Kabuto walked behind Sakura as she was looking in awe at everything around them
"I've never thought..." she mumbled, loud enough for him to hear
"That Otogakure is an actual village, and not just Orochimaru-sama's hideout?" he asked, a sense of amusement present in his tone. She only nodded, watching the merchants, street food stalls and just the liveliness surrounding them.
Kabuto could guess that she missed some of it...maybe later he could allow her to come out more...After all, the village was surrounded by a genjutsu, making it impossible to leave without permission, or enter.
A strong wind picked up her slightly longer hair, filling his nose with cherries, which made him tremble.
The sun was going down, tinting everything with it's orange light, making the greens of Sakura's eyes shine brightly, almost happily.
"This shop" he pointed to a clothing store on the side, and she sprinted after him.
It was a small shop, with many racks of ninja clothing, all of them having signs of music or yin yang symbols in them. This was sympathetic to Kabuto, that there were no clans behind anyone there, everyone stood by themselves, much different than Konohagakure...
Kabuto thought back what Orochimaru told him just a few hours before.
Sakura is expected to attend the dinner ceremony celebration of the village, but something about the grin on the sanin's face made Kabuto think hard of what kind of tests he is planning to put on her and the Uchiha?
From others he heard about Sasuke's training, and how, accompanied with physical training, Orochimaru really did everything to break his mind, to surrender him everything the boy had.
Kabuto didn't have sympathy for the last Uchiha, in fact, besides the Sharingan, he didn't care much about him...on the grey haired teen's part, he appreciated hard work instead of being the 'chosen' one or 'genius' for something...
Of course, Orochimaru could never find out about these thoughts.
"Only purples?" he heard her question next to him, and saw a small pout on her lips.
"That's the color of Otogakure" he said as a matter of fact, but felt the creeping feeling of a smile on the corner of his lips.
"I know...just..." she looked down at her feet, avoiding his gaze.
"Just chose some good ones to train in" he said with a cold tone, while turning away to hide his smirk.
At the end she chose some more form fitting purple shirts or crop tops, shorter black shorts, longer lose pants that actually fit her and several training shoes.
Kabuto threw some hair ties on the counter as well, before taking out the money.
The shopkeeper seemed on edge around them, but still took the money from them. Kabuto was a bit annoyed but almost forgot it when they walked out and he heard Sakura's stomach.
In fact, he almost let out a laugh, especially after seeing her flushed face.
"Let's eat here" he said, pointing at a stall where they sold noodles with different types of sauces.
They were standing there, the bags at their feet, waiting for their food, while the girl was still looking around on the increasingly dark street.
"Do you like it?" he dared to ask, while resting his chin in his palm, studying her, how her eyes twitched and turned to him, gapping.
He just fixed his glasses, hiding his smirk behind his palm
Oh how she didn't want to admit it...
Two plastic bowls were placed in front of them, and Kabuto digged into his, enjoying the flavor, almost closing his eyes in the process.
Sakura meanwhile seemed to have a struggle with it, all her face frowning for a moment than she pulled out, gasping for air.
Okay, Kabuto did laugh out at this
"Don't tell me you don't like spicy?" he asked, chuckling
"I don't!" she snapped back, still trying to fan on her tongue
"Hm" was his amused reply, before going to the stall asking for yoghurt and a different dish.
He gave the white dairy product to her, which she took and eat immediately, to get rid of the burning sensation on her tongue.
He was looking at her in interest, until her food came. It was sweet pork ribs with rice, while he asked for her noodles to be packed away.
Now that she was feeling better, she picked up a rib much more carefully, inspecting it with narrowed eyes and sticking out her tongue only a little bit to lick it, as if expecting to burn as well. When she realized that it was sweet in fact, her hunger seemingly took her over, and started biting into it.
"I have some information about Konoha" he said, between slurps, but didn't miss how she lowered her chopstick, all her attention on him "The new hokage sent more people after you and Sasuke, and they got lucky, no one seemingly died on those missions"
"So they still..." she hiccupped, lowering her head
"That's protocol...although you are presumed dead, and Sasuke went away on his own, so the reason to bring him back is execution" he said, with careful words.
"Naruto and Kakashi-sensei would never...!" her sentence started out strong but ended silently.
"Naruto is away, and Kakashi is just another ninja, no Hokage to make such decisions"
"Why do they think I'm dead?" she asked, with tears in her eyes, but still brave enough to demand answers from him, with her stare
"Akasuna Sasori always kills his victims" he replied, having another bite. "The search was for your body"
"But..." she begun but he cut her off
"The village gave up on you both, if Sasuke goes back, he'll face punishment" he said, looking sternly at her, and she backed away.
"If you want to protect him, you'll have to find a different way" he said, ending this topic all together, and putting his attention back to his dinner.
It seemed that Sakura's soured mood went into one of deep thoughts, exactly what he wanted.
Kabuto yesterday night thought about a new plan, to make her feelings towards her village weaken. Questioning her former sensei's teaching was just the first step, but now she was questioning if her village is a thread to her or Sasuke?
And the best part was, that he didn't even have to lie to her, these were just all cold facts, all might altered a bit.
In Kabuto's opinion Konohagakure probably would not execute Sasuke, but no one knew actually the consequences of his actions, being the last Uchiha, and being pursued by Orochimaru.
On their walk back, Sakura was holding some of the bags, and still seemed to appreciate the village life and lights around them, just with less enthusiasm than before.
When they reached the lab again, she went to her room straight, hopping on her bed with a tired sigh.
Kabuto just pulled out the blue fabric and walked to her room, knocking on the open door to grab her attention.
"I found this, it's not purple" he shoved her the light blue shirt he found at the back of his closet when she first got there. Her eyes widened at him, and shot up to inspect it closer.
It was a simple design, with no symbols on it, and long enough for her to wear it as a t-shirt dress, or with short tights underneath them. The fabric was flowy and soft, almost being to soft for training, but she could use it on their study days.
"Thank you..." she said, looking at the shirt, as if seeing it was that strange.
Maybe it was...the nins in Orogakure always wore purple with black, grey or army green, so blue was definitely different, Kabuto didn't even remember where did he got it, but it seemed to make her feel better after that conversation...