Hey Y'all! It's been years...I know, trust me. But between going to nursing school getting a job in said field and having to relearn everything I thought I knew about nursing dealing with heartbreak along the way...it kind of led me to depression and a complete disregard of this story. I lost all of my creativity in the past years. The lack of reviews also did not help in the least... To be honest I felt like no one really cared about this. Any who, I have 4 days off today and I thought, why not. So I am updating this story. Hopefully I can finish this soon. I already had the ending planned in my head and I have had word doc with the ending typed out sitting in my laptop for years now.. And now to get to it...maybe...hopefully? Ok everyone...here we go. It's a short chapter but please review. Thank you.
"No." she said slowly, glowering at the woman. "You want him to talk do it yourself." Sayuri turned, pushing past Sai to get out of the room. She couldn't breathe. She needed air. She couldn't stand looking at Moriyo, Kakashi, or Sai or anyone. She needed to get out.
She practically bolted out of the room, a ringing in her ears as she rushed down the stairs turning the corner and slamming into someone hard. The air was knocked out of her lungs as she stumbled back, hands to her chest, sharp gasp on her lips. She barely registered the hands on her shoulders, steadying her feet. She squeezed her eyes shut. I can't breathe!
"Look at me." The voice broke through the loud ringing. "Open your eyes." She did, but was unable to focus on one thing. "Breathe with me. 1…2…3…4…" Her breath sputtered but she followed the command watching the chest in front of her expand and contract in a slow rhythm.
In…out…Her hands curled around the fabric of her shirt as she continued to breathe. In…There were voices, people arguing, but she was too tired to care what about. Breathe.
"What did you say?"
"Naoki-"
"None of you could have let her rest?"
"I advised it, yes."
"Next time do a better job." They hissed and she finally looked up.
"Sasuke." The man turned his attention back to her, gaze softening from the angered frown he was making only a moment ago.
"Are you hurt?" She shook her head slowly. He stepped back letting her go, but she was quick to catch one of his hands holding it tightly. "Sayuri?"
"Take me somewhere?" Sasuke blinked down at her, eyebrows dipped in concern. He cast a brief glance at the man behind her.
"Alright."
Shikamaru knew it would be a long day, hell a long week when he was given this assignment to look over. The young man sighed, hand reaching for his shoulder to massage the knot forming at the juncture between his neck and shoulder.
"What a drag…" he sighed at the wall with the pictures of all the women that had been found dead by, what they all are now assuming, is Naoki's doing. The map on the rolling board on the opposite side of the wall wasn't any help. What the hell was he supposed to do with all this? There was no connection. These women ranged from civilian to shinobi, old and young. There was no pattern.
"The places they were all killed were near their home towns…" He reached for his packet of cigarettes on the table and paused. The manila folder staring up at him with a name written on it's margin. "...Sayuri…" he picked it up flipping through it and picking up her recent shinobi picture. Sharp eyes turning to the wall of dead women he moved to pin her picture there.
She was targeted by this man in Suna….Why…? Shikamaru took a step back and looked at the wall. Why?! His eyes fell on the picture of one of the women who had died in the Suna incident. He remembers her. She had been escorting Temari two month ago when she came to Konoha.
"Wait…" He yanked the picture off the wall. "Temari had said she had a kekkei genkai." His eyes turned to Sayuri's picture and he pulled it off the wall as well. He turned to the files of another victim. Yuumi. "Village girl, worked at a weapons shop, no immediate family member that was a ninja…" he read her file, flipping through pages until something caught his eye. "Her mother came from a family that had a kekkei genkai."
He turned to the wall, finding Yuumi's picture and yanking it off the wall. His eyes landed on the picture of a ninja from Hidden Cloud. "Saori…" he read the name under the picture.
"Shikamaru-sensei?" A young man stepped into the room, tray of herbal tea in hand.
"Yoshi, call the others I need everyone here to look through these files."
xxx
Naoki hummed a tune to himself while he waited in the interrogation room. All he had to do was wait. Either they bring the woman to him or...The sound of a fight breaking out outside his door caught his attention, he smiled.
Two bodies hit the ground with a painful thud and finally the door handle turned as the person on the other side pulled it to open. A man dressed in ANBU gear was not what Naoki was expecting but hey, beggars can't be choosers.
"Took you long enough." he joked as the ninja unlocked the chains keeping his hands to the table. Naoki stood and the ninja quickly undid the chakra seal on him.
"We needed to wait for an opening. Sending Sayuri to the hospital was not part of the plan,"
"So he speaks." Naoki rubbed his wrists.
"Sir." another ANBU appeared at the door. "We have eyes on the Marihasha."
"Good." Said the man that released Naoki. "Lets go end this."
XXX
"If there was one person that I expected to have my back, it was Moriyo." Sayuri said into her folded arms, shoulders falling even deeper into themselves shying away from the dark eyes of the man leaning against the tree.
"The decision she made was difficult for her as well...think of it rationally. You would have made the same choice if you thought you could get information from him."
Sayuri narrowed her eyes at the village below her. The late winter breeze chilled the atmosphere as the sun set behind the village she called home. Surprisingly all the damage was concentrated to the main gate, the rest of the village hummed with life almost as if the attack was already long forgotten.
But not to me...she thought bitterly.
"Holding everything in won't help you."
She huffed. "The kettle calling the pot black." she pushed herself up wincing at the pulling sensation at her abdomen.
Sasuke watched her carefully, "I know I'm the last person who should say this, but-"
"Sasuke I asked you to take me away from that place because I needed some quiet." She turned to him. "I don't want to talk to you or anyone about anything. I don't want you to lecture me. I just want you to-"
"Want me to…"
"Stay. Listen." she whispered, drawing into herself once again. "But you're not very good with that, are you."
"Sayuri…"
"Stop. Please. Just...listen." she breathed. "That day...when I almost killed you...I felt...I felt that my whole world was falling apart." She blinked, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I couldn't live with myself if you died. And then I thought of Hinode and Madara. How they were each other's downfall and I couldn't-" her voice broke, head shaking. "I couldn't do that to you.
I was scared. I am scared. Not of my own death, but of yours. That's why I pushed you away. You mean...so much to me."
"Sayuri-"
"I'm sorry. I'm so...so sorry for everything that I did to you. I thought I was protecting you but you were right." She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hands. "I'm not the only one involved. I shouldn't be making decisions for both of us." She raised her gaze to meet his. "When this is all over can we sit down and talk, really talk about us?"
"Well isn't that touching." Sayuri startled at the breath that ghosted her ear. A hand gripping her shoulder, yanking her back and into the man's arms.
Sasuke felt his sharingan activate but stopped at hiss that came from Sayuri when a senbon was pressed against her neck. "Ah ah ah," the man said, wagging a finger at the Uchiha. "One wrong move and she dies. We don't want that right?" He laughed then turning to her. "Hello beautiful, miss me?"
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm completing a mission sweetheart." Naoki smiled.
The chirping of the Chidori had the man turning back to Sasuke. "Let her go."
An explosion shook the ground around them. All three turned to the south tower bellowing in smoke. "That's my cue."
"Sayuri!" Sasuke shouted as the two vanished into thin air.
XXX
"Naruto!" Sakura shouted, reaching the blonde at the base of the now destroyed south entrance. "What happened?"
"Bombs." A ninja stated landing before the two. "The southern gate was attacked in sections all have bomb residue left behind at the site of the explosion."
"There's no other attack?"
"No sir."
"What the hell?" Naruto turned back to the gate bewildered by the act. "Why would someone do that?"
"Naruto!"
"Shikamaru! What are you-"
"Where is Sayuri?!"
"What?"
"Where's Sayuri?!"
"Shikamaru…" Sakura started. "What's going on?"
"It's Sayuri…They, Naoki and his men are after her. We need to know where she's at! She needs to be under surveillance"
"But...Naoki is locked up." Sakura stated.
"Not any more. We found his jail cell empty. The ANBU assigned to him are dead."
Both Naruto and Sakura felt their bodies grow cold.
"Naruto! Sakura!" the two startled as Sasuke landed before them. "He took her! Naoki took Sayuri!"
XXX
It's cold...Her eyelids felt heavy as she blinked away the sleep. A sharp intake of breath alerted her captor.
"Sayuri...long time no see."
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