Well, I've a horrid grounding. But, as I once again have net access… Well, let's get this going, shall we?
HAS ANYONE ELSE SEEN BLEACH?! OMIGOD!!!!
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Dedication: To my Ronnie-nee. How I love you, darling.
---
I gaped at him. There was no way. Just no way. He had to be lying. I kept myself calm, totally ignored him, and turned to look at Tsunade. I kept my 'business-face' on (everyone has one; for me, it's eyes-closed-nose-in-air-head-held-high); it's something I do whenever I'm in the presence of something (or in this case, someone particularly disgusting).
"Tsunade, he's lying, I know, so could I have the mission briefing?"
I opened my closed eyes, and found her wincing at me.
That couldn't be good…
"Tsunade… can I have the mission briefing? Please?"
"Sorry Sakura, sweetie, he's not lying. You're our best bet at killing this thing."
I blinked, stunned. I had never been bait, not once in my entire life. This could not be happening. This is not happening. I stayed stock still for a moment, before I turned and glared at Uchiha (I refuse to call him by his given name. So there, asshole), and I tried not to lose it.
Okay, that's a lie.
I lost it. I totally lost. I spent the next ten minutes screaming my lungs out at him. I think I called him every single rude thing I could possibly think of (and that's a lot, considering I speak twelve languages fluently) and I stopped after that, breathing deeply. Honestly, it's hard to scream for that long without breathing.
When I looked up at Uchiha again -fourteen seconds later; you learn to catch your breath pretty damn quick in this job- he looked as mixture of shocked and amused, damn him. But the shock made up for the amusement, because I was pretty sure he had understood every word I'd said, and, damn, I was proud of myself.
So, Anko's dirty mouth has actually had a good effect on me, despite Kakashi's warnings that I was going to be a terror to behold when I was older. So there Kakashi, I'm not a terror.
I'm a horror. There's a difference. A small, but important difference. I mentally stuck my tongue out at him.
This whole thought process took less then ten seconds. And then I heard that hated voice again, and I wanted to smash his head into the floor. Is that normal? Seriously, it's not normal to want another human to die so much! "Hey princess, chill."
I fumed. "Fuck you, asshole. Sorry Tsunade, I need to get out of here, I'll get the mission briefing after. C'mon Hinata."
I stomped out, tossed the shitty-thing-that-used-to-be-a-door out of my way, and stood in the cold, icy bright sunlight-covered-by-clouds.
Hinata was right behind me, and I wanted to hate myself for a second because Hinata really shouldn't be here; she's still half-human, still hasn't had her heart ripped out and shredded on the ground, and I never want to see that happen to her but… but she's the closest thing I have to a friend.
And I think I need a friend right now.
"Hinata, I'm sorry, maybe you should go back inside…"
She shakes her head furiously at me, and we stomp off together. Stomping makes me feel better, not gonna lie. I stare straight ahead, and I only flick my eyes towards Hinata when she speaks. "Wanna go empty bullets into moving things that explode?"
"Hell. Fucking. Yes."
So we go to the arcade.
And we blow shit up for a good two and a half hours. We both felt better afterwards, too, because we went back to my house and consumed enough cookie dough to even make Anko sick (this is saying something; Anko can eat more cookie dough then anyone I know. As it was, I was going to have to replenish her stash. We'd eaten it all).
Strangely enough, neither of us was very sick. We shrugged at each other, went back to the arcade, and blew more shit up for another hour.
Death and destruction, apparently, make the two of us feel better. Lovely. I turned to Hinata and told her that. "We're a fucked up pair, aren't we?"
Hinata nodded, but said nothing. She was concentrating on blowing off the heads of a couple of zombies right at that moment, so I don't blame her. But still. Killing zombies is fun. It's like killing leeches, only better, because zombies are only after brains.
Leeches are after a helluvalot more then brains.
But it didn't matter, because Hinata had just beaten the high score, and I cheered. This training had really given the girl good aim. I'd never thought of this before - train her by letting her kill evil things.
I pulled her out of there pretty quickly after that though, because the creepy arcade guy who had been hitting on us for most of the day had decided to try for another round. I shake my head to myself. Dude needs to get laid.
"Hina, let's go home. We'll eat more cookie dough. And maybe ice cream."
Hinata nodded with a grin, and off we went.
But, sadly, it was not to be. Because half-way there we came across another leech, this one about to feed, on a girl with wide eyes and short brown hair. Its fangs were inches from her neck, and I reacted instinctively.
I pulled a sharp silver knife (it's actually not the silver that harms them. It's a magic of sorts, and I suck at imbuing it into the precious metal. Silver is used because they react together so easily. Anyways, off topic…) out of my boot and threw it at the leech's head.
It didn't miss, embedding itself deeply in the thing's neck. The leech let out a howl of pain, and dropped the chick. She scrambled as far as she could get away from it, but that wasn't very far. This was bad, because her lip was cut -I guess she had bitten through it- and all of us could smell her blood.
This was both very bad and very good, because it sent the thing into a feeding frenzy. Bad, because it would be a little crazier, desperate to get to her blood. Good, because it would be easier to kill.
I dashed out of the way of one of the thing's wild swings, and got behind it. It didn't take me long to put a hole through the thing's head, and I watched in satisfaction as it burst into flames and turned to salt. I hate them, the evil bastards.
The girl was shaking and Hinata and I managed to pull her up. We both looked at her, and then looked at each other. "Let's take her to HQ, they'll have to erase her memory. We don't want this little incident getting out, do we?"
"Nah, not really, that might cause problems."
So the two of us lugged her unresponsive body back to the crappy-thing-that-at-one-point-in-history-may-have-been-a-door-but-should-have-been-condemned-years-ago opening, and in we went.
I twitched as soon as we got in, because the whole it-went-darker-then-the-pits-of-hell thing happened again, and it was really starting to get annoying. And not only that, I already have a grudge against this place. Bah.
And who was there but my worst nightmare? Jezus fuck, does he follow me or something? "Well, well, well, look who's back, the little princess and her servant. Do you need something princess?"
Hinata went red at his words, from embarrassment, or from fury, I wasn't sure. It didn't matter either way; she was going to castrate him for that comment, and I mentally cheered. "I need Tsunade, dumbshit, we just caught a leech trying to feed of this chick. Can you get her please, or will I let Hinata loose on your balls?"
He sauntered out of the room, so calm, so cool, that I wanted to kill him. How dare he be so rude?!
Tsunade came rushing in a moment later, and took the still-trembling girl out of our grip. This was of course, after she had tossed me the mission briefing (I didn't want to kill my self at all!), and she basically ordered me to get out of there and take Uchiha with me. I guess she needed Hinata's help with the girl, or she just might have been trying to set me and Uchiha up.
I think the latter is far more likely, to my utter disgust. Blah.
"So princess, where are we off to?" You know, the boy personifies the saying 'he was cute until he opened his mouth.' I mean honestly, gimme a break here! There's only so much stupidity and jackass-ery I can take before I scream!!!
"We are not going anywhere. I am going home."
He shrugged, nonchalant and so, so, arrogant. "Cool, I'll come. I want to see Kakashi anyways." Her smirked then, and I wanted to slap the smirk off his face. But I didn't, as I have some measure of control. Although, considering, I think I have the right to let that control snap…
---
I hate men.
Honestly, I do. Because you know what? The first thing that happened, as soon as we got in the house, was that Uchiha made himself at home. He flopped down on my favorite couch (the ugly orange one that I will never allow Anko to throw away), picked up my favorite book (In The Forests Of The Night, by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes), and basically told me to find him some food.
"Isn't it polite to offer a guest food?"
I sneered at him. "You are not a guest. You a human leech, here to torment me, because I can't exactly kill you without compromising my morals. And I already hate your guts. So please leave. Kakashi and Anko will be home soon, and really, if you want to die, go ahead, stay, but get off my couch."
He shifted on the cough, sent me a cocky grin, and said "I'll take my chances. Food?"
"Fuck you, get it yourself," was all I said in reply, and I went upstairs to my bedroom, and slumped on my bed in collective exhaustion. I could be eating ice cream with Hinata right now! But then, that girl would have died, or she might have ended up another leech.
And none of us want that.
Because innocent people die on a regular basis to feed those things, and it isn't fair. And because of that, we have bases in every large city in the world, so that the leech population is always under control. 'It's a constant war', Kakashi once told me, 'but that's okay, because we're saving innocent people from a death that none of them deserve. We may not be gods, but we can damn well try.'
I was seven, when he told me that, and the words have always stayed with me. I dunno why, but it reminds me that I am human, and that I'm doing something good, and that killing other humans is, in a way, the worst thing you can do.
It's also the only reason I'm not down in my kitchen, killing Uchiha because he's in my territory, the bastard.
So I pushed myself up off my bed, and forced myself to go back downstairs. I may not be able to cook, but I'm sure Uchiha can manage without me. I just wanted to make sure he didn't burn the house down, so I grabbed the fire extinguisher on the way down. Yes, we have a fire extinguisher in the house, as neither Kakashi nor I can do anything that could be considered cooking, Anko makes sure there's always one nearby. Sigh.
And I'll be damned if this house burns down, so off we go.
I slip into the kitchen, and found, to my utter horror, that Uchiha was well on his way to cooking up a batch of eggs and tomatoes, and he seemed to be doing just fine. I gaped at him. No. No way, are you serious?! He can cook better then me?! The dude is a chick in a dude's body!
This is not fair!
He turned around when he heard me step into the kitchen, keeping one eye trained on what he was doing, obviously checking to see if I had a knife in my hand to kill him or not.
"You can cook?!" My voice ripped through a half-octave on the last word as it broke. Damn.
He turned back to his cooking. "I lived by myself for a long time, princess, so yes, I can cook. Can't you?" A cruel smile accompanied the last sentence, and I clenched my fists, heard the mission briefing in my hand crumple, and quickly relaxed them.
"Nah, I can't cook worth shit. I was too busy perfecting my aim to learn how." I smirked at him, because it was true. I had been too busy making my aim as perfect as it could be to learn how to cook, despite Anko's continuous griping about the fact that I was never going to make a good housewife, and therefore never get married, and therefore never give her grandchildren.
Well. I wasn't going to get married because, let's face it; no one will meet my standards. No one. So I'm a little bit picky about the guys I like, sor-ry.
And just as he was about to retort, Kakashi came in the front door, his nose probably in the air, following the scent that had probably hit him in the face as soon as he'd come in the house. "Tomato eggs? Is that what I smell? SAKURA, IF YOU'RE COOKING-"
Uchiha called over his shoulder to my papa, the jerk. "Hey Kakashi, long time, no see. No, the princess isn't cooking, like I'd let that happen." I growled at this statement, and Kakashi burst out laughing as he came into the kitchen.
"Hello Sasuke, how have you been?"
They chatted aimlessly for a few minutes, and I gaped at them. How could Kakashi be carrying on a conversation with this kid?! The kid was Beelzebub personified! And that takes talent, because not even I can personify the Devil's only son, for fuck's sake.
And then Anko came in, and I though I was saved.
She squealed, and threw her arms around Uchiha. Kakashi chuckled as the currently-being-attacked-boy gasped for air. I smirked to myself. Maybe Anko was going to kill him for me. But no. She just continued to hug the life out of him for another half-minute, and then she said "Sasuke, how are you? We haven't seen you since you were just tiny!"
Kakashi laughed again, and gently pried my mother off the now-blue-ish-coloured boy. "Anko love, I think you're strangling him. And I think the eggs might be starting to burn."
She blinked, and said "Oh," before jumping off him, and gave Uchiha the time to save the eggs.
This all happened while I continued to gape at the three of them, because this was seriously not normal. They were acting like they'd known him his entire life. But, if that was the case, then how come I'd never met him before? What the hell, right?
"Can I have an explanation, here?" My voice was still way higher then normal. Damn, damn, double damn…
Anko half-smiled at me, and gave me one of her looks of doom (every mother has one; mine just happens to be terrifying. Gulp), and then said "Sakura, the first time you ever met him, you were unconscious. It was right after Kakashi found you."
"What?" I was still bewildered.
"Your mother and his mother were best friends, you know? And they were like older sisters to me, which is why I was so bloody determined to take care of you. I probably would have taken Sasuke in, as well, but he said, little eight-year-old that he was, that he'd rather live on his own."
No, I didn't know, but Anko was holding something back, and I'm sure it was important, but there was nothing I could do to make her tell me until both Kakashi and Uchiha left. Kakashi's kind of protective of Anko like that.
But the two of them, Kakashi and Uchiha, seemed to be getting along well. Damn. But it didn't matter. I had to check the mission briefing that was still clutched in my hand, and that meant… urgh, that meant Uchiha.
"Uchiha, we have to go over this mission briefing, because I'm the proper mood to destroy evil things. So can we get on with it?"
He glared at me, and a happy warmth crossed my chest. I so love annoying people.
---
I hate this time of day.
Somehow, the sky got bright, and all the clouds are gone, and I really want to kill myself. I stuck next to a blood bar (that's what I call bars that are set only for leeches - ew), wearing a short, short skirt, a slutty top, and heels as high as the sky. I DO NOT DRESS LIKE THIS. EVER. NO. I REFUSE.
Well, all of my mental bitching didn't really do anything, because I was still next to the blood bar, and I was still wearing the slut clothes. Sigh. But I had a little things in my ear, and Uchiha's voice was crackling through it.
"Don't. Move. It's on your left, about ten meters away, and it's closing in fast," was all his voice hissed out. I clenched my teeth, but I didn't move. As much as I hated to say it, Uchiha knew what he was doing, but if I got bitten, bad things would happen to him.
"Three… two… one… Princess, move!" It was still bright out, but I jumped out of the way anyway.
And there was the leech from before. He looked the same, his eyes wild and red, and urgh, he was still somehow hot. Why?! I pulled out my rifle (it had been sitting in a lovely, unseen nook right behind me), and I shot him neatly in the shoulder.
Yay for perfect aim!
But, shit, I wasn't paying attention, and the thing's claws ripped through my arm. I hissed, because, seriously, it was not a pleasant thing. Damn, that's going to scar.
I jumped back, and kept my arm elevated in the easiest way. But even as I did it, something blew past me, faster then any normal human could see. Oh, come on!
I kept my rifle trained on the leech's head. No, this was not happening, Uchiha was not saving me. But there he was, silver knife plunged into the leech's head, blood and brains spewing everywhere.
I wrinkled my nose in disgust. Yummy.
I looked up at him, to tell him off for jumping in when I was clearly going to kill the thing, and was shocked to see his eyes. They were wild and scared, and I wasn't sure where that had come from. Was he worried about me? I looked again, to make sure, because it just seemed so weird. No, they were his normal eyes, cold as ice and dead, but he looked a little ticked off. I mean, his was… twitching.
Oh, dear, he doesn't look at all happy with me…
"You. Stupid. Bitch." Nope, not happy at all. "You could have been killed, and then I would have had to deal with a very pissed off Kakashi. Do you have any idea what that's like?!"
I glared at him, suddenly furious (this may have been due in part to the fact that I was still bleeding all over the place), but I kept my voice cool. "Oh, I've never seen the man angry, not even once. Of course I haven't, even though I've lived with him basically my entire life." I was quite proud of my sarcasm, thank you very much.
He glared back at me, and we stood there glaring at each other while I was bleeding like crazy, and we probably would have continued glaring at each other had Hinata's voice not sounded from my hip.
"Sakura, Sasuke, are you both alive?"
I growled soundlessly, picked up my walkie-talkie-advanced-thing and muttered into it "Well, I'm alive, and so is Uchiha, but considering that I'm going to rip his head off, you should tell Tsunade that only I lived, despite the cuts and bruises that I've got going."
I could feel her eye-roll. "No killing humans Sakura, you know the rules. And what was that about cuts and bruises? Hurry up and get out of there, you need to write a report. And tell Sasuke that Naruto's treating the three of us to ramen." And this time, I could feel her blush. It's about bloody time, too.
"Right, well, I'll tell his. His body, anyways." I smirked and turned the thing off, but not before I heard Hinata groan. Poor Hina, she tried so hard, and I try so… not hard. Blah.
I grabbed the edge of my shirt, and was about to rip it. I really needed some bandage, or I was going to bleed out, and that would be bad. Instead, I heard ripping from behind me, and I looked up to see Uchiha holding out some torn cloth. I grabbed it, and wrapped it around the slash on my arm with a wince. I am no good at fixing myself up. Damn.
I sent Sasuke one last furious glare, and then I spoke. Naruto's taking us out for ramen. Well, actually, he's taking Hinata out for ramen. You and I are ditching out."
His eyes went wide, and an undignified squeak exited his mouth. Obviously, he didn't like the idea of giving up free food. I laughed at him. "It's for a good cause, dipwad. Have you seen the way they look at each other?"
He stared at me blankly.
I let out an exasperated sigh, and muttered to myself about male stupidity. "They adore each other, dumb shit, and I want them to have some time to themselves. You can come and help me spy."
He continued to stare at me blankly.
I growled. "Look, I'll buy onigiri for you on the way, to make up for it. You're a big baby, aren't you, yes you are!" My voice ended on a high-pitched coo, and I had an insane urge to pinch his cheeks. But my sanity won over and quashed the urge, thank god. Actually, I think it was my survival instinct that quashed that particular urge. I have a sneaking suspicion that he might have actually ended my life, had I let the urge take over.
His lips quirked up at the corners, and the urge returned, this time twice as strong. Damn. I managed to grind out "Don't smirk like that, I'll start maybe, possibly liking you."
He smirked a little wider, and I couldn't resist. God, even looking back on that particular moment is painful… I gave into the urge. How could I have been so bloody stupid?
I pinched his cheeks, like that crazy aunt that the entire family is somehow both afraid of, and not sure if she's even related. And then I giggled out "Awwwwww, you're so cute!" Yes, I giggled. I'm never going to live it down.
After this brief interlude of temporary insanity, he and I stared at each toher, not sure whether to be shocked, or to start laughing like maniacs. I dropped my arms to my sides, and muttered "Sorry, temporary bout of insanity. It happens."
He shrugged. "It happens."
And then the cheek-pinching incident was grabbed, shoved into a tiny box, locked with a key and three padlocks, shoved into a second box, which was once again locked, and was then shoved under the bed, never to be spoken of again. Which was good, because that was what I wanted, right? Right.
But that doesn't mean I managed to stop my cheeks from flaming the colour of cherry tomatoes. Damn. Damn. I attributed the red cheeks to the momentary insanity. Daouble damn.
---
Once we got back to HQ, Sasuke (since when did he become Sasuke, huh?) and I gave Tsunade our report, and I got bandaged up properly (I also got changed out of the slut clothes, thank the lord…). I hate mission debriefings, they take so bloody long. And then the two of us went to find Naruto and Hinata.
It didn't take us long, to be honest. Sas-Uchiha knows Naruto's favorite ramen place, and I knew that Hinata would be wherever Naruto was, swooning her poor, signature eyes out.
"How're we gonna manage to ditch out?" I asked, more to myself then to him.
He shrugged in response to my rhetorical question. He didn't think that the spying thing was necessary. To him, I supposed at the time, free food was free food. I shook my head to myself. Boys are so weird.
"C'mon idiot. The free onigiri are on the condition that you help." Oh, that perked him up a bit…
"Why don't you just hide in the bushes?"
I glared at him. "I am in no mood to hide in bushes. It's not my style. And you're coming with me, you douche. I can't do this all on my own."
He shrugged again, but said nothing. He must have noticed the weird way people were staring at us. I don't blame them; I mean, Uchiha and I are a weird pair.
He's the most black-and-white person I've ever met; black skinny jeans (yumm… I love boys in skinny jeans… or haven't I said that already?), black t-shirt, black-with-red-stitching over-shirt (shut up, I observe everything that closely), black hair, black eyes, white skin. Seriously, the kid could be the perfect traditional leech. Wow. And then there's me.
I sigh as I see myself in my mind's eye. Pink hair, green eyes, an overly large assortment of silver rings, dark blue skinny's, a blood red tank top, and one of Kakashi's old leather jackets that I 'inherited' (read: stole without the old perv knowing; he's still looking for this one, actually), and bright red high tops.
Yup, a mismatched pair. Gimme a break, I know I belong on the Island of Misfit Toys, okay?! And don't insult that refernce, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is the best freakin' Christmas movie in the history of the world.
He grumbled as I pulled him along. Jeez, the boy is totally useless. Not to mention catatonic. Oh, screw it, he's coming whether he likes it or not, and I'm not dragging him, because that takes way too much work.
So I kicked him in his catatonic shin, and was pleasantly surprised to feel satisfaction swarm over me.
He yelped and glared at me, but I just smiled at him, the satisfaction nearly overwhelming. "Don't mess with me right now, Uchiha, I'm in a pissy mood because of that leech. How dare it try to change me?!"
Just thinking about this topic set me off, and I spent the next portion of the trip ranting about leeches and guns and Tsunade and leeches and guns and guns and leeches and guns. I like guns. I really like guns.
And I really dislike leeches. But considering how much time I've spent bitching about it, I'm sure Uchiha knows. We continued in this vein, me bitching, him rolling his eyes but saying nothing, for quite some time, all the way until we could see Naruto's ramen place. Damn, the boy was loud; I could hear him yelling from here. And I knew without a doubt that Hinata was there, too.
I grabbed Sasu-Uchiha's arm (good god girl, think these things through! He's… him! Urgh…), and stopped him. The thought of free food had, once again, obviously taken over his mind (loser), and he was insistent that we go get said food. I stopped him by hissing out "As it is, Naruto and Hinata are on something that could be considered a date, and people think they're together anyways. Do you want people thinking we're together?!"
He looked slightly appalled. "You and I?"
Well, I was… offended… to say the least. So I kicked him. Again. And I still got the greatest wave of satisfaction out of it. He didn't yelp like a puppy this time, but he did glare at me.
Pffft, like I care. He can kiss my pasty white ass. I have better things to do then care about a petulant little boys. But still. I kind of owe him. I hate to say it, but he did sort of save my life.
Damn, damn, double damn. I really owe him, don't I? Fuck.