Chapter FOURTEEN

As Sasori had suspected, Nagato was less than pleased with the wreckage. Deidara and Hidan received the chewing out of their lives but it was not as funny as it was supposed to be, because he just knew him and Sakura would be next. Well, mostly Sakura, probably, but he was by her side a lot these days, he was sure he would be next to her when it was her turn.

He was sure part of the reason the idiots were getting scolded first was so that his leaders could gather their thoughts. After all, Sakura's chakra was supposed to be unusable. The fact that she had access to it this entire time was a major security problem.

Deidara and Hidan exited Nagato's office arguing, and Sasor had a feeling the scolding hadn't done much in the long run. As the two passed by, Deidara took a moment to turn away from the fuming silverette. "They're calling you, un."

Sakura curled in on herself even more. Sasori patted her on the head and she stood up from where she had been crouched at his feet.

"Yo!" Hidan said. Sakura jumped and Sasori felt himself scowling. Hidan ignored him. "You pack a real punch, huh. Why don't we-"

Deidara cut off whatever had probably been an invite to a spar by grabbing the man by the back of his collar and dragging him off.

"Ignore him," Sasori said. He held up a hand and Sakura took it after a moment. "Let's go?"

Nagato and Yahiko were talking among themselves when he opened the door. Konan smiled kindly. "Thank you for coming in," she said. "Why don't you sit?"

The two of them did as told, and Nagato looked up. He looked tired, and Sasori felt bad for the man.

"So you could use chakra," Nagato said. It was not a question, simply a statement.

Sakura bit her lip. "Yes."

The man gestured to the collar around her neck and nodded at Sasori. "Take that off of her," he instructed.

The chakra of the Akatsuki members had been registered as keys to the collar. Sasori sent his chakra through the collar and it obediently fell off her neck.

"Do you know how it works?" Nagato asked Sakura.

Sakura took the collar when Sasori held it out to her. "It suppresses chakra," she said. "Well, simply put, I guess."

Nagato leaned in. "Go on."

"It feels like a layer over my body," Sakura explained. "Chakra follows the command of your mind, and I take this collar stops the command line from being able to communicate with the rest of the body?"

Konan nodded. "That's correct."

Sasori thought over this. Moulding chakra required thought and concentration and controlling it within required a large amount of awareness of one's own body. But Sakura was fast enough with it that she could channel chakra to her fists, or any part of her body, in a moments notice. "Your control is so precise, your chakra so in tune with your body, that you don't send chakra to places in your body, you can gather the chakra where you choose." Nagato frowned as he cut in, but Sasori kept his eyes on Sakura. "Because of that, the interruption doesn't matter."

Nagato turned questioningly towards the pinkette and Sakura nodded in confirmation.

"That means you had access to chakra all this time," Konan noted.

"...Yes."

Nagato sighed. "I should ask why you didn't report it, but that would be a stupid question and a waste of time. I can largely guess why."

Sakura ducked her head.

"It isn't your fault, really. It was a major miscalculation on our part, an error that could have been truly dangerous had this continued to be unknown. Granted, a chakra user of your level that meets the slightly specific requirements to bypass the suppression may be difficult to come across, but it is still a weakness we should have been aware of. Perhaps it can be said that we were lucky you were the one wearing it."

"Why didn't you try to escape using it?" Yahiko asked.

"Because I had no reason to," Sakura said easily. "Besides, I could not have fought all of you."

Yahiko nodded slowly. "Why did you reveal yourself after hiding it for so long?"

Sakura blinked and Sasori found himself meeting her gaze when she glanced over at him the same time he did the same. She didn't look away like she usually did and instead she smiled a little. "There was a slab of the ceiling falling on us," she said. "It was instinct. I have never actually seen Sasori use his abilities, though I have been told he is more than capable of wielding chakra. It...It was instinct."

She had been protecting him. And herself, obviously, but she had had him in mind. Something warm bubbled within him.

Nagato was eyeing the pinkette intently and to Sakura's credit, she did not flinch away from his gaze like she usually did. "I think we can probably trust her not to turn her chakra against us," he said.

"I won't," Sakura said firmly. "You promised to take down Orochimaru-sama and save my friends."

"We will have to discuss this more in detail, but for now feel free to go back to your room." Nagato shot Sasori a glance. "Or Sasori's room, for the matter."

Sasori felt a little peeved, not because he actually thought Sakura would turn on him (he hoped not), but because Nagato had seen fit to release Sakura back into his room. Did everyone know? What was with the interest anyways?

Sakura bowed, taking this as a dismissal, and Sasori guessed he was free to go too.

Sakura stopped as she opened the door. "I like it here," she said quietly. "I don't hurt here."

Then the pinkette was out the door, and Sasori looked over his shoulder, briefly, to gauge the reaction of his leaders, before he hurried after the girl. He caught up to her in the corridor and fell in step beside her. He had a feeling the girl was mulling over her words and decided to see what it was she wanted to say.

Just as his patience was wearing thin, Sakura seemed to have gathered her thoughts. "Am I in trouble?"

Sasori thought over this for a second. Nagato hadn't seemed angry, but if he were Nagato and he had scolded Deidara and Hidan as much as the man had, he'd honestly be too tired to stay angry at anyone else. Kakuzu would probably be extremely angry because of the financial strain of fixing the training room, but the target of his anger would probably be the numbers on the invoice.

"You don't have to worry," he told her.

They walked a little more in silence before this time he broke it. "Thank you," he said. "I didn't get a chance to say it yet."

Sakura tilted her head in his direction. "It's nothing," she said. "I have a feeling you could have dealt with it, but like I said I had no idea if you actually could."

"I could have," Sasori said. They arrived at his room and Sasori used chakra strings to open the door. "It would have been a little straining," he admitted. "It was quite a lot of debris."

"May I touch it?"

Sasori blinked. "What?"

Sakura raised her hands and wriggled her fingers. Sasori assumed she was talking about his chakra strings. "You can move objects with it, so it is solid?"

Sasori led the way into his room. He sent out chakra strings to straighten his bedsheets before he plopped down on his bed. Sakura sat down next to his without prompt. "Sure," he said. He carefully wrapped a chakra string around her wrist. "Not really solid, but I guess close enough."

Chakra was a part of one's body, and those who had good control over it could essentially feel through it. Sasori could feel the pressure of touching something through his chakra strings and he could feel Sakura's fingers brushing over the glowing blue light. No one had ever requested to touch his chakra strings before and it felt extremely strange. He changed the nature of his chakra a little and watched Sakura's expression shift as she felt the strings warm up a little, then become more compact beneath her touch.

Sakura had a look of wonder in her eyes. "This is amazing," she said. "How is this able to move things? How will you have used this to stop the debris?"

Sasori thought of Sakura's love of books and the time she spent in the archives. He thought of her interest in plants for their properties. If things had been different, he had a feeling she would have been a scientist or a researcher. Perhaps a doctor, even. He clapped his hands together and drew strings between his fingers, like a net. He gripped them and tugged so that they were taut. "A bigger version of this," he said.

Sakura's eyes were shining and Sasori decided he could get away with it. "I don't know if you remember what Deidara said, but unlike most chakra users who have mutation related ability typically unique to the user, I have no such limitations. Some might call it a weakness, but I strongly disagree. You don't see Deidara warming a cup of tea or opening doors with his bombs."

Sakura smiled a little.

"From what I can tell, your chakra seems to lack a distinctive nature as well. Perhaps you can manage chakra strings."

"Do you think so?" Sakura looked at her own hands.

"Yes." Sasori held up his own so that she could see, and slowly gathered chakra at his fingertips. The tips began glowing and he extended the strings. "Try."

He had no idea what he was doing.

Sakura frowned at her own hands and her fingers slowly curled as she strained them.

"Don't try to force it," Sasori said. He wriggled his fingers and the chakra strings danced with the movement. "So really, all you need to do is-"

He was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Danna." That was Deidara's voice.

"Oh look," he murmured. "Perfect time to test it out. Open the door for the idiot, will you?"

Sakura frowned, face scrunched up in concentration.

"Danna?" Deidara called.

"Wait a second," he called back, and thankfully his blond friend did not try to open the door.

"Gather the chakra at your fingertips," he instructed. "Honestly, anywhere will do, but it'll probably be easier to get the hang of that way. Chakra strings act as an extension of your body, so mould the chakra into shape and you push it out."

Sakura's frown deepened and he could see her fingertips beginning to shake. "Relax," he breathed. He instinctively reached out to over one of his hands with his own and a sudden tingle shot up his limb.

Sakura jerked like she had felt it too, but she then simply closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Okay." She raised her hand again, the one he was holding onto, and he could feel the buildup of her chakra beneath her skin. He could also feel his own chakra thrumming, as though in response to Sakura's. "That's it," he said encouragingly.

The tips of Sakura's fingers began to glow blue. She frowned.

"You said when you punch something, the chakra built up within your fist is transferred into the object as force," he said thoughtfully. "I don't know, but maybe imagine you're punching the door with a finger from across the room?"

Sakura sent him a strange look and Sasori winced at his own terrible example, but the pinkette did nothing more than smile a little. She narrowed her eyes and, in the next second, blue chakra shot out from her finger and attached itself to the door handle. Sakura stared at it, then seemed to give it a little tug.

"Nice," he said. "Maybe work on the speed though, because if you aren't careful you might end up breaking whatever you're attaching the string to."

Sakura nodded. She flicked her finger and the doorknob turned, revealing an irritated looking Deidara.

"Geez, what took you so-" Deidara froze as he looked over them. "What are you doing, un?"

Sakura thoughtfully eyed the blond, then flicked him on the forehead with her chakra string.

"Sakura-chan?!"

Sasori smiled in amusement. "What, Deidara?"

Deidara was staring at Sakura's chakra string, but he shook his head at his question. "We got a mission, Danna."

Sasori nodded briefly. "Will there be a briefing?"

Deidara shook his head. "It's just patrol," he told him. "You and me, we leave tomorrow morning and should be back by evening."

"Okay." He hesitated. "Anything about Sakura?"

"Nagato said she can stay in your room. Itachi will be keeping an eye on her."

Sasori decided that was fine. The blond left, the door closing softly behind him, and he glanced over at Sakura. "You heard him."

"I did," Sakura replied. "I guess I'll just go through the archives some more."

Sasori nodded. "Sounds good," he said. "Depending on where I'm going, I'll bring you back a souvenir."

Sakura brightened and she nodded. "Okay."

Update!

I, Darque, am in my spring break! Hurray! I've been drawing. And gaming. And writing. Life is fun. I haven't left my house in two weeks.

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