Clay Petals

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or its characters, nor am I gaining any profit for putting them in this story. They all belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

Author's Note: Here's chapter two, meaning I'm making this a series-challenge. Eh. I guess I've just fallen in love with the pairing.

By the way, the whole part about Sakura's father was not actually in the plan for that chapter. In other words, I just added it on at the end, so if it doesn't make sense, I'm sorry. The chapter just felt… short.

Thank you, reviewers! You guys make me want to write more!

Sakura found herself in a large field. A familiar field. It seemed that she had been here before in her past, but she couldn't remember it now. Almost like an itch she couldn't scratch… a memory she couldn't recall.

The field, abundant with beautiful flowers, seemed to be inhabited, however. On the opposite side of the sea of dazzling colors seemed to be a group of sitting people, and one—a woman—standing in front of them, and she seemed to be speaking. As Sakura approached the group, however, she quickly recalled where she was.

She was back in the academy, learning flower arrangement with the other female shinobi in training. This was where she had first met Ino. When the blonde girl had defended her for no reason, as she gained nothing in the end. She had done it selflessly.

And Sakura had had the nerve to hate her just because of Sasuke.

Sakura felt something inside her, something that distinctly felt like her heart, seem to drop, as she distinctly saw the scene unfold before her. The same bullies, the same trick with the 'poisonous flower' by her heroine, the same helpless expression she had had before Ino had come to her rescue.

Sakura began to feel like this was more of a nightmare, as the scenes clearly unfolded before her of every time Ino had stuck up for her, and every time Sasuke had brushed her off as though she was nothing. As if her dream was telling her a message. A very obvious message by this point.

Boys are not worth friendships! You wasted something perfect you had for something you couldn't get! You selfish little bitch!

Sakura found herself backing up against a tree, trying to get away from the scene before her; the one where she had officially become enemies with the blonde. 'But we're friends again!' she tried to scream, 'Why am I seeing all this if we're fine again!'

She screamed as loudly as she could, trying to bore the images out of her mind. They weren't going away! They never would! Why oh why did she do all those things! How can I stand myself? How can I stand letting myself live, after all the things I've done to ruin people's lives?

Suddenly, the dream world began to quake, as if someone had taken the globe and decided to play catch with it. The world was falling apart, and she couldn't escape!

"Help me! Please! I'm sorry, someone, just save me!"

Sakura sat up with a jolt, and, finding herself still screaming as loudly as she could, quickly shut her mouth, hoping the shriek hadn't woken her mother, as she was an incredibly light sleeper, and hated it when people woke her up. She had broken out in a cold sweat from the dream, and her stomach seemed to be twisting itself in tight knots. However, the most horrific thing was not the nightmare itself, but who seemed to be the person who had helped her escape from it.

"Y-You!" Sakura stuttered, trying to recollect herself in the groggy state in which she found her mind and body, and failing miserably, "What are you doing here!" She pointed an accusing finger at the intruder, and after a few moments flying by, she recognized who it was she was awoken by. The exotic hairstyle was a dead giveaway.

The Akatsuki cloak was also a rather notable feature.

"Me," he responded calmly, in an incredibly deep voice, easily one of his greatest features, "However, since this little 'meeting' isn't really about me, I don't feel like answering that little question at the end. Instead, I'm going to inform you that it's a bit more about you than you'd wish it was, un."

Sakura found herself completely unable to react—not even a nervous giggle for the rather strange noise that he used to end his sentence, or the way he used his fingers to indicate quotes around the word 'meeting' in a rather childish way. She was frozen to the spot, and the cold sweat on her body that was slowly being chilled by wind from the open window was only adding to the frozen effect.

In short, Haruno Sakura was absolutely petrified with fear.

"W-What do you want with me?" Sakura asked quickly, attempting to control her stutter, trying to reach for the kunai she always hid inside her pillowcase in case of such emergencies. He seemed to be able to see every move she made; the slight twitches she referred to as her breathing, the inches her hand made towards the kunai, even the tiny movements her eyes made as they occasionally flickered in the general direction of the door.

It was a horrible feeling, that of complete surveillance. What's worse, it felt like the feeling was all coming from that one hidden eye.

The blond yawned widely, not even bothering to cover his mouth. Sakura, thankfully, did not take this time to stare down into the dark depths of someone's throat, but rather to grab that kunai she had been reaching for, and throw it right at the place between the man's eyes that would kill him in one stroke.

Unfortunately, he dodged it with ease, but due to the slow reaction from the yawn, the kunai kept a few drops of blood, and some of his cheek. In order to know horror, one would have to know a few things about Deidara first. The first thing was that he had a lot of pride. He refused to be out-shone or out-done in any way, and it disturbed him to no end when he had a weaker moment.

One would also have to know that he took his anger out on whichever poor soul had had the nerve to damage his precious pride, in the most savage way possible. Preferably by blowing them to pieces.

That girl had just had the nerve to cut him. With something as pathetic as a kunai.

In that moment, Sakura found herself up against the wall behind her bed, a hand to her throat, and Deidara's face but inches away. He licked his lips, and in doing so, had just shaken his head enough to move his hair to the point that it revealed his left eye. Or rather, a strange excuse for an eye.

The thing seemed to be completely mechanical; as she saw it move around the room, focusing on nothing for very long, before finally remaining locked on her lips, the 'zoom-in' function being used to its fullest.

Sakura flinched, and tried desperately to claw his hands off from around her throat. A feeling deep in the pit of her stomach told her that this was not going to end well.

"Originally, I was going to make this meeting completely non-violent, but apparently some of us had other plans," Deidara hissed, his human eye narrowing sharply at the girl in front of him, "Now there are two things you'll have to do to persuade me to let you live, un."

"And they are?" Sakura inquired, trying not to sound shaky, even with her air being slowly cut off, and an S-Class criminal mere centimeters from her face, a dangerous look in his molten gold eye.

'Wait, did he just say that this meeting wouldn't have been violent?' she inquired to herself, 'What a strange thing for an Akatsuki member to suggest...'

'He's a lying bastard, Sakura! Let's get this punk!' Inner Sakura raged inside her head, nearly driving Sakura insane with how tempted she was to take the suggestion, and at least attempt to beat up the blond criminal.

"Well, first you'll have to tell me how you beat my partner, Sasori," Deidara said anxiously, as if he'd been wanting to know it for a long time, "and then I'm going to want…

"A kiss, un."

Sakura, acting purely on instincts, reached up while gathering chakra in her hands, and smacked the blond across the face as hard as she possibly could, sending him colliding roughly with the wall. Only a moment later did she recognize the horrible consequences of her actions, as she saw Deidara spit a crimson liquid out of his mouth.

'Hell yeah!' Inner Sakura exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air, 'That'll teach that jackass to touch us!'

"I could've blown up your house, but when all I ask is for a simple kiss of all things, and this is how you react? I'd worry about my priorities if I were you, kunoichi," he said sharply, wiping the remaining blood from the corner of his mouth, "You don't know when they could come back and bite you in the ass, un."

Sakura was thoroughly surprised, however, as he left it at that, and then leapt right out the window towards the woods at the edge of Konoha.

'Since when to the Akatsuki just leave with empty threats?' Sakura thought to herself nervously glancing at the open window. He wasn't going to come back was he? To finish the job? Blow up her home, as he had threatened earlier?

Quickly, Sakura scurried over and closed the window, for all it was worth. He had opened it before, after all, so the only reason she really closed it was for her own sake. It made her less nervous just to have it closed. She shivered, and she couldn't even blame this one on chill air from the window.

She knew at that moment that she wouldn't be able to sleep soundly for at least the next month. She was far too horrified of what could've happened if he hadn't cared so much about the answer to his question that he wouldn't incapacitate her. Even now, she really had now idea why she cared so much about the answer to that question, anyway.

Why did he ask her to kiss him?

The suggestion made no sense to Sakura's rational mind, and it only confused her more about the eccentric blond man who had been in the room but minutes ago. Did he get some sort of sick sense of revenge when he forced her to act romantically towards him just for a slight dent in his pride? Why did he care so much about a simple cut on the cheek, anyway? Did he have some sort of a strange obsession with the way he looked?

Sakura, bothered by these questions, laid down on the bed in a desperate attempt to get some sleep she knew she wouldn't be receiving. She was just too shocked by what had just happened. Even if she closed her eyes…

A single molten gold eye flew before her vision, its vastness enough to fill up her complete range of vision by simply existing. It stared right at her, and Sakura found herself unable to look away as the eye seemed to shrink, and the outline of a person formed around it. It was him.

He leaned forward towards her, his body emanating a strange, musky smell, that she couldn't help but strangle her senses and leave her helpless as he leaned close to her face for the second time that night.

"I want my kiss, un," he said flatly, staring at her parted lips expectantly, as if she was actually going to move to kiss him. As if!

However, despite the way she attempted to force her body not to, Sakura found her head trying to move forward, as if the blond could control her body. In her mind, she fought as hard as she could against the strange control, trying as hard as she could to pull her body backwards.

Sakura was fighting a losing battle.

The intoxicating scent that seemed to be coming from Deidara's body was completely controlling her mind, body, and soul, making her completely unable to turn away in horror as his lips gently met hers…

Another Author's Note: Ah, this chapter was really different from the first one, for some reason.

Also, this chapter was going to be a lot longer, but I decided I wouldn't make it any longer, because I just can't stand making a character have a 'wake-up sequence' more than once in a chapter. That, and the next part was a bit unrelated to this one, so please try to ignore the messy cut-off.