Rrgh, my family has been surrounding me during the holidays and I can't just up and abandon them for computer/writing time like an anti-social brat. Now, the villagers will finally see their saviors. You may or may not be surprised by which villagers get attached to, or are at least interested in, which samurai.
Oh, and your Japanese lesson for this chapter includes yukata, which is a thin coat…robe…sort of thing. I'm quite sure that green thing Tsunade wears is a yukata, so that's what I'll call it. Then there's obi, which is basically a sash tied round your middle. Tsunade will also once say minna, which is basically saying "you" or "everyone" to a bunch of people at once.
Now then…Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone on FF.
April 3rd, early in the afternoon, not quite a quarter mile outside of Konoha
Blood. O, blood! He'd had something of a fascination for it even as a child. Was that why a spray of blood mattered more to him than a man dying at his feet? Sasori cared very little for anyone dying at his feet. It made his shoes filthy. Almost everything around him was filthy. Filthy men in admittedly clean uniforms, though varied and random as a Gypsy's, and bloody sashes tied to their weapons and dirty smiles that all but screamed aloud their black deeds and their lust to commit them again.
He had killed three so far, all with the Kazekage's hands. A grace it was that he had learned this art, this method so far superior to killing with human hands. His own hands only moved the faint intangible strings that connected to the puppet's hands, stretching out of his pack like his own newly-grown set of arms—he would hide the entire puppet body and all its mechanisms as long as he could. They slashed left, right, clashed with spears two or three at a time. Always, his ears were assaulted by yells and vulgar cries that insulted everything from his manhood to his absolute foolishness in attacking them to his sure future in the hands of the devil. None appeared to have the verbal grace to voice such threats properly.
When it began to seem that the men had no battle virtues but their numbers and handsome weapons, Sasori was clubbed in the back with something massive and he nearly fell onto his stomach. Quick footwork had him leap forward a pace and then whirl around, both the puppet's arms ready. Coming at him next was a youth with spectacles and hair far too grey for his age.
The Kazekage's left arm clashed with a dagger the man held. It was a short, cold thing, the sort that would be used commit murder from behind. "Konoha cannot be in danger of attack from this." he noted more to himself than the attacker. "Where are the true monsters? I didn't come here to fight the likes of you."
The man's spectacles shone and his lips curled. "The likes of me? No man here will move without the command of the likes of me." He pushed on his dagger and in response Sasori lowered his body slightly. The leverage gained let him push the youth away, but he hardly staggered. Sasori wasted no time in lashing out at him anyway.
In a most acrobatic fashion, the man flipped backward and then slid nearly sideways behind the legs of another man, and then disappeared behind a shield of three others. 'A petty thief.' Sasori thought, and a small piece inside of himself wriggled in disgust. 'Sakura would have no trouble dispatching him. There must be more formidable men here.'
Deterred by the bespectacled man, he turned around—cut a man's arm—and swept his eyes across the sea of attackers. Hidan's comically massive weapon rose high and slammed downward, only for hardly a thump to hit his ears afterward. Caught midair? Hit out of his hands or—
A spear was coming, whilst the holder shouted, "Little wretch!" and Sasori was not fast enough. The man's spear thrust into his right shoulder and cut a ragged gash through his cloak. He caught himself on his right foot, puppet's hands floating above, and smiled. The attacker growled and added, "You feel your wrong now, you fool? You see what your 'good deed' has done for you?" He'd been handed far too fine an opportunity. The right shoulder, of all places! He grasped the spear in one hand and tightened his fist; the blade separated from the circlet binding it to the wood.
"There is nothing there to feel," He replied, and was nearly proud. "little wretch."
The Kazekage's hand turned clockwise till the fingers pointed down at Sasori's enemy, and the swords within expanded and thrust down. The blood spray was violent and induced satisfying cries from nearby comrades. Their blood would come next. The blood of murderers and the blood of monsters.
A flash of color so far out of his vision as to nearly be behind him caught the puppeteer's eye. One glance, thankfully done, proved the color to be Sakura's red clothing as she performed some movement that was not quite running and not quite a series of backflips. A kick off the ground, a step, a second, a push off the ground from the left hand and an ensuing flip, all pushing her backwards and a measure to the side. Such entrancing action. Such an action could only be a defensive maneuver, though, an attempt to flee.
He moved towards Sakura. Her movements became partially obscured by a thin shield of men fighting one of the Uchiha, and then she seemed to fall through them, bashing the knee of one as she went. Two men, double-wielding spears, appeared in his way. His pace was such that he grabbed one of the men with his bare hand and pulled him towards himself; a lash of the other hand had the Kazekage wrapping one arm around the man, and tossing him into a web of his shuffling comrades. Sakura was nowhere to be found. He looked left, right. Behind. Even above. Still nowhere. Still lost. 'Come back. Show me where you are.'
As though commanded by gods, she appeared in his vision that very moment, charging forward. Another bandit blocked his view of her expression in battle. He exacted some punishment on the man for ruining such a perfect moment of art, but could not bring himself to recall exactly what was done. The man was removed, and his path to Sakura and whatever enemy she fought was now clear. And indeed, she fought a beast.
He stood over an enemy smaller than he, and brighter. The beast himself was not so much a beast for his size-great though that was- but for the marks on his skin and the darkness in the rest of him, for his absurd eyes with too much black and the cloth covering too much of his face, and the aura of not-quite-human that was around him.
He held a sword, a great and heavy one, that pushed down against a young woman's average katana as she attempted to slice upward. The young woman was yelling at him. He could have listened, learned. But the being his eyes and hands sought compelled him too strongly: he would not stand and watch. This man would die for hurting her.
Sasori moved, and when he moved, men fled. So it was again.
Sakura suddenly heaved against her sword and the man staggered back a step. Her shouting at him had quieted; Sasori was now halfway to them. He raised an arm to shoulder-height as Sakura's leg lifted and kicked the man in the stomach. She would have succeeded had his arm not raised and taken the hit. His eyes betrayed no smile at having blocked the blow. Sasori did not wait and watch to see if they betrayed anything. He was upon him, and called out the only thing that mattered: "Sakura, move!"
At first he thought she obeyed, but saw within the same heartbeat of time that the man had grabbed her shoulder in one hand and was tossing her away. His eyes nearly followed her—she was thrown the length of four men away…more!—but did not dare leave this enemy unwatched. The Kazekage's arms were ready, both sets of fingers now drawn together to make two drill-like shapes. The man turned sideways slightly and looked like he was about to tear them out of the air. Sasori dropped and kicked the man in the side of the knee.
He should have fallen, or moved at least. The man grunted, and his brow crinkled in a semblance of pain. Then they rose: he was intrigued. His position warped immediately and he lashed out at both Sasori's leg and the Kazekage's long arms at once. The arms retracted and his leg had swung back by the time the man's fist hit the ground. Their arms and hands met. Slammed. The puppet's arms jabbed holes in the man's skin and he hardly cared. At last he had to resort to opening the poison pocket in the left knuckles.
The man halted a moment to cough, weakened, and that was when the samurai girl returned. There was no flash of color to alert him this time. She appeared from his left with a closed and brandished fist, whipping hair and eyes like perfect flames. Foolish, entranced, he spent that heartbeat watching her pass him in her battle stance, and the next watching the man jump away, and feeling the ground shake as Sakura's fist struck it.
Men around them cursed and yelled and Sakura's fine hair fell flat around her head again. Cracks spread wildly out around the ground from the impact point of her fist in the absolute asymmetry of nature. What perfection. What animals these men were to try and harm this.
The dark giant of a man raised his voice, "Make a circle about us!" and spread his arms slightly.
Strings burst out from the scars on his wrists, ugly, black strings that writhed. "Kami-sama, what a hideous puppeteer," he spat.
"He's not a puppeteer." Sakura told him as she stood up. "Look at him more closely. It's…it's uglier than that." He looked, unwillingly watched the man's strings writhe and grow and grow some more. They grew like live things. Whipped weakly about him like worms. But they couldn't be.
He'd occasionally had nightmares similar to this. Would she think him foolish for suggesting it? "They are tentacles, then?"
He noticed that she didn't twitch, but swayed the slightest bit. "Yes. They're fast as—"
"I'm sick and tired of trying to make you roll onto your back," rumbled the man; his voice carried. His men finished making their circle, and now he, Sakura and Sasori stood in their own pocket of space whilst fighting and yelling went on outside it. "I will not waste my effort doing the same for your new comrades. If you're worthy, stop stalling!"
"I'm ready at any time, you monster!" Sakura screeched back. "Try. Just try again!" Her hands tightened and her fingers clenched, eager for fighting as her fists. "I'll pull out your tongue this time."
Sasori stood and readied his weaponry again. The man charged and all his monstrous appendages were with him. He took a step in front of her, and his ears were assaulted before anything else, with a fierce and rough, "Noo!" from behind. Both their heads instinctively twitched in that direction and Sakura gasped before dashing to the side. A blur the color of fire sped between them and met the behemoth man. They collided hard and the tentacles whipped harshly against the ground. Both parties were shoved back a short distance.
The blur rose, stood, and by the blonde hair it could only be Naruto. He shook for a brief second before charging the man again, faster. The black appendages thrust towards him and tangled on a spot of ground a spear's length from his leg. Naruto reached his opponent and clawed him across the face. The enemy's roar of pain shook his comrades and silenced them.
Naruto's whole body shook like a disrupted current. "Shut your mouth!" he screamed, and the noise seemed to dim even Hidan's far-off and zealous screaming. "You monster. Monster."
Now something showed in his eyes, and this time Sasori could examine it. It was puzzlement, no doubt, completely overshadowing the torn cloth on his face and the blood leaking through it. "Monster?" he repeated slowly. A tentacle slid out of his mouth. It was joined by another and another and they swirled together like tangled hairs. "Mmm. I see. Sakura has gone and found her own monsters, hasn't she? As though she wasn't enough of an animal herself, ox that she is."
"You say her name again." Naruto whispered. "I'll eat out your eyes."
The man's eyes showed pleasure at this. "Come then, boy. Eat out my eyes. Just like a monster."
The ground shook, and for a moment, the puppeteer harbored the thought that Naruto was somehow moving the ground. He was thankfully removed from such idiotic thoughts when a tower of fire taller than a man erupted from the ground, hardly two stone throws outside their circle of fighting space. Men yelled around it and Hidan's distinct cursing could be heard nearby. Smoke flew in all directions and Sakura to immediate coughing. Their opponent still hardly wavered. How curious that nothing short of a full-front attack to his face could get a reaction from him. Smoke began swirling low, and new smoke was birthed, creating a shield that became thicker and darker. Their enemy's body was finally obscured, and Naruto jumped away, back to them, a foot or so away from backing into their faces.
Logic dictated that he be grateful. Knowledge insisted that he keep watch. Sasori carefully took hold of Sakura's right arm and kept his eyes on Naruto's back. "Come. We must get to your villagers." He saw a frantic nod of a her head and needed nothing else. They turned around towards the village, knowing the other samurai would come to the same conclusion. The Kazekage floated behind him, next to a silent Naruto.
'Eerie brat. Jumping between playful and animalistic is no great challenge for you, it seems.' The only reply to this thought was the false samurai behind him keeping up a brooding but perhaps wise silence.
They had gone all of twenty-five feet when the dark man called to them, "You think this is it?" called the dark man. "I don't recall excusing you." A swhhh in the air signified all to clearly that he had sent out his appendages again. Sakura and Naruto had ducked already, and Sakura was now on her back looking in his direction again. Sasori pulled at her wrist to get her up, to keep her attention on safety and on him. The smoke was getting fainter and more useless as cover the farther they got from it. Though enemies were thinner over here, they could also see better, and started converging and shouting.
A spear flew over Naruto's head, and he caught a second in his hand. "Try to hurt us again! Try!" Three more tried and thanks to handiwork with the Kazekage, they were all successfully deflected. There were hardly any bandits left in this area to run at them, save for a line of them some thirty feet ahead, directly blocking the straight run to Konoha. A twitch of his wrist, left, up, and the Kazekage's lashing arm slit an opening in the men for the samurai to burst through. Projectiles stuck in the ground behind them, and someone cursed. Spears and tentacles and whatever else this carnival of an army had to offer were closing in quickly behind.
Naruto jumped slightly and landed a hard kick in the abdomen to one of the men in the line blocking their way. Three thrust their spears, and two made successful stabs. One of them speared the back of Sakura's thigh. Sasori's too-careful eye saw her mouth convulse and she let her pain out only as a choked gasp. His too-careful ears heard the tiny sound of blood spurting.
"Got the wench!"
"Again, Fudo!"
Fudo howled and struck again, but Naruto whirled back and elbowed the man flat in the neck. There was now a perfect gap in the bandits for them to burst through, and so they did. "You idiot!" they heard. "Accursed idiot! What have you don—" The latter half of the word "done" was punctuated by a harsh and gurgling noise that reminded them all of impalement.
Two men burst from cover of their comrades and made as if to grab Sakura with hands gloved in metal. Naruto was there before he could be, again, this time with his own sword. One of the two attackers' arm was hacked clean off. His blood spurted like a weak fountain and his screams assailed their ears. Another appeared out of seemingly nowhere and cut a gash in Naruto's side with a spiked gauntlet, and then disappeared. They moved on with Naruto groaning at their side. They ran on land free of bandits now, so close to Konoha's little arch of a gateway that he could see the villagers standing by it and staring at them.
Sakura sped up, but he continued to hold her wrist and guide her, more aware than she of her running on a leg with half strength. A voice from back in the crowd of enemies yelled, "A crab's claw! Now!" and Sasori's ears recognized the voice. He did not need to turn his head to know it was the sly-faced man with spectacles. He turned his head anyway to see the new attackers who were coming at them in what surely would be a pincer formation.
Two were closing in on the left and Naruto was veering purposefully towards them. Sasori could not help but watch and see if the boy would change again. Attack like a samurai, or an animal, or both.
"Sasori!" Sakura screeched.
He pulled the Kazekage's arm towards them both instinctively to protect them, but as he turned Sakura's sword clashed with a man wielding an axe, and pushed him back.
She turned her leg to move her body to the side and skid to a stop, and he copied her moves. The man came up to them again, terribly fast for a wielder of something so heavy. Sakura gasped and readied her sword again, but this time he made sure to be faster than her. The Kazekage landed hard in front of them, hardly large enough to stand before two crouching people, and took the force of the man's tackle. Villagers cried out and exclaimed not far behind them.
Even before she did, he knew she was going to attempt to move around the safety of the Kazekage and attack the man, but he held her with his eyes. 'Kami-sama, freeze this moment. Let it stay.' And by the grace of some force or other, it felt as though he watched her eyes, watched emotions swimming in her, for more than the one second that he actually did. The bandit seemed to be waiting for them behind the puppet during that indefinite time, but he could damn well stay there. Here was his first moment alone with Sakura, genuine and perfect, and if he had to assault men with axes and black souls to have time with her, then yes, yes, he'd do it. But now…
"Allow me to save you this time," he said. He got a second smile in return, one that ignited a noticeable flare in his belly.
He would have delighted in seeing what or who moved next but was suddenly and unpleasantly interrupted by another slam against the Kazekage, one so harsh it moved the puppet itself. The back of its shoulder clunked into Sakura's forehead. He touched his left hand to her head instantly and felt for a bruise, but saw nothing but a touch of embarrassment on her face. This moment had to be saved, too. How sweet she looked. How unfortunate he had to watch her emotions and actions while people were throwing axes at them.
"Too proud to thank me. What else is new, danna?" Deidara, of course. Ruining everything that could be ruined. And now Sakura was curious, no, happy, that he had escaped the horde and was here with them.
"Deidara!" she said. She stood up and looked at him over both the Kazekage's head, and the man leaning against it that Deidara had killed.
Deidara was equally happy to see her. "I thought danna had gotten you out. Hell, if I had been wrong, I would have gone back to—"
"Sakura-chaaan!"
Like lightning, Naruto appeared and engulfed Sakura in an embrace that took her an inch of two off the ground. Any moment, surely Sakura would think his body too uncomfortably hot from his last several minutes of exertion, or bloody from the tears and wounds on him, or undesirable otherwise. It occurred to him that it wouldn't do to tear her out of the boy's arms—satisfying, feasible…but a crowd of innocents was watching—so he opted instead to make note of the obvious, which the blonde tended to miss. "Naruto. Naruto, she can hardly breathe."
The blonde lifted his head from Sakura's hairline and smiled a soft, content smile. "I didn't come here to please you, and I'm not going to try." He said. "I came for Sakura-chan. That's all."
A smooth and concise rebuttal. Fuck him.
In between them and the crowd, both the Uchiha were coming towards them, Madara much more slowly and languidly, and like a few hours back, missing one of his gauntlets. Behind them, the bandits were now collectively facing the samurai and the village. The ones on the edges of the group returned so that they were a tight, dense force again, but instead of charging, they stared and looked furious and hateful. They ground their teeth and the grey-haired one took his glasses off. Sasori felt no victory.
The Uchiha came to the group and the little brat was only just letting Sakura down. Sasori silently fumed when he still kept his hands on her arms. "Naruto-kun, we're safe now. You can let her be," suggested the elder Uchiha. And he managed to sound friendly about it. Naruto had disregarded Madara for about one second when the young woman in his arms pulled his hands off. His shock and sorrow at the sudden move made Sasori grin.
"Move. Move! Tsunade-sensei is still there!" she gasped.
The younger Uchiha made as if to go back and stopped with his hand on his sword. He heard a noise, as they all did: a howl. An unfortunately familiar one. Most of them had heard it when Hidan disemboweled a man in the street in Tanzaku. They heard it again, more whooping, when a faction of bandits more towards the middle of the crowd were shoved aside, and Hidan's massive three-bladed scythe appeared over the men's heads.
It slammed down with a yell that was very clearly not Hidan's, but a woman's. Sakura murmured, "No. No." and started walking forward.
"Don't you trust your sensei to escape on her own?" asked Sasuke, and she stopped. "Let her come. She will come out with Hidan."
"Mmm. If she is your mentor, I'm confident in that, too." Madara added almost happily.
He'd thought that logic always seemed to appeal to Sakura, but she looked very much like she was a hair's breadth away from running towards waiting enemies. "Ten seconds, that's all. Then I'm going, no matter who stays or goes with me." She decided. She turned around, and found five men intensely watching her. Whatever she had meant to add whilst looking at them all was seemingly forgotten, and she turned around again.
Sasori looked at them all, too, and found he was the only one observing opponents instead of the prize. Strange, childish Naruto watched her like an animal—what happened to him? What was wrong?—Deidara and Madara wore similar, unreadable smiles, and Sasuke had nothing but a touch of softness in his usual…lack of visible emotion. Ten seconds. The gods only knew what she could do by letting them all look at her, panting and angry, for ten seconds.
The time had gone, and all they had seen was the scythe rising and falling again. Sasori got up from his crouch, raised the Kazekage on its chakra strings, and released the great iron spikes on its forearms.
"I'm getting very tired of this," he said. The other men saw his glare sweep over them all and knew what he was talking about. "I'll go with you, Sakura. Come!"
She had said "yes," and they had both taken a single step, when Hidan's scythe appeared again. This time it didn't go up and then down, but was thrown so far to the side that it landed out of the bandit crowd. A giant rope attached to the bottom of its shaft was pulled taught, and then it tugged a man out of the crowd to be impaled on the waiting weapon. Deidara muttered something like "yechh," at the sight of the gore. Sakura went forward again.
She stopped when a long-legged man in brown robes started running along the edges of the dense group, and every stride or two men came out of the dense group to form a border along it. Each of these outside men pointed their weapon inward at their comrades, as though to keep them from getting out.
"Bastards." Sakura spat and started forward again.
As she and Sasori ran—and whoever else had chosen to follow behind them—one of the men in the border of the bandit line was pushed onto his back. Another took his place and clashed swords with someone the samurai could not see. The new guardsman stabbed forward, twice, and then he looked skyward, and so did the samurai.
A figure in a green yukata had jumped up slightly higher than the man's head, and their foot slammed down onto the guardsman's shoulder. The man slammed into the ground with a sound like thunder. This person had physical power that could rival Sakura's.
The figure in green dashed between the guards at the victim's side, running straight for the village. Eight men, all armed with either axes or massive, curved swords, sped after her. Sakura gasped with delight, and once again started towards the bandits, this time running almost too fast for the puppeteer to keep pace.
"Tsunade-sensei!" she cried.
Sasori squinted a bit to see the woman: blonde and perhaps thirty years of age, holding an old-looking katana and carrying an expensive, gold-tipped sheath on her obi. She, too, looked delighted to see her student, but her eyes traveled to Sasori himself, to the Kazekage, and then her expression only brightened. The female samurai, happy to have finally found soldiers.
The eight men were close now. From his left, Sasuke whisked on a sharply curved path to the two men nearest to Tsunade, and he clashed swords with the larger of them. Another was terribly close to Sasori. He raised one hand and prepared to have the Kazekage's armblades cut him through. The puppet's arms were perhaps a foot from the man's torso when he suddenly wasn't there anymore. Instinct told him the enemy would then appear from behind, so he slammed the puppet's hand down to protect his back.
The attacker came from the side, but his puppet's blade was in nearly the perfect position to protect him from such an assault. His foreign-looking sword slid along the armblade and he jumped back. Sasori rose slowly and took the new enemy in: curiously old, if his skin was any judge, and wearing a dark robe that covered only part of his torso and tapered to a point behind his head. Konoha's attackers were a carnival indeed.
A club hit the redhead in the side, and the pain rattled through most of his body. He staggered and dashed to the side to avoid another strike from the unseen attacker (who shouted, "The fuck is this, a doll?"). Uncultured pig. His weapons were not dolls. A blade through his spine would teach him so, he decided.
As sudden as the club strike, an enormous red blur suddenly overwhelmed the vulgar man with the club, and pulled him away. As he and the wide-eyed old man watched, they saw it was Hidan's scythe, pulled back by the rope on the bottom, and pulled by Hidan himself. His robe hung on just one shoulder, and three scars like an animal's paw hung down the front of his shoulder. He looked for all the world like he'd just climaxed.
He ran towards Sasori still with this expression; he heard the old half-robe bandit curse and flee. He started laughing, "Man, I just got—" but Sasori cut him off with, "Shut up and go back there," and gestured to the area where the samurai had been standing before. "Yah, okay!" Hidan said, and jogged gaily off.
'What's happened to him, now? The same thing that happened to Naruto, perhaps. Perhaps they're both merely insane.'
"Hey! Hey, we're going back!" Deidara called to him from nearby. Sasori looked and found all eight bandits were now merely eight bodies, save for one of the smaller ones that had a knife in its back. Madara was making a missile out of by throwing it as close to the bandit group as he could. Sasori watched his movement and the flex of his muscles as he threw, and determined provoking Madara physically would never be wise.
"That knife is mine, but you can have it!" Madara shouted, grinning, and then ran with the others towards Konoha again. Again, Sasori saw, the bandits remained in their dense pack and wouldn't come forward. The bespectacled boy and the man filled with tentacles were nowhere to be seen.
Sakura was freshly panting, and she now completely favored her injured leg. She pivoted a little on the good one and shouted at the bandit crowd, "Chojuro, if I see your face again, I'm taking whatever's left of your ribs back home with me!" Someone from within the bandit group may or may not have hissed something back at her.
Madara approached her, putting a hand on her shoulder and leaning down a bit as though preparing to whisper a secret. Sasori openly stared, his eyes on Madara's. Hidan had claimed his eyes looked like a rat's blood for a reason. If Naruto was an animal, what was he? How much of an Uchiha was he on the inside?
He was just far enough away that he could not hear what the red-eyed man said to her, save for the word, "know." After this comment, Sakura looked up to meet his eyes and appeared to regret it, lowering her eyes and looking over her shoulder instead while muttering something that was probably off-topic.
'Even she finds his eyes unsettling.' The puppeteer noted. As he did, he saw the bandits turning around and moving away. The formation they'd had when they'd first headed towards the village was gone. Now they walked in a senseless, tight jumble. They stepped carelessly over any bodies and picked them clean of weapons as they went. 'It's as though they're quitting a game. Is this truly it? This can't be the last of them.'
Sakura turned around and started back towards the village. It looked like she was tolerating Madara's hand on her shoulder; it was hard to tell from looking if he was helping her walk or if she was purposefully leaning onto him for that. She waved weakly to Sasori as she passed by. Madara looked far too delighted to be near her, and this he would not stand for. He twirled one hand in a long, convoluted motion; the Kazekage began folding in on itself; the arms were sucked into increasingly larger cylinders and the body shrunk. Within seconds it was once again a black satchel on his back.
Sasori took a spot walking next to Sakura and the red-eyed Uchiha and asked, "Do you know if they'll return? I feel that our jobs can't be over with just one battle, however successful."
"No, they'll be back, certainly. Not tonight or even the day after, but the night after that, they'll be ready." She elaborated, and as she did, her sensei fell into step with them as well, on Madara's right. "Normally it takes only one day, but after a victory like that, I'm very confident that we'll have that long to rest."
"Why, I'd fight them again if they came back in an hour!" Madara boasted. Whether it was meant to be comical was hard to guess. "But you shouldn't, if it came to that, I think. Let's have someone bandage your leg up, hm?" The Uchiha kissed the top of her head, tickling her forehead with strands of his hair.
Lightning may well have struck him; Sasori would not have noticed. 'You arrogant, childish little shit.' He thought. Madara was sprawling himself over Sakura's fine form like ink spilling over a perfect ink painting. Staining her. He would probably try and would make gestures like this again, but he wouldn't succeed in taking the samurai woman's attention. No, she would never take to a monstrous rat like him. 'Hidan was right about you and your eyes. You're an opportunistic rat.'
"I think this is the part where you remove your claws and let her be with her fellow villagers," commented Deidara from in front of them. It made Sasori suddenly furious that the phoenix painted on the back of his cloak had not the faintest cut or bloodstain.
Madara pretended to contemplate. "Well, I think—"
Sakura planted a foot on the ground and stopped Madara from walking forward. "Well, I think Konoha's saviors should go on without me." She stated. No one walked without her. The villagers, standing around the archway hardly twenty feet away, openly stared. Sakura looked at them all evenly and bowed once. "Samurai-san, you are all defenders of my home. My villagers must now look at you and know you, not me. So please, go first."
At the very back, Hidan started off with, "Okay, seriously—" but was cut off by Sasuke, who said firmly, "Don't you think we've had enough struggling for today? Do what she says." The silver-haired man scoffed but did just that, pushing past Sasori and walking with Deidara under Konoha's little archway. Madara, Naruto and Sasori came next.
Sasori could not help but smile a bit. His crossing underneath the villager's marker meant that he had officially made his entrance as the defender of Konoha, and that Sakura had officially succeeded in bringing him. Konoha knew he was here to stay, and soon, so would she.
April 3rd, late afternoon, within sight of Konoha
Dozens of commoners clapped, cried out and bowed. He could not help but notice that for peasant folk, their clothes were of fair quality of a range of colors greater than the common, cheap grey cloth, and they certainly did not appear starved. Sakura hailed from a good, strong village of capable people. Was she born here, and were her parents here? What kinds of things did she own? What was it like to wake early enough to see the sunrise here, as she had claimed to do so often? A great many more questions plagued him about her. Questions, questions. Answers came so slowly and patience had always been more Itachi's virtue.
Now, he stood next to her, watching Naruto and Sasori go through the meek-looking archway and have their impressive scars and curious clothing stared at by the villagers. Now, he could see the breeze gently touching her hair in the corner of his eye. He could hear a good fraction of her strength had been sapped by the way she breathed. Now, Sasuke had an opportunity.
"I realize I told you this just this morning, but I apologize for my foolish uncle." He told her softly. "He makes a hobby out of invading others' personal space."
Sakura laughed. The sound made him almost sick with pleasure. "I'm not new to people getting in my face. Besides, he's more funny than anything else."
He risked making himself look like a weak copy of Madara, but he took the chance anyway. He had to. Sasuke held out his hand to her. There were a few spots of blood on the palm. "Would you like to walk through the arch together? I'm not fond of being the sole object of people's attention. And for your part," he made sure she understood he was glaring at his uncle, "I think I'm clearly the lesser of two evils."
She watched his hand for a moment, wondering like an animal before bait. Rather slowly, she slipped her hand into his. She was tense at doing this, he felt in her pose. Tense and so very soft and pure. "If that's the way you're putting it, then I agree."
They walked through hand in hand, and now the inquisitive eyes of many villagers flocked from the other samurai to him and Sakura. And once they'd walked the small distance to stand by the others, he tightened his hand over hers slightly. She could go be with her sensei in another minute.
Speaking of the sensei, she now stood cross-armed a few steps in front of the great semicircle of villagers surrounding them. She inhaled excitedly and said, "Minna-sama, I am Tsunade, unofficial guardian of Konoha. I and everyone here welcome you, and thank you." Here Sakura looked up gratefully at Sasuke while loosening her hand from his. He nodded and let her go.
She went over to her sensei and joined her and the villagers' collective bow. It was not particularly coordinated but was accompanied by plenty of tears. Once they'd risen again, a few of the villagers appeared to gather some courage and spoke out directly to the samurai.
"Samurai-sama," started one man, perhaps his father's age. He was addressing Sasori. "I…I wonder about the device you used in battle. Might I ask about it?"
Naruto inclined his head to him. "You don't have to talk to us like nobles, 'kay? I dunno about Sasuke-teme, 'cause he actually is one, but most of us don't care. Don't be scared."
This appeared to soften and incite wonder in many villagers' faces. The man swallowed and looked at the redhead again. "Well, I just wondered…where it went. Did the bandits steal it from you?"
Sasori looked quite amused. From where the man stood, it seemed that he couldn't see the black satchel on the samurai's back. Instead of turning to let him see it, he raised his arms and pointed his hands at his back. The puppet's arms shot out from within the cloth covering, making many villagers gasp and step back. Sasuke watched with nearly equal interest as Sasori's puppet seemed to fold outward from his back till it was not quite as big as he was, and floated above his head like a human cloud.
"Magic!"
"It hasn't got strings! Not a single string!"
"It's not magic, I assure you," said the puppeteer. "It is a secret, though. Unfortunately, the only ones who will learn it are the bandits of yours I'll kill."
A little girl appeared, peeking out from behind her mother's legs. "You're really gonna make them go away?"
Madara put a hand brazenly on his chest. "I certainly will, young lady. I'll have to sharpen my sword first, since the ones I just took down made it dull with their fat heads." The girl tugged on her sleeve and giggled at him. Sasuke internally curled his lip at his uncle. No matter how many children thought him amusing and delightful, he never liked the sight.
"Can I just, like, thank you for saving' my ass, lady?" Hidan asked. He was looking at Tsunade. "Also, female samurai are just fine in my book. Even if I didn't know your apprentice, you breaking that guy's neck to get the guy with the axe off my back—that was the shit. Oh, yeah, I'm Hidan. Since you asked before."
"Well, we're all here for the same purpose, Hidan, so you're welcome." She replied with her hands on her hips, then raised her voice a bit. "Samurai, I hope Sakura hasn't ruined the surprise for you. We've been gathering some special things for you ever since Sakura sent us a letter saying she'd found her first samurai, Deidara-san….may I ask which of you is Deidara?"
Deidara raised his hand proudly and Sasuke internally curled his lip again. A hundred children could call Madara their hero, if this over-proud fool would just disappear. Shock blossomed on the samurai woman's face and she stuttered before adding, "Ah, yes. I shall know all your names very soon…the surprise is in fact a banquet we're holding in your honor, in the honor of Konoha's saviors. Within the hour, you'll have every delicacy to be had in this village at your fingertips!"
"Will there be ramen?" asked Naruto excitedly.
"Hmmm, shall there be, Ayame?" Tsunade queried, looking to a brunette maiden standing in the crowd some ten feet away. The girl nodded intensely and whisked away deeper into the crowd, perhaps to prepare it. Naruto was exclaiming happily as she left and letting every man, woman, child and blade of grass for a mile know how excited he was to soon eat ramen. Other villagers began smiling and laughing as well. 'Overexcitement can beget death, you blathering idiot. One day you might learn that.'
Suddenly his eye was attracted to Sakura again, who was having a quick word with her sensei, and receiving a bandage to put on her leg. Her face was joyful, and her hands moved slightly in nervousness. He caught the phrase, "I'm so proud of you," which made the young woman blossom with pride. Sasuke ached to hold her again, hold more than her hand. Would she accept that?
Just as suddenly, Sakura started and gasped, "Oh! Oh, everyone, don't leave just yet!" The villagers who had been trickling away to work on the banquet stopped and looked back. "I'd like you all to see something. I'd like Ino to meet Deidara Minna-san, where's Ino? Did she go already?" After a moment's pause, villagers began tossing agreeing, even excited comments, and calling for a person named Ino.
Sakura went up to Deidara and respectfully held out her hand. "Will you come with me? I'd really like you to meet her."
"Of course," he replied, and took the same hand that Sasuke had held not five minutes ago. Immediately he stormed after them and walked just behind them. When the blonde looked over his shoulder and sent a cocky smirk at any potential followers, Sasuke was the first to receive it. He kept any growing rage in an unseen pocket of himself. There was no need to show Deidara how this made him feel. He knew.
The three of them—or perhaps more, he didn't look back to see who else was following—walked through an opening in the crowd and around the side of the cottage nearest to the Konoha arch, in the direct opposite direction of the arch. They had passed only five homes, all within a hundred or so feet of each other, and then Sakura guided them down a fairly steep hill. At the bottom the land spread out for a mile or more of nothing but farmland, dotted everywhere with colorful crops and the occasional shadow of a cloud. It was cut through by straight, plowed paths, and a bending creek no wider than a man's body. On the far side of this land many more houses could be seen, perhaps twenty black dots on the edge of the horizon, and many shaded by trees.
"I see her. She's halfway down the salamander path." Sakura said breathlessly. When Deidara made a questioning noise, she elaborated, "Every path through the farming area has a name. See, she's on the second one. Oh, oh, close your eyes!" Deidara did so immediately.
"Why's he got to close his eyes, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked. But Sasuke had looked on the salamander path, and seen a girl in a violet kimono, and knew why.
"You'll see, just wait for it. Deidara, there's no rocks or anything, so you needn't worry about tripping over something." She said quickly, and then cupped a hand over her mouth and called, "Ino! Ino, I said not to go yet, you idiot!" The samurai reached the bottom of the hill and started down the salamander path towards Ino, who turned to them.
"Well, excuse me for wanting to do my part, Miss—ye—Sakura, what—" But Sakura only grinned and looked at each of her samurai to see their reactions. Most of them probably had a similar face to Sasuke's. He didn't bother looking. He looked at Ino, a tall blonde Sakura's age, carrying a pot full of lilies. She stared wide-eyed at Deidara.
Sakura released Deidara's hand, and now everyone watched him. "All right, now you can look." Deidara opened his only eye, and then he, too was speechless. He and Ino looked like perfect siblings, as similar as he and Itachi, as similar as a man and a woman could be without wearing the same clothes. Even their goddamned hairstyle was exactly the same, except for hair covering opposite eyes.
"I—nn—" The blonde tried to find words but struggled. Verbally defeated by a peasant girl with a flowerpot. "Hello. I'm here to protect your village, un." Ino bowed to him, respectful as was required, except for keeping her wide eyes on his every second.
"They're fucking twins!" Hidan scoffed. "Are you guys sure you aren't long-lost siblings or something? You both know who your parents are?"
"My parents lived here all their lives." Ino said slowly. "I'm, I'm only…"
"We can talk about how similar you are when the banquet starts." Sakura supplied them. "We can all go there now. At the end of the path and in the center of all the homes is our gathering place. We'll be eating there soon." She pointed down the path to where the majority of the village homes were.
She took a step in that direction, and as she walked, she looked over her shoulder. Sasuke instinctively took a step toward her, to be nearer, to feel the warmth and joy she was suddenly radiating. "I'm very grateful you're all here. Your kindness is going to help save us."
It occurred to him then that both Sasori and Madara were not here. They were still up the hill by the gate and the first few homes, talking with either Tsunade or the villagers that remained there. Sasuke could see villagers walking towards the gathering place on paths parallel to theirs, jogging and the younger ones even bouncing. They had probably not felt such safety and hope for weeks, but he felt the brightness of this one girl far more than anyone else. The other three were probably glaring daggers at him right now, but he could have cared far less.
He started walking after her. "Your village is indeed safe now. We'll protect it, and you."
For a heartbeat it seemed the significance of those words was lost on her, but then the recognition appeared in her eyes. Now she knew, guessed at the least. He held out a hand again, and this time she didn't watch it like an animal before bait, but like he didn't know what it was at all. "I've often been my own protection," she said carefully. Sasuke could all but hear plucky Hidan drinking in this sight.
"And now that you have help, you assume you'll never need it?" It was rather like something he would do himself. "Don't be foolish. You're precious, and I'll protect you."
Now his hand was stared at like a venomous snake. The girl's mouth parted as she made noises suggesting she was trying to reply. Her hand was very distinctly being held closer to her side than necessary. She wouldn't come to him. He told her outright how he felt, and now she wouldn't come.
His hand moved down, perhaps an inch, and then hers moved up. He stopped the motion of his and opened it to welcome hers again. The tips of her fingers touched his, and even if she did not twitch back at the feel of it, she must have felt as much of a spark as he. He closed his fingers around the top of her hand and let the conjoined pieces of them fall. They walked hand in hand again and this time Sakura very much understood why he wanted it.
Hidan made a "pssst" noise behind them. "Ino. Ino. That's Sasuke, another one of your village's samurai. He is a thieving little dick."
Well, that was only three pages longer than I intended. Not that I think you'll be complaining about it. Well! At least I managed to finish this chapter before my Christmas break ended. I had hopes of finishing it a little before midnight on New Year's. I posted the first chapter of this story in the last five minutes of 2009, if you didn't know, and I wished I could perform a similar feat for this chapter, but I couldn't do it…on the upside, I made it quite long. And managed to include a segment from Sasuke's POV, who's as lovesick as a little boy with a first crush but managed to smoothly profess his attraction to Sakura. I only changed to his POV on the last third or so because I wanted to have that scene where he asks to enter Konoha whilst holding her hand. Ahhh~
What did you learn in this chapter? Some stuff about Sasori, certainly, though I did not manage to hint about his past, as I had meant to in the beginning. I tried to make Sasori hella observant, for one, he dislikes ugly things and has a fixation on Sakura's movements, not even big, impressive movements, either, but the way she walks and moves her hands, little things that only a sophisticated and pompous fellow like him would notice. Oh, and did you notice how he got burned by Naruto? Ouchhh.
I also wanted certain villagers, and certain groups of villagers, to show interest in certain samurai. Guess I'll just insert those things next chapter. I will tell you that Tsunade and Madara will hit it off and become buds, Lee will appear and be Naruto's sparring pal, Naruto will take a platonic (Pla. To. Nic.) liking to Hinata, and half-villager-half-samurai Kakashi will appear and firmly plant himself as Sakura's substitute father figure.
Considering the stuff I've got planned for this story, no, none of that information is a spoiler. Next chapter will be a lot of "interaction" with little to no bandit influence, so it'll be a fun one!