A/N: So, I have read through this story about 800 times since I have come back to it and I have realized that my paragraphs are crazy long. Even after attempting to work on it, they are still much too long. I just wanted to make a note here that, yes, I know they are long. Yes, I am working on that. It will take a little while to swing them in the length I like best but I am indeed working on it. I also wanted to take this chance to give a huge 'Thank you!' and all of the cookies to LadyAnime18, Celestial-loner, and trIchstEr99 for reviewing and all of the positive comments they've left. You guys are rad.
Chapter Seven
Breaking
...
Stop making a mess,
Stop making it worse.
Stop living a lie,
Just to kill the curse.
And I will be the one your hearts mistaken,
Let it go...
...
At some point, Sakura registered that Kisame might just be in more trouble than she had originally thought. Though with every day that passed, she regained a bit more of her chakra control, it was still hard to muster it precisely enough to pull off life-saving medical ninjutsu.
She sighed and pushed the growing panic down.
Tsunade had mentioned that her chakra control would probably be as close to normal as possible during her second trimester. At about thirteen weeks, she was nearing that point, but since she hadn't had any real reason to try she had no idea what she could do. All of the injuries she had treated so far here - courtesy of Deidara, mostly - hadn't need of any serious healing.
Nothing she couldn't fix with a little bit of chakra and stitches really. But this...
She looked down at the very unconscious bulk on her table, eyebrows furrowed. She hadn't yet removed his robe but even the most inexperienced medic nin could tell he was in an unfortunate state. Sweat poured off of him like rain, his normally slate-blue skin was a washed-out grey, large body hanging limply off of the table.
Briefly, removing his cloak, she wondered if she should maybe try to recruit someone else to help her, but had decided against that immediately.
She didn't need anyone else's help. She was Haruno Sakura, for crying out loud, second only to the Godaime Hokage herself. There was no one else that could do this better. To even consider asking would reveal a weakness that she refused to admit.
Sakura carefully pulled the cloak from Kisame's arms, content to let it hang off of the table as long as it was out of the way, taking in the large bloody gash on his shoulder with a wince.
'Shoulder' was putting it mildly though, as it looked like someone had attempted - and succeeded - to drag it down through his pectoral muscle and cleave down his ribcage. What really bothered her about it though, was the strange coloring of the tissue around the wound.
It was purple.
Not just the normal purple of bruising and general tissue damage either. No, this bright, angry violet color was clearly the result of some toxin at work; one she needed to get out of his body immediately.
With a determined scowl, Sakura gathered chakra in her fingertips, taking extra care to keep it as controlled as possible and placed her hand on the seeping wound.
'It's...some sort of strange anti-coagulant. Not lethally toxic on it's own but with damage like this-'
Suddenly and without warning, the trickle of blood steadily pouring out picked up speed and spurted outward, spraying her chest and face.
"Shit!"
Panicked, she pulled back, unsure if the drug had caused that to happen or if she slipped her control. It stopped as soon as she did and quickly she brought her fingers to Kisame's neck to check his pulse. He remained still.
'Still going, but weak. Gotta get that crap out before he bleeds out.'
She moved quickly, rolling over the pulse oximeter in the corner and then a bowl of water and towels. She hadn't had to use this method in years but she had no choice, her chakra just wasn't going to be enough to draw this stuff out on its own.
She clamped the receptor over his finger and set to work, scooping up careful amounts of chakra infused water into her hands. She pushed the first bit through with bated breath, almost terrified that it wasn't going to work but her control seemed to be holding out so she was optimistic.
Vital signs were weak but holding. Two minutes passed before she worked it back out, almost crying with relief at the purple tinted water in her hand.
Dumping it quickly into the empty bowl, she repeated the motion for at least an hour until finally the water ran clear and the bleeding had slowed to nearly nothing. The wound still was open but the immediate danger seemed to have passed.
Setting the bowl aside quickly for further analysis later she set to work on trying to heal the most important areas with the chakra she had left. The weapon that had pierced him had nicked his lung but not as deeply as she had originally feared it had. She healed that first, drawing out the blood that had collected inside before sealing it back up.
One of his ribs had cracked but it wasn't anything serious, so she left it to heal on it's own before carefully stitching and sealing up the semi-major artery that was leaking into his chest cavity.
Four hours in total had passed and eventually some of his normal coloring returned, vital signs picking back up with startling speed. Surprising, but not abnormally so. She sealed up what she could of the muscle damage and stitched the outer wound closed with sutures.
He had a rather impressive regeneration rate which she knew about already but without seeing it in action it had been hard to know just how impressive it was.
Unfortunately, there was still the matter of the infection and his rocketing fever that had yet to break. 108 degrees at her last check.
Normally, at around 105, the human body would begin to display serious symptoms of hyperthermia and would start to cause some minor damage to the internal organs. Fortunately for him and many others, the chakra they sustained constantly led to most shinobi running hot anyway. A fever that high didn't usually mean too much damage would occur as long as it didn't continue to rise and broke soon.
Around 106.7 signalled hyperpyrexia and if you couldn't bring it down by that point, all hell would start to break loose. Muscle spasms, rapid breathing and seizures were common and serious organ damage or even death could occur after if not treated.
Luckily for him - and her by proxy - his general body seemed to still be hanging in there at the highest temperature she had ever seen in another living person. Unless you counted someone going through a bijuu transformation, though that was a whole other story in entirety.
Still, she needed to get it down before it got even one more decimal point higher. Chances were, there was some organ damage happening somewhere.
Kisame shuddered as if in response to her internal musings but remained unaware.
Sakura began to prepare an IV, a standard saline solution to work through him while she hunted in the cabinets for a strong antibiotic to administer. She set everything up and hoped that the bottle of ceftriaxone she had dug out would be enough to help. If not she'd have to find something else, but it was a start.
In addition, Sakura had one more trick up her sleeve to break that fever some before it caused anymore damage as the high-powered antibiotics set to work. It was something she had learned long ago from Tsunade who instructed her to use it in only the most severe cases, as issues could arise otherwise.
It wasn't a particularly difficult thing to do and honestly didn't require much chakra to pull off, although anyone who used it should have at least intermediate chakra control to do it successfully.
After an IV placement so quick that it would have made a civilian medic's head spin - and it helped that Kisame had great veins, some of the easiest to find that she had ever had the pleasure of poking - she made her way up to his head.
Both of her hands settled on his temples and his thick hair brushed her wrists in a way that was surprisingly soft. That wasn't an important thing to note but she filed it away in the weird mental file she had already kept on him for no reason other than that she was obviously insane.
Really, why else would she notice something like that?
For the first time since she had brought him into the office, her eyes came to settle on his face and she couldn't help but notice the difference there.
His face, normally all harsh lines and angular features, looked so abnormally serene and peaceful that it was almost hard to believe that this was the same person she had bumped into in the hall just hours earlier.
It wasn't that he was always angry - unless of course it was at her, she thought bitterly - and she had seen him crack a smile or two when he thought she hadn't been paying attention, but his face always held some kind of defensiveness. He always looked so hard and unforgiving, as if etched from stone. But now...
His normally set mouth was slack, one of his sharp teeth sort of poking out in an almost endearing way. His eyes, ringed dark from what she assumed was his demon possession and always alert, were closed and relaxed. The lines normally present around his mouth had softened. His jaw, though still slightly tense - from pain, likely - wasn't ground down in defiance like it normally was.
Her fingers moved before she could stop them, her own mouth opening slightly as she reached down to brush her fingertips along the ridges on his cheeks.
What she had thought might have been tattoos were in fact not at all, but little surface gills. Not built entirely like fish gills, these looked almost cosmetic and she briefly wondered what purpose they served. Were they a result of the sealing, maybe like Naruto's whisker marks, or something that happened after?
She knew he had a similar, though much larger set on each side of his arms but those looked much more utilitarian than the ones on his face. She assumed they helped in his water jutsu. Without thinking, she idly stroked one and in return the man beneath her let out a quiet sigh, a softer sound than she had assumed he could ever make.
Snapping out of the weird trance his face had put on her, she returned her hands to his head, gathering a small amount of chakra and pulsed it into his hypothalamus, slowly. She was pleased when the searing heat on his skin simmered down to something more tolerable and stepped back, feeling very winded.
She had definitely pushed herself much further than she should have and, while extremely proud, could only feel irritated at her body for falling apart so fast.
A flutter in her belly reminded her that her little passenger was still good. She released a breath she hadn't realized she'd be holding. The little movements had started not too long ago and at first she had been quite disheartened by them, only if because the reality of her situation fully set in. Now though, she'd grow increasingly worried if too long of a period went by and she didn't feel them.
All was fine though.
Reaching back for her stool, satisfied that her patient would live to kill another day, she shakily sat down.
Only to be wrenched up as said patient snapped straight up as a strangled, guttural noise ripped through him. Sakura was by his side immediately, faster than she thought she could move, and was prepared - although slightly surprised - for what came next.
The bucket went from her hands to under his head in less than a second and he heaved into it, everything in his stomach coming up violently. Most of it appeared to be pure stomach acid and she winced; the dry heaving was sure to come next and she knew that didn't feel good. Many of her mornings and even her evenings wrapped around her toilet bowl could attest to her knowledge of that.
Silent sob-like motions wracked his body and hesitantly she placed her hand on his back, rubbing it awkwardly. She was surprised when he didn't immediately attempt to disembowel her for the gesture so she continued until he stopped and weakly collapsed back on to the bed.
She had thought that might happen but because it usually happened immediately she hadn't been ready. Messing with the hypothalamus tended to be tricky, since it was the center for a lot of body processes, so things like vomiting and even urinating on oneself were not uncommon.
Luckily for him - and her by proxy, again, because she was sure he'd have killed her to spare himself the sheer embarrassment - he hadn't done the latter. But now he was awake, if not a little disoriented.
Silence stretched on for a bit until she found her way over the sink, grabbing a small cup of water and two pills she had set on the counter earlier and slowly made her way back to his side. She offered them to him with no words.
He took them from her with no resistance, but hesitated before putting them in his mouth, suspicion written all over his face.
"For the pain and the nausea." She said plainly, not letting the nervousness she felt creep into her voice. At least when he was unconscious he couldn't fight her. Now that he wasn't there was no telling what he'd do next. The man was unpredictable at best, volatile at worst.
He narrowed his eyes but swallowed them nonetheless, not bothering to take the water she offered. She had figured he might be thirsty but she let him hang onto whatever shreds of dignity he felt he had to maintain. The saline solution would provide him with the hydration he needed.
"How do you feel?" The air in the room was tense, though strangely, not anywhere near what sharing a space was normally like with him. Sakura approached carefully regardless.
To her surprise, a tense chuckle met her ears.
"Shitty. Been worse though."
Sakura nodded slightly before turning to busy herself with cleaning the area, desperate for something innocuous to keep her from focusing on things she probably should. Important things. When she was done she went back to the IV stand, injecting more of the antibiotic into its seperate tube. He would need a double dosage because of his size.
"I'm sorry about this but you're going to have to stay here for awhile." She fiddled with the settings on the pump before continuing, "You've got an infection and the antibiotics need time to work through your system. I'll need to monitor them to make sure they're working and-"
"Sakura."
Her hands stilled as his voice, softer and hesitant and just so unlike what he had shown her before, drew her from her task. She turned towards him and though he wasn't looking at her, she could feel something coiling around them. Something drawing her in.
He had used her name.
She waited for him to continue, knowing that he didn't need her to acknowledge him to do so.
"I don't know why and hell, I guess it doesn't matter why-" He stopped, as if unsure of his wording, unsure of what to do, what to say. She could understand that. Neither did she. She could tell that he was struggling with himself, struggling with her. She knew it had to be incredibly hard for someone like him to be humble, she knew what he was trying to say even if she didn't expect him to actually say it. So when he did it made her heart flip in the strangest of ways. "- I just... Thanks."
There were several things she could have said to that. She could have screamed at him for being such an ass for so long. She could laugh and joke and ask if he still hated her now that she's saved his life. She could have broken down and just told him everything not caring if he killed her just so that this weight on her shoulders didn't have to be just hers anymore.
She could cry, she could hit him, she could hate him. She wanted to hate him.
But with slightly misty eyes that she turned to hide, all she did was adjust the IV pump needlessly and breathed out shakily.
"You're welcome."
...
He hadn't wanted to know.
He'd refused to ask or try to find out what it was about this woman that had him so uneasy every waking second she was near.
He hadn't wanted to care. Hadn't wanted to bother with it, or to bother with her but every day that passed had his resolve breaking apart just a little more with intrigue.
Her face plagued his nights and most of his days and he couldn't ignore this inexplicable draw that wanted to pull him into her corner, despite his every attempt to push away.
Sure, she was beautiful, he could admit that. Maybe never aloud, but he wasn't a stupid man, he could see why someone might be attracted to her. And, okay, maybe there was some attraction there, he couldn't deny that, on his end at least. It's not as if he had never been attracted to someone before.
Would he act on it? No. Nothing good ever came of that and he wouldn't even know how. But this... this wasn't simple physical attraction.
This was something entirely different.
It was obvious that she was hiding something and though he wasn't arrogant enough to think that she was hiding it from him specifically, it was important. It had to be.
He couldn't explain it and that angered him to a degree of intensity he had rarely ever experienced. He was frustrated with her being here with them and he didn't understand why.
Kisame hated being in the dark more than anything. He had left his own village because of it.
Kisame had wanted to ignore her, to try and act as if her presence didn't curse him every time she was around. He had wanted to close his eyes and not see hers for reasons he couldn't explain. He doubted he'd even seen her before that night in Konoha, so none of this made any sense.
Tucking his hands behind his head he looked up at the Amegakure sky, another night full of stars in a village that rarely had them. He had taken advantage of that and took up his normal spot on the roof, relishing the cool, night air. He winced only barely at the strain on his shoulder but the slight pain only served to draw his thoughts back to her.
It had been two weeks since she had - as loathe as he was to admit it - saved his ass and things had only gotten progressively weirder from then. Her presence in the base was becoming more and more troublesome as time went by. He exhaled sharply.
And then there was that...other incident...
...
One week earlier.
Kisame entered the base expecting the normal silence that usually greeted him but was surprised when the sound of laughter could be heard even from the main hall. He hadn't been away on a mission, just visiting the local weaponsmith to reup on tools and bandages for Samehada, so he hadn't even been gone but a couple of hours. Everything had been silent when he left and he didn't think he had ever heard such...merriment coming from the base before.
His brow furrowed as he followed the voices and found himself in the kitchen eyes narrowing at the altogether strange sight before him.
One pink haired kunoichi sat amongst a group of the most lethal, murderous criminals the shinobi nations had to offer, a fan of cards covering the smirk on her face.
"Shit. I'm fucking out." Hidan said, tossing his own cards on the table. Kisame's mouth dropped open only a little bit at the display.
"Kakuzu-san?" Sakura couldn't hide the pleasure in her voice as her eyes narrowed teasingly at the masked man sitting across from her.
Said man grunted before laying his cards down, revealing his hand, "Three of a kind. Kings."
"Deidara-kun?"
"Pair of sixes, yeah." Deidara frowned, clearly unhappy with his hand.
All three men fixed their stares on the woman settled rather comfortably among them, her own eyes trained on her cards.
"Whatcha got, Sakura-chan?" The blond man to her left leaned over to peer at her hand and she turned away, scowling at him.
"Play your hand, bitch," Hidan nearly yelled, "I wanna see if you beat Kakuzu's heathen ass."
If Sakura had been affected by the nickname, she paid it no mind. That was adaptable of her, Kisame thought as he leaned against the doorframe, unable to keep the corner of his mouth turning up just slightly. Hidan was a prick, no doubt, but it did no good to try and argue with his 'attempts'. She was probably just lucky he hadn't attempted to sacrifice her to his freak god yet.
The woman in question just let out an exasperated exhale, her little bluffing attempt only serving to make him even more entertained. She had a terrible poker face.
"Ooh, I don't know guys," She sighed. Kakuzu's eyes widened only a fraction, clearly falling for her ruse. Hidan's excited smile at watching his partner lose the one thing that mattered to him faltered. Kisame could tell she'd won, he could see her cards, but she seemed too pleased to let her little game draw out.
Slowly she laid her cards down, a mischievous little smirk playing on her lips, "Do you think this Straight Flush can beat Kakuzu-san's sad little trio of Kings? Sorry, Kakuzu-san."
"Ha! She got you, you money loving bitch!" Hidan stood, pointing his finger at Kakuzu who looked positively devastated at losing - Kisame counted the meager pot - 2,000 ryo.
"She cheated."
"Pfft, you're just a sore loser 'Kuzu-san." Deidara laughed brightly.
"Nobody cheated, you heathen, you just fucking suck at this game."
"You folded, Hidan. Shut up, or I'll kill you."
"Come on, he doesn't suck, yeah. He absolutely fucking sucks."
The white haired man laughed riotously and Kisame found himself further confused. Hidan and Deidara were getting along? Kakuzu was betting actual money and hadn't attempted to murder Sakura for besting him and taking it?
Like, what in the literal shit was happening to this place?
He didn't have anymore time to concern himself over such confusing details because he'd been spotted. The boisterous Iwa nin all-but screamed in excitement.
"Kisame-san! Wanna play with us? Sakura-chan's pretty good, she's won every game so far. I think she almost made 'Kuzu cry on the first one."
"Everyone wants to die tonight, I see." Kakuzu said sourly, but made no move to actually do anything.
The shark-nin shrugged at the display, making his way finally to withdraw a bottle of sake from the cabinet above the sink.
"I'm good, Deidara. As much as I enjoy watching Kakuzu mourn, I've got another date tonight."
Deidara pouted, looking very much like a sulking kid. Sakura suddenly looked very interested in the cards she was shuffling.
"You're gonna get drunk on the roof again, Kisame-san? Ya know, one day you might get so drunk that you pass out and fall off."
"It would serve him right if he did. Constantly drinking money away. Let him fall off. I'm not scraping him off the sidewalk." Kakuzu said, standing up before sulking off, clearly keen to mourn his loss in silence. Hidan followed after his partner, antagonizing him the whole way, throwing one hand up in goodbye with a 'see ya heathens later'.
Kisame laughed, surprised at the lightness in the air, seemingly affected by whatever this was. He was losing his mind, that much was sure.
"Don't worry Kisame-san, I'd scrape you up off of the sidewalk, yeah."
"That's touching, Deidara. Very sweet." The mist nin deadpanned before he turned away, sake bottle in hand.
"What can I say, I'm a sweet guy." The blond smiled widely but his smile turned to confusion quickly and he pointed to Kisame's back. "Hey...what's up with your sword?"
Kisame frowned and turned back, confused, "What? Nothing's wrong with Same-"
But something was wrong with Samehada indeed. The sword was vibrated strangely, and harder than normal for what should have been it's dormant period. It started to wiggle and Kisame put his bottle down to pull her off of his back.
"Kisame-san...it's chewing through the bandages." Deidara's eyes went wide and sure enough, the teeth were indeed gnawing through the wrappings.
"What the hell-" Suddenly he felt Samehada pull itself out of his hand and towards the pink haired woman who was still at the table, now backing away as the sword's tongue sort of lolled out between its teeth. It was inching towards her.
Kisame, between the feelings of shock and confusion, couldn't believe what he was seeing. He had never, in the fifteen years he had spent with his beloved sword, seen her act like this. She was sort of drooling like a dog, hellbent on making her way to Sakura. Kisame snatched at the handle but the sword was faster, cornering the rosette as it wiggled excitedly, clearly waiting for the kunoichi to make the first move.
Initially, Sakura had looked just as shocked as the other two men in the room, but her face had softened into a strange look of morbid curiosity and then into something that Kisame couldn't identify.
And then her hand reached out. Kisame opened his mouth to warn her but Deidara's was faster.
"Sakura-chan don't! It's gonna-"
Her small hand gripped the handle cautiously but assuredly and the room grew deathly still as the sword did exactly...nothing.
Nothing.
No spikes protuded from the handle. There was no screaming or cursing. No blood. No attempt to gnaw at the girl in any fashion. No draining of chakra. Nothing.
Samehada vibrated happily. Deidara's mouth dropped open. Kisame's jaw clenched.
Sakura just smiled nervously.
"I guess that doesn't normally happen, huh?"
Silence ticked by as the awkwardness expanded. Kisame's eyes narrowed dangerously and Sakura seemed to be silently pleading to some god that the shark-nin wasn't going to murder her. Deidara, as usual, was the first to say anything.
"Ooh, yeeeah... I'm not sticking around for this. Goodnight, Sakura-chan! Good luck!"
He bounded off so quickly that the woman caught in the murderous glare hadn't had time to beg him not to leave her with this crazy man who was looking at her like she had just run over his puppy.
Her hand was still on the handle and she was about to let it go but then the truly unthinkable happened.
Kisame thought he might be sick.
Sakura's eyes went wide.
Samehada, still thrumming happily, looking quite pleased with itself - if a sentient sword could look pleased with itself - began to stream its own chakra up through Sakura's arm.
The sword was feeding its chakra - his fucking chakra damn it!- to her.
Oh, the FUCKING nerve-
Never in HIS LIFE-
The ABSOLUTE betrayal-
No words were said as he stomped over to the woman who balked and looked absolutely ready to die, right then and there. He snatched the handle from her, picked up his sake and all but stormed out of the kitchen, hoisting the sword over his shoulder, muttering things under his breath she couldn't hear, though they were meant for Samehada and not for her anyway. He made a beeline straight for his room, slammed the door in what was truly childish behavior and threw the sword onto his bed.
Samehada lay still as a stone as he paced back and forth, simultaneously shifting his hands to his hips, crossing his arms and letting out little indignant laughs and snorts.
"Unfuckingbelievable, all of these years- Her? Really?! Of all the fucking people on the fucking planet and you do that with her?!"
He stopped as he hissed, holding his arms out, as if waiting for the sword to respond. Samehada vibrated slowly, as if trying to communicate some sort of apology.
Kisame pursed his lips and nodded sardonically, clearly right over the brink of absolutely losing his mind. He started pacing much more frantically and picked up a kunai from his desk, tossing it up into the air as he moved.
"Alright, that's fine. That's great. No problem! Let's just all lose our fucking shit because of HER! And while we're at it, why don't we just start braiding each other's hair!? We can have a FUCKING TEA PARTY!" He flung the kunai as a punctuation of anger, screaming out hoarsely in rage as it pierced through the wall and hit a stud, stopping it from going further.
Silence followed and he stood frozen for a good couple of minutes, staring at the hole in the wall, waiting for some sort of reaction from whoever was sure to have heard that outburst. After it was clear that nothing was going to happen his shoulders slumped, hands coming up to press against his temples and he slid down to the floor.
Goddamnit...
He really was losing his mind. Yelling at Samehada, throwing temper tantrums, tense and frustrated, constantly unable to deal with anything that had to do with Sakura. He leaned back against the wall, an ironic smile gracing his face.
Kisame called it insanity, clearly the workings of a man who's mind had snapped for no good reason.
Deidara would have called it 'emotional art'.
Hidan would have asked him if he needed tampons for his man-period.
Kakuzu would bitch at him about how drinking up all of the money wasn't good enough and he had to tear up the base now?
Konan would have given him that 'look', the one that could only find the most childish, traumatized parts of him, the one that was filled with pity.
Pein wouldn't have cared as long as it didn't interfere with his work.
Itachi would have called it growth.
...
That had been a difficult night, he could admit that too. He had sat in that spot until the sun had come up, drinking his thoughts down the drain, only leaving to get more sake after the first bottle had run dry.
Simultaneous thoughts of snapping the kunoichi's neck with his bare hands or tearing her clothes off and just fucking every little thought out of her pretty little head - and his own - had warred for dominance in his brain half of the night. Fortunately for them both, he had been far too drunk to do either of those, though if he had to wonder which he would have done, it wouldn't have been the former.
The other half of his night had been a jarring journey into introspection.
It really wasn't her he was angry with anyway. He could identify that much. In fact it seemed to be the exact opposite as he found himself progressively staying closer to her proximity rather than actively avoiding her. While blindsided by rage at Samehada's behavior that night, he had eventually realized that the sword wasn't actively trying to betray him. She wouldn't have let him take her from Sakura if that were the case.
No, Samehada had been trying to tell him something.
He had eventually fallen asleep on the floor and had risen just before noon, hungover something unreal and feeling somehow worse than before.
The sake just wasn't doing it anymore. It used to take all of the sting right out of anything and everything and now it just seemed to exacerbate all of his problems. Somehow, without even realizing it, he was becoming some sort of sloppy alcoholic.
'Like father like son.'
His mind drifted back to Sakura, pushing the former echo in his brain back down.
The desire to rid himself of the kunoichi in question just wasn't there. If anything it seemed like every fiber of his being itched to ensure she stayed closer and closer. Even if she was unaware of it.
Briefly he pondered the idea of just talking to her, trying to smooth out this tension between them; to bridge the gap and possibly get the answers he sought that way. Would that be entirely too difficult for him?
He had never been great at - he repressed a shudder - expressing his feelings.
But...maybe he could try something? Surely a civil conversation between them wouldn't be the worst thing on the planet. Would she even want that? Should he even care?
He knew though, as his feet led him down off of the roof to the main hall below, whether he liked it or not, he already did.
...
Konan would have to have been a fool to not sense the changes happening in the base over the past few weeks. Whether or not those would prove to be a blessing or a downfall to them remained to be seen.
Her own guilt had been bubbling up at the situation as well and it had required quite a bit of willpower to continue acting as if nothing was wrong.
Oddly enough the tenseness between Kisame and Sakura seemed to have changed somehow. The night after Sakura had attended to his injuries everything between the two shinobi seemed different. Not a vast change by any means, but something had changed indeed.
Konan couldn't help but breathe a small sigh of relief at that. It wouldn't do to have Kisame kill the girl in some fit of rage.
'Or vice versa.' Konan smirked slightly.
The blunette had eyes all over this base, so she was fully aware of the incident that had occurred in the kitchen just a few days prior. Surprisingly, Kisame had responded to it better than she had expected and almost humorously had been more upset at the sword than at Sakura.
That sword. It could sense it too. That change in Sakura's chakra that indicated a mixture of Kisame's own must have been what had curiously drawn Samehada to her. It was a strange event, one that she had definitely not expected - and had amused Pein to no end - and she wondered what these little strange developments would lead to in time.
After all, they weren't even halfway through this and every day had the possibility to bring about something new. Just how long would it be until Sakura was unable to hide the developments from anyone? How long until Kisame caught on?
And then there was the growing situation with the Leaf.
According to Zetsu, who'd been out to scout the region for the last couple of weeks, the Leaf village was in quite the uproar over it's missing medic. Several ANBU squads had been dispatched to hunt for her since they had become aware of her disappearance. The Hokage had also taken to sending out Sakura's own team to find her.
As far as Konan knew, they weren't particularly hot on her trail, and Zetsu had done a rather good job of throwing them off the scent. Still Konan couldn't help just how long it would be before they caught on, found something left behind, and discovered exactly what had happened to their missing kunoichi.
What a frustrating mess this was becoming.
When she brought this up with Pein, he had seemed excessively pleased. The Nine Tails Jinchuuriki would certainly bring himself directly in their eyeline and they'd be able to capture him with ease, he'd said.
'Two birds, one stone, Konan-chan.'
As much as she appreciated his optimism, she couldn't believe it would be so easy, because it never was. She didn't say this to him of course. She had stopped bringing up her concerns; they had fallen on deaf ears time and time again.
Konan sighed. What a frustrating mess indeed.
She stepped into the office, intent on finishing up a couple of invoice reports when a particularly cold chakra filled the area and she froze.
He hadn't been there the first time she'd looked but he was there now, the black figure with the swirl of orange that never failed to make her blood run cold, despite their affiliation.
Uchiha Madara.
He was reclined slightly out on the ledge that peered over the village - one of Pein's preferred spots - seemingly deep in a scroll he had unrolled over his lap.
"Good evening, Madara. To what do we owe the pleasure?"
He wasn't around too often these days, preferring to keep his visits as limited as possible for reasons she could only imagine. Trying to decode the eldest Uchiha was something she had no interest in.
"I had come to visit with Pein," His deep voice drawled, the tone teasing, almost mocking, "But I see he's not here."
Konan made herself busy with the paperwork stacked on the desk.
"I apologize but he's out for a couple of days, he had some village business to attend to. I'm sure you could find him if you really needed to, but I have a feeling that's not the only reason you've stopped by."
The laugh that found her ears was even more mocking. She stiffened subconsciously.
"Ahh, smart girl. You've caught me. I thought that, since I was in the neighborhood, I'd check in on...developments here."
"I assume you mean Haruno Sakura," Konan stopped fidgeting to look at Madara, noting that the scroll he had been looking at was gone. She continued, "Physically, she seems fine. Otherwise, I'm not sure."
"And the pregnancy?"
Konan hated the amused way he spoke, the sort of unserious tone he took as if this was nothing more than some little game he was playing to meet his own ultimate ends. Just a couple more pawns on his board.
"A little under four months now. Sakura-san has been monitoring the pregnancy herself, I haven't seen any reason to think that there are any issues." Konan's hands came to rest on her hips.
"Is that wise? To allow her to monitor the gestation?"
"There's no one else here who could do it better."
The Uchiha just 'hmm'd in response, face pointed upwards, now focused on the sky as clouds began to form over the landscape below. Konan came closer to him, if only a fraction. His masked face came to rest on her.
"And what about Hoshigaki? I trust he is still unaware?"
Konan frowned, wishing for all the world that he would just leave. However she let none of the unease she felt show, or at least she fought hard to.
"He is. Though I feel like he's coming to his own conclusions faster than you had anticipated. It's only a matter of time before he figures it out." Konan couldn't help the smirk on her lips. It would serve him right if his little plan came to blow up in his face because he had underestimated Kisame.
The masked man seemed slightly ruffled at that. Indeed having the Mist-nin discover that Sakura was simply pregnant wasn't a huge issue; if anything it may serve to drive him further from her. Unless of course...
"I don't need to remind you how important it is that he doesn't discover that he's sired the thing. It's not our concern if others in the base learn that Haruno is with child, as long as no harm comes to her, but under no circumstances are any of them to discover that it's his. Especially Hoshigaki."
"I take it you haven't developed a countermeasure for if he does then?"
She couldn't see the vicious smile but she could definitely feel it. Malicious intent pouring off of him in waves. She fought down another shudder.
"Of course I have, Konan. I am nothing if not thorough. If that time comes and Hoshigaki proves to be an issue, I will handle him personally."
Konan couldn't control her outburst at this, though she was not sure why she was surprised. This sort of behavior had Madara written all over it.
"Are you saying you'll eliminate him if he stands between you and his own child?"
"If he comes between us and our plans, I will do what I need to. Simple as that."
Konan's mouth snapped shut. Why had that even shocked her? It wasn't like the brutal shinobi world stopped spinning just because a child was going to be born.
'Children don't have the luxury of safety in a world like ours.'
"Madara, if I may ask-"
"And you may, Konan-chan."
She didn't miss the crinkle of his exposed eye and fought down the urge to recoil, now facing him fully.
"What exactly is your plan with the child after it's born? This was your idea afterall, Pein has only backed it. I assume you have something up your sleeve."
The mood in the room seemed to shift in a way that made her feel impossibly colder than before. Moments ticked by before the man in question spoke again, but he seemed almost lost in thought.
"A child like Hoshigaki's and Haruno's, would be expected to have the vast chakra reserves of its father and the pinpoint control of its mother. A child like that, Konan, would prove extremely valuable not only to the Akatsuki, but the other nations as well. It would be unwise to allow it to fall into the wrong hands. And especially not Konoha's."
Konan didn't buy it. Of course what he said was true, the child would make for quite a shinobi indeed, but she didn't believe for one second that was the only reason. There was never anything face-value about the Uchiha's intentions.
The man always had some other hand to play.
"It would, there's no doubt about that. I just don't believe that there's not more you intend to do with it, when the time comes."
Madara smirked under his mask, standing to his full height, and placed his gloved hand over his heart, "My dear Konan, you wound me. My intentions are only to ensure only the best for our organization, nothing more."
Amber eyes narrowed. A lie if she had ever seen one and thinly veiled on purpose. He was playing with her; unfortunately was nothing she could about it.
"I'm sure they are." A fake smile came to rest on her lips.
"Don't forget, our paths align, Konan. Everything I do is for the betterment of you and Pein's goal, as well as all of the Akatsuki's." The air around him began to shift and warp, indicating that he was going to make his departure. Konan could help the relief that settled in her chest.
"Be sure to let Pein know that I stopped by. I'll be back in the next couple of weeks. Oh...and Konan?"
"Yes?"
"I trust you won't do anything to upset this precarious balance your partner and I have maintained. You're smarter than that."
Before Konan had the time to ponder the meaning of what sounded very much to her like a threat, he was gone, the air as still as if he had never been there at all.
...
The end of her night had found her in the covered atrium that sat directly in the center of the base, the one that served as a garden as well as the outdoor training ground some of the members frequented from time to time.
It was empty now, save for one pink haired woman that had settled on one of the stone benches in the center.
Rain had begun to fall, the full clouds above finally splitting open to pour down on the land below. The pleuvisaud above her had lulled her into a calm that she thought she'd been unable to reach here.
Especially with Kisame still in the base.
The little incident with Samehada had had her on edge the next time their paths had crossed, but if he was still affected by it, he hadn't let on. She knew he'd been angry, upset even, but surprisingly he hadn't taken it out on her.
All he had done was come to the laundry room to get fresh towels the next day, nodded at her in greeting, avoided her eyes and left.
She could only assume why that had happened but since the sword appeared to be attuned to Kisame's chakra, it must have been drawn to the baby's growing chakra as well.
'Was it similar to his? It must be if it made that weird sword act like that.' Her inner narrative pondered. Sakura wondered as well. And if it was, how long would it be before he recognized the similarity himself?
'And speak of the devil...'
She could feel his presence, somewhere near the archway and briefly she wondered if he had sought her out.
Sakura shifted her body imperceptibly, leaning forward to allow her loose yukata to further shield the bulge of belly that seemed to grow more and more everyday. All hopes of having one of those 'hidden' pregnancies had flown out the window when she woke up one morning to find that the same yukata she'd worn a week ago was so tight the seams were about to pop.
'And not just on your abdomen either.'
In her younger days she had often hoped that one day her less than ample chest would fill out like her fellow comrades. Ino had, in a matter of months, gone from flatter than Sakura to a curvy kunoichi that could have any boy trailing after her in an instance. And there was no denying Hinata's very ample curves, as much as the shy girl had tried to hide it.
Unfortunately for Sakura, it seemed that the only way she'd ever get that same treatment would be to go and get knocked up.
Her thoughts were suddenly pulled back to the Mist-nin she could still feel in the room. He was coming closer to her, his chakra pulled back, coming to swirl around like a slow whirlpool.
Bored with this little game of hide and seek, Sakura turned towards him, reigning back her surprise at how unequipped he was.
The cloak was gone, as was his sword, leaving him only in a sleeveless mesh shirt and standard shinobi pants. He was leaning on one of the stone pillars that seperated the vegetable garden from the rose bushes. His arms were casually folded in front of his chest, hitae-ate off, his hair dangling just a slight bit over his eyes.
He looked surprisingly different like that, not all pretense and defense. Just like a regular guy.
'Well almost. If you don't count the blue skin, the gills and the criminal status.'
Sakura shook her head to clear her thoughts and looked back out at the nothing beyond the rain splattered glass.
A few minutes passed and she found herself inclined to break the silence first, her voice coming out softer than she had meant.
"Does it ever stop raining?"
Relief flooded her when his deep chuckle met her ears, the resounding rumble spreading through the space between them and reaching some place in her chest.
She wished he'd laugh more often, it was a nice sound.
"Sometimes," He moved then and took a seat next to her on the bench, not close enough to touch, but close enough that she could feel his heat against her arm, "Sometimes it stops long enough and the stars come out." His relaxed demeanor was unusual but she was thankful for it.
"I've never seen them here." She pouted with an almost incredulous tone. Stars? In Amegakure? Was he messing with her?
"Well," He shifted a slight bit, leaning back just a little to look up, "No, you wouldn't see them down here. The light pollution blocks them out this far down."
He paused and a very different kind of tenseness filled the space between them before he spoke again.
"I have a place," His eyes were fixed very pointedly on the glass above, his muscles tensed like a coil for a second before his body eased up and he continued, "I could show you. If you want."
Despite the warning bells ringing off in her head about him taking her to do something as casual as stargazing was more dangerous than him slitting her throat open, Sakura couldn't help the smile that crept on her lips. Subconsciously, something stirred deep within her that begged for closeness and she scooted just a slight bit closer to him, shoulder grazing his just slightly.
Just enough to feel the heat of him better, just enough to bridge that divide.
"I'd love that."
There was no missing the surprise on his face as he came to look down at her now, pearlescent eyes softening just the slightest as her own green ones sought him out.
They were somehow even closer now, as if an invisible thread had tugged them into place. His scent flooded her senses like the most advanced genjutsu never could, and briefly she felt her legs going weak, thankful for bench she was sitting on now.
He smelled like a storm at sea, of salt and ozone and wood and something else she couldn't identify. Something coiled deep in her belly that should have deterred her. It didn't.
Something in her head, something less prevalent than the man against her, told her to stop this, back up, this was crazy. Had she lost her mind?
Maybe.
"Sakura..."
She felt the heat of his breath against her lips as her name left his mouth, his voice lower and huskier than she'd ever heard it. His arm, so much larger than her own, was around her own, but his hands never touched her, merely coming to rest on the bench beside her thigh. Her eyes, heavy and lidded, lowered to rest upon his mouth.
How had they gotten so close? She didn't know. Everything in her head was a strange cacophony of thoughts and feelings that she didn't think she'd ever experienced before. Her head was heavy, her heart thundered wildly in her chest, her fingers itched to touch him, her skin burned at the place where his grazed hers. His knee rested against her own and she had to repress the primal sound that threatened to tear from her throat.
"Kisame."
She hadn't meant to let his name escape, but she couldn't help it, she felt powerless to this. She felt powerless to him and he hadn't even done anything.
She felt his hand on her face then; impossibly large, impossibly hot as her breath caught in her chest. She had to fight the overwhelming urge to lean into his touch. Without her permission her eyes drifted close as that thread pulled impossibly tighter.
With a fearlessness she hadn't thought she had, she closed the distance a little more, and she could have sworn the air around them crackled.
Her lips grazed against his just barely and a sound she didn't have time to identify escaped his throat.
All it would take was just the slightest amount of pressure...
Just a little bit further...
Just one more push...
Suddenly a loud crash sounded from the building behind them, causing both shinobi to wrench back as if they'd been burned. Sakura's head snapped back to identify just what the hell that was, heart still racing, cloudy mind coming up for air as the gravity of what had almost just happened settled in her bones.
Cold suddenly replaced any warmth and she turned back towards him, only to find the space he had just occupied was empty. The torrent continued on overhead.
He was gone.
Beryl eyes fell down toward the bench where the Mist-nin had been just a moment before and the sting there matched the one in her chest painfully. She swallowed thickly.
And when the tears came this time, she didn't try to stop them.
...
Stop making a fight,
Stop making it right.
And I will be the one your heart's forgotten.
Don't stop to breathe,
If you're gonna leave, just leave.
I believe in what I see,
If you're gonna leave, just leave.
Let it go.
...
A/N: Phew, that was a long one. Hope you guys enjoyed! I hadn't planned to make that one so long but I know you don't mind. No one ever minded a long chapter! As always, let me know whatcha think!