Day Five ~ Exchange

The bar grew dead silent.

All eyes were focused on Sasori. Pure killing intent rolled off of him in waves, and his fingers flexed as if in preparation for an attack. Sakura chuckled nervously. "Hey there, Sasori. Um…Come here often?"

Deidara sighed at her antics. He warned her, did he not? Now Sasori was going to slaughter them both. Sasori didn't appear the least bit amused by her comment - If anything, it only served to anger him further. "Deidara. Did I not tell you to stay in the room?" Sasori's voice was colder than a winter blizzard, and it took a conscious effort to keep himself from shivering.

Sakura - still slung over the shoulder of a drunken thug - was quick to add her own two cents. "Yeah, you tell him, Sasori! I told him playing poker was a bad idea!"

Deidara could only gape. Surely, Sasori wouldn't believe her lies! "Be quiet." Sasori hissed at their wayward captive. "How about you come over her and make me, puppet?" She challenged. His eyes narrowed dangerously. In the blink of an eye, Sasori vanished from the doorway and reappeared in front of the muscular ruffian.

His lightening fast movements seemed to awaken the big brute from his stupor, and he stumbled backwards on impulse. Sakura released an undignified squeak at the sudden movement. "Whoa there, buddy - You got a passenger on board!" The burly thug ignored her, and instead began to bark madly in Sasori's impassive face.

"You better watch where the hell you're-" His sentence was promptly cut off by a poisoned needle burrowing itself into the dead center of his forehead. As his body began to tip backwards, Sasori employed his chakra strings to retrieve the wily blossom from over his shoulder.

Once she was nestled into the arms of her captor, Sakura didn't hesitate to snuggle right up against his chest. "I always knew you harbored secret romantic feelings for me, Sasori." She giggled, smiling up at him innocently. He glowered down at her, clearly not in the mood for her tomfoolery.

The remaining goons erupted into cries of outrage over the death of their leader. They charged at Sasori with the full intention of bringing him down, but he easily immobilized them with a few accurately placed needles. They slumped to the floor in a dead heap. Sakura clucked her tongue at his complete lack of mercy.

"That's what happens when you go around trying to rape innocent ladies like myself." She wagged a reprimanding finger at the dead bodies.

"You propositioned them, remember?" Deidara deadpanned, folding his arms across his broad chest. "I know not of what you speak." She sniffed. Sasori increased the power of his glare until she could feel it melting a hole straight through her skull. Without a single word passing through his lips, he turned and walked out of the smoky bar. Sakura squirmed in his arms, starting to grow anxious over his continued silence.

"I'm super duper sorry, Sasori. I really didn't mean to seduce those hooligans with my hot body, but sometimes it just can't be controlled!" She whined. Sasori didn't answer her, and continued to walk right through the front doors of the hotel lobby. Once he stood just outside the hotel entrance, he stopped moving.

"Oh, sweet mother of God. You're about to murder me, aren't you?" She sniffled dramatically. "There were so many things I wanted to do! I still haven't tried ecstasy, or made sweet lovin' down by the fire, or traveled through time, or written a gay erotica novel, or kicked Sasuke right in the balls, or skipped through a meadow in slow motion! For the love of God, have some mercy!" Sakura blinked up at Sasori with large orbs of watery emerald, hoping to insight some form of sympathy in the emotionless puppet bastard.

"Are you certain this girl isn't mentally imbalanced?" Sakura blinked at the sound of a gravelly voice. She swiveled her head in the direction in which the foreign voice originated from, and was utterly stunned at what she discovered. A sharp gasp escaped her.

"Sasori, look out! It's come to eat our souls!" She squealed. Kakuzu gave her a thoroughly deadpanned look.

"This is Kakuzu. He and his partner will escort you back to base." Sasori informed her in his usual monotone. He dropped her to the ground without so much as a warning, before entering back through the hotel doors. "I swear to all that's good and holy, Sasori! I will get you back for that!" She called after him, rubbing her abused backside.

Kakuzu stared at her with unreadable eyes, their bright green depths glowing against the crimson of his sclera. "You are a strange girl." He stated, his voice strikingly gruff. Sakura grinned up at him. "Why thank you, my good sir. You're pretty strange yourself." She chirped. After climbing to her feet, she offered him her pale hand.

"It's so gosh darn lovely to meet you, Kakuzu. I'll be your gorgeous hostage for the evening." He stared at her in silence for a brief moment. Ignoring her outstretched hand, he turned and started to make his way in the opposite direction. "Hurry up." He grunted. She dropped her hand back to her side, and glared at him with all the glaring power she possessed.

"Oh, you're going to regret that." She mumbled to herself, an evil glint in her eye.

She was forced to jog after him, lest she faces his inevitable wrath. Once she reached his side, Sakura couldn't help but make a sarcastic remark - Sarcasm was just in her nature. "Honestly, I'm overwhelmed by how charming you are." She scoffed. His eyes crinkled just slightly at the edges, and - she couldn't be certain - but it almost looked as if he were smirking underneath that mask of his.

That. Bastard.

Before she could verbally assault him with every insult she knew, he withdrew a massive roll of money from one of his inner pockets. Her jaw proceeded to smash against the ground. "Holy testicles! That's an awful lot of cash you got there, buddy. Did you rob a bank? No offense, but you certainly look like a bank robber. If I worked at a bank, and you walked into my bank, I'd assume you were there to rob me."

A growl vibrated in his throat. "You will stop talking, or I will sew your mouth shut." He threatened in a dangerously low tone. Sakura gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes. "Fine. God. Someone woke up on the wrong side of the pin cushion." She giggled. "Get it? Because you look like Raggedy Anne."

With a furious snarl, he shot his jiongu tentacles towards her as proof of his seriousness. They hovered a mere inch away from her face, frighteningly close to jabbing her eye out of its socket. Sakura raised her hands in a placating gesture, attempting to calm the criminal she was responsible for angering.

"Whoa now. Nobody needs to be impaled. You said some things, I said some things, but I think we've moved past it. I feel this experience has strengthened the bond between us, don't you?"

He glared at her for a painfully long moment. She raised a pink brow at his prolonged silence, silently hoping that he wouldn't follow through with his threat. Having her mouth sewn shut did not sound fun. With one last warning growl, he retracted the tentacles back into the skin of his arm. Sakura inhaled the relieved sigh that wanted to crawl up her throat. No mouth stitches for her!

Kakuzu resumed his brisk pace along the street without sparing her a single glance, and she reluctantly followed after him. She was able to stay quiet for a grand total of fifteen seconds (that was actually a record breaker!), before the words piling up on her tongue finally spilled over.

"Where are we going? How far away is it? Who's your partner in crime? - Hehe, get it? Because you two work for a criminal organization - Seriously though, is your partner sexy? Because despite all the stitches and the weird headdress thing, you're pretty sexy yourself. I actually have this theory, and it basically says that at least ninety-three percent of evil doers are incredibly attractive. Ninety-three percent sounds accurate, right? The Akatsuki is probably the evilest organization ever, and all the members of the Akatsuki are like…sex on legs. Am I right, or am I right?" She nudged him in the side playfully, but he was hardly in the mood to be playful.

His tentacles suddenly darted out from underneath his cloak, and wrapped themselves around her wrists and ankles. She was jerked into the air, and dangled above him like a helpless rag doll. "Oh, motherfucker!" She cursed. With a simple flick of his wrist, one of the tentacles slithered over her open mouth.

She shouted obscenities at him through the makeshift gag, and he couldn't help but smirk. "That's much better." Sakura twitched at his relieved tone. "Mmmph! Mmph!" She exclaimed. He raised an amused eyebrow, quite certain she had just spewed some very colorful insults at him.

"You and my partner are going to get along just fine." He chuckled.