A/N: Thank you for your wonderful, precious reviews! I hope this chapter is up to your expectations, I worked hard on it because of the super long chunk of sasusaku goodness. Also, I love this story to pieces but I just started college again so please be patient if I ever take too long.
To the Guest who was confused last chapter (and to anyone who might be interested): First of all, thank you! I hope you weren't late to work, I seem to be making many ppl late because they're reading the updates, oops ;))) And to answer your questions, Sakura was shook when Sasuke told her about Karin and exactly how she died because she understood why he had been so worked up over herself doing the same thing. Remember that Sakura tried to take away her life with the same sword as Karin did only two years into their marriage, at a point when they weren't exactly close to each other, so it most likely was a reflex from his memories. Sakura realised Sasuke had been so adamant at protecting her from then on because he'd aready lost someone in the same way, and was probably carrying that guilt around.
To everyone else: Guys, Sasuke may or may not have loved Karin back when they were married. I'm not gonna confirm or deny because it really doesn't matter to me and it's not like a main plot detail, but please stop sending hate to Karin lol she's already dead. In the context of the story, he would have been a teenager/young adult when married off to her, and he's like 30 now, so you can just infer he was a different person back then and anything could have happened. The only thing I'm going to say is that losing his firstborn affected him greatly, especially since the miscarriage might not have been spontaneous but planned against him, which is another reason why he's abstaining from having another child with Sakura. And that's that.
Enjoy!
Meditation on inevitable death should be performed daily [...]. And every day without fail one should be considered himself as dead.
– Yamamoto Tsunetomo (1659-1719).
Her husband is pragmatic; practical and no-nonsense. He leads with his country in mind, not taking the risk of endangering even the smallest of commodities and always thinking through a more logical approach—never with his heart.
He's a rational man; shrewd and perceptive. He looks at all the facts and categorises them before making a decision, truly delving himself in the matters at hand—sorting out what's urgent, important, or expendable in the shortest possible amount of time.
Strong, clever, and handsome, he's everything and nothing like Sakura had always wondered her future husband would be.
It's all about balance, she thinks. It's all about the highs and lows, and the equilibrium between them. It's about Sakura being the calm and he the storm; it's all about Sasuke being a cold-hearted, observant leader and she the warm, subdued companion. It's black and white, yet it's also too complex for such extremes.
She doesn't hate it. She doesn't despise her husband, or the arranged marriage she has been thrown into in spite of her initial denial. After all, there is nothing she can do, and she certainly has been taught not to do much other than to please him. She doesn't hate the life she's meant to live and the man she's meant to follow. She already has had enough time with herself to make peace with these things.
Uchiha Sasuke is her husband, and she has learnt to live with his kinds of upside downs, his quirks and difficult traits, in the course of their marriage. She has learnt to cope with his impenetrable stares, his little smirks, his deafening silence, his unreachable personality, the hard armour he wears even when he's bare and under her, and many, many more peculiarities that take form everyday in their too-big space of a house.
Their four-year anniversary is not spent celebrating, much like with the three prior years. Unlike those, though, they surely had not been as emotionally and physically close as they are now; previous years had been spent barely talking, barely touching. Unlike those peaceful years, though, they are now on the verge of a public riot and the overthrow of a perfectly handcrafted government.
Their four-year anniversary is spent as the early signs of spring come, the snow receding back into the earth and the flowers awakening slowly from their sleep. She doesn't remember the exact date of their wedding—mostly because she has been adamant at forgetting it since the start—but she remembers the flowers and the birds and the rainy days and her birthday, so she has always related her marriage with the spring.
Sakura's at the foot of the bed and Sasuke's slumbering in the early, early morning, before the sun has come up.
She stares at the bamboo-covered floor, the wet ends of her long hair dripping onto the richly decorated floors and the slightly tall and regal mattress, not finding it in herself to stand and grab another towel—other than the one she already has wrapped around her body, covering just enough of her bottom to sit on the bed without wetting the material more than she already has.
The night before replays in her head like a broken mantra, the words drilling themselves in her skull with enough force to grant her the start of a headache. Despite her early bath full of oils and relaxing fragrances, the magnitude and significance of her husband's words is enough to make her head hurt—the idea of someone named Karin carrying his son, the soft touch of his fingertips as he'd wiped her tears, and all the truthful words she'd had to spill in front of him are more than enough.
She looks behind her, casting a glance at the man beneath the silk sheets, eyes closed and arm resting above his disheveled locks of black hair.
She sighs and stands after a few more minutes, moving toward their only bedroom window and closing the curtains so as to hide the early sunlight from his slumbering form; she hesitates sliding the paper-thin door of the window closed as well. The first light of the day peaks from under the horizon, and she contemplates hiding herself behind the curtains to watch the array of colours dance. So she sits on the windowsill, leans her back to the small space in the wall and bends her knees so that her feet can fit in the comforting crevice of the window.
There is a thin but effective barrier between Sasuke and herself now, one which she hadn't known she needed. Though the man is sleeping and unaware of her strange behaviour, she feels like she can collect her thoughts better this way.
She stays there for enough time to watch the sun come out in its entirety and the warm colours of the sunrise disappear against her gaze. They go from blue, to pink, to orange, to yellow, and to some red here and there. Somehow, it creates a pretty painting of colours, all mixed up but still noticeable enough to be taken apart one by one.
She wishes, for the first time in many months, that she still had her painting supplies so she could capture this moment on canvas. Such a fleeting moment, starting before anyone can notice and gone after it's too late. Her life, bland and monotonous, has been filled with sunrises like the one in front of her, and yet none of them are ever the same.
She wishes but, then again, she's never really found it in herself to paint something other than simple birds, back when she even had the inspiration for that.
From this high up the castle, she can almost see the life that resides over the stone walls surrounding her home. She can almost see the busy streets and the citizens trying to grab hold of the freshest of fruits and vegetables, the imported fish from the East, always trying to be the first ones to buy them. Almost.
By the time she pushes curtains imported from the West aside and stands from the windowsill, her body is entirely dry and Sasuke is awake.
He stares at her without any clear, distinct emotion on his face, but with the tranquil and calm resemblance of someone who has not slept enough. He faces the window, one arm under his pillow and the other extended over the edge of the bed. The white, gold-rimmed blanket that covers him barely reaches the hem of his loose trousers, but he doesn't make the effort of pulling it up.
She doesn't want to think about how much time he's been staring at her silhouette from behind the curtains, but the thought still crosses through her mind. And all the pretty colours and thoughts of the life she remembers outside these walls are not enough to keep her mind from drifting someplace other than Sasuke. Not for long, at least.
She's rooted to the spot as she watches him sit and yawn before he looks at her again, turning his head slightly to the left, though he doesn't say a word—not that she's expecting any.
Her husband is silent most of the time, after all, almost waiting for others to do the talking for him. She doesn't mind this as much, she knows, for she likes to talk to begin with, even if it's mostly a one-sided conversation; no one can really stay silent forever, thankfully.
He's silent in other ways as well.
It's in the quiet way in which he trains, his over-polished sword moving swiftly through the air in his tranquil methods. Always serene, concentrated, and observant, cutting the air as he strikes. Except for the time when he had just heard the proposition of his brother being alive and not long dead, he's always trained with slow, steady, and careful movements.
It's in the way in which he eats, reads, and stays locked in his office. It's in the way he gives his guards one look and they're set into action, somehow knowing exactly what to do. It's the way he wants to communicate without words, finding solace in the serenity of a cold morning or a warm night, watching the landscape or hearing the crickets sing.
It's in the way in which he looks at her, and she doesn't know what do to with herself. With just one look, she feels her body freeze and burn, mind spiralling into a nothingness she has known since the start of their marriage.
She doesn't despise this marriage. She doesn't despise Sasuke. When he looks at her without any words, ever since the beginning and even now four years later, she feels sucked into his black, black eyes, his hooded stare, the purse of his thin lips and the frown of his brow, like the sea is attracted to the moon.
She stops herself before she can continue this train of thought any further.
Sakura mentally shakes her head and walks across the room to her dresser, opening a drawer and taking out a brush. Her hair is almost completely dry by now, but she still needs to somehow comb it, if not for the sole purpose of not having to speak to him now. She would not find her voice between all the sounds in her head still ringing.
When that's done, she doesn't spare him a glance as she walks across the room and slides open one of the spaces in the wall.
She remembers her small house back when she was small and unaware of the future, how most of her every-day necessities were mostly done in one room. She used to have one sliding door in the wall for clothes and another one for accessories, though these two were shared with the entire family, like most of the other hidden compartments. She watches now as her clothes are lined one by one in front of her, and as a small hallway lets her walk inside a few spaces. The clothes seem endless; not chosen by her and not necessarily in her style, but still worn all the same. Sometimes, details as tiny as these remind her of who she was before, and who she is now.
She takes a few steps inside and drops the towel around her body. She chooses a plain, navy blue kosode with lines of white running along the borders, but she doesn't bother to add all the extra layers women of her status are supposed to wear. She doesn't leave the castle anyway, so she seldom has to dress as formally.
Sasuke's eyes follow her across the room, into the space where all her fine garments reside, and as she bares herself to him. He blinks as though this is a produce of the sleep he still craves in his system, but the image, though rather dark from the dim space where she stands, doesn't go away. His sharp eyes still make out her pale skin and soft curves, and he gives her back one last glance before he feels his blood rushing in a specific direction, one which makes him uncharacteristically lie back down on the soft mattress of their bed. He slings one arm over his eyes and the other over his bare stomach.
The sound the bedsheets make brings her to pause her small hands from adjusting the robe on her body, and she looks outside of the space in the wall, out to where she can still see Sasuke's side of the bed. The sight elicits a small, curious frown to her face.
Sasuke never goes back to sleep. It's one thing to leave in the middle of the night—for whatever reason—and come back to bed early in the morning. But doing the same thing twice? Waking up twice and still going back to sleep, even after the sunrise? Not a very common thing for Sasuke to do, not since she has known him.
This is the only reason why, as soon as she ties the white sash—finely decorated with flower-like patterns of blue—around her midsection and fixes her long sleeves, she turns around and walks slowly toward the bed, careful to not startle him. With the confidence she shouldn't possess, she sits right next to his chest, on the small space between his body and the edge of the mattress—surprisingly, as soon as she does, he shifts his body slightly so she can be more comfortable.
Sakura watches as his scar-framed chest rises and falls slowly, the marked skin slightly more tan than she remembers from the last time she had the opportunity to even notice such a small thing. A few seconds later, his arm drops from his face to the bed, granting her access to his sleep-rimmed features.
And he looks so at peace, so carefree, so unlike she ever sees him. She can never see this side of him at night, in the few occasions when his dreams don't turn into nightmares. There is not enough light at night, and he typically sleeps with his back facing her, so she doesn't waste the opportunity to engrave every soft ridge of his face and frown-less features into her memory now.
In a moment of courage, she lifts her hand and moves her thumb over his defined cheek. Soft to the touch, in spite of all his years of heartbreak and warfare, and radiating warmth. She touches him lightly, but it's enough to make him open his eyes with a flutter of his long eyelashes.
It's not that she wants to talk to him, but she knows that the night before could have been maybe a little too much for him. All that information, all the explanations about some things that contradict everything that he believes in, may have impacted him more than they would both expect. For any other lesser person, it certainly would have been too much. Sasuke is human, even if he acts with the poise and superiority of a God sometimes, so she doesn't expect much less from him either.
A look of confusion crosses his features at the unexpected touch before she feels him relax again, adjusting to the light of the morning shining from behind her body. She expects him to grab her wrist and move away from her to the other side of the bed, but he doesn't. He just stares, and she doesn't know which is worse; him rejecting her touch or him looking at her like there's nothing else in the world, like there's no one out there trying to plot his downfall.
Sakura lifts her hand for a moment as his eyes connect with hers, but moves her palm against his cheek almost immediately after. She slides away stray hairs from his forehead and line of vision as delicately as she can; as if he's going to break in any second, which, ironically, is the last thing she would expect from him at the moment.
With a shaky breath, she speaks against the song of birds in the background for the first time that morning.
"How did you sleep?" She asks, though she doesn't receive an answer. At first, she waits for him to clear his throat and answer her harmless question, but he only really stares at her from where he lies. His tired eyes trail from the naked skin of her thigh as her dress rides up with the motion of sitting carelessly beside him, up her simple attire, and to each imperfection of her face. What he wants to find, she doesn't know.
"I woke up to shower, and you weren't here," she murmurs, low as if to not scare him away. The birds outside are the only response she gets for a few seconds, so she speaks again against the odds. "Where were you?"
"I could not find any sleep," he finally lets out, the roughness of his voice vibrating in her ears from the otherwise large and empty room. "I trained until I felt exhausted enough to come back."
Sakura frowns, but for the wrong reasons. It's not because exerting himself beyond what could be considered normal is not something she'd recommend, but because she knows the exact time he left and came back, and he had certainly not taken a bath. An incredulous look crosses her face before she looks him up and down.
"Did you go to sleep like this? After training for hours?"
Sasuke mimics her frown, brows drawing together and lips pursing. For a second, he almost looks like a child.
"What are you implying?" He asks, talking normally when whispering will not get his point across. "This is also my bed, no matter the circumstances."
She only shakes her head at his honest answer, and keeps caressing his cheek with the utmost care, even if it's a sweaty, dirty cheek. She'll just have to order a maid to clean the bedsheets after he leaves the room—not that she'd ever tell him this, of course.
With a sigh at his eyes still roaming her face, she shifts the conversation toward her previous concerns and chooses to look at his cheek instead.
"When I woke up and didn't see you next to me..." She pauses, gauging his reaction from under blonde bangs and blonde eyelashes. "After everything we talked about yesterday, I thought you had done something reckless; something thoughtless, really."
I was scared, she wants to say, I was scared you had left me.
She takes a breath and parts her lips to explain herself further when he does the unimaginable, the unspeakable. Sasuke does the exact opposite from what she'd ever, ever imagine; not in a million years would she think he would do such thing. He laughs.
He lets out a deep, low chuckle against her palm, and a few more after that, exposing his perfect teeth to her disbelieving eyes. The lines around his eyes wrinkle, the corners of his lips stay lifted even after he ends his sudden burst of laughter, and his eyes blink away the shine of joy to them for a few seconds.
She stares, mouth agape and eyebrows up, and she voices her surprise without being in the present. She feels detached from herself and this room, as if she's looking at him but replaying the image from someone else's eyes.
"You," she exclaims, moving her hand away from his face in surprise and placing it on her lap. "You just... You just laughed."
The small upside turn of his mouth remains in place even after she shows her stupefaction. He looks into her eyes with something other than stoicism; something other than just a look.
"Why?" She asks, if only to stop him from looking at her anymore.
Sasuke shakes his head and shifts his gaze, as she had hoped, toward the closed window on his left. His voice holds some mirth, some amusement to the words when he speaks.
"First you call me dirty, then you call me reckless. Will your next insult be directed toward my intellect?" It's Sakura's turn to stare, mouth still open in astonishment. "I am your superior by several years, Sakura."
"That's not it! I didn't," she stumbles over the rushed words, "I did not mean to-"
"Are you also raising your voice at me?"
Sakura's blood leaves her body in a second.
"No! My lord-"
But the look her gives her when he turns his head toward her has him telling her another story. Somehow, she recognises signs of laughter in his gaze, and she can almost hear the teasing in his words now.
For the second time in only a matter of minutes, he makes her mouth drop. The fact that Sasuke can smile, laugh, and joke around—even if in his own way—only brings a sense of discomfort in her being. Has she ever, really, smiled at him with her eyes like he is doing at her now?
"You also know how to joke?"
She hears him scoff at her question, ready to retort with something even more sour. His facial features scream of betrayal at her accusation and she can't help but smile back, even if it's just for a moment, even if her gaze doesn't show more than meets the eye.
It's the smallest of acts, but it's worth it as she watches his reaction. She audibly grins at his sour expression and he falls back into silence; his frown leaves, and she watches as he visibly swallows.
"You are full of surprises today, huh."
He moves his gaze up to her own, up into her green, rare eyes, and remembers how fragile this moment really is.
Everything suddenly changes before her eyes.
Like the sound of glass breaking, the spell is broken, and she sees as his frown and downward tilt of his lips return; watches as he breaks eye contact, somber expression in place. She wonders if just now he has realised everything that is wrong with their conversation.
Talking with Sasuke is never easy, especially because she has only just recently started to understand his subtle reactions. But talking to him now, hearing his hoarse chuckles, and sharing a moment of light banter and knowing looks has never been easier.
Now that moment suspended in time shatters, and in turn all she's left with are the memories of last night visibly dancing in his eyes. It makes her fingers itch with the need to touch him, comfort him, and make him forget once again. His sleep-ridden features are now more alert, more aware of the situation, and she can only watch as he sits up once again.
If only she could make him forget; make them forget everything that is wrong with their lives. If they could only just forget about all the ugly truths and the pretty lies, they could share more quiet mornings and small smiles and tender touches.
But they can't, and she can only watch as he sits next to her on the edge of the bed, both elbows on his knees and face in his hands. His fingers move through his hair more than once, an empty look crossing through his features and making her sigh against a recollection that seems too distant now.
In a last effort to fix all that is broken, she places a hand on his back and moves it in circles, something she only hopes can soothe him.
"Would you like me to get the bath ready? They just brought in new oils from the West," she tells him, and it's true. The oils she had used this morning had been part of the last shipment of Western goods, ever since Sasuke ended the trade of goods in Konoha and most of Fire country. "You should try them, come on."
She places a hand on his own, locked in his hair, and he tenses up at the touch. With a level of care she hadn't known he could possess, he grabs hold of her wrist and moves her hand away slowly, placing it back on her lap.
There is a sense of exhaustion that returns to his mind and body as the truth of the situation finally rests upon his shoulders.
With one last pleading look for time, he stands and walks to the bathroom. He closes the door behind him with a resolute sound, one that lets her know she's not invited. He needs time to process things, and she can only grant him that and much more, if only he would ask.
.
.
.
Sasuke can't think.
He showers in warm, calming waters, but they do nothing to soothe the impending worries etched on his brain. If anything, he feels even more restless. He trains under the harsh sun of noon, yet what he only accomplishes is a bruised knuckle and a worn down sword. He somehow finds it in himself to eat and take a nap, but not does he ever stop thinking about the invisible options he has to solve all of his problems.
His brother. His clan's fall. His life and Sakura's against the edge of a knife. His name being able to move on. His country, his army of Samurai, not prospering.
Contacting Orochimaru now would be too much of a bold move, especially since he doesn't know if it could all be a trap on his part. Only when he's sure about the consequences, he will take the next step toward the infamous warlord.
Meeting Konoha's council and its two eldest couple would be much more of a controversial move; even more so because these are always in the public's eye. And in order to learn more about his clan's demise, he needs to look at the problem from another angle, from other eyes. More objective, less biased eyes.
As night falls and Sakura sleeps beside him on the spacious bed, he gives up this self-tortorous treatment he's put forth upon himself, and lets his mind and body relax on the mattress. Tomorrow is a new day. Tomorrow, he will find the answers he so seeks.
He has advisors to advise him, after all, so he decides to take this approach when his mind gets too fogged up to think clearly.
He tells Shikamaru first, and then Shino. Rock Lee is his strongest and most reliable Samurai in the entirety of his army, so he tells him as well. As captain of Konoha's division and only a few ranks below Sasuke himself, it's only the natural choice.
It's only three people and it's on separate occasions, but he'd rather not share the information to anyone other than his most trusted warriors.
Each one of them gives him different feedback, respectful of his status and boundaries, but still honest in their opinions. It's all in his best interest, and he has not any particular ideas about what do to, so he takes whatever he can get.
Shikamaru thinks it through the most, as expected of him. In the end, he tells him the best thing to do is gather small groups of spies. These should dig deep into the source of whoever is spreading the rumours of his brother being alive, his system and his wife being threatened, and the possibility of the clan elders—the council, in particular—approving the massacre of his family so many years ago.
Shino stays quiet most of the time, but he suggests a visit to the Emperor to sort everything out in more legal terms. Maybe ask about the decision to send men to burn down the Uchiha complex, even if Naruto would most likely have no idea about this anyway.
Lee passionately promises to scout the outskirts of the village with his fellow comrades, as captain of Sasuke's army in Konoha, as well as add more guards outside the walls of the castle day and night. It would triple the people he already has stationed here and there.
Sasuke takes in all of the proposals, turns them around a thousand ways in his head, and decides to do all of them in the end. At this point in time, he can't afford the risk of endangering his life or Sakura's—much less Sakura's, he thinks—and the country's safety.
As Shogun, he efficiently arranges everything in two days, and by the third, everything is set into motion. Hidden from every wandering eye, his spies roam the village, his Samurai look for clues anywhere their trained ears can reach, and Sasuke heads to the Emperor's palace one warm morning.
.
.
.
Sakura visits Kabuto's cottage after a week.
Other than the small sounds of life from inside its walls, the place looks exactly as she'd last seen it—when he'd told her everything Orochimaru had said, and she'd rushed to tell Sasuke not a moment later. Looking back on it, this is the longest period of time that she has remained apart from her studies ever since she started learning from him, even if it is just a mere week.
Sasuke, ever since that morning they'd shared together, has been running around the castle and its outskirts, planning this and that; things that she doesn't ask about, and things that he doesn't let her on anyway. Respecting his privacy has always been a special ability of hers, so she's walked away from every of his peculiar days in his office or about the place—alone, or with more than ten people trailing behind him.
In any case, she stays in her room or out in the gardens, but she never walks the rocky path she knows too well, if only to not appear as disinterested in her husband's busy schedule. It's a tricky concept to understand, yet she knows it has to be done to fill out her role as a dutiful, devoted wife.
After a week, her husband leaves the castle in the morning, and goes somewhere she doesn't have the least idea about.
She stands in front of Kabuto's small house because she knows it's fine to do so. She knows her husband's away, and she knows that she has no idea about what is going on in his head. It's only natural that she goes back to her old schedule, now that there is nothing to do but wait for some insight from his side.
She knocks on the door just because it has been a few days, and she doesn't want to intrude or disrupt his privacy.
She hears some shuffling before it stops, and then the muted footsteps on carpet walking toward the door.
He opens it and looks down at her form, eyes widening for a second before he bows his head down. She gives him a small, dismissive nod, and he stands straight right after.
"Yakushi Kabuto, it has been awhile," she murmurs, a small smile coming to life on her lips as she looks up at him.
"Uchiha Sakura, I thought I would never see you again," he responds. He takes one step back and motions her in with one hand. "My lady."
Thankful, she gives him a nod and enters, making sure to close the door as she does so.
She thinks she sees something behind the trees in the distance, right before she closes the wooden door.
"I have been inspecting the snakes' venom all these days in your absence," she hears a voice beside her, and turns to face Kabuto as he speaks.
"Did you find anything interesting?"
When Kabuto places a hand on the small of her back, she frowns. Not because he shouldn't even touch her to begin with, but because she doesn't so much as flinch. This man is the only form of contact she has, excepting the sporadic interactions with Sasuke, and she shouldn't be surprised that she's not surprised he touches her with such familiarity.
It is brief, though, and he only leads her to one of his desks before his hand goes back to his side.
"Not necessarily, but," he says, opening a jar with a few drops of fluid still inside, "I'm afraid I used up all the venom left."
"All of it? What exactly did you do?"
Kabuto looks at her surprised expression. He moves from her back to her side, standing beside her as he gestures to the mess of bottles, heaters, jars, and flasks all over the table with one hand. Sakura looks over the burnt sample of venom in a flask, wrinkling her nose at the faint smell that still lingers in the air around them.
"Would you like to look for more snakes now? I am positive I can make this work, if only I keep trying."
Sakura mimics his smile, her lips expanding even further when he finishes the weirdly-worded question, though she refuses the idea of walking under the sun with the risk of getting bitten by a venomous, scaly animal. She has done that more than enough times already, she thinks.
"If you were anyone else, I would assume you're exposing me to snakes on purpose," she says, and smiles as her eyes look outside the window of his home. She wants to add to her comment, but the silence from his part only makes her rephrase her wording.
"I don't think I am dressed for that," she comments instead, watching as his eyes give her body a dismissive glance before he clears his throat and looks away. "Maybe you can teach me about..."
She pauses in between the right words, stepping away from the desk full of metal and plastic and moving toward the bookshelves at the end of the room.
Each shelf is filled with jars and books of endless curiosities and species, some even containing strange, small and dry animals inside.
Sakura rotates the jars around so as to read over the symbols on a piece of paper, stuck with adhesive for the impression of a label. He used to have them bare of titles, she recalls, but Sakura has been learning little by little in the short span of time, and she can't say this added incentive doesn't help.
She reads over the descriptive yet simple names, one by one until she can find something she doesn't already know about. Anything, really, so she doesn't have to find a snake of all things outside on the grass—at least, not in the fine silks she wears.
Arrowroot powder, cut astragalus, vanilla slices, sugar cane sample, salt, an extensive collection of different ferns, imported Echinacea, Lily of the Desert extract, pennyroyal, mugwort, cotton root bark, oregano, parsley...
She stops.
She reads over the last five jars, stopping at the moment she reaches pennyroyal, up until she reaches parsley.
Pennyroyal, mugwort, cotton root bark, parsley.
She goes over the names in her head, looking at each jar like she's seeing them for the first time and not for the nth since she started studying under the man.
Kabuto, who has respected and trusted and taught her all that she knows of plants and humans, is watching disinterested as she thinks her suggestion through. It's only a matter of time before he notices she puts a bit more of her attention in front of a specific section of the bookshelf. He crosses his arms and leans back on the desk closest to her.
"Have you decided?"
Sakura feels her head spin as her suspicions grow, though she doesn't necessarily want to be suspicious of the only person who she talks to in the castle. She feels her blood run cold in her veins, freezing as her heart stops inside her chest, when she turns the idea over in her head anyway. Over and over, until the twirling makes no sense anymore.
But it's right there. It's in front of her eyes, and there's no denying what she sees is true when she keeps blinking and the jars don't seem to disappear. The labels and the contents inside speak to her as she stares and each of the four condiments, one by one, until she has to swallow her perplexity when he asks her the simplest of questions and she can't answer.
"Sakura? What's wrong?"
All the jars are full in its contents—all, she notices, but the pennyroyal oil. Oil which she knows can be lethal in the right amounts, and has no purpose other than to induce a miscarriage or relieve pain. Oil that has been used for thousands of years to safely abort unwanted babies, and that can give insufferable pains in the lower back, front, and uterus days after. Oil that can induce miscarriages and pain.
And it's almost empty.
Sakura reaches for the small jar before she can think about it, and turns with enough force to stand face to chest with Kabuto, him towering over her with concern in his eyes.
Beofre he can even blink or she can move away, she has to contain her hand when she only wants to throw the object at his face, demanding answers. Sakura shows him the small jar with oil inside, only filled a bit less than halfway through, and watches as his face gives away nothing out of the ordinary.
"What is it?" He asks, appearing as genuinely confused as she can only hope he is.
"This is almost empty. You should make more oil," she answers, turning and putting the container back on the shelf as if her chest is not currently hammering inside her. "Why do you even have this? I don't think it is very useful."
"It is," is all he says, before he walks toward the tiny hallway that leads to his bedroom—or what she guesses is his bedroom—without much of a care. "I will be right back. Choose something by the time I return."
Sakura stares at the jar with deadly pennyroyal inside long after he's gone.