Disclaimer: The usual.
Warning: Possible spoilers. I read up to chapter 225 when I finished writing this.
Chapter 4: Dreams and Illusions-----Mind Games
She awakened underneath a canopy of green translucence. The sun was not so hot on her skin, thanks to the wide-spanning boughs above her, but pale, yellow dots came and went on her arms and legs, projected by the changing gaps between dancing leaves. A light whiff of air cooled her sweaty face and chased away the oppressiveness of the humid atmosphere; albeit momentary the effect, she welcomed it with a sigh.
She sat up and stretched, somewhat ridding her back of knots bestowed by her gnarled, torturous pillow. (The tree didn't seem to care at all when she glared at its roots in displeasure, noted Inner Sakura indignantly.) Through a teary, hearty yawn, she spied her surroundings—---an island, it seemed, a jut of dry earth amongst little quadrangular bodies of muddy water, separated by truncated crests of earth.
The rice padi had always been one of her favorite sight in her travels. Mother Nature seemed to proudly wear her man-made skirt of plaid, its length stretching to eternity. To Sakura, the horizon was forever unreachable; she would never get to see where the plains met the firmament, never reach the place where a dreamer could reach out and pluck a star.
That didn't stop her longing gazes, however. Even with leftovers of slumber in her head, she was in a tizzy as she looked up, anticipating the view that would greet her...
The view was marred.
Her throat constricted with unholy fear. She'd know that conical hat of woven grass anywhere. She would know that distinctive robe of dark plum, splashed with violet tongues of flame.
Itachi had been a bodily threat to her only once, but he haunted her dreams for years. The fact that she had stolen something from a man so powerful, so dangerous, left her jaws and knees quivering like a babe's rattle.
But there's something wrong here, her mind screamed at her. Itachi is dead. He's dead!
Even through the sick terror and bewilderment, survival instincts throbbed strong in her veins. She slid into a defensive stance, ready to die an honorable death, at least.
In the hands of a specter?!
The wide-brimmed hat lifted to reveal a pale face. Black eyes pierced hers without the slightest bit of recognition in its murky depths. Itachi had no reason to recognize her, of course; she was just one of the countless faces who served him little or no purpose, one that reminded him of the banality of the masses. But the ninja defector would have recognized her, anyway----and he wouldn't have that tell-a-tale white line gleaming on his shadowed jaw.
He wasn't Itachi. But he couldn't be who he appeared to be.
"Sasuke."
She kept her greeting flat and professional. There should be no giveaway of their degree of closeness in a hostile territory, he always said.
He still didn't know her. Either that, or Sasuke's acting skills had become even better.
"This is private property, miss," he informed her in an oddly respectful tone. "Please leave."
It didn't feel so, but something had to be wrong.
"Sasuke," she said carefully. "I am your old genin cellmate. I cannot give further identification until you do so. I must remain unnamed." Her voice was light, conversational, and unalarming.
"I have no need for some wench's name." (Inner Sakura: Wench?! How dare he–) It was outrageous. His tone remained polite despite his words. "I am famous for what I am. But what I am is not really what I am. Because I am what I am. The rabble cannot dictate to me. I know what I am myself."
Sakura was profoundly confused. "And what are you, then?" she managed to croak out.
Sasuke drew himself up with vast dignity. "I am a watercress farmer."
"I thought this was a rice field," she muttered.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when Sasuke's dark eyes widened with a toddler's awe. Even as a kid, she had never seen such an expression on his face, never with such innocence.
"Those crops belong to oniisan," he said. "This is my spot."
He drew his hand from within his tattered robes and pointed behind her, to what appeared to be a muddy stream. Somebody was standing in the slow-flowing water.
"Hello," said the young girl. She must have been about thirteen or fourteen. "You must be new here."
"She's not staying long," interrupted Sasuke. "She doesn't belong here. She must be purged out."
The girl shrugged and waded towards the tree and its shade. "I don't care," she said. "I like her." She smiled gently at the bemused Sakura. With her porcelain face and lustrous black hair, she was gorgeous. Even with all the confusion, Inner Sakura gnashed her teeth with jealousy, wondering if Sasuke's breath caught every time she looked at that girl the way hers did. "By the way, oneechan, I think you're sexy."
Sakura choked on that.
"Oh, and I'm a boy."
"Quit being nice," scolded Sasuke. "That's what got you here in the first place."
"Don't mind Sasuke-nii," Haku said. Yes, that was his name: Haku. Something was weird about that, but Sakura couldn't remember what exactly. "He's--—what did teacher say again?----socially inept. He doesn't have the balls to get the decent screwing people his age ought to be getting."
Sakura went bug-eyed. Surely, this nice, angel-faced young boy couldn't have said those things!
"Problems like those aren't usually the fault of the testicles," observed a quiet voice from above.
Everybody turned to the newcomer.
"Hello, little brother," said the tired-looking man. For some reason, Sakura wasn't at all afraid of the infamous Uchiha Itachi, even as he nimbly leaped from the tree limbs above her. "I've been watching her sleep for some time now. I thought you'd never notice her."
"Forgive my lack of observance, oniisan."
"That doesn't bother you at all?" Itachi's deathly voice had a curious lilt to it.
"What should be bothering me, oniisan?" Sasuke asked cautiously.
"That I've been watching her sleep."
"Not at all." Sasuke was very polite.
Itachi seemed disappointed by this, but he continued on with his admonishments. "Your watercress are a little sickly today."
"I'm sorry, 'niisan."
"Teacher will be displeased."
Haku spoke up at that worriedly. "You're not a cow, are you, oneechan?" he asked her urgently.
Sakura shook her head after a startled pause.
"Good," said Sasuke. "We might get liver rot."
"Fascioliasis," corrected Itachi.
"I'm sorry."
"What's that?" asked Haku.
"Tadpoles swim on your liver and make you sick."
"Liver fluke worms, fool!" thundered Itachi.
Sasuke looked like he was about to cry. "I'll never be as good as you, oniisan."
"There, there." Itachi hugged him hard. "You don't have to prove anything, little brother. I love you unconditionally!"
Sakura couldn't decide which was more disturbing to her: seeing two grown men grope each other or having a six-year old look up her skirt and write down notes.
Yes, a blond six-year old child, wearing a conical head wear and official-looking robes, was staring up her skirt with unmistakable glee.
She shrieked and scrambled away.
"Hokage-sama is here," announced Haku demurely. "Isn't she one hot hunk of flesh, teacher?" he added shyly.
"Substandard," the newcomer piped up in pompous disinterest. "No T&A."
"AURRGHH!!!" Sakura couldn't help herself. "Shut up, Naruto!"
Naruto ignored her. "All right, me guild of farmers, I'm here to check out whatcha learned in yesterday's chat. You start, Pin-up boy Senior. Whatcha learn yesterday?"
Itachi dug deep into his coat pockets, coming up with a purple-and-gold notebook. "The discussion from the previous session can be summed up as thus," he read from his neat handwriting. "One of the drawbacks of being a super warrior at such a precocious age is the risk for one super compromised moral development."
Sakura was having a headache. Inner Sakura had fainted two minutes ago.
The Naruto-who-was-not-Naruto nodded in satisfaction and acknowledged Itachi's flourishing bow. "You next, Pin-up Jr."
"It's safe here in the Elysian fields, because you, Uzumaki-sama, keep us cloistered from the cruel world. Hokage-sama takes care of us. We love Hokage-sama. We shall follow him to the ends of the earth, do anything he may bid, in gratitude for the asylum he has bestowed on us star-crossed beings. Hail, Hokage-sama!"
With that, Sasuke affectionately smooched the little boy on each cheek. Then, overcomed by emotion, he spun around and blubbered on his brother's coat. Naruto took it all without comment.
"They fear us, for they do not understand," observed Itachi sadly, all the while patting his baby brother. "Ours is a high and lonely destiny."
"But now, this woman has violated our haven," said Sasuke severely, pulling his tears-stained face from the prodigy's shoulder.
"What must we do then, my children?" asked Naruto, his grim air somewhat marred by the careless scratching he was doing on his head.
"We can keep her here," said Haku eagerly. "Maybe then I'll get a magnificent turquoise-eyed daughter with ebony hair and ... and.. And I'll name her Bonnie and she'll be jounin at 4 and----"
"Don't be a fool!" snapped Itachi.
"But—!" Haku pouted. "Can't we keep her at all? Even for only a year or so? I really want a souvenir."
"It would be cruelty to borne more of our kind into this world. How quickly you forget the mistakes of your own mother! Now you want this creature as a breeding sow?"
"I shall keep my libido in check, then," intoned Haku subserviently. "Just trying to remind everybody that I am a boy. Do as you please with her."
Naruto scratched his head, harder this time. "Ano... Ano...What do we do to her then?" he asked his minions again.
Sasuke looked at her with cold eyes, all signs of weeping gone from their darkness.
"She must be eliminated."
This time, she awakened with a start.
Sakura sat up as quickly as she could manage, as if the very act of rising would relinquish her from the confusion of her hazy nightmare. The confusion stayed, even as the world of dreams fluttered away from her fingertips. Only vaguely could she remember what her subconscious had churned out in her restless sleep.
He was there, of course. Others were there, too. Others with identities too weird for her to make sense of. Naruto was only a six-year old, but he was already a pervert and a hokage. Uchiha Itachi was there, too, philosophical, profound, and frighteningly so unlike the homicidal image she had kept of him all these years. And there was, too, a sweet-faced boy, prettier than a girl. His name was Haku, she remembered, that unfortunate missing nin Team 7 had fought in their first B-class mission, that child from Mist country who was forced to kill his own mother's killer---—the very man who sired him hated him for the advanced bloodline he carried----the boy as pure as snow. Persecuted for what he was, what he could have been, he had been too kind for his destiny. Too, too kind...
Maybe it was cruelty to bring a child into a world capable of such things.
Sasuke had also said things in her dream, but she had forgotten those things. It was all for the best, she thought. Knowing herself, she would have driven herself mad trying to decipher the dream, reading out codes from that random cacophony of memories and notions, thinking, thinking, and thinking.
It was all so simple, anyway, despite the loony quality of the dream. Guilt. It was all about guilt. The dream simply reminded her of the guilt she was harboring. Indeed, why would Sasuke want such a liability as herself? Why would he want a family at all when what he had long ago made such a mess of his life? That's why, more than ever, she had to know whether or not she was carrying his child, whether or not she had already destroyed his life with a single selfish wish.
Her head hurt. She didn't sleep well last night, too busy combining and permuting possibilities in her tenacious mind. She wanted to rest, truly. Yesterday, she had gone to the store to look at some of those over-the-counter pregnancy kits (a visit to the doctor was definitely a big no-no). She had lost her nerve when a spiky-haired jounin cannonballed out of nowhere, grinning naughtily. (Did he suspect anything? she wondered. Anything at all? She's talking about Naruto here, but still...) As a result, she still didn't have answers. She was still suspended in that nerve-racking on-the-verge-state.
After a brief chat with Uzumaki Naruto, she had gone straight to her pad. Ino would have wanted to chat, Sakura knew, so she didn't call her friend after briefly informing her parents of her safe arrival. She had gone to bed after a mouthful of something, but had spend the whole afternoon, evening, and night tossing about, lingering on the peripherals of honest-to-goodness rest.
Presently, she resisted the urge to sink back on her pillow as pain squeezed her brain. The steady ticking of her wall clock was drowned by the choir of birds from outside. It was still early, she knew, but if she didn't move quickly enough, she would be late for training.
Dreading the sarcastic one-liner her mentor would deliver ("Oh, so you did learn something from that lazy-eyed pervert!"), Sakura rose swiftly, showered, ate a hasty breakfast, and was about to head out when the phone rang.
"Sakura-chan."
"Ino."
"I'm glad I caught you before you left." A sigh. "How was your mission?"
"Accomplished. Well enough, I suppose. How have you been?" Terse, strained, upset. Descriptions rose easily in her mind; Ino was rarely one to hide emotions.
"Well enough. Listen, can you stay with me tonight? Mother's driving me crazy—I'm at my wit's end!"
"Er, I---"
"I'm going home, anyway, whether or not you can," Ino growled conspiratorially. "Just thought having a flesh-and-blood, somewhat neutral person around to absorb ranting wasn't such a bad idea. Well?"
"I'm free. I have no missions assigned till the 29th."
"Good. Be here for supper."
"Okay." Sakura glanced at her timepiece and saw she still had time. Drawing her friend out into conversation would make Ino feel better in the long run, so Sakura picked an open statement. "I didn't think Shikamaru's still being called on missions, what with that other one he's coordinating."
"Oh, I didn't think so either—not until that cocky little genin ambushed me, anyway. 'I'm to inform Nara-san that her husband had been called to duty,' he drawled. 'What duty?' I asked. 'It's classified.' But of course! Why the hell then did he have to come parading into the middle of the jam-packed flower shop, screaming his news for everybody to hear? Jeeze!
"Unforseen circumstances, they said. But of course, they wouldn't have sent him to such a dangerous mission, if it could have been helped at all. He's too precious a commodity. They're relying on him too much. I swear, this village is going to the dogs. A kunai into one man's guts and all the operations will fall apart! But no--—they'd wear him to pieces before that happens.
"And then that brat of a messenger had the nerve to ask if I was indeed Nara Ino, after spilling his mouth. Ugh. And that Shikamaru! Didn't even have the decency to leave a note. Unforseen circumstance my ass! As if he could actually miss any probability with that annoying genius head of his----"
Unforseen circumstances. Events unexpected by Nara Shikamaru's powerful foresight and acumen.
Of course. Something was wrong.
Ino knew it, too, knew that she must know it, too. Ino had stopped speaking.
"Sakura." She was firm when she spoke again. "That's all I know, I swear. Don't get riled up by rumors and assumptions. We'll talk later. You'll be late for training. Move."
Strong as the steel of blade, cold as the feel of a brush against death, emphatic as only another kunoichi could be, Ino's command was irresistible.
"Till tonight, then. Goodbye and be well."
The line went dead. Sakura did as she was told, for it was all that she could do at the moment.
Something was wrong.
Of course.
The sun burned a hole in the firmament----was the hole itself, perhaps. Through this opening, some divine hand sent wicked shafts of fire her way, intent to assassinate in slow, lingering means. She could only wince at the glowing eye's halo, scintillating in the frank, blue expanse, couldn't even glare back as challenger and willing opponent.
Of course, what idiot would face a star? What idiot would think herself so invincible that she would seek out the blazing lord of the skies to purge out some misplaced pain or rage through mortal combat?
This must be an illusion, her mind cautioned, the thought seeming vague and distant. This urge that she had to swallow the sun, to stomp out its light, was surely the echoes of a warning, a wordless herald of the insidious presence of an illusion master at work.
Concentrate! She commanded herself viciously. Look to your surroundings. Focus on each detail—--without dwelling on any for too long. Distraction would be your defeat.
Or your death, if fate so decided.
She looked to the trees, slender damsels of the wood swaying in their breeze-dictated dance. The shadows they cast threatened to mutate into hideous monstrosities, tried to lure her into the illusion of a magical demise.
The power of a gripping genjutsu technique lay in its subtle, gradual invasion of the mind. The enemy must suspect nothing, must be slowly beguiled by a disarmingly normal environment. Chakra must be spun with such expertise, with such precise control, into webs of conjured reality; a mistake in the minutest degree could mean discovery and, ultimately, the failure of the mission.
But she knew what to search for. A blip, perhaps, in her immediate surroundings, a sign that could indicate whether or not an attack was imminent, whether or not it was already underway, whether or not there was an enemy at all. It could be the too-complex chirping of the cicada, the sweet song of the nightingale that didn't exist in those parts, or the too-regular pattern of the knobbly roots at her feet.
She searched desperately. The details around her came rushing at her. Details, details... Too many details. Too many for her to keep track of, too many to dissect, too many to watch.
Where was her hidden opponent?
An illusion was a misconception of an existing thing. What then was she falsely perceiving? Is that cloud really a cloud, or was it a shuriken, its true speed warped in her mind, in reality carrying in its blurred edges her doom?
Was it?
Was it not?
Was it?
Was it not?
It was, apparently.
It tore the sky, instead of waiting to lacerate her lung on impact. Blood erupted from that impossible wound, dripped down the blue till the blue was no longer blue but scarlet. The reddened sky on each side of the gigantic cut began to boil and bubble. Bulbous wrinkles scarred the bleeding heavens. The edges of the gaping wound stretched apart, too far from approximation to be able to heal again.
She could only gape in disbelief as the necrotic insides came into view---- the rotting viscera of the universe looked the same as the sliced bowels of that missing nin she had apprehended years ago, the first life she had ever taken----could only stare as the pus, with its nestlings of writhing maggot, dripped down. The stench made her gag, and her stomach, not withstanding the savagery, emptied its contents onto the shriveled earth.
A distinctive roar rampaged about her ears. She had forgotten about the rain of blood, she realized in horror, and she reeled on her jelly-like legs. From the horizon, relentlessly devouring everything in its path, a tsunami came thundering towards her. Before she knew it, before she could even scream in welcoming terror, the wave of death had already descended upon her.
She was drowning.
The metallic taste was unpleasant on her tongue.
She was drowning.
The thickness of the impossible ocean smothered her, crushed her.
She was drowning.
In that primordial stew, she was taking so long to die.
She was.
She was falling towards the dusty ground, panting, whimpering.
The spell was broken.
"Sakura!" The admonishment was cutting. She was ashamed of herself. She wound into a tiny ball to hide that shame. "Sakura..."
Finally, she dared to open her eyes, saw her arms clasping her knees, her knees tucked against her breasts. She looked up into the blood-red eyes of her sensei, the thin line of her blood-red lips tense with concern.
"Why didn't you block the illusion?" she demanded. "I sensed you collecting the threads of the web of chakra I was building to enclose you! Why didn't you shut your mind when you knew the main attack was coming?"
Because she had forgotten? She had forgotten that the destructive power of the illusion was to destroy the body's defenses, to disarm the mind, to overwhelm, to break. She had forgotten the basic premise of offensive genjutsu.
That's what she had learned from the single encounter she had with the mange sharingan.
In a way, she owed the discovery of her calling to Uchiha Itachi. Ironically, Sasuke bested her in her chosen field of expertise, though they had never faced in battle before, simply because he was the only living person capable of withstanding the mange sharingan, perhaps the most powerful genjutsu there was. She herself was no Uchiha, had no such powerful eyes, had no pupil jutsu to use in conjunction. But she figured she could break the enemy in similar ways using genjutsu alone. That's what she had been mastering ever since the team 7 went their separate ways and followed different mentors.
But in today's training session, she was the one who broke.
"You developed this technique," snapped the shapely brunette. "How can you fall for it just like that?"
"I'm sorry, Kurenai-sense," Sakura gasped, still breathless with exertion both from surviving a genjutsu attack of that level and disbelief at almost dying from it.
The jounin-sensei stared at her for a long time.
"Obviously, there is something wrong with you," she said. "You are much too imbalanced. Sort yourself. This training session is over."
And yet, the elder remained where she stood, didn't disappear to refresh herself or attend to some other chore.
Sakura gazed up at her teacher in heartfelt gratitude, though she knew she could not seek solace even from her.
"I shall sort myself out, sensei. Thank you."
Kurenai's look remained expressionless. Finally, she returned the secret smile of the women and vanished in the way of the ninjas.
Sakura took a few moments rest before she disappeared into the obstacle courses of Area 54(?). The training there was intense enough to provide succor through oblivion but were simple enough not to get her killed in her disgustingly lousy state.
Sakura and Ino weren't talking, because ten minutes ago, they had a senseless little argument.
It all started when...
Well, that's exactly the main hindrance to their making up. Neither could quite remember what really started the spiteful bickering. They had been snapping at each other before the major explosion (Ino said Sakura was insensitive, callous, and downright mean, while Sakura said Ino was a whiny little brat--—both said in less mild terms), and were both too ashamed of themselves to gather enough guts to apologize to one another.
Sakura finally resolved to patch things up. It was mostly her fault, she thought. She had been out of sorts all day, walking about as if in a trance. Ino, aggravated by her husband's antics, must have taken offence from Sakura's behavior, thinking the latter was passive-aggressively acting out.
"If you didn't want to come, you didn't have to," Ino had said earlier. "I won't oblige you; I don't need your charity. In fact, you can just show yourself to the door, if you're that sick of me."
Sakura did not storm out of the Nara house. She stomped into the humid kitchen, plunked down on an empty seat, and began to devour the food Ino prepared. Not to be outdone, Ino did the same with a huff. They had been stuffing their faces for fifteen minutes now, silent except for the occasional chink of tableware, a clearing of a throat, or a slight cough.
As Sakura was clearing her throat for the fifth time, Ino exploded.
"All right, that's it!" she hollered. "If you're gonna say something, spill it right now!"
"What else do you think I've been trying to do? Eh, Ino-pig?"
Ino harrumphed. "Well, at least I know why I'm cranky. It's that Shikamaru's fault And I'm not talking about him taking off to god-knows-where without as much as a note! What's your excuse?"
"PMS," muttered Sakura.
The munching continued uninterrupted a few more minutes before Ino sighed..
"Ne, Forehead-girl, why do you think men are so... so..." Ino stopped, as if encountering some unpleasant thought, grimaced, and continued speaking. "Troublesome. Why do you think they're so troublesome?"
"Shouldn't you be the one who knows better?" said Sakura with a stiff laugh.
"Ha-ha. In this case, experience isn't much of an edge."
"Maybe we're not old enough."
Ino nodded vehemently. "Sixty years from now, they'd be too old to go horsing around."
"I know. Did anybody tell you anything else? About the sudden mission, I mean."
"Oh, the usual: it's classified information, sorry." She snorted. "As if it's not easy enough to just guess. Only an idiot wouldn't expect this sort of thing happening—me, in particular. Something didn't go according to Shika's plans. Something went wrong, and he had to go into the heart of the Southern Crack Country himself."
"Something big enough that can't be delegated to messengers," added Sakura quietly.
Ino's eyes widened like a guilty child's. Her constrained expression lasted less than a second, soon replaced by a doubtful bunching up of her nose.
"Nah," she said. "It was probably his plan from the beginning—part of his dozens, anyway. Shikamaru's like that, you know."
Sakura noticed the sudden detour. She didn't comment—what could she say?—but the fact that her companion was forced to tiptoe around certain subjects to avoid upsetting her made her feel worse. If anybody needed more sensitivity, it would be her. Ino was worse off than her, after all; the father of the child she was carrying (a real child, not a phantom of a wild imagination) was plunging into a foreign war for a suicide mission. Worse, there were some other villages who would grab any opportunity to rid the world of the Leaf's dark horse. So instead, Sakura smiled.
"You would know, wouldn't you," she said playfully. "I bet those midnight games of your is what's keeping that plotting brain of his sharp, eh?"
"No PMS, though." Ino stuck her tongue out at her.
"Only a long wait for that little one."
"A long shitty wait," Ino said as-a-matter-of-factly. "Maybe I'll trade you your PMS."
Sakura felt a stab of guilt. She wasn't feeling as sickly as she usually did before her menses came. (Not yet, her mind reasoned.)
"Well, I haven't really started bleeding yet," she clarified. "I'm just expecting it soon."
"It's good to know I'm not the only one expecting," Ino har-hared over her own pun. "Anyway, if you need some sanitary pads or whatever, I have some in the bathroom."
"Leftovers?"
"Stock, actually." Ino grinned sheepishly. "Got carried away shopping once." She rose and led Sakura to the bathroom. As she rummaged through the cabinet under the sink, she went on speaking. "Nope, no tampons here. Napkins—thin ones, thick ones, long ones, short ones. Choose whichever you like."
Sakura peered into the cupboard curiously. Aside from the multivariated piles of pads, another stack of boxes caught her attention. Her hand shook as she casually took up one box to read.
"So it seems..." she said. "It seems like your being in the family way isn't as accidental as you guys pretend it to be."
Ino was blushing.
"Well... I...." she stammered.
Sakura waited for her friend to regain speech, taking the opportunity to scan the box's instructions. Using her urine, the test could indicate whether or not she was pregnant. However, the test was only effective after the first missed period, five to six days from now. It wasn't going to make her wait shorter then; she didn't need it after all. Come next Wednesday and her monthly visitor would give her all the assurance she needed.
"The truth is, we've been trying for kids for a while." Ino said hesitantly. "I mean, really trying hard. I was afraid that... Well, I was afraid. It turns out there's no need. I was so happy when I found out I'm on the way."
"Oh, I see," said Sakura voice hushed.
"Sakura-chan?"
"Hmm?"
"Is it really that out of character?"
"What?"
"This."
"It's wonderful," Sakura replied sincerely.
Ino beamed at her, cheeks pink. "It's weird. I mean... I'm...I'm me."
"It's not weird," assured Sakura.
For some reason, the whole exchange depressed her.
Presently, both returned to their seats. They decided to delay cleaning up the table in favor of relaxing over tea and stories.
Ten minutes later, a knock was heard, and when the door was opened, revealed a messenger for Sakura. After their terse meeting, she returned to sit beside Ino at the table, face stricken.
"What's wrong?" Ino demanded.
"They want me to go on a mission. Tenten had been pulled from a mission to the Mist country and was sent to a classified, high-priority one. I have to take her place."
"Why on earth would they replace a weapons specialist with an apprentice in genjutsu?"
"Nobody else is available. And we both know what the classified, high-priority other one is. She's gone with Shikamaru's group." Sakura smiled bitterly. "Of course, I'm not good enough for that one."
"You are going to the one you're assigned, of course?" It was a statement, not a question, despite the inflection at the end of the sentence.
"Of course, but in three days---"
"He will be here. In fact, he'd probably beat you home."
"I hope so," she said unhappily. "But what about you?"
"What mother doesn't know won't hurt her." Ino's grin was fierce. "Go."
"Take care," said Sakura fervently.
"Tell that to yourself. Gambatte."
Thus, Ino was left alone in her otherwise empty house.
August 1, 2004, afternoon
AN: This weird little chapter was released unbeta-read, so I have no idea what the response would be. Ehehehe... (Scary.)
) I'm glad people generally found chapter 3 amusing. E-chan Hidaka, I did put Naruto in for comic relief, but, yes, this is angst. LOL, animEvivvErz and Mikki05, I hope this chapter didn't disappoint. There's nothing to be sorry about, trickmaster. One can't help it, if one has nothing to write, ne? Mikazuki1 I'm glad you liked the character development. Sometimes I worry that readers think the story flows too slowly. Speaking of slow, I did it again in this chapter, Neptune. Still no results for Sakura. You guys kinda know the result (coughs) and I do, but Sakura doesn't. (evil laugh) And yes, Sasuke is supposed to come back in 4 days in chapter 3, 3 days now. The good news is, I'm not going to let you readers wait 2 weeks for the next chapter. It'll probably be unbeta-read again (since we're all busy T-T), but the results of the test would probably be there. )
Thanks for reading.
Chapter 5: 100304