Disclaimer: I do not own naruto.
Chapter Twelve
The next two weeks passed in a blur. I was redecorating my room with the help of Konan, training and going on patrols.
But today was a special day, today my room was finished.
The walls were now a deep purple with the wall behind the bed painted black. I had new thin, black curtains and black fluffy rugs on the floor. The bedding was black satin and the comforter was also purple. I was proud over my work.
Someone knocked on my door and then Tobi came rushing in, tackling me to the bed. "Sakura-chan is going on patrol with me and Zetzu! Isn´t Sakura-chan happy? Tobi is a good boy!" I struggled to breathe as Tobi's weigh pushed me down in the mattress but was saved when Zetzu lifted Tobi off of me. "Yes Tobi I´m happy. Thanks Zetzu." I told them both before following them to the basement to gear up.
We headed out to the northern border; apparently there had been some small fights in our area. But when we got there, everything was eerily quiet. We walked close to each other, all of us prepared for something to happen.
We turned a corner when something or someone suddenly slammed into me, pulling me to the ground. "Tobi call for backup!" I heard Zetzu yell before I took a blow to the head that left me dizzy and unfocused. But then my training kicked in and I head-butted the person above me and got up.
Tobi was nowhere in sight but Zetzu was a few feet away fighting against four sound members. I knocked one of the four out and then stood back to back with Zetzu. "Are you alright?" He asked me, his other personality coming out in the heat of the battle. "Yeah, I´ll be fine." I told him before punching a guy in the face, breaking his nose.
We managed to keep up our defenses but soon exhaust set in and our movements became slower and slower. "Where are Tobi with the backup?" I asked Zetzu, panting. "Don´t know, He should be back by now, maybe something happened to him?" Was Zetzus response. I got my phone from my pocket and pushed in the emergency code before sending the text to Pein.
I had learned to do that with one hand and without looking, making it possible for me to send the text while continue fighting. Pein would see that we needed help and track us from the sensors in our phones and vests and send us help. We only had to manage until then…
Suddenly a gunshot echoed between the buildings and we shot a look at each other before running towards the source. It could have been Tobi.
We turned a corner and saw Tobi on the ground, leaning against the building trying to stop a bleeding with his hands. He had been shot in the thigh but only the shooter was left standing. All the other sound members that apparently had attacked him were on the ground unconscious.
The shooter turned towards us and shot four rounds against us before Zetzu managed to knock him out with a hard blow to the head. The first shot hit the ground beside me, the second one hit low in my vest, on the right of my belly button piercing. The third shot also hit my vest, right beneath my left breast. The fourth shot barely grazed my left upper arm.
I managed to remain standing even though I doubled over trying to catch my breath. "Sakura! Are you okay?!" Zetzu yelled in my direction as he started to defend both Tobi and me from the remaining sound members. "Yeah I´m fine!" I yelled back as soon as I could breathe again and ripped off a piece of my shirt to use as a bandage on Tobi's leg.
Tobi had become unconscious and as soon as I had finished up bandaging his leg, Zetzu let out a cry of pain and I looked up to see him clutching the side of his neck, blood staining the shirt beneath it.
I immediately jumped up and took over the fight against the knife-armed sound member. Zetzu sank to the ground, blood pouring out from between his fingers but thankfully not enough to be a severed main artery; it was probably a smaller one. It wasn´t deadly but the blood loss made him too weak to fight.
It was now up to me to protect the boys against the sound.
Thankfully only five of them were still standing, one of them had a knife and the other four were unarmed. I quickly whipped out a knife from my booth, just in time to defend myself from an attack.
It took me some time but I managed to knock out two of the unarmed ones, the bullet graze may not be serious but the blood loss as well as the fatigue made it hard for me to win this fight.
I wasn´t sure if I could.
Just as I felt that I couldn´t fight anymore, I heard the sound of screeching tires and slamming car doors. The backup had finally arrived. My vision started to get blurry but I didn´t allow myself the luxury of falling unconscious.
Suddenly the remaining sound members were gone and Hidans worried face was in front of me. "Sakura are you alright?" He sounded worried but I nodded and gestured towards Zetzu and Tobi behind me. "Yeah I´m fine, help them." I could hear a small amount of panic in my voice and apparently Hidan heard it to.
"Calm down, Kakuzus taking care of them right now." Hidan told me as another car pulled up. Pein and Konan exited and Konan immediately came to me as Pein went to Kakuzu. She gave me a quick check over and told Hidan to take me home before the ambulance and police arrived.
"She´s probably got a minor concussion, she´s gotten grazed by a bullet and I think she got hit in the vest. Take her home but don´t leave her alone until Kakuzu get to examine her." Hidan nodded before he scoped me up and put me in one of the cars. He buckled me in and then sat behind the wheel, taking us home.
When we arrived at the house I tried to get inside on my own but as soon as I stepped out of the car my knees went weak and I fell to the ground. I expected pain to come but when it didn´t I looked up to see Kisame with an arm around me, keeping me upright.
"I´ve got you kitten, looks like you´ve been in a hell of a fight." "She was." Hidan told him as he scooped me up again and started walking towards my room. "She protected both Zetzu and Tobi against sound with a concussion, a bullet graze and probably a hit to the vest. And who knows how long they had been fighting before that…" He explained to Kisame who followed us. "Damn…" Kisame whispered, earning a weak smile from me.
Hidan sat me down at the bathroom counter in our bathroom before explaining to me. "I´m going to strip you to your underwear and clean you so that I can see if you got any more injuries. Then I´m going to take care of the ones I find. Do you understand?" I nodded. "Are you okay with me and Kisame doing this?" Before I got the chance to answer Kisame said. "I don´t need to be here. I can go if that makes her more comfortable."
I smiled at his sweetness and said. "No it's alright, you can stay too Kisame, it's not like I´m going to be naked. And even if I were, I see you as a big brother, so it's alright…" Both of them nodded, small smiles on their faces.
When they´d gotten me out of my bloodied clothes they immediately saw not one bullet in my vest but two. They shared a look before taking off my vest, revealing the two big bruises beneath.
They put me in the shower, letting the water cleanse me of dried blood and dirt. When I was clean they wrapped me in a giant black towel and put me back on the bathroom counter. I was still in my now wet underwear but at least the blood was gone. Kisame wrapped my bullet graze and then he disappeared to make me some food.
Hidan cleaned some of the small cuts I had gotten while fighting against the sound member who had a knife before he smeared some ointment on my big bruises. I tried to focus on him but as soon as I managed to focus on him, he became unfocused again.
It took me a while to realize he was talking to me.
"Hey are you really alright Sakura? You seem kind of… dazed." I looked up at him but had to blink a few times to actually see him before answering. "Yeah I´ll be fine… just tired. A little sleep would be nice…" He actually gave me a real smile at that, not one of the small ones filled with concern.
"You need to eat a little first but then you can sleep." He told me and picked me up again only to set me down on my bed this time. He gave me some clean underwear and my favorite pajamas (Itachis black silk boxers and his own reaper t-shirt) to change in to.
He waited outside for me to change and when he reentered Kisame was with him carrying a tray of food. "You´re spoiling me." I told them before taking small bites of the food. "We take care of each other, that's not the same as spoiling someone." Hidan told me. "Yeah, right now you´re hurt, maybe not as bad as Zetzu or Tobi but you´re still hurt and that's bad enough." Kisame filled in.
After I finished the small meal I immediately put my head on my pillow, falling asleep even before Hidan had the time to cover me with my covers.
I woke a few hours later only to lean over the edge of the bed and emptying my stomachs content on the floor. Hidan was on top of the covers on the other side of the bed, reading a book, but he didn´t have any time to react.
I leaned back against my pillow, pale as death and still nauseous.
Hidan didn´t say anything, instead he simply carried me over to his own bed and tucking me in again. I felt a tear escape from my eye. I was ashamed and a little scared and felt like hell. Hidan wiped it away and told me. "It´s okay Sakura, it´s probably the concussion making you sick, it´ll be alright." He stroked me over my hair until I fell asleep again.
The next time I woke, it was to a cool hand on my forehead. I felt a tiniest bit better and blinked slowly at the person kneeling beside the bed. "Kakuzu?" I spoke and the raspy sound making its way out of my mouth made me cringe.
His red and green eyes were soft as he looked at me. "I´m sorry I couldn´t come sooner Sakura, I´ll give you a shot with some painkillers and something to make you sleep. You were worse off than I thought but you´re going to be fine… You´re body is reacting to your different injuries, that´s why you feel like shit."
I slowly wrapped my hand around his wrist, my skin hot against his. "It´s fine Kazu…" I told him and he gave me one of his rare smiles before the needle sank into my skin and sleep once again overtook me.
I slept for two days before waking up again. And then it took me a week before I was free of my injuries and back to normal.
By now I felt fine and wanted to resume going on patrols but I wasn´t allowed to. "Why can´t I go on patrols?" I was terrorizing Pein, hoping to make him change his mind. "Because the last time you got hurt, pretty bad at that." He answered me calmly. "But you need me, Tobi is still in rehab and Zetzu is with him. And it's at least a few more weeks before Sasori, Deidara and Itachi returns."
He looked up from his paperwork and told me. "I know we´re low on people right now but I can´t let you out for at least a couple more days. Hidan, Kakuzu, Kisame and Konan would kill me if you got hurt again so soon." I sighed, knowing I had no hope of convince him otherwise if Konan didn´t want me to go out either.
"I am sorry Sakura; perhaps you and Konan can plan Kisame´s birthday party? His birthday is this Friday." Pein told me and I felt my jaw go slack, he hadn´t told me that!
Pein just looked at me. "He didn´t tell you?" I shook my head no and then left him without another word.
I knew that Hidan and Kakuzu were out but both Konan and Kisame should be somewhere in the house. And I was determined to find at least one of them.
I found Kisame first; he was in his bedroom fresh out of the shower. He was only dressed in a pair of black cargo pants but I didn´t let that stop me, I was on a mission.
"Hey kitten what…" "Why didn´t you tell me your birthday is in three days?" He actually looked ashamed at that, not meeting my gaze.
I found that odd.
"Why didn´t you want me to know?" I asked him, feeling a sliver of betrayal. "I didn´t want anyone to know…" He admitted, sinking down on the bed, almost emitting an aura of… defeat?
"Why?" I sat down beside him, putting a hand on his thigh for comfort. Though I wasn´t sure if I was trying to comfort him or myself.
"I have… bad experiences of birthdays." The way he said that made me aware that something had happened to him on his birthdays and that it had been really bad. Like some of my experiences with my parents…
"What happened?" I asked him, almost scared to hear the answer. "My father… was not a nice man, he abused my mother. On my birthdays he told me that his gift to me was to relieve my mother of her daily beating. He whipped me on every single one of my birthdays until I was sixteen."
"What happened when you turned sixteen?"
"He whipped me, as usual, and then he killed my mother. I ran away but when I came back with the police he had killed himself." I could hear the pain in Kisames voice and on instinct wrapped him in a tight hug.
"I´m so sorry."
He actually hugged me back, hiding his face against my shoulder.
I was shocked to realize that he was crying.
At first I didn´t know what to do, but soon I felt myself soften, the tenseness escaping from my body. I put one hand in his hair, cradling his head against my chest, and used the other hand to stroke his back in gentle strokes. When I felt he had stopped crying I started telling him of my own birthdays to make him comfortable again. I had a feeling that right now he was afraid of looking at me, maybe he felt ashamed for crying?
"I try not to remember my birthdays either… my parents were usually more cruel than usual at those days, almost as if they were trying to punish me for being born. It started after Sasori left, but that first birthday without him was the worst. They punished me for all ten birthdays at once, as if they felt the need to make up for lost time…" I went silent for a moment before telling him the last thing.
"For every year, they cut me. One cut for one birthday. Always deep enough to be dangerous, always leaving a scar…" I pulled away only enough so he could get a good look at the inside of my forearm. "They started near the elbow, making their way up to my wrist. Making the eighteenth cut my last." I told him and I felt his fingers ghost over the raised, white lines.
"The eighteenth cut would have killed you." His voice was thick and raspy, making me hug him a little tighter. "Yes it would have... don´t tell Sasori." He chuckled and I gave him a small smile before getting serious again.
"Don´t ever be ashamed of crying, especially not in front of me." He only nodded and I released him making a promise. "I promise I won´t throw you a birthday party, even if I might want to." I then got up and made my way over to the door, just as I was about to close it behind me I heard him say.
"Thank you kitten."
I thought about his story for the next two days before I finally made up my mind about what to do. I went to Peins office and told him. "I want everyone out of the house tomorrow, so that Kisame and I are alone here." He looked surprised at my request and asked me.
"Why?"
I watched him for a moment before deciding to answer. "Kisame has... bad memories… of his birthdays. I want him to have a happy one but… I don´t think that will happen if we´re all here…" I waited for Peins reaction, but as he said nothing, I continued. "Perhaps you, Konan, Kakuzu and Hidan could spend the day with Zetzu and Tobi? And maybe go out for a club night after?"
He nodded. "We could do that… You sure you two will be alright here alone?" "Yes I´m sure." Pein searched my face for any sign of doubt but when he found none he nodded. "Fine we´ll do as you wish."
"Thank you." I told him, giving him a small peck on the cheek before leaving his office, leaving him stunned.
I went to find Kakuzu next and I found him at the pool, swimming laps. "Hello Sakura care to join me?" He asked and I couldn´t find it in me to say no. "Sure, I´ll be right back." I told him and hurried to change into a bikini.
When I returned we swam a couple of laps before I got the courage to tell him about my plan for Kisame. "Did you know that Kisame hates his birthday?" He nodded. "I do, but I don´t know why… Why are you asking this?" I smiled a little; Kakuzu already understood where I was going with this.
"He told me why… and I want to help him. I just need to know what I should do if I accidently trigger a flashback?" Kakuzu studied me for a long time before answering.
"If the reason behind his pain is similar to yours, you could just think of what would work on you. You and Kisame are quite similar when it comes to these things." I nodded. "Thanks." Then I exited the pool and went back to my room.