Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto! Only the parts that I'm adapting into the original story line.
Fated Encounter
CHAPTER 15
It was early in the morning when Sasuke was sitting on the edge of his bed. Sakura was still sound asleep on the bed with no signs of waking up any time soon. Her breathing was calm and steady as her body was turned towards him. It was natural reaction for her while they slept. She often craved to be near him and even unconsciously sought his scent out.
The past few weeks were calm in the hideout with nothing interesting occurring. Except a mission that Orochimaru had decided to embark Kabuto on. One of his followers, a woman with unusual technique had arrived and instead of using Sasuke, Orochimaru used Kabuto. For a while, Sasuke was baffled only in his own mind with this, but eventually everything had cleared out.
There wasn't need for Sasuke to join a team that was supposed to show if the kunoichi could replace him. Orochimaru never said it to his face personally that he might not want to have him as his next vessel, but the confrontation with the kunoichi told him the truth. It was obvious since the moment that woman passed by him in the hallways that she disapproved of him.
She demanded that Sasuke wasn't worthy of being the next body for Orochimaru. Sasuke could have laughed at her. Did she think that he could care less about being the next vessel of the Snake Sannin? Sasuke mostly ignored her demands and left her alone.
After a week, Kabuto returned and as Sasuke was passing by Orochimaru's room with Sakura, the two men were talking about a failed mission. Sakura had glanced at him in confusion, since she wasn't present with the ordeal over a week ago. She had read through all the poison books in the hideout and done nothing more. Mostly she stayed either in one of the labs or in their room.
Sasuke only shook his head in dismissal at the questioning stare.
It wasn't anything important.
But since that day weeks ago, the kunoichi had not returned, and Kabuto seemed to be much happier for some odd reason. Putting two and two together Sasuke came to conclusion that she had either died or left Orochimaru's side.
A soft knock resonated through the door after a while and Sasuke got up.
Kabuto was waiting behind the door with an impatient look on his face.
"Orochimaru-sama wants to see you, right now." He said urgently before turning around and storming off down the hall. He didn't wait an answer from Sasuke as he disappeared to another hallway.
Kabuto seemed to be much more on the edge than usually. Sasuke knew that it had to be about Orochimaru's health. His health was slowly going down and more often, than not, he stayed inside the hideout.
For the past two weeks, they haven't trained at all. Not after the training session where Sasuke had to take care of a huge group of shinobi attacking him all at once. After that was the mission he wasn't asked to embark on.
Walking back into the room, Sasuke leaned over the bed and shook Sakura's shoulder.
She didn't wake up immediately and instead snuggled more into the pillow.
"Sakura." Sasuke said and shook her a little more.
"What?" She finally mumbled with a tired tone. '
"I'll be back soon."
His words seemed to snap her from her sleep as her eyes flew right open.
"What?" This time she asked much more loudly. "Where are you going?"
"Orochimaru wants to see me." Sasuke explained and started walking towards the door.
Sakura had already pulled the blanket tighter around herself as she said to him, "Come back soon."
Orochimaru's room was across the hideout since Sasuke didn't feel safe enough to have Sakura too close to the Snake Sannin. He much rather had her as far away from the man as possible. Sakura, too, seemed to like that idea better than anything else.
Both Kabuto and Orochimaru were waiting for him with Kabuto leaning to give his master a tea cup. Orochimaru's pale face was much paler than usually and his body somehow weaker. But with a grin as Sasuke entered the room, he tried to hide some of the weakness his body had succumbed into.
"Oh, Sasuke-kun, what a pleasant surprise." Orochimaru chuckled as he took a sip from the tea given to him.
"What is it?" Sasuke merely glared impatiently and was rewarded by another glare from Kabuto.
"Always straight to the point." Orochimaru mumbled to himself. "I need you to get me something. A person, to be precise."
"Who?"
"A man named ShinnÅ. He's a well-known medical-nin from the Land of the Sky and a past friend of mine. He has some knowledge that I need." The man explained with earnest.
"Where can I find him?"
Orochimaru's eyes turned to Kabuto, who replied, "He's been seen around the Land of Fire. The Land of the Sky have attacked Konoha and caused serious amount of damage everywhere. One of our spies spotted him and you need to collect him as soon as possible. He has a long white hair and an impressive size. Not very easy to miss."
Sasuke felt his annoyance rise even more. He couldn't care less to be around Konoha or the Land of Fire. It only meant that Naruto was around and a meeting with him was very likely to happen. Especially if someone attacked Konoha, then the Uzumaki boy was going to be in the front lines fighting.
"But I'm sure our Sasuke-kun is capable enough to find him." Orochimaru added with another grin. "You leave as soon as you can."
Sasuke didn't wait to be dismissed and left the room more annoyed than he was entering it.
If Orochimaru was looking for a medical-nin it only meant that he was getting even more desperate. Soon he would have to execute his plan of finally getting rid of the Snake Sannin. Maybe even after this mission, Sasuke could finally finalize his plans.
Orochimaru wasn't getting any better at this rate and now was the right time to act. The sooner he got rid of him, the better.
Sakura was nervous. She was constantly on the move and wasn't even capable of sitting down for more than twenty minutes. Sasuke had left on his mission two days ago, but not before having a small conversation with her.
Technically it wasn't a conversation. He merely told her that he would be gone for two or three days at max, and when he returned she needed to be ready to leave. And before he had closed the door to her tired form almost lying on the bed in a puddle of confusion, he told her to not let anyone know of her preparation.
If Kabuto tried to come into the room she needed to have her stuff so that no suspicion would rise. In other words, Sakura couldn't pack anything. All her clothes were still in the drawer and the book she was interested in still lying on the desk with her notes all over them.
Would she even have time to take her noted with her? Were they going to leave so soon that she would need to leave all her hard work behind?
She could always start from the beginning if they settled anywhere, but Orochimaru's library was full of scrolls and books that couldn't be found anywhere. And that is how she came up with an idea to collect a small book from the notes.
Scouting through the piles and making three pages worth of notes fit into half a page was her task for the past few days. Even though she was mentally exhausted, it didn't mean that her body was.
She was completely and utterly on the edge. Sleep was something that she used to enjoy especially when Sasuke laid next to her, but now she couldn't even sleep. There were no nightmares of needles coming her way or Kabuto's disgusting face looming over her and telling her that it was only going to hurt a little.
Her skin even seemed to be having a tantrum, because the clothes that she used were way more uncomfortable than they normally would be. Leaving Orochimaru and Kabuto behind was something Sakura has been waiting for a while now, but now that it was going to happen she felt nervous. It was ridiculous to be honest.
Sakura wanted nothing more than to destroy the Snake-like-man and burn his remains to ashes, but this had become her norm. And how long would it be until she found another normal for her? Would they be traveling constantly with Sasuke and would it only be the two of them?
Sasuke wanted to find Itachi, and that was his ultimate goal to achieve. Sakura would help him with that, but what was going to happen after that?
And since they were going to be on the move, it was going to be much easier for Konoha's spies to spot her. Maybe the Elders were going to send assassins after her.
Shaking her head and scratching her head, Sakura huffed in frustration.
Why was she constantly upsetting herself?
Thinking about these things wasn't going to help her at all.
They were only making her even more stressed out.
Too deep in thought, Sakura didn't even hear the door to her room open until the person had come inside. The split second that she realized someone had come in, her body was ready to attack the intruder and, in the darkness, she did. It was entirely a reflex as her body jumped on top of the person inside the room.
It was very out of character for her. Normally she would wait and see whoever had come inside, but she didn't seem to be that ready for anything. Later she would think that this was only because of the exhaustion of her mind. Not sleeping for a few days did that to a person.
And since the room was so dark for her trying to even get a little bit rest, she couldn't properly see who had come in. The torches outside the room, in the hallway, had been turned off a long time ago.
It was almost pitch dark in the room.
Her body went down on the floor with the person, but even before she could properly attack them she realized that it was Sasuke.
"Sakura?" He questioned under her and Sakura could imagine his brow lifting a little.
"S-Sasuke-kun! I'm so sorry!" Sakura panicked and tried to get off him quickly. Unfortunately, his hands were planted on her hips to keep her stable and she couldn't get up that easily.
"What are you doing?" Sasuke questioned her again and Sakura blushed as she took in the position they were in. She was literally sprawled all over him with her legs on either side of his body.
"I thought you were an intruder?" She shrugged her shoulders nervously.
In the darkness, Sakura could easily imagine the slight twitch in Sasuke's eye that he usually had for one of her antics. It was a hilarious look to her, but in this situation, it was only embarrassing. She wasn't the type of girl to throw themselves at guys, especially at Sasuke.
Suddenly Sasuke rose from the floor to sit with Sakura on his lap. Sakura's arms were braced on his shoulders to not fall completely on her back with the swift motion.
"Have you packed?" He asked her gently and she nodded even if Sasuke probably couldn't see her.
"Good." Well, it seems that he saw her. "Because we're leaving in two hours."
This is a short one but an update nonetheless. Hope you enjoyed it! Next chapter Sasuke and Sakura will finally leave the hideout behind.
Thanks for reviewers:
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I can honestly say that I've probably never had so many reviews for any of my chapters before. And it really warms my heart to know that you guys like this so much!
I went back and tried fixing some mistakes from previous chapters. Hopefully it did some kind of difference. But no events or anything was changed. Only typing errors and grammar a little. I realized that I wrote Orochimaru's name wrong the most. XD
- Jakura