She might have been flying across the sand. Her earlier experiences with chakra and running obviously didn't deter the kunoichi; her speed was evidence of that.
She took each turn at a breakneck pace. It occurred to her briefly that she was thoroughly lost, but it didn't bother her.
Sabuka hadn't a clue where she was going either. She could hardly followed the sand to find Gaara; this was the desert, after all.
A shuffling sounded from around a building's corner in front of her. Hesitantly, Sabuka stepped toward it. "Gaara?"
The shuffling came from behind her now, too. Swearing, Sabuka spun, knowing she'd been caught, but not by the sand shinobi.
Ten of them. There were ten of them out wandering the frigid air after midnight. They must really hate her.
But she could see fear in every man's eyes.
"Rawr, I'm going to eat you," Sabuka said dryly. Surprisingly, a few of them actually flinched.
"Okay," the kunoichi asked wryly, "what am I being persecuted for? I haven't killed or even hurt anyone."
"One Gaara in this village is already too many," snarled the tallest man of the group.
Sabuka looked annoyed. "What resemblance do I bear to Gaara besides hair and eye color?" she demanded.
"That alone is enough!"
The kunoichi let out an exasperated sigh. "What about Gaara's actual relatives?"
Apparently, logic was too much for the men to handle. Rather than reply, half of them charged.
Sabuka ducked a wild swipe and dropped into a sweeping kick, knocking the speaker off his feet. She came up into an uppercut to another man's stomach that smashed the wind out of him, then reversed the motion into a back elbow strike to take out a third. However, they recovered semi-quickly, once they get their breath back, and a few more stormed from the shadows.
Damn. They really didn't like her.
She didn't have time for this. She had wasted enough time getting lost, and she had know way of knowing whether Gaara would stick around. She had to find him, catch him.
Sabuka downed some more men - back kick, side kick, front snap kick, come down, reverse roundhouse, down, step behind side kick, reverse punch.
They kept coming.
"This is ridiculous," she snapped. "Enough." Thus far, the kunoichi had avoided doing any real damage, but she was getting fed up, and this had to end. "Go away. I think I'm catching stupid."
The insult went completely over their heads, she was certain, but they did catch that it was an insult, at least. It made them angrier.
She really had to learn to stop getting herself into more trouble when she should be getting into less.
"Alright. Time to bring in the power," Sabuka muttered. Her hands came together, then apart sharply, together, across, over, and under each other in extremely complex hand seals.
"Akatsuki no Kage - Shadow of the Red Moon!"
Abruptly, the kunoichi disappeared. She left nothing but a silhouette of Sabuka, a silhouette of a hue darker than the deepest black.
A silhouette with very bright, eerie crimson eyes...
Wary, the men stopped advancing. Although, to their credit, they didn't retreat either.
The shadowy profile began to grow. Or rather, it began to stretch, increasing in height, yet not increasing or decreasing in width. But the eyes, slit-pupilled like a cat's, widened, and the full moon in the sky turned a brilliant, bloody scarlet.
Terrified, the attackers scattered. Now the silhouette shrank, until it left Sabuka kneeling wearily on the ground.
Making a mental note to never use that technique for intimidation again - it took far too much chakra to activate and deactivate without actually attacking - Sabuka made an effort to stand. It was a good effort, though it sent her stumbling into the wall for support. Nonetheless, she was standing, if barely.
The kunoichi prayed that the men didn't come back. Because, between running and intimidating, she was clean out of chakra. Again.
Sabuka took a few stumbling steps, then realized she didn't have to go any farther, because sand was creeping toward her despite the lack of wind. For some reason, she couldn't decide whether this was good or bad.
"You're more of a fool than I thought," hissed the voice of ice. Sabuka winced.
"How much did you think?" she asked tentatively.
Gaara didn't step from the shadows that coated him, but, eerily, Sabuka could see his eyes. Their gaze pierced through her own like icicles, and she flinched.
"Wandering the night in a town full of people who despise you for what you are... foolish."
"How does that make me any different from you?" asked Sabuka quietly - and foolishly.
"The sand is in my control!" Gaara snarled. As if responding to his words, the sand rose from the ground, a gritty monster with no form at all. Sabuka swore as it wrapped itself around her and began to squeeze.
There was nothing she could do as she felt sand cut into her body. Blood trickled across her skin and the grit flowed into her wounds. Sabuka gritted her teeth, although she couldn't hold back a pained whimper. She felt her left arm shatter and almost screamed.
Something tickled her face. Sabuka's eyes widened in fear. The sand was rising.
A sharp sting under her eyes startled the kunoichi; something wet slid down her skin. She licked her lips: Blood. Yes, the sand was rising.
She almost begged, but then she stopped. She wouldn't.
"I saved your life in Konoha," Sabuka said hoarsely instead. "Spare mine."
"Fools cannot tell me what to do." But his voice quavered and his eyes widened and the sand fell away.
Then Gaara was gone and Sabuka sank, bleeding, to the dusty earth.
--
"Damn, I hurt," Sabuka moaned without opening her eyes. It was a bit of an understatement; every bone, muscle, joint, and inch of skin was on fire with anguish. She didn't bother trying to move; besides the fact that it seemed impossible just now, she didn't particularly desire the additional pain it was guaranteed to bring.
"Well, it's nice to know, but I'm pretty sure I could figure it out by looking at you." The voice was not Ora's; it was too young, and it was somewhat darker, sadder.
"Dry sarcasm," croaked Sabuka, "is my job." She cracked one eye to peer at the speaker.
It was the cloaked girl from the café. In the flickering candlelight, Sabuka could make out a waved waterfall of brown hair that was a shade away from black and bottomless, blue-violet eyes.
"I'm a medical ninja," the girl explained. "Your left arm is shattered. I can fix it."
"My left arm?" Sabuka sat up in a hurry; a sharp pain jolted throughout her body and she gasped.
"Your left arm," the girl confirmed. Her eyes had gone blank - literally; her pupils had vanished. Her pale hand hovered over Sabuka's left limb, just below the elbow, where a wire-thin, white scar encircled the kunoichi's arm.
The healing hand glowed a deep violet; Sabuka felt a sliding sensation beneath her skin as the fragments of bone apparently rearranged and fused. However, she experienced no lessening of pain.
Her pupils returned to normal, the medical ninja stood up. She almost seemed to glide to the door, rather than walking.
Just before the girl stepped out, she paused. Without turning her head, she murmured, "As long as it remains up to me, your secret will be a secret still."
Sabuka swore. The healer left.
--
"Are you feeling any better?"
"Apart from the pain in my arms, legs, head, ribs, and everywhere else, yes, I'm doing quite well." Despite the jibe, Sabuka's response to Ora was decidedly halfhearted. She was worried, frightened even. She had no reason to trust the healer, who shouldn't have known anyway.
"Didn't the medic come?"
"Yeah, she did," Sabuka assured the woman. "But she only took care of my broken arm."
Ora frowned. "Perhaps that took all the chakra she had," the woman muttered to herself.
Sabuka very much doubted this was the case. She had not sensed a great deal of chakra in the medical ninja. On the contrary, she had sensed none at all, yet the girl had gone on to heal a shattered bone. To the red-haired kunoichi, this meant the healer was powerful enough to hide it. There would have been plenty of chakra to heal with.
So there was a better reason. In fact, remembering the medic's parting words, Sabuka could already think of one.
It was so, so much easier to hide scores of tiny scars among fresh wounds.
--
Sabuka crossed her arms as if she were cold, although she was actually quite warm. Despite the room's lack of windows and the resulting darkness, she would guess it to be about midafternoon. Now, the question was whether it was the day she had followed Gaara or some day after.
Questions: They were the reason she huddled as if against cold, covering the wire-thin scar with one hand. Because it would bring up questions, questions she had no adequate answers to. And, though the thought had not worried her before the medic's words, now she feared that someone would recognize what it really meant.
"Can I get some clothes?" the kunoichi inquired. "There's barely enough left of these to even call them rags."
It was no hyperbole; the shredded remains of her clothing hung from Sabuka's body, barely covering her decently. Despite the semi-relief from the heat that it may provide, she had no desire to wander around half-naked.
"Wrap the sheet around you," Ora ordered, "and come. The only reason you're here is that our medical ninja prefers to work in semi-darkness. There's a change of clothes in your room."
"When did it become my room?" Sabuka asked interestedly.
Ora shrugged. "When you got here. It was empty; now it's yours. Come."
Cloaking herself in the sandy, somewhat bloody, ivory sheet, Sabuka followed.
--
Blessedly, her old, black shirt remained on the floor beside her pallet. Sabuka hurried over to it and tore another strip off, once more knotting it about her arm.
"Still in mourning?" Ora inquired, as if the kunoichi shouldn't be.
"It doesn't go away just because I had a brush with death," Sabuka responded.
Wearily, the kunoichi flopped onto the pallet. "Sorry about your clothes. It wasn't very considerate of me to shred them the day you gave them to me."
Again, Ora shrugged. "Don't do it again. If you can promise that, you're back on Night Shift. You've already skipped one. You have a few hours until you have to go."
"What should I do 'til then?"
Ora looked at her. "Keep reading?" she suggested. Sabuka winced.
"You didn't find it interesting?"
"I already knew most of the information," the kunoichi admitted.
The woman looked surprised. "How? Have you read it somewhere else?"
"I..." Sabuka looked down. It was as she had told Gaara. ...without an identity...
"I am a shinobi," she whispered.
"You wear no headband," Ora pointed out, as many already had.
Sabuka smiled wryly. "I lost it in the desert. Quicksand. Figured I could always get a new one, but not a new life." The kunoichi's hand brushed her thigh.
"And I lost my shuriken in the attack... also my money to get more."
"Maybe you'll get lucky and collect more tonight. If you don't want to read, find something else to do. In your room."
"Yes, Ora," Sabuka said humbly. The woman looked at her suspiciously, but pivoted to leave anyway.
"Er," began Sabuka hesitantly, bring Ora up short. "Does Gaara usually come every night?" At the woman's narrowed eyes, the kunoichi added hastily, "I thought I should know, to make it easier to stay out of his way."
"Sometimes he comes," Ora said shortly. "Sometimes he doesn't. I don't work Night Shift. Ryūken would know if there was more of a pattern." Then the woman stalked out.
And Ryūken, Sabuka reflected, was not likely to tell her anything.
--
The shorts were the same she had been offered before, although she rejected them in favor of long, dark grey pants better-suited to the night's chill. An ivory t-shirt with elbow-length sleeves went under a thick blue-grey jacket, identical to the previous once.
Sabuka had a good head for directions and easily remembered the way to the café area. Ryūken glared at her as she entered the room behind the counter, obviously irritated at seeing her back.
"What happened to you?" he sneered.
Sabuka figured that he already knew where the cuts on her face - and, though they were hidden by clothing, the wounds on her arms and legs - had come from. He just wanted to gloat.
"I made a mistake," she replied mildly. "Actually, several subsequent mistakes."
"I thought you were a ninja," Ryūken smirked.
"Yeah, but ninjas aren't infallible," Sabuka said irritably. "Or inhuman, much as they try to be. Everyone makes mistakes. Even you, Oh Most Powerful and Wise One, ninja though you're not."
Annoyed, Ryūken yanked open the shuttered, his face stormy. Sabuka retrieved her notebook and pen from under the counter and took the first order.
--
On the translation of
Akatsuki:
According to the Wikipedia article on Akatsuki,
which is the criminal organization of villains in Naruto (for those
who don't know what I'm talking about, it's the organization that
Sasuke's brother, Itachi, is part of), the word itself means 'Dawn'
or 'Daybreak'. I'm not disputing this fact. However, if you split the
word into its two separate words, aka and tsuki, it
means 'Red Moon'. Aka translates to 'red' or 'bloody red' and
tsuki translates to 'moon'
