Chapter 11 – Encounter

A pink tongue flashed once, twice, then was gone. Thin brown knees bent, and the lean body curved to circulate the still air around it. Even in the dugout hollow under the huge sandstone boulder, the air was still stifling. 

A steady crunching was fast approaching the hidden spot, though vibrations rippling beneath the sandy soil had long ago given away the presence of intruders.

Glassy brown eyes looked out, waiting, holding as still as the stone above it. But a quick tip of the head gave its presence away. A puff of dust from passing boots clouded over the hole, and then there was nothing more to see. 

Sakura frowned. She had caught the movement too late. By the time she pulled her boot to a stop the lizard had already disappeared back under his rock.

She stooped to inspect the vacant hole anyway, thinking she’d gladly trade places with him. But from several steps ahead her companion flashed a glance back at her, and she knew she must continue her march.

The sun was high in the sky, and there was no angling her body to keep any part in shade. The heat seemed to bake them from all sides now. 

Sakura licked her lips reflexively, then wished she hadn’t. The never-ending wind — sometimes fierce blasts, sometimes only ragged puffs, but always hot — was beginning to take its toll. Her face was tight, and the dry air was stripping any moisture away almost immediately, making her lips only chap more.

‘Surely we’ll stop soon,’ she thought, looking tiredly at the triangle shape of cloak that was quite a ways in front of her. 

Katsuro moved briskly over the land, always watching where they were going, yet never unsure of himself. Sometimes he followed a sandy path, sometimes they scuttled over rocks. Again, no marks. Either he was an expert tracker or he had traveled this so many times he knew it by heart. 

Ahead of her, lizards twisted their heads out from under rocks. But almost as soon as the creatures were in sight they disappeared with a flick. By the time Sakura passed their little holes they were long gone. If she hadn’t seen those creatures on the trail ahead, she would have thought they were completely alone out here.

Sakura licked her lips again without thinking. They dried immediately, leaving them only more tight. The heat was numbing her brain, she thought with a huff. 

“Hey,” she called up to Katsuro to get her mind off her parched skin. He turned his head a fraction. “Do you know where we’re going?”

He snorted immediately, and she rephrased her question. “I mean, are we following a trail…or a direction or….”

Katsuro’s voice crackled to life. “These are animal paths, been here for eons.” They hadn’t spoken in hours, both reserving their energy in the oppressive heat. 

Sakura was skeptical. “But how do you know where to go? We’ve gone over lots of areas where there is no trail at all.”

At that moment, the dusty path terminated at another rock to be scaled. Sakura flashed her palm at the boulder to prove her point. 

Katsuro looked at her, cheeks unnaturally pink from the heat and sun, clearly debating whether to answer. It was apparent, though, that neither were anxious to move on from the thin shade.

“If your life depends on something, you memorize every inch of it,” he said with a sigh.

“So your whole group travels this way a lot?” she said, leaning her head against the rock.

“No,” he said distractedly, peering around curve of the boulder. “Only a couple have ever been this way. Other than me.” He pointed to the top, ending their conversation. 

Beyond the boulder, they continued on the thin gravel path and passed several more trees, each casting a lacy shadow on the dry ground. Sakura hoped they would stop, but Katsuro passed each cool spot at the same clip.

She stopped looking, stopped hoping. Instead, she watched his shoes as they plodded over the sun-baked earth. Gravel and shadow blurred together beneath her.

Head bowed, she was still moving forward in this manner when the heels in front of her stopped suddenly. It took all of her training to not plow right into Katsuro.

“They’ve stopped ahead,” he said, nodding to the clutch of men in the shade of a tree up the trail, “so this is far enough for us.”

Just in front of them, a gnarled tree grew out of a crack in a smooth yellowed boulder. Its branches arced out over the path, and leaves jangled like dusty, green coins from the twisting, thorny limbs. But to Sakura, the mottled shade was just as good any from Konoha’s majestic hardwoods.

She collapsed against the rock and stretched her hot feet out in front of her. 

Nearby, Katsuro squatted in the shade, but he didn’t rest. He passed back an orange from his rucksack, which she accepted now simply to quench her thirst.

She peeled the fruit and scanned the terrain. All around them, rocky folds of land rippled in the midday heat. 

Sucking the orange segment, Sakura thought about her more pressing concern. She had told herself she would look for a way to escape on the way back down, but making a break here would surely end in death if you didn’t know where you were going. 

Beside her, glassy eyes blinked lazily from under the curve of the boulder. But just as Sakura moved for a closer look, the lizard darted out of sight. She sighed, pinched off a few tiny teardrops from the orange segment and laid them in the dust at the edge of his hole anyway.

“Things are going to get harder from here on out,” she heard Katsuro say. “I’m not going to let you out of my sight now, okay?” 

Sakura turned back and looked past him to see what had brought out such a statement. Far beyond them the men were grouped together in the shade, reminding Sakura of a pack of dogs. They were restless, talking, kicking the dirt, and conspicuously looking up the trail at them.

“Harder…you mean, with them?” she said in hushed tones. Just seeing the men down there gave her the feeling of being quarry. 

“Well, them, and anyone else we might run across,” he said.

Sakura waited till he’d turned back, then scanned the ridge lines sharply. Maybe this desert wasn’t as desolate as it appeared. 

“Could someone else find us out here?” she asked quietly. Her thoughts skipped ahead without an answer, though. If she could leave a sign, something showing that she’d been here, then—

Katsuro pivoted on his feet and swiftly stopped her line of thinking.

“We don’t want to be found,” he said shaking his head, eyes serious. “Not out here.”

She blinked at him, watching him stand and refasten his rucksack, waiting for an explanation.

“Nomads, not fond of trespassers. And where there’s one, there are plenty more,” he said, nodding for her to stand. “As long as we keep moving fast, they won’t get interested. More energy to catch us than is worth. But if we slow down, we’re in trouble.”

He scuffed at the dirt, hiding the obvious marks where she’d been sitting.

“And as long as we don’t disturb anything, no one will know we’ve been here,” he said.

His attention settled on the little pieces of uneaten fruit. She looked at it too, about to explain, when a brown flash darted out, snapped its pink mouth over the orange drops and disappeared. 

Sakura couldn’t hold back her surprised laugh. A pleased smile tugged up the corners of Katsuro’s mouth.

“Well, that takes care of that,” he said, smiling at her before drawing up the hood on his tan cloak. Sakura frowned lightly at his action.

“Hoods on, all the time now,” he said in response to her unasked question. “Especially you, pinky,” he added with a quick point to her hair. 

The kunoichi pursed her lips in irritation at his epithet, which only brought a wider grin from Katsuro. He figured that’d get her, and he was right. She flipped hers over with a snap.

“Let’s go,” he said, chuckling softly, but his smile was already beginning to slip. By the time they’d stepped back out into the sun his easy manner had evaporated. 

“Just stay close, and we’ll be fine,” he said tightly, eyes on the group ahead.

They started to move, and the men down the road picked up the pace as well. Sakura adjusted the hood, but could not shake the doomed feeling that washed over her now. 

She was on her way down. Toward more men like them. Toward Itachi. Toward whatever fate awaited her that she would not go home from.

Katsuro’s tension fueled hers. They continued the journey in silence, trekking down one rock-strewn ridge line after the next. By mid afternoon, the blue sky had been lost completely behind a yellow haze, and Sakura’s fears were threatening to consume her.

“Is everyone in your camp like them?” she asked suddenly, just to fill the spaces between her thoughts.

“What?” he said, distractedly dragging a hand across his sweaty forehead. “Do you mean, like thugs?”

“Well, yeah. Actually, why do you even have them with you?” she said, glad to have something to land her thoughts on.

“They are my team. Like yours, I suppose,” he said.

“My team works together, or is supposed to,” she mumbled. “But it seems like you only keep those guys around just for the ambushes.” 

Katsuro went very quiet.

“Oh,” she said. It all made sense. Those men ambushed, committed the crimes, while someone like Katsuro ran the operation. That’s why he knew the trails so well. If it turned bad, Katsuro could get away, with the loss of a few men who looked like a disorderly bunch of thugs.

“You’re entirely too smart for you own good, you know,” he said, cutting his eyes back at her. She caught his glance, but the flash of a half-smile let her know she was still in safe territory with him.

“Then why are they so dead set on sabotaging you?” she said.

“They just do what they’re told,” Katsuro said, frowning. “And they’re waiting to see if I’ll screw up.” 

He narrowed his eyes as he watched their backs bob and sway down the trail from them.

But his comment made Sakura feel awful. She had screwed up, just like her teammate told her she would. And now she was being marched toward her fate. 

“What’s going to happen to me?” she said quietly, hoping this time he would tell her.

He just shrugged, avoiding an answer. He made it a point to never think too deeply about anything that went in his group. He never looked too hard or asked too many questions. 

“Is Itachi going to kill me?” Desperation was seeping into her voice. ”Am I marching to my death? Please tell me because I’ll take my chances with them—” 

“Just tell Itachi what he wants to hear,” he said in controlled tones. “Tell him about his brother. That’s all he wants.” 

Sakura snorted. “Right. And then he’s going to let me just walk out of camp? Give me directions back to Konoha?” 

Staring hard at the line of Katsuro’s cloak in front of her, she could see his shoulders were tensed. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it, but she pushed on.

“There is nothing I can tell him about Sasuke. Nothing.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he snapped. “There’s always something—”

“No, there’s nothing,” she repeated quickly. “I know nothing about him.”

Katsuro shook his head. “Not possible. You’re teammates. You would know more about him than anyone else—

“No. You don’t understand. He hates me. Like you said about your teammates, he wants to see me fail.” She added quietly, “and he doesn’t have to look far.” 

Katsuro turned back to her quickly, and Sakura stopped too. His deep scowl and dark eyes only a thin veneer for the anger she knew was just beneath the surface, but she didn’t care anymore. She wasn’t lying. This whole journey a waste of their time. Whatever Itachi wanted, she didn’t have it to give. There was no reason to hold back that truth now.

“The reason we’re on this mission is because of me, because I got us into trouble in the village,” she said earnestly, forcing herself to continue. “Then, out here, I go and get abducted for information. But I have nothing to tell. Nothing,” she said, splaying her hands out in front of her. 

“And now I’m going to die for the one person who says I’m useless, that I’m the dead weight on the team.” Her voice was growing watery. “You want information about him, and I’m even going to fail at that.”

Sakura scrubbed a hand across her face in frustration, trying to keep the tears at bay. 

“We’re not teammates. He tried to get me removed from his team,” she said with a bitter laugh. “He probably never even reported me missing.”  

Sakura stopped suddenly, a look of breathless horror splashed across the her face. Sakura was not entirely serious when she’d said it, but she’d hit upon a true enough scenario. She shook her head slowly back and forth in disbelief. It all made sense now.

“That’s why—“ Her voice was suddenly thick with emotion. “That’s why no one ever came for me—”

Wide eyes pooled with tears. They broke and spilled in hot, thin streaks down her face. Sakura brought a hand to her mouth, trying to hold in a sob, gaze pinned unseeing on Katsuro’s slackening face, but she was powerless to hold back the flood of despair. She couldn’t even speak. The awful truth swept her under— She had been abandoned by the ones who were supposed to protect her.

Sakura curled her shoulders and buried her face in her hands under the hood of her cloak. The tan fabric shook with her sobs.

There, adrift on a barren desert ridge line, the undeniable truth laid bare in the blistering sun, the young Leaf kunoichi unraveled.

Katsuro looked on helplessly. Anger and pain warred within him. He hated Konoha more than ever now. And her teammate, the Uchiha…. He wanted to snap him in half. 

But now he also had an equally strong urge to stop her tears. To stop the pain she felt, which was aching in him too now. He wanted to make her feel better for both of them. 

When had he grown so attached to her? When had she slipped inside and become part of him?

A hot wind pressed down on them. The flicker of movement in the dried brush around them brought Katsuro back to reality. They were endangering themselves by staying in one place for so long.

“Come on,” he said quietly. Katsuro reached down and curled his fingers around her soft forearms, pulling her hands from her face. Pink blotches crept up her throat. She coughed raggedly and brushed the tears from her cheeks, but the light in her green eyes was gone.

The kunoichi only pushed her lips together and nodded when he said lamely, “We’ve got to keep moving.”

Hollow footsteps and the occasional soft sound of her crying were the only things accompanying them on the trail the rest of the long evening. The sun had slid beyond the farthest ridges, but the heat of the day still hung heavy over them as if trapped under a bowl.

Katsuro silently walked in front of her, cycling through what he knew of her and where she had come from. There were definitely things that bothered him, and he wanted some answers.

“Did your teammate really say those things to you?” Katusuro bit out. “About being useless, and all that?”

“Yeah,” she answered tiredly. “He said a lot more than that.”

Katsuro couldn’t respond. A familiar fury threatened to grind up his insides, but thankfully seeing the men loitering far up the trail took his mind away from his useless anger.

“They’ve stopped up ahead. We’ll stay here for the night,” Katsuro said, pointing to an outcrop of large wind-carved stones at the crest of the ridge. The rocks would provided natural protection, and the position made it easy to watch for unwanted visitors, be it from his group or from roaming thugs not organized into a unit, he thought.

The pair collapsed against the rock, both truly exhausted. 

Katsuro leaned his head back and looked up at the night’s first glimmering stars. But beside him the kunoichi pulled up her knees up and buried her head. She tried to hold off her tired tears, but they came on soon enough.

Katsuro couldn’t take it.

He wanted to reach over and shake her shoulder or ruffle her hair or do something to quiet her muffled sobs. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“I’m going up top to take a look around,” he said brusquely, knowing that there was no need to climb the rock they were leaning against. They’d had a clear view of their surroundings all evening. 

She took no notice. He wasn’t even sure she knew he’d left.

Safely ensconced on the top of the rock, distancing himself from her tears, Katsuro set about scanning the area for any anomalies in the landscape.

But he couldn’t hold his focus for long. He thought back to his unanswered question from the night before. 

Was he just going to hand her over? Walk away and pretend that he didn’t care what happened to her?

No, she didn’t deserve to suffer at Itachi’s or anyone else’s hands. And she didn’t deserve this fate because of Itachi’s rotten younger brother, he thought angrily.

Katsuro made it a point to never look too closely at what happened to the people brought in to camp for information. Up until now, they all seemed to be thugs, men on the shady side of a deal who probably deserved what they got.

But she didn’t. 

Katsuro sat still for a long time, eyes roving the jagged line where the luminous night sky met the ink-black earth. There had not been a single movement. If the desert dwellers had not crawled out of the rocks by this time, then they would probably have an uneventful night, he thought. 

Relaxing his shoulders, Katsuro kicked his legs out in front and leaned back on his elbows. He held his breath and listened for the kunoichi. No noise meant she had finally worn herself out from crying.

Katsuro sighed.

She was worried about what was going to happen. And to be honest, he was worried too. 

He understood how she felt, that you’d never be good enough, that you could be discarded so easily. Yes, he thought bitterly, he knew exactly how she felt, probably better than anyone else. After all, hadn’t Konoha done it to him too? 

If her team didn’t want her, and her village didn’t care, then she had nothing to go back for either. Aside from some lingering loyalty, there was nothing else tying her to that place. 

He started to look at all her options to survive this ordeal. Maybe if she told Itachi everything, and he vouched for her abilities, Itachi would let her stay on with his group. She was far better than any of the usual thugs they rounded up, he thought. And it wouldn’t be the first time they’d recruited a village shinobi…. 

What if she could stay….

Katsuro clasped his hands beneath his head and kicked one foot over the other. He stared up into the night sky, letting his mind wander, thinking about how it would work, how he could convince Itachi. He imagined missions, training and sparring, growing stronger together as partners…as teammates. 

A bright, warm feeling unfurled in his chest. The thought was a spark of hope in the darkness. 

A soft voice came whispering up from below the rock. “Katsuro?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Are you ok? Do you want to switch?” 

Katsuro frowned, then scooted over to the edge, keeping his body low to the warm rock. He hung his head over and looked at her inquisitively. There was enough light from the sliver of moon to see her face. She was waiting for an answer, but he still didn’t know quite what she meant.

“Do you need me to take a watch? So you can get some rest?” 

He couldn’t help but smile. Wasn’t this the answer to his question? He was wondering what it would be like to have her as a teammate, and she already was. It had been right in front of him all along and he just couldn’t see it.

Looking down at her tired face, his mind fell into the slipstream of what he would do for her if he was her teammate. How far would he go? 

He decided there were simply no limits.

Katsuro knew then what he had to do. He had to get her through this mess somehow.

 

“No. We’re safe here. I’m coming down,” he said, and swung his legs over to slide down the steep side of the boulder.

Rucksack in hand, he sat down beside her on the gravel.

“You okay?” he said, looking into her face with open concern.

She shrugged, looking away. Katsuro sighed.

He didn’t want to lie to her, but he wanted to give her hope. He didn’t know how he was going to talk Itachi in to letting her stay with his group, but that’s what he intended to do, he thought firmly.

“We need to rest as much as we can. Tomorrow will be just as hard,” he said softly.

She still didn’t say anything, just hooked her hands in front of her bent knees. He slipped the thin blanket from the bottom of the bag and laid it where her head would lie. He flattened out the top of rucksack on the ground and tried to get as comfortable as possible on the scrap of fabric.

“If you tell him what he wants to hear, I think he’ll let you out of this,” Katsuro said. “Itachi’s not that bad.”

Sakura, however, had a very different opinion. From what she knew of him, there was no way Itachi was going to ‘let her out of this.’ He wasn’t going to let her return home. She didn’t know what Katsuro was thinking. 

She leaned her head back on the blanket-pillow he’d made for her. Looking askance, she could see him rearranging his back pack for maximum comfort. He wouldn’t find any there, she thought.

Sakura frowned into the darkness. Really, what was he doing? Telling her she was going to make it, sacrificing his comfort for hers — why did he go so far for her? 

Sakura sighed. Though she couldn’t believe in it, just offering some hope made her feel better. His kindness made her feel less alone. He had changed in the time she’d known him. At least to her, he had. She couldn’t trust him, not implicitly, but she felt like she had a partner in this mess. Everything about him said it. And for that she was grateful, no matter what happened to her. 

Her life in Konoha was as far away as those stars. But this boy and his little kindnesses were the only things keeping her afloat now. 

A dreadful thought occurred to her: What if she had been caught by one of the men in the group ahead of them? She smothered the mental image and sat up quickly. But thinking of the clear differences between him and his group spurred her to make an impulsive decision.

The kunoichi snatched up the blanket from behind her and refolded it hastily into a long, thin rectangle.

“Lift up,” she said over her shoulder. Katsuro slowly sat up on his elbows. Ignoring the questioning frown on his face, she turned back and quickly shoved the rucksack out of the way, replacing it with the strip of blanket. It was just long enough for them to share now. 

Unable to look at him, not wanting to explain, she quickly laid down on her side, back to Katsuro, and pulled the cloak over her tucked-up legs. She wasn’t cold, it just made her feel safer.

“Th-Thanks,” came his startled voice in the darkness. His elbows slowly slid down and the blanket shifted under the additional weight. 

Sakura closed her eyes, exhaled and tried to rest. He was right, if they were safe now she should conserve her energy. There was no telling what the next day would bring. 

Beside her, Katsuro sighed deeply. 

#######

Morning light streaked across the jagged landscape, and almost immediately the air temperature started to rise. But the group had been up before the sun, picking their way in the cooler, pre-dawn glow. Now she was glad for that early start. Sakura reached a hand under her cloak and pushed the sweaty spikes of hair out of her eyes. Ahead of her, Katsuro adjusted his hood against the sun. She could tell he was beginning to feel the heat too.

Around them the land creased and folded in barren slopes. The farther they went, the less vegetation there was. Pin-leafed shrubs replaced the weather-worn trees, but the bushes grew so close to the ground they provided almost no shade. Even the lizards seemed to have abandoned the land now.

Sakura shielded her eyes at one vantage point, trying desperately to see anything other than endless brown ridges. But there was no break in the pattern. There would be no escaping from here, she thought.

Katsuro stopped and looked back at her, eyes tired but still urging her on. They were both in too deep to stop now, they had to push through. She nodded and fell back into step behind him. Sakura didn’t have the heart look up again. Instead she kept her eyes to the ground and let the sound of Katsuro’s steady footfalls mix in with her own.

Slowly trekking over the unforgiving terrain, the better part of the day crept by in that heavy silence.

“Almost there,” Katsuro rasped finally. He cleared his throat. “Look,” he said, pointing to a thin line of green a few ridges beyond them.

Sakura would have dismissed the out-of-place color as a mirage. She blinked at it, but couldn’t be truly happy. It was still hours away. And though a cool, leafy valley was alluring after this grueling journey, she didn’t want to think about what else might be waiting for her in the shade of those trees. 

If that was their destination, she thought tiredly, she’d just as soon die out here. But her feet carried her on anyway.

They covered more ground, the slice of green bobbing in and out of view behind brown ridge lines, until finally they were upon it. 

Slipping down through rising sandstone rocks, they followed a path to what Sakura thought was the desert floor. But the grey trail wound down even deeper into the rocks, and before she knew it they were following the path in between two sandstone walls. The cool air and blue-grey light in the crevasse was a balm, and Sakura began to revive a bit.

At the end of the narrow channel, crowns of brilliant green trees came into view. 

A deep gorge had been carved into the sandstone, and the thin slice of green she’d caught glimpses of from the ridge top was practically hidden by the surrounding cliffs. 

But what Sakura thought was a single valley, perhaps an oasis in the shade, was really a meandering forest that had sprung up around a desert river. The swath of woodland spread away from them on both sides, the end and beginning hidden by the folding canyon walls. 

Sakura suspected that if this where Katsuro’s group was hidden, then the woods probably went on like this forever in both directions. A newcomer could never find this place twice in a row.

But, she thought, eyes sharpening to scan the area, if there was a river, then it could be her lifeline out of here.

Before leaving the safety of the sandstone cliffs, Katsuro drew the leather binding from his pocket, the one he’d tied up her arms on the beginning of their journey. How differently he felt now, he thought. Face guilty, he held out the thin strap.

The corners of kunoichi’s mouth dropped into a watery frown at the sight of the bindings, but she didn’t resist. 

Silently, she put both hands in front of her, but Katsuro shook his head. 

“No, just one hand. They’ll be watching for us, so you still need to look the part,” he said.

Katsuro wrapped the binding around one wrist and had nearly finished when Sakura felt her arm twisted out a little more than was necessary, exposing her inner arm. She knew the long crescent scar was there, where the skin had been ripped away by the bindings on the way up, forever marring the pale skin below the crease of her elbow. 

Katsuro stopped wrapping, his hand hovered over her wrist. Sakura couldn’t see his face, but his attention was fixed on something. He resumed the wrapping, though, and pushed the extra long tail in the kunoichi’s palm.

“Not too tight, is it?” he asked, looking up into her face, brown eyes holding something more than just passing interest.

Sakura was beginning to understand his ways a little. He had seen her scar. The innocent question, the earnest look — he wanted her to know that he wouldn’t willfully hurt her again. Her expression softened at his pointed concern.

“No, it’s ok. Thanks,” she said softly. 

“Good,” he said with a nod. “Now for mine.” 

Katsuro dug his finger under the collar of the Sand cloak, hooked the front of his face coverings and hitched it up over his nose.

Sakura’s stomach did a somersault, and she had to look away. But she didn’t have long to grapple with the fear that seeing the binding and face coverings dredged up. 

A warm hand covered hers and pried back her tightly gripped fingers. She snapped back to look at his face as he pulled the long tail of the leather binding from her loosening fist. The pleasant crinkle at the corners of his eyes took the edge off her fear. At least she didn’t feel as alone as the first time she did this. 

But she couldn’t ignore the sinking feeling that this might be her only chance to run. They left the shelter of the cliffs, picked their way down the crumbling slope, then walked side by side, crunching across clumps of dead grass that grew at the farthest edge of the valley floor.

Panic gripped her. She had to think, make a plan. She had to delay going into those woods.

“Why the mask now, with your own group, and not the whole way down,” she asked with false lightness. At the same time, she stopped in her tracks. 

He cast a puzzled glance at her and tugged the binding gently. She took a few slow steps as he answered.

“Because it’s more dangerous in here than out there,” he said simply. “Nomads don’t care who you are when they rob you. But there are things more valuable to Itachi and the men he deals with than money,” he said quietly, thinking of his own role in this shadowy world. “The money only keeps everything else going.”

Sakura went numb beside him and slowed to a stop again. Katsuro’s words only deepened her fears. He tugged again on her bindings. She began walking only out of reflex.

“I have nothing that will be of any value to Itachi,” she repeated to herself, as if in a daze. 

Katsuro frowned. He kept going, half-pulling her across the dried grasses.

But the growing certainty that only death waited for her in those woods shook Sakura from the grip of her paralyzing fears. Her feet sunk in the sand between clumps of brown grass. This time she would go no further. 

“I am going to die here!” She jerked back at the bindings, voice growing louder. “I’m not going to be allowed to just walk away. You think I don’t know what Itachi’s capable of?” She flung back her hood. “I’d rather die on my own in the woods than—”

“Stop it,” he said, turning back quickly. ”Just stop. You don’t know anything for certain and neither do I.”

He drew up directly in front of her, never letting go of the binding. His free hand reached past her shoulder and drew the hood back over her head. But instead of letting go of the fabric, he slid his hand down to the collar and pulled her a little closer. 

Eyes darting warily at the cliffs around them, Katsuro leaned his head in to say quietly, “All I know—“ But his voice came out muffled. Jerking the face cover down, he grabbed the outside of her shoulder tightly and began again. 

“All I know,” he whispered fiercely, “is that if you run you will be killed. And there would be nothing I could do to stop it. But if you stay with me and cooperate, then maybe he’ll let you out of this.” 

They were so close the front of his hood grazed hers as he spoke. Sakura’s pale face hovered inside her hood, and he hoped she’d accept, for both their sakes—

“But what if he doesn’t,” she retorted desperately. “What then?” 

Sakura searched his face, but his confidence from the moment before was already slipping. 

“Then, I’ll…. I’ll—” 

But he really didn’t know what he’d do. 

He wanted to fulfill his mission, but he wanted to allay her fears too. It was too much to hope that Itachi would just let her walk away, but he refused to think of the other alternative.

He couldn’t hold her gaze. Sakura took it as confirmation of her worst fears. She started to pull back, deciding in a panic which direction to run—

A cough echoed loudly from the treeline. They both froze. Wind rattled through the dead grasses around them, moving both of their cloaks together. 

Brown hair swayed across Katsuro’s forehead. His eyes locked on hers in the thick silence. He mouthed, “Shh,” but made no sound. 

Sakura held her breath and nodded her head imperceptibly. The need to be self-protective was familiar territory and gave her something to cling to. Fear driven from her face, her green eyes focused on Katsuro’s brown ones with clarity of purpose. 

With a single nod, he withdrew his hand, dragged the concealments back up over his face and turned slowly. 

Waiting there in the shadow of a tree was an older man in brown fatigues. Similar concealments hid his face. 

Katsuro’s shoulders relaxed and he tugged lightly on the leather strap. Sakura knew there was no choice but to follow. As she walked, she watched the man from under the shadow of the hood. 

He was not interested in her however, and kept his eyes only on Katsuro. Sakura registered instantly his body language wasn’t like the others. This man stood rod-straight, but with his hands behind his back, waiting like a soldier. His eyes were half-lidded, almost as if he were irritated with Katsuro—

“It’s about time you showed up.”

Katsuro turned petulant. “Tch. I know the way—“

“Itachi would like for you to take the lower road,” the man said with forced patience. “There are a ‘few things’ in camp that are taking longer than expected.”

It sounded like they were talking in code, and whatever the message was, Katusuro understood it.

He was suddenly obedient. “Hai,” he said, bowing his head once. By the time he raised up, the old man had already disappeared back into the trees.

Still holding the leather binding, Katsuro reeled in the excess length, so that she was quite close to him, their shoulders bumping every so often. 

“Was that your captain?” 

Katsuro didn’t answer.

Sakura set to gleaning as much information as she could from her surroundings. They headed directly to the wide, rock-strewn river. The trail was a natural clearing beside along its flat, winding banks. 

“So…is this a road?” She scanned ahead as she spoke, looking for signs it was leading toward civilization. 

Katsuro was still silent, but when he glanced over and saw her mapping everything, he knew what she was thinking.

“Just don’t run, ok?” he said under his breath, then pushed back his hood.

She slid hers off as well, but didn’t answer.

They followed the ‘road’ for quite a while. Sakura’s gaze darted over the ground as they walked. She was still looking for an escape route, even as she anxiously prepared herself for what she might face at the end of this road. Katsuro’s tight voice startled her—

“Stay close,” he said, fingers grazing her arm.

Two shapes were coming toward them on the trail. The light at their backs silhouetted them, but Sakura thought one might be a pack animal as it walked with such a strange gait.

Beside her Katsuro was on high alert.

He drew the thin leather closer and closer to him, until there was no more left. Then, never taking his eyes from the oncoming travelers, he slid his fingers down the wraps of leather and caught up her hand, crushing it in his own with the wad of binding.

With her arm caught between his elbow and his ribcage, she was locked to him, her bindings effectively hidden from view by his arm and the edge of his cloak. Tucked so close together, the picture they presented was very different from reality.

Sakura quickly decided whoever this was, Katsuro did not trust them. If he thought it was safer to give the impression they were romantically linked, then this was probably not someone she should trust either.

‘Fake it, fake it, fake it,’ she told herself, and pushed her fingers deeper into his grasp. Katsuro tightened his hand at first, thinking she was trying to pull away, but slackened his grip a fraction so she could spread her fingers and wrap her thumb around the back of his hand. The bindings were completely hidden between their two palms.

He gave her hand a quick squeeze, but it didn’t register with Sakura. Her eyes were transfixed on the two men that were coming into clearer view.

One was tall with deceptively serene features. A blond ponytail fluttered over his shoulder as he fixed his attention on the girl. Laughing blue eyes took in her whole figure, and he flipped a lock of sunny hair back from his face to flash her an arrogant smile. He looked as if he could have just come from a village festival instead of a den of thieves. To Sakura, that swaggering alone meant he was either very stupid or very powerful. 

But his traveling partner, the one she had mistaken for an animal, sent a real tremor of fear through her.

His figure was nearly doubled over when compared to the man beside him. Only a few shocks of bristled black hair streaked over his scalp, and his face was partially hidden by a ragged triangle of fabric. He swiveled his head and fixed cruel black eyes on her.

But something was horribly wrong with him, and Sakura couldn’t tear her eyes away. 

As he approached, she could hear a faint rattle and clack that kept time with his lurching gate. Sakura thought it sounded like his bones moving. 

The long red and black cloak that swirled elegantly around the blond was draped across the hunched man like a tablecloth. It tipped off at odd angles as he moved closer, and the whole back of it dragged on the ground, leaving a half-moon trail sidewinding in its wake. 

Intuition caused the hairs on the back of her neck to prickle up. These men were predators. And she still wasn’t sure the hunched man was fully human.

“I told you this was the right path to leave by, Sasori no danna,” the blond man said with a smooth laugh. “Sometimes you have to go to extra lengths for something interesting. Of course Itachi would try to throw us off.” He said Itachi’s name as if he had something against him.

The other man, Sasori, snapped at the taller one. “Shut up, you fool,” he growled deeply. 

Both parties were silent as they walked the last few paces to their inevitable meeting on the path.

Katsuro grasped her hand tightly and Sakura schooled her features, hiding her fear behind a look of disinterest. 

They came within a few feet of the other men, and Katsuro stepped to one side of the path, pushing the kunoichi to the outside. He nodded deferentially and made to pass them, when the blond man snorted.

“Here we’ve come all this way to see you. And this is the greeting we get?” He spoke to Katsuro, but his attention was already shifting to the girl.

Katsuro stepped forward to continue walking, edging the kunoichi up slightly in front of him, but the one called Sasori was quicker.

Sakura couldn’t keep her eyes from going wide when a long skeleton tail whipped out from underneath the cloak, arced into the air and held its flicking end just off the ground in front of her. The whole thing clattered softly as it moved. Sakura’s stomach tightened reflexively.

If they wanted them to stop, then they succeeded. She and Katsuro were boxed in. 

Beside her, she heard Katsuro say cooly to the blond, “May I help you with something?” 

But the man only curled his lip into a mean smile. He leaned his head to the side, letting the breeze lift the long tendrils away from his face.

“Who is your friend?” he drawled, looking around Katsuro trying to glimpse the kunoichi he had tucked under his arm.

Sakura knew she couldn’t hide. She needed to respond. She thought of the things he’d told her, how she should react in this situation: Don’t be afraid, even if you feel it. Hide it. This isn’t a test or a class. There is no pass or fail. This is survival.

She couldn’t fight her way out, but she could fake it.

Sakura took a half step forward from out of his shadow and mimicked Katsuro’s disdainful attitude. She set her chin and squared her shoulders. If she was terrified inside, then it didn’t show on the surface.

“You have remarkable hair, my dear,” the blond said, raising an eyebrow with interest as he settled his gaze on her. 

Katsuro tightened his hand over hers. Only her medical training told her the temperature of the body she was pressed tightly against had spiked just then.

But Sakura refused to be flustered. Taking her cue from Katsuro, she nodded deferentially to the blond man as well, never taking her eyes off his blue ones. If Katsuro did it, she thought, then maybe playing along would get them out of this quicker.

But Sasori had been scrutinizing the girl while she was preoccupied with his partner. He noticed early on that she did not leave Katsuro’s side. And when she did move, Katsuro’s cloak moved with her. With her last shift of weight, the fabric gaped for a moment, giving the hunched man a clear view of the out-of-place leather wrapping up her arm.

“I think all is not as it seems,” he grunted. The blond shifted his gaze to his partner and waited with mild curiosity.

Sasori wielded his tail like a scorpion. It reared back and struck in a blur at the ground beneath the kunoichi. 

Sakura leapt straight into the air with a gasp, exposing the binding on her arm and knocking their cloaks away from both of them.

A sizable gouge was left where moments before her feet had been.

But Katsuro used the distraction to his advantage. No more need to hide, he let go of her hand and turned to face both opponents, pushing the kunoichi behind him. He dropped into his fighting stance and threw up a hand sign, watching both men to see who would strike next.

Wasting no time, Sakura sunk down into a defensive position as her feet touched the ground. Bending her knees, she pushed her foot closest to Katsuro, sliding up firmly behind his heel. Using a textbook position to guard Katsuro’s back, Sakura angled her body to his so that they formed a loose, inverted “V” shape, and set her sights on Sasori. 

Between them, the binding whipped free from her wrist, the long tail dangling down to their knees. But it didn’t matter if these men saw it now. Sakura knew this was the flip side of faking it — when there was no way out but to fight through. And she was ready.

The blond threw his head back and laughed. Sasori flicked his tail menacingly at them a few more times before he retracted it. But it still hovered at the ready, its hollow knocking sound filling the air.

“That’s more like it,” the blond man said, still chuckling. “Don’t worry, we aren’t interested in your little…” he said, eying her bindings with a half smile, “hostage?” 

He rolled his fingers nonchalantly when he was sure he had the kunoichi’s attention, and Sakura was horrified to see a matching smile shining back at her from the middle of his palm.

“So,” Sasori grunted, “this is Itachi’s contact?” The rest of his clattering tail slid back under his cloak. “I would have given him more credit than that.” He stepped back slowly and resumed his lumbering walk up the path. He came to a halt behind partner, waiting.

Sakura glanced back at the arrogant blond, hoping he would follow suit, but she caught sight of the grotesque mouth laughing at her from the middle of his hand. A pink tongue slipped out and glossed the lips before the whole thing curled into a malicious smile. Ripples of fear coursed up Sakura’s midsection.

“Is there something I can help you with, Deidara-sama,” Katsuro growled when he didn’t fall back with his partner. 

“You have to ask?” the blond drawled, slipping his hand down to his side, reaching for something hidden under his cloak. 

“Deidara,” Sasori said sharply and flicked his tail back out around the blond. It hung in the air threateningly between the two parties, and Sakura wasn’t sure who the target was. 

“We have made our agreement, and you must comply,” he said sternly. 

“You don’t have to remind me, Sasori no danna,” Deidara grumbled, turning a shoulder petulantly at the hovering point of the tail. Sasori obviously thought this was a sufficient enough response. He withdrew the appendage with a long slow clatter and began moving again, this time not bothering to wait for his companion. 

Sakura thought this must be the end of their standoff.

But before Katsuro could back away, Deidara leaned close to issue another threat.

“You won’t always be under his wing, Katsuro,” he whispered harshly, his mouth curling now into a mean sneer.

The smooth lines of his face vanished. The cold blue eyes were unnaturally wide now, greedily devouring Katsuro as if he were a long-sought possession. Deidara ground his teeth, a small muscle at his jaw jerked against the tension, and he curled both hands into loose fists at his sides. Sakura wondered with disgust if he might have a mouth in both hands.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Katsuro said lowly, his own hands balled tightly.

In an instant, though, the blond’s bloodthirsty expression was gone, replaced by studied nonchalance. 

“Oh I don’t?” he laughed carelessly as he turned to follow his partner. “Well, we’ll see about that,” he said back over his shoulder with a laugh.

Katsuro turned to watch them go, still keeping the kunoichi safely behind him. Sakura didn’t know what he was waiting for.

“Goodbye, pink-haired friend,” Deidara said breezily to the trees. 

“Come on,” Katsuro whispered beside her when the men were a safe distance away. Katsuro turned and she automatically reacted to his urgency. They were already hurrying down the path when Sakura realized it was his hand in hers that was guiding her, the leather binding bouncing free around both their fingers. But there was no time to reflect on it.

A sickly pale creature fluttered past her shoulder to hover on the trail in front of her. It looked like a ghost of a butterfly, all its beauty and color had been stripped away. But there was something unnatural in its movements, as if it was looking for something…or someone.

“Oh no,” Katsuro gasped. Suddenly, he pushed all his weight into her, diving into the safety of the tree line and forcing her down with him. Before they even hit the ground, the path and trees were rocked by a fireball explosion in midair. 

Sakura’s eyes were wide with the reflection of red flames. A few charred branches fell from some of the trees, and birds were scattering everywhere. Cruel laughter floated back up the path.

“You ok?” he said quietly, scanning the area.

“Yeah,” she said. Both stood quickly. “That butterfly was…”

Katsuro nodded and filled in what she suspected. 

“A bomb,” he said. “I think that was the only one, though.”

She gasped. “Was he trying to kill you?” 

“No,” Katsuro muttered, as brushed leaves off his cloak. “He was just screwing around. If he wanted to kill us, we’d be dead already.”

They skirted the blackened chunk of path and continued on in silence. 

She had the binding clutched in her hand to keep it from dragging, and he no longer felt the need to hold on to her tightly. Now she knew why he’d said not to run, she thought wryly, why he’d said it was more dangerous in here than it was out there. 

They continued on in the same close proximity as before, shoulders nearly touching, cloaks brushing up against each other. Katsuro was tense. Sakura meditated on the skill required to create a perfectly functional bomb like that. No small feat. No wonder….

“The cloak,” she said quietly, “it matched Itachi’s. Are they in the same group….” her voice thinned. But the answer sunk like a stone. Akatsuki. 

Katsuro was silent. She looked to the side, studying his face. Finally he said, haltingly, “Don’t think too much about what you see here, ok?”

She frowned. Sakura had a feeling he wasn’t being purposefully cagey, but giving her an honest warning. There was danger in knowing too much.

“Well, what about them,” she ventured, nodding back down the path. “Were they enemies of yours?” She wasn’t even sure he would respond.

“No. They are allies,” Katsuro said, driving the point home. He cut his eyes at her quickly. “But you did good. Really good.”

He stretched his fingers out to graze the back of her hand. Katsuro couldn’t resist reaching out to her, reassuring her, as she had done for him the night in the temple. She was definitely scared, and though he knew it wasn’t safe to tell her, he was going to do everything he could to get her through this.

Rough fingertips had only just touched her skin when voices ahead drew both their attention. 

Katsuro felt her breath hitch beside him. He curled his hand back under his cloak, but did not step away from her.

The same older man from before stepped out on the trail ahead of them. 

Sakura looked at him with interest, but as soon as her eyes met his, he turned his face away. 

“Katsuro,” the man said gruffly, “Itachi-sama wants to see the prisoner immediately.”

Katsuro was quiet. Sakura held her breath. Neither moved.

“Katsuro!” the man shouted in irritation.

“Hai, taichou,” he muttered finally.

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