Fire: Chapter four! Hurray! (throws confetti into Kakashi's hair)
Kakashi: (pulls out tiny bits of paper from his hair) That's not a cause for celebration.
Fire: Yes it is!
Kakashi: Didn't you say that I'd know what you were trying to say last chapter by this chapter?
Fire: Really? I meant the next chapter.
Kakashi: (slumping visibly) What…?
Fire: This chapter is uploaded with chapter three, so I can't exactly show you what I meant, can I?
Kakashi: You're mean. Are you sure you're not a part of Akatsuki or some other evil organization?
Fire: Not unless I'm the leader, but that's not going to happen. (smiles) But since chapters three and four were uploaded together, I won't be addressing any general concerns this chapter. So just enjoy the chapter.
Kakashi: (shouting to the technical staff) That means on with the chapter!
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Chapter 4: Determination of the Sakura
Of all the shinobi in Konoha, only one knew of Sakura's true strength...knew that she must not have given up that easily. The pink-haired girl was too strong for that. The kunoichi that he knew must still be around, and he had to help bring her back. So, the distress was apparent on Rock Lee's face when he realized that they had already left.
Lee ran around in circles for almost ten minutes looking for Kakashi until he realized that Kakashi and his team were gone. And he wasn't chosen to go with them.
In his heart, he knew that it was Sakura. The cloaked figure that he had heard was in Otogakure had to be Sakura. The Sakura that he knew wouldn't have just left, wouldn't have given up just like that. That would mean that they've won...that people like those in Akatsuki had won. And Sakura was too strong to let that to happen.
That was why Lee couldn't stand for it. He had to go after her too. So...with determination in his chest, he ran to Hokage tower. He burst into Tsunade's room with his mouth stemmed in stern resignation. He would much rather have just gone after Kakashi right away, but he didn't want to be marked as a nukenin. No. He would do this the right way. He just hoped that Kakashi's team could wait for him until he caught up.
From up ahead, Kakashi held up a hand to stop. Anko, Asuma, Jiraiya and Kurenai froze where they were. Some of them were ready to take Kakashi's leadership, some were more suitable for leadership, and some were there just to stop Orochimaru, and all of them held some combination of these three qualities, but Kakashi was appointed to lead this reconnaissance mission, and there wasn't a single one of them there who would have argued with it. Kakashi was certainly the more capable man. He had been to Otogakure before...and the man knew exactly what he was looking for.
'Three to the left. Two to the right. Careful...the place is filled with Oto-nin,' Kakashi signed back to them. 'Stop if you see anything strange. I don't want to fall into a trap.' Although he was sure that no one had really wanted to fall into a trap before.
Anko nodded in acknowledgement. The others just did nothing. Jiraiya seemed almost distracted by Kurenai...but Kakashi trusted that the Sannin understood what he had said. A man didn't just become one of the Legendary Sannin for no reason at all.
Kakashi turned again to make sure that the way was clear. He could have taken those five people, those five Oto-nin out–they certainly weren't strong or threatening in appearance–but if he had done something like that, someone was bound to discover their bodies, or realize that they were missing, then they would know that something was amiss. And this was supposed to be a stealth-based mission. He had to be more cautious about this than that.
'Chikusho...I should have brought Ino or Shikamaru. Their abilities would be so much more useful at a time like this,' Kakashi thought for a split second before banishing it away. Now wasn't the time for regrets. Regrets might get them all killed. He had brought more than capable jounin here with him. He should be able to handle this!
Kakashi waved a hand forwards. The way was clear. They could move forwards safely...for now.
Orochimaru read over the scroll in his hand again before throwing it to the ground. Another useless plan. He could see that that plan wasn't going to work. That plan wasn't going to work against Tsunade!
He was finally doing what he has been putting off for a few years now. He needed to destroy Konoha, and he was finally going to do it. With his newest acquisition, he could do it. That pink-haired kunoichi is going to bring him victory.
The girl wasn't exceptionally strong. She wasn't a new power that he had never seen before. She didn't have some new jutsu that no one knew about. But she did have an advantage that he needed. She was precious to Tsunade.
That emotional advantage was just what he needed.
He didn't have enough leverage against the blond woman back in Tanzaku Gai. Threats and incentives were nothing to Tsunade. She had nothing that he could threaten then. But, he had Sakura now. With Sakura at his side, his plans to destroy Konoha might actually work.
But she would never just agree to destroying her birthplace. No. Orochimaru had no illusions about that. He was too smart to think that she would just nod her head and say that it was fine, that it was okay, that he could destroy Konoha. If his friends weren't now his enemies, even Orochimaru might have thought twice about it. Even he might have had second thoughts about destroying a place that once held an important place in his heart.
That still held an important place in his heart.
That was why the first part of his plan was so important, and he planned to put it into action soon. As soon as he decided which one, he would begin. Then, Konoha would die. Then, he would finally have his revenge.
But first, he had something he needed to work out. There was another variable in his plan he needed to think ou–
"Orochimaru!"
A head of pink hair appeared in Orochimaru's field of vision suddenly, and the man had to move back in surprise. His hands pushed the open scrolls that lay on his desk stealthily onto the ground before she could see them. He couldn't allow her to know about any of that. Ever. At least not until he deemed her ready to know about it. Before that time, she would just say no. Then, he would never have another chance to persuade her. "What are you doing here?" He demanded almost immediately. He hadn't even realized that the kunoichi had come into his room until he saw her face.
He resisted the urge to add Tsuande to the end of the question. In his memories, it was always Tsunade who had annoyed him like this. Jiraiya was always so much easier to detect. The white-haired boy...then white-haired man...was usually discovered right away.
"I need you to explain this." Sakura held up a scroll, pointed to a specific passage on the scroll. "You are supposed to be teaching me, Orochimaru." She sounded annoyed.
The pale man held back the urge to strangle the girl and beat her body to a bloody mass. Such manners... She could at least address him with some respect. He was supposed to be her sensei! At least Sasuke acknowledged his power.
He took the scroll from the girl's hands and looked down at the passage. "Yes...it is a little complicated," he said slowly. Sasuke had the same problems when he was learning about this technique. "But–"
"Orochimaru-sama!"
The pale man and the pink-haired girl glared at the man who had burst into the room. "What is it!" They both demanded at the same time, both equally annoyed at the interruption. In fact, they had about the same expression on their faces.
The man took a step back in surprise. "Uh...um..." He couldn't remember. That annoyed question had taken all the words from his mind!
"Can't you see that we're in the middle of something important?" Sakura walked up to the man, her eyes ablaze with anger. She wasn't in the mood for his stammering. She has been up for almost a week straight, without even a moment's rest, trying to figure out these stupid texts that Orochimaru had given to her, and she was cranky. It was hard enough putting up a friendly face for Orochimaru so that he wouldn't send her away. "If you have nothing important to say, don't come in!" She smashed the man's head into the ground.
"Umn... It is something...important. I swear!"
"Sakura." Orochimaru grabbed onto Sakura's arm, pulling her back for a moment before she pulled herself away to stomp on the man's head. The Sannin couldn't let the man pass out yet. He really might have important news. "Let the man speak before you hurt him." But she wasn't going to stop now, and slowly, her behaviour was amusing Orochimaru. So he didn't stop her. He actually wanted to see if she would stomp on the man's head again.
"Important things shouldn't leave the minds of slaves," Sakura said coldly, grinding her foot into the man's back before she became disgusted with herself and had to stop. That was so unlike her that it was scary, but she couldn't help it. She wanted to get back to her studies, and this annoying man was in her way! 'Wh-what am I doing!' But no matter how much this man's stupidity, this man's forgetfulness was annoying her, she knew that she had no excuse for hurting him. She wanted to kill Orochimaru, not this innocent man.
But, Sakura wasn't going to apologize either. Not in front of Orochimaru. Somehow, even the dark atmosphere around the Sannin denoted that she must be mean, cold and evil.
"Well, what is it?" Sakura let out an annoyed half-sigh as she pulled her foot from the man's torso. She had things to learn. She had more important things to do than wait for news that might never come. If she had to wait much longer, she was afraid that she really would hurt him.
"It's..." the man tried to ignore the pain spreading from his back. "It's Uchiha Itachi-san and Hoshigaki Kisame-san!"
Orochimaru pulled the girl from the man's back quickly, his eyes widening with the sudden words. Itachi? Kisame? What about them?
"Th-they're dead!"
And Sakura almost burst into genuine laughter at that. Then she laughed. These spies were ridiculously slow at gathering information. And for a moment, she had thought that it was really important information!
The girl's mirthful laughter rang eerily through the air, and Orochimaru had to ask her what it was. "What do you find so funny?" There wasn't a smile on his face. This was serious news. His former ally, a member of the great organization Akatsuki, this horrific man was dead.
"Such useless henchmen!" Sudden anger rose through Sakura's entire body as she stomped on the man's back, effectively snapping his backbone in two. The man gave out a great scream before falling dead beneath her foot, but Orochimaru didn't care about that. He was more concerned with what she had to say. "He has been dead for almost a month! So slow..." she looked apologetically at the corpse before turning back to the scroll that was left forgotten on Orochimaru's chair. She knew that she shouldn't have done that, and she was regretting it, but that man had inhibited her work. And that had annoyed her. She really wanted to learn this. It was important to her. "They don't deserve to be here..." ...to die like this.
Orochimaru stared at the girl. For a moment, in that anger, he thought he had seen something else there. This murderous intent...it reminded him too much of...
Fiery eyes. Mysterious shadow. An unknown identity.
...the leader of Akatsuki.
"Now, you were just going to tell me about this kinjutsu that you had developed," Sakura said, looking up at Orochimaru with cold aqua-green eyes. "I'm sure you remember it, right?"
"Of course..." Orochimaru tried not to think too much on it. If he did, he would only distress himself. "Kuchiyose edo tensei. If you want to do it right, you need the ashes of their bones and body, and human sacrifices, bodies for the souls to occupy. One soul, one b–"
"This passage..." Sakura pointed irritatedly at the page in her hands. "I didn't ask you what it was!" Even if it reminded her that she might have to get his ashes later...if she decided to do it. But that wasn't likely. She would never do something like this.
"So persistent...I'm trying to tell you, Tsunade. The passage says–!" Orochimaru felt a hand slap him in the head, knocking his head to the side...but Orochimaru still sat firmly in his seat.
"I...am not...Tsunade," Sakura said through gritted teeth, her eyes ablaze. "My name is Sakura. If you're not going to use it, you shouldn't have asked for it!"
Orochimaru held his ringing head. "I was saying..." he said, looking up at the girl with dangerously cold gold eyes. "...the passage says that you need human sacrifices, but you need live sacrifices for the kinjutsu to realize its power." That was why it's a kinjutsu...not because you bring back the souls of the dead, but because you need to kill to bring back those people. "I didn't write anything about the technique in there. You'll have to learn it from me directly." His words were almost a warning. If she annoyed him, he might not teach it to her. "Is that all?"
Sakura looked down at the passage. It made sense now. "Yes," she said as she rolled up the scroll, the rumbling anger slowly subsiding from her chest. It was tempting to learn, and she had thought about it when she first saw it, but she decided no. No matter how much she missed Sasuke, she couldn't do it. She couldn't just kill someone like that.
She looked directly at Orochimaru, the rolled scroll in her hand. For a moment, she thought about thanking him, but that was just the remnant of an old Sakura. The idea of thanking someone that she hated, despised more than Itachi who killed her beloved Sasuke...was unconventional, an idea that only the old Sakura could have thought of...but that wasn't whom she was anymore. Orochimaru was merely a tool to get her what she wanted. That was how she had to think now. Everyone was a tool. All she needed to do was make sure that she used them for the right purposes, so that she can do what she wanted to do...what she needed to do. "I'll be back later...if I need you again."
Orochimaru saw the door close after the girl, and let out a breath that he hadn't realized he was holding. The girl...she was too much like Tsunade. He hadn't meant to call her that...but the girl didn't have to hit him either! That was definitely something that Tsunade would have done.
'But I'm not Jiraiya!'
And he had to pull his scrolls and books from the ground before he could continue what he was doing earlier.
All five members of Kakashi's team looked down at the scroll with Kakashi's hurried handwriting laid out before them. "Alright...Anko will stay at the edge of the village as our backup with Kurenai. You know why, Anko. If you come too close to the village, your cursed seal might activate." Anko has been given authority to tell him where there was a chance of an ambush, and which areas Orochimaru would think was the optimum area for sentries, which areas they should avoid. She was good at reading Orochimaru's mind like that, but it was also because she was trained in those types of situations. However, that was the extent of what he could have Anko do. If worse came to worst, Orochimaru would never really hurt Anko.
And Kakashi had only brought Kurenai here as a trump card. He couldn't just bring her along either.
The purple-haired woman nodded in approval. "Yes, I understand," she said with a slight nod.
"Got it," Kurenai said without any other words. She knew that she wasn't invited to be here. She couldn't expect Kakashi to have anything in mind for her other than as backup.
Kakashi nodded, happy with himself. "Asuma, Jiraiya and I are going to sneak into Orochimaru's hideout here." Kakashi pointed at the map. "Asuma, you will stay at the entrance to guard our exit. Jiraiya, you and I are going to look for any information on that cloaked figure. Mention of–"
"Yeah, I get it!" Jiraiya looked intensely at the grey-haired jounin. "I've been on these missions before. I know how this works."
Kakashi smiled at the white-haired man. "Souka. Maa, let's get going." Kakashi vanished, the Sannin joining him not too long afterwards. Anko and Kurenai settled down where they were, hiding themselves well, in case there were more Oto-nin nearby, but they didn't sense any miscellaneous chakra signatures. Asuma took his place on the roof of Orochimaru's hideout, but it took a moment to get there. He wasn't Jiraiya and Kakashi. He didn't use shunshin, even though it would have been faster if he had. But, he wasn't the one who might be caught and executed by Orochimaru.
The grey-haired jounin and the Sannin both appeared inside the building, as they intended. Shunshin no jutsu was originally developed for spying anyway. It made the job that much easier.
And already, they heard the sound of people.
For a moment, Kakashi and Jiraiya thought about getting away–they couldn't be caught–but they stayed. They looked at each other and knew immediately what the other was thinking. Information gathering...right? They could use whoever was coming their way.
The man shook visibly as he stood at attention in front of the girl who had called him from the village outside. He was an Oto-nin, and she could see it clearly in the inferior way that he couldn't even handle the pressure of being inside Orochimaru's home.
"I need you to do something for me," Sakura said slowly as she stopped in front of him. She stared at him hard so that he could get a good look. This was the face of the person who would kill his master...who would kill Orochimaru. She would never forget that goal.
"..." The man stood at even greater attention, waiting for his orders.
Sakura was thinking. She was talking herself out of it. It was a ridiculous notion. She couldn't even learn the technique without Orochimaru's guidance.
But she just wanted them with her.
"I need you to go to Konoha for me." She had decided. There was no turning back now.
For almost a month since she has arrived, Sakura has been pouring over the books that Orochimaru had given to her. Such books...they just kept coming! She was even more stressed than when she was working with Tsunade. At least Tsunade showed some interest in teaching her medical ninjutsu. Orochimaru seemed to just leave books with her, and he was never around.
"Sakura-sama, Orochimaru-sama said that these books–"
"Get out! Get out! I don't want to see you!" Sakura threw a scroll at Kabuto. This grey-haired man...he was the one who has been bringing these books to her nonstop! Did Orochimaru seriously think that this was going to keep her occupied? That she would stop coming to him for guidance? Or was he just keeping her occupied so that she couldn't figure one ninjutsu from another genjutsu? "Get out before I make you get out!" A scroll flew by Kabuto's head and embedded itself in the wall, which was an incredible feat considering how a scroll was just paper and soft wood.
Kabuto looked at the scroll from the corner of his eye warily. Even with his healing techniques, he wasn't sure if he could stand up to Sakura's wrath.
"I'll just leave these outside the door," he said pliantly.
"Shut up and leave me alone!" Sakura shouted again, this time holding a kunai and several shuriken in her hand.
Kabuto quickly turned the corner and began walking down the hall. That girl...she was just getting worse. If she had hit him with those, it would still take a moment before he could heal himself...but that would have given her enough time to get to him, and then, he would be a goner. She would have crushed him beyond repair.
Kabuto shuddered. He wished that Orochimaru would just get rid of her quickly. She didn't even give him enough time to figure out what it was that she wanted from his master, what she was going to do. If only he had more time, he could warn Orochimaru about her. But he couldn't just speak against her, not without evidence.
"Ah...Kabuto...I haven't seen you for such a long time." Two dark figures loomed up behind the spectacled nin. "We really should catch up."
Kabuto turned away from the grey-haired jounin as he pushed the jounin's white-haired companion out of his way. He knew who the white-haired man was. He was Jiraiya! And Kakashi was also here. He had to tell Orochimaru-sama right away!
But Kakashi was suddenly in front of him, and Kabuto found that he couldn't move his limbs. They had frozen in mid-seal. "Ka–kanashibari...!"
"Now, tell us where Sakura is," Kakashi said as he walked up to the man. "We know that she's here."
End Chapter 4
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Fire's English tidbits for those who care:
As promised, here's an explanation of epilogues and sequels. Yay! Well, there really isn't much of a difference between an epilogue and a prologue except that an epilogue gives a sense of completion to the story. It should also be outside the timeline of the story and have nothing to do with the story other than the fact that it wraps it up. There's an epilogue in Wait for Me: Crystalline Mirage although I haven't uploaded it yet since it's not complete. Read it if you have time. As to sequels…if your epilogue is so long that it becomes a story on its own, then you should separate it into another story. That would make it a sequel. Typically, sequels are follow-ups on what happened in your first story. Usually it continues where the first story leaves off but it should have its own plotline, separate from the first story. For example, Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien isn't really a trilogy since the three books depend on each other to make a successful story. Not reading one wouldn't make sense, just as skipping a chapter wouldn't make sense. Even Tolkien said that it was meant to be read as one book. I'm off topic now, so back to sequels… Not everyone will read all the books of a series, so I try to make each one freestanding. It's just less stressful on the reader—who will just have a whole bunch of unanswered questions and become confused—and on the writer—who wouldn't have to deal with a whole bunch of reviews asking about what is going on in the story and then having to explain it all.
Fire's babbling:
Kakashi: Why are we taking so long to find her?
Fire: You have Jiraiya on your team. Need I say more?
Kakashi: I guess not…
Jiraiya: Hey! Just because I wanted to look into a few bars doesn't mean I was inhibiting our misssion!
Fire: Mission has two 's' in it. Are you drunk?
Jiraiya: No. (hides his sake bottle)
Anko: We just arrived in Oto anyway. You can't expect us to find her right away. (munches on a dango ball)
Fire: Uh…can I have one of those?
Anko: No.
Fire: (disappointed) Okay. (whispering to the audience) I'm afraid of Anko, so I'm not going to argue with her.
Anko: Who's scary?
Fire: (quickly) No one!
Kakashi: Sakura! (calling out) Sakura! Are you here?
Fire: I think Orochimaru would be much more sane than this bunch. Next chapter, I'm definitely going to hang out with Orochimaru. (sighs)
Kakashi: What?
Fire: Nothing. (turning to the audience) Review and tell me what you think. If you're confused about anything, I'll be happy to explain it all, from the techniques to the timeline, and other things too.
Kakashi: Can you really do that?
Fire: I have time.
Kakashi: I'm still going to be here next week, right? You're not going to fire me.
Fire: Of course not. Now, let me finish what I was going to say!
Kakashi: I'm just not important enough…
Fire: (sighs) Review and tell me what you think. If it gets too complicated, it might get confusing so I want to make sure that the message is coming across. So review! Review!
Kakashi: What kind of a control freak are you?
Fire: I'm not a control freak. I just like reviews. I need them to help me with my writing.
Kakashi: You're weird.
Fire: Kakashi…
Kakashi: What?
Fire: Never mind. You'll know when the next chapter is loaded.
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