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Chapter 5: Magic?
Sasuke's POV
"I hate this place and I'm not even sure why."
Sakura was whispering as we walked through the streets of the Fuma Kingdom. I had an idea as to what Sakura meant. The atmosphere made me feel uneasy and the guards and civilians had been giving us odd looks.
Apparently, tourists weren't very welcomed.
When we reached an empty alley, we caught sight of Neji and Hinata who were heading towards us. Neji slipped a piece of paper into my hand and left immediately.
After confirming that there was nobody around, I opened the paper and read it with Sakura.
"It is dangerous to stay in this place for long. There are guards all over the place. We just arrived but they are already keeping their eyes on us. Shikamaru decided to have us meet up in front of the forest outside the border at 3 PM. In the meantime, all of us should try to find out what the gems are for. Continue keeping a low profile and be careful."
"Looks like we need to find the mining site and try to see what we can do."
I nodded at Sakura's suggestion and hid the paper into my pocket before starting to walk away. I glanced back at Sakura when I noticed that she wasn't following me.
"What's wrong?"
"Can we have lunch first?"
I didn't see a problem with that since it was still rather early. Going around with an empty stomach wasn't exactly ideal anyway.
We entered a decent looking restaurant and took our seats by the window. I allowed Sakura to order for me as I stared through the window. I noticed a group of men in light blue uniforms walking towards a hill at the west. Something told me that was the location of the mining site.
I took my eyes off the window when I heard the waitress coming back with the orders. I narrowed my eyes at the plate in front of me when I caught sight of the food I hated the most; carrots.
"I'll just leave them aside."
When I was done with my meal, I crossed my arms in front of my chest and began thinking of ways to sneak into the mining site. If we were to sneak in as workers, chances of us having to engage in fights would be at the minimum.
I was snapped out of my thoughts when Sakura suddenly spoke.
"Not finishing your food is a bad habit, Sasuke."
I stared at Sakura, who was glaring at me with arms crossed in front of her as well.
"I hate carrots." I wasn't usually the type to waste food but my hatred towards carrots ran deep into my veins.
Sakura continued glaring at me as she used her fork to bring a carrot to my face. My nose wrinkled in displeasure at the apparent smell of the much dreaded orange food.
"I'm not eating it." I emphasized each word to show how serious I was.
Sakura pulled back her arm and sighed softly under her breath. Her earlier glare vanished and was replaced by a pair of glassy eyes.
My eyebrows furrowed in confusion and I stared at the woman in front of me. What in the world was she planning to do?
"You're so mean, Sasuke. I'm trying to be a considerate girlfriend by watching out for your health. You don't have to be so fierce."
A tear was on the verge of falling as Sakura continued her little act. Her voice was slightly louder than necessary and I was sure she was trying to catch the attention of the people around us. I saw that the other customers inside the restaurants had their eyes on us as they whispered to their companions. Some of them were glaring at me as well.
"Great. I am now labeled as a mean boyfriend who makes his girlfriend cry in public."
The glares I was receiving made me feel frustrated and almost furious. I could just ignore them and walk away. But I know Sakura wasn't going to let me go that easily. She was definitely trying to drive me mad by making me the center of attention.
Her intelligence could be a curse for me.
I felt a nerve snapped inside my head when I caught a glimpse of Sakura's smirk. It soon disappeared and her little act was back in an instant. She reached out her fork to me again and looked at me with a pair of puppy eyes.
I swore I would find her adorable if she wasn't trying to feed me carrots.
I groaned in frustration before reluctantly opening my mouth to eat the carrot offered to me. When I chewed on the dreadful food inside my mouth, I felt an uncomfortable shiver running down my spine.
Sakura was smiling like a 'happy girlfriend' as she continued feeding me the rest of the carrots. It took every fragment of self control I had inside me to not puke due to the horrible taste inside my mouth.
"One day, I will make her pay for this."
Sakura's POV
"Sasuke, your eyes will be permanently damaged if you glare too much."
Sasuke and I were hiding behind a tree as we observed the entrance to the mining site. There weren't much activities going on, just some people going in and out once in a while.
And I just had to ask Sasuke to stop glaring at me because I couldn't suppress my laughter anymore. He looked so miserable when I fed him the carrots and I found it very amusing. He felt otherwise, of course.
"For the sake of the mission, I will let this go for now."
Sasuke said that before attacking a pair of workers who had just left the mining site and walked into the forest where we were at.
Sasuke easily knocked them unconscious and began taking off their uniforms.
"Are we going to sneak in as workers?" I asked and caught the uniform Sasuke threw at me.
"Hn. But there are security guards by the entrance so we need to sneak in from the back door."
I quickly changed into the uniform behind a tree and kept my clothes inside my bag. When Sasuke and I were ready, we head over to the opposite side of the main entrance. When we saw that nobody was around, we rushed through the back door without a second thought.
We were inside a stuffy and dark building, which appeared to be some sort of office. We calmly walked pass some people, who didn't seem to bother much about us. However, one of them did glanced back towards us and looked at me suspiciously.
"I think that person is suspecting us." I whispered to Sasuke in a slightly panicked tone. But I sighed in relief when I saw that man walking away without giving us another look.
"I think he just find your hair color weird."
I pinched Sasuke's arm and let go when he began wincing in pain. I had an urge to beat him into a pulp but the mission was more important.
We hid behind a wall when a door suddenly opened. We carefully took a peek and saw two men walking out from the room and looking rather pleased. Judging from what they were wearing, they weren't ordinary workers and were most probably supervisors or something.
We continued hiding when the two men began conversing in front of the closed door. We were rather far from them so we weren't able to hear them very clearly. But they were talking about some blueprints and even mentioned Orochimaru's name.
When we saw them walking away and there weren't anybody else around, the two of us approached the room the two men came out from. Sasuke cursed under his breath when he found out that the room was locked.
I took out a pin from my pocket and asked Sasuke to move aside. I once learned how to pick locks but never exactly did it during a mission. But giving it a try was better than kicking the door open and causing a commotion.
I smiled victoriously when I heard a click and I managed to open the door. I gave a smug smile to Sasuke before walking into the room. The room was dusty and the only source of light came from the small window near the ceiling. Sasuke and I began rummaging through the documents scattered around but tried not to make it obvious that someone had broken into the room.
"I think I found the blueprints they were talking about."
I walked over to Sasuke who was analyzing the contents of the scroll he found on the desk. When we confirmed that it was indeed a blueprint involving the use of the gems, Sasuke kept it inside his bag. We left the room and I locked it behind me.
"We'll look through the scroll later. For now, we need to get out of here."
Sasuke nodded in agreement and we carefully headed back to the door we entered from. When we reached the door, we heard a commotion at the direction where we came from. From the words we heard, we knew that the people inside the building had found out that the blueprint was stolen.
We ran off before we had to engage in any fights.
Sasuke's POV
There was still an hour before the meeting time but Sakura and I decided to head over there first. We changed back into our own clothes back in the forest before walking towards the meeting point.
We had gotten something of high importance and it was safer for us to leave the Fuma Kingdom immediately. We couldn't risk being found out by the guards or by anyone from the mining site.
When we reached the place where we were supposed to meet with the others, Sakura tied her horse securely onto one of the trees before slumping onto the grass. She let out a sigh as she leaned against the tree behind her. Now that we were quite far from the Fuma Kingdom, we were allowed to put our guards down a little.
I tied my horse onto a tree before joining Sakura on the grass. I felt the tension slowly leaving my body as I breathed in fresh air. The soft breeze touching my skin helped me from being drowned in exhaustion.
"Since there's nothing else to do, might as well open the scroll and analyze it."
I nodded at Sakura's words and reached for the scroll inside my bag. I laid it onto the grass in front of us and opened it. The more I read from the scroll, the more questions began arising inside my mind.
"What in the world?" Sakura voiced out her disbelief. "These gems contain magic and will be used to power a machine which will open a portal. Does magic really exists? And what sort of portal is this?"
I really wished I knew the answers to Sakura's question but I was as clueless as her. If magic really did existed, why didn't we know anything about it?
When there was no more information we could obtain from the scroll, I placed it back into my bag. Sakura went back to leaning against the tree with her arms crossed in front of her. She appeared to be wrecking her head for answers but I knew it was futile.
"There's nothing else we know so let's just wait for the others."
It was true that there wasn't much we could do so it was better for us to use the time to rest. Once everyone was gathered, we would be on the road again.
Sakura groaned in frustration before starting a rant.
"Whoever this Orochimaru is, he sure is causing a whole lot of trouble. I will be more than willing to beat the crap out of that guy. Maybe I should punch him in the gut and throw him hard against a metal wall."
I smirked at how fierce Sakura sounded. If a person was to see her when she wasn't pissed off, they wouldn't expect someone of such grace to actually have a rather violent side.
"Are you mocking me, Uchiha?!"
I made a mental note to myself to not get too distracted around Sakura. I didn't even notice that she was sitting in front of me with a ferocious glare on her face.
"I am not." I answered with a straight face, not wanting to get on her bad side. She wasn't in a very good mood to be teased.
"I saw you smirking at my words! Don't lie to me."
I rolled my eyes at Sakura and looked away. It was impossible to put sense into her mind so I decided to just ignore her.
But of course, she didn't want to be ignored.
She began punching my arms and it didn't take long before I could no longer ignore her. I grabbed onto her hands to stop her from hitting me. But when Sakura tried to pull her hands away from my grip, she exerted too much force and ended up losing her balance.
In reflex, she pulled onto my shirt as her back fell onto the grass. I managed to stop myself from crushing onto Sakura by putting my hands on either side of her face. She was still holding onto my shirt as she winced in pain.
I grunted in annoyance and was about to help her up when some of our teammates came back.
It was perfect timing indeed.
"It's still rather early for such activities, don't you think?"
I snapped my head towards the person who spoke and it was no other than Shikamaru. He was smirking at me and seemed to be very amused.
Before I could say anything, Sakura had pushed me away roughly and continued giving me deadly glares.
"Sakura, did Sasuke-teme tried to take advantage of you?!"
I felt like beating Naruto up for that messed up conclusion he came up with. Why did he assume that I was the bad guy?
"Shut up, dope. She was the one who pulled me down."
I stood up from the grass and brushed away the dirt on my pants. I glanced over to my side and saw a slight tint of redness on Sakura's cheeks.
"It's your fault!" Her earlier fierceness was replaced by embarrassment. I decided to drop the topic for now since we had issues that had to be discussed immediately.
Behind me, I heard Ino approaching Sakura while giggling. Her words made the pink haired woman flushed in an instant.
"I'm not surprised that you're the aggressive type, Sakura."
"Shut up, pig!"
I pretended that I didn't hear their little talk and walked towards Shikamaru. The others were beginning to arrive as well as I handed the scroll over to our leader. It was only Shino who had yet to appear.
Everyone was as surprised as Sakura and I when they saw the contents of the scroll. Just as I had expected, none of us were aware of the existence of magic.
"Is this for real?" Naruto was looking at the scroll as if it was the world's most absurd object.
Just then, Shino arrived and brought us a little gift.
"I managed to sneak into the mining site and stole a gem."
Shikamaru got the red gem from Shino and began inspecting it. Just like what Kiba had mentioned, it emitted a very unusual glow.
Shikamaru placed the gem into his bag and continued the discussion.
"Now that we stole a scroll and a gem from them, I'm sure they're beginning an investigation to see who the intruders are. I don't know whether they will track us or not but we need to increase our pace to stay safe."
"How much longer will it take before we reach the Konoha Kingdom?" Neji asked.
Shikamaru took out the map and look through it before answering.
"If we pass by the Hagoromo Kingdom and stay there for the night, we will most probably be able to reach the Konoha Kingdom by tomorrow afternoon. Fortunately, the Hagoromo Kingdom is an ally. We can relax for the time being. Let's get going before anyone from the Fuma Kingdom come to look for us. The Hagoromo Kingdom is about three hours from here. We can reach there just in time for dinner."
And with that, we began riding towards our next destination.
Sakura's POV
We managed to reach the Hagoromo Kingdom safetly and just like what Shikamaru said, just in time for dinner.
After having our meal in a family restaurant, we headed towards an inn to rest for the night. The Konoha Kingdom was at least six hours away from the Hagoromo Kingdom so we planned to leave by 6 AM.
Some of the civilians recognized us and we were greeted warmly. We bowed back politely and engaged in several small talks. And just like how we were instructed, we told them that we were sent to travel and see the world outside our own countries. It was a relief that none of them suspected anything.
Once we arrived at the inn, I went to take a shower. It had been a long day and I was in dire need of a warm bath. I was going to share a room with Ino for the night and I was glad that I didn't have to be with Sasuke.
My ears would still burn in embarrassment whenever I thought of what I did while I was asleep. I told myself to stay composed and to not be too bothered by this though. We were still not sure when this mission would end and there was a high chance that we would be entering enemy territories again.
The next time I had to share a bed with him again, I would try to behave. But how was I supposed to control myself while I was asleep?
When the warm water wasn't helping me wash away my thoughts, I got out from the bathroom and decided to go back to my room to rest.
The inn only had shared bathrooms so I had to pass through several hallways before reaching my room. I spotted someone familiar when I passed by a garden.
It was Sasuke sitting on the bench outside.
Curious as to what he was up to, I went to take a seat beside him.
He glanced over to me and gave me a questioning look.
"What do you want?"
I growled under my breath as I glared at him.
"I just want to see if there's anything bothering you. So much for being concerned!"
That was one of my reasons. And the other reason would be curiosity. After spending time with him, I had concluded that he was someone who was difficult to read. He didn't have many expressions shown on his face so most of the time, I couldn't guess what he had in mind.
And that made me even more curious as to what he was thinking of.
"I never expected there would be a day when you'll be concerned about me."
Sasuke smirked as he spoke and I hated myself for finding him absolutely good-looking. The moonlight shone onto his raven hair and handsome features, making him look as if he was giving off a soft glow. His mysterious dark eyes made him even more gorgeous.
Seriously, how was it possible for such an annoyance to be so attractive?
I stood up from my seat and walked away before he could see the blush slowly creeping onto my face. A shiver ran through my body when I felt his hand grabbing onto my wrist. I snapped my face towards him but quickly looked away when I felt my face burning up.
"I hope you won't be missing me in your sleep tonight, Sakura."
I violently pulled my hand away from his grip and dashed off towards my room without looking back even once.
My face was burning red due to embarrassment and my whole body was heating up. But the weird thumping of my heart proved that I was feeling something more than just pure embarrassment.
But whatever it was, I had yet to understand it.
And I blamed Sasuke Uchiha for triggering whatever was surfacing inside me.
Author's Note: As usual, please leave a review on your way out! Your opinions are very valuable to me. Suggestions are welcomed as well. Of course, follows and favorites are highly appreciated! Thank you for reading and I hope to see you in the next chapter!
