Approaching Sun (33)
Author’s Note: Hello everyone! All this SasuSaku content we’ve been blessed with over the last couple of months had my heart hungry for more, so I got to typing! As always, sorry for the delay, but I hope this chapter is worth the wait. To all my readers who have been with me from the beginning, do not lose hope for me! And new readers, welcome to a world of waiting on me to get my crap together. Thanks again for the support!
Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32
Chapter 33: Interrogations
Watching her friends exit through the doorway of the Kazekage’s office, Sakura couldn’t help but feel relieved as the rest of Team 7 and Shikamaru trailed behind Sasuke and Kankuro to the Sand Village Prison. Sakura’s cheeks were still a little red, taken by surprise at Sasuke’s unexpected appearance just now. Sakura mentally berated herself for the flushed reaction, especially after rehearsing in her head all morning how she would come off much more composed during their reunion after the whole kissing thing last night. She had matured a lot from her Genin days, and was usually very collected around her peers now (except Naruto, maybe, who sometimes brough out her temper), but seeing Sasuke assessing her own reaction with a certain white-haired sensei’s watchful, knowing eye had Sakura acting like her schoolgirl self again. She cringed at her own embarrassed behavior.
Suddenly, the Kazekage’s voice brought her back to the matter at hand. “Even though it is not ideal, there’s some logic behind Shikamaru’s suggestion.”
Sakura nodded, remembering her friend’s proposition regarding the anti-peace group targeting Sakura for her mental health-centered endeavors. Shikamaru had offered a solution to their dilemma on finding the rest of the group’s members, but it involved using Sakura as a lure for her enemies. It’s not that Sakura was opposed to the idea; she wasn’t worried in the slightest, actually. She was just annoyed with the problem at hand. She was making progress here in the Sand with the mental health clinic and she was reluctant to put that on hold while she dealt with these war-focused sociopaths. At least, she told herself that if she were to draw them out, she wouldn’t have to go looking for them in Tanigakure, but she had another concern regarding that.
She voiced this concern to Gaara, saying, “Drawing such a crowd into your village might pose a risk to the citizens here.” He shook his head thoughtfully at that, and Sakura wondered why Gaara might be willing to take such a risk all in the name of her safety. If anything, it would be more appropriate for Konoha to take such an action since she was a Leaf Shinobi, after all. Or was it really her safety that inspired Gaara to do so?
“They were able to infiltrate here through the clinic which I take personal responsibility for. It’s not in my nature to overlook such an offense so easily and I believe I owe this to you as an apology for failing to keep you safe.” Gaara’s rasping voice faded away as he assessed her reaction and Sakura saw a faint ember of emotion in his typical stoic eyes that accompanied the apology. She found herself blushing for the second time as she reassured him that everything was fine and that it was her fault for leading them here from Tanigakure in the first place.
When she brought up Tanigakure, Gaara interjected, “If we settle the matter within my country, we would be sparing Tanikagure from getting involved more than they already have. They have not taken too kindly to our investigative presence the last twenty-four hours. I thought that involving Konoha would make it seem more diplomatic, but Shikamaru’s suggestion might be best. We don’t want another situation on our hands where a small country is caught between two nations.”
Sakura nodded again at the Kazekage’s rationale, acknowledging the truth and importance of his words. “I’m willing to do anything I can to help,” she finally declared, already wondering how she would manage to entice them here.
“Let’s think it over more carefully and discuss it more tomorrow,” he said, relaxing into the chair behind his desk. “We have discovered a couple of leads that we need to explore and thinking of a plan will take some time. Meanwhile, I’d like to ask your opinion on something.”
“Okay,” Sakura responded, making to sit in the chair Gaara indicated with his hand across from the desk. A part of her wanted to grill the Kazekage for more details about the group in Tanigakure, so she could know the ins and outs about those who wanted to target her, but Sakura also believed that the shadow-being she had gone up against was most likely the scariest of them all to face, so she wasn’t too worried about the details. And if Gaara didn’t offer her more information than that, then he was probably holding back for official related reasons. So, she let it go.
“We also talked about a mental health treatment for adults as well as children. Should we begin with those you’ve captured and brought to me?”
Sakura blinked at such a statement as she recalled her conversation with the Kazekage as they strolled together along the sun-lit avenues of sand toward the village’s entrance a few days ago. “It has been an inaccuracy to think that only children could suffer,” Sakura had said to Gaara, “What if we included adults in our mental health program, too?” Gaara must have taken the proposition very seriously at the time, considering how quickly he was choosing to take action toward such a goal.
Sakura couldn’t help but hesitate in response to Gaara’s sudden proposition. Could someone like her really get through to those people, the people she had gone toe to toe with in the desert—the very people who had set out to kill her for the sole reason of her mental health efforts? She wasn’t sure.
“I’ll be there,” came the hoarse reassurance of the sand wielding Kage before her. Seeds of hope suddenly embedded themselves within her heart of doubt. “I’ll help you start.”
Sakura nodded, offering the Kazekage a smile of gratitude. Just before they had viewed the sunset together, Sakura had meant the words she had told Gaara in response to the question of who would be best to help people in need: “Like you, Lord Kazekage.” Even though Sakura silently pondered how Gaara had the availability to help her begin this process, Gaara had the same noble way as Naruto of making others believe in him.
Sasuke sneered beyond Naruto’s shoulder as his friend knelt before the sand encased jail cell containing one of Sakura’s attackers. They had separated him from the other two, all of whom Sasuke had transported via Kaguya’s dimensions back into the Sand Village. Sasuke knew Naruto’s hands itched in the same way his did as they both witnessed Mako’s silent interrogation. The medic revealed very little as Suna’s renowned questioner sat before him just on the other side of the bars, ticking off questions one by one.
“How did you manage to subdue the medical kunoichi known as Sakura Haruno?” the investigator asked without skipping a beat.
“I drugged her. Isn’t that already obvious?” came Mako’s tort and honest reply. It was as good enough as any confession as far as Sasuke was concerned, so what was the point of continuing this charade of a civil investigation? Sasuke knew it was morally wrong to skip necessary processes and jump straight to the physical force required to extract the information he wanted, but it was hard to kick old habits of thinking.
The questioning continued. “You expect us to believe that you were able to drug an elite medical ninja without assistance? Who helped you sedate her and what was the method used?”
Mako let out a small derisive laugh that had the Uchiha narrowing his eyes lethally in the traitor’s direction. “You’re overestimating her. All I did was pretend to be her colleague and slip something into her drink. Someone who desperately wants a friend isn’t difficult to deceive.”
Mako’s declaration did two things for Sasuke. First, it was like a heavy stone dropped in Sasuke’s heart, for he felt so terribly guilty about his and Sakura’s falling-out immediately post-kiss in the medicine preparation room two nights ago. Had Sasuke left her feeling so eager for kindness that she had dropped her guard? These same words also ignited a rage so savage within the Uchiha that he felt like stepping through a portal, just to stand on the other side of these bars, inches away from the man who had the audacity to say that about Sakura.
Sasuke smirked when Naruto’s angry voice echoed throughout the jail from his place beside the Uchiha: “Drugging Sakura was that last thing you’ll ever do, you BASTARD!” Sasuke was somewhat relieved that his friend was getting worked up, too, and had actually spoken Sasuke’s mind for him.
“Calm down, Naruto,” Kakashi stated predictably, and Sasuke wanted to roll his eyes at his sensei’s typical levelheaded lecturing. “You too, Sasuke,” Kakashi ordered next, placing hands on both of their shoulders. “The last thing we need is for either of you to get involved in this personally.” Sasuke wanted to flash his sensei an affronted look for even comparing him to his loser best friend or suggesting that he was getting angry on Sakura’s behalf, but Sasuke dropped the pretense. What was the point of pretending he wasn’t just as pissed as Naruto? The Uchiha’s annoyance was visibly displayed on his face in colors of red and purple. He so desperately wished Mako would turn in his direction, catch his sharingan and spiral into the memory-searching genjutsu Sasuke had prepared for him. He would find the answers without all this unnecessary time wasting. But Sasuke knew that Mako knew better than to search him out; he had witnessed what Sasuke had done with Satou in the hospital room to learn just what he needed to know about Isao, the child Sakura cared for.
Again, Naruto voiced both their thoughts by arguing, “We are already personally involved. He drugged our teammate. She’s one of us! The least we should do is teach this guy a lesson.”
“Hn,” Sasuke breathed in agreement, surprising himself for allowing the sound to reveal his own private thinking. When Kakashi, Shikamaru, and Naruto looked over at him in surprise, Sasuke decided to further add: “we need to find out where the other ninja of this group are.”
“It appears to me that Sakura accomplished that herself, Naruto,” Shikamaru chimed in, pointing out the wounds still not fully healed on the young traitorous medic. “We’ll get the information soon enough.”
After the interrogator jotted down a few private notes on the table between him and Mako, the green-haired man pushed the round frames of his glasses back up the bridge of his nose as he made eye contact with Mako again. “Where is the rest of your group?”
“There isn’t any more. You’ve apprehended all who were a part of it,” Mako replied immediately.
Then the green-haired investigator sighed, pulling his glasses off in irritability. “I despise liars. I have methods of making you talk. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have this job. But the Kazekage—he is the only thing between you and my preferred methods of interrogation.”
Why would the Kazekage hold back against this scum, Sasuke thought silently to himself. This fake had infiltrated Gaara’s village who knows how long ago, targeted the mental health clinic Sakura had helped establish here, posed as a caring and concerned medic, earned everyone’s trust, and betrayed Sakura at just the right time.
“I’m not lying,” Mako seethed.
The green-haired man, who Sasuke grew to like more and more as he questioned Mako, narrowed his eyes and leaned across the table and said, “I’ll let you in on a secret. Do you really think that the Kazekage does not have all the answers to these questions? Why then, do you think I’m wasting my time questioning you? Think really hard, I’m sure you’re capable of figuring it out.”
And with that whispered revelation, Sasuke couldn’t help but review Kankuro’s words from yesterday in his mind: “With unmentionable methods, we were able to find out who their target was.” Did this mean that Gaara already knew how many were in the group from an interrogation that Gaara had conducted back in Tanigakure?
Naruto snickered loudly at the divulgement of the Kazekage’s secret, interrupting Sasuke’s thoughts, and Sasuke noticed that Mako couldn’t help but locate the blonde-haired jinchuriki who observed him. Mako’s face turned slightly white as he realized for the first time who exactly had been making so much noise outside his cell. Sasuke noted his fear of Naruto as a good thing and smirked when Mako made a point of dropping his gaze and locating Sasuke’s figure next, eyes trained solely on his legs. Mako’s fear of him was even better.
“Have you figured it out yet?” the interrogator asked, laughter in the question.
Mako’s eyes widened suddenly, not because he had solved anything, but because the Kazekage was suddenly there in the flesh, standing beside the green-haired ninja with a palm on his shoulder. “Enough, Kizumo. Let’s stop here.”
Glancing back at the Kazekage, the green-haired ninja sighed and let the pen he was holding drop and roll across the notepad on the table in frustration at having his job cut short.
“We will take care of this one,” the Kazekage rasped, gesturing to newly formed entrance at the back of the sand-bodied cell. “Go and see what you can learn from the shade. Don’t touch him but do what you need to do.”
A wicked smile replaced the disappointed frown on Kizumo’s face. “I won’t have to touch him, Lord Kazekage.” And with that, he exited hurriedly through the hole in the wall that Gaara had formed.
But Sasuke was hung up on the word Gaara had used at the beginning of his command to Kizumo: We? We will take care of this one?
Just as Sasuke had that thought, his stomach dropped when his pink-haired teammate entered the cell through the hole as well, Gaara gesturing for her to take the seat across from Mako that Kizumo had just vacated.
Sasuke was certain that the same frown he now wore, not only occupied his own face at seeing Sakura face the man who had betrayed her, but Naruto’s and Kakashi’s as well.
“Punch his face in, Sakura!” Naruto called to her from the other side of the cell, and Sakura turned to find him. She smiled at Naruto, reassuring him that all was okay. She found Sasuke’s multicolored eyes next, lingered on them for half a second, before turning back to Mako.
Sakura shuffled the papers in a yellow file that Gaara had given her to look through before they came to Suna’s prison. The papers contained many details about Mako, his activity within the village, and his alleged backstory. “Every non-Suna born citizen has a special documentation file,” Gaara had relayed casually as they descended the steps into the underground sand-constructed prison, “with information regarding their activity and how they came to be here. It might not be much use since its mostly filled with his lies, but I figured if anyone could discern anything valuable, you might.”
“I’ll try,” Sakura had assured him, flipping through the record carefully as they walked. In truth, the file didn’t contain much out of the ordinary—or what she would expect for Mako. He had come to the village a year ago, claiming to be from a small island asking to join the medic team, claiming to be a part of the elite medic unit in Tanigakure and would like to learn from the medical advancements here. Unsuspicious of an individual hailing from a non-ninja nation, Gaara saw Mako’s knowledge of medicine as an asset and granted his request, offering Mako a place and lodging. His activity was also unremarkable as he spent the last year learning from medical staff Sakura had helped train.
Hisa, unexpectedly, did not have a file. In fact, she had managed to somehow infiltrate the village secretly, and Sakura suspected that Mako had succeeded in smuggling her in. Sakura wasn’t surprised that Gaara addressed this topic with Mako first.
“You smuggled your counterpart inside the village via the medical trade route, am I correct? When receiving medical supplies from Tanigakure, an advanced medical country, she came with and was disguised as someone with a position in the building. Is any of that wrong?” The examination was calm, unthreatening, just as if Gaara had been talking to Kankuro or Temari. The way he phrased the questions revealed that Gaara had already figured this particular scenario out.
Mako kept his eyes down, focusing on the file in Sakura’s hands. She guessed that he was evaluating its thickness carefully, determining just how much information about him and his co-conspirators was already contained within. Would he bothering lying in the Kazekage’s face, Sakura wondered.
“If you’re going to end up killing me, just get on with it,” Mako replied behind clenched teeth, his silence about Hisa revealing Gaara had been correct in his guesswork.
And to Sakura’s surprise, sand began to spiral at Mako’s feet and in just a few seconds, it reached up to form manacles around the imposter’s wrists, jerking them back behind the chair so that he was properly restrained. “If that is your wish,” Gaara responded calmly to Mako’s now wide-eyed expression of fear. “The path of life you have currently chosen will lead to your death anyway.”
Large heaps of sand began to fall from the ceiling around Mako, filling the room rapidly with sand like a tipped upside-down hourglass. Creating an invisible barrier across the cement table between them, Gaara allowed the sand to crash down around the conspirator so that only Mako’s side of the sand-bodied interrogation room began to rise around his feet like water in a cave during high tide. Sakura’s heart felt like it was going to beat out of her chest.
The room buzzed loudly, and sand whipped through Sakura’s hair as the grains were summoned in Mako’s direction. Gaara’s voice was still intense enough to be heard despite his overall composure and the humming of the sand as if this very room was designed to emphasize it. “My sand delights at the blood of others and I’ve killed many before you. Since you have volunteered your life, it eagerly accepts.”
Mako began to shift anxiously as the sand reached his shoulders and he bit his bottom lip in steely resolve to quiet his quickened breathing and accept his fate. Gaara’s slow voice continued, “When someone chooses a life of darkness, a life of hatred and evil, and puts their life on the line for a cause accomplished through darkness, they are only marching towards an inevitable death.”
Sakura glanced over at Gaara in concern as the sand billowed like a wave around Mako’s chin and Mako leaned his head back and strained his neck above it, gasping for the last few breaths of oxygen belonging to him in this world.
“Why so?” Gaara asked, composed and relaxed despite the struggling man before him. “Because you have pit yourself against those who share a stronger vision—one of peace and hope and love. Naturally, the odds will be against you.”
“Stop,” came Mako’s desperate voice at last, sand knocking against the sides of his head. “Please. Stop!”
“Do you choose life?” Gaara asked Mako, and the long-subdued tears began to spill over the rims of his eyelids.
“Yes!” he cried, but the sand did not stop ascending around him. “I said yes! Don’t kill me! MAKE IT STOP!”
“Not good enough. Which life do you choose?” Gaara probed, crossing his arms over his chest in resolve to wait for the answer he wanted.
“A peaceful—" Mako whimpered, sand choking off the words as it filled his throat.
Gaara watched him thrash for just a moment and Sakura tried desperately to hold herself back despite the Kazekage’s hesitation. She had chosen to trust the Kazekage as someone to align herself with for the sake of the lives almost lost to an all-consuming darkness. He wanted to help them just as much as her. These corrupt ninja were not children as Sakura was used to. She would trust Gaara’s judgement.
Finally. Finally, the sand relented, ascending once more into the air to reconstruct the ceiling above the jail cell. And as Mako coughed violently, rubbing sand from his eyes and ears, Gaara made a final statement that made Sakura realize that only Gaara would be the savior of these ninja: “Rather than a life a loneliness, we surround ourselves with evil people. Such a life is worse because you will lose your soul to the hatred within you, no longer caring for the feeling of comradery, and you might as well be dead anyway.”
Mako sat in his chair gasping like beached ocean creature that waited for death on a bed of sand.
“I too, was like you,” Gaara announced, voice softening as he recalled the sand from Mako’s lungs and hair. “Until someone extended a hand in friendship.” Gaara gestured over his shoulder to Naruto who grinned heartily and rubbed the back of his neck shyly at Gaara’s recognition of him.
“Can you take over from here Sakura?” Gaara asked her, and she nodded, watching the Kazekage’s back as he turned in Naruto and Kakashi’s direction. When the sand bars of the cell disintegrated as he passed through them, Sakura once again found herself grateful to be considered a friend of Gaara’s and not an enemy. She had faced him head on once before, and was thankful every day afterward that Naruto had extended that hand of friendship to his fellow jinchuriki.
“Come with me,” Gaara said to the waiting Leaf ninja, “there’s another ninja you need to see. He possesses an ability like yours, Shikamaru.” Kakashi and Shikamaru immediately followed the Kazekage, and Naruto lingered for a moment, offering a hesitant look back at Sakura as he was conflicted at being summoned away from her. The blonde ninja glanced back over to Sasuke who seemed to be content just where he was as he perched himself against the wall just across from Mako’s cell, eyes closed as if he were settling to doze. Naruto rushed to Gaara’s side once he was certain Sasuke planned to stay behind.
When Sakura turned back to Mako, he was rubbing his wrists where Gaara’s sand had bound him. He chose not to look at the pink-haired medic he had betrayed, instead shamefully focusing back on the table between them. He shifted painfully, and Sakura noted for the first time that blood ran in tendrils down to his feet from his previously sustained injuries, injuries Sakura had yet to heal.
Standing, she made her way around to Mako’s back, lifting the material around the stab wound to assess it. Mako hissed in pain as the material lifted from the wound. “What are you doing?” he murmured.
“Healing you fully,” she explained, rolling up the back of his shirt against Mako’s stiffening protest.
“Don’t,” he said weakly as Sakura tugged the shirt the rest of the way up and over his head. “Save your strength. You’ll need it.” She frowned at the wound that now festered from incomplete treatment. At some point in his capture and detainment, Mako had reopened the wound. Sakura had only staunched the bleeding with her chakra immediately after rendering the other two of her enemies unconscious on the desert battlefield, and now the skin puckered with redness and swelling.
“Why is that?” Sakura asked calmly, already predicting his next answer.
“There’s more of them waiting,” he whispered quietly, so that not even Sasuke who indignantly peeked at them under thick eyelashes, could overhear. “They’ll come for you.”
Summoning the green chakra to her fingertips despite his warning, Sakura pressed her fingers to the open rip in Mako’s flesh and he gasped. “Why do you tell me this?” she asked him. “Have you really chosen to seek a new life of peace like you promised the Kazekage? Or was that a lie just to save your own neck?”
“Once they find me, and realize I have betrayed the cause, they’ll kill me anyway,” Mako whispered again. “The Kazekage has shown me mercy, but they will not. I cannot choose a life of peace even if I wish it.”
Sakura frowned, glancing over the top of his dark head of hair to admire Sasuke from a distance. Sasuke had been able to choose peace because he had the support of others. As did Gaara. This meant that they both had friends who were willing to go against the world in order to protect their choices to start over. Mako didn’t have that.
“Why did you join them? Do you really believe that there needs to be hatred and war circulating throughout the ninja world?” Sakura asked him honestly, chakra sputtering and dying as she suddenly ran empty. Her breathing quickened as a headache began to form at her temples. She cursed internally at her low supply of chakra. She needed more rest. She still hadn’t fully recovered from the battle, had used what chakra she had possessed healing Isao this morning, and was also consistently feeding a stream of chakra to her injured hand. The freshly healed wound on Mako’s back was enough to reassure her despite the strain. At least he was restored.
“I needed a place in this world. Their vision made sense to me.”
Sakura nodded, returning to the chair exhaustedly. She closed Mako’s file and said, “You had a place. You have a place.”
His eyebrows raised, as he mentally processed what she was suggesting.
“We need you,” she said to him, emotion thickening her already tired voice. “I need you—by my side in the mental health clinics when I’m here, and running things in my place when I’m not. I’ve never had such a competent partner before.”
Mako stared back at her and Sakura saw the confliction in his eyes. “How can you say that to someone who betrayed you? I drugged you. I had every intention of handing you over to them to do as they wished.”
This was true, and the reality of it twisted in her heart. However, Mako had also refused to let Hisa kill her, insisting that she was too valuable to kill right away.
“Everyone deserves a second chance,” she smiled, making to stand behind the table. “Forgiveness is how we will manage to create a peaceful world.”
Mako looked down at his feet again as Sakura turned back toward the hole in the wall that Gaara had morphed into existence. Her head was throbbing terribly now, and Sakura massaged her eyes.
“Ok,” Mako said to Sakura’s retreating form, and Sakura turned back just before reaching the exit. “If I somehow make it out of this alive, I’ll do it. I’ll help you with the mental health clinics. I’ll help you achieve peace. In return for your forgiveness, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
Sakura blinked at Mako, feeling somewhat comforted by the fact that even though he had betrayed her and did some terrible things, he still had goodness in him. Sakura hadn’t entirely been fooled by Mako because he was still someone worthy of forgiveness. “Deal,” Sakura nodded, taking the last step from his cell and entering a small sand tunnel that would eventually connect her back to the main stairway. As if on cue of her exiting, the tunnel closed itself off behind her, leaving Mako to take the first mental steps toward a new life.
As soon as the wall had sealed her away from Mako, Sasuke was there, reaching for her as she leaned against the wall to hold her head. Sakura jumped when his hand found her upper arm, surprised at his sudden appearance.
“Sasuke,” she breathed, trying to smile despite the pain. “You shouldn’t be wasting your chakra teleporting carelessly.”
Sasuke scoffed as he forced her to sit against one of the tunnel walls, “You’re one to talk,” he chastised, summoning a little chakra to the palm of his only hand. “Draining the last of your chakra healing lying snakes like that one. How annoying.”
She laughed nonchalantly and Sasuke wrapped his glowing hand around the back of her neck, focusing what healing powers he possessed to the center of her nape, pushing the chakra up into her skull. As Sasuke had watched her with Mako, the Uchiha had detected a drop in her chakra signal and saw her hand reach up to touch her eyes. He had known in that very moment that she had wasted what little chakra she had left on that bastard.
After a second, she pushed against Sasuke’s elbow weekly, signaling him to stop. “That’s plenty.”
Sasuke ignored her, pressing his fingers gently into her skin so she couldn’t remove them by fighting him. “Let me have my way, or we’ll be here longer,” he mimicked, repeating to Sakura her very own words when Sasuke had pushed her hand away from his forehead last night after he had overdosed on chakra pills.
She laughed in response, her voice already beginning to strengthen from the newfound energy. Her damn inhuman strength also returned slightly, because she was suddenly pulling his palm away from her neck and no amount of his strength would be comparable enough to hers to keep it there, no matter how much he might want to.
Sakura didn’t let go of it though as Sasuke expected, but instead grasped it with her own as she, too, used her other hand to gently cup her fingers around the back of Sasuke’s neck. There was no healing or sharing of chakra as he had done for her, and Sasuke realized that Sakura simply just wanted to experience the same sensation Sasuke had felt by touching her there.
Sasuke was thankful for the darkness because the sudden intimacy made him blush and react instinctively. He smoothly pulled at her fingers, pulling her hand down so that the inside of her elbow hung over his neck instead, and he used her arm to help lift her from the ground. Sasuke led her down the dim tunnel that Gaara had apparently fashioned. What a mole Gaara was, Sasuke thought for a second, cutting corners and creating paths through the sand so he could make it from point A to point B in the shortest distance possible.
“Sorry,” Sakura whispered beside him, she too, relishing this apparent excuse of supporting her to be so near to one another. “I know physical contact isn’t really one of your strengths. If I do something that makes you uncomfortable, please tell me.”
Sasuke nodded, not quite sure what he wanted to say to that. Yes, displays of affection would always be…difficult, especially if anyone else was around. But there was a growing part of Sasuke that craved Sakura in ways he didn’t know were within him. Just moments ago, he had watched her lift the back of Mako’s shirt and run her hands along the traitor’s back and Sasuke had never frowned so deeply in his life at seeing her do so. She had performed such an action on countless ninja, including everyone in Team 7 at one point or another, and Sasuke couldn’t understand why such an act now suggested something more sensual. She had healed him on his back before and Sasuke had never been bothered by her touch, but he suddenly couldn’t stop imagining her fingers there. He had never had thoughts like this before, but then again, Sasuke had also never reached for a woman in the dark of a shared room, finding her lips with his mouth. Sasuke had crossed a line that he knew would require self-control from here on out.
“Let’s get you back to the room,” Sasuke stated as he shuffled her more securely against him. “You need rest so that you can recover.”
When they made it back to the inn which was conveniently not too far away from the underground prison, Sasuke opened the door for Sakura and stood within the frame after she entered. Observing her climb into bed and settling within the blankets, Sasuke asked something that had been bothering him ever since it occurred, “What did Mako tell you?”
“About what,” she requested in return for clarification.
“When he told you to save your chakra,” Sasuke prompted, probing his female friend’s mind for information despite her exhaustion. He had to know the details if he were going to keep her safe.
“Oh,” Sakura announced, sitting up on an elbow as she recalled the words. “He said there were more of them out there, the group that was after us in Tanigakure.”
Sasuke nodded, his suspicions confirmed. He had already guessed this, considering he had yet to find someone with the correct size and voice as the ninja he had confronted in the hallway of Tanigakure’s inn after the ninja had made an attempt to get Sakura to answer her door.
“I’m going back to the prison,” Sasuke said suddenly, waiting a moment more in the doorframe for a response.
Knowing him well, Sakura answered the question the Uchiha held on his tongue before he could even speak it. “I’ll be fine. Go.”
When Sakura finally woke, it was dark in the room, except for the small ray of light shining in through the window from the crescent moon. Sakura rubbed the back of her stiff neck, not realizing until now that she had slept on it crookedly, her exhaustion apparently dragging her so deep into a sleep that she slept the entire day away.
When she sat up, she started in surprise to see that Sasuke was still awake, sitting on his bed across the room, staring out the window. Sakura instantly recognized the fierce set of his jaw as one of annoyance.
“Sasuke?” Sakura called out to him, “What’s wrong?”
When his eyes landed on hers, he narrowed them, silently contemplating his next words to her. The anger in them made Sakura rise to her feet and go over to him. She sat slowly beside him as he stared at her with an unhappiness that had Sakura’s stomach dropping. “What happened?” Sakura asked again, reaching for his fingers splayed tensely across the bed. He didn’t move them.
“Why did you agree to let Gaara use you as bait to draw out the enemy?” he asked, forcing the words past his tightly set jaw. Sakura had never seen Sasuke upset with her like this and she didn’t know how she was supposed to react. She just returned his angry stare with an even expression, sighing smally as she released his hand.
“It’s the best option we have,” she explained. “I know it’s dangerous, but Gaara thinks—”
“I know what he thinks,” Sasuke interrupted as he stood, pacing over to the window and away from her. “I just spent hours listening to potential plans designed around this mutual decision of yours.”
Sakura swallowed thickly as more of the pieces concerning his frustration came together. “What other alternative is there?” she began, trying to lead him back to the only solution that made the most sense.
“I could go to Tanigakure, myself,” Sasuke suggested. “And intercept them before they made it here. A covert operation with one person wouldn’t involve Konoha and Suna. It would be discreet.”
“You have other business here, Sasuke. Focus on your mission and I’ll worry about this. I don’t want this to distract you—”
“Before,” Sasuke whispered in the dark. “The me before could have done so. But I can’t now. What is the point of my mission to find the Otsutsuki race and eliminate them as a threat when I can’t eradicate a group of ninja set on killing you?”
Sakura’s heart stilled at such words, knowing how difficult it was for Sasuke to admit such a thing to her. Rising, she made her way over to him, tenderly tucking her arms around his sides as she had done many times before, resting her forehead against his back. “I can take care of this, Sasuke. You don’t have to worry.”
There was no scoff or sneer at her words for saying such a ridiculous thing, and instead, Sasuke gripped her fingers at his waist like a lifeline. “I know,” he admitted, turning in her arms to face her.
Sakura’s stomach dropped to her feet when he leaned his forehead against hers in the reflection of the moon. “I don’t doubt your strength,” he whispered. “But if something happened to you, I don’t know who I’d become again.”
“Sasuke,” she breathed, “You don’t have to worry about such things because I’m not going anywhere—not now—not when I can finally do this.”
Carefully, Sakura stood on her tiptoes, closed the distance between their noses, and pecked the scowling Uchiha right on the lips.
A beautiful thing happened next and Sakura locked the image into her heart to last her a lifetime. Sasuke smiled. Actually smiled—just for a moment as he sighed in relief, and then his eyes lingered on her lips in return. His face grew serious again as he did so.
Daringly, Sakura pulled on his hand, and Sasuke followed her to his bed against the wall. He hesitated as she rose onto the bed with her knees, turning so that she faced his still-standing form, and cupped both of his cheeks with her palms. Sakura gazed into his dark eyes that reflected the moon as if they were their very own black and moonlit skies. She could see the struggle within them, so she didn’t take another step, didn’t make another move until Sasuke decided to do what Sakura knew he wanted to.
As she started to loosen her tender hold on him, Sasuke found the nape of her neck with his hand, just as he had in Gaara’s tunnel of sand, and she gasped at the warmth of his fingers. He crashed his mouth against hers, a kiss that was sweltering with need and desire, one so unlike the tender first kisses between them last night. At first, she was genuinely shocked at the emotions Sasuke was communicating through the kiss, and Sakura couldn’t believe her luck. He was kissing her, kissing her as a lover would and she couldn’t believe it. Sakura responded greedily, fastening her own fingers around the back of Sasuke’s neck. She deepened the kiss, responding to his need with a need of her own. Sakura pulled him down to her as their mouths moved against one another until he had no choice but to straddle her knee.
When Sakura’s fingers found their way under the hem of his shirt, Sasuke sucked in a sharp breath and broke away from her mouth long enough to tear the shirt from his skin. He guided her hand slowly back to his spine, holding her eyes with his. “Touch me,” he instructed.
She did as he asked, running her fingers up along his back slowly. She wasn’t so sure if she had just imagined him bite back a moan as he arched his back in response to her fingernails. Was this really happening? How far was he prepared to go with her? At this pace, they would—
“Touch me, too,” Sakura whispered against Sasuke’s teeth when his mouth found hers again. He, too, found the hem of her shirt and pushed it away from the skin above her right hip. Angling them so that they were on their side facing one another, Sasuke slid his fingers around to her back and sighed her name when he felt the dip in her spine.
“I have—” Sakura began to bring up an important factor to the natural progression of events like this, but Sasuke withdrew his hand from her skin and kissed her slowly one last time before pulling away and sitting up on the bed.
“It’s not going to happen,” he declared to the dark.
Sakura couldn’t help but feel the disappointment that suddenly doused the fire in her veins. “Why not?” she asked dejectedly, sitting back up to face him. She reached out longingly and traced the now-exposed clavicle of his chest.
“Think about it more before you decide,” he said, tenderly pulling her fingers away from his skin.
“I’ve given this plenty of thought,” she admitted too hurriedly, and instantly wished she could recant the words at Sasuke’s sudden smirk as he retrieved his shirt from the floor and slipped it over his head. “I mean,” she tried again, retracting back the meaning behind that sentence. “I want this.”
“Let’s keep you alive over the next few days. I don’t want us distracted by this.”
Distracted? Did he really not know that this almost that had happened between them would distract her every waking thought for the next several days? Her mind would recall every second and the longing for more would intensify the distraction. Sakura pouted silently to herself as she treaded back over to her bed across the room. Sasuke didn’t breathe another word and neither did she, because if they spoke or broke the silence, they might find their way back toward one another in the dark and Sakura had already promised to respect his wishes when he felt uncomfortable. Damn her mouth.
