Lost Year
Scampering!
What do you want to be in 5 years?
Happy.
"How do you know my name?" He repeated, slightly annoyed that he had to.
Logic. Logic. Logic! She bit her lips before an idea struck her mind.
"I've seen you in my country's bingo book before. It was easy to recognize you." Sakura mumbled unconfidently. At least she didn't said Bounty Hunter.
"Who are you?" He narrowed his chocolate brown eyes, his red eyebrows turning into an ominous frown.
"I-"
How she wish that her Fairy-God Father could appear and explain everything. But it would be rather stupid, wouldn't it?
She stared at the curious redhead ahead. He had that impatient look plastered on his face, and she knew if she didn't answer soon, he would force her to. And it would be something very unpleasant to happen.
"S-Sakura. Konoha. M-Me." She point to herself before pointing at her headband again.
Sasori seemed to relax a bit, thinking that he might be facing a dumb ninja. But then, everyone could by lying and acting. He could never let his guards down in this ninja world.
"Hmph." He glanced at Sakura for the last time before continuing his journey.
"Wait!" Sakura yelled, quickly running up to Sasori as she started walking along with him.
"What are you doing?" Sasori questioned.
"Traveling with you of course. Y-You wouldn't mind, would you?" She asked.
"Yes, I definitely mind-"
Before he could complete his sentence, a voice called out, interrupting both of them. They turned around in unison, only to face a dozen of crouching ninja, already prepared for battle.
"Sasori!" The man in front shouted.
Sand Shinobi… Sakura stared at the headband that were over all of the ninja's foreheads
"Have you betrayed us and gone with the Konoha people, Sasori?" A ninja at the back cried out when they noticed Sakura who was also wearing the Konoha headband in proving her loyalty towards her village.
She definitely didn't like the tone from these people. The way they exaggerated their hatred on the word Konoha certainly pissed her off. She was about to shout about the ally treaty they had between Gaara and Tsunade when she realized it would be this stupidest thing to do. She is now in the past, the past where a treaty for ally between Konoha and Suna doesn't exist.
She should start getting used to these things now. Living in the past sure was hard when History weren't exactly your best subject.
"We are ordered to bring you back alive. The councils certainly respect you and-"
"If you hadn't notice hundreds of dead comrades before you managed to reach here, I would like to remind you that your efforts in bringing me back would be fruitless. I have no intentions to go back."
Sakura turned to face the rather furious-looking redhead. His facial features seemed to have darkened and his voice was tainted with annoyance. Anyone would easily know that it was not the time to mess with him.
"Then we have no choice then." The man who seemed to be the leader of the squad spoke in confidence, as if he would be able to bring back Sasori without having a scratch on him. He took a huge scroll from his back and threw it into the air. A poof and a smoke was seen and heard as it revealed more then a dozen of puppets in the air after the smoke had scattered.
Before the puppets managed to drop onto the ground, all of the Sand Shinobi who were standing behind the leader stretched out their hands and attached their chakra's string to the puppets, ready to attack.
Sakura widened her eyes in horror. In that instant, she remembered the one hundred puppets that were floating in the middle of the cave above Sasori's puppet body. That same fear that she experienced came back to her again. She wasn't too sure how Sasori felt right now as they were facing the dozen of puppets, but she knew there might be some difficulty to deal with them.
Wait, why was she scared? It's not like she's witnessing so many puppets for the first time. The number of puppets before her seemed to have become no significant at all when she remembered how she easily crushed about half of Sasori's hundred puppets. All she had to do was to have confidence in herself and the strength to continue. The pinkette went into her usual stance as her fist was surrounded by her blue chakra.
As the few puppeteers before them began their moves, Sakura instantly jumped up and screamed with all her might, replaying her confidence and strength during the fight between her and Sasori before.
"Shanaroooo!" Sakura screamed, punching the puppet with her chakra fist. And in that instant, that well built puppet was shattered into millions of pieces without even managing to touch her.
"What the!" The puppeteer that was controlling the now shattered marionette was in shock as he stood back, watching the bits and parts fallen onto the sand.
Sasori's eyes widened in shock, he turned to stare at the pinkette who jumped back for cover. The redhead had never seen such power and strength from a small girl like her. He had certainly underestimated this girl's power at the start.
He's not going to stand there and let the girl do the entire job. Sasori caught hold of his scroll that slipped out from the end of his sleeve as he raised it up, summoning the puppet out from it.
The puff of smoke quickly subsided, and the puppet appeared right in front of the puppet master.
The smoke definitely caught everyone's attention, including Sakura's. And when it finally cleared, she couldn't help but gasped out at the familiar puppet before her.
"H-Hiruko!" Sakura wondered out loud as she stared at the human puppet that Chiyo once claimed that it was actually once a Sand Shinobi. However, with the amazed tone she had, the redhead puppeteer obviously heard her shocked response.
Sasori raised his eyebrow, glancing briefly at her before turning back to focus on his enemies. He was sure that he didn't mention Hiruko's name at all, so how did that brat knew about it? Was the Bingo Book that detailed?
Swinging his arms as he controlled his puppet, Hiruko opened his mouth wide and unleashed quite a number of poison senbons. When it only managed to hit a few ninjas only, Sasori let Hiruko's arm flung into the air, sending thousands of poison senbons towards the puppeteers who were trying to run away from it.
After a few minutes passed, all the enemies finally collapsed, leaving only the leader left.
Not wanting to give up so easily, the leader charged towards Sasori with just a sword in his hand as all his puppets was broken into pieces by the pink haired kunoichi. Furthermore, all of his comrades were poison or dead, completely unable to obey his orders any more. With that blade he had, he ran towards the two of them, trying to take them out, although he knew he would be just running towards his death.
After all, even if the best puppeteer were left with no puppet by his side, he would just be an ordinary ninja.
A slight tug from Sasori's hand made Hiruko stampeded towards the only Shinobi left, and right at that moment, Hiruko's arm was already grabbing onto the leader's neck.
"For the last time. I'm not going back." Sasori growled, pulling tightly onto his chakra strings afterwards.
And then, with a snap in his neck, the leader was dropped onto the pile of sand. Dead.
Sakura trembled at the harsh tone that left Sasori's mouth before he killed that man before him. She glanced carefully at him as his once bored and emotionless pair of eyes turned into one menacing glare.
She knew all of them were dead and it would be pointless to save the Shinobi before her. However, it took her a lot of strength not to check on them if they were indeed dead. She was specialized in healing and saving people, but this was a different matter. Sakura don't want to risk her life getting killed by letting Sasori thought that she was actually one of them.
They were humans. They had families back at their village and they had the rights to live. They don't deserve to die like that.
Sakura bit her lips as she watched Sasori trudged away from the corpses silently after he kept his puppet back into the scroll. She could already imagine him doing this ten or hundred of times with that cold and stoic expression of his. The worse part that made her shuddered in horror was when she knew what she imagined was indeed true, since he had mentioned that he killed hundreds of Shinobi who were chasing after him beforehand.
'You have all the time needed to stay with Sasori and change him.'
All the time? All the time! So she would be stuck in the past forever? Not able to change that cold and cruel hearts of his?
"Why are they pursuing you?" She spoke, biting her dry lips when she heard his footsteps stopped.
"It's none of your business." He snapped, not turning around. It was still a wonder why was he replying to her silly question when he could have just ignored them.
The redhead stared forward, trying to get back his sense of direction again. He had to get to another border soon or he would have to waste his time killing all of these worthless people.
Sakura whirled around and was about to call out for him again when he suddenly jerked in his position. His shivering hand was clutching onto his other arm and he seemed to be in pain or something.
"Tsk" Sasori clicked his tongue, trying to gain back his composure. But when a certain pink-haired ninja came running towards him and patting on his back, it certainly didn't help him.
"Are you-"
"Don't touch me." He gritted through clenched teeth as he stepped back away from her. The redhead slowly released the tight grip on his arm, revealing a large blotch of red stain on his Suna robes.
"Are you alright?" She repeated what she was about to say before, trying to disregard the fact that he just spoke rudely to her when she was just caring for him. Her eyes were filled with concern, only before she realized that the red blotch on his sleeves was actually blood.
"You are a human?" She spoke in astonishment as the pinkette stared at the bloodstain, speechless.
"What?" He frowned and stared at her, totally not expecting that dumb question.
"Nothing." Sakura easily brushed away the topic when she pointed at that flesh wound. "Let me heal that for you."
At that exact moment, Sasori was shocked. "What do you mean by heal?" He slightly tilted his head, just like an innocent child. She could have totally fallen in love with those attractive hazel eyes that were staring back at her, although she didn't like the frown that was plastered on his face.
"Literally. I'm going to heal your wounds. I've learnt medic skills from Tsunade-sama and-" She immediately stopped when Sasori was giving her a weird look. Medic skills were rare in the past and certainly it wasn't something that was so easy to learn as well, it was understandable when Sasori gave such a look at her. Besides, why was she saying so much to him when he probably couldn't even understand a single thing she said?
"Medic skills?" The redhead narrowed his eyes. "They aren't common in the year like this." He spoke, totally not trusting her.
"I'm the uncommon then." She took the urge not to snap at him and let her heal his wound. But she knew it would be the dumbest thing to do when he could just snapped her neck into two, which was just as easy as him breathing air.
Although he didn't believe her, he slightly turned his arm towards her and rolled up his sleeve, revealing a blood soak tourniquet that was loosely hanging onto his arm. It was the worse bandage she had ever seen in the hospital since many ninja know how to tie bandages onto their wounds before they went to the hospital for treatment.
But whom were we talking about? Sasori couldn't have tie a bandage with two hands when his injury was on his arm. Besides, he was traveling alone; no one was able to help him anyway.
She slowly untied the bandage as the large gash was revealed. More blood started oozing out from the wound.
"How did you get such wound?" Sakura spoke. She quickly heal the wound before it get further infected, however, a light conversation wouldn't hurt that much.
But when the other party didn't want to talk, she didn't have a choice but to keep silent as well. She could only guess that he had got the wound when he was fighting the other ninjas that were told to bring him back.
Only a few second after she thought Sasori wasn't a talkative chap, the silence between them finally broken. "Exactly, who are you?" He finally uttered the first sentence in the past few minutes of silence.
Sakura blinked, staring at him with two of her bright emerald eyes. "What do you mean?" She asked truthfully.
"Aren't you one of those ninja that were hired to take me back to Suna? I'm not fooled so easily just because you healed me or pretend to faint in the middle of the desert."
"What?" Sakura stared at him, horrified. She had to quickly clear up the misunderstanding, or she could end up just like those corpses not a few meters away from them. If she didn't heard incorrectly, those were actually Shinobi that were ordered to take him back to Sunagakure alive. So if she wasn't wrong, Sasori must have done something to infuriate the village and wanted him back so badly.
"I'm not like them. I'm really lost." She spoke the half-truth. "And why would I be fighting them if I want to bring you back? Furthermore, I'm lost. Wouldn't it be stupid for me to capture a guy who have more sense in direction than me?"
He narrowed his nut-brown eyes while she just stared back confidently into Sasori's eyes.
"Have you fought a puppeteer before?" He suddenly changed the subject, turning his gaze away from her eyes as he stared at her hands that were healing his wound.
Her chakra subsided in a second due to the sudden question she received, but in no time, she resumed healing the injury with the normal amount of chakra needed. Sakura was taken aback, definitely at that weird question thrown to her, but even though she wasn't so sure what to reply him but she still did, truthfully.
"Yes, I do. Only once. H-He's one tough guy." She gave a slight pause. "Why the question?" She asked, really wanting to know the answer.
There was a hesitant pause, as if Sasori didn't know whether he should answer her or not, but a weird feeling just made him respond to the silly question which he could have just ignored, again. "The way you defeated the puppets in a second was quite impressive. It made me thought that you must have fought a puppeteer once. So, I've guessed correctly."
Sakura blushed faintly as she received an indirect compliment. Although she knew he was just saying out what he thought and he wasn't exactly flattering her.
But she did wonder what was Sasori exactly thinking when they were battling in the cave with Chiyo too. Was he also thinking that she was impressive?
There was just silence after Sakura finally healed the wound as she reached out for her back pouch and took out a roll of white bandage. Healing others was her responsibility and so she was always ready with the first-aid kit she had in her back pouch.
"Tell me if I have tied it too tightly." She said gently, just like how she spoke to any of her patients in the Konoha hospital. After wrapping his arm for a couple of rounds, she bound a dead knot and tightened it so that it wouldn't slip out so easily. Sasori still didn't complain or spoke about how tight or loose the bandage was, so the pinkette could only think that it was just right for him.
Sasori slowly rolled down his sleeve after Sakura was done. He watched quietly as Sakura put back the remaining roll of bandage back into her back pocket
"Let's make a deal."
"Huh?"
It was like the umpteen times that Sasori had surprised her with those sudden questions and answer. It was hard to exactly know what on earth he was thinking about, and all these random yet logical and understandable questions were slightly making Sakura tensed up more than usual.
"I said, let's me a deal."
"I heard you loud and clear. It's just that, I'm surprised that you were willing to even negotiate anything with me. And what sort of deal are you talking about?"
"Didn't you say you wanted to travel with me? I agree to your request. However, you have to keep up with that kind of strength and your medic skills."
It didn't surprise her in the least. She heard about tons of mission that was only given to medics in Konoha. Examples like infiltrating other countries and served as a spy for Konoha. Several countries lacked the intelligence of having the best medic skills, so they would be willing to do anything to have a well-known medic to serve and help their country.
If she didn't learn medic jutsu from Tsunade, she couldn't help but wonder what excuse would she use to travel with Sasori.
"However, if you ever betray me-"
Sakura blinked and interrupted quickly. "What makes you think I would betray y-"
"If you do, although I don't know how. But if you did something that could end me up in something unpleasant, I won't hesitate to kill you." He glanced at the couple of dead Shinobi on the sand, serving Sakura as a warning.
She gulped uncertainly.
Sakura knew it. Sasori didn't trust her in a bit. He only allowed her to travel with him was because she had the power to heal. But she had made a huge progress by joining with Sasori. All she had to do was to keep watch on him all the time, preventing him to join Akatsuki and change his heart.
What an easy task!
They started traveling after their sort-of conversation ended. It was irritating for Sakura to hear nothing but silence during traveling. In every mission she had throughout her life, she would always encounter either a noisy Naruto, blabbering Ino and others who actually made an effort to talk while traveling.
But this was just too quiet. She was hungry, hot and rather pissed off when she can't even see any nice view in the desert. Nothing but sand, sand, and sand!
"Where would we be going?" She asked, her tone sounded rather vexed. This was the most logical and reasonable thing to ask to avoid her getting ignored or dead.
"No where. As long as it was not a place that involves Suna, anywhere would be fine." He glanced over his shoulder, watching wearily at her. "And where were you intending to go before you were lost?"
Again, another question that was totally well reasoned to ask, yet it totally shocked her once more.
"Same as you. No where in mind. I just want to find somewhere to relax and train on my own." She quickly thought of an answer.
He didn't prey on it any further and their two to three sentence of conversation ended again. She couldn't help but wonder how did his blonde partner put up with such a quiet person?
As Sakura quietly and tiredly walked behind Sasori, he finally halted. Sakura could have knock into him if she took one more step.
Sasori immediately crouched down behind a rock that was a few meters away from them. He gave a tight pull onto Sakura's short, indicating her to squat down as well. The redhead pointed in front to let Sakura see that there were a few watch guards who were either slacking or dozing off on watch post.
"The town after that border is the Earth country. " He spoke before Sakura could even ask where they were. Sasori narrowed his eyes afterwards. "You'll stay here. After I give you a signal. Run in."
"W-What? What a-are you going to do?" She stuttered.
"Just run as fast as possible after I give you a signal." He repeated, rather annoyed, although he was not even answering Sakura's question at all.
In a blink of an eye, Sasori was nowhere to be seen. The pinkette looked around frantically until she had to squint her eyes to notice the redhead who was knocking out all the watchmen at the border a few hundred meters away from her position.
After he made sure none of them was conscious, he positioned the body to make sure no one would immediately noticed the watch guards had fainted. Later, he turned to Sakura and made a huge wave.
Sakura nodded to herself, darting her jade-colored eyes to see if there was anyone nearby before she sprinted forward in the speed of light.
When she finally reached Sasori's side, they dashed past the watch post together and into the small gate of a village.
They continued running and down a dark alley in order to avoid anyone from noticing their weird behavior. Making sure that they were safe, Sakura heaved a sigh of relief.
"Finally." She panted harshly, still not accustomed to the fast running earlier on. "I need a bathe to wash away the amount of sweat I had in that damn desert." Sakura muttered, looking down at her dirtied and brownish attire. Sasori didn't say anything, but just gave Sakura a glance before looking down the street. Sakura followed his gaze as both of their attention were set on a decent looking inn that was just a few meters away from where they were standing.
"First, you better keep that headband." He pointed out.
Sakura blinked and touched the cold metal on her head. Instantly, she remembered the day when Ino helped her to fixed her headband and changed the band to pink just for her.
She swiftly untied her headband as she put it into her kunai holster. There might be enemies that were living in this village and had a grudge towards Konoha. And for now, she didn't need any fighting for the moment. So arguing with him about not wanting to keep her headband didn't seem logical in any sense.
"We may be in Earth village, but where is this town?" She muttered, after closing her kunai holster. Sakura was sure she hadn't come to such a quiet looking village for any mission she ever had.
"The Land of Silk." He said.
Land of Silk? Sakura frowned, trying to recall the world map she studied for her academy exams. She was positive there was no such village that existed.
But then, we were talking about the past. This village could have been either wiped out or abandoned before she even studied about the world map.
The sudden movement made by Sasori broke Sakura's line of thoughts. She turned and watch Sasori as he started taking off his robes and scarf, a huge blush tinted onto Sakura's cheek.
"W-What are you doing?" She cried out, turning her back towards him. She had seen his puppet body when they were battling before, but this was a different matter. He is a human, with real flesh and stuff.
"It would be rather crazy to be walking around the town with the Suna clothes on, wouldn't it?" He spoke, sounding as if Sakura was stupid or something.
Sakura was about to turn to argue back when she noticed the robes and scarf were already on the floor beside her. Counting to three, she slowly turned around, only seeing Sasori in his long blue pants and a long black sleeve shirt, which was almost the same as what Sakura had seen Shikamaru wore without his flak jacket.
She suddenly remembered that Sasori was already wearing clothes on when he revealed his wound to her. How could she have forgotten?
Sasori walked up to the opening of the alley, passing Sakura as if she was invisible. He then popped his head out to see if anyone had noticed them behaving suspiciously before walking out when he was sure there was none.
"Wait up!" Sakura yelled, only inviting a few residents' attention.
He halted, turning around and looking rather pissed off when he was also getting those unwanted attention.
"What?" He muttered.
"Aren't we going together?" She asked, rather innocently.
"We are, so stop shouting." He huffed, whirling around and approached to the inn that they were looking at previously.
After entering the small inn, Sakura skipped towards the counter happily as she spoke, trying to keep all the excitement within her. "We would like to rent two rooms."
"I'm sorry. We have limited amount of rooms available. The most I could do is to spare you one room with two beds. Would that be fine?" The fragile looking girl said tiredly.
Sakura froze, not liking the idea at all. Sharing a room with that guy? No, this was not acceptable. She glanced slightly at Sasori who was resting his arm on the counter, looking wearily and staring in space.
He didn't seem to care or bother to argue and demanded for two rooms, so the pinkette had no excuse to disagree to it as well. However, sleeping in the same room with a man that would-be-a-part-of-the-Sranked-criminal-organization-soon didn't seem comfortable at all. But she would rather sleep in an inn rather than in the woods with all those creepy insects.
"Alright then." She sighed. "How much would it be if we are staying for a night?"
"That would be 700 yen."
"700 yen?" Sakura hollered. The amount of money cost for a night definitely caught Sasori's attention too as he widened his eyes and stared at the girl before the counter as if she was insane.
The girl looked away as she bowed apologetically. "I'm sorry. The regular prices for the other inns are 750 yen. Ours is the most cheapest already." She sighed.
Sakura was absolutely positive that she didn't have any money on her, not to mention that huge amount of money just for the night. So when both Sasori and Sakura exchange that similar glance, they were now sure that they had to sleep in the woods.
As they walked out of the entrance, Sakura glanced nervously at the redhead who was slightly pissed off about sleeping without having a proper bathe at all. She was pissed too! But she just couldn't get angry anymore after the little girl before the counter kept apologizing to them for so many times already.
"What are we going to do now?" She asked tiredly. The sun was about to set any moment and she was dead hungry and tired. She doesn't have the energy to blame Sasori for not taking money with him when he left his village.
"Pickpocket! Catch that boy!"
Both of them glanced to the other side of the street, watching a little boy who was holding onto a small looking purse running towards their direction. Before Sakura could catch that fast runner, Sasori already grabbed onto the child's arm as he tried to struggle away from Sasori's tough grip.
"Let me go!" The boy yelled.
"Give me back that purse." Sasori's voice turned deep.
"No!"
Sakura stared in bewilderment as she looked at Sasori with a new found respect. Although he was one tough guy who kills anyone that he was displeased with, he was actually doing something right for the first time.
Maybe she had the chance to change him. Maybe deep down his heart, he could be a kind and nice guy…
"Return that purse! You can't steal." Sakura turned her attention away from the redhead and to the boy Sasori was still grabbing onto.
"Finally I caught you." A plump looking woman pulled the boy's ear as she snatched the purse away from his grip. "How dare you steal!"
"I need the money!" The boy cried out. "My sister is going to die from hunger any moment!"
The two foreigners stared at the boy who was crying before them as he squatted down and laid his head low. "Those baddies take all our money away! We have nothing left!" He yelled as more tears rolled down his puffed up cheeks.
"You have suffered, my little boy." An old looking granny spoke as she slowly walked up to the boy, crouching down a little as he handed two buns to him. "But not only you, everyone was suffering too. Stealing is extremely wrong, so you shouldn't do this again." The old woman smiled.
The little boy raised his head as he stared at the two buns in front of him. "Hurry and bring them to your sister. You two must be hungry now." The granny continued, ignoring a couple of villagers' who were whispering about the boy.
In that instant, the boy snatched onto the two buns and ran as fast as he could, down the street. He was long gone in a second.
As the crowd that was observing the scene dispersed, there left was Sakura, Sasori who still don't know where to go, along with the old kind lady.
As the granny turned towards them, She gave a bright radiant smile that seemed to remind Sakura of Chiyo.
"What is actually happening?" Sakura couldn't help but asked.
"We have a new lord assigned to take care of our village several years ago. He started taking our money and giving us high taxes that we couldn't afford to pay. That's why the money was hard to come by and everything that sold here were extremely expensive that no tourist want to come. It was rare to see you two here."
Sasori glanced at the corner of his eyes and noticed how hard Sakura was clutching her fist.
"Some of our people in the village have thought of migrating to another town already. Soon, the Land of Silk would be abandoned and our pride which we held so high would be just thrown away in the pile of dirt, which no one will ever looked at again." With that, the old lady slowly trudged back into her small bakery store that didn't even have any customer patrolling at all.
"Let's go!" She spoke, in the most serious tone she ever had.
"Where?" Sasori remained rooted to the ground, already knowing where Sakura was intending to go.
"Where?" She gave a confused look to him. "What do you think?" Sakura snapped.
"We can't do anything. We are just foreigners." He replied in a deadpanned tone.
"I don't care! I know I should be obeying you and following you since I was the one who requested to travel with you, but this is just ridiculous! Look at the stupid price for a night at that inn. Look at the kids who were stealing because they have to survive! We can't stand here and do nothing!"
"This does not involve us. We don't have to bother about it." Sasori's volume seemed to have risen. "Just let it go. We'll settle in the forest for the night first."
"But this is just too far!" She cried out as she stormed into the forest not far from the village. She knew she was acting like a stubborn brat, but she just couldn't stand the way the villagers were living right now.
0o0
It was almost midnight as Sakura continued tossing and turning in her sleeping position. She hasn't slept ever since she argued with the redhead and it totally impossible due to the fact that she was hungry, dirty and cold.
Even though she had been giving Sasori the silent treatment ever since he argued with her, it was a surprise when he was still keeping watch while letting Sakura get some rest.
The silent treatment didn't went according to plan as Sakura sat up from her sleeping position and turned towards the redhead who had his back facing her.
"Why don't we get an inn in the next town to stay or something?" Sakura groaned as she tried to massage her back after lying on the rough ground for so long.
"We don't have the money." He grunted.
"Try to get it then." She growled impatiently as she started scratching her itchy legs that were filled with mosquito bites.
"That's a good idea." Sasori mumbled, still not turning his back to face her.
Sakura raised her eyebrow as she glanced briefly at the redhead before continuing to scratch her legs. She didn't really care what he meant but with that serious tone he had, she had a feeling that he must have that thought of getting money for quite some time.
Sasori continued to read the map silently after studying a few legends at the bottom of the large map. And in a few seconds, he turned around and pointed at a fine looking house on the map, which was not so far from the forest they were in.
"Let's go." He muttered.
"To get an inn?" Sakura's eyes sparkled.
He remained silent for a moment before jabbing his index finger on the map for the second time. Sakura used the light from the fire to see what Sasori was pointing at before realizing it was a huge tower.
"Where is that?" She asked tiredly, knowing that it was definitely not a place they were going to stay in.
Sasori still had that bored expression as he started folding the map and stuffed it into his pocket.
"It's where the minister of the village lived in."
Sakura quirked an eyebrow as she stared weirdly back at him. "I thought we had an argument about not involving ourselves in this matter a few hours ago." She stated.
"I can change my mind whenever I want." He stood up and walked over to fire as he started brushing some dirt and sand on it.
"Are you serious?" Sakura gasped. "I thought you were against the idea?" She blabbered, continuing in a second. "And after thinking about it, you were right. We couldn't do anything about it." She said bitterly.
"If you don't want to come. Continue sleeping." He muttered, walking off after the fire was finally put out.
The pinkette sprang up and immediately got to his side in a second. The last thing she wanted was to be in the dark forest, alone. Furthermore, she still had that mission to complete and getting separated from him would not be a good idea.
0o0
"Where's the minister!" The pinkette growled.
"T-There. In the room at the far e-end." Sakura immediately released the bulky guard as he soon fainted once he landed on the ground.
It didn't take long for them to infiltrate the huge tower. Most of the men were either sleeping or playing pokers instead of seriously guarding the minister's building. It was easy task for them to take them out without them even knowing they were there.
Sakura's drowsiness was gone in a second once she stepped into the building. She couldn't believe her eyes when all she saw were thousands of gold vases lining up the corridor. Hundreds of golden lightings were shining along the long corridor, making many people think that electricity was free of charge. The tiles and wallpaper were also made out of gold as well, and the paintings that were hung onto the walls were painted nothing but gold. This place could have been just called the Golden Palace!
And to think that she almost object Sasori from stealing money from this ridiculously rich minister when he had done nothing but to steal the poor villagers hard earned money.
"I'm going to kill him!" She gritted her teeth as she stomped towards the golden door at the end of the long corridor. Sasori was just following quietly and slowly walking behind her, crossing his arms as he admired all the different paintings that were hung up on the wall.
Using her chakra fist, she slammed open the golden door and trampled in, watching the terrified looking minister on his bed while two fairly strong men standing before the golden bed.
"K-Kill that bitch!" The lord yelled. The two men then charged towards the little girl as Sakura just stood there calmly, preparing her chakra fist.
"You damn old bastard!" Sakura screamed, punching and sending the two guards out of the window at the same time. There was no one left to protect the minister's life as the kunoichi cracked her knuckles and approached steadily towards him.
"You old-looking piece of shit!" She roared, glaring threateningly at the weak-looking man. "Who gives you the shit to even run this village you damn asshole!" She lifted her hand and punched right through the golden desk that was beside her, splitting it into two in a matter of seconds.
Sasori was just standing calmly at the entrance of the room as his finger trailed down the golden door. "This is one fine-looking door." He muttered in the cold night, continuing. "How much money have you taken from the villagers to made one of these?"
"I promise I won't take their money again!" He jumped out of his bed as he crawled towards Sakura's feet and begged. "I won't tax them again! I swear to Kami!"
"Who on Earth will believe you?" Sakura snarled, raising her feet high into the air and above his head. "I want you to disappear from this town and live in the dump. Only then, I might think twice about killing you." She barked.
"Alright, I'll go! I'll live in the swamp forever!" He cried out as he quickly wore a plain shirt over his bare body and grabbed onto his pants, trying to cover his boxers. "I'll never come back, so don't kill me. Alright?" He cried out, immediately running down the secret stairway that leads to the entrance of his tower before Sakura changed her mind.
"If I ever see your face again. I'll rip them apart!" She hollered in the dark night after the old man was seen running into the deep forest through the large golden entrance.
"Now, let's get some money." Sasori drawled, turning away and trudged down the lengthy corridor.
Sakura narrowed her eyes after making sure the man didn't come back as she quickly exited the room and followed Sasori, wandering around the palace for quite some time until they finally found a huge looking room where the minister had secretly kept the money.
"This is too much!" Sakura cried out, glaring at the enormous room that was stacked with nothing but piles of money, which almost reached the ceiling. "How could he be enjoying such luxury while the rest of the people out there are suffering?" She growled, suddenly regretted that he didn't manage to kill that old man.
Sasori narrowed his eyes as he mentally counted the amount of money he was staring at right now. It didn't take him long enough to make up a plan.
"Do you remember ever seeing some stack of empty envelopes in the study room?"
0o0
The little boy that was involved in last early evening pickpocket incident gave a loud yawn as he sat up from the cold wooden floor. He watched his weak looking sister sleeping soundly at the corner of the small storage room, which a kind old farmer let them stayed in.
As the preteen walked out of the door, ready to help out the farmer to return his gratitude, he noticed that there was a large and thick looking envelope just by the door. Out of curiosity, he picked it up and tore open the cover, only revealing a couple of huge stack of money inside, which can probably last the two siblings a very long time if they spend on it wisely.
"Money!" The boy began jumping excitedly on the creaking wooden floor. He quickly scampered out of the storage room without waking his sister up and informed about their sudden wealth.
After a few minutes of running, he finally reached to the middle of the town and noticed that the entire resident was standing around in the middle of the street, having a puzzled looking expression and also holding onto the same bulky envelope that he had too.
"Old granny! Old granny!" The boy shouted as he spotted the old lady who had generously gave him the two buns yesterday when his sister almost died from starvation. The old granny glanced at the boy who was dashing towards her and immediately recognized him as the little boy from yesterday.
"Someone left money at the door!" He said cheerfully as he raised the thick envelope to show the old granny. "We won't have to worry about hunger for a very very long time!" A bright smile soon lit up his face.
The elderly smiled and patted on his head as she watched the rest of the villagers chattering non-stop about who was the kind person who had left such a huge amount of money to them too.
As she turned her attention to the bulky envelope in her hand too, she couldn't help but wonder about the two foreigners that had coincidentally drop by their villager just yesterday evening.