ShipperTrish is amazing, thank you for Betaing!
Chapter 5: The Brown Orchid.
Sakura decided when she awoke that morning that sunlight was the single, most evil invention known to mankind. The light streaming in through the hotel window made her hiss sharply and she rolled over, burying her head in her pillow, groaning as the memories of last night reared their ugly heads and mocked her. She struggled futilely to fall back to sleep, but her stomach wouldn't allow it and soon forced her up and into the bathroom. After half an hour of hugging the toilet, she wobbled over to the bathroom mirror and stared at her reflection with bloodshot eyes. She poked the puffy skin around them, noting the remnants of smudged mascara around her cheekbones.
Waterproof and long lasting. Yeah, right…
She ran a hand through her hair, which snagged on thick knots, causing her to curse under her breath. She started in alarm when she noticed the long, black sleeves of a slightly oversized jounin shirt. It hung down just past the top of her thighs and she inhaled the smell on the cuff, which jolted her back to Kakashi: Kakashi not screaming at her, Kakashi wiping her tears away, Kakashi helping her take her shoes off….Kakashi getting puked on.
Oh god! I threw up on…
She slapped a hand to her forehead in mortification, trying to push the thoughts out of her head, but they just kept playing over and over again in slow motion. A gallon of sake…all over him…and now worst of all, she was standing in front of the mirror looking back at herself standing in his black shirt.
What the hell happened?
Please, please don't say I started stripping! she thought, turning the shower on.
She tried desperately to recall events, but drew a complete blank. Groaning loudly, she turned the lock on the bathroom door out of habit and pulled the shirt up over her head, dropping it onto the cold tiled floor and stepping under the hot water. Soaping up her hands with the hotel's shower gel, which incidentally smelled oddly like nuts, she started kneading the tight muscles in the back of her neck where she had slept funny. She applied a small amount of chakra to the stiffest areas where the nerves had bunched and seized up. They gradually loosened, allowing her to flex and move without pain. She rolled her head around experimentally on her shoulders, wincing a little as her headache flared up angrily.
Ridiculous! I can fix a broken leg in twenty minutes, lift twenty times my own body weight, but can't even scare off a little hangover!
She chuckled a little at the irony as she massaged more of the nut-scented scrub into her hair, hoping to eradicate the stench of smoke and sweat that lingered there. She opened the door and reached blindly for a towel, then she wrapped it tightly around herself, using one corner to dry her eyes and face. She tiptoed back towards the mirror, shivering against the cooler air that prickled her skin. She started to brush her teeth, grateful to get the sour, furry taste off her tongue. She checked her reflection again, nodding in approval that she looked and felt fractionally more human.
Padding her way back across the tiles, she picked up the black shirt and folded it neatly before turning the lock and walking back into the bedroom. She placed the shirt on the desk in the corner and walked back to the bed, picking up her rucksack, leaving damp footprints in the orange carpet as she went.
A short, sharp cough behind her made her flinch and she snapped her head around in surprise to see Kakashi standing by the door, clutching a small paper bag.
"Kakashi-sensei! You scared me!"
"I bought you some breakfast."
Her face paled slightly. "Err, thanks, but I'm not really hungry."
He held it out to her with deliberate authority.
"You have to eat, you have to drink, or you'll be useless tonight."
She stepped forward to take it, keeping one hand gripping onto the edge of the towel.
"Thank you," she smiled weakly.
"I have some stuff to take care of, but when I come back I'll need to implement that technique I was telling you about. I'll meet you here at seven. It won't be pleasant on an empty stomach, so eat." Kakashi turned to leave, but as he started turning the handle on the door she stopped him.
"Kakashi-sensei…I just wanted to say thanks for helping me last night and that I'm really sorry, again, especially for throwing up on you." The color in her cheeks reappeared ferociously, which unbeknownst to her, made him grin a little under his mask.
"And I noticed that I was wearing your shirt when I got up…and erm…I was wondering…erm…if…"
"If you propositioned me with a striptease and I ravished you until the early hours, leaving you with a small token of my affection?"
Her face was a picture. She squeaked a little in horror.
"No, nothing like that, Sakura. You threw up and I went and got you a shirt to put on because I didn't want to go rooting through your bag. You changed after I left."
"Then don't go saying stuff like that! It's not funny!!!" she wailed, throwing her hands over her face, then hurriedly put them back onto the slipping edge of the towel.
"How are you feeling anyway?"
"Like I got into a brawl and had to be dragged up the side of a building backwards." She snorted at herself. "Don't forget your shirt." She gestured to the desk.
He nodded, picking it up and giving her a last short grin. He held his hand up in a see you later gesture before disappearing behind the door.
"Did you really have to give her the 'ravishing' line? You've been reading too many of those stupid 'novels,' Kakashi." The little dog that had been waiting patiently outside stared at him suspiciously through a heavily lidded eye.
"Maybe. I thought it was funny." Kakashi replied, walking slowly through the corridor alongside his companion.
"You should tell her to switch back to the Floral Green shampoo I use. It's much nicer. I hate almonds." Pakkun growled, pausing to scratch his ear with a hind leg.
"I'll remember to mention it."
They walked down the staircase and into the lobby, crossing the checkered floor quickly before walking out of the double swing doors. They paid no attention to the stunned receptionist who sat gripping the desk in front of her with white knuckles, or the stammering voice in which she recited over and over "A talking dog? A t-talking dog. Am I going mad? A talking dog..."
Once outside, Kakashi squatted down on the step, letting his wrists hang over his knees so that he could be closer to eye level with Pakkun.
"So you're clear on what to do?" he asked.
"Of course. Establish entrances and exits if possible and give a rough estimate on how many people we have down there."
"Good. I'll see you in a few hours. Be careful." Kakashi leaned forward and gave a rough pat on the pug's head, causing the fluffy folds of skin to furrow further.
Pakkun gave a few playful nips to Kakashi's fingers before barking a farewell and trotting off down the road, his tail wagging energetically.
Kakashi straightened himself up and walked back into the hotel. He paced back though the lobby and into the hotel laundry room to find Naruto and Sai hard at work with the hotel bed sheets.
Naruto looked up grumpily at him, his face dripping in sweat in the hot steamy room.
This is the best punishment Kakashi could come up with. Naruto had an advanced metabolic rate due to the kyuubi, so the hangover would have passed hours ago, and he wasn't even sure if Sai had been drunk in the first place.
Kakashi bit back a chuckle and congratulated himself on his own genius as he watched Naruto struggle to load another bundle of stained duvet covers into the washing machine.
"You know, Kakashi-sensei, if you let me use clones I could get this done much faster," he complained, holding up his pruned, red hands.
"It wouldn't be a punishment then, would it? You need to earn some money back after that incident last night. Otherwise, you'll have no cash for the journey home." He gave a quick smirk before saying, "Have you finished my spare uniform yet?"
Sai walked over, holding a newly pressed jounin flack jacket and a black, long-sleeved shirt and passed it to Kakashi before heading back over to the ironing board.
Kakashi marveled at how the boy could keep such a steady mood even doing something as tedious as this. He held up the uniform to inspect it under the light.
Perfectly clean and vomit free, he thought with satisfaction.
"Kakashi-sensei, do you want that to go in the wash, too?" Naruto asked, pointing at the other black shirt that was still in his grasp.
Kakashi bought the garment up to his nose, taking in the subtle feminine scent that still clung to the fabric.
"No, I'll get another couple of wears out of it first. You can stop after the next load, take you earnings, and get some lunch."
Naruto and Sai had wandered into Sakura's room at about three in the afternoon to find her hungrily wolfing down a fat sphere of onigiri.
She chucked a brown paper bag in Naruto's direction and he gratefully pawed out one of the large stuffed rice balls and started tucking in.
He wandered over to the bed and flopped down besides her, filling her in with gruesome details on the horrors of hotel bedsheets.
She laughed freely and easily at his crude jokes and tried not to rub it in that essentially she had been lying in bed all day watching tacky soap operas on the black and white TV set that was drilled into the wall.
Sai took up a seat by the desk in the corner and took out his notepad and began sketching rapidly, making very few contributions to the conversation.
The hours rolled by quickly and soon they had noticed the lights starting to flicker on outside the window. It was getting dark, which meant soon they would be wandering into the unknown.
A familiar tightness that Sakura always got on missions crawled its way up into her throat, making her swallow and fidget frequently. She lined up their rucksacks on the edge of the bed and began organizing which things they should take in their weapon pouches.
Sai had wandered over to them and sat on the edge of the bed scrutinizing Sakura's organizational skills.
She pried his notebook out of his hands and thumbed her way through the pages.
He didn't object and often asked her opinion on some of the behavioral notes he'd made. The notes were mixed up among quick pencil studies he'd made over the course of their trip.
She found sketches of several of the landmarks across Taki, including a temple, the busy market quarter, and the view from his and Naruto's hotel room. The last freshest page was of her and Naruto with Naruto spreadeagled across most of the bed and her cross-legged, looking laughing down at him. Sai had drawn himself sitting on the windowsill behind them and Kakashi standing in the corner of the room, trademark scarecrow hair sticking up above the pages of a book.
Sakura smiled warmly at the sight, feeling the need to hug Sai, but she resisted, knowing he wouldn't understand the gesture.
"Can I keep this, Sai?"
"Why?"
"Because I don't have a photo of Team Kakashi, only Team Seven. This is just as good."
He took the notepad from her grasp and carefully ripped the page out, handing it to her with a genuine smile.
She folded it up and slipped it into a free compartment in her weapons pouch. She thanked him softly to which he responded with a small nod.
Kakashi had arrived shortly after that and the two boys had excused themselves to freshen up and get ready to leave. His mood seemed a little darker than usual as he made space on the floor and sat cross-legged with his rucksack by his side, rummaging through its contents until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a black kimono, a pair of simple, slightly heeled black sandals, and a long, black, hooded cloak. He passed the kimono to Sakura who examined it carefully. It was pretty, black silk with carefully embroidered gold and pink orchids lacing around the hem and wide cuffs.
She held it up against her body noticing it was, by her standards, very short. She looked at Kakashi and raised an eyebrow.
"That's the girl's. Seems to be some sort of uniform," he said.
"I'm supposed to wear this?" she exclaimed incredulously.
He nodded slowly.
"With leggings on?"
He shook his head, passing another small bundle of black.
"L-lacy panties!" Another bright flush spread across Sakura's cheeks.
She huffed in irritation, muttering that everyone was a pervert and other obscenities under her breath as she stomped back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She threw her clothes and underwear into a corner and stepped into the skimpy underwear, tugging them up roughly and then wriggling into the kimono, securing it tightly under her breasts with the accompanying obi. When she remerged, she stepped gingerly around the doorframe, trying to tug the hem down further than it would go. Thankfully, the gold obi kept the fabric over her chest firmly in place so she only had to worry about overexposing one part of her body. She worried her lip and absently fiddled with a lock of hair behind her right ear.
"Does this look okay? I feel a bit slutty," she murmured, looking uncomfortable and shifting on the spot.
Kakashi looked up from the scrolls and other objects he had been arranging on the floor in front of him and studied her appearance. His lone eye wandered over her body, settling on her legs for a second longer than necessary before nodding and averting his gaze fiercely at something very interesting on the carpet.
Does she look okay she asks. Does she look okay?! No, not at all Sakura. You look just like something straight from the pages of "Icha Icha," which is obviously the last thing I would find attractive! When did her legs get that long?...Stop it, Kakashi!...God help me if that showed up on my doorstep! Mmm...A nice pair of thigh highs would look...Shut up! She's your student!...I'm only human…Shut up and focus!
He motioned for her to sit across from him on the carpet and she complied, trying to shift into a position that would not give him a direct look up her skirt.
She watched him as he slowly took off his headband, exposing the eye beneath with its red iris and black tomoe, which rotated slowly and hypnotically.
He unrolled a large scroll across the space between them and formed a series of complicated hand seals above the parchment.
She frowned in confusion when nothing happened, looking up into his mismatched eyes.
"This technique isn't particularly pleasant. For all intents and purposes you will become this girl for a short amount of time. I mean you'll still be you, but this is a forbidden technique and as such has some nasty side effects. You won't be able to use your chakra. At all." He saw the worry crease her brow, but continued. "You'll in fact have her chakra, but you won't have the ability to control it in the time we have. After this is finished, you will look like this girl, talk like her, smell like her and even give off the same chakra signature as her, but this doesn't last very long, three hours at best and when you start changing back, you are going to feel like hell."
"Is this the only way?"
"Unfortunately, I think so."
She nodded slowly, digesting the information.
"Okay, I'm ready. Tell me what to do."
He pulled a kunai out of his pocket, passing it to her.
"We need your blood first. Not much, but more than a pinprick."
She took the kunai and stared at her reflection in the dulled chrome. Inhaling deeply, she cupped the sharp blade in her small fist and dragged the handle down with one quick motion. Dropping the kunai onto the carpet next to her, she squeezed her fist together tightly to force her dark, red blood to seep through her fingers and drip heavily onto the parchment below. Opening her hand slowly, she winced as the deep, bloody slit stretched tightly against the movement of her palm, opening itself to the oxygen in the air and stinging with a buzzing heat. Her eyes widened in amazement as the thick, red splatters started to dance and move across the paper, slowly multiplying and splitting until they formed small, intricate characters which spread in a complex web, spiralling up to the edges of the scroll.
Instinctively, she started summoning healing chakra into the wound, but again Kakashi caught her, holding her wrist gently with an outstretched hand.
"No, you can't heal it."
She flinched back at the militant tone in his voice, feeling slightly angry that he seemed to be acting so cold towards her.
"Well, what next then?" she spat irritably.
He reached over to a small jar that sat next to him that she hadn't noticed until now. Removing the lid with a faint pop, he poured the contents into his open palm.
Sakura recoiled in horror as the two glassy orbs looked up at her blankly.
"Oh my G-god!…Are those?..." she choked out, covering her mouth with bloody fingers.
"Yes." He kept his tone deathly even as the eyes in his open hand quivered.
"They're the girl's. They're her eyes, aren't they?" Sakura's voice was full of disgust and sadness. "What did they do to her?" she whispered quietly. The question was rhetorical. She knew the answer.
It was a cold, hard fact that people were captured and people were tortured. The secrets you could learn from a dead body alone were incalculable and as a medical ninja herself, she knew it was all in the eyes.
She shuddered, fighting back a dry heave and trying to compose herself. She trusted the man she was with implicitly and if he said this was necessary, it was necessary.
"You have to seal the scroll, Sakura. You have to seal her into you." Again that clipped, militant tone.
She held out her shaking, wounded hand and screwed her eyes shut as tight as possible. She felt the sticky texture of the objects being placed in her palm and felt Kakashi gently roll her fingers up to enclose around them. She took a final deep breath holding them high above her head and then, upon opening her eyes, sent her hand slamming, palm down into the centre of the parchment.
The reaction was instant. The red characters of the seal bubbled violently off the page and surged up her arm. She screamed, tugging the sleeve of her kimono up to track their swift progress as they spiralled over her flesh. A sudden wave of heat surged through her body and she fell back hard, shaking on the carpet, vaguely aware that she had just given her sensei an eyeful, but soon that didn't matter.
Kakashi shot up in an instant, dragging her head and shoulders onto his lap, steadying her against him.
The inky crimson symbols tore up her neck, soon wrapping around her jawline and then spilling up into her nose, mouth, and eyes.
She started bucking violently against him as the last phrase of ancient writing found its way into her body. Her eyes rolled fully into the back of her head and her nails clawed at the floor, trying to find purchase on something…anything, and then she started screaming, shouting his name over and over in heartwrenching panic, pleading him to make it stop.
He watched in grim fascination as bones snapped and twisted, elongating into their new form. Her pink hair became shadowed, turning a deep, dark brown, which sprouted off her scalp, cascading down around her shoulders in thick luxurious curls. He hugged her closer, not wanting to look as her face distorted, cheekbones angling themselves slightly higher, eyes slanting in an almost cat-like fashion. He forced the fabric of his sleeve into her mouth, telling her softly over and over "Bite down, Sakura. Bite down. Come on, bite down for me. It's going to be okay. I promise it will be okay. Bite down."
The immense pain gave way to heat, heat that started in her belly and pumped its way through her veins, burning out what was left of her. Fierce blue sparks crackled and hissed across her skin, spluttering out of her chakra points in tiny explosive bursts.
She screamed through the fabric "It burns! Please make it stop! It burns! Get her out! Get her out now!!!"
The final set of convulsions overcame her as she writhed helplessly in his lap, her back snapping taut as the final waves of pain subsided, leaving her feeling empty and hollow, trembling against him.
He removed his sleeve from her mouth and her face fell lax. He gently wiped away the froth and spittle from around her nose and lips and waited for her breathing to return to normal, stroking her hair with one hand, telling her again and again that it was over. It was okay.
He let her lay like that a while before helping her up onto the bed.
She swayed unsteadily, her eyes slowly coming into focus with his own.
"Are you alright?" he asked, quiet concern lining his face.
She nodded unconvincingly and forced a small smile. Her breath hitched in her throat as she felt his rough palm run smoothly under the fabric of the kimono, glide up her thigh, loop through the fabric of her panties, and come to a rest on her hip bone. Her hand shot out instinctively to stop its progress, but her body was too weak to resist.
"K-kakashi-sensei…What…"
"Shh...Don't panic. Just hold still."
She felt a nervous excitement spike through body, curling up in the pit of her stomach, followed by a sudden hot sensation as needling energy burrowed into her skin. It was over in seconds and his eyes never left hers.
"There. Done."
Searching his eyes questioningly, she pulled the fabric aside to see a small tattoo of a brown orchid unfolding onto her skin as if it had always been there. The strange sensation lingered long after he had taken his hand away.
He stood up and patted her head affectionately, moving back towards the door.
"You did really well, Sakura. Take some time, pack up your things, and meet us in the lobby when you're done."