Sakura could feel Lord Agrarrok's eyes on her as she refilled his tankard with ale.

He was younger than she had anticipated, a man in his forties at most, with dark hair dusted grey in places. His chest was broad, and even though he was seated, she could tell he was tall. Dressed in tight breeches and knee-high black boots, she could see the defined muscles of his legs. For a split second, her eyes shifted to the sword against his hip.

An able swordsman. Right-handed. Steady on his feet.

She tried to take note of every detail without drawing attention to herself, looking at him through the curtain of pink hair that fell in front of half of her face as she leaned over to fill his flagon.

He raised his hand without saying a word and she immediately pulled back, holding her jug close to her chest. Sakura could feel Lady Avarre's nervousness even as she stood father away and out of earshot, her hands clasped in front of her in an attempt to keep herself from fidgeting.

He sipped at his ale, as if tasting it to see if it was worth his while. The establishment around them was silent, the patrons waiting with bated breath to see what their reigning lord was going to do. Chances were, they had been through this numerous times before, and Sakura had no doubt that not all of Lord Agrarrok's visits had ended pleasantly.

After what seemed like an hour, he raised his tankard in the air and plastered what could almost be mistaken for a smile on his face. "May this fine establishment prosper, and long may our generous King live! Drink, my brothers!"

The room as a whole seemed to release a collective sigh of relief and the atmosphere immediately lightened as the people started conversing among themselves once more, asking for more drink. Their voices got increasingly louder and a semblance of normality settled around them.

Sakura kept her head low, scanning the room through the curtain of her hair. Lord Agrarrok's Blacklegs scattered around, and there were at least two of them in every corner of the room. They dominated the space, forcing the other customers to bend to their will just by looking at them. Crowds parted for them to pass, other patrons abandoned their tables for their sake. The girls on waiting duty rushed to fill their flagons with ale and entertain them.

For just a second, Sakura's eyes shifted to where Arthur and Rubio were seated, her stomach tight. There were at least ten Blacklegs within the building, not counting Lord Agrarrok, and chances were, there were more of them guarding every possible exit outside. With their reigning lord within the establishment, they were, without a doubt, keeping close track of who came and went.

For the love of every God out there, Arthur. Don't do anything stupid.

"Tell me, girl," Lord Agrarrok's voice made her shift her attention to him, and she forced herself to push her worry for Arthur and Rubio's wellbeing out of her mind.

"Whatever ye wish, M'Lord," she said, her fake accent thick as it rolled off her tongue.

"Where is your family, girl? Your parents and your brothers?"

Sakura shook her head, clutching the jug tightly and keeping her eyes low as she expertly played her part. "Me maither died when I was a wee girl and me faither died a few months ago. I daenae have any brothers or sisters."

"Is that so?" Lord Agrarrok's gloved hand reached for a lock of her hair. Sakura made a show flinching, though she wished she could twist his arm out of its socket as the man leaned forward, bringing the rosy lock to his nose and inhaling deeply. He let her hair fall from his grasp and then his fingers skimmed over her cheek.

He gently took hold of her chin, his piercing gray eyes taking in every single one of her features as he shifted her face from one side to the other. "A rare flower like you, alone in this unforgiving world with no one to protect you from the evils lurking around every corner." His eyes pierced into her. "Aren't you afraid, girl?"

"Aye, I'm very afraid, M'Lord. 'Tis why I left me town and made me way here, M'Lord. To find work and put a roof above me head."

"How very…unfortunate that you would choose an establishment as lowly as this."

And yet, you seem to be enjoying this lowly establishment just fine, you detestable lapdog. Sakura gulped, as if nervous. "I know little else, M'Lord. No one would employee me even as a maid without experience. I had to find a way to support meself, M'Lord."

He pinned her with his gaze, and Sakura nearly shivered. There was something unsettling about his eyes, as if he knew something she didn't. Stop it, she chastised herself. Keep your wits about you, damn it. It was hard, considering how close Arthur and the others were to the same people that were out for their blood, but she forced herself to maintain her mask of frail and helpless femininity.

"How very brave of you…" he said, his tone almost mocking, as his fingers traveled from her chin to the strings keeping her bodice together. "So young, so alone…So easy to break." He played with dangling chords of gold, his fingertips just barely ghosting over the skin of her cleavage. She resisted the urge to twist his arm behind his back and listen as the bones cracked.

"'Tis the way to survive, M'Lord."

As if broken out of a daze by her voice, he pulled his hand back and picked up his flagon, taking hearty gulps from his ale.

"What is your name, girl?"

"Me faither named me Nineve, M'Lord."

He hummed into his drink. "It suits you. Exotic, just like you."

"Thank ye, M'Lord."

He smirked at her over his flagon, and the smirk was all kinds of feral and insidious. "I've always taken pleasure in the finer things of this world."

Sakura bowed her head, choosing to remain silent. She had a lot she wanted to say on the matter and what exactly he could do with his "finer pleasures" but she was supposed to be a poor orphan.

And to men like him, poor orphans are good for little else other than catering to their whims…

She put on a show of looking away shyly, clutching the jug of ale in her hands tighter, as if scared. If there was one thing she knew about pompous pricks like Lord Agrarrok, it was that they thrived on fear, particularly fear inspired by their presence. The shinobi world, as forward-thinking as it used to be especially when compared to places like this, was still rife with arrogant, self-entitled bastards. Gods knew Sakura had met her fair share of them.

Met one of them, met all of them… She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"Jofir, gather the men. We're leaving. I've had my fun for tonight." For a few seconds, Lord Agrarrok followed his guard with his eyes as the man moved about the room, rounding up the rest of the Blacklegs. Then, he shifted his eyes to her. "I'm afraid I must cut this pleasant meeting short. A man like me has to stay true to his duty bestowed upon his by our great King Vortigern."

I'm sure, you pretentious lapdog…Outwardly, she bowed her head. "Aye, M'Lord."

He took her hand in his and brought it to his lips, placing a kiss on her knuckles. "Fear not, my flower. I will return for you." He smiled, and had she not been a trained kunoichi, she would have shivered in uneasiness. There was nothing friendly about that smile, nothing to inspire comfort or warmth.

Not the way Arthur's smile does…

Lord Agrarrok stood, fastening his cloak, and with one last look in her direction, he pulled the hood over his head. His men trailed after him like trained dogs as he walked out of the building with an air of sickening confidence.

The moment every last one of the Blacklegs were out the door, the room seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief, and conversation picked up.

Sakura inhaled deeply in an attempt to calm her nerves. While the meeting with Lord Agrarrok had gone well and she had certainly managed to land herself in his good graces, it would be a lie to say that she wasn't unnerved. Though she'd never had a problem with using her womanly graces to gather intel or get close to a target, it wasn't something she particularly enjoyed doing.

"By the Gods, Nineve! Are you ok, my girl?" Lade Avarre rushed to her side and cupped her cheeks, searching her face for any sign of trauma.

Sakura smiled, her heart warmed by the older woman's genuine concern. "Do not fret, Lady Avarre. I'm alright, I promise." she reassured her, hoping to put the woman's mind at ease.

"Good, good. Oh, my girl! My sweet, sweet girl! This wasn't supposed to happen. I didn't want you anywhere near those scoundrels."

Sakura shook her head. "Don't speak like that, Lady Avarre. You never know who might be listening. It's alright, it wasn't your fault. I must earn my keep here."

"Oh, Nineve. You deserve better. All my girls deserve better than the fate that awaits them at the hand of those ungodly blackguards."

Sakura frowned, and after leaving her jug on a nearby table, she pulled the clearly distressed older woman with her to the back of the brothel, away from prying eyes.

"What do you mean, Lady Avarre? What fate?"

Lady Avarre stared at her for just a moment before her eyes filled with tears. She tried to put on a brave façade, the mask of the tough woman that she was so admired for, Sakura could tell, but the mask was slipping; slowly dissolving as Lady Avarre got lost in what Sakura was sure were painful memories.

"Oh, Nineve. Lord Agrarrok has taken an interest in other girls of mine before. Young girls, pretty girls. Orphans, girls disowned by their families, runaways."

Girls no one will look for…

The knot in Sakura's belly got tighter as realization dawned.

"Girls go missing when Lord Agrarrok takes an interest in them, Nineve. They disappear and we never see them again."

XxxOxOxOxxX

Sakura walked to her room long after all the customers had gone. It had taken them quite a bit to clean up the place even with half a dozen girls on cleaning duty, and she ached for a change of comfortable clothes and a warm bath.

She could vaguely hear voices coming from within some of the rooms she passed, but she had no intention of sticking around long enough to find one what was really going on behind those doors.

She reached her corridor and too one look towards the door she knew belonged to Arthur's room. Averting her eyes, she twisted the knob, her arm heavy, but the thought of the warm bed and the basin of clean water waiting for her on the other side was comforting.

She shut the door behind her and made a beeline for the jug of water on the bedside table, when suddenly the hairs at the back of her head stood on edge, her senses picking up the unmistakable static in the air that only another's presence could create.

And she'd recognize that particular presence anywhere.

Relaxing her stance, she pinched the bridge of her nose, well aware of the storm that was about to break out. Taking a deep breath, she crossed her arms across her chest and turned to look at her nighttime visitor.

"Didn't your mother teach you not to sneak into a lady's room?"

"I never knew my mother, remember?" Arthur observed her from his place against the wall. He was leaning on it, his arms shoved in the pockets of his riding breeches. He wasn't even looking at her, but she could almost feel his eyes boring into her.

Sakura winced inwardly. Good going, Saks. That didn't sound insensitive at all.

"You were raised by a number of women."

"In a brothel. Much like this one." He raised his eyes to meet hers. "With regulars entirely unsuitable to be around children. Much like that Lord Blackleg of yours."

There it is…Sakura sighed. "You know it's not like that, Arthur. I was just gathering information."

"That's not what it looked like from where I was standing."

Sakura's fingers tightened on her arm. "Well then, perhaps you should have picked a better seat."

"Perhaps I shouldn't have bothered in the first place."

"And yet here you are." Sakura was well aware that challenging him was not a good idea. Arthur was a proud man, an alpha as Ino would have said, and he felt the natural urge to protect those he cared about. But though she was certain that his frustration stemmed solely from a place of worry for her wellbeing, she was getting tired of having to justify every little thing she did. They didn't know what she had been through, what she'd had to do for the sake of her village.

Couldn't he see that everything she did, she did for him? For all of them?

Liar…a voice whispered somewhere deep within her mind. Hypocrite. You're doing it for yourself. Because you're afraid of the pain. Of what will happen to you if any of them gets hurt. If Arthur gets hurt.

"Did you gather your precious information then?"

Broken out of her thoughts, she rubbed her temples, hoping to alleviate her headache. "I didn't get much out of him. His posture told me a lot more than his tongue did. He's guarded, smart. Good with a sword."

Arthur chuckled humorlessly. "Won't you look at that, one would say you even admire the man."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Why are you here, Arthur?"

"Why, can't I check on my teammate? You came awfully close to the enemy, after all."

Sakura's temper flared, and she gritted her teeth. "What the hell would you have me do? Sit by and watch? Let the opportunity pass us by?"

"I would have you," he growled, and anger flashed deep in his eyes, "not taking unnecessary risks. I would have you safe, and not fraternizing with the enemy."

The silence that followed was deafening, the very epitome of the calm before the storm.

Sakura's hands fell to her sides, and her momentary shock shifted and morphed into a terrible kind of burning in the middle of her chest. "Is that what you think? That I was trying to get close to him because of some kind of twisted personal desire?"

He did not say anything, but his silence spoke volumes, and each second that passed was another dagger in Sakura's heart. He can't mean this…He's just angry and burdened by all we've been through. He can't…Say something, Arthur!

But he didn't.

She met his eyes, and he immediately averted his gaze. Still, he made no move to take his words back, to ask for forgiveness or justify himself. So, Sakura latched onto the one feeling that she could always count on to keep her sane whenever something broke inside her.

She let it rush through her veins like a torrent, unbridled and wild.

Anger.

"You fucking bastard!" She bared her teeth like an animal ready to clasp its jaws around the neck of its prey. "You ungrateful son of a bitch!" The floor cracked beneath her feet from the force of her raging chakra, but she paid it no mind as she allowed herself to be consumed by anger and disappointment. "I should have left that damn executioner take your head."

She regretted the words the moment they left her lips. Seeing Arthur freeze, eyes wide, drove the knife deeper into her chest, but her mind was clouded, overcome with emotion, and she couldn't bring herself to take anything back. Not after hearing him declare her, in essence, a turncloak. She had been a lot of things in her lifetime; scum, failure, murderer…She'd heard them all. But she'd never been called a traitor. Hearing Arthur, of all people, call her that abominable word hurt.

Arthur clenched his fists, and she could see the stiff lines around his mouth. He seemed pale, and Sakura had to wonder if it was the moonlight seeping through the window that gave him that ashen color or something else.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he turned his back to her and walked to the door without a word. He turned the knob and took a step but paused and looked at her over his shoulder. The yellow light from the candles of the corridor cast ugly shadows across his face. "Aye, perhaps you should have." He shut the door behind him, and the room was once more shrouded in shadows.

Sakura took a shaky breath, and a wave of unparalleled exhaustion washed over her. Her knees buckled, and she dropped her face into her hands. A choked sob slipped past her lips. She could feel the acute loss of Arthur's presence in her bones. She could feel the absence of his usual smile and his teasing and everything that made him Arthur. Her Arthur.

What have I done?

She wanted to scream her pain away, and claw at her face for being so stupid; for not having better control over her emotions, and for allowing herself to fall victim to her own anger. When had that ever served her right?

Arthur was not without fault, but was she really any better? No. She was worse.

I'm only ever good at pushing people away…I deserve this. I deserve to be alone. Nobody should have to put up with the likes of me.

That night every time she closed her eyes, she could only see Arthur walking away from her.

XxxOxOxOxxX

"Would you like to find honest work, girl?"

The question caught her slightly off guard as she poured Lord Agrarrok his ale. The day after her falling out with Arthur, she made it a point to avoid all of them, by waking up at the crack of dawn and throwing herself into her role as a working woman. She actively sought out chores to occupy herself with, so she'd have an excuse if Rubio or Percival came looking for her. Working was a fine distraction from her own thoughts, after all.

By the time the brothel's doors opened for the night, she'd helped clean the rooms, cook, had wiped down the tables and had spent a good few hours washing gowns and sheets with Sebivere and another girl named Isobeth.

The brother was busy, as it usually was, and that came as no surprise. Many of these poor souls had nowhere else to go. What did come as a surprise though was Lord Agrarrok's presence. According to Lady Avarre, he never returned a second time in a row.

When he requested her services specifically, it became pretty evident why exactly he was there.

"With better coin, away from this hellhole," he continued, breaking her out of her thoughts. He looked at the people in the room distastefully, and Sakura almost laughed at the irony of the situation. Keep your head straight, Saks. We're getting somewhere.

"I wish, M'Lord. But who would offer such work to someone like meself?"

Lord Agrarrok smirked. "You have quite a lass here, Lady Avarre." Even as he addressed the older woman, who stood just a few meters away, his gray eyes never strayed from her face.

"I do, My Lord. Nineve is a fine young woman." Lady Avarre's voice sounded strained, scared, and Sakura wished she could turn to the older woman to hug her and reassure her that everything was going to be alright.

Can I really make such a promise though?

"Then, I hope it won't cost your fine establishment much if I take her off your hands."

What-! Sakura widened her eyes, and she let the empty jug fall from her hands as Lady Avarre's audible gasp of horror reached her ears. The noise from the other patrons covered any noise it made as it rolled across the wooden floor. "M-M'Lord! I-I-"

He placed two fingers on her lips to silence her, and Sakura forced herself not to pull away in disgust.

"Silence, girl. You're coming with me." He clicked his fingers and one of the Blacklegs standing guard around him stepped forward. "Gebron, give her your cloak. It's cold outside and this frail gem shouldn't have to brave the temperatures all on her own."

What have you gotten yourself into, Saks?

Sakura kept her eyes low as the Blackleg dropped his heavy cloak on her shoulders. She pinned it in place, not allowing herself to glance around the room. She knew her eyes would immediately search for Arthur, even though she had no idea if he even was in the room. If he was, she didn't want to see his look of horror at the sight of her wearing a Blackleg's cloak and leaving the brothel with the same man who was out for their blood.

Well, he made it pretty clear last night what he thinks of me. She took a shaky breath, and for just a moment her mind flew from Arthur to something Lady Avarre had said. Girls go with him and never come back. Is that what Lord Agrarrok intended to do to her too? Make her disappear? Sakura wanted to snort in amusement. I'd like to see him try. But perhaps…Perhaps I can see if I can find anything about the girls too. Perhaps some of them are still alive.

She clenched her fist beneath the heavy cloak.

Do this for them. You owe it to Lady Avarre for all her kindness/ And you owe to Rubio and Percival and all the others. Know thy enemy, Sakura.

Lord Agrarrok stood, his impressive frame towering over her. He looked down at her and took hold of her chin once more. She allowed him to examine her, schooling her face into an expression of nervousness. He pulled the cloak's hood over her hair and linked her arm through his.

"We're leaving for the castle now."

The Blacklegs rose as soon as their lord did and they exited the room within a few seconds, clearing the way for their superior to pass undeterred.

As she was led away from the brothel, Sakura chanced a look over her shoulder just in time to see Arthur standing at the door and watching her leave with a terrified expression on his face.

TBC

I'M SORRY, PLEASE FORGIVE ME!

I know it's been a long while, but I promise I haven't abandoned this story and I do not intend to do so anytime soon!

The holidays, coupled with heavy workload and a wedding in the family kept me away from my fanfiction keyboard, but no worries! I'm back now! :D

Here's a long chapter with quite a bit of drama to hopefully make up for the long absence! I hope you enjoyed it!

I can't wait to hear your thoughts, so please drop me a review to tell me how you liked it!

Until next time!

Lots of love!