…There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.
The days were short in the presence of so much company.
If it weren't for Juugo's ethereal aura, Sakura was sure they would see no animals at all on their travels in the smaller countries between the borders of the Five Great Nations. If Suigetsu wasn't bickering with Karin, he was soaking in as much knowledge as Kisame was willing to bestow. And when they were busy with that, Karin would fret over how Sakura was feeling: was she getting enough sleep? Enough food? Enough sparring practice at camp?
It was in the moments where she managed to calm the other girl's worries and slip back on the road to linger with Juugo himself. For their explosive meeting, she was intrigued to learn he was the quiet sort; a gentle giant, much like Kisame in that way. Birds and other critters seemed to flock to him, trailing behind him or around him for a mile or so before returning to their natural habitats. It was how she'd learned more behind the cursed seal on her wrist than Orochimaru had ever bothered to explain, and her heart sunk as it always did whenever she thought of him. He had taught her well, but the older she grew the more she understood what things he kept from her—whether carefully and by design, or simply because he himself was uninterested in the explanation.
Juugo and Kisame's interactions were so overly polite that she and the others would snicker every time they would carefully pass Itachi's unconscious body to the other. They felt more like honored business partners than rogue nin, but Sakura was just glad that everyone—for the most part—was getting along. Every hour she would put her hand on Itachi's forehead, monitoring closely. His condition improved only slightly day by day despite her healing sessions each night when they made camp. By day she would turn her attention to Kisame, remembering that same horrible day she'd finally understood the truth about Itachi that he'd strained his back with Samehada. With the sword and Itachi slung over his shoulder, all it took was one stern look from her before he would call Juugo forward to swap.
Sakura had never done well on her own, the loner lifestyle not suited to her. There was a foggy memory somewhere deep in her heart, tugging at her each time she looked among each of the people walking by her side. It was something she'd told Itachi so long ago now, or perhaps not something she'd said but something she'd thought, something she'd felt.
We could all—be a family together.
Even in spite of their rush to gather intel and find the hosts as soon as possible, she was glad for the company of her friends. Their search was going well, too, as within the first day of asking around, they'd heard that the man hosting the Six-Tailed Beast had been seen crossing the mountains not far from a town they'd landed in. He was supposedly a thin man, not incredibly tall, and the merchant who'd filled them in seemed to think his eyes had a judgmental air about them.
He'd been traveling west, said the merchant. Karin and Kisame, the most tactical-minded members of their team, looked over a map with the old man and decided where best to intercept. They would camp together there in the range for one night, Karin keeping a close check on the chakra in the vicinity as they hiked, and split up to best cover the area in hopes to find him.
The mountains were more like foothills, easily traversed and full of simple beauty. The sun was getting low in the sky when they reached a small peak, and a look of confusion came over Karin's features.
"I feel that crazy chakra not too far from here, to the west like that old guy said, but..."
"Spit it out," Suigetsu said.
"There's another one, too."
"You're sure?" Sakura pressed, excited and worried in the same breath.
"Positive. The one traveling west doesn't seem to be in a hurry—he's not sprinting or anything. The other..." She paused, closing her eyes and tilting her head slightly for a long moment. "Seems to be looking for something. Wandering, pacing."
Kisame looked to Sakura. "Perhaps we should make camp; two or three of us can check out this unexpected presence, and in the morning we catch up to the Six-Tails."
They found a secluded enough clearing within the trees and set down their things. Juugo carefully laid Itachi on the forest floor, tucking Kisame's cloak around him as if he were laying his child into bed for the night. Kisame set Karin and Suigetsu to work gathering firewood as he sniped a few animals with kunai for their meal, while Juugo opted to forage for mushrooms and other plants not unlike Itachi used to do.
When the others returned without firewood, Kisame was ready to launch into a paternal lecture until he saw the look on Karin's face. Sakura groaned, running her hands along her face.
"Don't tell me," she muttered. "One of them is coming this way."
The five of them readied their defenses, unsure if they should anticipate an ambush. She hoped to heaven not—she was trying to make nice with the Jinchuuriki, not add them to her growing list of enemies!
But an attack seemed to be what they wanted, for in the next instant they found themselves surrounded by spores that quickly burst as if detonated. Instead of a bombardment of explosions, though, a light shone from them so bright that they all squeezed their eyes shut against it. Suigetsu hissed, Karin cursing in pain. In a split-second of desperation Sakura released the first stage of her cursed seal. With that simple boost in power she cracked open one eye, the light still searingly bright but not enough to blind her completely, and saw the silhouette of a person, who quickly held up their arms as if in surrender.
"I'm sorry!" called this person. "I saw you all ready to attack and I didn't want to risk anything! I'm so sorry!"
As the lights faded, Sakura considered. Through her wince she blinked, starry afterimages dotting her vision. The night returned to normal all around them, and for good measure she raised her voice and said, "Halt!" to keep the others from rushing in to attack. She reverted the seal, her instincts all telling her this was someone she could trust, or rather someone who could trust her. "You can open your eyes now. You—what's your name?"
"Fuu," they answered, dipping their head in a short, quick bow. Were they nervous? Panicked?
"Well, Fuu, if you don't want to hurt us," Sakura said seriously, "then we don't want to hurt you."
It seemed to calm them, at least marginally. "That's what I heard—that you're saving a lot of people the Akatsuki and others would've just killed. I've been looking for you ever since I left my village two months ago."
Sakura took in their appearance, finally able to see clearly again. Their hair reminded her of Ino's eyes, their own eyes a fiercely beautiful orange like the shining carapace of a beetle.
"If you know about what the Akatsuki is up to, does that mean you're...?"
"The Seven-Tails' Jinchuuriki, at your service!" They bowed much more jovially this time, as if they were an actor in a stage play. "I'd love to be friends. If what I've heard was true, then you've been more thoughtful about us hosts than most other people."
"It is," Sakura assured. But she wouldn't let anyone think so highly of her when the truth was much more grim. "But you should know I've failed to save more than one of the Jinchuuriki. I wanted to help them all and change the world, but...it wasn't as easy as I'd hoped."
"You still tried," they said. Thin wings like those of a dragonfly sprouted from their lower back, flitting them forward to land daintily before Sakura. They took her hands in a far too familiar manner—really, it was no different than Ino's boldness or Sakura's own boldness when she'd approached Karin when they were younger, the gesture warming her to them immediately. "I thought if I joined up with you then it could help get the other Jinchuuriki on your side."
"What do you mean?" Kisame demanded, his suspicion as evident in his voice as it was in his stance. He'd long since lowered Samehada, but its hilt was still held far too tightly in his fist.
"With one of us already allied with you," they explained, "I'm sure the others will be more likely to join, too. The Beasts are like a family, did you know that? It's true! Together we can take down the Akatsuki!"
Taking down that group was just the tip of the iceberg. The man calling himself Madara; whatever power the extraction technique would give him; their yet-undecided plan to somehow dismantle the power system and the military structure of the Hidden Villages...Well, it wasn't like having a Jinchuuriki on their side would hurt their chances.
"There's four of you left," Suigetsu said, sucking his teeth in annoyance. "Our party's full enough without another loudmouth hanging around, let alone three others!"
"We need them to like us, you stupid fuckhead!" Karin snarled, swatting at him. "Besides, you're one to talk!"
"I'm the original loudmouth asshole on this team, thank you."
Sakura gave a wry smile at Fuu. "You sure you wanna be a part of this?" When they smiled back and nodded, she sighed once. "We're hoping to find the Six-Tails' host. The Nine-Tails...well, I already know where he is, but getting him on our side won't be easy. I think he might hate me."
"I'm sure he doesn't!" They gave Sakura's hands one final squeeze before pulling back and putting their own on their hips. "And then that leaves the Eight-Tails. The others are all...?"
Sakura bit her lip. "I only actually managed to keep one of them from dying. I tried with Han—the Five-Tails..." She glanced over at Itachi's body, snug beneath Kisame's black cloak on the ground as if he were merely sleeping after a long day. He'd stopped her attempt to save the host, but also kept her from carelessly killing herself in the process. Kind, to his very core, the antithesis of how she felt to admit what was next: "And I wasn't there for the Two-Tails or the Four-Tails..."
"She was healing other people when they got him," Karin said, excitedly coming to Sakura's defense—not that the truth of it made it sting any less. She wished she could've saved everyone, not need to pick and choose.
"Oi, sis." Kisame came to stand by her side. "The former host of the One-Tailed Beast owes you his life. It's not outlandish to think he'd be endeared to our cause, as well."
"So there's five left! See?" Fuu beamed, that smile infectious. "I knew you were like me—the kind of person who makes friends wherever they go. So will you let me come with you?"
You have a talent, Sakura-kun, Orochimaru had said once, for making friends of monsters.
"Okay," she acquiesced with a nod. Not that Fuu was a monster, not any more than Kisame and Suigetsu were for their shark-teeth or Juugo for his transformations, but...well, if she were honest, she wasn't sure why her old master's words were echoing through her mind just then. All of these people she'd met, all of the people she'd pissed off, all of the people she'd loved and who'd loved her...could it really all come together and mean anything?
Could they really change the world?
It was a long night, their newest addition the chatty sort. But to Sakura's surprise they seemed to get along with both Suigetsu and Karin, their cheerful demeanor impossible to argue with to any degree of seriousness. Kisame sat by Itachi, listening with his arms folded over his chest and his head down, a faint smile on his face as he dozed.
When morning came, they took a quick glance at their map before pushing off in the direction of the Six-Tails' chakra according to Karin's directions. He must have camped not long after they'd settled down, for he was within her range after only an hour of hiking.
Just before Sakura opened her mouth to make some comment or another, the earth beneath their feet rumbled, just a faint thing like a distant shockwave coursing through the land. The nearby treebranches swayed, a flock of startled birds flying off out in the sky ahead.
"An earthquake?" Suigetsu wondered aloud, standing frozen as if anticipating another tremor. But when Sakura looked to Karin, goosebumps had broken out on her forearms and her eyes were so wide she thought they may pop clean out of her skull.
"They—the...something just happened," she said, trembling so greatly that she sank down to her knees. When Sakura knelt to put her arms around her, a great wave of dread pulsed through her, flipping her stomach so wildly she had to bite back from vomiting.
What the fuck is going on?
Shaking, Karin slowly raised a hand and pointed due south. All followed her finger, not sure what to expect even as they saw a faint, eerie glow off in the distance that faded with a strange slowness. The world was so still all around them that Sakura shivered to realize it, even the cacophony of the morning birds and bugs shocked to silence. Juugo cocked his head in concentration, but it was Kisame who broke that tense silence first, giving Sakura a serious look.
"It seems Pein's patience had reached its limit after all."
She could only stare, her mind fighting against such a thought even though not much else made sense.
"Holy shit, I...all of the chakra there," Karin went on, tears of pure shock welling in her eyes, "is gone. It—I've...never felt anything like that. I-it's like someone blew out a candle, they—they're just..." She swallowed, then her voice was barely a whisper. "It's gone."
A candle was the most apt comparison she could have chosen, for just south of their coordinates sat the Village Hidden by Leaves. There sat Sakura's mother and father, who she hadn't spoken to or seen in years. There sat Ino, who she'd left without ever making real amends, and Kaka-sensei, who she'd left with her hitai-ate and no explanation. There sat Naruto who once had loved her, and Sasuke-kun, who had rushed off thinking Sakura had just told him an outlandish lie about his murdered family.
There sat Hinata, Kiba, and Shino. There sat Lee and his unyielding passion and politeness, and TenTen and Neji, too. There sat Shikamaru and Chouji, undoubtedly picking up whatever pieces of Ino that Sakura had failed to sweep up. There sat all of their sensei and Lady Fifth and her assistant, who'd patched up so many of their wounded in their short time there in Konoha.
Indeed, a candle surely did fit, because it would seem that the village's Will of Fire had just been fully extinguished in the blink of an eye.
A/N:
Sorry guys, I just can't seem to get enough of cliffhangers lol!
To lessen the blow I'll just say, don't get too attached to Fuu (for now). So much love to you all as always xox
-Vivi