Ch: 14 A Walk Down Memory Lane

WARNING: This fanfic is rated M, especially onward.

They were being ambushed.

The poison in the air caused Sakura to wheeze with the faint taste of iron on her tongue. The distant clanging of metal on metal told her that a battle was already being fough, but her lungs shreiked their protests when she tried to move and prevented her from participating.

She'd have to worry about the Jinchuriki and Sasuke later. The man holding her hostage was obscured from view, her foggy vision and weakened state masking his identity even though he was right beside her. Sakura coughed some more—

A woman's chilling scream penetrated the air.

Sakura froze. The hair on her arms stood on end. Goosebumps erupted over her exposed arms.

It was a woman she knew.

The familiarity sent a flood of memories through Sakura's body, from years and years ago when things were much simpler and she was just a blossoming kunoichi living a simple life in the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

"Please! We'll give you what you want, don't hurt him," the voice sobbed.

There was no doubt in Sakura's mind.

Mom.

It was a dream. It had to be.

"Please!" the woman cried again.

Sakura felt the seeds of panic begin to take root. Had the poison she inhaled killed her so swiftly? Was this heaven?

There was just one problem. While the lingering hint of poison faded from the air by now, the crippling pain in Sakura's lungs informed her that she was very much still alive, and this wasn't heaven.

Oh god, it hurts, Sakura thought as she clutched her chest.

Whatever she inhaled must've triggered some kind of genjutsu. It was a cruel trick but she wouldn't be taken for a fool—the alternative was just impossible, and Sakura stopped believing in miracles a long time ago.

Release, she commanded her body.

But something was still wrong. Looking around, she realized that her surroundings hadn't changed either—the air felt the same as before, and nothing in her body told her that her chakra was disturbed.

It wasn't genjutsu.

"Let us go," the woman sobbed.

She could still hear her mother's voice clear as day.

The panic in the pit of her stomach morphed into uncontrollable heavy knots, taking on a whole new life form of their own.

By now, the hazy fog began to clear from the air around them. With its departure came the threat to unmask the mystery behind the woman's voice.

Along with that grew Sakura's shaky breath and excruciating anxiety.

And then she finally saw it.

Her parents.

One enemy shinobi tied her mother to a tree. Another held her father by his hair.

Sakura knew it was humanly impossible, yet she couldn't deny her five senses telling her what was unfolding right in front of her.

Logic was gone. It was like reality itself became an abstraction. Like they'd suddenly broken free of the meanings once assigned to the categories of life and death.

"Stop!" Sakura tried to tell the enemy.

The shinobi wrapped a wire string around her father's neck, unimpressed when his prey began thrashing his arms. Another enemy restrained her father's two feet, securing them against the grass.

"It's too late for you," the first shinobi said with a sick smile. "You've gotten me started."

"Mebuki! Look away!" her father yelled.

Biting the end of the wire string with his front teeth, the enemy grabbed a kunai from his side pouch and forced her father's hand away from his neck where he was trying to pull himself free. "Being a shinobi gets boring," he drawled, inspecting her father's hand, feigning admiration at how strong and sturdy his victim's fingers looked. "It's always 'kill this and that'... but when do we ever get a chance to stop and smell the roses?" A twisted curl of his lips became a maniac laugh as he traced the outline of her father's palm with the weapon.

Sakura started to move. Dad! Don't worry—I'm coming!

Her legs were only two heavy stumps, uselessly trapped underneath her body.

Her father whimpered, flinching every time the cold blade grazed a new sensitive spot in his palm.

Without warning, the enemy plunged the tip of the kunai into her father's index finger, right under his nail.

Sakura heard the screams of agony and the squelching sound of wet flesh as the enemy psychotically twisted the kunai and penetrated the fresh wound over and over again.

"Your finger's starting to look like mush," he said, plunging in once more. "And look! Your nail's just sliding right off."

Sakura's heart felt like it was being torn in two. She wanted to assure her father that she could fix him with the special medical ninjutsu she'd learned since they last saw each other. That she would take away the pain.

But all she could manage was a strained whisper—her condition too wretched for anyone but herself to hear.

The shinobi pushed further into her father's mutilated hand once more, and then as if he was a child grown bored of his toy, he shrugged and sliced off all of her father's digits one by one. "I think I'll take this as a souvenir," he said over the sounds of shrieking. "It's not every day we get to take the scenic route."

"Stop playing around man," the second shinobi said. "Just finish him off, already."

"No!" Her mother shrieked with the front of her shirt drenched in tears, twisting violently until the back of her head hit the tree too many times.

Sakura shut her eyes, cursing her own uselessness. "I'll take his place!"

Again, her shouts only came out as hoarse cries. It felt like someone had poured acid down her dry, inflamed throat, or like she was forced to swallow glass.

Sakura tried again. She didn't care if she'd never be able to use her voice again. She didn't care that she was probably incoherently crying. She didn't care about anything except that she needed to do something, give everything to take her father's place, just so that he wouldn't have to bear the pain any longer.

"Take me instead..." Sakura pleaded.

As soon as she mouthed those words, she heard the squeak of the wire string around her father's neck. A fleshy piece of skin was caught where the threads intersected, and he winced from the pain. Sakura could hear him gasping for breath, his eyes bulging as they made contact with her horrified expression.

The shinobi pulled.

Chakra flowed through the wire in hand, tightening until it pinched her father's jugular to the point where it squeezed and squeezed until the trunk of his neck began to burst. Dark crimson, almost black fluid exploded onto her father's shirt and soaked the ground beneath his knees.

Sakura shut her eyes.

She couldn't block out the sound. It was the suffocating, miserable sound, of gurgling blood spraying onto the grass even after her father's body hit the ground. Sakura's own breathing became frantic and she gagged, but her stomach was too empty for the reflex to expel anything from her body.

Her own father. Tortured and killed before her very eyes. And she did nothing. What kind of a worthless piece of shit was she?

"Now that that's out of the way…" The enemy stepped over her father's dead corpse and approached her mother, as if finishing up an appetizer and preparing for the main course.

"You're a sick bastard," said the other, as if he was paying a compliment to his comrade.

"Only when I get in the mood. What say we have a little fun with the other one?"

When Sakura looked up, she saw that her mother's head was slumped forward. Her body looked too weak to react to the verbal taunts of their enemies, as if her resolve to live was gone. When she was released from her bounds, she fell to the grass without resistance.

"Stop ignoring me!" Sakura tried to scream again. "Just stop it!"

Something broke within her. She began to weep uncontrollably. Her own voice became foreign as her mind became severed from her body. The pain in her chest was unbearable, like her rib cage had splintered and sent pieces into her heart like shards of glass. "Mom, dad…"

"Hold her up like that. I'll get rid of her clothes."

No. No no no no…, Sakura begged.

"It's been a while since I've gotten laid," the second said with a hint of eagerness.

Please, no.

"Fuck! We won't make it—let's pull back for now!"

Something that was previously restraining her was released.

Sakura remembered that a third shinobi was supposed to be holding her hostage, but it withdrew as soon as she noticed it again. Three shadows disappeared.

She was left on the ground in fetal position.

She lost sense of time. She couldn't even figure out how to pace her breathing—if one second was one minute or if time was moving much slower than that.

Her lungs and diaphragm felt like fragile balloons inside of her, like she had to put her whole being into making them inflate otherwise she would suffocate and die. But she could only do so irregularly, never quite grasping a good breath, and soon she felt convulsions take over her body.

She was hyperventilating.

The world spun.

She was going to pass out.

"I've got you Sakura," a blurry voice echoed.

Familiar hands reached out and pulled her towards warmth, enveloping her in a protective embrace. All opposition left her body as she cried and whimpered and allowed herself to be comforted.

"I know what you saw. It wasn't real," the voice soothed, trying to coax her out of her head so that she could be grounded in the present. "It wasn't real."

The world kept spinning. Her chest was tight, her heart a sledgehammer threatening to break her from inside. Her eyelids fluttered.

"Shit," the voice said. "We need to increase the carbon dioxide levels in your blood. I'm going to cup my hand over your mouth—try to breathe normally, alright?"

She nodded faintly with her knees tucked into her chest, helplessly leaning to the side against the chest of her protector. He brought his arm around her head, covering her mouth with a careful hand just as she'd been warned.

"Breath," he said gently.

She obeyed.

After a while, her quick breathing turned to slow, gentle breaths, and the hand covering her mouth vanished.

Her body was still limp, but her hands desperately grasped onto the shirt of the man holding her. Sakura didn't know how badly she needed the help, and now, she never, ever wanted to let go.

"I'm not going anywhere," the voice assured. "You're safe with me. I promise."

She found herself being comforted by the way the shirt smelled. Little details like that helped keep her consciousness occupied as she fought to get a hold of herself.

"Sakura!" Another voice came. "Is she okay?!"

The arrival of the second voice brought a wave of bright chakra, warming the air around her.

"Quiet, dobe," the first said, still holding her. "She'll be alright."

"Give her to me. I'll carry her," the second voice said.

As she felt the body next to her shift, her senses dulled.

Sakura woke up heaving in a frenzy.

She moved her hands and patted her surroundings, frantically. Her fingertips were met with bundled up bed sheets at her sides.

She was in bed? Was it a dream?

Couldn't be. She didn't feel the cold night air and she didn't see the stars lighting up the sky above her.

She was somewhere else.

Fighting the urge to fall back asleep, Sakura squinted in the dark to determine where she was. As her eyes adjusted, she realized that she was in what looked like an inn. The absence of sunlight through the window told her that it was late.

How long had she slept?

"Sakura!"

She heard knocking on her door.

Sasuke.

Her throat was dry like there was a desert in her mouth. The noise at her door wasn't helping with her splitting headache, either.

She felt disoriented, but she started to remember what happened.

Mustering up the marvelously small amount of strength she'd recovered, Sakura stumbled out of bed, leaning a hand against the wall to keep her upright as she approached the cracks of light from the hallway outside.

She opened the door and was met with alert eyes.

"You screamed," he said. His voice was almost demanding.

She held her hand up to shield herself from the burning artificial light. It suddenly occurred to her that she probably looked like hell. Her eyelids felt swollen and her cheeks felt puffy. But she couldn't care less how she looked—all she wanted was to tell Sasuke to go away.

But her throat hurt like she had strep and she needed water if she had any chance at telling him to leave. With the door still open, she made her way back inside her room to the table where she saw her backpack sitting.

He followed her inside. She could feel him stare at her back, although he didn't say anything. Yet.

Sakura dug through her pack and fumbled around until she felt her leathery waterskin. She tossed her head back and chugged the whole thing, cold water spilling from the corner of her mouth with how carelessly thirsty she was.

"You need to go back to sleep."

"I will," she managed to say, barely. Her voice cracked and sounded scratchy as hell. "Have you seen Naruto?"

"He's out."

"How long have I been sleeping for?"

"A day."

"What time is it?"

"Late."

He was clearly choosing to be more irritating than descriptive, but Sakura didn't have the energy to fight back.

"You should drink more water," he said. He grabbed her waterskin from her hands before she could voice her protest, and moments later disappeared into the hallway as she climbed back into bed.

She felt herself dozing off within seconds.

Violent, gory images of her parents startled her awake.

Sakura shot out of bed.

Her immediate instinct was to allow her thoughts to run wild with questions again—where was she? How did she get here? What happened?

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness once more, she saw her waterskin sitting beside her, plump with water.

That's right. Sasuke had refilled it for her.

It was obvious that she'd been poisoned. But with what? Over the past years, she'd worked hard at immunotherapy to boost her tolerance to the majority of poisons found in the area. A hallucinogenic of that caliber shouldn't have even been possible.

She heard things—her parents. Saw them. Felt them.

And that begged the question—was there a chance that it was real? And that she somehow saw the last minutes leading up to their deaths? She was never told what exactly happened to her parents, and in a way, not knowing was better. She just knew that joining Akatsuki was the only way forward.

Did it matter?

Even now, as she rationalized it to herself, it was like her body was still swimming in the experience—real or not, the stale sweat at her brow, her shaking fingers, the fear and dread coursing through her veins in the motionless dark room, all of it was too much to bear.

Sakura felt anxiety begin to dig its thorny talons into her again. It seemed like no matter how she tried to sleep, she wasn't able to get enough peace to rest.

Another knock on her door startled her.

"Sakura," a voice called from outside.

Sasuke. It was the second time he was checking up on her.

Sakura began to recall the events again. When had they become so cordial? He'd been the one to calm her down when they were on the field, and now he was visiting her like they were friends? It was a part of him she never knew existed.

Sakura remembered just last night when he held her tightly, urgently, like he was protecting all that was dear to him. All her usual defenses abandoned her at the last minute, forcing her to depend on him for comfort.

A far cry from when he almost killed her just a few days ago. They were the same pair of hands. And that made her very uncomfortable.

The knocking became more persistent.

Sakura swallowed once and then willed herself to get up to open the door for him. It was a bit awkward now that some formalities had been broken. She'd need to repair the shattered pieces of what was once calculated distance and reservation towards him.

"What do you want? I'm trying to sleep," she said impatiently.

"I know. You're doing a terrible job."

She scoffed. "I sleep great."

"You wake up every fifteen minutes. I can feel it all the way from my room."

Damn. Had it only been that long since she last woke up?

"Is Naruto back yet?" she asked.

"No."

Her stomach sank.

She'd hoped to ask the Jinchuriki to keep her company while she slept. She hadn't realized how comforting his chakra really was until the incident, and she really needed the sleep. In fact, she was desperate.

Sasuke took her silence as a question for more information, so he continued. "He's out. Meditating. Won't be done with training for a while."

Dreading the idea of going back into the darkness by herself, she stood in the doorframe awkwardly.

"Try to go back to sleep," he said as he turned around and headed back to his room.

"Wait," she called after him. She was just going to be a burden otherwise. "I can't sleep."

Sakura clenched her jaw to mask the embarrassment.

It didn't work. Her body betrayed her, the suspense of what he'd say twisting in her stomach, signalling that she was indeed thoroughly embarrassed at the hint she was trying to drop.

He paused, processing her words.

The silence hovered unrelentingly.

Oh god.

He might just tell her to fuck off again.

That would be mortifying.

Finally, Sasuke sighed and motioned for her to move out of the way so he could follow her back into her room.

At least he didn't make her ask out loud. Had to thank the small mercies.

When they were surrounded by the darkness again, Sakura climbed under her sheets on the very edge of the bed. She reached to the side of her nightstand, where thankfully a remote control was placed conveniently. She turned on the TV to get rid of the awkward silence that had grown exponentially in the last few seconds.

Sasuke hung by the corridor, as if he was contemplating what to do with himself.

Was he just going to stand there all night?

Sakura looked at him, to where she saw he was looking, and back to him.

Oh no.

He was staring at the bed.

Was he thinking of getting under the sheets?

Don't do it. Please don't do it.

With a reluctant sigh, he sat on the opposite side, resting against the headboard with his arms crossed.

Sakura breathed a sigh of relief as he demonstrated the good sense not to get under the covers with her.

It was almost like he was just as stiff as she was. Only half of his body was on the bed, leaving one of his legs dangling off the edge like he couldn't decide between sitting as far away as possible from her or being remotely comfortable.

Mercilessly, the awkwardness in the room dragged on, and she almost wondered if solitude was better. The only semblance of relief she felt was from the fact that it seemed she wasn't the only one harboring self-consciousness about the recent events between them.

Actors and actresses were pouring their hearts out on the screen, the changing colors and lights of the TV bouncing and reflecting off the walls around them.

Sakura wasn't really watching. She kept glancing at the side of Sasuke's face instead.

It was the last thing she saw before she drifted off to sleep again.

The next morning, Sasuke snuck out of Sakura's room and tried to get back into his own room, where he was met with inquisitive blue eyes.

At first, Naruto thought that he went out for training and didn't come back.

Sasuke didn't correct him.

On the other hand, Sakura hadn't met his gaze all morning. In fact, he'd say she was actively trying to ignore him now.

So they were back to this, he thought. Her little game of indifference.

Not that Sasuke minded, actually. He had things to process.

He wasn't exactly sure of what came over him that night—his body had just moved on its own, and he said words that came out of nowhere.

I'm not going anywhere. You're safe with me.

That's what he said, wasn't it?

And then last night. That was a first. It was more fitting to tell a fellow shinobi to suck it up than to do what he did.

"We're two days behind schedule." Sakura huddled around her steaming cup of tea, visibly reveling in the small amount of warmth it offered. "Iwa will be expecting us in around three days, and we're barely past Fire Country."

"Well… Sakura-chan, you aren't exactly light, and this was the closest place we found," Naruto teased.

Sasuke smirked when she looked unsettled.

"Kidding! Anyway, it was important for you to rest up and get your strength back. " Naruto broke his chopsticks and began to wolf down his ramen. "Who else is going to keep me in check?" he said with his mouth full.

"But there's something that bothers me about what happened," Sakura said in a more serious tone. "You guys remember Hokage-sama telling us about the disappearances, right?"

Naruto nodded. "You think that they're somehow related?"

"I don't know, maybe. It's just bizarre for us to be attacked in Fire Country," she said.

And that's why shinobi set traps, Sasuke thought to himself. It must've nice to have warm and fuzzy feelings about Fire Country, which is no doubt what his two teammates had. Still, how naive—not setting traps just because they were "at home"? Rookie mistake.

"But the strangest part of it all is the way they ambushed us," Sakura continued.

"You have a problem with the way they ambushed us?" Naruto asked incredulously. "I think it's weird that we were ambushed in the first place."

"She doesn't mean it like that. She means the poison," Sasuke said, speaking up for the first time.

"It wasn't meant to kill us," she agreed. "And why take a hostage? Even if the target was you, Sasuke, why not kill me while they had the chance?"

"Bah! Now you're just paranoid." Naruto leaned into his chair, turning up his nose.

"Think about it," Sasuke insisted. "On our first night out. Right after you two said we'd be safe in our own country. They specifically targeted me and left both of you alive. It's too weird."

For some reason, the assassins didn't want to kill Sakura and Naruto, and that's why they needed a non-lethal poison—they only wanted to do any real damage to him. But the only way that would've happen would be if—

A disturbing thought crossed his mind. Could it be that the hit came from... Konoha?

But where would they have gotten the poison? This poison—particularly its side effects—had very few potential uses in battle, and someone had even fewer reasons to develop it. Not to mention the skill that it would've required to do so.

Sasuke watched as Sakura finished up the last of her pastry and dusted off her fingers.

No, nevermind. It wasn't something that Leaf would have just sitting around. Sakura would have mentioned it if that were the case. Maybe he was just being paranoid.

Both of his teammates suddenly got up from their chairs, signaling that it was time to go.

"Our first priority should be delivering the scroll. We should only investigate further if we have reason to believe that it's somehow tied to Iwa. We should get going," Sakura said.

Sasuke nodded, though he knew he'd continue pondering this long after their conversation died. "I'll handle the bill. Meet you guys outside."

As his teammates left, he saw a shadow move from the corner of his eye.

The hell—

He turned his head and scanned the area.

There was only an empty window. Nobody was sitting on that side of the room. He could've sworn—

"That'll be 200 ryo sir," said the polite middle-aged owner of the tea shop.

Sasuke handed over a few bills, now troubled by the fact that he couldn't shake the eerie feeling that somebody was still watching him.

"Thank you and come again!"

Sasuke bowed and headed out the door. He looked over to the window one more time, hesitating for a moment before deciding to check if what he'd seen was just a figment of his imagination.

He'd better check. Better to be wrong than stay paranoid.

He made his way to the back door, which automatically took him around the back perimeter of the teahouse to where the same window peered inward.

It's empty, he realized.

But then his eyes trickled lower, and he froze.

There was a pair of fresh footprints, pointed directly at where they were sitting.

"Just our luck," Sakura overheard someone say. "Leaf ninja always leave a bad taste in my mouth."

Are they referring to us? She thought as she looked around. There were no other Leaf ninja around—at least not that she could see.

And then her eyes found them—two shinobi leaning against the wooden fence outside the entrance of the tea shop, looking right at her. The symbols on their forehead protectors indicated they were from Iwa.

One of them was an average-sized man with dusty brown hair and a round face. His nose was a bit too big for the rest of his features, and his square glasses were an awkward fit. He was accompanied by a woman.

Sakura couldn't help but judge her for looking like she spent too much time on her appearance.

"Speak for yourself," the woman told her companion, eyeing Sakura scornfully. "Some of us don't bother to concern ourselves with nobodies."

At her side, the Jinchuriki narrowed his eyes, now a few shades of a darker blue than they usually were. He looked like he was itching to fight.

Should she stop them? Sakura needed to covertly sabotage an alliance between Iwa and Leaf anyway. And a little street scuffle between Iwa-nin and Leaf's Jinchuriki wouldn't hurt her cause would it?

But it wouldn't be wise.

There was that nagging voice again.

Perhaps it'd be too out of character and suspicious for her to sit back and do nothing. If only she hadn't been such a damned goody two-shoes in Konoha.

"What did you say?" the Jinchuriki asked with a careful, low voice.

You have to stop the fight.

Oh, fine, Sakura said inwardly. She lamented at the possibility that she had schizophrenia.

"Naruto, ignore them," Sakura whispered harshly.

"Say that again. I'll kick your ass!"

The Jinchuriki was ignoring her instead, it seemed.

"Come with me, Naruto," Sakura said with a sing-songy voice as she looped herself around his arm and began to pull in the opposite direction. "Let's go see what's taking Sasuke so long."

"Someone needs to put a leash on their dog," the Iwa kunoichi said.

Sakura almost face-palmed. Shut up, lady! I'm trying to help you! she yelled in her own head. She wouldn't be able to stop the Jinchuriki by herself if he got too riled up. She'd have to cut the conversation off now.

"I don't know who you think you are—"

She put her hand on the blonde's ear and yanked, cutting him off. "I said shut it."

"Ow, Sakura—let me go—"

"What happened? I thought you were going to kick my ass!" the Iwa-nin taunted.

Everything went downhill from there.

Somehow the Jinchuriki managed to weasel his way out of her hold on his ear, and Sakura saw a flash of orange darting forward before she could get a good grasp on his jacket. She braced herself for a crunch of someone's nose as the two men exchanged blows.

Someone caught fists from both sides. "I apologize for my teammates' behavior."

"J-Jun!"

The Jinchuriki snapped first, abruptly withdrawing a hand and tossing another heated glance at the perpetrator who seemed to appear from nowhere. "You guys had better watch it," he said. "You're not in your home country. It's only fitting to behave with respect."

"I couldn't agree more," Jun said as he bowed his apology. He shot a glare at both of his teammates, and they reluctantly followed suit. "We're headed towards Konoha as diplomatic liasons on behalf of Iwa. My name is Jun. These are my teammates, Hado and Yui."

"Diplomatic liaison? The Tsuchikage is sending you to see the Hokage?" the Jinchuriki asked, as if he suddenly forgot all his anger.

Sakura sighed—it didn't take much to distract him. Although that might come in handy later.

"We've given notice to Konoha that we'll arrive tomorrow and stay for a day, to start. Of course, building relations does take time. If we'd known that Leaf featured such beautiful kunoichi, we'd have come a lot sooner."

It took a while for Sakura to realize that Jun was talking about her.

While his two teammates left much to be desired, Sakura could see why Jun was tasked with diplomacy matters. Not only did he share the same effortlessly cool demeanor as Genma, Shizune's teammate, but he was also just as handsome as she imagined Genma was at their age. Sakura couldn't deny that her eyes wandered a little more than they should've.

His two teammates began to leave.

"If you're finished, Jun, let's go," said Yui. "I don't want to stand here any longer than I have to."

"Coming, princess," Jun said sarcastically. As he turned around, he gave a polite nod to the Jinchuriki and flashed a grin at Sakura. "Hope to run into you guys again."

Sakura and her teammate waited in quiet confusion as the Iwa-nin turned the corner to where the road was.

"What a jerk."

Jerk? Sakura wondered. "I thought he was nice."

"What—don't tell me you liked that crap! What a corny, smooth-talking loser," he ranted.

She only smiled, seeing her teammate so heated over it. She felt a second familiar chakra approach.

"We're being watched," Sasuke said as he joined them.

"Yeah, by Mr. Hearthrob and his goons."

"What?" Sasuke shook his head, exasperated by the Jinchuriki's antics. "No, I mean someone's watching us." His looked around carefully before continuing in a hushed voice. "It might be related to the other night. Even if Naruto was able to fend them off, I don't think they gave up."

That seemed to sober the team up.

"Well there's more where that came from," the blonde said. "I've been meaning to test Sage-mode on someone other than old-froggy Fukusaku."

"No. We need to lay low until we get closer to Iwa. I don't even think we should advertise ourselves as Leaf shinobi, even to civilians. It'll be problematic if they gossip and lead more enemies to us, or if our tails find us again."

Well they could start now, since they'd already been spotted by Iwa-nin. But Sasuke didn't need to know that, since it seemed they were headed to Konoha as do-gooders.

The Jinchuriki looked like he was unwilling to part with the status quo, fidgeting with his forehead protector that carried so much of his pride. "If you guys say so..." He unraveled it and put it in his pouch.

Then Sasuke suddenly turned all of his attention to Sakura.

Her breath hitched with how intense his gaze felt.

"Can you do something about your hair, too?"

My hair…? It was the one distinguishing feature that she felt might help Itachi find them, if he was looking. Knowing him, he probably was. Actually, there was a good chance that whoever Sasuke felt was watching them might have been Akatsuki.

"Civilians can have pink hair too," Sakura tried to say.

"Aw come on, Sasuke! That's the best part about her!"

Sasuke studied her, eyes darting from her hair to her forehead before settling on her face. "Fine, whatever. You're captain," he said as he stuffed his hands in his pockets and headed toward their inn again.

Damn, was he moody today.

Sakura heard running footsteps from across the hall, coming from her teammates' room. Judging from their voices, it wasn't good.

She collected the last of her things—not that there was much—and hoisted her backpack over her shoulder, ready to check out of their inn and continue north.

"What do you mean you lost it?!" The Jinchuriki shouted.

"I'm not happy about it either," Sasuke retorted as he flung a stray sock out of the way. "Shut up or help, please."

Sakura cleared her throat and knocked on the door frame, as to not startle them out of their bickering. "What did we lose?"

The annoyed expression she received from Sasuke was not directed at her, she knew. She stifled a smirk as he resembled his pouty 12-year old self just then.

"The scroll. It's gone."

All her thoughts came to a screeching halt. "It's what?"

Just then, a biting cold wind flew into the room, sending the curtains flying and some loose papers amok. Sakura shivered as her cloak blew backwards, leaving the skin on her thighs exposed.

Seeing this, Naruto jumped to shut the window. "Sasuke, I thought we were keeping this closed and locked?"

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "We were." The undertone in his statement indicated that the situation might not have been a simple misplacement of their mission items.

"Oh. Then why did you unlock it?" the Jinchuriki asked innocently.

"I didn't."

"Sakura, then? I didn't see you come into our room, though."

Clearly, the blonde was the last in the room to connect the dots at the implication.

"Idiot, that's because she didn't. Someone else was here."

"I don't know anything, I swear," the innkeeper said as he backed himself against a tall bookcase. He brought his shaky hands to his center as if to beg for forgiveness. "No one else is allowed into the rooms without the key."

Sakura stood in between her teammates, a little farther back, watching the scene unfold from over their shoulders.

From what she could see, Sasuke hadn't done or said anything before the man was reduced to a jumble of nerves. If anything, her teammate was only frustrated at himself for not having the scroll anymore, but the poor innkeeper probably didn't know that.

Fingers still shaking, the older man reached into his pocket and held up a ring from which a few keys loosely dangled. "When someone checks in, I give them a key. There's only one of each," he said, desperately trying to prove that he wasn't lying.

Sakura frowned. It wasn't a regular thief. She could think of many ninjutsu that might be able to open a window from the outside.

Jun's team came to mind. But why would they go out of their way to take something that was already being gifted to them? And even if they didn't know about the gift, Jun was their way to Konoha to make amends. Stealing property was hardly in alignment with that goal.

The Jinchuriki looked from Sasuke back to the innkeeper a couple times, processing what unspoken dialogue was happening between the two. "Anosa... Sasuke, I think you should try a different approach." He held up a hand, as if to signal that they weren't a threat. "We know you didn't steal the scroll. We believe that it was a professional. But they probably realized that it's useless without instructions, so they'll probably sell it off. Are there any pawn shops nearby?"

Even from the side of his head, Sakura could see that their raven-haired teammate was genuinely surprised that the added communication seemed to help. The innkeeper, now calm enough to think coherently, suddenly became much more helpful. "Of course there are. There's dozens and dozens of pawn shops in the next city up north, but your scroll is as good as gone—I wouldn't even bother."

"Where is it?" Sakura asked.

"It's called Yukkao," he continued. "The place is downright filthy. Even if you think you've seen it all before, stay away. Nobody leaves unchanged. There's something cursed about it."

What was this man going on about…?

People in this town sure had a knack for over exaggeration. It sounded like something mothers would tell their kids before bedtime. Mythical folklore or not, Team 7 had no choice at this rate.

"Thank you," Sakura said, turning away. She ignored the inn-keeper's continued warnings as her teammates followed, closing the door behind them.

"I wonder why it sounds so familiar," the Jinchuriki pondered. "Isn't that where baa-chan told us to go?"

"The city of vice," Sakura affirmed.

"But why wouldn't baa-chan tell us that the place was cursed?"

True, a warning from Princess Tsunade would've been nice. But Sakura wasn't sold on the tall-tale. Maybe the place wasn't good for civilians, but they were elite shinobi. They could handle it.

"Hey Sasuke—you've seen things," the Jinchuriki said. "How bad do you think it could really be?"

Their stoic teammate gave him the side-eye, probably for the less-than-tactful way he framed the question. "Let's find out."

To be continued…