Part 4 in the Obelisk Series:
Kingdom of Man, Kingdom of Beasts, Kingdom of Monsters, and Kingdom of Gods.
OBELISK:
KINGDOM OF GODS
Chapter 16 part 2
Sakura hasn't come out of her room in four days and more than one elder has noticed. By the fifth day Jugo's grandfather Log has asked to see her. She covers the tattoos on the sides of her arms as well as what she can of her hands, and braces for the questions.
Log does not come alone. Homura Mitokado and even Koharu Utatane trail behind him, offering up no excuse for their presence other than they were wanting to see her when they heard Log was visiting.
Sakura feels the tattoos on her neck stand out like neon lights. She feels their eyes drawn to the lines like magnets and balls her hands up under the covers of the bedspread she is still sitting under.
"You seem to be doing well," Log states, pulling up a chair close to her bed and taking a switchblade to an apple, peeling it with skill.
Neither of the two elders offer any word but hang back like silent observers. It mades all of the survival nerves Sakura has honed while in and out of the Obelisk stand up on alert. She feels like an animal stalked by predators. They have eyes like predators.
"Well enough," Sakura answers in a soft voice, staring back at Homura Mitokado, the male elder, with no intention of backing down. She is the dangerous one, he should be the first to look away.
"You know," Log began, "I asked Jugo to keep me updated on how you were doing and if there was anything we could do to help. I'm also overseeing his chronicling. I never got to do it myself, but I was trained for it. He didn't mention the uh…that there under your chin."
"We haven't reached that part of the story yet," Sakura answered evenly, still staring the old Homura down and ignoring Koharu, the woman.
"You don't think it was important enough to mention to him right away?"
"No, I didn't,"
"You're quite humble, my dear," Log laughs, finished with the peeling and going into the slicing and cutting of the apple. "You're more extraordinary than you know."
"That's not true," she said before she knew what she meant. "I know exactly how extraordinary I am."
"So humble too," Homura grunts in a gruff tone, frowning at Sakura while adjusting himself where he stands.
Sakura frowns back, eyes narrowing into a more concentrated stare. "I'm only agreeing with what was already said. There's no need to be humble if it only serves to counteract what was already said."
'When they tell you that you're pretty, don't thank them for it. Just tell them you know and watch them squirm,' Karin once told her. Sakura misses her more than ever with a painful throb deep in her chest.
"It's fine for young kids to be full of themselves, that's what youth is all about," Log laughed, cutting up the rest of the apple. "And if anyone deserves to enjoy their youth is the kids that trudge through it, isn't that right, Homura?"
The other older man grunts, but doesn't respond verbally.
"Sakura, is there anything else we can do to help you?" Log asks, offering her the plate. Sakura watches him set it down beside her, but doesn't reach for it or pull her hands out from under the covers.
"Jugo gets me whatever I ned and Yamato and Genma both keep me safe. I'm fine."
"Well, I hope you feel well enough soon to come meet with us. We've had a meeting of the elders but you weren't there. It was so much more boring without your lively spirit. If you need something, just let us know."
Sakura thought back to Karin and Ino.
"I want to see my friends. I want to talk with them and visit them at least."
The elders passed looks to each other over her head, thinking she didn't notice. "We cal look into that," Log said. "The cell phones are a different matter, but I'll see about clearing a time where a visitor may be allowed up to one of the branch houses. Someone could escort you there for a meeting."
"When?"
Log pushed the apples closer to her. "In a few days. Your friends are busy though, aren't they. Jugo was telling me a little about them. Once things die down for them we can bring them up no problem. It's going to be Danzo we have to convince. He doesn't want to risk your safety."
Sakura wants to turn and glare at Log, but she's still staring hard at Homura, unwilling to look away first. It's at the mention of Danzo that the old man shows the first signs of maybe looking away. There was a flinch in his posture.
Somehow this convinced Sakura to like Danzo more, if he made Homura uncomfortable. She remembered that Danzo was the dangerous one, the one who took care of the assassins and protection in their cult like group. Shinobi, he called them. That's what Yamato and Genma both were.
"Why can't I go down to them?" Sakura asked.
"It's too dangerous."
Sakura clicks her tongue loudly. "That's such a sorry excuse. I nearly die each night when I go to sleep. These Obelisk dreams are trying to kill me and have been doing so since day one over two years ago. I've never needed such protection before."
"That was before we knew about you and the Obelisk being active. If we had known back then, we would have been far more vigilant with your safety earlier on."
"I believe you," Sakura answers, meaning nothing good by it.
She knows enough to understand that the same group that wants to protect her is made up of some of the same people who want to do her harm, to prevent the Obelisk from crowning a new god-should Sakura ever get that far. Killing another god and getting its tattoo would upset a few of them, she knew.
"We really want what's best for you, sweetie," Log says.
Sakura hates how Homura wont' look away and she hates how the old woman stands beside him, silent as a stone but watching everyone else as they speak, actively observing. She doesn't trust either of them and even Log seems to grow more creepy the longer he stays close to her. She didn't trust Danzo either, but out of all of them, he was the one she trusted the most because of both Yamato and Genma.
Sakura dropped her eyes and looked away first, hating herself for it. "I'm tired from my dreams. They've been especially difficult these past few nights. I want to rest before I have to go back into them, please."
"Of course dear. I can only imagine what you must be feeling right now with all that's going on. I don't understand it and Jugo doesn't tell me anything, but I'll believe what you say about being tired. You deserve your rest. We won't bother you anymore."
He stood up and pushed the chair back against the wall with an easy going smile. The other two elders turned and headed out of the room first, but it was Log that paused on the threshold to look back. "Go to sleep early. It might be best to face it head on, yeah?"
So Sakura skipped dinner and ended up sleeping early. The palace was mildly busy as Gaara declared he was almost ready to depart once the sandstorm passed.
"Can't he just make that part stop?" Sakura asked Sai, watching the sand swallow up the desert in an angry wall of brown.
"It would exhaust him too much. Better to wait it out, he says. Why aren't you asking him yourself?"
Sakura shrugged. "Didn't feel like looking for him. Also, I had a question to ask you about these god marks or whatever we're calling them now. Is there a way I can…turn them off in the real world?"
"Turn them off?"
"You know, when I'm in the dream world I can just cover them with a layer of skin and thought. I don't get why they stand out in the real world for everyone to see."
"But that's the point, so people see."
"Yeah, well people seeing isn't a good thing for me right now," Sakura confessed with a shiver. "I have a bad feeling about things. Those creepy elders came to see me this morning and saw my neck with the tattoo. They didn't ask about it too much, like I though they would, but it was something they wanted to know about, I could tell."
Sai looked her over with a newly critical gaze. "You think they would put you in danger?"
"I think one of them is the danger."
"Then covering up wouldn't do you much good now, would it?"
Sakura waved Sai off with a 'whatever' muttered under her breath and turned back to the hallways to find one that led her to Gaara. She wanted to get to the Obelisk as soon as possible and she needed to take him with her because he had the last mark needed to-
Sakura stopped where she stood, feeling a cold sweat seize her. Eyes were on her. A predator stalked her. She turned on her heel and saw nothing, heard nothing, sensed nothing. Something was wrong but nothing was wrong in the world around her. Her heart hammered as her eyes continued to rove, but the more she looked the less it made sense.
"Sakura?" Sai could see her from the hallway she had just left and he was calling out to her in a tone of concern. He didn't seem to sense any danger at all either. He called out her name again and Sakura felt sick.
'Something is wrong.'
The other world.
The revelation hit her like a bullet and Sakura felt herself fall into a drum's beat as she woke up in her body with the cold sweat and rolled over just in time to miss the body reaching for her. There were three of them, no four bodies in the room, but one was down on the floor bleeding out. A gun with a silencer on the end had been kicked under the dresser while Genma wrestled with the man who had nearly fallen atop her in bed.
There was one dead body on the floor, masked all in black.
Genma was bleeding.
The man struggling with Genma drew back quickly and Sakura heard the knife cutting flesh as Genma clutched at his chest and crumpled.
The man looked up to Sakura now, blade still weeping with Genma's blood.
This wasn't a dream, this was the waking world, and Genma was on her floor bleeding out. She could see the red pooling out all around him, following the groves of wood.
The man advanced but all Sakura could see was Genma's still body. It was too dark to tell if he was breathing or not. He was bleeding but she couldn't tell if he was breathing anymore.
This was the real world and Genma wouldn't come back again if he died here.
The man grabbed her throat and Sakura felt the knife there. He didn't hesitate and the pressure was quick, but the knife didn't slice her colored neck in time.
This was the real world.
Genma was on the floor.
The assailant in black choked, writing in place as more and more smoke from Sakura poured into him, thick black and sparking with veins of gold light from an old sort of ichor.
This was the real world.
Genma wasn't moving.
Sakura's tattoos were burning on her body.
The assassin gagged louder, head twisting painfully as the smoke lifted him off his feet and then yanked him down onto the ground where his neck broke in two places with a deep snapping sound.
This was the real world and Sakura felt on fire.