Chapter TWELVE

Itachi watches the Jounin of Konoha fall one at a time without a hint of expression on his face. Sarutobi Asuma, Yuuhi Kurenai, Hatake Kakashi, his former superior, none of them stand a real chance and he thinks he can be grateful Kisame is interrupted before he can chop them into unfixable bits.

Sasuke and Naruto sit on their bed, not sure what to do. Sakura is slowly walking around the room, hands running over the walls and the door and the windows and everything else in the room.

"Uh, what're you doing, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asks.

"I am checking for traps, trackers, anything of the sort," Sakura tells him matter-of-factly.

"Oh." Naruto glances nervously over at Sasuke then forces out a laugh. "Heh, I'm kind of getting hungry, I wonder when the Ero-Sennin will be back."

At first, Sakura appeared horrified at the name Naruto had given Jiraiya, and she had actually flinched when Jiraiya had complained, loudly, about it. However, by now, she seems to have accepted that Jiraiya will not retaliate like she seemed to think he would, or had at least gotten used to it. "I'm sorry about that." She says. "However, I doubt Jiraiya-sama will be back for a while. He has most likely gone out for research reasons."

"On Senju Tsunade?" Sasuke asks.

"For his book," Sakura tells him.

"Book?"

"She means he's sneaking around the hot springs and looking for women." Naruto scowls, arms crossed.

Sasuke frowns. "What?"

"The Ero-Sennin is a pervert," Naruto explains. "He peeks on women."

"Jiraiya-sama says it is an important and delicate process," Sakura says weakly. "He says I am not to disturb him during this time."

Naruto decides he likes the girl, because he thinks she is being serious and fully believes what she is saying, and he finds that kind of cute.

Sasuke is just about to snap, and he can tell Naruto is even closer, when Sakura sits up with a violent jolt. She slowly stands up and moves towards the door. The two boys warily get to their feet.

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto calls softly.

Sakura raises a hand to stop him. "Please, stay here, and do not move." Her eyes seem to linger on Sasuke for a little longer than they had on Naruto. "Either of you, no matter what."

By then, the two of them have gauged that something is very wrong.

Sakura has their back to them as she continues her slow walk towards the door. A hand drifts upwards and the bandages that have hidden almost every bit of her skin neatly roll away and are tucked under her collar. Sasuke glances at his friend, but neither of them can see anything clearly. Then she is out of their sight as she rounds the corner. They hear a knock.

Sakura reaches out with her one bandaged hand, the one she had left so could do just this, and opens the door. She feels a rush of powerful chakra but stays where she is standing. "Hello," She says. Manners were important, Jiraiya had told her.

The huge blue man standing front of her was dressed in a black cloak adorned with red clouds.

Hoshigaki Kisame, her minds supplies her. Former shinobi of Kirigakure. Currently an S-class missing nin. A member of the Akatsuki. His partner-

He is highly skilled if his perfectly concealed chakra is anything to go by.

Sakura glances behind the man to see Itachi, staring at her with eyes just as blank as hers. His face shows no signs of recognition and Sakura carefully slides her gaze back to the man towering over her. "What can I do for you?"

Kisame is not really sure what to think when a young, pink haired girl glances up at him without flinching. He recognizes her, of course, with her pink hair and her green eyes, as the girl that is always with Jiraiya but from the few times he had caught glimpse of her, he has never seen her without her bandages.

She was a tiny looking girl, someone Sasori would probably enjoy turning into a puppet.

He grins, showing off his teeth, but suddenly, Itachi is in front of him. "Where is the Kyuubi?" He asks. Kisame sighs as his partner, once again, gets straight to the point.

The girl continues to stare at them. "He is not here." She says with a straight face. She attempts to close the door, but Kisame shoots his hand out and stops her from doing so.

"Really?" He asks.

The girl blinks, and her eyes drop to the ground. "I take you do not believe me."

Kisame almost scoffs at the strange girl.

The pinkette raises her hands and the last of the bandages on her person, the ones of her right hand, unfurl and slip away under her clothes. "May I inquire your name?" She asks.

Kisame glances over at his partner, who appears as impassive as ever.

The girl seems to take this as hesitation. "My name is Sakura." She says. She reaches out slowly, casually, as though to shake his hand.

It is only years of experience and honed instincts that saves Kisame his hand. Sakura's hand grabs the part of the door he had been holding onto a mere split second ago and simply appears to evaporate under her touch. The girl lashes out again and both he and Itachi leap backward to avoid what he can now see is literally a lethal touch. The door slams shut and moments later, they see smoke seeping out from the bottom of the door. Kisame stops up to it and gives it a nice shove, but all it does is rattle. "Did she melt the door into the frame?"

Itachi shrugs and delivers a sharp kick to the wood, which instantly shattered beneath his attack. However, behind the door lay a corridors worth of rubble and whatever liquid had melted the ceiling, blocking their path.

"They are gone," Itachi says, without even looking into the room.

Naruto jumps when there is a crash, as if the ceiling had given way, and Sakura sprints back into the room. "Sakura-chan?"

The girl does not reply as she stops a few meters short of them and waves her hands in a 'get up' gesture. "They are here." She says. "Hurry."

"They?" Sasuke asks, slowly doing as told. "Who?"

"Hoshigaki Kisame," Sakura pauses. "And Uchiha Itachi."

Sasuke is instantly on his feet, eyes wide. "What did you just say."

Sakura raises an arm to stop him, and Naruto freezes when he catches sight of her skin, which appears dry and cracked. "They are here for Naruto-san." She says. "I have been tasked with keeping him alive."

Suddenly, the smell of something melting hits his nose, and Naruto sees smoke rising up from the ground. He glances down to see Sakura's bare feel slowly sinking into the ground. The girl reaches out for him and he instinctively leans away. Sakura does not seem to notice, though, and she gestures towards the window. "Go." She says. "Or I will melt your limbs and carry you."

And Naruto has a distinct feeling she means it. He glances over at Sasuke, who looks frozen and hurt and angry and scared and yanks on his arm. "Come on, Teme." He says quietly. "We shouldn't fight here, anyways. It's an inn, people could get hurt."

Sasuke lets out a growl and yanks his arm out of his grasp, but he does not protest when Sakura ushers them towards the window again.

So, update~

Darque: A lot of Naruto characters pissed me off, to be honest.

Raven: Why all of a sudden?

Darque: Well, I spent a lot of time wondering if Sasuke should ignore Sakura and Naruto and run off to try and fight Itachi (Not that he could, collapsed ceiling an all, but ya know?).

Raven: Ahh.

Darque: And in the end, I made him not, cause that part of him, among many others, really pissed me off, yeah?

Raven: Well, that's fanfiction...?

Darque: Huehuehuehue.

Read and Review~