#shouthout the before.

[transfretum]

me when the

#dank chonnathan joshua memes #shouthout the before. #from the CJFS #school lunch amirite

[anerdinallherglory]

Approaching Sun (35)

Author’s Note:  I had planned on delivering more this chapter, but the wordcount got a little out of hand and it made the most sense to stop it here. I’ll be working on the next chapter in advance so I can still write the good parts while my muse is present. For those that are still with me reading this story, I would suggest listening to Runaway by AURORA for Sakura’s pov in these chapters and Don’t Worry by Boon for Sasuke’s second pov. Special shouthout to my Optom husband who was happy to lend me his medical knowledge for this chapter. As always, let me know your thoughts. Thank you for your patience. I promise it will pay off. 

Pairing: SasuSaku

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, 33, 34

Chapter 35: No Help Needed

Sakura’s trail was cold. Beyond their shared bedroom and her departing letter, there was nothing. Like a released bowstring, Sasuke had sprung forth into the night in the direction of the only detail he was certain about her plan: Tanigakure. He had plucked this detail from Mako’s memories like a healer digs out pieces of metal in a flesh wound. The physical toll of traveling nonstop overnight while chakra-depleted had cost the Uchiha, and he had been tempted several times to just pop another chakra pill into his mouth. However, he couldn’t risk taking it in case he came upon a situation where he would need it in combat. So, Sasuke had trudged through the sand all night, wrapping his hair and face with the black cloth of his turban, pulling the hood of his traveling poncho up and over his hair to better disguise himself; Sasuke didn’t want to even waste chakra on a simple transformation jutsu. He ‘had to be discreet,’ after all.

Sasuke arrived at the jagged mountainous ribcage surrounding Tanigakure the following evening, gaining entrance easily as an unrecognizable traveler in a world of peace. His eyes searched for any flash of pink and he stopped at every place he could think where Sakura might start her search for the organization bent on killing her: the hospital she made Sasuke stay at just so she could visit the medical facilities here, and even their old hotel room, but there was no sign of her. After hours of staking out with no word or sign, Sasuke cursed himself for not gathering more information about her plan from Kakashi before pursuing her. His inability to find even a trace of her just went to show that Sasuke was always a little too confident in himself and still found himself habitually underestimating Sakura’s skill. 

As the sun began to set, Sasuke wanted nothing more than to approach every single soul crowding the streets in the evening lantern-lit dusk and ask if anyone had seen her, but Sasuke couldn’t risk the suspicion it would rouse about his own identity. Who was he and why did he want to know? How did he know her and where could they find him if they did see her? He could already hear the questions and he didn’t want any rumors to make it to the leadership of this village. Discretion turned out to be a lot more difficult when you were panicking.

And so, Sasuke perched himself on the roof above a crowded izakaya, where many individuals were flocking to participate in nighttime drinking and he did the only thing he could think of: watch and wait for a word, a clue, the breath of her name or description between the boisterous laughter of intoxicated patrons. In the darkness of night, when the starlight outshone the dimming lanterns, Sasuke even became desperate for the crickets to sigh but a syllable of her name. But like everyone else, they gave him nothing. Sasuke released a frustrated sigh, adding another useless sound to the nightscape around him as he jumped down from the building, too restless to do anything but pace the streets and wonder how he ever ended up like this.  

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Sakura fingered her dark hair in the reflection of the ink-stained water in the bucket at her feet. She scrubbed at the lingering residue of black dye running past her hairline and wrapped the towel in her hands quickly around her short hair. When Sakura heard the crack of the door, she flashed the woman who entered a quick grin. 

“You dyed it!?” the youngest girl of the group, Tabi exclaimed, falling to her knees beside Sakura with her hands covering her mouth. “But it’s your best feature! You would attract the attention of everyone!”

Sakura shook her head, wanting to say something along the lines of ‘that’s exactly the point,’ but she didn’t for the obvious reason of blowing her cover. And despite what she had told the headmistress of the bathhouse, Sakura didn’t plan on being here long—just long enough to gather the intel she needed in order to move into the next phase of her plan. 

“Mother will not be happy,” the girl stated, reaching over to finger a stray lock of jet that escaped from the bundle atop Sakura’s head. 

“Mother,” Sakura responded, using the same honorific for the headmistress, “will hopefully understand my reasons. I don’t want to stand out too much.” 

Tabi shook her head, saying, “Is it permanent? How long will it last? Will the steam from the bath ruin it?”

Sakura shook her head, grateful she could be honest with the young girl with at least one thing. “It should hold for a couple of days, if not more.”

“The sooner it fades back to rose, the better.” Tabi stated matter-of-factly, rising to move to the other side of the room that they shared to begin the evening ritual of preparing for the night’s work. 

Sakura copied her experienced movements, powdering her face while her hair dried, carefully concealing the purple diamond between her brows. Infiltrating this job had been easier than Sakura had anticipated given the reputation of difficulty in this line of work. Sakura had approached the headmistress as a ‘transfer’ from another establishment. Due to Tanigakure’s exclusive nature from the outside world, it was not difficult to acquire fabricated copies of the necessary paperwork indicating a ‘private transfer’ from another village, and Sakura easily produced the medical assessments of her health that was also required. It also didn’t hurt that Sakura’s coloring was considered rare and possibly desirable by some; in other words, she would be highly profitable. Sakura promised the headmistress a steep percentage for every patron she ‘pleased.’ Or would allegedly please. 

No, Sakura did not plan to violate herself in order to gain the information she was looking for. She had never stooped into this role before in all her mission activity, but Ino had once used the disguise in order to slip into minds of her targets more easily once she got them isolated and no harm could befall her body once she performed the jutsu. 

Sakura had only acquired empty leads since she had arrived in Tanigakure. All Sakura needed to do was assess, learn what she could from the right people, and transition into the next step of her plan. The infiltration was the easy part, but this next part was dangerous, and Sakura would have to tread so very carefully. 

“Why are you here, Tabi?” Sakura couldn’t resist asking, wondering how such a lovely girl ended up servicing despicable men at one of the secretive bath house locations in the shinobi world. “How did you end up in a place like this?”

Tabi eyed Sakura curiously for a second before laughing. “I could ask the same about you.” And then she didn’t talk to Sakura for the rest of the evening as they prepped for the night.

Sakura followed the other girls into the establishment, a building disguised as a common bathhouse in the front section, advertising the typical bathhouse amenities, but concealing the back half which included private baths and rooms. When a section of the wall slid back to reveal a dark sitting room, Sakura had to steal herself and conceal an inner cringe under the stares of the lounging men who were already expecting them in the luxury-style waiting room. Sakura never felt so disgusted in her entire life than she did in that moment under the predatory gazes of those who only sought to devour others and pleasure themselves. Sakura immediately found herself second guessing this step. Maybe this hadn’t been such a clever idea. But she had no other choice. The members of the organization had been able to conceal themselves in a “neutral” territory long enough to gain numbers and begin operation. To Sakura, this meant one of three things. The first and most unlikely option was that this anti-peace organization had managed to keep their activity low enough to avoid detection and that Tanikage was truly focused on other things. Sakura doubted this one. The village was simply too small to have as many members as Mako had claimed go undetected. Or there was a very real possibility that the Kage and Council were already aware and didn’t take action because powerful figures were involved, maybe even leadership, or they simply did not care.

When the door was shut behind them, Sakura watched the other girls disappear into the noisy room hazed with pipe smoke, making their way toward familiar patrons. Socialization seemed to be a part of the selection process, to intensify the excitement, and Sakura planned to take advantage of it. She held her breath as she navigated, walking up to Tabi who had already familiarly climbed into the lap of one of the younger men, apparently a returning patron of hers. 

“Is this a new friend,” the man drawled thickly through a handful of Tabi’s hair that he had twirled throughout his fingers and pressed to his mouth. 

At Tabi’s sudden wide-eyed expression at Sakura’s appearance, Sakura answered for herself, soothing Tabi’s fears in the same sentence. Sakura knew the look of someone who felt threatened by her presence, and Tabi was giving her a warning stare for approaching her patron. “Yes. Guta Hae, sir,” Sakura introduced with a bow. “I am new. Perhaps you could introduce me to any friends that you might be in company with.”

Around her, the socialization had already begun and men who had already found their women for the evening, began to mingle with their associates, the girls clinging to their arms like trophies. Several of them appraised Sakura from a distance, naturally curious at the new face. But Sakura wasn’t going to just be picked from the lot like a prized animal ripe for butcher. No. Instead, Sakura would be choosing amongst them in the form of an introduction, just as she had planned. 

Tabi nodded, exclaiming, “Yes. This is her first night so she doesn’t know anyone,” Tabi smiled back at the man who was running his hands possessively over her leg in the dim light around them as he debated whether this unexpected disturbance would be beneficial in some way, or if he should just whisk Tabi away to their private room. “Could you introduce her to some friends, Toka-san?”

“Hmm,” Toka smirked, “any favor for you, dear,” he murmured into Tabi’s hair. “If you’re willing to return it.” 

The words dropped into Sakura’s stomach to spoil like rotten food. This wasn’t good. Sakura didn’t want anyone to suffer anything personally from her meddling, especially not a woman as nice to her as Tabi had been. Just as she was fixing to retract her request, intent to say nevermind, Tabi was helping the man in the lounge chair to his feet, twirling his arm around her neck as they walked toward the crowd gathering in the back of the room. 

The haze grew thicker around the smoking men as they lounged against the shadow-cloaked walls, and Sakura bowed to them when Toka stopped and held out his hand smoothly for Sakura to take. Masking her face to conceal her repulsion, Sakura slid her fingers into Toka’s waiting palm and he held her hand above her head to spin her in a half pirouette in front of his curious counterparts. The way each of their eyes clung to different parts of her body had Sakura feeling like she might wretch. 

“Guta Hae,” Toka introduced, dropping her hand as if he were a gentleman. Sakura knew he was anything but. “She’s new here. Tabi asked that I introduce her to you all.”   

Sakura’s eyes fluttered as she feigned shyness, bringing her shoulders innocently up for a small second. 

There were exchanged smiles amongst some of the men as they debated their current choices, but Sakura’s eyes assessed them back, weighing her options and gathering what little intel she could gather from them. At the center of the pack, Sakura’s medical eye immediately located a man with his eyes tightly bound with bandaging. He was quiet as he tilted his ear to appraise her, solemn with two girls on each of his knees as he sat in one of the red, luxuriously tufted high-back chairs. And Sakura marked him as someone of little interest to her despite the initial surprise of his blindness. His injuries could mean several things, either good or bad for her purposes, but Sakura also could tell that whatever had happened to him had potentially wisened him, and Sakura didn’t need to approach that type of person. The fact that his injury potentially revealed his status as a former ninja, put him on Sakura’s radar; but, she also believed he might be worth investigating at a distance. Sakura’s eyes scanned over the rest of their smoking and laughing personas. 

“New in what way?” one of the men joked loudly as the rest of them snickered with shiny, interested eyes. “New here? Or…new, new?”

Sakura wanted to sneer at such a suggestive question, curl her lip and let her inner Sakura bleed through her teeth and down into her firsts. “I’m from the Land of Fire,” she revealed, weighing the various reactions to such a revelation. And several eyes flickered to her, assessing her differently. 

“The Land of Fire?” asked the loud man again as he crossed his arms. “Can’t be Konoha. I’ve never heard of such an establishment in the Leaf. Not recently, anyway.”

The others agreed around him, but Sakura didn’t reveal that answer. She had made her cast, throwing the lure out onto the smoke-infused water, dangling the bait in the crocodile faces of six influential men. By smiling and shrugging her shoulders and keeping the mystery of her origin concealed, Sakura was reeling in that line and establish her own draw.

Sakura moved toward the loud one, painting a saccharine grin on her face. He was going to be the one to spill secrets, Sakura could tell. He had a mouth on him like Naruto. “Are you familiar with Konoha?” Sakura asked him sweetly as she moved into his inner circle, receiving a glare from the woman on his arm. “I’ve never been to the Leaf, but had many patrons from there,” she continued. 

Before she even learned the man’s name, Sakura’s fingers were grasped carefully once again, the same application of force that Toka had just touched her with, and she was being tugged back around to face the group of men. The rougher man with the bandaging around his eyes had stood to retrieve her, reeling her in towards him as if she were the bait on the line. “Don’t waste your time on him. He’s a clown.”

Sakura’s instinctual reaction was to become solid, send chakra to her feet and become as immovable as her inhuman strength would allow her to be. It took her only a millisecond to resolve herself, to recommit to her plan, and Sakura became supple despite her annoyance with the man who felt too important to be overlooked by her. 

The two women who had once sat on his lap were gone and he replaced them with her, pulling her down to sit on his right knee. She still stiffened despite her resolve, realizing once again how dangerous the people were whom she was trying to play with. This guy was lucky, so incredibly lucky that Sakura’s purpose here was not to kill every single one of them. 

“I can tell you about Konoha,” he spoke lowly, a whisper as the conversation resumed around them, as he bent his head into her blackened hair. Sakura could feel the rumble of his voice in his chest as he said, “What is it that you want to know?”

Sakura couldn’t help herself. She turned her left shoulder into him to create more distance as she watched him carefully. “Are you from there?” she asked, wary that this man might be able to recognize her despite her careful disguise. 

“No,” he answered, “but I know several men who are.”

“Are you a ninja?” she questioned again, trying with everything in her to relax into this man’s embrace. Where their bodies touched, Sakura felt as if he were like a boiling acid, searing and burning at the connection points. 

“Have you been with a ninja?” he countered, and Sakura recognized his attempt to avoid answering the question. 

“Who do you think visited my previous establishment in the Land of Fire?” 

He chuckled, a mirthful laugh that lasted a little too long to make anyone comfortable. His next words sent an electricity through her blood. “What I wouldn’t give to see your face as you lie to everyone around you that you’re a sex worker like the rest of them.”

Her eyes grew wide as she checked to see if anyone heard what he had said. Most of the couples had already retired to their rooms, so Sakura forced her breathing into a steady cadence of ease and indifference. She turned to him slowly. “I don’t know what you mean.” 

Her hand was taken lightly into his and she resisted the urge to snatch it back as he guided it to his cheek, splaying her fingers across the side of his head with his own as he grinned wickedly. “Your face was the last thing that I saw before I lost my vision. I’ll never forget the sound of your voice, Haruno Sakura.”

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When the door closed behind them, Sakura snatched her hand from the blind man who had lead her privately to one of the sauna rooms where extracurriculars were expected to take place. Sakura’s initial plan for this part was immediately interrupted. Pulling a kunai from her tightly-fitted silk attire, Sakura spun and pinned the mysterious man against the black wood of the closed door, kunai flush against the flesh of his throat. Beyond the slight tilt of his chin skyward, the man had no reaction. 

“Who are you?” she hissed, all pretenses and disguises temporarily dropped. 

The man chuckled against her blade. “It’s not surprising you don’t remember me. The battlefield of the war was so gruesome and so many men at your mercy, my face was one in a sea of millions.”

Sakura couldn’t help but think of Satou, Isao’s father, and Satou’s wife, whom Sakura had failed to save. Isao’s mother, too, had been one of millions. Sakura desperately searched for any recognition and came up blank. She remembered healing hundreds of visual injuries—this man had only been one of them. A heavy weight settled in her gut as she realized, that like all those others, his injuries had most likely been passed off to others because of the minority of them in comparison to those on the brink of dying. Severed appendages, organ damage, bleeding. Going blind was unfortunate, but not life threatening.  

Sakura asked the next obvious question. “Are you one of the people out to kill me?”

“Yes, actually.” He admitted and Sakura pressed the blade deeper, contemplating the pros and cons of killing him on the spot. “But,” he added lightly, avoiding the dipping of his throat against the bite of her kunai’s sharpness. “Since I was lucky enough to find you first, I will make you a deal.”

“Why should I even believe a word out of your mouth?”

“Because you have something that I want,” he answered, a hand coming up to grip her own. But he couldn’t move the fisted blade away because Sakura’s hand was as unmovable as steal as she no longer suppressed her immaculate strength. 

“And what is that?” she interrogated, unperturbed by his words. 

“Your abilities,” he smiled. “Heal my eyes completely, and I’ll help you.”

“I’ve been betrayed once already by a fellow member of yours,” Sakura revealed. “I won’t make the same mistake twice. Trusting you is the last thing I am going to do.”

Another chuckle reverberated up his chest like the swell of a wave in a turbulent ocean. “Then don’t trust me. But I am afraid that you have no other choice to work with me.”

“And why is that?”

“Because all of your friends are being watched carefully. And to your soon-to-be dismay, a certain Uchiha has been identified here within Tanigakure, and he is looking for you. The Zenshin’s plans for him aren’t a part of your plans, are they?”

Sakura’s kunai bounced as her hand shook in surprise at his words and it nicked his throat once before she steadied it. He hissed and pulled harder against her hand, but it still didn’t move. 

“He is here?” Sakura asked in a whisper, a myriad of paths of possibility spidering out from the revelation. Sasuke had followed her. Despite her wishes and despite Kakashi’s promises of keeping Naruto and Sasuke preoccupied, Sasuke had followed her. Not Naruto, but Sasuke. Even if it was out of concern for her, why? Why did he continue to doubt her abilities? Sakura pushed those feelings to the back of her mind as a new thought formed around the name of the organization that wanted to kill her and many others: Zenshin. To advance. Progression. The exact same word that Mako had declared to her in the desert wind only nights ago. She finally had the name. 

“Here and unsuccessful in his search for you, is what I have heard,” came the blind man’s sultry response in her face. “We knew you had to be close if he was here sniffing for you.” 

Damn it. Her plans were already starting to unravel. She was banking on the fact that they might not believe her brave enough to confront them, alone and in their own territory.  “On the off chance you’re actually telling the truth,” Sakura growled, “you lot are absolute fools to underestimate Sasuke. He and Naruto are singlehandedly the strongest shinobi to have ever walked this earth. He will mow you down just as Madara did to the shinobi alliance.”

“What about you?” he asked, a smirk tugging on the corner of his mouth despite the knife still secured against his flesh, nearly vibrating with the energy it was taking Sakura not to silence him permanently. “How strong are you?”

In the next movement, Sakura sheathed the weapon and relaxed her face into a smile of her own. “I am not far behind them.”

The blind man instinctively rubbed his neck where her kunai had been, smearing the pinpricks of blood there. “You’re lucky that even blind, my senses are sharper than my companions’,” he spoke, seriousness replacing the nervous humor of his previous persona. “By claiming you first, I have saved you from the lions you were prowling amongst just outside.” 

“Which ones in the sitting room are a part of ‘Zenshin’?” Sakura asked, and her eyes grew terribly wide at the next admission from his mouth.  

“Why, all of them,” he laughed once again. 

All of them? If the man had been able to see, he would have noticed that Sakura’s face had drained of all color. Sakura’s mental efforts doubled as she began to cross out steps of her plan and recalculate, following the conceptual intricate spiderweb of possible effects from each detour she could potentially plan for. 

He took a step toward her. “And all of them were already suspecting your identity the very minute Toka introduced you. I happen to be the only one present who has ever heard your voice. My actions to grab your attention will have interested them even more. I’ll have to explain what I did tonight. Your next move will determine the words that will come out of my mouth.” 

Sakura nodded, still silently assessing her options, before she said, “remove the bandage.”

The man hesitated, as if he was almost unsure if he wanted her to see what lie beneath. He only hesitated for a moment before fingering the white bandage. He walked toward her until he was only a few feet ahead of her. When the bandage slipped down to reveal his eye sockets, Sakura frowned at the unblemished nature of them. Not an external injury that could be healed, then. She had been hoping for cataracts or some other resolvable issue via procedure.

He flinched as she touched his temples, tilting his head back so Sakura could peer into them. She summoned her chakra to her fingertips and pressed exploratory chakra into them. He gasped at the invasion when her chakra made contact with his flesh, and his hand came up to grasp on to Sakura’s wrist.

“I’m only investigating the injury,” Sakura reassured him.    

“I know,” he frowned. “You did so once before. You told me there was little that could be done.”

Sakura nodded, feeling dread at her past self’s words. If she had not been able to heal them, she suspected no one could. Sakura suddenly recalled the shinobi war and Kakashi sensei, whose eye had been torn from his eye socket by Madara and then restored by Naruto, through his perfected Ying-Yang release through the sun seal given to him by Hagoromo. Naruto was not only able to restore Kakashi’s eye from nothing, but he had also been able to revive Obito after the extractions of the Ten Tales, and accomplish other grand healing feats during the war in the duration of which he had possessed the seal. Both Naruto and Sasuke relinquished their Sun and Moon seals when they sealed Kaguya. That sort of healing power was gone now. 

Sakura possessed and could control both Yin and Yang chakra due to her healing training under Tsunade and her natural affinity for genjutsus. Even with Sakura’s near perfect control of chakra, she could not use Yin and Yang simultaneously as Naruto had done with Hagoromo’s seal.  

“Are you able to see anything at all? Lights? Shadows? Shapes?” There was a big difference between being blind and being visually impaired. While others saw nothing but darkness, some could still make out some glimpses of their surroundings.  

“Nothing. Not since the war.”

Sakura frowned as she searched the eyes with her chakra. The eyes themselves were undamaged. The optic nerves intact. The retinas whole. They were clear in appearance, with startling dark irises. Black, like Sasuke’s. No clouding. There was only one possible cause left: brain damage.

Sakura frowned at how hopeless the situation was. “Do you have any pain?”

“No,” he answered. “Would pain be a good sign? That the body is trying to heal?”

Sakura winced at his train of thought. People often believed that pain meant the body was trying to repair itself, and that if there was no pain, it meant one of two things: the body was not damaged, or whatever healing was to be done was complete. This was not the case for many injuries. If he was experiencing pain, it might just indicate a different type of injury. Saying he had no pain was just strengthening Sakura’s suspicion.

Reaching to cup the back of his head, Sakura pushed her fingertips into his scalp. He winced at the contact. 

“Were you hit in the back of the head during the war? Is that how you lost your vision?”

He nodded, grinding down his teeth as she determined the truth he hadn’t offered freely. Brain damage was irreversible. Sakura could not create new pathways for nerves. She felt the dead-end her chakra reached after traveling down the optic nerves. The visual cortexes of the occipital lobe at the very back of the brain was no longer receiving signals from the eye. Sakura suspected that he probably had been told this by multiple healers and was hoping she would arrive at a different conclusion. 

“What’s your name?” she asked, feigning medical indifference to his injury. She wasn’t ready to reveal her deductions while he was still in the mood to answer her questions.

“You can call me Rugo. It’s what the others call me.” 

Sakura nodded, understanding why he wasn’t going to divulge his real identity to her. She decided not to ask what village he was from originally, which was going to be her next question. Tanigakure had been neutral in the war, and since he had allegedly fought in the war, he had either migrated here after the war, or he came to be a part of Zenshin mission, specifically. 

“How many members of Zenshin are ninja from other villages?” she questioned instead while she still had the opportunity. 

He hesitated for a moment, before admitting. “Most of them.” Sakura frowned at that. Just how many ninja had been unsatisfied with their lives after the war that they believed healing the grievances of the next generation stood in the way of progression?

“Is your vision loss why you joined Zenshin?” she asked boldly, trying her best to understand his particular motives. Something as significant as blindness could make the kindest of people bitter. If that was the source of his bitterness, Sakura didn’t understand why he wanted to allow such anger spread for the sake of strength and progression in the next generation of ninja.

He did not answer at first, but then said. “Yes. It is the reason. But I did not join Zenshin to prevent you and others from healing the trauma of ninja. I joined to find you. You are the only one who can help me now.” 

Sakura sighed at his confession and pulled her hands away, but Rugo caught them desperately, a sharp contrast to his cocky charisma. “If you can heal them, I’ll help you. Don’t tell me what the other healers say. I know that you can fix this.”

Sakura pulled her hands free, hesitant to disappoint him. She fumbled silently in her pocket for an item that she had prepared for the next phase of this night once she was alone in this room with whichever man was unlucky enough to become her recipient, even though it hadn’t exactly happened how she had planned.

“I am sorry Rugo. Brain damage cannot be reveresed. I cannot heal them.”

The man frowned deeply at her words, shaking his head. He was not expecting the sharp prick in his neck that came next. Sakura pushed down on the plunger that pushed the harmless sedative into his bloodstream. Ironically, as a medic, Sakura couldn’t help but notice the widening of his eyes as the muscles registered his surprise, which indicated that the cerebellum, the separate part of the brain in control of muscles still operated perfectly. He crashed to his knees before falling forward as she caught him. 

She wished she had the time to tell him that he was lucky, so incredibly lucky to only have lost his vision from the type of head injury that he had received. If any other parts of the brain had been damaged, he would have likely lost his ability to speak, to control his muscles, to walk; he could have become paralyzed. Maybe, if he were still alive, they could have this conversation in the future after she executed her plan. 

Sakura was only a little disappointed that she hadn’t been able to accept Rugo’s offer of assistance as an inside source, after all. Whether or not he had intended to, the Zenshin member had already given her the information she was looking for. And Sakura never really needed anyone’s help anyway. Not Rugo’s. And not Sasuke’s, either.

Only when Sakura turned on the tap water for the bath that wouldn’t be used after all, and she was certain the sound of it would keep her from being disturbed by the head matron, did Sakura bite into her flesh. Blood pooling at the tip of her finger, Sakura placed her thumb against her palm and pushed her five fingers into the ground, performing the summoning technique. 

“Lady Katsuyu,” Sakura greeted the small slug, 1/1000th of her original body, that began to climb its way over the legs of the man she had just incapacitated. 

Sakura knelt, using her blood smeared finger to trace an intricate symbol on Rugo’s temple. The blood pooling where she had traced, and small trails hastily dissected from the main paths to trickle down into the hair at his temples. “You’re certain this will work?” Sakura asked the human-size slug that reached up to cover the man’s unmoving face with her body. 

“It should,” Katuyu reassured her. “The blood is just an extra step of assurance. I should be able to do this on my own without it.”

Sakura nodded, sparing the little extra chakra it took to stop the blood flowing freely from her thumb without completely healing it. She was going to have to repeatedly break the skin there as the night continued, so growing new skin was not needed.  “This is the first of many.”

“Sakura, dear,” Katsuyu responded as the slug divided into an even smaller version of herself and slipped into Sakura’s outstretched palm while the main body completely consumed the man Sakura had incapacitated.  “Please be careful.”

 “Of course, milady. I’m sorry for what you will witness from this moment on.” She tucked the slug away into the hem of her robe’s neckline. 

Sakura opened the door to her room and turned to stare down the hallway at all the closed doors concealing the fellow members of Zenshin. 

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.

It was the sheer lack of activity that he was witnessing in his observation spots that first alerted Sasuke that something wasn’t quite right. In every town, if someone positioned themselves correctly, there would be brawling to spectate, scandals to witness, information to gather, but not in Tanigakure, apparently. The last twenty-four hours had been surprisingly uneventful in comparison to his first pass through when Sasuke and Sakura had been ambushed in their sleep. It was odd, how quickly they had been identified the first time in Tanigakure, but Sasuke had yet to be approached. Yes, he had been more discreet than before, but Sasuke was starting to feel annoyed both with his lack of progress in finding Sakura’s whereabouts and this organizations inability to notice his whereabouts. 

That was, until he noticed that nothing around him was particularly noticeable. Ah, he realized. So I have been discovered. It was the only explanation for how fruitless his efforts had been to acquire any real intel about an organization fixated on killing his friend. Sasuke realized immediately that he was purposefully not being fed anything helpful. It only unnerved him when he realized just how many people must be in this group if the multitudes of people he currently watched from above were being intentionally silent. Sasuke also surmised that whatever organization this was, they were also dodging interest from the leaders of Tanigakure. They, too, were trying to fly under the radar.

And so, Sasuke waited in the night, perched above the noisy izakaya once more, rain pattering against his cloak and bouncing from the brim of his black hood, content to play his role while he schemed. He contemplated doing something unexpected just to shake things up, but what would they consider unexpected? Sasuke tried to see this situation for their perspective. This organization knew that Sasuke had followed his pink-haired friend here, and that he was searching for her. They knew that Sasuke had retreated the last time he was here, whisking Sakura away in order to protect them both. They knew he was trying to be discreet so as not to cause any problems for Konoha. With that information, Sasuke deduced that they expected him to continue to look for Sakura, sit and listen discreetly until he located her, interrupt her mission to take her away. They were allowing him to do just as they expected him to in order not to alert him. 

To their extreme disappointment, Sasuke was smarter than everyone involved in this ridiculous plan to distract him. 

And so, Sasuke covered his face tightly. He planned to throw a wrench into the plan, discreetly, while still sending a very strong message to those he assumed lurked in the rain-cloaked shadows. And it wasn’t going to cost him very much chakra. 

Unfortunately for them, thunder rumbled above him, and Sasuke inhaled the energy of the surrounding atmosphere. Unlike in his battle with Itachi, Sasuke did not have to manipulate the air with Amaterasu in order to manipulate the cumulonimbus clouds into existence. They brooded over him regardless, as if his very frustration manifested into the storm that now cast the village in a torrential downpour. For once, Sasuke saw it as a sign that the universe might actually be on his side, that his decision regarding a future with Sakura might have been the right one. One worth destroying a few buildings for. 

And he did exactly that. Sasuke wasn’t entirely his former revenge-seeking self, one bent on the destruction of an entire village, but he smirked dangerously as a flash of lightning struck the infuriatingly useless izakaya. A lightning bolt strikes in 1/1000th of a second, and the explosion happened first. Sasuke waited on the sound to follow before he let out one quick laugh to himself. Sasuke inhaled as if it were the first real breath he had in a long while; it felt so good to let go, to cave to destruction. To push things back into motion and take control of a situation. 

As expected, people ran from the building, some attempting to put out the small fire in the ceiling, while others ducked for cover back into other structures and away from the smoking rooftop. The heavy rain assisted in putting it out very quickly, causing minimal damage. 

It wouldn’t draw enough attention from those who didn’t know that the lightning wasn’t entirely one of nature’s unfortunate disasters. Only those who were watching him as closely as he was suspecting, would realize that Sasuke was done waiting. 

When two ninja landed on either side of him, Sasuke’s Sharningan glowed in the dark as he leaned his head back against the building, arm slung forward over one reclined knee. His Sharingan darted to each of the two men, seeing what no one else could see in the blinding shower and muddled night. Two shinobi, faces covered, stood before him, proudly adorning two headbands with that insufferable five-spiral symbol he’d seen the last time he was here and more recently glimpsed from Mako’s memories. 

“Finally,” the Uchiha breathed as he rolled his neck. 

At his words, the two ninja, obviously assigned to monitor him, glanced at each other in surprise. Sasuke saw it cross their faces: the moment they realized they had been outplayed and forced to show themselves. 

The air, now electrified, lashed out on its own and more lightning crackled in the air above them. In one lightning flash, Sasuke sat unmoving against the building’s side. In the very next, he had swapped with one of the men, teleporting places with him. Timing his movements with the crash of thunder, Sasuke grabbed the second by the neck and hurtled him into the first, smashing their bodies together. Sasuke justified his next actions based on two things: his low levels of chakra and the fact that he had one arm to handle two ninja at once. His katana spun free of its sheath before either men could even react to their sudden collision, and Sasuke skewered them on his blade, penetrating one through the shoulder and the other through the bicep until they were pinned together against the elevated section of the roof. They cried out in unison but their noises didn’t echo beyond the very next crack of lightning that Sasuke generated somewhere in the distance, its very purpose to disguise their screams. 

Releasing the blade, Sasuke knelt before them in the pouring blackness, just so that they could see a glaring set of red and purple irises. He wouldn’t waste his limited chakra combing through their deranged minds, so Sasuke planned to interrogate his preferred way and do it thoroughly. “Where is she?”

“We don’t know who you’re talking ab—,” came the automatic lie, and Sasuke twisted the blade immediately in disguised fury. He was not in the mood to listen to deceptions. The thunder boomed. 

Sasuke sighed. Sometimes it was the most predictable outcomes that tipped Sasuke over into an all-consuming sea of annoyance. If he treaded this sea too long, Sasuke would tire and eventually sink, and the Uchiha was already too well-acquainted with the depths of anger. If he hit the bottom, people would begin to die. And Sasuke didn’t want to be a murderer anymore if he could help it. Steadying himself, Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose and said lowly, “I would advise not bothering to waste my time with more lies. It won’t end well for you.”

“We don’t know,” spat the first man as he clutched at the katana penetrating through his arm. “The lightshow is unnecessary. Someone needs to put you in your place, Uchiha, for using your power in this village.” 

So that was it. As long as Sasuke was laying low, they were planning to leave him to his futile attempts to find Sakura. They didn’t want the real authority alerted to his presence because then Sasuke would talk, explain his presence and involve the real people in charge of this village. That, or there was deal with the higherups. If the village leaders knew of this organzaiton’s activity, they had allowed it to transpire as long as it remained inconspicuous. All of this information told Sasuke that the less evident of a profile this organization could keep, the better. Sasuke suspected that Tanigakure didn’t want multiple villages involved, but were somehow benefiting personally from this arrangement. Sasuke guessed that this secret organization also wanted to eliminate more reputable individuals off their list before they were confronted by multiple parties. It was a testament to their lack of experience and firepower if they had yet to eliminate Number 1 and had already pissed off two out of the five Kage. 

“Last chance to be honest,” Sasuke hissed, twisting the blade deeper into both of their bodies, relishing the squelch of the blade’s movements in their flesh.

“We lost her!” the man in the very back hissed, spitting out rainwater, holding his partner very still with his clenched fists to keep him from jostling the weapon any further. “And many of our men, with her.”

Sasuke unfeelingly blinked at that confession. 

“Shut your mouth,” the front man said to the fellow soldier behind him, jostling the both of them as he tried to shift in order to look back at him. 

“Stop moving!” the man in the back hissed, grabbing more firmly to the man seated practically in his lap. 

They had already located and lost her? The mention of other members of their organization going missing was the part that had Sasuke’s mind trying to make connections. Sasuke wasn’t sure if this was a trap. He had expected it to be a lot more difficult to receive any answers from anyone. So, what was the angle? Did they intend to follow Sasuke to her after telling him that? There would be no chance of that happening; Sasuke would quickly ensure it. 

Inhaling, filling his lungs with electric energy, Sasuke reached forward and gripped the hilt of his katana. The current came from his lungs when he exhaled and it snaked around his arm in a circuiting slither, crisscrossing down the blade until a surge of electricity connected with their open wounds. Another crack of lightning, closer this time. More screaming. 

It had been a very long time since Sasuke had used this technique to simultaneously torture and weaken his captive. He remembered performing this very move on Yamato, the temporary squad leader for Team 7 when they had come searching for Sasuke in one of Orochimaru’s underground hideouts. How ironic that he had once felt the same level of annoyance that he was now, but it had been directed at Team 7. And now. Now, it was because these imbeciles had the absolute audacity to come after one of them, as if any member of Team 7 could be taken down by such dirt beneath their feet. As if Sasuke didn’t have the absolute power to obliterate every single one of them without a second thought. 

“Enough,” Sasuke growled lowly, forcing himself to talk more than he was usually inclined to do. “This current will intensify over the course of two minutes until you are essentially executed by electrocution. Which means you have two minutes to answer my questions without lying. If I even suspect a lie, lightning will travel straight to your heart before two minutes is even up.”  

Their eyes widened, and Sasuke moved out of the path of the rain running down the slope of the roof towards him, until he was free of any electrified water that connected with their bodies. 

“First question,” Sasuke began, thickening the electricity traveling through his arm to his blade. “Where was her last known location?”

“The bathhouse,” groaned the man in the back, the more talkative of the two. “The brothel.”

Despite his usual collected countenance, Sasuke’s red and purple eyes widened marginally at such a word. A brothel? A brothel? A new fire quickly formed in Sasuke’s chest at the revelation, and it was not the lightning-style chakra centralized there. It was a fire of panic and rage. 

“When?” Sasuke asked next, amping up the voltage once more. The man in front, the first to receive electrical current, slumped forward unconscious.

“Earlier in the night,” the guy mumbled, lips beginning to numb with the rest of his body. His words still came out in a rush, however, eager to meet Sasuke’s deadline, before he, too, ended up like his partner. “Our leaders failed to give us our next orders at our usual rendezvous point. We arrived at the bathhouse, their last known location, to investigate—the other girls. They told us she had taken them.” 

“Where is this bathhouse?” came Sasuke’s final question.

“Promise you will spare me, first,” the man pleaded, but Sasuke’s frustration only grew at the begging. Instead of assuring the man, Sasuke twisted his blade again. 

After the scream, came the answer to his question. “On the eastside, against the mountain.” This man, too, fell unconscious, slumping against his partner, when Sasuke poured more electricity into his chest cavity. Sasuke ripped his blade free from their bodies. 

He left them there in the rain, feeling absolutely no guilt at all because they would at least eventually wake up. Unlike every man who had occupied Sakura’s space in a godforsaken brothel, these two men were lucky because they would keep their lives. 

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