Take It Or Leave It

XII.

O O O

Sorry for the lack of updates. Life has been stressful.

O O O

In a way, her wish came partially true.

When Sakura woke up the next morning, the house was eerily quiet. For a moment—one that was delightful and horrible all at the same time—she thought that everything had been a dream. There were no Akatsuki living in her house, and she was back at her tiny apartment, safe and warm. This was, of course, all before she opened her eyes.

When she did open her eyes, however, the wood panel ceiling, much different from her apartment’s outdated, off-white stucco, gave everything away. Perhaps, then, the Akatsuki had disappeared…

Not really believing it herself, she lurched out of bed, bare feet on the cold wood, and tiptoed into the bathroom. It was untouched. Surely this was evidence that she lived alone. After her bathroom dailies she took a trip into the kitchen, where there was still no sign of any of her possibly non-existent roommates. She dragged down the toaster from an overhead cupboard and located the butter among the mass of take-out leftovers in the fridge. The bread was missing, though, and directly preceding a thorough inspection, she found the empty bread bag in the garbage can, along with a trail of tiny crumbs leading in the general direction of the living room.

There, she discovered Deidara and Itachi, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and sipping hot tea. They were oddly silent, and the longer she stood within their peripheral vision, she noticed, the harder they pretended not to notice her.

“Who died?” she joked, and then instantly regretted it. Neither of them answered, and she suddenly felt very sick. “Guys?”

“We have news,” Itachi answered smoothly, as smooth as the green tea in his mug, and he took a careful, calculated bite of his sandwich. He ate like a bird and chewed as if he had all the time in the world. He took another drink of tea before continuing. “Two of your nestlings have gone missing.”

“Who?” She wasn’t in the mood for cryptic speaking. She was still in her pajamas, and the day had already gone sour.

“Zetsu and Tobi,” Deidara answered, though his voice cracked a bit, and he cleared his throat. “They left late last night.”

“How? I mean, the curse—”

“They simply left. They didn’t return, and when we looked, there was no sign of them anywhere.”

She wasn’t sure who had spoken right then. All she knew was that her mouth was dry and her extremities were numb, from cold or shock she didn’t know, and every ounce of knowledge she’d accumulated through her years did absolutely fuck-all of good at the moment. Her lips cracked painfully and turned down into a frown. Tears, why were there tears? “How did they…just up and leave?”

Itachi sighed and set down his tea and sandwich on the crude coffee table of upturned boxes before him. Deidara had long ago finished his sandwich, but he kept his tea clenched tightly in his hands. “They found a way to break the curse,” Itachi said solemnly, and leaned back into the couch. “Obviously.”

“That doesn’t make any—”

“Just let him finish, yeah,” Deidara interrupted, but there was no hint of malice or reprimand in his voice. Just a deep-seated undertone of betrayal.

“Tobi was outside, and was caught in the rain. For some reason, the transformation did not take place. As soon as he realized, Zetsu quickly followed suit and the both of them left without a word to the others. Apparently this was planned, because neither of them seemed surprised at all.” He paused here, and Sakura dove at the chance.

“How do you know this?”

“Kakuzu saw.”

“He saw Tobi leave and didn’t say anything?”

“He saw the latter half of events. He followed Zetsu out into the yard, presumably out of distrust, and watched the exchange take place.”

“What exchange?”

“Tobi appeared from the forest and spoke to Zetsu. After Zetsu had lured him onto the property and calmed him down considerably, he told Zetsu what had happened. Zetsu was able to conclude that some event—we don’t know what—caused a break from the curse. From there, Kakuzu returned to relate the news to us, and Zetsu hasn’t been seen since. He’s likely followed the same course of action as Tobi.”

“All of this time,” Deidara finally said, squeezing the mug in his hands, “we’ve been trying to survive, keeping each other alive because we knew if one of us figured it out, we’d all get out.”

“When in reality,” Itachi finished, “they were in it for themselves the whole time. Frankly, it doesn’t surprise me, considering who they really are.”

Sakura’s head was swimming. She sat down beside Itachi, unfazed by his normally daunting presence, and put her fingers to her temples. “So that’s exactly what happened?”

“From what Kakuzu has told us, yes. We have no reason to doubt him.”

She laughed, somewhat bitterly. “All of those times I’d wanted you all to just disappear…I don’t even know what to think now.”

A ghost of a smile graced Itachi’s lips, somber-like, until it blossomed into something wholly uncharacteristic of the Itachi that Sakura had grown to know. “It’s unsettling to learn that someone you may have trusted, even in the tiniest amount, has manipulated and used you to their own gain.”

“Why did they leave you all behind?” she asked, taking Itachi’s tea from the box-table and taking a drink. Her nose twitched at the overabundance of honey he’d poured into it. Itachi gave her a disapproving look and surrendered his tea to the hands of his makeshift caretaker.

“A lack of trust, perhaps. Zetsu and Tobi had always been the black sheep of the Akatsuki, so to speak, and had almost always banded together. They were both enigmas in their own rights, even to our…leader.”

“Do you think they’ll come back to attack you? Or me?”

“No,” Deidara answered for him, watching Sakura drink Itachi’s tea. “They won’t have anything to do with us anymore. It would be dangerous for them to return here for you, and it’s a wonder how or even if they got past Konoha’s gates at all. Whether or not they’ll become a more general threat in the future is still in flux, yeah. We can’t know for sure.”

After finishing off Itachi’s too-sweet tea, Sakura sat comfortably sunk into the sofa and mulled over her raging thoughts. The emotional shock was devastating, and it blocked any and all immediate emotions, leaving her with a directionless numb.

Deidara and Itachi eventually made their leave, disappearing into the back rooms, and Kisame walked right past her some time later. Whether he knew she was there or not was irrelevant, because he got a glass of milk from the kitchen and retreated to the back of the house. Hidan, evident by his loud, caustic ranting about how fucked up the definition of loyalty and devotion had become, came out to use her bathroom and presumably her toothbrush, and then left. Only Kakuzu made an attempt to placate her, and he did so by sitting on the floor in front of the couch, directly next to her. Testing her luck and hoping he wouldn’t react negatively, she reached out and played with his hair.

It was thick, but soft, and she twirled it absently around her finger. Soon she was threading her entire hand into his hair, and he was leaning into her touch, closing his eyes, and as she was drifting off to sleep, she thought he might have taken her hand in his for a brief moment. But pre-slumber delirium had taken a hold of Sakura before, and so she had her uncertainties about this. She napped through the morning and into the evening, despite her full night of sleep, where she promptly rose, made dinner for the boys, bid them a gentle, sad adieu, and then retired to her bedroom and into her unmade bed.

The next morning, before the sun came up, Sakura awoke. At the moment of awakening, the thought concretely registered: Zetsu and Tobi were gone, having disappeared into yesterday’s early morning gloom. No one came into her room and shook her gently, or not-so-gently, in the case of Hidan, like they usually did. And it was still deathly quiet, but she knew this time what was and wasn’t a dream. She simply got up like she always did, went into the kitchen after completing her morning rituals, ate her breakfast and made something for the men, and waited for something to happen all day. A sinking feeling dominated her solar plexus with an unusually strong grip, and when the two most furtive Akatsuki failed to show up that night or even the next morning, she knew she’d likely not see either of them for a long time, if ever again.

She couldn’t quite make up her mind whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.

They’d both betrayed her and the Akatsuki, but especially Zetsu. He had grown on her, in mysterious and dangerous and pleasant ways, despite his brashness and his split personalities and his penchant for secret-keeping and jealousy. It hurt, though, to know that it was all an act. He was putting on a play, using her, toying with her, for his own gains. Had she even known his real personality, then? He’d cycled through so many of them that she could hardly recall which was dominant. What was he like when he was being himself? He said he was being himself around her, but it was all a façade. A cheap mockery of the type of man she naturally gravitated to. Was that why he reminded her of Naruto so much?

This was why girls never fell in love with criminals and made it work. They were all criminals for a reason, usually. And when that wasn’t the case, they never got the girl, or only one or neither survived. Villains didn’t get happy endings.

She missed Naruto terribly.

After the facts were laid out and discussed, no one cried, not even a sigh. After all, wasn’t this a good thing? No more complicated issues now that the root cause of most conflicts was gone, along with his frightening sidekick. The question raised, though, was who fit which description better? Here lately, Sakura hadn’t been so sure. And three days after they disappeared, she still wondered who the ringleader was in the Zetsu-Tobi tryst.

Yes, it was a good thing; she finally convinced herself of it. A week after the incident, with still no talks of how to solve their kitten problem now that they had most of the jigsaw pieces for the ultimate solution, Kakuzu seemed as lighthearted as a sociopath could possibly be. Itachi seemed more relaxed than Sakura had ever known he could be, Deidara periodically crossed his arms over his chest and renounced himself to a weary satisfaction, and the other two—Kisame and Hidan—returned to normal.

So why did she find herself crying in her room during that week-after period? And, dear God, why did Hidan have to be the one to find her, of all people? She was sitting on her futon, letting tears come swift and natural, ignoring the building headache and hating the world and everyone in it, when—

“Hey bitch, make me a sandwich. Heh, kidding. Not really. I’m honestly starv—whoa. The hell’s wrong with you?”

He barged in without knocking, as usual. But by now Sakura hadn’t expected any different, and quite honestly, she wouldn’t have liked it any other way.

“Nothing, Hidan.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t give me that. I may not be the fucking woman doctor, but I know that’s a red light for ‘Tell me lies about my figure, I’m depressed as hell right now.’ Am I right, or what?”

“Oh, fuck off.” She sniffed and wiped at the tears angrily.

“Your breasts are perfectly symmetrical.”

“Go away.”

Hidan strutted over to the futon and threw himself upon it, knocking his hand against her back on the way down by mistake.

“Or I could not go away.”

Sakura sniffed again. Maybe if she ignored him with all her might, he would disappear. She concentrated very, very hard on the idea that he did not, in fact, just walk two fingers up her spine to tickle her neck fondly.

“So anyway, I hope you’re not crying over those bastards. Tobi was a closet sociopath and Zetsu was a trick. We’re not missing out, seriously.” He walked his fingers right down her spine, to the base, down further, to the curve of her butt, between her thighs, and when she didn’t protest, he sat straight up. “Whoa, this is about Zetsu, isn’t it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Yes, it is. Don’t give me that fucking look. As soon as I said his name, you were like, bam. Instant depression trigger. You know, he probably saw you as a cheap fuck and a free meal this whole time. He’s like that with people. Manipulative and all that shit.”

Sakura coughed lightly, but she turned at the waist to stare incredulously at the silver-haired man. “What do you mean?”

Hidan blinked and raised an eyebrow, as though surprised she was listening. “Oh, you know, he would sidle up to people, do the whole, ‘I speak with perfect grammar now I don’t I’m your best friend oh here’s my other personality what’re you gonna do’ thing, right?”

Sakura stifled a giggle, and Hidan smirked, lying back down beside her and trailing his fingers lightly up her side, counting her ribs under his breath. It was oddly affectionate, even for someone like Hidan.

“You’re kind of right, Hidan.” She returned her lazy gaze toward the window again. “But, you know, this whole week I’ve been secretly hoping one of you would come in here and say something like that. I just need the reassurance sometimes, and you all knew him ten times better than I did.” She sighed heavily through her nose. “I don’t even know why I’m even telling you that, to be honest.”

“I knew it. You love me.”

“You wish. But seriously, it’s this conflict I’ve been having with myself for a long time.”

He rolled onto his back with a heavy sigh. “Oh, jeeze. Here it comes.”

“No, no, listen. It’s like—I want to be independent. I don’t want to be the damsel in distress. That’s the whole reason I got my training in the first place. But then…I want to be saved. I want some guy to swoop in and carry me away like in the stories. I just can’t decide what I want more, so I end up like this, in a place where no one can reach me and I can’t even save myself.”

He tugged her hair, and she batted his hand away. “Hidan, are you even listening?”

“Did I have a choice in the matter?” At her frigid expression, he changed his tone. “That’s depressing, shit. Stop tearing yourself down like a bitch.”

“I suppose it is very bitch-like behavior,” she said sarcastically, resting her chin in her palm.

“So who did you want to rescue you the most?”

“Don’t even go there.”

“All right, all right.” He sat up again, restless as always, and crossed his arms. “But seriously, let me tell you something about Zetsu.”

“Shoot.”

“He eats dead bodies. Most likely he’d just fuck you until he had his fill, and then eat you alive from your toes up.” He found no applause at this. “See? You know what I mean. Oh, don’t look at me like that. Fuck, I hate emotional women. Well, sort of. Damn.”

Sakura burst out laughing. “That was a mental picture I could’ve gone without having. But…oh, damn, I’m crying again.” A noise shuffled her out of her thoughts. “Hey, did you hear that?”

Hidan glanced at the sliding door.

“Yeah, everyone’s been listening this whole time. What did you expect?”

“Goddammit. Go away.”

Predictably, she didn’t hear a single sound, most likely indicating that everyone’s ears were still up against the door. Well, probably not. They were probably just standing there shamelessly eavesdropping in the most sophisticated way possible.

“Oh, well,” she ground out. “I don’t even care.”

“Anyway,” Hidan continued, “as you can see, I’m the only one who matters. I obviously deserve better treatment than what I’ve been getting, as I was the sole instigator to find out what the hell your problem was. They’re all standing there not doing a damn thing. Watch: Hey, Kakuzu!” There was a long pause. “See, not even Kakuzu’s going to do anything, that dumb fuck. He’s just sitting over there on the other side of the door, staring. Probably he’s enjoying your suffering. Seriously, when I worked with him, he—oh jeeze, are you crying again? Knock it off. That’s what Zetsu fucking wants you to do. He’d probably come in his pants if he saw you right now. Tobi too, maybe. At the same time. No joke. They’re both freaks and heathens.” He searched her face and tried on an interesting array of confused, lost expressions. “So, uh, yeah. Can you make me a sandwich now? I’m fucking hungry. Don’t get your disgusting snot on it.”

Sakura sniffed one last time, and resolved to quit this abominable blubbering at once. It was rather embarrassing. “Thanks for talking to me, Hidan. That was nice, even if it came from you.”

He pushed up from the futon and sauntered from the room as quickly as he’d arrived. “See, I knew you fucking liked me. I’m just a likable person.”

Sakura thought she heard a sarcastic mutter from Deidara when Hidan slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him as an afterthought.

O O O

Kisame was the next to disappear, and Sakura found his departure startlingly effective in its relentless assault on her emotional state. She walked into the kitchen the next morning and found the ex-Mist nin and Kakuzu discussing something in hushed tones, a conversation that quickly ended when she cautiously moved in their direction.

It did strike her as odd that the two would suddenly find an interest in one another to the point of intense dialogue, and, in retrospect, she wondered why she didn’t confront the two of them then and there for no other reason than it looked suspicious. Itachi’s irritation at their display seen from the living room seemed odd as well, as though he knew strange events unfolded among dry, used coffee grounds and the nervous folding of arms.

Kisame went out “to scout the perimeter” later that night.

He did not return.

Three in a little over a week, Sakura mused somberly from her perch on the kitchen countertop in the soft lights of early dawn. She had stayed up all night waiting for the man to return, but so far, her patience had been in vain. And some part of her knew with all certainty that he really wasn’t going to come back. And really, most disturbingly, she wasn’t sad like she was with Zetsu and Tobi. She was just so angry and so very, very confused. She’d helped them all so much, sacrificed everything she could touch and more, just for them. And look how they repaid her.

I should’ve known the second he mumbled out that lame excuse for leaving the house. Now that I remember, it’s not like he looked for me in the house to let me know he was going. He was halfway out to the edge of the path when I yelled at him out the window.

Sakura began to shift her legs up and down, rubbing her inner thighs together in an absent-minded fashion. Her cotton pajama pants rustled together softly.

It had to be something to do with Kakuzu, right? They were talking, him and Kisame…and then Kisame disappears. That has to be related. And Itachi felt like something was wrong, I think… Am I overthinking this? Ugh.

Kakuzu stepped into Sakura’s peripheral vision not a moment later. Something deep in her stomach did a turn. She felt nervous for reasons she couldn’t quite pinpoint. What would he say? What would shesay? What could either of them say?

Paused in an all-too-familiar moment of reflection, the man eyed Sakura the way one might appraise a fine painting before making the purchase. The weight of his gaze bore down on her like a stifling fog, and she felt suddenly aware of the distances between them. This shinobi had killed leaders of countries for their power and attained it, had lived for ages compared to her own clumsy ascent into adulthood.

Who was she to think this man meant anything to her, and she to him? Why did she place her attention on him as though she acted the impertinent child expecting the world to conform to her beliefs? All of the careful, backhanded touching, the wanton talks, the feel of her fingers in his hair and his eyes on her lips and his chakra spinning languid, heavy circles around her body felt like something concocted from the corners of her yet-girlish imagination. Realizations like this felt unwelcome at any time, but especially now they hit hard. She had no doubt she would feel them again, and she felt her spirits wilt to a new, startling low.

The moment passed, and Kakuzu moved to stand before the window atop the sink. He gazed unseeing at the sprawling forest beyond and remarked to Sakura, regarding her out of the corner of his eye, “So, the Mist shinobi has vanished. And you sit here unaffected. That tells me one of two things: either that you didn’t like him all that much, or the more likely one, that you fully expected it.” He turned away from her, so that Sakura could no longer see even his profile. “He seemed quite interested in Tobi and Zetsu’s escape, you know. Was almost obsessive over it yesterday. But for some reason, he didn’t want to talk about it to anyone else. How selfish.”

She watched the muscles in his back, apparent through the thin shirt that he wore. He was stiff. He was angry.

He turned his burning stare to her again, and Sakura felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Mercifully, be broke the contact within seconds, and she sensed a previously ignored tension in the air vanish without a sound.

“I guess we’ll be making our own breakfast, then. You don’t seem…up to it.”

She watched him turn and leave as quickly as he’d appeared.

O O O

In the same way it had come together, so too did it fall apart.

Quickly, unabashedly, and without notice, her covert family dispersed. First Tobi and Zetsu, and then Kisame, and now Deidara. He’d taken leave in broad daylight, while Sakura and the others had been occupied by their own doings. She wasn’t sure exactly when, but she knew it was sometime between breakfast and five o’clock in the evening. He left no apology, no thank you, and no evidence that he’d even been there at all. He’d simply disappeared into thin air.

She cooked dinner that night, much smaller than she’d become accustomed to, and laid places at the cardboard box table for four people. Kakuzu and Hidan flanked her, oddly silent, and Itachi sat across from her, not lifting his eyes from his food. The dull clink of silverware against ceramic plates acted in lieu of the usual supper conversation.

When finished, Itachi stood, taking his dishes to the sink. He washed them, dried them, and put them away, and then walked down the hallway toward his barren room.

When his footsteps stopped, Sakura looked up.

Back facing her, he turned his head slightly, so that she could see a hint of his profile behind a curtain of hair. This was more than enough warning for her. Itachi was going to leave tonight.

Hidan muttered “Good riddance…” under his breath, and Sakura elbowed him softly.

When all of her ward, these cat criminals, feline felons, had slipped off to do their own bidding, be it staying another night, leaving her behind without so much as a goodbye, or just plain sleeping, she lie awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was unnaturally cold that night, and she kept the blankets tucked to her chin. She told herself that she just couldn’t seem to fall asleep, but in reality, she was straining her ears for the sound of one of them leaving. Oh, she’d catch them this time, and demand an explanation, or maybe just stare at them forlornly as they darted across her back lawn and into the forest. Then she’d bite her lip and choke back tears and shout “Coward!” after them. Yes, that seemed about right.

The sound she was waiting for did, indeed, come. A faint rustling, and then footsteps down the hall. It was obvious to her who it was even if Itachi hadn’t given her prior warning that evening. His light, steady footfalls gave him away just as much as his chakra signature would have.

She watched his shadow pass across the crack in her door, and then the footsteps stopped. The shadow, stretched thin by the far-off hallway light, remained unmoving, draped across the entry to her room. She realized then that she had been holding her breath, and when she let it out slowly, her door pushed open.

Itachi stood there, imposing and regal even as strands of hair half covered his face, even as his hand lingered hesitantly on her doorknob. She sat up in her bed, and he took a small step into her bedroom.

“Itachi?” As if she needed confirmation anyway. She saw him nod, though, and take another step. “I thought you would have been gone by now.” Her voice was quieter than she meant for it to be.

He pushed the door against the doorframe, but didn’t fully close it. “That wouldn’t be polite of me.”

She shook her head. “I just thought you might take cues from the others. None of them said goodbye either, you know.”

“Neither did they thank you.” He stood very near her bed, now, dressed in black from head to toe. She wondered idly where he’d found the light coat, but didn’t question him.

“I suppose that’s why you’re here now? To say goodbye and to say thank you?”

To this he gave her no answer. He was the most silent man that she knew. She could hear absolutely no noise from him—not his breathing, not the shifting of clothes, nothing. If she tried hard enough, though, she could probably hear either his heartbeat or hers. She decided she didn’t want to try.

The swell of depression returned, folding around her like a too-heavy blanket. She stood so that she was directly in front of him, bare feet cold against the hardwood floor. She could only barely discern his facial features, but she assumed that his expression was the same as it always was. Stoic and cold. Passionless.

Swallowing and drumming up a veritable handful of courage, she wrapped her arms around his torso. Itachi, seemingly unfazed, did nothing. Sakura tightened her grip, then, assured, and pushed her face into his chest.

“It was fun,” she mumbled into the fabric of his coat. It was only halfway the truth, but half was better than none.

Itachi put a hand on her shoulder, maybe as a bid to end the impromptu embrace. Sakura certainly did, feeling more embarrassed by the second.

“I appreciate what you’ve done,” Itachi said in a low tone. “Kisame and Deidara did, as well, though they didn’t have the presence to tell you so.”

She smiled wanly at the floor, nothing his purposeful omission of Tobi and Zetsu. “I…I figured that was the case. It’s just nice to hear some confirmation. But…how did you know that the curse had been broken? And how…?”

Itachi said nothing for a while. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he began to back toward her door. “It isn’t safe for any of us to remain or return. Your village leaders will realize our presence soon enough, if they haven’t already.”

“Okay.” She sounded feeble and weak, and she hated it. But by the time she’d steeled herself to bite out a goodbye, he was already gone, leaving her room exactly the same as when he’d first stopped in the hall.

Sakura crawled into bed and willed herself to fall asleep.