A/N: Sorry for the longish wait! I was away for the last week or so and didn't have the time to work on this. Anyways, I hope you like it!
Chapter 3
The chirp of birds could be heard all throughout the village as the sun peaked over the horizon, starting a new day.
Sakura groaned as she slowly got up, woken by the rays of sun coming in through her bedroom window. She sleepily made her way to the bathroom, getting ready for the day ahead of her.
Once she had finished taking a shower, getting dressed and eating breakfast, she looked to the clock. She was supposed to meet her team at their bridge in a half an hour, and then it was off to the Hokage tower for a new mission. She knew that her teacher, Tsunade, was likely to give them an easy mission, and knowing Naruto, he was going to throw a fit. She sighed, and knew that she was going to be the one to beat him down before her shishou did it first.
Just as she was about to leave, Sakura had that nagging feeling that something was missing. She frowned, and checked over herself and her belongings, seeing that everything was there, except…
"Oh!" She exclaimed, smacking her forehead. "I almost forgot it!"
Whizzing back to her room, she went to her dresser, where there was a small, simple red box sitting on the dark wood. Opening it, Sakura lifted out a silver ring, designed to look like a flying bird, hanging on a chain. The jewellery looked many years old, dented in a few places from wearing it so often. However, it shone brightly, and anyone with a brain would know that this necklace meant a lot to Sakura. The pink-haired medic fastened the chain around her neck, and hurried out of her small apartment, throwing a goodbye over her shoulder to her mother before she left.
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Sighing, Sakura tapped a foot on the hard wooden floor and rolled her eyes at Naruto's idiotic reasoning. As she had expected, Tsunade had decided to give them an easier C-rank mission, considering Naruto had just come back from training and had been out of commission. Of course, Naruto wouldn't accept a C-rank mission, and had gone ballistic, demanding something more challenging.
"But Tsunade-baa-" Sakura literally cut him off by putting him in a chokehold.
"Baka, don't insult shishou, you don't know how truly scary she can be…" She shuddered as she trailed off, her mind bringing back terrifying images of training with her shishou. Naruto, as usual, took no notice of what she had said, and continued to spout random insults at their Hokage's choice of mission.
Their comical banter was interrupted, however, when the doors burst open and a panicking Code-Breaker dashed into the room.
"Hokage-sama! There has been an emergency!" Tsunade's mood immediately switched from annoyed to alarmed and serious. The dark-haired code-breaker ran through the room, stopping before the Hokage, and handed her a scroll. The blonde Hokage almost snatched the scroll from her hands, and read it intently. Sakura noticed that while she read, her eyes grew slightly wider in surprise, and then narrowed in anger. Looking up from her reading, she surveyed Sakura's team, her honey eyes softening slightly when she looked at Naruto.
"What is it?" Naruto looked curious and a little bit excited at the sudden prospect of a new mission, not seeing the way that Tsunade's eyes grew hard and sad.
"The Kazekage has been captured by the Akatsuki," she practically spat out, her eyes still on Naruto, waiting for his reaction.
All of the previous curiosity and excitement on Naruto's face disappeared, replaced by surprise and anger.
"Gaara…" He whispered, loud enough that everyone could hear, his voice growing louder. "We have to save him!"
"And we will," assured Tsunade, looking at them all with a contemplative look on her face. Sakura saw this, and knew what was coming next. "Team Kakashi, you have a new mission. You will be going to Sunagakure to investigate what happened, and then once you have found out what you can about the members who captured the Kazekage, find their trail, pursue them, and rescue Gaara!"
"Hai, Hokage-sama!" Sakura, Kakashi, and even Naruto responded in unison, without his usual mocking tone.
Immediately Naruto dashed out of the office window, becoming a blur at the speed he was going. His teammates did the same, rushing back to their houses and gathering their supplies as fast as possible.
As Sakura ran back to the gates to meet her team, she thought about the mission they were embarking on. She knew it would be tough; all the Akatsuki are top level shinobi, and she knew that there was a high possibility that she could be killed. Thinking back Naruto, she knew that although she may die, she would do anything and everything she could, if only for his sake. Gaara and Naruto had a tight bond, one of mutual respect and recognition. They knew the pain they had each gone through, more than anyone else could.
Looking up, Sakura saw that she had reached the gate, and that Naruto was already waiting for her. Stopping beside him, she said nothing, only watching him as he paced, waiting for Kakashi.
Finally, the Copy ninja arrived, and without even asking what had taken him so long, they immediately set off for Suna.
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Deidara sighed as he waited for Sasori. That stupid brat with the purple face paint was going to make them late, and Sasori was taking his sweet time with his opponent. The blonde had gone ahead, and had even taken care of some pathetic low level, at least to him, pursuit team that had been sent out. They weren't even a struggle for the explosives expert. 'At least they let me practice my art, yeah,' smirking, he looked to his hand mouths.
He looked up to see that Sasori was finally almost caught up to him. He watched, bored, as his partner slowly moved to where Deidara was. Idly, the blonde fiddled with the only piece of jewellery that he owned other than his Akatsuki ring, which was another ring, fashioned to look like interlocking cherry blossoms with the words 'Don't Forget, S.H.' inscribed into the metal. It looked years old, if the weathering and blackening of the silver was any indication. Deidara never really had the time to clean it, only being able to once or twice a year. Never the less, it was still his prized possession, and just by keeping it proved that.
"Took you long enough, Sasori-Danna, yeah," Deidara said smugly. His partner hated to make people wait.
"Shut up. Let's go, we are late enough as it is," Sasori said gruffly, not even stopping for his partner.
"Hmph, I know, yeah," replied Deidara, hopping off of his clay bird to walk next to Sasori. He silently commanded his bird to follow them, holding the unconscious Kazekage in its tail.
As they walked, Deidara let his thoughts wander, and for the first time in about a week, he thought of a certain pink-haired girl. He wondered what she looked like now, and how she was. He knew that she was probably a ninja by now, and he pondered at what level she may be by now. Still a genin? Or was she chuunin? Maybe even jounin. He didn't know, and may never know. He wondered if she still thought of him from time to time, or if she even had his ring. He shook his head, as if trying to erase the questions from his mind. Wondering would do him no good, and he forced his mind to think of other things.
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Sakura let out a relieved sigh as she took out her ponytail. For the past few hours, she had been working on Kankuro after he was poisoned by Sasori of the Akatsuki. After getting most of the poison out of his system, she decided to take a small break before working on an antidote to annihilate the rest of the poison. Her thoughts wandered, thinking of what had brought her here…
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After running into a shocked and horrified Temari just a few hours after they had set off for Suna, their group of three turned to four as she joined them.
Upon arriving in Sunagakure, a ninja had met up with them and led them to the hospital. The ninja told them that Gaara's older brother, Kankuro, had taken off in a fit of anger after the two Akatsuki members. He was found soon after, defeated and poisoned. The Suna ninja solemnly told them that there wasn't anything they could do. While the flesh wounds were few and non-fatal, the poison that the weapons were drenched in was.
Temari's eyes grew wide. "What do you mean, there's nothing you can do?! I've lost one brother, I can't loose another!" her breath was short, and she looked seconds away from hyperventilating.
"Temari-san, calm down! I can probably get rid of the poison in his system," Sakura stated, confident in her medic abilities.
"You can? But, no one in Suna can, what makes you so sure?" Temari asked, sceptical about this seemingly week pink-haired ninja.
"Yes, but no one in Suna is Tsunade's apprentice."
Surprised, Temari just nodded. She didn't know Sakura was the Hokage's apprentice. Shit, the Hokage is the greatest medic of all time. Upon realising this, hope settled in Temari's eyes, and she desperately pleaded to whatever was out there that Sakura had gained her masters medical abilities.
After a few minutes of running, they finally made it to the Suna hospital.
Dashing inside, Sakura only got halfway to her patients bedside before she heard a startled gasp from behind her followed by a war cry. Turning her head, she watched in confusion as an elder accused Kakashi of being some famed Konoha ninja, the White Fang or something, and attacked him. Being the wonderful student he is, Naruto protected his sensei and got into a battle stance.
"Wait, sister. While he may look like the White Fang, he is not," another elder claimed, putting a hand on his so-called sister. The aforementioned elder took a closer look at Kakashi before chuckling.
"I knew that, I was just testing you."
Everyone in the room sweat dropped and stared at her in annoyed disbelief, before Kankuro started seizing in his bed.
Snapping back to why she was there, Sakura ran to Kankuro, and did a brief medical check up on him, determining his condition with her examination and the information that the other nurses had gathered.
Slipping into 'medic mode', as she liked to call it, she started to order around the nurses, telling them what to get her and how to make the liquid that she needed to extract the poison.
Sakura snapped out of her thoughts as a medic arrived to show her the greenhouses. Putting her hair back into its ponytail, she quickly followed and in no time at all they had arrived at their destination.
Although it was a small greenhouse with very few of the things she needed, she quickly found what she required to make the antidote, surprised to see that she had enough to make three. 'Good, this means that whoever fights Sasori will have an antidote.' Each antidote only lasted for three minutes, but Sakura figured that would have to be enough. She pocketed the extra two after she had put them in syringes, and took the other one for Kankuro to drink.
Leaving the greenhouses, she made her way back to the hospital room where her patient lay. Holding up the glass to his mouth to drink, she almost forced it down his throat while he gagged repeatedly over the taste and texture of it.
"There you go," the pink-haired medic said when he finished drinking. "There shouldn't be any more poison left after that, so just lay down and rest until the trembling stops." She told him sternly, not wishing to have to heal him again.
"We have to go after those Akatsuki bastards now! We have to rescue Gaara!" shouted Naruto, who had waited in the room. Sakura and Kakashi looked at each other, and she rolled her eyes at his antics, while Kakashi just sighed.
"We will, Naruto. But we need to rest for the night, and go after them tomorrow. Sakura has drained her chakra healing Kankuro, and we are all tired from travelling here. We must be at one hundred percent for the battles to come," reluctantly, Naruto agreed to what Kakashi said.
"Alright, we already have rooms set up for you. I'll send for someone to show you to them," Temari said kindly, happy that her brother was alive.
They nodded, and didn't have to wait long before a ninja came and showed them to their rooms, which were all beside each other.
As soon as Sakura got to her room, she took a nice, long shower in her adjoining bathroom. She showered mechanically, thinking about the opponents that she was going to face tomorrow. She already knew that one of the shinobi was Sasori, a missing ninja of Suna, who fought with puppets. The other one was a problem, however. The sand shinobi weren't able to tell her much about him; it had been a mostly aerial battle and they weren't able to see what was happening very well. What they did tell her was disturbing, to say the least. According to them, he had long, blonde hair and fought with explosives. He could make them come to life, controlling them to do his bidding before he made them explode. The most disturbing thing was that he took on the Kazekage by himself, without his partner, and had won, nearly destroying the entire village of Suna.
Sakura shuddered, not knowing which one she'd rather face. Sasori, the one who nearly killed Kankuro and is an infamous shinobi who has killed hundreds of people, or his partner, who kidnapped Gaara and almost destroyed all of Suna by himself.
Sighing, Sakura stepped out of the shower, erasing her mind of these troubling thoughts. She didn't need them, she would find out what was to happen soon enough. Picking up a towel and wrapping it around herself, Sakura looked over towards her necklace. Smiling, she thought of him. Sakura wondered what had happened to him, and how he had changed. She wondered if he was still the sweet, kind little boy she once knew, or if shinobi life had hardened him. Was he a chuunin now? She didn't know, and probably never would. She had accepted long ago that she may never have an answer to her questions, but she couldn't help but think of them from time to time. He would always hold a special section of her heart.
Months after he had left, her ex-friends Keigo and Haru still picked on her, and without Deidara, she had no one to turn to. One day, while crying on the same bench as when Deidara had found her, another blonde with blue eyes had helped her out. Ino. After a while, the two had become close friends, although no where near as close as she and Deidara had been. Soon, Sakura turned her attentions to Sasuke in an attempt to get over Deidara. She had convinced herself that she loved Sasuke, and Sakura had driven a wedge between Ino and her. She now realised how stupid she had been.
With Sasuke, Sakura always told everyone that she wanted Sasuke to be her first kiss, and she told everyone that he was her first crush, all to impress him, and to fool herself. What she felt for Sasuke in those days was petty, and she really only liked him for his looks and dark mysterious aura. With Deidara, while Sakura had initially liked him for his looks, something about him drew her to him, and she fell in love with him as a whole. She loved his smirks, and they shy and cute things that he would do, while pretending that it was nothing big. Her affections for Sasuke couldn't hold a candle to what she had felt for Deidara.
However, the night that Sasuke had left, she had been telling him the truth when she said that she had loved him. Now, Sakura realised that while she loved him, she wasn't in love with him.
She sighed and told herself to stop being so depressing.
Sakura got dressed in her pyjamas and flopped onto her bed, rolling into a comfortable position. Tired from a full day of running and working on Kankuro, she fell asleep almost immediately.
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After making the correct hand signs, the entrance to their hideout slowly opened. Deidara and Sasori walked in, closing the giant boulder serving as a door behind them, resealing the entrance. On Deidara's silent command, the giant clay bird dumped the ichibi jinchuuriki in the middle of the cave.
"You're late," said a commanding voice directly in front of them.
"We got… distracted, Leader-sama. It won't happen again," Sasori explained, jumping up on his finger of the ritual statue.
"Make sure it doesn't. You captured the Ichibi, Deidara?" Pein confirmed.
"Hai, Leader-sama. It was easy," said a smirking Deidara, who followed his partner, jumping up on the statue.
A mocking chuckle came from one of the giant fingers. "It was, was it? It doesn't look that way, considering you are short an arm from the last time I saw you."
"Che. Shut up, Hidan. You try going up against an entire hidden village, attack their leader, and getting out with your head still attached to your shoulders, yeah," hissed Deidara, a snarl replacing the smirk on his face.
"Of course I would, and I'd get out of it with all of my limbs attached. Then I'd use their blood and corpses to please Jashin-sama."
"Tch, yeah ri-"
"Hidan, Deidara! That's enough," Pein interrupted them," We are about to start the ritual. Get into formation. And Zetsu, keep an eye out on our surroundings, we can't have anything interrupt us. This ritual will take about three days and three nights to complete, so concentrate."
"Hai, leader-sama," rang out the obedient voices of the Akatsuki.
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The sun was shining and white, fluffy clouds scattered across the sky.
'What a nice day for a battle to the death,' Sakura thought sarcastically, rolling her eyes slightly as she walked with her teammates to the gates of Suna.
They got there quickly and with Naruto in the lead, they were almost sprinting the whole way there. Surprised, they met the old elder that had attacked Kakashi at the hospital at the gates.
"I will be accompanying you on this mission," she said simply, without even a word of greeting.
"Why? You'll only slow us down obaa-chan!" protested Naruto loudly. Chiyo looked at him, giving the blonde a death glare that could freeze hell over.
"O-Okay, sure, come along!" Chiyo's face turned kind with a smile on her face at his words.
"Before we go, Konoha has informed us that another one of your teams will meet us at the Akatsuki hideout. Team Gai I believe," Naruto smiled, thinking of fuzzy brows and Neji, before jumping off into the desert, his team following.
Chiyo was able to keep up with them far better than any of them had expected. She wasn't breathing hard and it looked easy for her, which was amazing for someone of her age.
Naruto, of course, was going far faster then any of them, and they had to keep reminding him to slow down. He did so, with great reluctance and anger, only slowed by the knowledge that there would be epic battles ahead of him, and he needed his full strength to save Gaara.
Stopping for the night, they rested and gathered their energy. Unsurprisingly, Naruto vehemently protested to this, only agreeing when he saw that Sakura and even Kakashi himself were tired, and that Chiyo was exhausted. Grumbling in unhappiness, he lay down and slept.
Once dawn broke, they were up and off again at the insistence of Naruto, only stopping for the occasional break when they absolutely needed it.
While they were running through a small clearing in the sparsely populated woods, a startling familiar voice stopped them in their tracks.
"Ahh, Naruto-kun, Kakashi-san. It's nice to see you again."
They all stopped, staring defensively at the cloaked man not even 30 feet ahead of them.
Sakura stared at him, searching her extensive memory for any clues as to who he was. She looked to his hair and his face, seeing the resemblance to another certain black-haired Uchiha. Then it hit her, the man in front of them was Uchiha Itachi. 'He is the one hunting down Naruto! He's the reason Sasuke left! All of it is his fault!' She was getting angrier by the minute, and Itachi didn't help one bit when his red eyes landed on her.
"And you must be Haruno Sakura. It's a pleasure to meet you," he said politely, as if they were meeting for a cup of tea, instead of on the battlefield.
Sakura glared in response.
"Don't look into his eyes," Kakashi warned. "Looking into them for even a millisecond will cause you to be trapped in his genjutsu, escape is not an option."
They all nodded, opting to look to his feet instead of his face. Getting into battle positions, Naruto and Kakashi ran forward, ready to meet Itachi in battle…
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"Itachi, Kisame," Pein began, "who is here?"
A few minutes ago, Zetsu had informed them that there were two teams of ninja in their surroundings. Pein had ordered Itachi and Kisame to distract him with their special clones.
"A team of Konoha ninja, they don't seem too intelligent," chuckled Kisame, "I can easily distract them."
"The kyuubi jinchuuriki and his team, consisting of Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura and an elder from Suna, Chiyo Baa-Sama." Itachi stated. If he was surprised by Konoha sending the blonde jinchuuriki, he didn't show it, and neither did anyone else.
Deidara was reeling on the inside. 'Sakura?' To say he was shocked from this revelation was an understatement. He didn't show his surprise, knowing that if he did he would be questioned extensively. The blonde never let his concentration waver from the jutsu, although his mind was going into overdrive after hearing about his pink-haired friend.
"Kill them off if you can. If you are unable to, delay them as much as possible," instructed Pein.
"Hai."
Deidara's eyes widened slightly when he heard the order from Pein to kill them. He hoped that Sakura and her team were strong enough to fend the weaker Itachi clone off. He didn't know what he would do if she was killed.
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Sakura sighed, catching her breathe. 'That was way too easy,' she thought, looking at the body of Itachi. Or, what they had thought was Itachi.
As she looked at the body, she noticed that it was not Itachi at all, but rather a Suna ninja.
"An imposter, maybe?" Suggested Chiyo. Kakashi shook his head, sighing.
"No, this was Uchiha Itachi. He had all of his techniques and his Sharingan. This must be a far greater technique than just a simple henge."
"Oh well! We defeated him, fake or not, now let's get going! We're here to rescue Gaara."
They all nodded at Naruto, and set off again.
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Gaara screamed, long and painful, as the last of his bijou, and his life, was pulled from his body. He fell to the bottom of the cave, lifeless, with a quiet muffled 'thump' as he hit the cold rock floor.
"Itachi and Kisame were unable to kill them, Deidara and Sasori shall remain here to finish them off. Capture the nine tails, kill the rest."
Deidara almost groaned. That was the last thing that he wanted to do right now, or ever. But he knew that if he looked dejected by this it would be suspicious, so instead he agreed maliciously.
"Itachi, what is the jinchuuriki like, yeah?" Deidara asked.
The red eyed ninja looked as though he wasn't going to tell the blonde anything, which pissed him off. He opened his mouth angrily to ask again, when Pein told Itachi to tell Deidara, and promptly left.
Taking a few more seconds, just to annoy him, Itachi stared at Deidara.
"He is the one who will yell and scream, charging blindly into battle," he said, dissapearing.
"Well that was informative, yeah."
"It was enough."
'And now, we wait.' Deidara sighed to himself, pulling out his straw hat and placing it on his head, his partner doing the same. He knew that some part of him was excited to see his Sakura again, to see what she had become, what she was like. But the vast majority of him just wanted to leave, to run as far away as possible. He knew that she could very well die facing them, which wasn't a thought he particularly enjoyed. As much as it hurt, he also knew that when she saw him, she would hate every bit of the person she believed he had become.
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Team Kakashi arrived at the boulder in a cliff that served as the Akatsuki hideout. It wasn't long after their fight with Itachi and they were slightly tired as they stood on the water outside the cave. Naruto, of course, was jumping around and demanding they smash the boulder immediately. He had no self preservation, Sakura was positive of that. She was sure that there were likely traps, there was no way that it would be as easy to bust into the hideout of S-class criminals that easily.
"Wait, Naruto," the blonde stopped flailing to point an angry, demanding finger at Kakashi.
"Why, Kakashi-sen-"
The idiot knuckle headed ninja was cut off by the feeling of four other ninjas arriving behind them. Almost jumping out of his skin, Naruto turned around, only to be faced by four friendly faces.
"Lee! Neji! Tenten! Gai-sensei!" exclaimed Naruto, forgetting that they were going to be team Kakashi's backup. Jumping around the four new arrivals, Gai agreed to destroy the boulder.
'Why does no one account for traps?' Sakura wondered, watching Gai and he uttered some speech about Youth.
"Stand back! My mighty power of youth shall bring down this offender!" Gai shouted at the giant boulder, as if it were alive.
Everyone quickly got out of his way as he backed up, bringing up a clenched fist. He started yelling, syching himself up before destroying the 'enemy' in their path. He sprinting at the boulder, throwing himself and propelling his fist forwards. Sakura rolled her eyes as his fist instead hit an invisible barrier instead of stone. She knew it wouldn't be that easy.
Kakashi looked up at the boulder, eyeing the seal that was placed on it.
"Ahhh, it seems there is a seal that is blocking you from destroying it, Gai."
"What kind of seal? My youth shall defeat it!"
Chiyo and Kakashi looked at one another, discussing just what sort of seal it was.
"Definately a five point seal," Kakashi concluded with the help of Chiyo.
"What's a five point seal, Kakashi-sensei?" A curious Naruto asked.
"A five point seal is when there are five different seals, placed around the area. To remove the barrier, we must pull off all five seals at once," said Kakashi, looking at Neji as he spoke.
Without even a nod of acknowledgement, Neji activated his byakugan and began to search the area for the seals, notifying them all of exactly where they were as he found them.
Gai nodded, a large grin sprouting on his face.
"Tenten, you will go to the one by the river." Tenten nodded. "Lee, you will go for the one in the forest!" Lee nodded furiously with a 'Hai, Gai-sensei!'. "Neji, you will go for the one by the boulder." Neji blinked in awknowledgment "And I will go for the one on the cliff, which seems like the most difficult one to get!"
Gai put his hand out, and stared at Lee. Lee put his hand on top of Gai's. Gai stared down Tenten, who looked disgusted, but put her hand in as well after some encouraging grunts from her sensei. Finally, the older green spandex wearing ninja looked to Neji, who stared him down. After a stare down contest, and a lot of grunting from Gai, Neji reluctantly put his hand in, if only to stop his sensei from further embarrassing them.
"Alright! Fight! Fight! Fight! And one more, Fight! For the power of youth!"
And at those encouraging words from Gai, all four ninja leaped off in search for their respective seals.
The remaining ninja sweat dropped, and Kakashi leaped up on the boulder, waiting for confirmation to pull it off.
After a few long minutes, all four ninja of team Gai confirmed that they had their seals, and on Gai's count of three, they pulled them off.
"Alright, Sakura, you're up!" Shouted Kakashi once he was away from the boulder.
"Ah!" Sakura backed up, pulled her fist back, and ran at full speed towards the boulder. She channelled some chakra into her fist, pulled back a little more, and drove her fist towards to boulder, smashing it to pieces.
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"Looks like they are finally here," muttered the ever impatient Sasori.
Deidara just nodded, taking a seat on the dead Kazekage's chest. He was not ready for what was to come. He knew he had to fight, he had no choice. Deidara knew he would be killed by the Akatsuki if he even tried to do anything out of line.
He watched as four blurs entered the cave, criss-crossing with two ninja on each side of the entrance. He waited to the dust to clear, and first looked to the right of the cave, seeing the infamous Copy-ninja with who he presumed to be the blonde jinchuuriki. He stared at them for a few more seconds than what was necessary, not wishing to even look upon his former friend.
Deidara sighed, gathered his courage, and turned his head to look towards the left of the cave, first settling on Sasori's old grandma, Chiyo. Then he looked towards his girl. His Sakura. He took in her appearance, first her ninja clothing, noting she was a higher level chuunin. He noticed that her hair was still short, but she no longer had bangs that hid her forehead. Instead, she kept them out of her face with her headband, and in his opinion, it looked much better. To him, it showed that she no longer cared about her appearance much anymore, and that she was confident in herself. Her bright green eyes still held the same fiery spirit, and he was glad that hadn't changed. He looked over her physique and was curious as to why she looked so fragile. He knew that she was the one who had brought down the boulder to the entrance, and he wondered how someone so tiny could do that with seemingly little effort.
A growl to the right of the cave got his attention, and he looked over to find the blonde demon container being held back by the copy-ninja.
"Y-You! Get off of Gaara!" The increasingly angry blonde yelled towards the Akatsuki member.
Deidara looked at Sasori and smirked.
"Well Itachi was right, yeah." He saw Sakura jump slightly in the corner of his eye from his speech habit. "The one who charged blindly into battle, yelling and screaming, yeah."
His partner nodded to him. "We are going to have to apologize to Itachi-san for capturing his assignment."
"Ahh." Deidara smirked, still watching Sakura in his peripherals, watching as she grew increasingly surprised and uncomfortable. He knew that she wouldn't believe it was him, not from his speech habit, even if she thought of him.
Deidara reached for his hat with his remaining hand, making sure that the mouth in it was facing Sakura, she would have to be blind not to see it. Slowly, he pulled off his hat, and then unbuttoned the top button of his cloak. He closed his eyes for half a second, calming himself, and then look directly at Sakura, as her eyes grew wide with disbelief and utter horror.
.:*:. .:*:. .:*:. .:*:. .:*:. .:*:. .:*:. .:*:. .:*:.
Sakura felt like screaming. She knew she recognized that voice, even though it was much deeper than what she remembered. The 'yeah' gave it all away to her. She tried to convince herself that it wasn't him, because really, it was extremely unlikely. There could be hundreds of people who talked like that for all she knew. But then everything she had told herself was crushed, then lit on fire and died as he removed his hat, purposely showing him his hand mouths. She knew it was him, even before he looked at her. She knew it was him before she looked into his eyes. She knew it, but tried in vain to convince herself otherwise. Her hopes were dashed the instant she looked into his eyes, no longer able to convince herself that he wasn't the boy from so many years ago. Her hand made its way to her neck, pulling out the ring that the boy, no, man in front of her had given her years ago.
She saw his eyes widen a little bit as she lifted the ring out of her shirt. His eyes followed the ring as she layed it back down on her chest. Sakura realised how surreal this whole situation waas, and it felt like a bad dream to her.
She stared at him, noticing the changes in him. His longer hair, and he only wore half of it up now. She noticed a small part of the scope on his left eye, and wondered what it was for. She saw that he had become more masculine, but not so much that he still didn't look a little bit like a girl and the long hair wasn't helping. Sakura found that she liked it though. But most of all, she noticed that his eyes had changed. They were hard, and cold, no longer bright and happy. Deidara had lost warmth, and she felt her eyes water. Her eyes narrowed, blinking tears away, and Sakura's heart felt like it was being crushed.
He blinked, and his eyes softened a little bit towards her, gaining some warmth. She watched as his hand went into his cloak, pulling out her necklace as well. Her eyes widened, staring at the little piece of metal that meant so much.
This little exchange only took a few seconds, but Sakura knew that at least Kakashi had seen it all, and that she was definitely was going to be questioned about it later. She found she didn't care, too wrapped up with what was happening. When she left Konoha for Suna, Sakura knew that this would be unlike any other mission. However, she didn't think that it would be anything like this. It was almost too much for her, and she had to force herself to breathe normally.
Her mind raced as she watched Deidara and Sasori argue over art, remembering that years ago, it was her and Deidara arguing. Sakura watched as Deidara taunted Naruto, and she lost her control of her lungs. Her breath came out short and erratically, anger showing on her face. All she could do was watch as her childhood friend made a giant clay bird which swallowed Gaara. She could only stare as he climbed on his bird, his eyes never leaving hers, leaving them in the cave. Leaving her.
TBC
A/N: Mwaha, little cliffy here. I made it a little longer to make up for last time's shorter chapter. I hope you liked it!