The last time Sasuke had been out shopping with a girl was years ago, when his mother had taken him to get a new outfit for Itachi's tenth birthday. He had only been five, but the experience would live on in his memory forever. Mikoto had dragged him all around the shopping district of Konoha, going in, trying things on, making HIM try things on, deciding, doubting, rethinking, planning future diets that would never happen- this was the side of a woman that the young Uchiha had never hoped to see again.
But much to his dismay, Sakura pulled them along to the nearest mall (which happened to be a good half an hour walk away from their apartment) and the chaos began. He and Naruto were dragged through six different department stores, three shoe stores, an old fashioned hat shop, and were now sitting in a musty vintage shop in the far south corner of the ground floor.
"Hey Teme, check me out!" Naruto called, and Sasuke lazily looked over to see his best friend wearing a large, floppy purple hat with a gigantic red feather sticking out the top. "Don't I look stunning? I'm gonna buy seven of these things- one for every day of the week!"
"Great, just what we need. Another shopaholic on this team." Sasuke muttered, then instantly regretted it when he saw the sad smile appear on the blonde's face.
"Aw c'mon Sasuke- you know I can't buy most things at home. Aren't I allowed to pretend once in a while?"
Sasuke wasn't exactly sure why Naruto was acting like this. Usually, the blonde would just yell some stupid retort back at him with a "Teme!" stuck to the end of it. But lately he had just given Sasuke a sad smile (or occasionally the kicked-puppy look, which made Sasuke feel worse. No one, no matter how strong, was immune to that look when it came from Naruto) and turned away.
"I think you should buy a matching set for Hinata." Sasuke sighed, changing his answer in an attempt to sound encouraging. The blonde recognized this attempt, (no matter how feeble) and smiled gratefully before turning back to the mirror and doing some stupid poses with the hat on. His mask was back up, and to an outsider, it would have never seemed as if anything was wrong.
A hand came upon Sasuke's shoulder, and he whirled around to see Sakura standing there.
"What do you think?" she asked. "Do you like it? I was thinking about this one for dinner on Friday."
Sasuke couldn't speak, as he was discreetly trying to fight a nosebleed. Sakura was wearing a strapless little black dress that stopped mid thigh, showing off her creamy legs, and a thin, dark green ribbon belt right underneath her bust. But no, that wasn't all. As she twirled around, Sasuke caught sight of a slit on the bottom right side of the dress that went all the way up to just under her panty line, leaving just enough space for him to imagine…
"It's fine." He said, and Sakura frowned.
"Are you alright, Sasuke-kun? You look sick." She put her hand on his forehead, her cool skin feeling amazing against his overheated flesh. "You feel a little warm. Are you getting a fever?" He didn't answer. "I only have one more outfit to try on, then we'll go home and I'll make you some tomato soup, okay?"
She took her hand off his forehead and walked back into the dressing room, hips unconsciously swaying slightly. His eyes followed them until the door swung shut, then shook his head.
'Bad thoughts Sasuke, bad thoughts…'
'Oooo, Sasuke, you hentai, you!'
'If you're me, then I have a question to ask you.'
'Shoot.'
'Why did all the heat I felt in my face suddenly revert to my stomach when she was fretting over me? It was… strange.'
'Sasuke, you silly boy. What other person in your life fretted over whether you were sick or not?'
'…Okaa-san…'
'Exactly. Only two women in a man's life are allowed to baby him like that- his mother and his girlfriend. You've already had one, and now I think you've found the other.'
'Who made that up?'
'Your heart did, Sasuke. Your heart did. And if this keeps up, then there's hope for you yet.'
"…-suke?" the stoic boy snapped back to reality when he realized that Sakura was talking to him.
"What?" he asked.
"I asked you what you thought of this for the Fall Harvest Festival next week."
For the second time that day, Sasuke was rendered speechless. But this time, it wasn't from an excessive amount of blood rushing to his face.
Sakura looked exquisite in the kimono she was wearing. It was a shining scarlet red, with golden dragons stitched all over it. The obi she wore was a shimmering gold, with a red dragon stitched on it to make it seem like the creature was winding around her waist. Sasuke couldn't help but feel jealous of it.
"Beautiful." he said under his breath without realizing it. Sakura heard this and blushed.
"Thanks. I think I'll keep it." She flashed him a dazzling smile before retreating to the dressing room to change back into her regular clothes. Sasuke smiled a little to himself as he watched her go.
'Maybe shopping isn't so bad after all…'
When Sakura was done, Sasuke offered to pay for the outfits. Sakura blushed and nodded her thanks, and Naruto sent him a sly grin, which he tried to ignore.
"So… you payin' for her already?"
"I'm just doing a friend a favor, dobe."
"Psh, a friend. Riiiiight. We're friends and you don't buy me stuff."
"All you ever want is ramen."
"That's all I'll ever need, teme! Well, besides Hinata-chan. And being the Hokage. And you guys, I guess. And…"
Sasuke tuned him out as the blonde lost track of the conversation and drawled on and on about what he liked about his life.
About halfway through their walk back to the apartment, Naruto collapsed from pure exhaustion.
"For Kami's sake, Dobe!" Sasuke groaned, picking up his best friend off the ground and lifted him up to carry him in a piggy-back. The blonde snored loudly, and Sakura stifled a giggle.
"Hey Sasuke?" She asked a few minutes later, a large smile on her face.
"Hn?"
"I've been thinking about what Ayame-san said, and… well, maybe we've been too easy to read."
"I know what you mean." He let out a small (somewhat creepy-looking, for lack of practice) smile for appearance sake. It wouldn't do for an enemy to see them walking down the street in deep discussion- even a normal person would know something was up. "I guess having normal people around is stranger for them than we suspected."
"I don't know if I'd call us normal." Sakura giggled. "But I agree. What do we do if they figure out we're not just regular teenagers?"
"What are they gonna do- try to kill us?" Sasuke rolled his eyes. "The head of their family hired us. They don't have a say in it."
"From how they talk about it, I don't think they have much of a say in anything." The medic observed. "I think we should look more into this Akito- something tells me that there's more to the Sohma's story than we've been told."
Sasuke let out a real smirk.
"What did you have in mind?"
XXXXX
And that is how Sasuke and Sakura ended up sneaking into the Sohma family main house in the middle of a cool October night. The two traveled like the wind, dressed in their ANBU uniforms, making sure they were not seen or heard.
'I'll wait by this window- I'm pretty sure it's Akito-san's.' Sakura communicated through the ANBU sign language. Sasuke nodded.
'I'll work my way around the house, and see if there's anything I can find.' The blunette then disappeared into the trees. Sakura sighed inaudibly and positioned herself on the roof above the window- near enough that she could hear everything that occurred in the room below her, but far enough that she could slip out of view if someone got suspicious and stuck their head out the window- and settled down to wait.
She could feel the chakra of someone in the room- Akito, she presumed, was still awake. But again- she felt something familiar, something she couldn't quite put her finger on...
Her attention was diverted when she heard the screen door to the room slide open.
"Akito." It was a man's voice- one she hadn't heard before.
"Kureno, where have you been?" The tone was angry, but Sakura notice that the head's voice was maybe an octave higher than it had been during their previous visit.
"I went to get that pain medication from Hatori."
"I don't need medication."
"Hatori is your doctor, and he says you need it."
"I don't care!" There was shuffling, and Akito's head appeared at the window.
"He just wants to make sure that you're healthy."
"Why should he care?" The head laughed somewhat insanely. "He's not my father."
There was an awkward silence for a few moments before something hit the ground (the bag, most likely) and the door slid open again.
"I'll be next door if you need me." Kureno said and the door closed. Akito ignored it and reached a pale, elegant hand out into the night.
Sakura stared at the hand, eyes wide behind her mask. The answer was on the tip of her tongue-
Suddenly, Akito sighed a long, deep, drawn-out, melancholy sigh.
And the light went on in Sakura's head.
XXXXX
Meanwhile, Sasuke was slinking through the dark outer hallways of the main house, looking for anything suspicious. He was debating whether or not to actually enter the building when footsteps alerted him to someone else's presence. Whispering a jutsu, he scaled the wall and hung from the ceiling.
The person walking beneath him was a female- it didn't take the sharingan to tell, because she was stunning. She was tall, with long dark hair and an incredibly shaped body that was hidden under dark clothes.
'Well that's a new face.' He thought to himself as the girl walked by without noticing anything out of the ordinary and turned the corner. 'But what is she doing out this late at night?' He was about to let himself down when a nearby door opened and a familiar white-and-black head peeked out.
"Rin?" Haru's voice sounded different- there was almost a desperate tone to it. When he realized the hallway was empty, he sighed a little and retreated back into the room.
'So that's the connection.' Sasuke silently nodded to himself and dropped to the floor again.
Suddenly, the door next to him shot open, and Sasuke quickly smashed himself behind a small pillar that barely covered his figure. From what glances he had seen of her, the person who opened the door was a beautiful older woman with long dark hair and an expression of twisted contentment.
"I know you're out there." She spoke quietly, but Sasuke didn't dare move. "I know why you've come here. But you'll never take me alive- not as long as that thing is still around! I'll outlast it- I'LL SHOW YOU ALL!" She finished, cackling wildly.
"Ren-san!" Voices arose, and the house suddenly came alive. Lights flickered on in nearby bedrooms and doors slid open. When Sasuke turned to take a peak at the woman, she was being restrained by several servants who were trying to push her back into the room behind her.
'Time to go.' The last Uchiha thought as he scaled the pillar and ascended to the roof in hopes of finding Sakura and planning their next movements with this new information.
XXXXX
Meanwhile, in a motel a few miles away…
"Danna?"
"What?"
"You left your underwear on the bathroom floor again."
XXXXX
Hi everyone- sorry this chapter was so short, but I wanted to get through it so as to get to the next chapter, which will explain a few things. This is also the first appearance of everyone's favorite artistic bad guys. :D So it just occurred to me that we recently passed the two year mark for this story, which I started in 2007. I can't tell you how much of a loser I am because it's not even halfway done yet. I just wanted to tell you guys that I'm so sorry, and I'm gonna try really hard to update more than I do now. High school is hell- I'm sure most of you know that. I thank you guys so much for sticking with me through all this insanity.
The only other thing I wanted to ask is that you guys (if you have some free time) check out my other story, Imbroglio- it's a Naruto/Fullmetal Alchemist crossover focusing on Sakura and Ino (no, not like that.) Check it out and leave me a review to tell me what you think. :D
Anyway, to MissSasukeUchiha- I'd love to help you upload things, but you need to get a real account first.
Review, and Happy Thanksgiving to the Americans out there! :D
