AN: Hi guys, I updated chapter 10 on yesterday, but it seems like it's not showing up for some people :( Per Twitter it seems to be a site-wide issue and you can access new chapters on the FFnet app. Hopefully the admin will fix the issue soon!
Chapter Nine: Petrichor
When Sakura fought, her brain shut down. The first time she'd used Strength of a Hundred in battle was against the Ten-Tailed beast. She remembered drawing chakra to her fist, the roars of the fission monsters fading away to the singular pulse of blood in her ears. Then, nothing. It wasn't until the dust settled around the felled army that she'd realized she'd struck and it worked.
She had the same feeling of awakening from a dream as she watched Sasuke undo the knot of his robe. How had they ended up in bed together? He shrugged it off, unveiling the hard ropes of muscle in his shoulders, the carved planes of his chest, and her cheeks flamed.
She outlined the ridges and hollows of his ribs, the seals he'd accumulated over the years to protect himself, marked like a living weapon. She remembered when his skin was bare.
"Hurry up."
The demand in his voice made her smile. She looked up, and her heart lept to her throat. "Y-your eyes."
His brows furrowed. His spinning irises ground to a halt, but his eyes stayed red as blood. "Don't worry about it," he muttered. He looked… how she felt.
He wanted her too.
The revelation sent her heart pounding, felt precipitous, like she was standing at the edge of the cliff overlooking a bottomless ocean.
Instinct took over. With a twist of her hips, she flipped him to his back. On occasion, after particularly exhausting missions, Sakura thought she caught his eyes wandering. She'd chalked it up to her imagination, but the hardness cradled between her thighs told her otherwise.
Fall, fall, fall.
She planted her hands on his shoulders, and experimented with a slow roll of her hips, the decadent friction a bellows to the burning hearth at her core. He hissed at the contact, his hand tight on her hip. But she did it again, and he cursed and pushed her off.
"What? Why?"
He palmed the sheets, as if to wipe any trace of her skin away. "We can't." His gaze went to the window and she had the sense that if he weren't obliged to the mission, he would've taken off.
Guilt cut sharp through the haze of her desire. The mission. What was she doing, wantonly climbing on top of him?
Hurriedly, she pulled on her uniform, shivering in the draft from the window. She missed his heat, his touch, but this was how it was between them. Push and pull. Ebb and flow. Maybe it was selfish, but she wanted closure. "Why not?" she asked.
"Sakura."
Her lips parted. Did he feel it too? The invisible thread twisting between them, since the start of the mission, tighter and tighter. They'd known each other a decade, yet each passing day here, she uncovered another piece of him. His quiet protectiveness. Muted vulnerability. Passion. "You want it too."
Deny it. Say I'm wrong.
Sasuke studied his hands, as if a glance in her direction would spell disaster. "You don't know what you're asking for."
"I do." Sakura swung her pack on. "Do you?"
Candidate selection for ANBU involved, among others, an assessment of mental fortitude. Sasuke was told a number— twenty-eight, he still remembered— and made to relive his nightmares until his legs gave out, and his nails cut bloody crescents into his palms. At the end of the week, twenty-eight was still his own. His examiners ceded, commending him for his iron-clad will and self-discipline.
But fuck it. He was beyond forgiveness.
Sasuke buried his face in the pillow, inhaling the last of her scent, and palmed his aching cock. His skin still tingled with the heat of her on top of him, her long hair trailing his chest, green eyes dark with desire, like she wanted him, him, only him. His release came quickly with a harsh breath. When it was over, he walked to the washroom. He turned the shower spray as cold as it would go and rinsed away the evidence. Lathered the soap up, thinking about the last person to use it, and how tomorrow, he'd look her in the eye and tell her it was all a mistake. She'd tell him fine like she meant it, and he wouldn't feel a thing. He was good at severing bonds; he'd done it before, and he'd do it again.
Sasuke turned the shower spray off. The tiles were cool against his face. He wanted to laugh. Itachi was right— he was a fool.
The inn room lightened with the first cyanotic fingers of the sun, stretching past the mountain peak before the window. He exited the inn to the front gates, joining the two waiting men.
One was stooped and ominous, his features hidden by a beard as ruddy as his flak jacket. The other was wiry, like a green spring twig, with suspicious eyes. Both wore headbands bearing the insignia of Stone. The thin Iwa-nin nodded wordlessly, silence belying a subtle assessment of the sword at his belt.
Higa appeared shortly after, his wolf-pelt fur wrapped tightly around his shoulders. Without words, they set off. The mine was located at the base of the smallest mountain in the range, the Little Sister. It was mere morning's journey by foot, but the mountain pass wound under precipitous slopes prone to avalanches of ice and sediment. Rock rain, the locals called it. No one had used the pass in decades, and it was overgrown with lichen and moss.
Based on what they'd overheard, Higa had contracted two elite squads of Iwa-nin to clear the path with chakra. The two chunin escorting them now were insurance. At the mouth of the mountain pass, they split off to clear the boulders off the road ahead.
Once they were out of earshot, Higa said, "A taciturn pair."
"Do you always hire from Iwa?" Sasuke asked. He must've negotiated a deal with the Tsuchikage.
"I prefer their techniques. Nanami told me you completed an apprenticeship. Who trained you to use chakra?"
"My father."
Higa's boots crunched through the frozen layer of topsoil, leaving heavy footprints. "Was he from Ishikagure?"
"It collapsed before he was alive."
"Ah, you're young. How did you get into procuring?"
A test. Sasuke was silent.
Higa smiled. "Forgive me, it was a rude inquiry. I'm quite pleased with Nanami. She won my medic over."
"She's had training."
"She saved my life."
Sasuke rolled his shoulders. Did Higa think he'd secured special favor from Sakura? She was a bleeding heart who would rescue a stuck pig from a farm.
"She's interesting. I can't tell what she's thinking, and I'm something of a savant of human intentions," Higa declared.
Sakura's patience with this man was endless. "I wouldn't know."
"You two must've been on the road together for quite some time. Southern Earth is quite a ways from Kuzu."
There was no subtlety in his interrogation. "I'm her procurer."
"You must've been tempted."
Something like a knife scraping down Sasuke's spine. "I've never thought of her that way," he said woodenly. Hard to believe there was a time in his life that he never lied.
"If only all my procurers had your restraint." Higa's countenance lightened. "I admit, I'm relieved."
The knife was back at his spine. When Sakura seduced Higa, would she kiss him sweetly and ride his hips too? Would she wear his gifts? His hand shot to the hilt of his sword. The bare skin of Higa's neck called.
Sasuke willed the black fury in his chest to abate. Not now. Not when he was alone with the warlord, with no one to hold him accountable. Sakura couldn't sleep with this louse. They'd figure something else out, Sasuke decided.
Sasuke and Higa walked in stony silence until they came to the entrance of the mine, concentric rings carved into the hard mountain ground. A tall head-frame made of reinforced steel stood at the center of the rings, marking the top of the mine shaft. The two Iwa-nin rejoined their group, dropping from the rocky terrain above.
The taller of the Iwa-nin spoke, "The shaft fits three men. He can wait out here."
Higa said, "He comes with me."
The two Stone nin exchanged a glance. The bearded man spoke. "The lift is powered by an Earth technique. You want to go down with one operator?"
"I'll take my chances."
The taller Iwa-nin handed Sasuke a lantern and a filtration mask. Higa strapped on a mask of his own, and the three men stepped onto the lift platform over the mine shaft. Sakura would not be able to reach him once he was inside. The bearded man whipped through twenty or so hand seals and unleashed a burst of chakra. With a crack, the ground around them came to life, pulsing rhythmically like a great length of bowel. Thousands of feet of dirt sped past as they descended, the bright white of the sky shrinking to a moon-like orb in a black sky.
When the platform ground to a halt, they were in an underground cave, twenty feet wide and two arms lengths high. The air here was thick, smelled of clay and rot even through the mask. His eyes stung with fumes. Besides the lantern in his hand and sparse light from the mine shaft, it was pitch dark.
The Iwa-nin walked to the cave wall, as if reading the contours of the rocks. He drew chakra to his palm.
"No," Higa said, turning to Sasuke. "You do it."
Sasuke drew a small amount of chakra to his hand and touched the cave wall. The cold stone warmed immediately under his fingertips. At his point of contact, a spot of light began to shine from within the wall. It brightened until it was the size of a fist, and from it, a web of light spread like blood flowing through the veins and capillaries. Sasuke felt heady rush of familiar chakra reflected back to him: his own. Resonating through the cave, reverting from the thousands of crystal gem clusters, embedded in the rock.
Higa's eyes glowed in the green-yellow light with positive glee.
Even the Iwa-nin gaped. "I've never seen it in person. How does it feel?"
Sasuke removed his hand from the wall. Instantly, the threads of light streaking through the walls dimmed, and they were plunged in darkness.
As she crossed the mountain path, ascending the near-vertical slope of the rock wall, Sakura counted her blessings. The lush foliage of Konoha hid tallest of nin. But here, the barren rocks left her and potential bandits with equally sparse coverage. She tailed Higa's group from a hundred feet up the rock ledge, circling from above at the entrance to the mine.
The four men, all cloaked, paused beneath the head-frame to converse. Sasuke immediately stood out to her, his black hair a stark contrast against the white of the the frozen ground. Color rose in her cheeks at the mere sight of him.
The more she thought about last night, the more she regretted her actions. Tsunade had always chastised her for impatience. He'd clearly had reservations about her.
Higa and Sasuke donned masks and descended the mineshaft with the bearded Iwa-nin. The younger Iwa-nin waited at the surface for a length, inspecting the mine periphery, until he jumped onto the very rock ledge that concealed her position. Sakura shrank back and followed his path up the mountain.
There were too few footholds in this mountain for ordinary masons to grapple. The mine undoubtedly been carved by ninjutsu. The Iwa-nin stopped at a steel cylinder twenty feet in diameter, protruding from the stone. It was the ventilation shaft, piping fresh air to all the mine. He rummaged through his pockets and brought his hands together. Snake, tiger, dragon.
No.
Sakura drew chakra to her foot. Bright chakra flared from his clasped hands, and a curtain of earth swelled from around the cylinder. The steel groaned, compressing under the pressure. Mere seconds before Sakura lunged, the earth froze and flattened. The Iwa-nin collapsed, eyes glassy. Blood trailed from a kunai in his throat.