was about the latest fashions—something which, though boring to Sakura, was a topic which made Youko forget—at least for the moment—about bombarding Sakura with questions that she couldn't answer. When Karura sent Sakura a wink before encouraging her grey-eyed friend on the subject of shawls, the pink haired child finally smiled. It was nice to know that, even when Gaara wasn't around, there was someone there to look out for her.
This thought led to further thoughts about her friends back home and their relations here in the past. As Youko sang the praises of spandex, Sakura wondered, for the first time, how Karura was related to Gaara—that they were related was a given, since Yashamaru was Gaara's uncle, but what she didn't know was whether they had any other siblings and, perhaps more importantly to Sakura's mind, whether Karura could possibly be Gaara's mother. And so Sakura settled on the bed with a new pillow held in her arms to watch her future aunt and her sandy-haired friend discus the finer points of frills and ribbons.
Sakura felt as if she had just fallen asleep, thinking distantly that Karura looked quite like Temari, when she was roughly awoken by Youko's hand shaking her shoulder. "Come on, Kura-Kura, no sleeping!" Sakura blinked tiredly but obeyed, raising her head from where it had fallen onto her pillow. "That's better!" exclaimed the girl with the messy red-brown hair and the flat looking grey eyes, "I told you: we're going to stay up all night, even if it kills us!" And killing them it might be doing, Sakura realized, as the still exuberant girl's eyelids drooped for a moment before springing back open. "Ah, I know, why don't you tell us about yourself, Kura-Chi? That way you won't fall asleep."
Karura seconded this announcement, adding in a low whisper that this subject would be less boring for Sakura than the fashion talk had been. And so Sakura was obliged to talk about herself. At first she found this hard to do. It wasn't that she didn't know things about herself, but she was unsure of what it would be safe to say. Starting slowly at first, Sakura worked her way around her past, telling them as much of the truth as she felt safe divulging. After a pointed question by Karura, Sakura was even induced to explain (extremely carefully so as not to raise any suspicions about her and Kirsche) why her eyes were green and not blue"…Kirsche found me living with my…my father's family, and told me that my mother was actually a Hoshi, and she had died giving birth to me and so—" Sakura jumped when she heard a sound growl out like thunder, only to relax when a grinning Karura pointed to a passed out Youko—snoring like a bear in winter.
"Come on, Kura," whispered the older girl as she got off the bed, "let's get Miss Bossy-Pants under the covers—then we can finally get some sleep ourselves." Sakura nodded and went to help. When they finally had Youko pushed to one edge of the bed, with the covers pulled to her chin and tucked all around her body—Karura's touch—Sakura and the indigo-eyed girl got on the other side of the bed with the blankets Shin had brought from Sakura's room. It was a bit crowded, but with how tired she was, Sakura didn't mind too much. She had just closed her eyes when a thought struck her.
Turning to Karura, she asked in the smallest of whispers, not even sure if the girl was still awake, "Karura…am I a monster?" Indigo eyes flashed open.
"Why in the world would you ask something like that? Of course you aren't."
Sakura, unable to match that unwavering indigo stare, dropped her eyes to her bandaged hand as memories of a faraway time returned to her—probably, she realized, these thoughts had come to her because she had just been talking about her birth mother to someone who might just be her best friend's mother. "My aunt once said…" Sakura answered softly, glad Youko was asleep, "…well, it wasn't about me, but…she called my best friend a monster, since his mother died just like mine did. She said that he killed her…"
Karura sighed, then wrapped her arms around Sakura, pulling her into her chest as if she were a mother comforting a child, "…and she's got you wondering if you and he both are monsters…oh, poor Kura. Neither of you are to blame for your mother's death. All mothers know that having babies is dangerous—but they have them anyways because they love them…and if they die…they do so knowing they were bringing a life into this world…a life they treasured above their own. After all, if they hadn't loved you, they wouldn't have gone through all those months of pregnancy to have you…"
The blond haired girl continued on like this, crooning soft, comforting words in Sakura's ear until she was sure the girl had fallen asleep. Only then did she allow herself to do the same.
Sakura was having an amazing dream—strangely, she knew for once that it was a dream—but she thought little of that as she and Temari rode unicorns through a forest of candy. Beside them rode Kankuro on a giant wooden bird that was wearily eyeing the two-headed wolf that was being ridden by both Karura and Yashamaru. As they continued forward into a marshmallow-filled clearing, Sakura saw Youko and Shin picking rainbow-candy-canes and gumdrop-flowers—the former was making a candy-bouquet while the latter was tossing the candy to a two-tailed cat. Yashamaru called out a greeting, then went on to lecture about how the digestive tract of two-tailed cats was incompatible with glycosides—Sakura had no clue what that meant, but the part of her that recognized this as a dream rationalized that this part, at least, had been informed by her reading earlier that day, right before she encountered her preferred Gaara-look-alike.
"Speaking of," Dream Sakura said aloud as she glanced all around the clearing, "where …?" In Sakura's dream-state, she didn't find it peculiar that they were in a forest of impossible makeup or that they had all arrived via improbable transport, but she did find it strange that this gathering of all the people she could call friends was missing her two red-heads. After all one of them was her bestest friend in the whole world (behind her, as she thought this, Karura corrected her grammar) and the other she desperately wanted to be best friends with.
"What's going on?" Dream Sakura asked to no one in particular, "Where are they?"
Grinning, Youko forced the bouquet into Yashamaru's arms—which somehow cut off his lecture—and then Youko answered oh-so-helpfully, "Don't know."
Temari, on the other hand, shrugged, looking a little distracted by a nearby chocolate bush as she responded, "Last I saw Gaara, he was back home, but I haven't seen Mr. No-Name."
Kankuro—jumping on one foot with the other stuck in the stirrup of his wooden bird—suggested, "Why don't you go search for him. He's got to stand out if he looks like Gaara."
Shin nodded in agreement as he helped Kankuro get both feet on the ground. Once that was accomplished, Shin pointed towards a patch of dark forest, saying, "Try that way." And so Sakura did. The moment she entered the forest—the world went black. If she hadn't known this was a dream, she would have started freaking out. Instead she just kept walking, wondering what her two red-heads were up to. No sooner had the thought been finished when something white jumped out of the darkness, just barely missing Sakura's head.
Sakura's face lit up with a smile as she gasped, "Fireflie!", and then proceeded to run through the darkness after the white light. It wasn't until she caught it, only to have it fly right through her hands that Sakura realized two things; the first was that the light was no firefly, the second was that the light, whatever it really was, was making designs in the darkness, leaving behind little white streaks as if the darkness were a canvas. As Sakura watched, the 'firefly' was joined by many others like it, and soon the random patterns left in the air converged to form a picture.
Very quickly, Sakura found herself in a room made of white-on-black, but she wasn't alone. Inside the room were white-on-black people, one of which (after a few moments) she recognized. It was her preferred Gaara-look-alike. Sakura grinned, calling out a happy greeting—only to find out that she had no voice. Surprised, Sakura tried to run forward to grab his arm—whether for her own comfort or to simply let him know she was there, she didn't know—but once again, nothing happened. It soon became clear to Sakura that she couldn't interact with this dream as she had earlier, and so she decided to do the only thing she could: she stood still and watched the boy who could have been Gaara's big brother as he interacted with the others in the room.
Sakura's preferred look-alike sat on a chair, his arms crossed as he glared at the small cluster of middle-aged people near the door. On either side of his chair stood an old person, one a man and one a woman—from the slight resemblance she could detect between them, Sakura assumed these two were his grandparents. The man at the front of the group of middle-aged people was speaking—not that Sakura could hear actual word, only vague sounds—and from the looks of it, the man was angry at the teen, jabbing his finger in the air in her friend's direction as if he were trying to pop an obstinate bubble. The congregation behind the man were nodding their heads in agreement—and for the briefest of moments, Sakura got the weird feeling that these people were like flowers bobbing in the wind, without a mind or will of their own. Sakura didn't get a chance to ponder why she would have such an uncharacteristic thought about these strangers because her attention was grabbed by the look-alike's grandmother as she took a step forward, saying something softly. Sakura wasn't sure if the old woman was standing up for her grandson or if she was agreeing with the group before her, but whatever the case, Sakura could see from the way her friend's eyes smoldered and the way he shifted his position that he was only getting angrier.
As the dream continued, it became clear that Sakura's preferred look-alike was in trouble with the group of people, but that he, at least, didn't think he should be. The few times the red-head spoke it was short and, to Sakura's surprise, with no visible sign of anger (or at least he wasn't getting up and yelling at the assembly like Kankuro would have, nor was he threatening them like Temari would have). Despite this, Sakura could tell that he was still, very much, angry, and when the people finally left, he shot out of the chair to glare at his grandmother. The old woman crossed her arms and returned his glare, suddenly not looking soft at all. They exchanged words, the grandmother's voice becoming more and more heated while her grandson's posture, though not his voice, became more and more tense.
This went on until the grandfather interrupted, laying a hand on the teen's shoulder. It was then that Sakura found out just how similar this look-alike really was to Gaara as the red-head snapped. One instant the old man was gently laying his hand down, saying something in a soothing voice, and the next the old man's hand had been thrown off as the boy reacted with ninja-like skills that ended with the old man pinned to the wall by Sakura's angry friend. The old woman moved forward, starting to say something, only to be cut off by the red-head. Sakura was angry at her friend for hurting his grandfather and wanted to go lecture him, but as she listened to her friend's unintelligible words spoken with anger, she felt like something was amiss.
It wasn't until the red-head released his grandfather roughly, then vanished, also like a ninja, (she was really starting to think that he might be one) that she figured out what had been bothering her. Like the one time he had spoken to her about his late mother, her preferred Gaara-lookalike had spoken as if he were angry, and yet, just like Gaara, his eyes had screamed out that he was hurting inside. It would seem, Sakura decided, that neither Gaara nor his lookalike got angry easily—not outwardly anyways—but when they did, people were likely to end up hurt…including themselves.
And with that thought the white-on black image vanished, leaving the pink-haired child in total darkness yet again. It would be hours (or at least feel like hours) before the 'fireflies' returned, and by then, Sakura was missing her bestest friend in the whole world more than ever.
At first the 'fireflies' seemed to be flying around Sakura aimlessly, but this time Sakura knew better than to try to catch them; and so, she stood and waited for them to form a picture like they had before. But they didn't. Instead they vanished in a flash of white light that blinded the child for a few moments. By the time her eyes had cleared, Sakura found that she was in Suna again—this time in color—and she was standing on a building she knew hadn't been built in New Suna yet…which meant, this had to be Old Suna, the one she had come from. Sakura bounced happily up and down at the thought of having returned home, even just in a dream, then jumped around even more when she realized that this time she could move. Sakura was just starting to spin in circles, reveling in her sudden freedom, when a scream shattered her happy world.
Before Sakura knew what she was doing, she was racing towards where the sound had come from, bouncing down the building in a way that she could never have done in real life, and didn't really want to be doing in this dream-life either. But bounce away she did, against her will, as her dream propelled her forward. When Sakura reached the ground, people ran right through her as if she weren't there, yelling out indistinguishably as they fled from…something…Sakura had no clue what. Since Sakura wasn't even given the option of dodging the crowd or turning tail and running with them, she soon found herself brought before a cloud of dust and sand, swirling like a sandstorm. It didn't take much thought to come up with the reason for such a small, contained storm.
Franticly Sakura ran into the cloud, crying out for her best friend in a silent voice. When she caught sight of two shadows, one big and one small, Sakura didn't think—she didn't even wonder if it was the dream moving her or if she was moving herself—she just threw herself at her best friend, her arms held wide to wrap him in a hug, to sooth away his pain, to make the storm stop…
Sakura could hear Gaara's voice, slightly muffled but otherwise understandable…and then she noticed that this wasn't a dream…as her arms passed right through him.
"What'd you do with her?"
…It was a nightmare.
"Where's Sakura?!" shrieked the boy with sand in place of his arm…
Well, I hope you liked this installment of Kindred Spirits. There were a number of important occurrences in this chapter that will come back later on, so I hope you caught them.
Thanks once again to BriEva for her picture of Sakura (there should be a link to it on my profile if you would like to see it) and for giving me the idea about the necklace…it might turn out to be of importance…but I'd hate to give too many hints away (I've already given so many in-text), so we'll just leave it at that.
I actually have a good portion of the next chapter written (mostly because it was originally going to be a part of this one, but then it got too long and had to be cut), so the next update should be here in a few weeks unless I don't get many reviews…the more reviews I get, though, the sooner it will appear…of that, I can assure you.
Now, speaking of reviews, they are extremely welcome, as is constructive criticism (here, have some Mochi)…flamers, however, I'm not sweet on…so, let's skip over them and move on to the pretty list!
Thanks to: general zargon (you'll just have to wait and find out), BriEva (I won't say yet whether you're right or not...as to your comment on Li...well, if you don't like him, that's good...you're not usually supposed to like the bad guy. You are correct that this is not (at least in the end) a Sakura/Sasori pairing. Your question about the Kaneko's power...well...you'll have to wait to see. No, Shin was never a ninja. Most likely he met Haruka through his business ties. I can't answer your other questions without giving things away...so, sorry), moodymel, Random k (ok, it's always fun to hear guesses, though), Freya (she will return, but not yet. I'm glad I can hook you despite that) & Genuinely-Unique for reviewing!
