Chapter X: Suffix Play
The rain pattered on the glass dome of the gazebo above Sakura. Thompson-sama had a maddeningly geometric garden. Bushes and trees were cut into perfectly symmetrical shapes, and the whole systematic nature of the garden gave the kunoichi an unpleasant sense of over-exposure. With everything so perfect, I wonder if an average person has ever spent and evening here without going clinically insane, she commented to herself cynically.
Sitting on the bench that trimmed the inside of the silo-shaped edifice in her ninja fatigues, she waited for her teammates to arrive. After the mystery woman had revealed a rather incomplete list of facts Sakura deemed to be important, she was determined to share her knowledge today. Preferably this morning.
But Naruto was interrogating, Sasuke looked too sickly this morning, and Kakashi... well, she didn't want to be alone with him unless circumstances became dire. Unfortunately, dire circumstances seemed to pop up like worms after the rain and tiptoeing around them was impossible. But scheduling the team meeting to a later time was a good start.
Sakura's thoughts meandered from home to here, touching on a variety of subjects before settling on Sasuke-kun. He had been acting oddly after breakfast, and she offered to check him for food poisoning. While Sasuke refused medical treatment for his unidentified illness, the young jounin was quite adamant about discussing a matter that seemed to have greatly perturbed him, leading the kunoichi to the small gazebo hidden amongst the odd tear-drop fir trees on time.
Usually everyone arrived two hours later when Kakashi was included into the meeting.
"No need to be so stealthy, Sasuke-kun." The jounin emerged from the back of the gazebo behind the chuunin, taking a seat on the bench beside her.
"So...um..." Sasuke fidgeted uncomfortably next to the kunoichi.
"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura also caught onto the shinobi's uneasiness. Usually when Sasuke had a question for her, he would force Naruto to ask in his place. Especially if there was a high probability that the answer would contain an assault both verbal and physical.
But Naruto was busy. And there were no other buffers available.
"I heard," he started slowly, "that you were..." glancing around nervously, the Uchiha coughed and uttered some word into his fist that eluded Sakura.
"Come again?" she requested, straining her ears. He tried again, this time using speed as his defense.
"Iheardyouweremarried." Sakura flushed in embarrassment before bursting out laughing.
"Why? Are you jealous?" she teased. A forgotten corner of her psyche tugged at her heart, wishing such claim was true. Her half-joke went unnoticed as Sasuke answered with his trademark severity.
"No, just..." The shinobi paused to search for the most appropriately eloquent phrase for the moment.
"Creeped out."
"Well aren't we full tact this morning?" Sakura retorted. Though her marriage with Kakashi was not even in existence, never mind legal, she felt snubbed by Sasuke's comment.
"I'm serious, Sakura. The man's old enough to be your father."
"Ma, I'm not that old, Sasuke-kun." Sasuke visibly winced as Kakashi appeared in a puff of smoke with a deflated Naruto. Obviously the interrogation had not gone well or the information was less than satisfactory.
"Now that everyone's here," Sakura exclaimed, still a bit miffed by Sasuke's comment, "let's share what we've learned today!"
"I'll go first." Naruto waved a hand carelessly in the air. He heaved a sigh, making Sakura realize once again how much six years had changed the usually hyperactive ninja. Stuffing his fists into his pockets, Naruto began his report.
"The guy's name is Shiro. It turns out that he was the leader of the group we wiped out last night. About the time we made our way to the Lighting Country, he was hired to hunt us down. Specifically, to detain Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei, dead or alive. No further information was given to their team.
"Though he was the only one to meet their patron, all transactions were done in a dark room. Judging from the voice, he says that his client is probably in his forties or fifties. No other details have been disclosed."
"...He cracked pretty easily," Sasuke noted suspiciously. Naruto grinned.
"He was paid in advance." Sakura took that as her cue to speak.
"Oh wait wait!" Something had popped into Naruto's mind before Sakura articulated a syllable. "I remember! At the party, I talked with Raikage-sama's secretary and he doesn't know about this weapon we've heard about."
"Are you sure?"
"Ninja's honor." Well, that was a dead end. The possibility of the closest man to the Raikage knowing nothing of the weapon was hard to swallow, yet the possibility that the weapon did not exist was also feasible. If that was the case, then the longer the team resided in the country, the more unnecessary danger they were bringing upon Konoha. They were stalemated in the most disagreeable situation since Naruto's eyes first witnessed the sheer amphibious nature of Ono-sama.
Sakura looked about questioningly for anyone else that had any more information. Sasuke shrugged and Kakashi...well, Kakashi never did anything except save her from one embarrassment that would only lead her to a whole mission's worth.
"Alright!" Shaking herself out of her resentful daze, Sakura commenced to report all that she had learned last night.
"Last night, I received intelligence from an unknown source that the borders of the Lightning Country have been closed and that the paintings are bugged. I don't know much about the person that gave me this intelligence, but she doesn't seem very old and is about five centimeters shorter than me." Kakashi scratched his head and briefly made eye contact with the other two jounin.
"That sounds like half the women living in the mansion," Sasuke stated blandly.
"I asked her if she knew why those people were looking for you two," Sakura indicated to Sasuke and Kakashi, "and she said 'they don't need it, but they want it'. My guess is that the person who hired that Shiro guy was looking for the Sharingan."
Sasuke smirked and rolled his eyes to the surrounding bushes. "Apparently whoever wants the Sharingan hired more incompetents to hunt us down." A loud bang made startled three of the four shinobi into action. Before breaking formation, Sakura received a glimpse of Sasuke desperately clutching his left arm. They were using that projectile-machine again.
The first man Sakura encountered went into a rabid frenzy and discharged his weapon in rapid at a succession at everything inanimate around him. While tinkering with the man's mind would have greatly amused the kunoichi, her faith in humanity would have quickly diminished once she found her prey so pathetic that killing him would reduce the suffering of those around him.
A well placed senbon stopped the man's hysterical rampage and two more sent him to the next world. A weapon that had the potential to kill instantaneously gave no room for hesitation, especially to those who lost their marbles once exposed in battle.
Listening to the abrupt cease fire in the distance, Sakura figured that she spent too much time waiting for the man to run out of ammunition. The situation developed awkwardly when a servant chanced upon the kunoichi gathering her needles. A spray of blood gushed out of the dead man's throat where Sakura had impaled him, leaving the poor girl in a state of mental shock Tsunade-sama herself would have found some trouble in dispensing a suitable remedy.
"A-ah..." Sakura turned to the stupefied servant hiding behind a square tree.
"Yes?"
"Th-the lady..." she blubbered out some other sounds while flailing about her hands in the direction of the mansion.
"Tea," she finally articulated the subject of her master's request to the blood-splattered shinobi. Sakura replied, "At what time?"
Instead of attempting to use her unreliable voice box again, the distraught girl held up three fingers. Looking back down at her victim, Sakura scratched her head. This predicament had become quite troublesome.
"Do I have to bring... er, my husband with me?" The girl seemed relived that the question had been asked and nodded vigorously.
"Alright then." Sakura watched the girl rushed away before jumping onto the glass dome of the gazebo in search of her comrades. Considering how much time it took her to take out one bug, the others would have finished off the whole colony.
"Sakura-chan!" A distressed Uzumaki cried out from under the kunoichi. She looked down at her associate, only to send the blond jounin deeper into agony.
"Are you alright?!"
"Yeah, I just pulled a senbon out too fast and got sprayed." She jumped down to stand beside Kakashi who was expressing some concern over Sasuke's bleeding arm.
"Here, let me see," Sakura said as she gently pushed the Copy Ninja aside. The other two ninjas huddled around the Uchiha as Sakura traded her fingerless gloves and reached into her belt pack for surgical ones.
Cutting the cloth away with chakra, she observed the damage while raising the shinobi's arm gingerly with her left hand.
The projectile had gone right through, leaving a small, yet profusely bleeding gash. After giving a blood-stopping pill to the patient, she gathered up chakra once again and concentrated on closing the hole. First hand field experience was quite different from working in the confines of a hospital.
"Naruto, go into my room and you'll find extra gauze in the bathroom."
"OK!" As Naruto sped away, the remaining three slowly rose to make their way to the manor. Sasuke glanced at Sakura on his left, then Kakashi on his right. They said that they were married, but nothing seemed to have changed at all between them. Or maybe...
"Did you two fight?"
"Hm?" Sakura blinked at Sasuke's question. Obviously she missed something, whereas Kakashi did not.
"We had a little spat this morning, but it's all good right now."
"Really," was the skeptical reply.
"Huh? Wait, what's all good?" Marriage had slipped the kunoichi's mind as she desperately attempted to grasp the men's alien topic.
Kakashi insinuated a smiled and reached over to flick off the blood crusted on Sakura's cheek.
"I'll tell you later, Sakura-chan."
————————————————
It turned out that he didn't have to. After Naruto met his team in the grand dining room, his inquiry regarding the extra bag in Sakura's room led to Sasuke recapping the hyperactive blond time-bomb of her 'marriage'. Though the kunoichi would have sorely wished to let the truth be known, she had the unfortunate luck of her concentration currently ingrained into healing the Uchiha.
As she finished up, Sakura found Naruto traversing up and down the emotional spectrum with much dynamics, ranging on topics to as why he was not invited to the wedding and what lesser youma possessed the two into holy matrimony.
"Oi, Kakashi-sensei! You tricked her, didn't you?!" An accusatory finger pointed straight at the Kakashi's one visible eye. Naruto's sharp insight made Sakura wonder if she had made her antipathy too conspicuous.
"A Cyclops like you can't even get a date with genjutsu, let alone get laid."
"Naruto!" Sakura stabbed the offending jounin in the spine with a free senbon. Sasuke and Kakashi's eye(s) went wide at the brutality the kunoichi displayed, though Kakashi had been taken aback more by the fact that Sakura had just defended him.
"Gah! Sakura-chan," whined the punctured kitsune, blood and tears flowing freely from the select perforations in his body.
"That Cyclops happens to be married to me, whether you like it or not!" Or whether she likes it or not, Kakashi added silently. But considering that her reaction had been more embellished than anticipated, he wondered if complaints to their arrangement were truly valid. Or maybe it was just a matter of pride?
The medic tossed her impossibly rose-colored hair and headed for the double doors behind Sasuke with three pairs of eyes following her exit. As all three braced for a tile-shattering slam as the door closed, the kunoichi alternatively stopped and poked her head back in.
"Kakashi-kun," she sang with in a deviously charming voice, "Thompson-sama's wife invited us for tea and she wants you there too-♥"
"Tea?" the three men chorused. After being doused by a light spray of blood, she goes off to drink—of all things—tea. Kakashi scratched his head. There was irony in that statement he could not pinpoint but since it was not important, he did not press further upon the matter.
"Alright then."
"And take off your mask." Naruto grinned and nudged Sasuke who looked indifferent only at surface level. As Sakura skipped away in a disturbing display of joy, Kakashi turned to the other two jounin and stopped scratching on seeing the strange reactions of his other teammate.
"Hm? What is it?" Naruto cleared his throat and found the tiles to be the most mind-blowing achievement of mankind. Sasuke only huffed and threw his glance to the far corner of the ceiling.
"Nothing," they replied in unison.
————————————————
Sakura found a servant outside of her room that relayed to her an ornate piece of silk she identified as a kimono. What was up with rich people and dressing up their guests was beyond the woman's knowledge, yet she accepted the clothes graciously.
It was a kimono alright. A houmongi, to be exact.
Sakura sighed. Her parents haven't even bought her a furisode and she was promoted to wearing a houmongi. At least she learned how to put this garish blanket of a dress on back in her Ninja Academy days. If her memory served her right, it was the course right after flower arranging back when she met Ino. Everyone had to take the class again before they graduated from the Academy, which was not one of the kunoichi's better memories.
She always needed help tying her obi.
"Need help?" Sakura turned to see Kakashi holding up the irritating strip of cloth before him. The man was wearing a dark blue and grey kimono with a haori, hakama and... that mask. Sakura turned her back in accepting his assistance.
"Will you take off that ridiculous piece of cloth?" Kakashi reached around to wrap the embroidered square of cloth around the kunoichi. He saw that rebuke sauntering down the Road of Life and had done nothing to prepare against its fury.
"No, I rather like it." Except flat out denying it. Sakura humphed. She had to admit that the ensemble was not as much of an eyesore as she had anticipated, so she stopped the argument. He did not blatantly cover his Sharingan; a reason in which she found enough gratitude to be satisfied.
Much to Sakura's annoyance, Kakashi had no idea how to tie a drum knot, sending the two on their way after twenty minutes of obi-torture.
As the two walked made their way to the tea room, Sakura remembered a item she had forgotten to discuss at the gazebo that morning.
"Kakashi-senpai! Now that our cover's blown, does that mean I can call you 'sensei'?"
"You don't call your husband 'sensei', Sakura-san."
"You don't call them 'senpai' either." Kakashi chuckled.
"Mou, if you don't like either of them, you can always call me 'nii-chan'." Sakura snickered and slapped his arm playfully before laughing out loud.
"I'll eat your arm before I call you that in your dreams!"
"Hello." A soft voice interrupted the jovial bantering between the two shinobi. Kakashi immediately took notice and bowed in recognition. Sakura, who was significantly shorter than her male counterpart, could not see anything before following suit. So the bizarre blond man married a natural inhabitant. How unexpected.
"You must be Thompsan-sama's wife," the jounin addressed as he straightened up. Sakura followed suit. And drew in a sharp breath of surprise.
"Pleased to meet you." The height, the voice and all the vague contours fell into place from the previous night. Sakura smiled back and bowed.
"The pleasure is all mine."
She was the woman in the pantry.
————————————————
Houmongi: Formal/Semi-formal kimono for married women.
Furisode: Formal/Semi-formal kimono for unmarried women twenty and up.
Obi: A sash used to tie a kimono.
#Hakama: Um... Large pleated pants. Kinda looks like a dress.
-Haori: A 'Kimono coat'
————————————————
Author's Notes:
This chapter was quite educational, no? If it was, I'm terribly sorry. I know
most of us just started school; forgive me.
I think my betas died. So I'll upload the edited version once they come back to life.
Marriage life isn't all hearts, wine and roses. That's what I'm trying to portray in the fic, but I don't know how well it's coming along. In fact, I have little to no control over the future of this fanfic. At some time, I might even have to go on hiatus in order to sort out the plot. Fortunately, I'm going so slow that the possibility is quite low.
Drops of Rain: I usually update weekly. Any changes will be noted in my profile.
Gurl2000: Sakura is not 'dissin on the boys', but she's a not happy with the fact that they treat her more than just a teammate. I'm making a website for Glass Castle, so in-depth information can be found there.
"Fanartist"