Shisui blew into the house with a whirlwind of leaves. It wasn't raining yet but it would be soon. The news said that a storm was heading their way but no tornado sightings as of yet.
Shisui and Itachi were going over a thick folder when she walked into her living room. He had brought over copies of the Puppeteer case, pictures, and reports. Itachi and Shisu weren't detectives but they were geniuses in their own right and were well respected by the family for their insight.
Itachi had been the one who had pointed out the subtle pattern in Akasuna no Dokuhebi's behavior that led to his capture by Madara and he had only been 12 years old at that time. Shisui may be a flirt and act the fool but he wasn't one.
Sakura passed through the living room to the kitchen for a glass of water. She took a glass down from her cabinet and filled it from the tap. She stood with her back to the counter looking out her sliding glass door window that led to the deck in the backyard. She took a deep breath and sighed. She was getting cabin fever, she needed to get out of the house. Maybe tomorrow. The wind was picking up again, today wouldn't be a good day to go outside.
Her finger tapped restlessly on her glass as she watched the tops of the trees sway back and forth in the wind. A flash of red, she stood up straight and stared at the spot she had seen the red, nothing happened. She cocked her head to the side and kept looking, a flash of amber. She dropped her glass of water and ran to the living room.
Itachi and Shisui met her halfway. They had heard the glass shatter and were running to check on her. "Red, amber eyes, Sa Sasori. I saw him outside in the trees" She pointed back to the kitchen.
Itachi ran out the back door and Shisui headed for the kitchen stepping over the glass on his way to the sliding glass door. He pulled his phone out and called Madara, looking out the window for any sign of the psychopath.
20 minutes later Madara, Itachi, and Shisui sat in her living room going over the folder and asking her questions about what she had seen. Itachi had gone out the back door but had come back empty handed, Shisui hadn't seen anything and after Madara arrived they went back into the house. Sakura retold them what she had seen but it didn't seem to help much. Again, there wasn't much to go on. At the end of the conversation, she thought she may have even imagined it.
Needing to think of something else, she excused herself and went upstairs to her studio to work on her painting. She rolled her brush along the canvas, sharp pointed hairs painted thin accenting lines across the desert sky, she dipped her brush into the tan and yellow, a dab of grey and her brush slid over the grained surface, she closed her eyes and visualized herself in the dessert. She imagined the heat and the wind cutting at her bare skin. The sun would be hot, the air dry, she tilted her head back and thought of how she would still see the light through her closed eyes if she were there. She saw herself walking up a dune, alone and parched. Her throat grew dry just at the thought, her fingers twitched, brush forgotten in her hand. She took a deep breath and came back to reality. Setting her brush down she walked out of the room.
Lost in thought she hadn't seen the amber eyes through her second story window watching her from the forest outside. She hadn't seen him taking pictures of her while she daydreamed, a subtle smile on his face, the impatient tapping of his foot on the branch. "Sakura." he looked down to the screen on his digital camera. "Soon." and he was gone.
"We can't just sit around here and wait for him to try to kidnap her again,"Shisui argued.
"We aren't," Madara said impatiently. "This is Sasori, he is just as brilliantly devious as his father, we can not run in guns blazing or take him lightly."
"You talk as though you respect him uncle," Itachi said without heat or sarcasm, it was more of an observation.
"His intelligence is worthy of my respect, his actions are not. I don't want anything to happen to Sakura just as much as you two, which is why we must be careful. Sasori is a methodical almost obsessive compulsive individual. He will not give up on her, his father was the same way, it is only a matter of time before he tries to take her again, we must be ready." Madara rose from his seat.
"I need to get going. Retirement was never so stressful. Call me if anything comes up. Itachi, I want you to stay with Sakura again tonight, I have arranged it with Fugaku, you will remain with her at all times now that the situation has changed. His last "Doll", disturbed us all. It seems it is personal, she is, after all, one of us." He left.
Itachi closed the door and locked it after Madara had gone. He left Shisui in the living room and went upstairs to check on Sakura and to let her know he would be staying with her until told otherwise.
He found her laying on her stomach on her bed when he walked into her room. "Sakura, I will be staying with you from now on, until my father says otherwise. I hope you are okay with that, I'm sorry. I know this isn't easy for you." He turned to leave when she didn't respond right away but her voice stopped him.
"I like you being here Itachi. Thank you." She turned her head to look at him as she spoke.
He nodded and walked out of her room back down the stairs. He liked being here too.
Sasori pinned his latest pictures of Sakura up on his wall. He was quite proud of his collection. He had managed to get several good pictures capturing her eyes filled with emotion. Some were sad, some happy, many were scared. He frowned, he didn't want her frightened of him. His favorite ones, were the ones of her deep in thought or dreaming, like the ones he had taken today. She was so beautiful, she was such an enigma to him, she intrigued him to no end. She was beautiful yes, you saw that right away but even her beauty was...different, something that was pure...her.
She wasn't beautiful, like most women, like most people saw beauty. It wasn't until you truly looked at her that you saw how beautiful she really was. The slight cock of her head while she tried to figure something out. The fire in her eyes when she got angry. The movement of her body when she laughed. The flush on her cheeks and the desire in her eyes when she spoke of something she was passionate about, her expressions and mannerisms, were just...Sakura.
He had been interested in her from their first conversation in their art class, but it wasn't until the night at the gallery he became consumed with want, desire and respect. Her knowledge and appreciation of his art warmed him, set his heart on fire, made him feel. The way she had admired his work, her awareness of the time and detail he put into it, that had won his respect. She was different.
The masses who had come to look at his art saw grotesque art, many had admired it but they did not truly see what he saw. Sakura did, and she wasn't repulsed. It had made him impulsive, something he never was, he had wanted to take her with him that night, he had broken character, it had shocked him.
Sasori respected so very few people. His disregard for humanity, basic emotions could be dated back to his childhood. He remembers sitting on the couch in his father's office reading while men and women got tortured mere feet away from him for whatever reason. There were many times he came home to find blood on the floor, walls and screaming coming from one room or another. It became, normal, and he never really minded it except for the screaming, it annoyed him.
Yes, the screaming annoyed him, but it was the begging that really angered him. Useless creatures, no bravery whatsoever, nothing to respect, worthless. Why beg? It won't make a difference, foolish, a wasted effort, and he hated them for it. When he had turned 6 his father decided to take a personal hand in his training to take over the company when he retired or if something happened to him. He trained him harshly, showing him the easiest and the most difficult way to kill people. If he failed he got beaten for it, severely. He taught him how to use fear as a weapon, how to placate and manipulate underlings. Sasori had no interest in manipulation, he thought it a waste of his time and it bored him. He did enjoy the fear, the raw emotions that it revealed.
Sasori's eyes focused on his most recent picture of Sakura bringing him back from his thoughts. He wondered what she had been thinking about as she gazed at the painting she had been creating. He had crept inside her studio and had seen it. He liked her subtle use of colors, the soft lines with the more obvious hard. He acknowledged her talent, her attention to detail. He wondered if she would like the desert, he hoped so. Everything was almost ready for her to join him there.
He took one last look at his picture wall of Sakura rubbing himself through his pants. He wanted her so much he could almost feel her. He closed his eyes and imagined her lips, so soft and willing, her hair floating around him as she lowered herself onto his waiting cock. He ran his hands through his hair opening his eyes in obvious frustration.
Where had he put his doll? Oh yes, she was downstairs. He stuck one more pin into a picture and stuck it onto the perpendicular wall. Itachi's face, Shisui's, Madara's, Fugaku's, Mikoto's, Obito's, Sasuke's, and Naruto's faces covered the wall.
He would kill them all and anyone else that stood in his way, but now, he wanted to play with his doll. He hummed to himself as he slowly walked down the stairs to the lower part of his studio, he had dyed her hair pink this morning, his last doll.
"Soon." He said to himself as he opened the door and saw the pink haired girl on the bed. He started unbuttoning his pants as he walked toward her, "Sakura, open your mouth doll."
The storm was moving in. They had light rain off and on all day but as night fell the wind had picked up and the rain fell harder on the roof and battered against the windows. Sakura didn't like storms, they reminded her of the night her parents died. It had been storming then much like it was now. She curled her legs up around her on the couch by the window watching Shisui and Itachi pore over a huge map laid out on her coffee table. They had been at it for hours only taking a small break for lunch.
Itachi got up and stretched his arms up over his head, his shirt lifted up showing a small amount of skin. Sakura was watching this display when she heard Shisui snicker. She looked over at him and he was grinning at her, when did he ever not grin. He winked at her and she blushed. Itachi gave him an odd look then looked at her and she blushed deeper. He smiled and sat back down on the couch.
"Weeeeell, " Shiisui got up and grabbed his coat off the back of a chair." I need to get going, you two have fun, see you later, call me if you need anything."
He winked at Itachi and patted Sakura on the head as he left. Sakura rolled her eyes and looked at Itachi who was looking at her.
"Dinner?" Itachi asked her.
"What should we get?" She smiled.
"I'll cook for you." He went into the kitchen and she followed him curious as to what he might make. There wasn't much in the fridge. He looked in her pantry and sighed, not much there either. She giggled from behind him.
"I don't really cook much so I don't keep a ton of food on hand." She smiled at him, he should know that by now.
"Let's go then." He took her hand and led her to the garage, grabbing his keys from the tray on the kitchen counter.
"Go where?" She asked putting on her shoes in the mudroom connected to the garage.
"To get groceries, if I am going to be here with you for awhile I am not going to live off of instant ramen and frozen TV dinners." He shook his head at her as if exasperated, which he wasn't, he knew her.
"Can we get some ice cream too, I am out of ice cream." She tugged at his arm to stand up.
"You're like a little kid you know that?" He was smiling at her teasingly.
She stuck her tongue out at him.
Itachi laughed and opened the door to his truck for her and closed it after she got in. He took out his phone and texted his father they were going to get groceries and the house would be empty temporarily. It was a system they had agreed on when Sakura had moved back to Konoha. Itachi backed out of the garage, closed it and they were off to the grocery store down the street. As they drove around the corner turning onto the main road a redheaded figure slipped through Sakura's back door and into her house.
40 minutes later the garage door opened and Itachi and Sakura get out of the truck and carry their groceries into the house. Sakura and Itachi put some of the groceries away but left the ones they would use for their meal out. Itachi's phone dings, he had a text, "Shisui will be joining us for dinner Sakura."
"That's great." Sakura smiles as she rearranges a few things in the fridge. "I hope he likes the red bean buns and miso soup you're going to make us."
"You know he eats anything, he is a walking appetite," Itachi said and shook his head.
Shisui arrives just as the buns are ready to be taken out of the steamer. "Perfect timing." Sakura says as she holds a plate for Itachi who is placing bun after bun on it.
"Did you make those?" Shisui asks Sakura
She laughs, "Uh no, are you kidding me, I can't cook, remember the cookies?"
Yes, yes he did. Both Shisui and Itachi cringe. "They were so hard you could use them to shingle a roof!" Shisui said laughing at her.
She hit him lightly on the arm and he pretended to fall over, crumpled to the ground and lay spread eagle at her feet, all with that stupid grin on his face.
Itachi stepped over his prone form as if nothing had happened with a large bowl of family rice. "Let's eat. Shisui get up, you look like an idiot."
Shisui saluted Itachi from the floor and leaped to his feet.
Sakura cleared the table after dinner and set the dishes in the washer. Itachi and Shisui pulled the ever present folder on Sasori out and were going over all the murders and information that had been gathered on them so far, the history of the Akasuna family and Sasori's father. Sakura dried her hands and waved to them as she went upstairs to her studio. She felt the breeze from the open window before she walked into the room. Her steps slowed as she stood in the doorway of her studio and saw it.
On an easel, by her own, was another painting. Like hers it was of the desert, unlike hers, it was a close up of the oasis with the desert in the background. There was a girl with pink hair sitting by the pool of water in a flowing dress of white, long hair tucked off to the side of her neck and layered like hers, she sat reading, under the shade of a huge palm fern. It was her, it was Sakura reading under the great palm fern, but that was not what drew her eye as disturbing as it was, no, what drew her eyes were the painted corpses of the women he had killed dressed as dolls, their blood staining the sand red. Signed at the bottom, Akasuna no Sasori, a note addressed to her as Akasuna no Sakura rested against the painting on the easel.
She couldn't breathe, she couldn't speak, she just stood there staring and then, she fainted. Sasori stepped out of her closet, bent down, picked up a lock of her hair and cut it off, tucking it into his pocket he stomped on the floor twice with his foot, climbed out of her window and was gone before Shisui and Itachi ran into the room to find the painting and Sakura unconscious lying on the floor.