Accidentally

Chapter 15: Redemption

All of his mind and every single nerve in his body told his legs to move. They wouldn't. Neither would his arms. Sakura ran at him with no chakra in her feet, so why was he petrified? The feeling in his gut and the stinging breeze that crept up his spine and through his hair was enough to make him break down and wretch until he was imaciated. If only he could break down. If only...

Sakura took her sweet time to notice Sasuke's malfunction. Her steps faltered for only a moment, but a voice jolted her awake and almost forced the chakra into her feet.

"KEEP MOVING, SAKURA!"

Time slowed and heads turned. No words were spoken, and in this moment, Sakura wished to dissipate into thin air. But she was happy. Holy FUCK, was she happy.

Shikamaru. He was here. What is he thinking?!

Some otherworldly force rotated her head to Sasuke, and such anger rose from her stomach. Such contempt and hatred was radiating from just the sweat on her forehead. All of the vexed feelings that ever were began to overflow Sakura's central nervous system, and whatever chakra couldn't contain itself was pumped into her feet. She ran at Sasuke now, with speeds of forty miles an hour at least.

More chakra flooded her fists, and as the emotions would prove to be bothersome, Sakura began to cry. She began to cry chakra. The Akatsuki were frozen, as if also trapped in Shikamaru's paralysis jutsu. Sasuke only sat, eyes wide, jaw trembling, in such a panic, he couldn't even process the land around them. It was just he and Sakura, with a peculiar shadow reaching out from beneath him - or perhaps it was reaching out to him? Who was he to say? He saw nothing.

Time sped up again. Sakura pulled chakra out of her left hand, reeling it back. Shikamaru released his jutsu just in time as Sakura's left uppercut knocked Sasuke a foot off the ground, and Sakura went in for the kill. Her right hand, laced with all chakra that wasn't in her left, her feet, keeping her alive, or pouring from her eyes, swung at Sasuke's sternum. The second it made contact, everyone knew it had shattered. Sasuke flew, and no one was in the right mind to guess how far, but it was far. WAY far. Somewhere deep within the backwoods, Deidara could see the smoke clouds from the assumed tree he'd hit from atop his bird.

It was silent again, but Sakura didn't hate it as much. The prior-summoned Sound-nin were mostly dead. The few live ones were limping around, trying to flee. Each were one-by-one being either crushed by Kakuzu's threads or decapitated by one of Sasori's puppets. In the event of dealing the final blow, Sakura had actually flipped over and landed on her ass from the intensity and lack of leverage. Call her Grace; Sakura was still Sakura. Zetsu emerged from the ground in front of her, sporting a couple cuts and one nasty bruise on his left cheek.

"Z-Zetsu-san?" Sakura asked shakily.

He smiled at her reassuringly, and turned to nod at Shikamaru. Said shadow-user descended from the slight hill, advancing towards them at an even pace. Coming up from Sakura's side, a smile began to crack upon Shikamaru's lips. Zetsu stepped back, already sinking into the ground to check the rest of Akatsuki for injuries.

He crouched slightly, but Sakura stood abruptly, shocking him to do the same, and slapped Shikamaru across the face. "BAKA!" she screeched.

She then hugged him tightly, biting her lip as tears rolled down her cheeks. "Baka..."

The Akatsuki were puzzled, but Nara Shikamaru knew better. He returned her embrace and smiled lightly, "Love you too, Saks.*"

*Pronounced "Socks," you friggin' derps! XD

As Sakura's legs began to weaken, Shikamaru rubbed her shoulder and pulled back. She smiled sweetly and wiped away what was left of her tears. Giving him a distinct look after that, she turned to approach the Akatsuki, Shikamaru dropping in his place, lying back to watch the clouds and sighing almost-contently.

"What do we do now?" Sakura mumbled to Deidara.

He looked almost offended. "Don't ask me, yeah! Leader-sama I...wait, why do we need to do something?"

Sakura sighed. "I know Shikamaru-kun didn't come here alone. Did you see Zetsu?"

Deidara made a face of enlightenment, and pointed over to the base's entrance. Sakura nodded in thanks and bolted towards the Akatsuki's spy.

OoOoOo

"So..."

"Uchiha Sasuke is dead?"

"Presumably."

"Haven't you found the body?"

"Not yet. We'll search for it before sundown, I assure you."

"And one Nara Shikamaru is here?"

"As Sakura-san calls him. What of it?"

Sakura listened to all this - though as more of background noise if anything - and stared at the ground. The whole situation came to drop on her shoulders at this very moment, and it hurt so much. She'd betrayed her village, joined its mortal enemy, also known as the organization trying to kill her best friend. She'd just possibly killed one of her former best friends!

She didn't know what she'd been thinking this whole time; maybe she hadn't. She'd been pertaining to her mundane ritual of not giving a fuck, and has enjoyed herself far too much with the Akatsuki.

What does this mean for her?

Well, for starters, she needs to pay attention when Pein is calling her.

"H-Hai?" she stuttered.

"So, your malfunction is that Nara came with comrades?"

She nodded.

"Why is this a problem?"

She gave him an incredulous look. "What's not the problem?"

"Sakura-san," called Zetsu, "May I have a word with you?"

She gave him a skeptic look, but followed him outside Pein's office.

"I've already taken care of them. No need to worry."

She nearly had a heart attack at these words. "W-What?!"

He almost chuckled. "Not eaten, but dismissed."

She questioned him, and he gladly elaborated.

"I was able to - without many corporal injuries at all - direct them away from the base with a little genjustsu, but not before shooting a special dust or two at Hatake-san."

Zetsu paused for Sakura to catch on, before continuing. She gave a nod, but it was very slight.

"The Kyuubi suspected nothing, but the pale one seemed susp-...Sakura-san?" he stopped, and looked at the girl in worry.

Her hair had fallen over her face, but Zetsu could see enough to tell she was upset. From her hiked-up shoulders to the stains on the carpet in front of her feet. His hand reached out, but she turned swiftly on her heel and ran toward the commons. He decided it best not to follow her, but instead sighed and returned to Pein's office.

OOO

Sakura made it to the base's entrance, and kept running. She ran because she never could before, because she needed to. Now.

The tears spilled from her eyes and didn't - couldn't - stop. The tall grass of the land out front slashed her knees and shins, but still she ran. Just before the trees piled in and became a forest, the green bristles tangled, and tripped her. She did a tumble of sorts, but landed back on her knees and elbows. She weakly lifted herself up, to sit on her shins, and sobbed.

Memories, promises, friendships, Naruto, Sasuke, Shikamaru, red.

So much red.

Her head hurt like hell, and her nails dug so deep into her palms, they were surely bleeding, but she just couldn't stop.

"Where am I...?" she seethed quietly, gritting her teeth.

"I...I'm not supposed to...to be scared of anything," she breathed, "I'm a fucking ninja, for Kami's sake..."

She was almost writhing now...shaking, violently.

So much red.

RED.

"Sakura-chan?"

It stopped. It chose right then to stop. Sakura stayed silent, but stood. She turned her head slightly, but not enough to see her face. "Where are all the bodies?"

She was referring to the dead Sound nin. It was a reasonable question, considering how clean the foregrounds were.

"In the freezer room out back, yeah."

She laughed meekly, wiping her tears subtly, so as to not alarm anyone, but he could tell. "You guys have a freezer for corpses?"

"Hmph. It's for Zetsu. You know how that goes. Sakura-chan, yeah?" he asked, walking a bit closer to her, trying to look around her hair.

But she would have none of it. Sakura wiped her eyes one last time, spinning with an obviously fave smile and giggled, in almost a sickening way. Deidara frowned. She went to saunter past him, but he grabbed her wrists and held them before himself, watching the blood stream down from her hands. He looked her hard in the eyes then, and Sakura's throat got tight.

She looked away from him stubbornly, and pushed chakra into her palms. Deidara wished he could speak, but he didn't know what to say. He knew well enough that Sakura was no innocent little teenager. No ninja was; everybody has a dark side, a past, and their own inner demons. Sakura was no different.

But to him she was.

To all the Akatsuki, she was.

So, all he could do for the moment was...

OoOoOo

Yeah. That song 'Dark Side' by Kelly Clarkson (sp?)?

I hate it. Love Kelly, but hate that song.

It's just...not catchy at all.

Blegh.

So anyway, hi! You're beautiful. Seriously. You are. Just look at your hair. Gorgeous.

Sasori: What are you doing?

Hidan: Yeah, seriously...the fuck?

Don't worry about it. People suck, but the few that don't deserve to feel good. Fuck your face.

Hidan: ?!

Sasori: *sigh*

Reviewer #103 got her prize of more DeiSaku this chapter. :D Next number'll be either 130 or 155.

It all depends.

Also, OBAMA 2012 MOTHAFUCKAAAAAS

I will never get sick of that.

~Raven100