Back with the second chapter! I hope you all love it. Sorry for the wait, its been a crazy couple of weeks.
Vanilla-scented air wafted through the otherwise stifling space of Sasuke's house, lingering in the corners of the kitchen and hovering pointedly about the tip of his nose. On its own, without the added pressure of his unexpected run-in with a kunoichi from his distant past, today was a difficult day to bear, especially alone. Arms crossed and shoulders tensed, he stared dejectedly at the composed, two-tier cake perched atop the counter, still without icing. Sasuke found himself contemplating the vulnerability and potential stupidity of his actions, as he did every year since he began this tradition.
The cake was delicately browned and scents of springtime and nostalgic celebrations burst through its porous skin as the young nukenin watched, patience dancing along the tightropes of his nerves, the steam gradually drifting away, moisture occasionally gathering at the bridge of his nose as he waited. Usually he was less patient to finish the day's task, but he had no other excuses to keep him from the world outside, where those townspeople that had crept into the cracks of his shell and absorbed grains of knowledge about his tendencies and his conflicts expected his quiet visits under the yellow wash of evening. They knew the fragile sentiment of this day; they knew this habit as more of a lament than a celebration.
Yuri would wait calmly behind the counter of her small storefront and would smile with kindness as he self-consciously delivered her the fruit of his labor, and yet even with such gentle reception he would rub the blushing skin of his neck while rows of beautiful, intricate pastries gawked back at him. Yuri would make small talk, Sasuke would be perceptive without being revealing (as best as he could, anyway, with his defenses crumbling more every year), and then he would go to the creek at the top of the hill and sit; not to pray, not to weep, not to remember, but just to be.
He leaned to retrieve the metal tool required from a bowl of warm water, the name for which he'd never learned but the trick remained in his mind since the meals and desserts of his childhood. His fingers twitched along the hilt as they reflectively prepared for the stinging aura of his kusanagi, a habit that was an unpleasant reminder of many things. He wasn't fighting. Just icing a cake.
The warmth of the metal allowed for a smoother application, and as the icing coated the cake's surface a tinge of lemon twirled through the air and drifted into the cavern of his lungs. The instinct to perform all actions perfectly grew deep within the pit of his stomach, anxiety curdling as the roots spread through his body. Every year he'd wonder if Yui would reject his creation. He imagined her pert nose crinkling in distaste, the motherly smile adorning her face sinking into a grimace. He imagined his failure, forthcoming in its own right, inevitable. And yet the pale golden topping continued to glide almost comically before his eyes, as smooth as a swan sailing across a pond. His foolishness felt heavy in his lungs. Sasuke wondered absently if he could ever abandon his critical nature; surely he'd live longer if it were ever so.
His hands made quick work of the berries, slicing away their leafy heads and placing them flesh-down on the pristine surface stilled beneath his gaze, barren and yellow like a field of unswaying sunflowers, sloping gently at the sides and circling over and over in the fold of its perfect wholeness, and for a moment he wrestled to recall if these whimsical, useless thoughts stained the tissues of his mind in this way every year, with petulant frequency and depth. Refocusing, he tussled a nest of cut strawberries in his palm. They'd litter the outer two rings, then raspberries, then a single line of blackberries in the very center, and then, a small space equivalent to the circumference of his thumbprint. The shinobi shuffled through a nearby drawer for a few moments, fingers finally landing on the waxy, corded structure of a candle. Carefully he placed the little thing in the single hole he'd left in the center, then sported a meek frown as he lit the wick with a flame from his pointer finger.
For a minute he simply stared as the wax slid along the side of the candle, only blowing out the flame when the melted droplets grew too close to the surrounding fruits. He fumbled with the knife for a final time, fixing a plump strawberry over the miniscule hole left by the body of the candle. The fruit's juice stained the rough skin of his hand a shade of pink that made his throat grow dry, but he shook the feeling from his mind before tension crept in in its wake. Thinking of her now would be disrespectful.
But pictures continued to flicker in the swarm of his kekkei genkai, a numbing beat of the shuttering features of the kunoichi he'd long forgotten. Apprehension thickened the walls of his throat at the thought of startled emerald eyes - were they startled, truly, with the same coloring depth of his own shock? Her lips did not quiver under his gaze, nor did her cheek twitch, and as his mind grasped further for the precise shade of her iris as the luster of mild astonishment glossed the whole of them he felt the distinct sensation of loss still the muscles of his chest, for even now he could not quite recall the very makings of the stare that quelled him so.
A sudden eagerness to revisit the street melting against the sunset puddled somewhere at the apex of his spine, a cool dribbling of cruel veneration of that petal-haired woman, whose image slipped farther from his mind with every passing moment. Had she already fled the area? Another fleeting, impractical reflection wandering unwelcome into his head, one destined for the head of a man with more sense and less responsibilities.
The dark-haired young man wiped the proof of his work from his scarred hands and gathered the cake in his arms, the glass stand supporting it magnifying the heat that remained onto his palms. He freed a single hand to open and close the door, now behind him, his sandals already hugging the rough skin of his ankles, not bothering to lock the entrance to his house. She would not track him here, he remarked through his internal resistance.
Sasuke glanced at the rosy horizon of the year's first June morning, then dropped his gaze back to the glistening face of his creation. Carefully descending the stairs, a slow sigh fell from his lips.
"Happy birthday, Kaasan."
Sakura sat almost painfully still at the peak of the hill she'd occupied on the morning before, eyes unable to close, staring at nothing. Sleep was not becoming of her in general (as a girl she'd suffered numerous night terrors), but she'd chosen to bow out of an attempt at rest. If she closed her eyes, she knew exactly what would look back at her - or rather, who would look back at her.
The thought that the man she'd spent so many years trying to forget breathed only yards away from her bubbled ominously in the pit of her throat, drowning her lungs in a concoction of emotions that were unidentifiable but totally unpleasant. Sickly she pondered if Sasuke experienced the same sensations of terror and disgust.
Even in her haggard state she realized that a run-in with the shinobi that nearly destroyed her many years work could not deter her from the purpose of her stay; both her mission and her 'vacation' still required completion. After obtaining any information from the elderly woman awaiting her arrival, Sakura supposed she could transfer her free time to a place with less red-eyed, ice-hearted shinobi that glared at her in the street. Her gut twisted at the memory of his face and her hands brushed her arms, as if to scrub away the all the places his eyes had touched her skin.
The kunoichi wished his face had belonged to another. She longed for the rage that accompanied the image she'd painted of him over the years, to which she deflected her anger when nights grew so dark that all she could do to defend herself was sob until daybreak. She wanted to hate him. She wanted his fierceness to cord through the bulk of his muscles, for his despair to overwhelm his remorse, for the curve of his mouth to settle in a natural cruelness, a dismissing sneer that all the town would come to know and despise. The Sasuke she envisioned held hatred in his heart and blood on his hands. He was a monster. A monster that remained long dead to her.
But then he wasn't.
The stony disposition that haunted her for years was in fact a face that paralleled her own fears. His features remained mostly slack, but beneath the youth and the apathy that colored his pallet pulsed worry and desperation and the look of a caged animal, all both at the sight of her pink locks shifting about her bare shoulders. His emotional standing seemed to have slackened with his absence; his lips slightly agape in shock, a lump of disbelief lodged in his Adam's apple, his fingers fluttering nervously over the paper bags in his grasp. Her incredulity was palpable, she guessed. After all these years, the last emotion she dreamed Sasuke holding towards her person was legitimate fear.
Sakura was uncertain of how this dread at the sight of her person affected her, especially when it sprouted from the very man who had instilled so many of her own insecurities. A sense of pride often surged through her heart at the expression of surprise and panic that graced an opponent's features once they'd witnessed her strength or suffered firsthand the wrath of the taijutsu she'd mastered. The kunoichi had never outgrown her daintiness, a fact made clear by the company she kept only at vague intervals, those closer to her aware that her gentle appearance relayed none of her talents as a ninja. Strangers barely blinked in her direction and often only made to double-take at her garish pink hair. The array of unexpectation and shock on an enemy's face brought Sakura a warm satisfaction; however, such an emotion sent in her direction whilst off the battlefield brought repulsion to her lips and discomfort in her chest. Instilling fear was unbecoming of the kind-hearted young woman, even in the dull state that presently swallowed her.
Even as she remained perched on the grassy hilltop, a sunset past and a sunrise upon her, Sakura could not pinpoint the motivation that drove her away from Sasuke's sudden presence in front of her. But she saw the dismay within the depths of his eyes, even as they spun to the crimson hue she learned to dread, and it terrified her. So she ran.
At first her steps were evenly paced, balanced and calm and even and all that she wanted, needed in that moment. Portraying her as a woman unperturbed. But with each step she stole away from the shinobi at her back, the corners of the world seemed to sweep inwards, blurring the edges of her vision and flipping her psyche to totter on its side.
After rounding the first corner chakra surged instinctively into her calves, every muscle aching and begging to run farther, faster, away from what could only be a mistake. Thoughts flitting between the walls of her mind, Sasuke's face echoing with every pulse of her heart and every rush of air in her bloodstream. Wildly and hopelessly she sprinted towards the beginning of her day, her nin-pack and bedroll and scrolls rebounding against the coiled muscles of her back with each step. Foolishly Sakura reigned in her tears, desperately refraining from the retching sobs that beckoned her.
Itching to roam the hillside and amble her musings with the scrape of her feet, the kunoichi collected herself to embark on her brief course to the elderly woman with whom she held an appointment. A breeze churned about her legs at the anticipation of spotting Sasuke somewhere on a street, staring with the identical incredulity as the night prior.
The taste of progress, crumbling, exploded in her mouth and dripped into the bottom of her lungs, each pump of her foot pushing her farther away from the picture of Sasuke but closer to the cracking dam stirring internally. So many years cloaked in the sensation of hollow anguish, regret tinting every day a shade darker than she remembered, starving her mind of his face and his smell and him. The way he'd called her name at the nape of her neck, thanking her in that mocking tone, the glimpses of his stature as it matured in adolescence and omnipotence. All the torturous thoughts she'd buried in the space between her bones, coddled in the grip of her ribcage as if to shield her heart from her own sick sense of memoriam.
Sakura had crawled, knees bloody and bare, spirit broken, to the quarantine state that sanctioned her mind from all thoughts of the dark shinobi a mere yards from her. Pictures destroyed, memories tarnished and self-altered, hope abandoned. For longer than possible to recall her encouragement to grow stronger drew from the determination to erase Sasuke from her mind. The image matched the reputation: a nukenin who was deserving of the phrases spat in his direction, a man who'd never again know the song of a friend's heart or the comfort of a woman's arms. A savage. A criminal. A traitor.
And it wasn't fair, this young, petrified man she'd discovered in the street of a town that held no ill towards the kunoichi's oblivious existence. The near-decade of training, emotional and physical, all shattered in the wake of pure accidental occurrences.
Her reflections drove her to some sort of distraction, so she shifted to remove the smooth paper of her mission scroll, which sat dutifully in her palm. Responsibility as a tangible object always felt lighter than Sakura imagined it should be, what with the millions of consequences spread upon the ground, bombs buried in the silt and earth of choices, reactions. The ink scrawled upon the surface caressed only the shades of her still irises, unable to reach past her eyes into more thoughtful places.
Yuri. No other name followed or preceded, nor did the scroll disclose the usual implications of personality, habits, preceding reputations. Elderly, around sixty-five years of age, no documented shinobi training on record. Widow of twenty years, mother of a pair of fraternal twins, a girl and boy, both in their late thirties now. Both nameless, according to the shinobi who'd done the background check, a fact that seemed exceptionally strange to Sakura. The girl was a mute that worked humbly in the kitchen of her mother's bakery along the downtown strip. Also assumed to reside either in her mother's home or in the garden keep on the edge of her land. Palm-sized sketches, done in a sooty ink that reminded her warmly of Sai, donned the bottom left corner of the unrolled paper. Juxtaposed women regarded her below, harsh lines tinting their features in familial resemblance. Absently she wondered if they were close.
The shinobi assigned to prepare the summary of both parties struggled to grasp a clear standing on the subjects. All interactions and conversations held with those who knew both the woman and her disabled daughter proved fruitless and difficult; the locals seemed too perturbed to discuss either person, though it was unclear is such a silence came provoked by respect or wariness.
The storefront would remain closed until noon, at which time the bakery would assuredly be in full swing, workers passing by for a sweetness to numb the triteness of another day in the workplace. Distaste crept into the corners of her mouth. Puckering her lips in annoyance, Sakura wished for a time when she could not empathize with those who felt trapped by their professions. The shruiken pack crowding the bone of her hip grew heavier with such musings.
Hoping to avoid a scene with some oblivious patron, the kunoichi settled her ninpack between the slab of skin separating her shoulderblades, ready to embark on the dirt path that led back to town. Turi and her nameless child - Sakura wondered in the mute young woman truly had no name at all - would surely be preparing the day's produce, whisking flour, beating eggs, folding cream into chocolate. Interrupting, while not a personal pleasure, undoubtedly became a convenient talent over the years. Besides, she found that people were more honest when their hands remained focused on other tasks.
The scroll still draped on her left arm as she walked, Sakura read on. The male twin maintained adequate function but partook in delinquent activity. Neither children received training in the ninja arts, but even as a civilian child the young man collected an impressive resume of minor crimes. Twenty years ago, the young man impregnated a local farm girl, and together they tried, and often failed, to raise a compassionate son. His name was Koto.
The thieves meandering across the borders of Earth, Wind and Fire were lead by a young man, unidentified, with a wolverine face painted on a ceramic mask to serve as his identity. According to officials, this leader held substantial potential to be the current day job of the young Koto, who'd fled from home two years prior during his second round of agricultural training. The father had vanished when the young boy was ten, and his poor mother had little to say. The grandmother remained the only glimpse at a lead in the investigation, confirmed doubly by the unfortunate defects of the aunt.
Sakura met a mute young man once, a sixteen year old with peculiar green hair (she supposed she shouldn't judge considering she'd been victim to the same thoughts by others) and dark freckles dotting the planes of his cheekbones. He'd been a weapon specialist like TenTen, and his tranquil, involuntary silence made him appear rather intimidating. Lee had attempted to tell him an off-handed joke during a passing match that the other contenders observed, huddled together along the balcony of a viewing deck. The shinobi simply glanced back at Lee, nodded, and then returned his gaze to the duel.
As hard as she strained to picture his face again, Sakura could not recall ever seeing the same face a second time. Nor could she recall the village from which he hailed. Ghosting her fingers along the skin of her throat, she wondered if he survived the war. If so, she wondered if he, too, missed the joys of being a ninja. Given, of course, that he'd ever lost reverence for their profession in the first place.
Information gradually trickled into nothingness, the bottom of the scroll ending with Kakashi's haphazard signature. Lazily the kunoichi re-rolled the scroll and shoved the thing into the bulky pocket of her pack, swapping for a canteen and stooping to gulp languidly from the container, newly-full with the river water that bordered her sleep site. Purification jutsu left a mild bitterness within the water's molecules, but Sakura shrugged at its familiar bite. She'd had worse.
The cloud of dissatisfaction that hovered constantly about her head seemed to lift just an inch or so at the sight of the little town opening to welcome her.
"Little" was an unfair description; the village was sizable enough and perhaps comparable to certain parts of Konoha's marketplace, only absent of the sheer mass of land that characterized her home. Buildings of professional standing stooped low on block corners, winged by eateries and a town grocer and other various businesses serving different purposes.
Water funneled into a narrow channel that flower along the boardwalk, a long levy of patched grasses sloping the space between the sedimentary street and the creek. She wondered if she approached the water if she'd catch notes of lavender from her earlier bath on the hilltop, which she'd taken in restlessness. Such a frivolous thought brought a smirk to her dainty lips.
As expected, a "CLOSED" sign glinted against the morning light as she clamored onto the bakery's doorstep. Sakura rapped on the glass door once, then twice, louder, and by her fifth, most insistent knock, an elderly woman in a dusty frock emerged from a door within the store, face set in a line of what Sakura was sure to be unpleasantness.
The pink-haired kunoichi stepped back politely as to allow the woman to crack open the door. Impatience leaked into her every feature, including her voice.
"Miss, I don't suppose you're illiterate?" said the woman, pointing mockingly at the "CLOSED" sign. "I'm afraid we don't open for another two hours."
At least she retained some admirable attitude. Sakura respected that.
Flashing her identification badge and hitai-ate, which she wore on the loop of her black shorts, Sakura sang sweetly in response: Pardon me, Yuri-sama, in no way did I mean to inconvenience. My name is Haruno Sakura, I am a kunoichi of the Leaf. I was hoping to have a few words with you."
Yuri eyed her warily, then fumbled for a second to grasp a pair of glasses dangling at the apex of her covered breasts, face melting into a reserved astonishment after donning her specs. "Pink hair . . ." she mumbled.
Ignoring the comment, Sakura continued with her gentle disposition. "I wanted to stop by before your bakery opened to avoid stealing you away from your customers. Would you mind if I stepped inside to ask you a few questions?"
A little dumbfoundedly, Yuri shifted her weight off of the door frame and clumsily propped the door for Sakura to enter. She gave a slight bow upon entering, which Yuri returned hesitantly, then followed the elderly woman as she began to move back from where she'd come.
"You'll forgive me, I hope, for my earlier tone," Yuri said over a bony shoulder.
"It's quite alright, Yuri-sama. I'm used to such reactions," Sakura replied. "I am sure you are hard at work in the kitchen preparing for the day. Please do not allow my presence to be an imposition on your work."
Yuri turned to regard her fully, hand outstretched to balance her body against a gleaming display case. Only a single item stood inside, a rounded cake with rings of fresh berries on top. She admired its color, the icing a similar shade to a peeled, ripe banana, the alternating rings gleaming in the wash of sunshine pouring through the clear windows. A spot of perspiration gathered on the inside of the glass, a few degrees above the body of the cake.
"First one for the day?" the kunoichi asked, gesturing towards the cake as she moved to return her ID to her hip pocket. "It's very beautiful."
"Yes, just finished making it. I was in a rush to put it out before the others," responded Yuri, sounding peculiarly out of breath.
"Well, I may just have to buy a slice on the way out. The kitchen, Yuri-sama?" Sakura raised her chin towards a door a few feet from the older woman's back. With great reluctance the woman turned and resumed her walk back to her work. Sakura quickly sidestepped her and beat her to the door, opening it open chivalrously for Yuri as she hobbled through the doorway.
The air was immediately visible, clouds and particles dancing all over the room, sailing with every step on the wooden floor and bouncing off of the stained, peeling mint-green walls. A back door stood open to carry the dusty atmosphere outdoors into a back alley, and the accompanying sunlight threw waves of glittering sugar into the air. The room practically vibrated with the smell of sweets.
A woman hunched over a wad of dough, a halter dress tied about the back of her neck, back muscles flexing with the force of her kneading. An enormous bun of rich, crimson hair bobbed at the top of her head. She turned, not halting in her work, to observe her mother and the unexpected guest tailing her. The woman's eyes widened in something a little more than surprise, and the smoky green of her irises reminded Sakura absently of her mother.
Yuri turned to face Sakura briefly upon entering. "My daughter, Akami. She helps me in the shop; however she cannot speak, so I doubt she would be of any assistance in whatever brings you here." Sakura fixed the younger woman with a tight smile, uneased by the routine chakra scan she conducted on Akami. For now she'd speak with Yuri. The daughter, even in her unusualness, could wait.
"Pleased to meet you, Akami-san." The woman nodded in response. Glancing back towards Yuri, Sakura softened her grin. "Please, continue working. I don't believe I'll keep you for too long."
Yuri did as suggested, resuming work on a batch of square pastries lying unfinished on a large, wooden table. "What brings you to my shop, Haruno-san?"
"Well, I'm hoping you could be of some help," Sakura said with patient spirit. "Recently the neighboring shinobi villages have filed complaints against a travelling band of mercenaries. They've stolen some treasured artifacts from these villages and many people are desperate to have them returned." Yuri grunted in affirmation to acknowledge that she'd absorbed the kunoichi's words thus far, even if some of it had been unintentional retention.
"I've been sent on a mission to question some locals about potential suspects and members of this criminal group. They've yet to declare a name, but each member is masked in one way or another, usually in solid-color ceramic faces. However, the leader of the gang-" Sakura brushed the edge of a photo in the pocket of her shorts, removing it to pose delicately in front of the old woman's face, "-looks like this."
Yuri squinted even behind the thickness of her glasses, setting down a bowl of raspberry filling to lean closer to the outstretched object. Pictured was the profile of a wolverine-masked man clad in grey and black guard pads, a black flak jacket, and sporting a crown of copper hair.
Face unmoving, Yuri leaned back and resumed piping filling into the pastries. "Never seen him."
Sakura flipped the picture around, the masked man now facing her. "Our shinobi say he resembles the coloring and build of this young man. Does he seem more familiar?"
This time when the woman looked she was arrested into stillness. From the corner of her eye Sakura saw Akami steal a look in their direction, and also froze at the sight of the young man on the image.
"That's . . ." Yuri began, but after a moment the air seemed to fizzle senselessly from her mouth, unable to complete the sentence.
"Your grandson, Koto," Sakura finished.
Suddenly a slam echoed from the back of the room, causing Yuri to jump and Sakura to snap her head in the direction of the source, Akami had abandoned a wooden roller, which clanked twice more against the ground before falling still, and fled from the kitchen through the open back door. Sakura tensed with suspicion.
Quelling the kunoichi with a hand raised in protest, Yuri hardened into a defensive stance, but her face grew gentle.
"Please, could we speak another time? Perhaps at my home, without Akami around. She and Koto were very close, and she has been quite sensitive since he left." Desperation gleamed in her wise eyes, amplified by her thick glasses.
Sakura consciously relaxed her position, hoping to reassure the grandmother even as her mind raced with instinctive actions revolving around the daughter's escape. Yuri spoke again when the kunoichi remained silent.
"Really, please, I insist. I live on the beaten path behind the town bank, a few miles out. Past the flower field on the left, but if you hit the forest you've gone too far. It's a shack about an acre in. I keep it as tidy as I can," her volume rose as Sakura gradually shifted her gaze away from the door. "I promise I'll answer any questions you have then." She smiled a little desperately.
"You wouldn't hide something from me, Yuri-sama?" Sakura said patiently. "That would be a mistake."
"On my honor, I wouldn't. Truly. It's just been hard on her, on all of us," she said as she gestured towards the doorway.
Sakura nodded slowly. "Alright. I'll be over tomorrow evening, once the shop closes."
Yuri clasped her hands in gratitude and bowed. "I'll be there, I will." After a moment, she added: "On my honor."
After a handful of logistics were further explained, Sakura showed herself out after Yuri's insistence that she could recover her daughter on her own.
The sun sat just barely higher in the sky and the street smelled of people, stirring, kicking up dirt as they walked, vendors beginning their chants and sales pitches. The narrow creek danced as green as a streak of lilypads under the sky's attention. The skin of Sakura's face prickled in the sudden wash of natural warmth, relishing in the comfort and tightness of June sunshine.
A bell tower chimed with the strike of the hour, filling the air with echoing chords. She'd missed the structure somehow in her observation of the town, and although it was the tallest building in the premises, its dark brick blurred almost comically into the treeline along the western horizon. An external staircase wound around its base, spiraling, cracked grey stone attached to the equally marred walls of the structure it clung to, mirrored by a foliage of winding vines with blooming peach flowers.
Her eyes followed the curve of the stairs, admiring the shadows and the angles and way it seemed to be unashamed of its age, this hulking body looming over an otherwise average village. Its cracks held character, its chipping torso filled square by square with complacent charm. Even the face of the meager bell that swung there, tarnished under many summer sun's stare, twirled proudly in it deterioration.
And even that single gargoyle perched alone on its inner frame, as if to watch the world develop beneath the structure it guarded. Wondering as its expression, attempting to recall some of the architectural history Sai had taught her, Sakura raised a hand to block the glaring sun, which currently obscured the details of the statue and left it as only a darkened silhouette. Mid-pondering of its origin, waiting for her eyes to adjust, the serenity that had settled about her shoulders turned to stone and dread, and suddenly it became very difficult for Sakura to breathe.
The gargoyle was not a gargoyle at all, but a man.
The gargoyle was Sasuke dropped into a predatory crouch, black hair sharpening the murderous intent spread across his face, staring very pointedly at Sakura.
Okay seriously, this thing WOULD NOT END. I was working on it for like five fours today and the end seemed like a distant planet
As implied by the cliffhanger, the next chapter will be pretty much entirely Sasuke and Sakura interacting, since I've deprived you of that for like two chapters now. I'm sure most people expected me to have Sasuke chase after Sakura but that is comically out of character. You can always count on me to lean on realistic choices that these two characters would make.
Please review! It only takes a minute to write something and make (or break) my whole day :) Next chapter should be out in a matter of days if all goes according to plan.