All In The Name Of A One Sided Love
Sakura was getting worse. Even after the meditation, she had gotten much worse. Before, they were just arguing. Now, Saku had actually taken over Sakura's body to try and win a bet.
Well, the bet was childish, and even as Sakura heard it, she couldn't believe that her two halves were going to do such a thing… Basically, the bet was that there was no way Saku wouldn't fall in love with Kabuto after talking to him. Ra continued saying that, after talking to him personally, she'd begin drooling over Kabuto.
Saku inched closer and closer to Kabuto, before lunging forward and throwing her arms around his neck from behind. Had it not been for the fact that Takara was right there, and that he had seen Saku walking into the room, he would have completely panicked and tried throwing her off.
But that didn't stop him from getting angry.
"What are you doing?" he demanded loudly, his voice almost a squeak, as his book falling to the floor with a dull thud.
"Nothin'," Saku said, sticking her tongue out with a smirk.
"Saku?" Takara asked in confirmation, having known Sakura well enough at this point to know that she wouldn't randomly hug Kabuto.
"Hai?" Saku asked, her voice fluctuating 'cutely'. Really, it was annoying Takara to no end.
"Can I talk to Ra, please?" Takara asked, plastering on a big, fake smile.
"Nope!" Saku said with a laugh. "She can't take over Sakura, silly!" She said this in a tone that suggested it was obvious that she couldn't, even though it really wasn't.
"Why?" Takara asked evenly, hiding her mounting anger towards the annoying side of Sakura.
"Because, I have all the determination… dreams… goals… truly romantic thoughts… raw power…" Saku trailed off. "And Ra has all the sense… the calm… the level headedness… the smarts… the precision… the obedience… the genius…" And she stopped and shrugged.
"I see," Takara said, obviously mulling things over. "Like Yin and Yang, ne?" Takara asked with a small smile.
"I guess so," Saku replied, not at all interested in what she had. "But, I'm here to talk to 'Buto! Wait, do you have a problem with the nickname 'Buto?' Ra asked me to ask…" Saku explained. "We kind of call you that in Sakura's mind," she finished, before sticking out her tongue once again at Kabuto, who really only wanted to read his book and ignore… well, everyone.
"Yes. I have a major problem with it," Kabuto half growled.
"Oh, are you pushing me away?" Saku whined, her bottom lip sticking out in a pout.
"Well, if you want to think of it that way," Kabuto said with a shrug. "Yes. Yes I am," he said with a nod.
"You're mean. Hmm… Ra's right! Okay, Sakura can come back now!" Saku exclaimed suddenly, and Sakura's body swerved, her eyes fluttering close. Kabuto jumped up and caught her now limp body and sighed.
"So, Buto, what are you going to do?" Takara asked evenly as she watched him.
"Read," Kabuto responded, but instead of turning back to the book (now forgotten on the floor), he went to the medical part of the library and searched for a certain scroll on Yin and Yang…
----
'So, we've come to an agreement, finally?' Ra asked Saku with a deep-set smirk on her face.
'Yeah, yeah…' Saku said, slightly pouting. 'Perhaps Kabuto is more interesting than Sasuke… He does give more of a reaction…' Saku said, her pout turning into a different sort of smirk that Ra's.
'You shouldn't be thinking things like that. And, besides, when describing us, you didn't mention that you were fickle… nor did you mention that you're somewhat perverted,' Ra muttered the last bit, but it impacted Saku just the way she wanted it to, anyways.
'Oh, yeah? At least I didn't add the part where it says you act like an old maid!' Saku threw back angrily.
"Ch. Anyways, we need to start reaching more and more agreements," Ra decided. "So… what should we start with?"
"Boys work! Who's hotter, Kakashi-sensei or Kiba Inuzuka?" Saku asked excitedly.
Ra sighed, but replied, "Kakashi-sensei, most definitely," with a small nod.
"Ha! Yes!" Saku cried excitedly.
"What do you suppose Shino Aburame looks like with his glasses off…?" Ra asked, as if she was musing.
"I bet he has brown eyes…" Saku mused.
"Yeah, definitely… I mean, have you ever seen a brunette with any other natural eye color?" Ra agreed.
"Hmm… no, definitely not. It would seem almost out-of-place… Well, maybe black…"
"Yeah, but he doesn't seem like the type to have such dark eyes… Okay, okay. Do you think Sasuke'll end up looking like Orochimaru?" Saku asked, changing the subject on a whim.
"Oh, I hope not! Orochimaru definitely looks like as if he molests children," Ra exclaimed in response.
----
"So, basically, this is Saku, and this is Ra," Kabuto begin, holding up two halves of a Yin and Yang symbol, the parts being separated to show the different halves. "And this is Sakura," Kabuto continued, pushing the two pieces together.
Takara stared at it for a second before laughing. "Thanks for the kindergarten lesson, Yakushi-sensei!" she cried out in between her outrageously loud laughter.
"No, listen. She can't just ignore Saku, even though Ra is more… like a ninja. She needs both parts to be able to form Sakura correctly, and she needs all of the qualities from each," Kabuto explained with a sigh, putting the pieces away. Takara didn't understand a good model when she saw one.
"Ahh, I see," Takara replied, drawing out the 'ahh' and the 'see' more than she needed to.
"Haha," Kabuto retorted sarcastically, his tone dry and humorless. He almost continued, but at that moment, a dazed Sakura walked into the library and took the seat beside Kabuto. Kabuto shied away automatically, wondering if she was Saku or Sakura.
"My two sides are starting to agree," Sakura finally said after a length of silence.
"On what?" Takara leaned forward in curiosity.
"Boys, mainly. Sometimes it's what they look like under ninja clothes, sometimes it is what they'll be like when they grow up… I'm sort of shocked that Ra is taking part in something like that, but I guess Ra is female, too," Sakura explained. The manner in which she spoke those words gave away that she was irritated with their gossiping, and the way she held her head showed she had a headache, if not a migraine.
"Not feeling well?" Takara asked gently, leaning backwards slightly.
"No. I'm not feeling well at all. I feel like I'm dazed, and my head is pounding…" she groaned.
"Kabuto, fetch medicine," Takara commanded. Kabuto grumbled about how he was treated like a dog, but nevertheless, he got up from the table and left the room.
"How come he complains but does it anyways, even though he's technically the one who's in charge of us all?" Sakura asked, only half interested in the answer (in other words, Ra was observant).
"Because, I guess he's used to doing what he's told… If it were Orochimaru, Kabuto wouldn't even get to complain. He considers that much a blessing," Takara mused as she leaned all the way back in her chair, staring at Sakura, waiting to gauge her reaction.
"I… see," Sakura said weakly, slumping further into the chair.
"So, have your two sides decided if Kabuto is hotter than Sasuke or not?" Takara asked with a small smirk.
"Saku likes Kabuto more, because his reactions are better, or some such nonsense," Sakura said with a weak chuckle.
"Glad to know it," Kabuto said, donning an evil smirk, as he set down the bottle of aspirin before handing her a glass of water.
"That doesn't mean you're hotter," Sakura pointed out as she popped two of the white pills into her mouth, followed by half the glass of water.
"So? As long as I'm better than the Uchiha brat, that's fine with me," Kabuto retorted with a small shrug.
----
And so, their lives turned back to the routine. Sakura still meditated, and now didn't get headaches from their constant arguing, but from their constant agreement. They settled on chocolate as the favorite food; they decided that romance novels with developing pairings (rather than, as Saku said, getting right to the hot stuff) were better; and they had, ever since their first agreements, simultaneously deciding who was cuter, hotter, better, sexier, etc. than others.
And Takara had decided that it was time. It was time to 'even out Sakura', as she said, and combine her two sides. Sakura wasn't quite sure whether or not Takara would stay after completing the task she had come to do, nor what would happen to Ino if she did leave. After all, Ino only really worked out a little in the gym before Takara had come. But now, in the past few weeks, Takara had been working on Ino immensely, despite it seeming as if Takara was constantly talking to Kabuto.
Ino had managed to break Takara's mind barriers on more than one occasion, and even once when she had the guard all the way up. Ino had been taught how to forge a mental block, and, after she completely mastered breaking mind barriers and creating them, Takara had promised she'd move onto more interesting things, such as actually going inside someone's mind, the step after breaking their mental barricade.
So, they led Sakura back to the room in which she had been evaluated in the first place. Sakura was somewhat surprised that it had taken so little time to get ready to combine the two sides, for they were still immensely different. In fact, just because their opinions agreed, didn't mean that their qualities did. However, when she asked Takara about this, Takara simply replied that it was good for them to have different qualities, because all of them (including both of their bad qualities, sadly enough) combined to make her up, and it was important to have them all.
She sat in the middle of the room, in the middle of the symbols, just as she had before. She was feeling an immense sense of déjà vu, for she knew that, just a few short weeks ago, she had sat down on the same cold, damp stone floor in the middle of the same old, cracked symbols. Takara turned to Ino and told her to pay close attention, but said she was still to inexperienced to take a journey into someone else's mind, best friend or not. Ino pouted at this, but offered a reassuring smile to Sakura as Takara took her place above her.
----
Takara waded around in Sakura's mind, now in the same corridor she had been in weeks ago. She went down the hallways, and noted how the coloring of the hallways seemed to spill into each other, as if they were slowly merging together, whether Takara (or Sakura, for that matter) wanted it to or not. She came to the double doors at the end of the corridor and pushed them open, shocked to see the two of them in Saku's room, chatting.
Saku sat on the end of the bed, her feet laid out in front of her, chatting like a schoolgirl. Ra sat across from her, her legs crossed, leaning forward in interest, but was obviously more reserved that Saku was. Takara couldn't see Saku's eyes, but she could see Ra's, and they now had little pink flecks amid the black.
"Sorry to interrupt…" Takara began, leaning against the doorframe as if she lived in Sakura's mind as well.
"Hello, Takara-san," Ra said brightly. She was no longer quite as cold as she had been before, but then again, Saku was not as warm as she had been before, either.
"Why are you here?" Saku asked excitedly with a bright smile.
"Well, how do you two like the thought of moving in the same room…?" Takara asked reluctantly, not sure how to phrase it to the pair of them.
"Hmm… well, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea, does it, Saku?" Ra asked evenly. Saku nodded excitedly, happy that she'd be getting a roommate.
"Do you have anything to break the wall between your two's rooms?" Takara asked with a sigh, annoyed that she hadn't thought of anything.
"Well, that seems unnecessary…" Ra pointed out, and Saku pointed at the wall with her thumb. The wall was only a sliding paper door, and Takara stood there, transfixed.
"This is the barrier between you two?" she asked incredulously, wondering why it was something so easy to open.
They both nodded in confirmation, and Takara walked up to it. She pulled back on the handle, but it didn't move a fraction of a centimeter.
"I think only we can move it," Ra thought, and Takara stepped back.
"Be my guests," she said, motioning at the door. The two of them exchanged looks, as if talking it over telepathically. They stood up at the same time, and both walked to the barrier at the same time. They each grasped part of the handle and pulled back, the door sliding open effortlessly.