WhiteMint: ehehe... finally an update?

Chapter 5: Wrath

"…"

The club room was quiet after watching the scene of Sasori nearly 'eating' the naïve Sakura at the café. For once, all members of the Akatsuki – aside from Sasori – had the same thought, "Thank god for that necklace."

Sakura, god bless her innocence and cluelessness, laughed at the scene, "Who knew Sasori liked cake that much! I should've tried it much earlier since I knew one of the sins would be Gluttony. That means I have 5 left until I'm done."

As she was counted under her breath which sins were left, Sasori felt like he died a little from how oblivious she was to what had just occurred. He felt a comforting pat on his shoulder and when he turned to see the owner of the hand, he saw Konan standing next to him with a small smile on her face. A chill ran down his spine but his face was emotionless as ever. She leaned in and whispered in his ear, "Sakura belongs to Pein so hands off."

Sasori scoffed at her statement, "I'm not scared of you. My little doll has a free choice in who she wants to date and if she chooses me, you can't stop us."

Deidara, who happened to overhear the entire conversation, yelled out at Sasori, "Like hell you're going to date her!" and lunged a punch at him. As the two artists were about to brawl, Pein got up and addressed the team.

"We need to have a quick meeting. Sakura, are you fine with going back to the dorm yourself?"

As Sakura got out of her reverie on contemplating how to finish this little 'initiation' that she had to do, smiled at him and agreed to leave. She then waved a goodnight to the rest of the members and told Konan, "See you at the dorm!"

Once she was gone, Pein walked up to the chalk board that was generally used for drawing out basketball tactics. He then wrote down on the board, "Rules for Associating with Sakura". Upon seeing those words, the team unconsciously straightened their back.

"As you all may know, Sakura is undoubtedly a very innocent and seems to be completely oblivious to the opposite sex. While I suspected this upon first meeting her, it has now been confirmed."

Pein then glanced at his team and saw them all nodding in agreement.

"Thus I feel it is appropriate to make out some rules regarding how we should treat our little healer. After all… We don't want her running away from us."

The members all looked worried. It had only been a week since they conned Sakura into joining as the Akatsuki team healer and she was only now getting used to their personalities. At first, she was almost adamant on leaving the position because she was intimidated by their forwardness. But with a lot of calming words from Konan, some sweets as bribery, and a large amount of self-control from the members, she reluctantly agreed to stay for a while. It was all the more important that she didn't get scared again.

Pein started writing on the board.

No harassment beyond hugging.

"What? What if I want to kiss her? She's too cute sometimes that I can't help it!"

Pein frowned at Deidara's complaint, "No kissing! It might scare her away."

Deidara whined, "But I've seen you kiss her on the head once! Not fair you hypocrite!"

Pein looked away, "Fine. I'll compromise." And rewrote his words.

No harassment beyond innocent kissing (lips are not allowed)

He then continued writing.

All members must protect Sakura from other men.

"Since by some reason, everyone in here likes my princess-" a quiet scoff was heard "-there is a high chance of other students within the university getting the same interest. Therefore, those who have classes with her need to make sure to prevent other male students from getting an interest in her."

Itachi spoke up, "How about we give her something to signify that she belongs to the Akatsuki?"

Hidan snorted at the thought, "What, should we have her wear a fucking collar?"

The team of perverts immediately pictured Sakura wearing a cute collar with the Akatsuki cloud as a tag and if you paired it with some black cat ears and a tail…

*insert 5 minute pause as the members staunch their nosebleeds*

As Sakura walked from the gym to her dorm, she enjoyed the small breeze. Autumn was about to approach and the evenings were gradually getting cooler. The campus was pretty empty since most students only stayed around campus at night during testing periods. The university dorms that Sakura stayed at was relatively close to the basketball court that the Akatsuki generally practiced at and was a 15 minute walk.

When Sakura was halfway to the dorms, she was suddenly surrounded.

'Weird,' Sakura thought, 'Why are there so many people right now?'

While Sakura was normally an oblivious person, she had experience in dealing with situations like these in high school. As she glanced at the girls surrounding her, she noticed that they all had some sort of commonality between them. Whether it was in the form of a jersey, t-shirt, or hat; every girl had a symbol of the Akatsuki basketball team on them.

Fangirls, the entire lot of them.

It had been a while since she's experienced this situation, and Sakura felt a flash of nostalgia.

Back in high school, Naruto and Sasuke were the aces of the Konoha High Basketball team.

And Sakura, being best friends with the two of them, naturally had a large amount of enemies of the female population. Though in Sasuke's case, some were male.

And because of the constant harassment and bullying, Sakura grew to have a very thick skin… and a black belt in karate. Due to her naturally clumsy nature, not many knew about her excellent capabilities of self-preservation due to it only shining when she's defending herself from hordes of fangirls after blood.

But after a year of convincing – and punching - the fangirls that Sakura was only a friend to the unsuspectingly popular Uzumaki and Uchiha duo, she finally got them to leave her alone so that she could enjoy a peaceful high school life. But fate obviously didn't want her to live at ease, and immediately transferred her into a university with even more popular basketball members with an even bigger fan base.

The former of which she just left, and the latter that she was currently facing.

"Haruno Sakura." The leader of the group coldly spat out the young girl's name like it was a curse, "We are here to force you to leave the Akatsuki."

"Ano…" Sakura hesitated, "But I didn't join by my own will…"

"You liar!" Another fan girl yelled.

"That's right! There's not a single girl alive who wouldn't die to be in your position!"

The crowd was quickly losing control.

Amidst the yells of "How dare you!" and "I'm so jealous!" Sakura tried to calm the crowd, but her words were easily drowned out. So she decided to just stay put and let them calm themselves down.

And it was to this scene of Sakura surrounded by yelling fangirls that Tobi saw.

Everyone paused when a thick ooze of bloodlust filled the air. Sakura quickly turned around as a dark figure started walking towards the mob. The streetlamps scattered within the campus didn't reach him yet so Sakura was unsure on who it was, but the black jacket with the red clouds was unmistakable. Only members of the basketball team wore those jackets.

As the person walked closer, a hand reached out and grasped the necklace that was dangling from his neck. A small poof noise was muffled by the fisted hand, making Sakura unsure if it activated due to be crushed, or from the wrath that was coming off the member in waves.

When the member walked close enough for the light to shine on him, everyone stared wide-eyed at who it was.

The Tobi that was dubbed as the 'cute animal' of the Akatsuki basketball team now looking nothing like his usual carefree and happy self. The handsome face that had scars on the right side – originally bringing out all motherly instincts in women – was now grim with barely held in anger. And was it the weird lighting, or did his eyes look red?

As he walked closer to the crowd, the girls subconsciously parted way so that Tobi could stand by Sakura's side. With a hand on her shoulder, Tobi gave the crowd the trademark Uchiha glare. It was so scary that Sakura now felt like Sasuke's iciest glare generally reserved for fangirls seems like a hug in comparison.

Every single girl flinched at the site. Some even started crying.

"Tell this to all your friends… No one is allowed to so much as touch Sakura. Or I will ruin your life."

He gave a brief pause, allowing the words to sink in.

"Now scram!"

Everyone started to run, and within 30 seconds, the area around Sakura and Tobi was clear.

Once the terrified fangirls left, Sakura immediately started falling backwards as she got glomped by Tobi. Gone was the terrifyingly dark figure, and it was replaced by his cute puppy-like persona that she had always seen.

"Tobi was so worried for Sakura-chan! Is Sakura-chan all right?"

Sakura patted the crying man's head as he clung to her desperately, his face cuddling her neck. She was confused by how he acted earlier, but she figured that everything was fine now.

"There there Tobi-kun. I'm perfectly fine. Thank you for saving me."

Hello my readers,

*coughs

I'm sorry for not updating this fic and writing another. But guilt has finally convinced me to finish this chapter. It was only halfway written for god knows how long. I'll try to update this fic more regularly.

I hope you guys enjoyed it,

WhiteMint

PS: reviews will help motivate me. *hint hint*