Chapter 8: The Insincere Supplicant
The Six Sisters stood in sombre watch over the red wasteland, snow-capped peaks gleaming like knives. The foot of the sierra was an unpoliced No Man's Land, formed of uninhabited plateaus and treacherous roads. Aizu, the cluster of civilization nearest Higa's mine, was thirty miles ahead, all the way through the tundra at the foot of the Little Sister.
Sakura tore ahead. It was nothing. Delicate, red clovers matted the ground, and she trampled through like a bull. Forget it. The ground ahead dropped off into a deep gorge crossed by a rope bridge, and she tore across the planks. The bridge vibrated with the force of her steps.
It wasn't his words that hurt. It was his kiss. He'd kissed her so earnestly that in one fleeting moment, he'd convinced her that he felt something for her too . The wind picked up, and Sakura's eyes stung with grit. Fine. Two could play . She'd treat him how he wanted— like any other teammate.
A metallic blur whistled through the air. Sakura dropped, and it detonated in dry lichen. The ring of fire illuminated a broad-shouldered man wearing the a Kumo headband.
"You're quick," he growled, clasping his hands in Dragon. Lightning?
Sakura rummaged through her weapons pouch and hurled. Senbon lodged between the small bones of his hands.
His seal broke. He cursed and tugged the needles with his teeth. "He'th ofer here—!"
Sakura's punch caught him in the sternum. Hard metal met her knuckles. His chest plate groaned in protest and yielded. He coughed and doubled over. From her right came the telltale whistle of shuriken— another man. Sakura gripped the wheezing assailant by the throat, ripped off his armor, and flung it at the weapons. The clang of steel-on-steel was deafening against the soft crackling of fire.
"Shit, he's Leaf," her captive choked. "Tell the boss!"
With a grimace, Sakura twisted his neck. The other ninja fled through the plumes of smoke. Sakura dug her heels in the dirt and aimed a punch at the ground, felt the skin of her knuckles split against hard bedrock. The ninja lost his footing. She dropped her full weight to his chest and pinned him. "What boss?"
He skimmed her face.
Too late, Sakura realized her mask was gone. "What boss?" she repeated.
"Sweetheart," he gritted out, face pale with pain, "I can—"
Sakura pressed a kunai to his collarbone.
"Scorpion Scorpion—"
"Where is he?"
"I don't know! I'm new. He recruited me a couple days ago . I haven't seen him since." He saw his companion's body and cursed.
Sakura faltered. He kicked her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. His hands flew through a series of seals. The air thickened with humidity, and every hair on her arm stood on end. Sheer instinct prompted her to jump back, before a bolt of lightning split the ground that she'd been standing on.
The moon was gone under a blanket of thunderheads. She'd seen Sasuke use a similar technique in the war, Kirin, the black skies birthing a great dragon of pure electricity. She had one shot— chakra hot in her calves, Sakura lunged. He toppled under her weight, and she drove the kunai into his neck .
He gurgled, blood welling in his mouth, and fell silent. The clouds dissipated.
Sakura gagged. Taking lives always turned her stomach. She avoided it whenever she could, and always hesitated when she couldn't— another reason she wasn't cut out for ANBU. Briskly, she disposed of the two corpses and resumed her sprint.
The rest of the journey to Aizu was peaceful, apart for the rapidly chilling temperature as she ascended in altitude. Higa was staying at small inn was situated against the mountainside. Sakura scaled up the side and climbed onto Sasuke's balcony railing.
Absolute professionalism, Haruno.
"Sasuke-kun?"
The door was already open and she stepped inside. Everything in his room was meticulously placed: his boots laced on the mat, his uniform folded, his equipment— bracers, weapons, scabbard— arranged in a row on the table. Despite it being a short trip, he'd hung his clothes on hangars. Although the room was temporary lounging, she felt like she'd gotten a rare glimpse into his private life.
Sasuke shut the door. He passed his gaze over her, taking in the flyaway hair, dusty jacket, and undershirt damp with more sweat than she cared to admit. She dared him to comment, swinging her heavy pack to the ground.
"What did you find?" he asked.
"It was a commodity report." She dug through her backpack for the copy Sai made of the silk scroll that Higa'd left in the library. "The points are years, and the line is ryo per carat."
As Sasuke read, she kicked off her boots, shed the jacket, and peeled off her cargo pants. It'd been so cold outside, she was glad she'd layered leggings underneath.
Sasuke cleared his throat. "The price hitched ten years ago?"
"Yeah. We found an article on a mine collapse in Lightning." she said. "It used to be one of the top producers. After the accident, it never recovered." Crystal gem was always rare, but the incident propelled it to an ore of myth.
Sasuke walked to the table. To her surprise, he handed her a glass of water. "Why did it collapse?"
She hadn't realized how dry her throat was. "It caught fire. No culprit was identified, and Kumo denied involvement." Sakura drained the glass. "Speaking of, we have to send them a report. I ran into a pair of their missing-nin on the way here."
His eyes roved her exposed skin for injuries as she relayed the details. "He used lightning?"
She nodded.
"Were you injured?"
"Nope. Just some scratches." She showed him her knuckles.
He examined her hand. "These look deep," he said solemnly.
What? It didn't even hurt. "They're nothing." She looked: unblemished skin. Oops— she'd already healed the scrapes. Her eyes darted to his. Was he teasing her? "I think you need your eyes checked."
"My eyes are working fine."
Her heart fluttered. "Are you challenging a professional?"
His voice dipped so low it rattled her spine. "I don't see a professional."
Sakura was supposed to be mad at him, but it was hard to think when he was raking his gaze down her front so hungrily. "What do you see?"
His eyes met hers, and the warmth evaporated from his face. Abruptly, he shoved a bath towel—materialized from thin air— into her arms. "Go shower. "
Well. No tender moments with Uchiha-taichou.
Sakura made her way to the washroom at a snail's pace, touching as many of his belongings as she could along the way. On the dresser, he'd laid out the contents of his weapons pouch: kunai, explosive tags, smoke bombs. She examined a coil of wires. "You still use these?"
His face betrayed nothing, but she knew her meandering exploration got on his nerves. "They're not the same ones."
Good. She hoped he hadn't kept the ones that touched Orochimaru. "That was a long time ago, huh?"
"Wash up so you can sleep."
Sakura slumped towards the washroom before remembering her clothes were all in her backpack. It was the one spot of disarray in his perfect room, apart from her path of destruction. "I didn't know you were this tidy ."
"Habit."
She didn't want to leave. "My apartment is a mess."
"It's not."
"That's just the kitchen." She cleaned religiously before his appointments. "Wait until you see my bedroom," she said casually.
"Sakura. Go," he grit out.
She hid a smile and followed his orders. As she ran the shower, a thought occurred. Did he think think it was nothing, or did he want her to think that? She lathered up the soap, and thought about his bewildering behavior. No, she deserved answers.
What was the harm in trying?
For the first time in Sasuke's life, he longed for Sai. Sai would've handed him the scroll, showered in two minutes, and left. They both would've been asleep by now. Instead, Sasuke was sitting at the foot of the bed, staring at a scroll that was written in a foreign language, and unwillingly attuned to the sound of her showering.
The water stopped. His hands fisted in the coverlet. Everything about her was troublesome. When she came out, he was going to set things straight. From now on, they were teammates. Captain and subord—
The door to the bath opened.
Her hair was clean and wet, painted against the curve of her neck. Droplets of water ran down her collarbones to the towel knotted around the swells of her breasts. Beneath the hem of the bath towel, her thighs were beaded with moisture.
His mouth went dry.
"Can I borrow a shirt?" she asked. "Mine is filthy."
"Closet," was all he managed.
She used his soap. The scent was inexplicably mouthwatering on her. "Any one of these?" she asked.
The hammer started back against his ribs. Yes, he wanted to snap. Take one and get out. She dropped her towel, and all his remaining capacity for coherent language fled.
—her tight waist pinned beneath his arm, her taut thighs wrapped around his ears—
Sakura slipped a shirt on. "It smells like you."
"Sorry."
"No, I like it. It's soft." She smoothed the fabric over her chest, stopping at the curve of her breasts. "Oh, the scroll fell… Sasuke-kun?"
His name was the last straw. His name on her tongue while she stood in his shirt. That strange feeling in his chest, the one that he'd spent years beating into submission, reared its bestial head, and all the ugly and irrational thoughts buried deep in his consciousness swelled and crested to surface.
Say it again. Never say another's.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
She approached the bed. His feet were rooted to the ground. It wasn't until he saw her eyelashes tangled at the corners with moisture that he realized he was standing.
"You never answered my question," she said.
Touch me.
The corners of her lips curled treacherously, as though she heard his thoughts. Her thumb grazed his bottom lip, setting his skin on fire. "Do you know what I think?"
She rose to her toes, molding herself entirely to his chest. Her words were crushed velvet in his ear. "I think you want to kiss me again."
There was a protocol for this. He could step away, admonish her for overstepping professional boundaries. Explain that her judgement was clouded by exhaustion. Recommend that she prioritize her sleep.
His traitor hands locked on her hips, tugging her closer. His eyes closed, and Sasuke allowed himself to sink into the sweetness of her kiss. One more. One moment of indulgence, and he'd go back to steel restraint and propriety.
Her tongue darted across the seam of his mouth, cautious at first, then with a boldness that crumpled the last of his resolve. Sasuke lifted her and groaned at the heat of her core against the front of his pants, a jolting reminder that she wasn't wearing anything under his shirt. This had to be a dream, but hell if he wanted to wake up.
He laid her on the sheets. At some point after he joined ANBU, during one of their torturous appointments, he started to imagine her in bed. Was she sweet and gentle, like she was at work, or wild and passionate, like she was in battle? It was a plague on his sanity. He'd tried everything— reciting the Bansenshukai, biting his cheeks until he tasted blood, sating himself on someone else before seeing her— nothing helped. Eventually he gave up. She'd heal a cut his neck, graze his throat, and he'd imagine doing disrespectful things to her on her kitchen counter.
Damn it. What was he doing?
He sat up. Guileless green eyes met his, as though she hadn't meant it to go this far either. His chest clenched. He knew— there wasn't any meaning to her touches. Knew she was innocent. He was the one living in his own head. But as irrational as it was, when she smiled at him, he felt like the only man in the world. Like she meant what she'd said, all those years ago. Like his most selfish fantasy, born of the nights he felt the most alone and lost, was real.
You're mine.
He tried to climb off her, but an invisible force held him in place. Sakura took his left hand and pressed it over the drumming of her heart, each staccato beat a false promise of the future its predecessor destroyed.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Sasuke could tell reality apart from delusion better than anyone, but for tonight, he closed his eyes and let himself pretend.
