Chapter 5

There were so many rooms in this place. No one had to share. Sakura was grateful. She couldn't even meet Hinata's eyes—the thought of having to sleep next to or see anyone else for the rest of her life seemed unbearable.

Sakura's mother had given her plenty of warnings throughout her childhood. Never go to bed with a sink full of dishes. Always wear clean underwear. Stop talking.

Knowledge was such an addiction for her. How could she keep it all to herself? Didn't others want to know about cellular division, the history of Konohagakure, past-participles?

No.

Sakura had learned how to control herself at an early age. Many years of uninterested looks or snide comments had taught her to shut up. Eventually she'd turned into an unblossomed bud, curled into herself, hiding under hair.

Ino had cultivated Sakura, coaxed her to open, but she was not the same.

Pressing her cheek to her knee, Sakura distinctly remembers one late evening in summer, when she'd successfully memorized all of the ninja-rules. Naming them, in correct order, over dinner had sent her mother into a rampage.

"I love you, Sakura," She had said. "But I cannot go another day listening to you regurgitate the words on a page!"

Perhaps it wasn't the kindest way to put Sakura in her place, but she understood nonetheless. Some things cannot be said with a pretty ribbon.

Sakura squeezes her eyes shut and shimmies into her bedroll. She'd placed it upon a moth-eaten bed, not accepting the new linen Naruto had left outside her door. He was so sweet, bragging about the verbal pummeling he'd given everyone for looking at her.

It wasn't their fault. Sakura had been the one who…

Groaning, she closes her swollen eyes. She sees Sasuke's face in the darkness. Two eyes, one violet, the other a cherry red. Spinning tomoe, turning in lazy circles, watching her as if an enemy. Did he think she'd tried to trick him–to seduce–?

Did he think of her as incompetent?

...:::*:::...

If anyone had anything to say about the bathing incident, they'd shown Sakura enough respect to keep it to 's talk-no-jutsu was almost as formidable as his rasengan.

While Sakura hid until the later hours of morning, the group decided where to head next. They would travel in unison to Konoha where Karin, Sakura, and Hinata would stay. Naruto and Sasuke would make their way to the ancient chakra reports and start their obligations.

Orochimaru instructed Suigetsu and Jugo to check out each of his bases and make sure nothing—or no one—had been left behind as his official submission towards Konoha. Sakura was ignorant to the experiments he'd conducted, but rumor was said to be more tame than truth in his case.

Everyone had a designated spot on the map. Different jobs to attend to. Finality.

Sakura led the group, only far enough ahead to see the blur of their bodies. Hinata would catch up to her from time to time—which is how she'd known about their plans in the first place. Hinata was thoughtful and understanding.

Towering trees made a canopy above her, defending against the sun. It rained in Fire Country, but not nearly as much as it did in Tea and not with such severity. Somehow, these stubborn oaks thrived. She runs her hand across the bark, savoring the texture.

"No one is talking about you."

Sakura looks behind her, startled to see Naruto there with his hands folded behind his head. For such a boisterous, brightly dressed man, he was surprisingly quiet. He hasn't always been.

"Honestly. Not one single person has said anything about—about what happened. Not even Karin, and that's saying something because she takes every chance she can get to make people miserable."

Sakura crosses her arms, moving away from the trunk and back up the pathway.

"If anything, we were all shocked about Sasuke way more than seeing your tits."

Balking, the kunoichi resists the urge to pound her friend for his crude terminology. Curiosity over Sasuke took precedence.

"What, did he throw up or something?"

Naruto laughs. Not a chuckle, or a polite "heh", but a full on guffaw to the point he'd started to wheeze. Feeling embarrassed all over again, Sakura covers his mouth with her hands. The others could surely hear him.

"Sakura, when you came up out of that water…it was like—"

Before he could finish, Hinata caught up to them. Her normally passive face was pinched. Wide, pearlescent eyes squinted closed and her full lips pursed, as if she were in pain. Naruto seemed to notice too, as he dipped down low to her face and studied her intently.

"Are you alright?"

Instantly a smile stretched across her face. If it was fake, she was much better at masking her feelings than Sakura.

"Oh, yes, I just needed some air." Hinata inhaled dramatically.

"…We're outside though."

The woman glances back. "Yes, but it seems less…humid up this way; easier to breathe."

...:::*:::...

By late afternoon, the group had grown hungry enough to stop for a meal. They would be spending another night out in the wilderness. The branches creaked and swayed as the breeze of twilight rolled in. It smelled sweet.

"I wish we didn't have to stop in Konoha," Karin says, groaning as she plops down on a smooth boulder. "It would be easier to split up now. I can't stand these woods."

When no one responds the woman continues. "Do you girls really need us to take you all the way back home?"

Naruto sneers from his seated position. "What, you're not coming with us to the Land of Frost, are you?"

"You need a healer," the woman states matter-of-factly.

Sakura and Hinata stop, passing a knowing glance to each other. Hinata mumbles, but it is loud enough to be heard by the others. "I can heal," She says.

"You too?" Sakura replies with a teasing wink.

"I don't need healing," Naruto puts his arm around his wife, pressing his lips to the side of her hip. It's the most intimate Sakura's seen the couple, and she turns her head quickly. "I'm an Uzumaki too, Karin. It may take Sasuke a few days but he's got…some sort of healing factor. So I'd say we're good."

"Well, yeah," Karin stammers. "But what if you come across someone else who needs healing? Someone you need to interrogate?"

"So it needs to be you?" Naruto asks.

"You're joking. Of course. Pinky wasn't even supposed to go to Tea with Sasuke, and your lady hasn't been granted any kind of mission. She's off duty. I'm the easiest choice!"

"Easy, eh?" Suigetsu mutters with a chuckle. He is much quieter than Hinata was.

Naruto scrunches his nose.

In the midst of the talking, Suigetsu had gathered kindling and Jugo prepared places for everyone to sit, dragging up two fallen logs to the clearing. Sakura squats low, readjusting some of the twigs so that the larger ones are on bottom.

"Let me start the fire," Naruto says, hoping to end the conversation. "You always do it."

Sakura doesn't even look up. It was true, she'd usually defaulted the task. Feeling bold, she shrugs her shoulders. "Remember when Sasuke used to? All he had to do was breathe."

She tilts her face towards the man, but keeps her eyes on her hands. "Why don't you start it?"

Sasuke's most recent ex-teammates glance between one-another. They'd made the mistake of assuming Sasuke would produce the fire once before. He'd refused to waste chakra on something so trivial.

Suigetsu thinks he just wanted to be an asshole. Waste chakra? He's got it leaking off of him in waves!

"If you're having trouble, just say that." Karin jabs..

Sakura stands, dusting off her knees. For the first time since the bathing incident, she looks at Sasuke, and finds that his gaze has already been on her.

Very few could look at him so fully, so intensely as her. She was unafraid of his prowess—not because he wouldn't use his ocular-jutsu on her, but because it was futile.

If that was his wish, she couldn't stop him give him the privilege of avoidance?

Today, though, she refuses to linger longer than necessary. An awkward stillness drapes over the group. No one moves to ignite the dry bundle beneath Sakura. Slowly the woman raises her hand, forming seals that captivate her audience.

Horse—Serpent—Ram—Monkey—Boar—Horse—Tiger

It was not unheard of for someone without an affinity for fire to conjure a Dragon Flame Jutsu. It was, however, unusual for someone to use the Uchiha technique. Sakura can feel everyone's eyes on her, much like at the hot spring.

Raising her thumb to her mouth and extending her pinky finger, Sakura blows sharply. With a tantalizing slowness, her middle finger rises as if being inflated. She directs the vulgar gesture to Sasuke.

Laughter erupts.

"I actually thought—" Naruto begins, doubling over as Hinata covers her giggles into her palms. Even Karin found humor in the action, and Suigetsu was beside himself shoving Jugo in a fit.

"Amaterasu,"

The fun dies out like coal plunged into water. Fearing her proximity to the fire, Sakura falls backwards onto her bottom and scurries away. But there are no black flames. She frantically meets Sasuke's face and watches as he leans back cockily. A lopsided smirk threatens to turn into a smile. His head falls to the side, smug.

"That wasn't funny."

The satisfaction remains on his face. "I'm not laughing."

Sakura huffs in annoyance and stands, fixing her skirt with exaggerated slaps. "I flipped you off. That's a lot more tame than an eternal flame. I could have gotten burned by your fire—"

Sasuke leans forward, suddenly serious and stern. The severity of it captures her attention without wavering. It's a dizzying shift.

He can see the sun begin to set in the reflection of her irises, the redness of her cheeks from the relentless heat of the day, the way her lips slowly part in question.

"My fire wouldn't dare."

Without a sign or a summon, black sparks flare to life. It is an oil-slick color, rainbows of blues and greens and reds.

Thawing out of her frozen state, Sakura steps nearer as the others scramble back. She reaches out and Sasuke sees the scab of the previous fire on the palm of her hand, her bandage having fallen off sometime. That wild heat had marred her.

His flame is living, just as its master. It parts and the woman reaches low to pick up a piece of hot kindling. The charred stick beneath is warm as it crumbles in her hand.

Susanoo's arm manifests over Sasuke's cloak and with it, a brilliant purple hunting bow. The whisps mimicked intricately carved wood, tendrils curling at the ends. He breaks his gaze from Sakura.

"Naruto, Suigetsu, push some game towards us." Then, after taking a few steps, Sasuke looks back at the group. "Jugo, come."

...:::*:::...

"No news on the Spider Lilies?" Hinata asks, sorting through the mushrooms they'd just gathered. She throws the damaged ones into the fire and rinses the others in a small pot of pre-boiled water.

"No, though I don't expect to hear anything. It's not our territory. We don't have anyone stationed in Tea, apparently, so it may just be a coincidence. Perhaps it was a memorial of some sort."

"At least we reported it," Hinata mumbles.

Sakura scrapes a kunai along her whetstone, preparing the blades for whatever catch the others may bring. She eyes the black flame by her feet, watching as it reacts to her every movement, as if it had eyes…as if it knew her.

It was quite pretty.

Wanting to be polite, Sakura tries to communicate with Karin. "Jugo seems to be close with Sasuke. He prefers to stay around him."

Karin had also been watching the blaze. She looked weary of it–fearful. "Yeah, bipolar no Jugo needs his cage to keep him in place. Sasuke's not doing it because he likes the guy."

Sakura perks up at this. "What do you mean?"

Karun yawns. "The freak's crazy. Like, proper crazy. Destroyed a whole village once. Hates when people hurt animals. Sasuke's probably keeping balance on the scale right now–he's a much more humane hunter than Suigetsu is."

"Is that why Sasuke stayed behind when you went fishing with the others…when we were cleaning?" Hinata surmises. "He did look agitated when he saw Sakura on his shoulders. I assumed it was because–"

"Yep," Karin cuts her off. "Last thing he needs is for the guy to flip out and wreck everything. Maybe you should be more considerate, Pinky."

"I will be," Sakura says. "I hope you will be, too. Saying things like freak and crazy to someone who struggles mentally is horrible."

Karin doesn't have a chance to retort, as the men return with several speared rabbits and a few decent sized birds. Naruto had the deceased animals slung over his shoulder and a bundle of wildflowers in his other hand. They do not look meticulously picked—many still have scraggly roots connected to clumps of dirt. His smile is so bright, so pure, full of excitement for his wife to receive her gift.

"Tell me what they mean, tell me what they mean!"

Hinata moves the mushrooms away from her lap and happily receives her arrangement. She picks up a purple iris and perks up its petals. "This is shobu, meaning good news." Then, she untangles a bright pink carnation. "Kaneshon, love," and finally, two big sunflowers as yellow as her lover's hair—her fingers trail along the spiked petals. "Himawari, adoration and loyalty,"

Naruto is more prideful of the flowers than the meat.

...:::*:::...

Only three of the seven help skin the animals. Suigetsu brags about his knife skills as he splits the underbelly of a rabbit. Sakura could admit he was rather talented. In the time it took her to clean one, he'd already dressed two.

"You Konoha girls have it easy, huh?" The man begins, talking around his impossibly sharp teeth.

"In what way?" Sakura asks. She cleans her hands of blood after wiping off her blade. Water from her canister splashes beside her feet, frothing at the ground with the rest of the soap residue.

"Your dainty little flower language," He continues as he wipes sweat off his brow. "I ain't never seen nothing like it."

"You aren't supposed to have," Hinata admits while she stirs the pot–both literally and metaphorically.

"Yeah, we weren't planning on letting you live." Sakura teases and the girls share a laugh.

"There are many difficult things kunoichi must learn," The princess continues. "Because of my place in my clan, I was not able to participate as much as Sakura, however."

"Oh yeah?" Suigetsu raises his eyebrow but keeps his eye on the game. "Like what?"

"Women have… different survival strategies, compared to men."

Naruto pokes at the fire–now a normal red and yellow–joining into the conversation. "That's silly, why would being a woman make any difference?"

Sakura's face turns solemn. No one answers Naruto's question. He seems to get the hint.

"Well, why can't you participate, Hinata?" Karin asks with accusation. She hadn't been much help the last hour or so, taking to her smooth boulder and throwing a twig into the campfire every so often. The greenery sent a plume of black up into the air.

"It's inappropriate for an heiress to learn the art of seduction." Sakura responds sternly as she sharpens her kunai again. She drags the blade back and forth.

"The art of seduction…." Suigetsu finishes his last animal and borrows Sakura's soap and canister to wash his hands. He shoots her a grin. "I bet you couldn't get anything out of me."

"Ouch!"

Everyone looks toward Sakura as a bubble of blood rises from the tip of her finger.

"You good?" Suigetsu asks. Sakura steps closer to him, brushing his arm as she reaches for her canister. It is empty.

"It's just a little cut…" She drawls. Sasuke watches her wispy, pink eyelashes dance as she bats them, peering beneath to look up at Suigetsu. Her lower lip juts out just so. "Suigetsu-kun…you used all my water?"

His old, filthy water bottle had finally broken, and Sakura's canister was the closest... "I'm sorry, I didn't—"

Sakura looks up, facing him fully, and brings her injured finger into her mouth. Stopping at her middle knuckle, the kunoichi spreads her tongue around the digit and lets her blood leave a streak across her taste buds.

Suigetsu is utterly entranced.

Yet another fierce ninja has fallen for Sakura's seduction. Konoha and their dainty little flowers…

"Damn!" Naruto belts, completely amused as he skewers the meat onto a sharpened stick. "Not even two seconds."

"Show me more," the pale-skinned man begs as Sakura turns with a satisfied smirk.

Karin throws a larger chunk of greenery into the fire, blasting bitter smoke all over the food. Naruto groans, increasingly losing his patience with his cousin. The red-head sneers.

"A class on how to be a whore? That's new."

Hinata chirps in surprise at the insult but Sakura does skip a beat. "Not everyone has natural talent, Karin."

Naruto and Suigetsu mewl matching ooooh's, which seems to send Karin over the edge. She hops up from her spot. "Bitch,"

Sakura raises both of her hands in submission. "I'm just matching your energy."

The woman scoffs. "You couldn't match me if you tried."

"Yeah, okay," Sakura mocks, turning away.

Karin isn't through, though. She stalks towards the woman with her fists balled, standing taller over Sakura as a means of intimidation. Still, the Konoha kunoichi does not bite the bait, keeping her back turned to diffuse the situation.

That is, until shoves her forwards.

Sakura stumbles, not expecting their argument to turn physical. Karin starts belting out curses and Suigetsu approaches. Naruto is beside Sakura quickly, glaring at the red-head.

"Try that again and you'll regret it," Sakura warns, stepping closer.

"Oooooh, I'm so scared." Karin mocks, slamming her hand into Suigetsu's chest. Without warning, her Adamantine Chains dart out over Naruto's shoulder, capturing Sakura's throat.

Sasuke drops the half-dressed bird in his lap and wipes his pants with his bloody hands, placing himself between his former female teammates.

Beyond angry, Sakura kicks out of Naruto's grasp and wraps her hand around Karin's chain before it can squeeze, pulling her forward. Her fists glow threateningly, ready to at the very least break an arm.

"Sakura, don't."

Sasuke's voice halts her movement just enough for Karin to reach out and land a solid smack across Sakura's face. Bubbling over, unbridled rage releases in a scream from Sakura's mouth.

"'Sakura, don't'?" She shrieks. "'Sakura?! Me?! What the hell have I done! She came at me!"

Sidestepping Naruto and Karin, the woman makes her way to Sasuke and, even from her slight height, pelts him with the heel of her hands.

"Yes," Sasuke replies monotonously. "I expect more from you."

"I'm just supposed to let someone slap my face? To let someone choke me? What, is that like a signature move of Team Taka?" Sakura throws her arms up in the air, preparing her next accusation. "Or maybe she learned that from you?"

"Watch it," he threatens, not appreciating her words.

He knew he deserved it. He would allow her to say whatever she wanted to him, but not now. Not with an audience.

"So was that your plan–drop me off in Konoha and travel around with your girlfriend?"

Sasuke, who had been in control of his emotions for several months, could not be bothered to hide his surprise. He speaks low, so the others do not hear. "What are you getting at?"

Her voice cracks. She does not speak low. "Do you think I'm stupid? I know what I saw in your hotel room–which I am not paying half for, by the way."

"Saku—"

"She can hug you, Sasuke. Karin can walk by your side. But me? You don't trust me! It's like you don't even know me!"

Another chain comes right for Sakura. "Keep my name out of your mouth!"

As Sasuke blocks it, the kunoichi takes her opportunity to roll under his arm. Sakura is heaved into the air before she can make contact with bewildering abruptness, Sasuke's arm around her hips like a belt.

"Knock it off!" He yells.

He yells.

Jugo did not like when Sasuke raised his voice. Suigetsu had been on the other end of Sasuke's anger more than once, and each time he bowed like an obedient dog. If he weren't enjoying his former leader's frustration, he might have felt sorry for the sweet little thing…

"Let go!" Hot tears stream down the side of her face.

"Cool down," Sasuke responds, squeezing tighter against her prying fingers.

"You don't get to touch me!" She successfully jerks out of his grip and stumbles backwards. "You don't get to touch me when I don't get to touch you!"

"You can touch me whenever you want!"

Eyes sharp, brows drawn together in evident irritation, the dark ninja reaches out for Sakura's wrist and forces her hand to the center of his fingers splay out.

Sakura's eyes widen, her mouth falls open, she tries to pull away but he keeps her firmly in place. She can feel the thunder of his heartbeat. He forces her palm downward to his navel and back up again. Softer, in a voice meant just for her, he repeats himself. "You can touch me whenever you want."

Not Karin, who curled up next to him like a cat, or Naruto who tried to throw his arm around his shoulders every chance he got. Not even Orochimaru could take his body.

Sakura could, if she wanted to. Only Sakura, and Sasuke despised himself for the revelation. He drops her hand and kicks the tree next to her, leaving a deep gouge in the wood.