Chapter 3: Welcome to the Jungle
Optional Soundtrack: Victory!, by Bond (Samba)
The evening before the 57th annual Fire Ball, Sakura and Sasuke were back in Sakura's former office, currently Tsunade's, for one last briefing. It was even messier than before. Once again, Tsunade fanned out two sets of photos on the desk. After two weeks of intense training, Sakura saw the dance photos of Yuna with new eyes, suddenly able to appreciate the degree of precision the woman was capable of. How much more passionate would Yuzuru's dancing be when he was back with his proper partner, and not just running through the motions with his mother?
"She's beautiful," murmured Sakura, trying to the study the photos without moving her head. Miyuki had been busy spraying and combing and pinning for the past half hour, and Sakura refused to do anything that would give her a reason to start over.
Yuzuru smiled sadly.
"Isn't she?" He drew in a slow breath, opened his mouth, then closed it. After a moment, he collapsed backward into his seat and tried again. "I replay that night in my mind every day, you know. I think of what I could have done to save her, of all the times I left her side and the celebratory drinks I shouldn't have had. I don't believe for a moment that she left of her own accord, I know she was kidnapped. She was so excited for the baby…"
He picked up five photos, two of young men in black with their hair neatly slicked back, one of a middle-aged woman with dark brown hair standing next to a slightly older man with thick-rimmed glasses, and one of a middle-aged man with silver hair streaked with black.
"The night she disappeared, all five of these people were witnessed spending time with her."
He pointed first to one of the young men, who was winking roguishly at the camera.
"Daisuke was her partner before me. He always had a temper and was somewhat controlling, which was why she left him. His family owns several important tech firms, so until Yuna left, he was used to solving most problems with money. He is somewhat, ah, bitter, shall we say, that she not only left him, but promptly found a new partner and started beating him. Even up until last year, he still used to send Yuna threats for humiliating him. He, on the other hand, has been having difficulty securing a new partner."
If that was the case, she thought the best approach to him would be to first demonstrate she was a good dancer, good enough to be a potential partner, and then convince him that she could be easily poached away from Sasuke, or perhaps to challenge him in a way that would remind him of Yuna.
Next, Yuzuru pointed to the other young man. This one looked somewhat more solemn, and was not exactly handsome, but not quite unattractive either.
"I suspect Shin and his new partner, Naoko, will win tomorrow's competition. They were supposed to compete against us last month, but they had to withdraw at the last minute due to an injury. They are Grass's top couple, and frequently placed in the top 3 until Yuna and I became champions. Shin is nice enough, but strange things seem to happen to the couples that compete against him, but he is always fine. Of course, there is no evidence of a direct relationship. It's all circumstantial, but still suspicious."
If their motive was to clear out the competition, then she and Sasuke would just have to establish themselves as a threat. In theory, it was straightforward, but realistically, it would probably be difficult to upset them enough to merit retaliation on the level of a kidnapping or murder.
When Yuzuru moved onto the picture of the middle-aged couple, Miyuki cut in, still painstakingly gluing individual rhinestones onto lacquered twists of Sakura's hair.
"Yukari and Toshi were once bitter rivals of mine. They were disgraced when Yukari was caught lacing a competition's water cooler with laxatives and possibly other substances, but nobody could take action against her because she was the daughter of an ambassador from the Land of Iron. She was still a minor at the time, so she had diplomatic immunity. The world has mostly forgotten these days, and they now run a successful studio. They've trained several champions over the years, but none of their current students have been able to dethrone Yuzuru and Yuna."
There was a deviously satisfied tilt to her lips, then, and Sakura glimpsed the former diva within the calm woman. If Sakura wanted to push buttons and make them misstep, the best approach would probably involve dredging up memories of Miyuki and her husband at their peak. She studied Miyuki's smug smile for a moment, watching it give way to a slight frown as Miyuki concentrated on gluing one last crystal onto her forehead. It had to be big in order to disguise her seal, which meant it would be distractingly obvious if it were even slightly crooked. Even frowning, however, the woman still looked good.
Yuzuru finally pointed to the last picture, the older man with the silver and black hair, standing gravely at the podium.
"A legend within the field. After his first partner died, he never kept a partner for more than a year or two, but always won regardless. He owns and runs several competitions, including the world championship ballroom classic next month, and the competition Yuna and I won right before her disappearance." Yuzuru hesitated a moment before continuing. "I've only included him because I don't feel he did everything he could to make sure she was found. I'm sure he didn't want the reputation of his competitions tainted by the bad press of a kidnapping."
So, no clear motive. That was good and bad: not much to go on, but no misleading preconceptions, either.
Tsunade reached into a drawer and handed several scrolls to Sakura, who opened the top one and tried to hold it in a way that would allow Sasuke to peer over her shoulder.
"Given these circumstances, we have prepared dossiers on these figures, and several others known to associate with them," she said crisply. "Daisuke and Shin are both registered for tomorrow's competition. The others may show up as spectators, but it is possible that you will not see them until the world championship. If that is the case, remember you must place in the top 3 at this competition to qualify for the next. We also cannot exclude the possibility of another, unknown group at work."
She broke off to hold her breath as Miyuki gave one last, long spray, enveloping the room in a cloud of hairspray. Sasuke discreetly turned his head to the side and gazed out the window, hoping the smell wouldn't stick but fairly certain it would. Perhaps Tsunade did not hate Sasuke as much as he feared, because she took mercy on him.
"Uchiha!" she barked. "Go with Yuzuru to finish up your preparations, and meet Sakura at the gate at 6. By wagon, it will take you two at least an hour to get to the capital. You are registered as Kusanagi Sasuke and Konohana Sakura. Dismissed."
Alternatively, maybe she just wanted him out of her sight. Either way, he did not linger any longer than necessary.
When the door clicked shut behind the two men, Tsunade turned to Sakura. "If he gives you trouble, just note it in your mission report."
Miyuki raised a brow, but Sakura just put on her most convincing smile and waved her hand appeasingly. "We're teammates. I don't anticipate any trouble. Really."
Tsunade smiled back at her. "You're well-trained. Still, if you want any special sleeping draughts…"
Sakura shrugged. "Sure."
Tsunade tossed her a tiny, crystal vial. If she could bore a hole through the stopper, she could probably pass it off as a pendant.
"That'll put anyone to sleep for at least four hours. There's enough in there for one dose if you slip it in someone's drink, two if you can get it in the bloodstream." She paused, but sensing there were no more questions, she pointed to the door. "Dismissed."
The Imperial Hotel was somewhat different from their usual stopovers during missions. Decorated in an opulent Western style, it was clearly meant to impress foreign dignitaries. Likewise, their arrival was also different from the norm. Team policy was that whatever you packed, you carried, so there was incentive to pack light. However, after Miyuki and Yuzuru had helped them pack "the essentials," it would barely have been believable that a normal civilian could have carried it all. And Konohana Sakura was supposed to be kidnapper bait, not an Amazon, so for the purpose of keeping up appearances, it was Sasuke who bore the brunt of the load.
After they arrived at the Imperial Hotel, the evening passed quickly. They checked in to their room and hung up their costumes in the closet before they got too wrinkled. Then they went to one of the reception halls to pick up their registration packet, which included a number to pin on Sasuke's back, a list of heats they would be competing in, and admission passes. Glancing around, they were independently relieved to find that their spray tans not only matched each other's, but those of their fellow dancers.
In the ballroom itself, there were a number of people milling around, halfheartedly dancing snatches of routines, wanting to test the floor but unwilling to reveal all their best moves. So Sakura and Sasuke followed suit. Like everyone else, their true goal was to stake out the competition, although their motives for doing so were slightly different. To this end, they were somewhat successful, easily identifying Shin and Naoko. Daisuke, however, was not to be seen. Finally, when it was clear that people were finally going to bed, Sasuke and Sakura split up, Sasuke to tail Shin and Naoko to their room, and Sakura to stay and look lonely practicing by herself for an hour or two in case Daisuke showed up.
He didn't, so she went back to their incredibly luxurious suite, where Sasuke was meticulously laying out his things in perfectly straight lines. It was almost endearing, his neuroticism. But it was a good idea, so she claimed the coffee table and got a little too much satisfaction out of outdoing his array of hair products. Then they went to bed—and thankfully, there were two—and tried to sleep. This was more of a challenge for Sakura, as her hair had been sprayed rock solid. It was practically indestructible, impervious to wind, humidity, sleeping, sweating, dancing, water, shuriken…
When she finally fell asleep, the night passed quickly, too.
Too quickly.
Sakura woke up to the feeling of a puff a breath against her lips. Opening her eyes, she found a pair of impassive black eyes staring into hers in the darkness, a sculpted aristocratic nose uncomfortably close to her own. She punched on reflex, rolling away and scrambling backward against the headboard.
"SAI!" she shrieked. "What the hell?!"
The light flickered on.
"Rise and shine," called Kakashi pleasantly, ignoring the sword Sasuke was pointing at his throat.
"Hi, Naruto," greeted Sai.
"No, that's Sasuke," Kakashi corrected him. "Understandable mistake, though, since he's completely orange…"
That muscle in Sasuke's tan cheek jumped.
"Why are you here?" he asked, dangerously quiet. And either she detected a slight growl, or he had a rather delicious morning voice. He looked so adorably rumpled that Sakura thought she just might forgive Kakashi for failing to be late.
"Because it's time for you two to wake up."
"I believe that's my call. I'm team leader." Sasuke muttered, eyes mutinous.
Kakashi's eyes crinkled cheerfully above his mask. "And I'm Hokage. Effectively."
Sakura sighed, knowing exactly where this was headed. "Guys, would you please quit comparing your metaphorical dicks?"
"Maa, we're bonding right now," said Kakashi in what he seemed to think was an appeasing manner. "But if you prefer, we could compare our literal—"
"NO!" She let her forehead fall into her palm. While she loved her sensei to bits, he definitely found perverse pleasure in pissing people off. She was pretty sure Naruto and Sasuke had picked up that quality from him as well.
"Kakashi. Why are you here?" repeated Sasuke, not amused by the comedy act.
Kakashi nodded at Sai, who had set up camp on Sasuke's vacant bed, various brushes, powders, and paints spread out around him.
"I'm here to fix Ugly's face," said Sai. "And to prevent you from going on any homicidal rampages."
"Hn. Like you could stop me," scoffed Sasuke.
"He's just joking," said Kakashi. "That's my job."
"Hold up, you assholes," Sakura snarled. "THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH MY FACE."
Ultimately, Sai was a godsend. As it happened, Kakashi actually had been a little late and by the time he had completed his version of a Hokage mission briefing, Sasuke and Sakura barely had a half hour to get to the ballroom. Sasuke refused to let Sai touch his hair, insisting on slicking it back himself, which was just as well because it allowed Sai to devote his full attention to Sakura's makeup. And then Sai hopped out the window and off their balcony, leaving them alone to get dressed, put on their dance shoes, and race to the ballroom.
When they finally walked into the ballroom, it was hardly recognizable from the night before. The chandelier and gilded ceiling were the same, as were the flame-colored drapes adorning the room and the lush, decorative greenery. What was different was the crowd of women strutting about the room, all decked out in a rainbow of bright plumage, with cascades of ruffles and dripping with crystals. The men milled around in black, blending into one homogeneous mass.
"It's like a jungle," breathed Sakura, soaking in their surroundings. "Except in reverse, you know, with plain males and fancy females."
"Hn."
Sasuke looked around the room with his arms crossed over his chest, sizing up the situation. Just how many competitors were there? Despite his inexperience, he had all the moves of the reigning world champion, better physical capabilities, and a hotter body. Sakura, on the other hand, was going on just two weeks of training. She was by no means bad, of course. She had always been a fast learner and an even harder worker. But sometimes, hard work just wasn't enough. It was nothing for her to be ashamed of, just the simple truth.
"Sasuke-kun," she called, tugging on his arm. "There's an empty table over there, let's go put down our stuff and claim it."
It wasn't a terrible idea, so he went along with her, following her as she slipped through the crowd. The table she picked was near the corner, allowing them full view of the floor and a good view of most of the other tables. They could also see some of the balconies, which probably wouldn't be filled until later in the day. He took off the blue silk robe Yuzuru had lent him and folded it over the back of his chair, becoming just another numbered, nameless lead, clad all in black. Beside him, Sakura had finished rifling through their bag and was beginning to untie her own robe. Of its own accord, his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.
She looked up at him from behind an annoyingly heavy curtain of pink lashes, darker and thicker than usual.
"Wait," he muttered uncomfortably, unsure what possessed him to delay the inevitable. It had been well over a week since the day she wore her costume to practice, but he still remembered exactly what was under that robe, in as much detail as if he had used his sharingan to burn it into his memory.
He had done no such thing, of course. He'd barely even looked.
Still, the idea of giving people more opportunities than strictly necessary to fantasize about what was…underneath the underneath, so to speak, was suddenly intolerable. He found himself running through their routines in his head, searching for steps that might put a little too much of her on display, realizing belatedly that an integral part of this mission was to do just that.
"Your muscles will get stiff if you're cold," he explained lamely, his traitorous brain reminding him that shinobi did missions in the winter all the time. "Leave it on until we have to line up."
"Okay," she agreed too easily, not pointing out that he had already taken off his own robe.
A voice rang out, cutting him off before he could embarrass himself further.
"Good morning, and welcome to the 57th annual Fire Ball!" announced a velvety voice. "We will begin shortly, with Heat 1: Professional Open Cha Cha Cha. Would all competitors please line up in the on-deck area?"
So then there was no putting it off any longer, and she disrobed, shivering slightly in the cool room.
"Tch."
He grabbed her hand and quickly tugged her into the center of a herd of people that was making its way to a roped-off corner on the opposite side of the room. As they got nearer, a woman began shouting barely comprehensible instructions at them.
"Line up in numerical order!" She waved one arm toward a quickly forming line, and pushed people along with the other. "For each heat, you will go on the floor in flights of 30 couples each, until we reach the end of the line! Each flight will dance for 90 seconds. If you are dancing in heat 2, the samba, come back and form a new line here when you are done with this round! Callbacks will be posted on signs along the wall, so keep an eye out for your number to see if you will advance to the next round."
As the dancers shuffled into place, the woman walked down the line, checking their numbers and marking them off on a sheet.
"Please welcome our dancers to the floor for the rumba," the announcer boomed. "Judges! Call back 100 couples from 267."
The first 30 couples walked onto the floor in a silent war for the best spots, the leads taking purposeful strides while their follows sashayed alongside them. Then they stopped, each doing their own flashy combination of spinning and posing and posturing while getting into position. Within moments, the music started, and the entire floor exploded into motion.
Sasuke studied the dancers on the floor carefully. He had found the beat within the first measure of the song, a perk to having spent three years in the Land of Sound. Based on Sakura's foot tapping, it seemed she had also found the beat rather quickly. This was good. Millennia of evolution had favored successful hunters, ensuring that animals were instinctively drawn to look at things that moved. So those who found the beat and started moving first were at a definite advantage as far as drawing the judges' attention went. The key, then, was to make good use of that extra attention.
By the time all the other flights had gone, Sasuke was already sick of the song, too loud and energetic for so early in the morning. He held out his hand to Sakura, who took it and gave it a small squeeze. She'd been doing that a lot recently. She grinned at him.
"We've got this."
Two minutes later, Sakura was eating her words. She had always imagined ballroom dancing to be something classy and civilized. Evidently, that was not always the case. While most couples were probably there because of their pure love of the art form known as dancing, she was pretty sure that two or three of them were out for blood. One particularly zealous follow kept thwacking her, accenting her movements with suspiciously violent arm styling. It wasn't like the blows even hurt, but it was still distracting, especially because she couldn't afford to compromise her dancing by trying to dodge.
When she wasn't scanning her periphery for moving hazards, she took advantage of the fact that they were specifically instructed to gaze at each other like they were in love, so she spent a fair amount of time studying Sasuke's face with impunity. At the moment, his jaw was set, and she knew he was doing his best to navigate her out of range of the aggressive couple. However, they had a good spot on the floor, easily in view of three out of the six judges, so she knew he also wanted to stand their ground, at least until he was certain the majority of the judges had marked them down for callbacks.
Sasuke spun her out with a flick of his wrist then led her in a wide circle around him while she flirted with the judges, the audience, even the other dancers. Then he stopped short, forcing her to pivot on the spot and snap her eyes back where they belonged—on him—before he pulled her flush against his chest. She must have been cold because he noticed her body press firmly into his own, painfully aware of each point of contact between their thighs and their torsos when she shivered against him. He could barely recall how to breathe, except he felt the rise and fall of her chest against his. So he held her there, her hips rocking distractingly in time with his, just a fraction of a second longer than he had planned to.
The entire mission was an annoying mess of contradictions: that his family's deadliest weapon had been his sole qualification for such a piss poor excuse for a mission (he could think of at least 100 ways to track down a missing person, none of which involved dancing); that in adhering to his mother's old teachings on serving the greater good, he was blatantly ignoring her other teachings on proper public behavior; that he was currently pantomiming love with the girl he had never allowed to love him in such a way.
He let her go. Obediently, unquestioningly, she danced away, safely beyond his reach. In his opinion, that was, and always had been, the best place for her.
She was doing rather well on her own, he thought, until she stumbled, the other follow's fingers tangled in the pale pink material that fluttered from her shoulder. It was one of those sinking moments where he knew exactly what was coming before it happened, not unlike watching inept genin run around with kunai and envisioning them impaling themselves before they had even tripped. The pit in his stomach bottomed out as he saw the sheer fabric rip away, leaving her in just that ridiculous rhinestone bra and that barely functional skirt, all being pulled precariously askew.
He saw red, and leapt forward just in time to catch her as she fell.
A/N: I JUST READ 698 AND SASUKE IS JUST SO FREAKING CUTE, DAMMIT.
So then I had to go write myself some fan service.
And for the guest who requested a little pelvis-on-pelvis dance action, this chapter is for you.
