Sakura was going mad. She was almost certain of it. For the entire day they were just jumping, jumping, running, jumping, running, running through endless forest. Had the entire continent turned into one? She was beginning to wonder. They had to be over two hundred miles from the Akatsuki headquarters by now. Two hundred miles of running with a mind that seemed to be running even faster. She still couldn't digest it.
Itachi - Uchiha Itachi - had kissed her!
All of this running was giving her the whole day to think about it. And it was all her mind and body were running on – thoughts. It was driving her mad, she was certain. What brought it on? What could possibly provoke Itachi to do such a thing? What could possibly compel her to let him? Then again, she hadn't known what he was preparing to do. She hadn't known…How could she have known? It was the last thing she would have EVER expected of the Uchiha.
Her mind had been running like this along with her for two hundred miles. At least. She stayed a fair distance from both Itachi and Kisame, finding that it would only make her tenser running beside them.
When she wasn't stupidly wondering what could have led to Itachi's action the night before, she was fretting about what would transpire at this meeting with 'Leader.' She knew now for certain that they knew something about her that she apparently didn't. If they happened to stop tonight – which she hoped they would, feeling her thighs burning with overuse – that would be her only question. She promised herself solemnly as she leapt from branch to branch, so reminiscently of her return to Konoha, that she would not cooperate with them any longer until they told her what they needed her for now.
She just hoped she'd have the strength to open her mouth in front of Itachi without freezing when the time came to ask.
That morning, nothing seemed to change, but there was a new tenseness in the atmosphere, as though everybody were toeing on the edge of panic. She'd even caught Kisame giving her a sidelong glance that looked almost sympathetic. Something was wrong with everybody this day!
The two Akatsuki ahead of her leapt down from the treetops to a clearing on the ground and she bounded down after them, eager to give her legs a brief rest. All three drew canteens and took long draughts. It was followed by a few minutes of shifty silence as both Itachi and Kisameunstrapped their straw hats from their backs and placed them on their heads. Sakura looked around idly. Should she cover her face as well?
Her casual outfit had been replaced once again by her ANBU uniform and with her she took her mask and hitai-ate, though she wore neither at the moment. She'd actually found the hitai-ate by accident; as she'd unhooked her vest to pull it around her torso the headband had fallen out from under one of the shoulders. She wondered how it'd been left under there, since she hadn't worn it with her when Deidara first "kidnapped" her from Konoha. She hadn't even known it was there when she'd gone to Konoha. She pulled it out of a pocket now and brushed her finger along a scratch on the top half of it. Wonder how this got here...
There were still so many things about her past that she didn't know, she realized. And it hit her then that she may never know how that scratch had been put on the hitai-ate. She may never know what actually happened to Sasuke and Orochimaru. She may never know. It made her feel so lost and detached at that moment.
"Let's go." Itachi said curtly. Kisame took his normal spot next to him and Sakura took hers, slightly behind them, quietly following. They were simply walking now, which meant that they were either close to their destination or about to encounter a village to stay in for the night. She was glad for this - not only were her eyes constantly drawing chakra from her reserves to remain active, but the extra energy used for running had drained her more than it would have without the Sharingan. This brought another question to mind: if she were to stop the chakra flow to her eyes would she be blinded? Or was there a way to deactivate it? This sparked an idea and she fingered her hitai-ate again.
It couldn't hurt to test it out here...
She held the protector in both hands tentatively, then lifted it and placed it over her eyes. Hm. If I were to allow the Sharingan to feed on more chakra at a constant rate I think I'd be able to make things out through the hitai-ate without others seeing my eyes... She focused some of her remaining chakra to her eyes and her theory proved true: She couldn't see figures and shapes clearly, but they were solid enough that she'd know what was where and who was who.
She quickly pulled the forehead protector away from her face when Itachi's head turned to look at her through the silk strips adorning the edges - he must have sensed the focusing chakra. "Sorry," she stammered, "I was just, uhm, testing something..." She saw his eyes drop to the hitai-ate for a moment before facing forward again. She sighed and stuffed it back into its pocket. I can't really try it until my chakra's restored. But I don't know if I'll have the opportunity to here...
She shuddered suddenly and it took almost all her restraint to not smack her palm to her forehead. She'd completely forgotten about Itachi's ability to hear her thoughts! She spent the next minute cursing her ignorance, when out of nowhere the forest ended.
No dispersing of trees, no patches of blue sky as a warning...Nothing. It just ended. She paused, and looked back...then up. Where the trees should have towered over her was instead a wall of stone that stretched high above even the tallest trees on the other side. She saw also that where they had come through had no visible opening or doorway - solid stone faced her. Hesitantly, she touched it with her hand. It was solid. How...What sort of genjutsu could this be? If a jutsu of this caliber could be performed by Akatsuki, she despaired, how did she possibly think she could be a benefit to its cause...whatever that was?
"How fortunate that you have come, Haruno Sakura." A cool, smooth voice said from behind her. Her breath hitched and she spun on her heels to face the speaker. He, like the others, wore an Akatsuki robe, and also had on one of the straw hats which was tilted low so she could only see his slightly-smiling mouth. Both Itachi and Kisame were no longer anywhere in sight and she couldn't sense their chakra nearby. She felt her blood turn to sludge in her veins and her mouth grew dry. Was this the 'Leader' that pulled the strings of Akatsuki?
His voice rang in her ears again. "Yours is a most unique situation. I never would have thought that Orochi would willingly seek out a vessel. However, it would make sense that he would select a most mediocre candidate in which to hide from the other Biju."
Sakura's mind was reeling by now. Orochi? Biju? Mediocre candidate? Where does Orochi sound familiar...Isn't it one of the tailed demons, like Kyuubi? She put two and phenomenal two together and it summed a dangerous four that made her jaw drop. Of course...Orochi-maru; Snake Man. Kakashi didn't mention that he was a Jinchuuriki! She forced these revelations to the back of her mind - there were more important matters standing right in front of her.
"You are...Leader?" She asked tentatively, and cursed the quiver in her voice. The man's smile widened ever so slightly. "That, I am," he replied most pleasantly, and he gestured for her to walk with him. With no other option, what else could she do? Her nerves responded enough to keep one foot moving in front of the other, and Leader walked side by side with her. She swallowed. "You're...you're going to take the Biju out of me, aren't you?"
She could no longer see any part of his face as he responded. "My, Sakura-chan. Straight to the important matters." She furrowed her brows and bit her lip nervously. That's a yes. How had she not known that it was inside her to begin with? She recalled the night when Itachi had nearly lost control of the Kyuubi. Did all the demons strive to gain control like that? And if so, why had she not had such problems if she had Orochi, the eight tailed snake demon, inside of her?
"Um...Leader-sama?" She asked timidly. The enigmatic man's only reponse was the soft tingle of the bell on his hat. She swallowed again. "Orochi...How could it be inside of me? I've had no seal placed to keep it within my body...And I've never encountered it trying to take over. Are you certain that I'm the Jinchuuriki?" The man turned his head slightly; she could see the faint smile on his face again. "Are you questioning my strength and ability to sense it, Sakura-chan?" The pleasant tone had no edge to it, but she felt she was toeing a dangerous line right then. She shook her head quickly, slmost frantically. "N-No, not that," she stuttered, "I just - When Itachi-san returned to the headquarters he was struggling to keep the Kyuubi under control...And I've had no such problems. I don't sense it anywhere inside of me..." Even now she mentally noted how long it'd been since she'd used an honorific in reference to Itachi. After the previous night, though, it seemed necessary to keep what was left of her sanity.
She hoped she would wake up soon.
"Do not worry about such trivial things at this time," the man said lightly. Sakura was quickly finding Leader to be a thousand times nicer and a thousand times more terrifying than she thought he would be. "Those can be answered at a later time. I hope to have your presence here for a while yet, as I too have many questions for you. Your eyes are its seal, surprisingly enough...Considering the circumstances that put them in that pretty little head of yours."
They fell into silence for the next few minutes, and Sakura took that opportunity to look around her. They were walking toward what looked like an average military fortress. There were stone walls and watch towers at each corner, and she could just see part of the structure attached to the stone wall of protection above it. It surprised her: she had actually been expecting something that looked a bit more...desolate, with heads of fallen Jinchuuriki posted every ten feet on the ground by the entrance to a dungeon-like cold iron building. How...off.
"Do you recall anything that happened during the battle in which your eyes were transplanted, Sakura-chan?" He asked in such a conversational tone that if not for the robe and hat he could pass off as any normal-sounding person asking about the next day's weather. She wondered what his face looked like. She opened her mouth to respond but caught herself and snapped it shut again. Why the hell should I answer? She silently argued. He's planning to extract a demon from me and probably kill me in the process. I might as well make it difficult. So, she kept her mouth stubbornly shut. Leader seemed to realize this and sighed. "Sakura-chan..."He said with a soft undertone of exasperation. "Stubborn defiance will not help you while I am here. Surely you realize that."
"I do, Leader-sama," She said, and was glad that her voice sounded more confident and sure than she felt. "Respectfully, though, I have difficulty with placing my trust in a man who is not answering my questions, either." She knew she would pay for that sort of rudeness later on and silently berated herself for it, but to her surprise Leader gave a delighted laugh. "Your tongue is as sharp as a serpent's, Sakura-chan," He said jovially, "You are more like Orochi than you realize." This statement made her suddenly feel more queasy inside than she'd ever felt before. The worst part of that is he sounds so right...It would make more sense...The inability to sleep at night. The inability to hold my tongue. Am I really like the eight-tailed snake demon? Am I...like Orochimaru? The idea made her shudder more violently than what the man keeping apace with her unusually slow stepswould do to her.
-/-/-/-/-/-/
Long after the sun went down she was greeted in her temporary room by Itachi; he seemed even more stoic than usual. He didn't say a word and she silently followed him out of her room - which was kept shut by chakra-resistant iron bars - and he led her down a single corridor and down several flights of stairs. His steps were quick and fluid, and Sakura trotted silently after. She was afraid to ask him anything, for fear of making him stop and turn and give her 'the Look,' which would seem scarier now, underground and in the semi-dark, than at the HQ. She was just beginning to wonder when they would pass through the core of the earth when the stairs ended and opened out to an enormous cavern that was well-reinforced with thick slabs of stone up the walls. It was almost as big as the fortress itself.
By the stairs were five other Akatsuki - two she recognized and three she didn't. Deidara gave her a casual (if not strained) grin beside Kisame, who gave her a small nod of acknowledgement. She knew at once something was wrong with the blond but she didn't dare ask at the moment. Two men she didn't know were standing slightly apart from the others - and each other. One looked demented, and the other seemed like he would agree with her if she said that aloud. The latter occasionally gave the taller one a disdainful look. Itachi stood apart from the others with his back to Sakura.
She didn't notice the third unfamiliar face until she saw a patch of green moving toward them from the other side of the cavern. She had to blink a few times to make certain she wasn't hallucinating - she could swear that it was a cloaked plant moving toward them. It actually turned out to be right...sort of. It was a man whose face was white on one half and black on the other half. His eyes were a mottled yellow and his entire head was encased by an open venus flytrap. He gave her an intense, creepy once-over, then turned his gaze elsewhere. What a crowd...She thought, suppressing a shudder. Sharkmen andpuppets and plants, oh my.
She felt that someone was missing...Puppets...Sasori! Wonder where he's at...Maybe he's late or has some kind of mission?
That would bring the total number of Akatsuki to eight, counting Leader. Is that it? The infamous Akatsuki crime organization was eight people? This brought yet another question. There's eight Akatsuki...whose goal seem to be to capture all the Biju. There are nine Biju. What will they do with an extra?
"Hey, Sakura." She smiled happily as Deidara moved toward her. What she really wanted to do was hug him until she snapped his neck or suffocated him, but seeing him would have to suffice. "Long time no see...yeah." She almost laughed - she'd missed his odd sentence modifiers for too long. "It's been boring without you, Deidara." She said, a grin still plastered on her face. She couldn't help it - Deidara was the lightest and the easiest to get along with among the Akatsuki she knew. "How's it been?" He shrugged a shouler awkwardly. "Not very good...yeah. Lost both of my arms."
Sakura gaped. "B...Both of your arms are gone?" She struggled to keep her voice as low as possible to avoid attention.
Deidara nodded like it was no big thing. She could tell he was trying to lighten the subject. "Well, the mission was a failure...yeah. Kakashi caught me off guard...twice...yeah." Sakura's stomach flipped uncomfortably at the mention of her former teacher's name. "Made my arm vanish with his Sharingan...then made one of my puppets blow up prematurely...yeah. And Sasori..." Sakura's eyes widened. No...Not Sasori... But as she saw the solemn expression on Deidara's face she knew her fears were true. She remembered the smile on his face, the tear that trailed down his cheek...
Deidara sighed. "Like anything that is left for the future as a thing of eternal beauty... He got killed straight off!" Sakura shook her head with an expression that was part sorrow, part exasperation. "Have to have the last word, eh, Deidara?"She said with a somewhat wry grin on her face.
How unfair for you, Sasori...Deidara looked at her curiously. "He told me something for you...yeah." Her eyes, which had drifted to the ground, shot back up to the blond's visible eye. "For me?"
He nodded and said, "He said to tell you that he was able to see the sunset a second time...yeah."
Several long moments passed in an uncomfortable but not unwelcome silence before Sakura spoke again. "Deidara...What is going to happen?" For the first time the man avoided her gaze, looking fixedly into the darkness of the cavern. She didn't receive an answer for a long time, and when she slowly turned away from him he didn't try to stop her. Her eyes were turned such that Deidara couldn't see them when he turned his gaze to her at last. "He's going to do what he did to Naruto...isn't he..." Her voice was soft, and it nearly broke near the end.
Deidara wanted to embrace her and apologize, but he couldn't do so in the presence of so many Akatsuki. He didn't trust himself to speak, so he still didn't respond.
With a sudden loud poof all the others were gone, and Sakura was standing alone by the stairs. She whirled around to look for the others but her vision was obstructed by the lone form of Leader. His casual, light attitude from earlier in the day was completely gone, and his face was so severe and dark, accented by the shadows of the dim lighting, that a tremor raced through her body and she briefly froze. His hands were held up under his cloak and she heard whispered words, before her legs gave out beneath her and her knees contacted the marble tile floor with a painful crack. However, it wasn't out of fear - Leader had performed some type of jutsu that stopped all the nerve responses in her body. Wh...What is he doing! I can't move!
"I'm afraid that this is necessary, Sakura-chan." He said slowly as he walked toward her. "Torture is only used in the most extreme of circumstances, and you've been compliant thus far. I'm afraid this is now an eye-for-an-eye game, Sakura-chan. You give me what I want without struggle, and I will tell you what you want to know." He picked her limp body up bridal-style in his arms and walked toward the dark center of the cavern. He didn't add the silent, before I kill you, at the end of his statement.
-/-/-/-/-/-/
A shinobi's efficiency is mirrored by his grace. One is more graceful with killing intent in mind than anything else. It is the grace of the Missing-nin that is the most prominent. With no allegiance to a Village a Missing-nin learns from his surroundings and gains first familiarity, then grace. Missing-nin are open to all forms of taijutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu...all fighting forms. We are not restricted to the secrets of just one village's jutsus. With all the options of the continent available the power has more space to expand - more grace to achieve. If there is a possible limit to true,perfect grace, it is achieved by the Akatsuki.
His grace was like a serpent's: deliberate, calculated, deadly. Kisame's like that of a shark; powerful and swift to kill. Deidara, the fluidity of artistic motion. But Sakura...
The kunoichi had the potential; he would not deny it. She had the grace granted her by the healing arts. Her grace, unlike his, reminded him of a panther: natural, languid grace. Easy and casual in nature, belying the immense strength underneath. The strength provided by the demon inside of her. A panther with killing intent is so, so very graceful. Beautiful. But of killing intent, she had none, despite being a Jinchuuriki. That, perhaps, is why she contained Orochi so well without even noticing its presence - they complemented each other such that combined would create, without doubt, a flawless killer. If the desire, or even the intent, to kill was awakened inside of her, the beauty and grace would be...indescribable. True killing perfection.
This, perhaps, is what draws us Jinchuuriki to her so intensely. Perfection is all but impossible for us, for we are all killers by nature before the demon is fused with our bodies to use as its vessel. Throughout our lives we are trained as one thing - efficient killing machines. Therefore, that is what we are, with or without the influence of the Biju within some of us. To see such...balance within a Jinchuuriki is foreign and astounding - we do not lose control of our Biju, but at the least we are prone to suffering psychological damage during the process of bringing a demon under our control. The fact that she wasn't even aware of the presence of the eight-tailed snake shows that she was either powerful enough to contain it with ease and without any thought of it, lost the memory of containing it, or the demon willingly settled within her as its vessel. Regardless of what the answer is, Leader, and we Akatsuki, are eager to discover a way to control our own Biju with such ease.
He, Itachi, suspected that the cause for the demon's lack of resistance was in part directly related to Sakura's lack of killing intent. After all, a demon's life is sustained by the chakra within its container.
He watched her as her legs gave out beneath her and she fell to her knees on the ground. He watched from his high pedestal in the dark, out of sight. He watched as Leader approached them with her paralyzed form in his arms. He watched as he set her prone body down on the cold obsidian ground before him and the rest of the Akatsuki, all standing in their respective places atop the enormous hand statues in the center of the cavern.
It was he who would perform the genjutsu to bring the Biju before them. It was he and Leader who would extract Orochi from Haruno Sakura. It was Leader who would end her life. What Leader would do with this demon, he did not know, or care.
What a shame...
-/-/-/-/-/-/
I'm afraid this'll be my last update for about a week and a half, as I'm being dragged with my mother -twitch- on a trip to San Diego, which will bring me away from the computer. Sorry to all you guys who've been keeping up with my updates every three or so days. XP
-Merrik
Applesauce Barbeque Cracker! Sorry, had to make my 4000-word limit or I would go mad. 0.o