Day 3
Haruno Sakura was shorter than he expected her to be. And younger. Kisame had thought that if she was someone Orochimaru chose to take his place, she'd be someone just as creepy and intimidating as the snake proved himself to be. But he was proved completely wrong, severely, when he first met her face to face.
She was a young woman whose height barely brushed the top of his shoulders, her eyes were bright green, and her absurdly colored hair was cut short to just about to brush against her chin. Sakura first welcomed him with a wide grin and a firm handshake before she had to report to the hospital for some sort of business, and Kisame was left floored at her friendliness and the contrasting image of his expectations that he sought her out two days later, determined to figure out what Orochimaru could have seen in her.
The first place he decided to look for her, of course, was at her office. As he walked down the hall to get there, he passed by an orange haired kunoichi.
"If you're looking for Sakura-sama, she's not in at the moment," she said. Kisame turned around.
"Oh. Where is she, then?"
She motioned him over to the window and pointed to an area just outside the village. "Sakura-sama trains there once every two weeks. Careful where you step, though. If she's practicing taijutsu, you might fall into one of the fissures in the ground."
His face scrunched up in confusion. Fissures?
::
Yeah. Fissures.
The moment he stepped onto the training grounds, he saw that craters, split earth, and broken trees littered every square foot of the place. Kisame whistled, impressed at the level of damage the young leader could inflict. With only taijutsu, nonetheless. When he journeyed further, he saw that her taijutsu wasn't the only impressive thing about her.
Sakura was in the midst of the destruction performing one-armed push ups with Kabuto sitting cross-legged on a towel on her back. Sweat drenched every part he could see of her and even flowed down her chin a great deal, creating a small puddle beneath her face. Her muscles rippled with every dip.
"You also have a meeting with Shizuka-sama in Nadeshiko Village next week," Kabuto said, staring down at his little notebook. "You'll need to select someone to go with you. Shall I list available ANBU?"
"No... I can... look myself... la... ter... What... number am I... on?"
"One hundred fifty-two. Four hundred forty-eight more on your left arm and you'll be finished," he informed. Sakura sighed, but didn't complain. She raised her eyes to the side and saw Kisame making his way over.
"Hoshi... gaki-san... what can I... do for you?"
Kabuto cut him off before he could reply. "Hoshigaki-san, how much do you weigh?" he asked. Sakura groaned while Kisame merely raised an eyebrow.
"...Around eighty-three kg, I think."
"How wonderful, Sakura-sama," he mused as he stood up. "You can gain an additional eighteen kg for your training. Now Hoshigaki-san, please sit on her."
"You sound like an idiot," she grumbled.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
Kisame came up to her and awkwardly positioned himself to sit cross-legged on her back. Kabuto sat down beside them as he continued to read off Sakura's schedule and inform her of any problem or changes that may have arisen. Kisame kept quiet the entire time, mostly drawn into his own thoughts. He could see why the people liked her so much. She didn't seem careless at all and made decisions based purely on the people's and village's benefit rather than her own. She wasn't half bad. Really.
And she had the strength of a hundred men if she was able to keep training with him on her back.
"You know, I wouldn't mind heading off to Nadeshiko with you," Kisame commented. Sakura paused, throwing a look of surprise over her shoulder.
"Eh? Really?"
He shrugged. "Why not? You can't really go wrong with a shark guy."
'Besides,' he thought. 'You managed to get Tobi to take his mask off when no one else could. I want to know what's different about you.'
Day 11
Kisame was used to the stares people gave him. He got it—he was tall and blue and had these huge-ass muscles that gave everyone the impression that he'd kill a person for accidentally bumping into him. But theses stares...
"Oi. Haruno-sama," he whispered, glancing around him. "I have two questions."
She looked over at him. "What are they?"
"Well, one, why am I seeing mostly kunoichi? Not that I have a problem with it, it's just that kunoichi aren't the dominant power force in other villages."
Sakura grinned. "This is a village of matrilineal lines," she answered. He bobbed his head in understanding before clearing his throat.
"Okay. So two, why the hell are they staring at me like I'm a discount piece of meat?"
She coughed to hide her laughter. "Marriage in Nadeshiko is much different than any other village," she explained, her grin growing wider. "They go out to find men strong enough to defeat them. If they find someone capable of doing so, they bring that man back to village and marry them. Because of this, women have been growing stronger and stronger with each generation."
Kisame was processing this slowly. "So they're looking at me... because they think I'm strong."
"Pretty much."
A group of kunoichi whistled in their direction.
"Hey, what's your stat total?"
"That sword looks like it'll deal a lot of damage. Wanna go a round?"
"Whaddya' got under that shirt, sweet cheeks? Bet you've got battle scars for miles."
He was flabbergasted. Sakura actually laughed at the expression on his face and clutched her stomach as she wiped tears from her eyes. When he asked what they were doing, she laughed even harder.
"What do you think? They're catcalling!"
"Are you serious?!"
Day 12
"I've never felt so violated. And they didn't even touch me."
The meeting was a short, sweet one that proposed a student exchange program between Nadeshiko and Oto. It went on for no more than an hour, the document was signed, and Sakura and Kisame stayed in the village overnight. After leaving the village, they traveled half a day before stopping at a local bar at the ports to wait for a ship to take them back to the mainland. They settled on seats by the shoreline where they could see the full moon's rays caress the ocean. Not that the view really mattered with Kisame slumped over his pint of beer and Sakura chuckling at his expense.
"You can't really blame the way you look," she said. She took a swig of her sake as he slumped down even further.
"The next time a woman complains about catcalling, I'll take it seriously."
"You learn something new everyday, eh?"
He brought himself back up and downed half his drink. "In the worst way possible," he sighed. He eyed her for a few seconds. "Are you even old enough to be drinking alcohol?"
She stared at him pointedly. "Irrelevant. And it shouldn't matter if I'm able to drink you under the table," she warned. Kisame let out a booming laugh.
"Wanna try?"
Sakura didn't say a word, merely smirking and calling for six glasses of Awamori sake to be delivered to them.
::
Kabuto would kill both of them if he knew how wasted they got.
Nine bottles of sake and six pints of beer later, it was midnight and they were walking down the street to look for something to do. The two of them had ridiculously high alcohol tolerances and, unfortunately, couldn't decide a winner because they both had room for more. Kisame and Sakura settled on a truce and left the bar with that, stumbling and tripping over their own feet. Not too long after that, Sakura used her medical ninjutsu to detoxify the alcohol in their systems and return them to their sober states.
"That's a handy little trick. You use it often?"
"Of course. I can't be drunk when I do my paperwork, can I?"
Kisame chuckled. "I guess not."
The night life in this port city was stunning. Neon signs crammed in the spaces just above their heads and beautiful women hung around at every building entrance, beckoning men to spend their money and keep them company for a few hours. Kisame glanced over to the side, seeing the curious look on Sakura's face as she looked around the district. She was young and had managed to save an entire village from crumbling, but what about her made Tobi leave the Akatsuki and take orders from Otogakure?
"I said get out!"
Kisame and Sakura looked behind them to see a few men get pushed out of the front doors of a club some ways down the road. An angry woman stomped out.
"I won't stand for those actions to me or all the other hostesses!"
One of the men, presumably the leader of his group, grabbed the woman by the front of her dress and tossed her to the ground. "We paid you our money and this is the service we get for it? Ungrateful bitch!"
Kisame sighed at the typical nature of that situation and looked back to the front. "So do—"
Sakura wasn't next to him. He looked all around him until he saw her stalking angrily towards the scene. The man raised his fist to strike the hostess, but Sakura caught it inches from the woman's face.
"That's not any way to treat a lady," she chastised. Sakura snapped his wrist before turning around to help the woman to her feet. She gave the hostess her best smile.
"Are you alright, ma'am? Are you hurt anywhere?" she asked. The hostess, mesmerized by this stranger's kindness, quickly nodded.
"Y-Yes I am! Thank you very much!"
Sakura nodded and turned back to the men, a deep scowl set in on her lips. One of the groupies stepped forward and launched a punched her way. She sidestepped and elbowed him in the nose, sending him flying backwards a few yards. The last man took out a kunai and shot it at her with nothing more than genin level power. Sakura caught it between two fingers and kneed him in the stomach. She then crouched down in front of the first man she dealt with.
"I don't care how much money you spent or how much you think you deserve, but you will respect other people, especially the ones who spend their time serving you," she smiled. "People are not to be treated as things. Do I make myself clear?"
Kisame watched wide-eyed as the men scurried away and the hostesses of the club gather around Sakura.
'Wow.'
Day 21
"Was there anything in particular that made you want to stay?"
Tobi looked up from his desk. "What do you mean, senpai?"
The Academy had let out for the day, leaving Tobi to grade his student's test papers. Kisame sat on one of the desks as he cleaned Samehada.
"I meant here. In Otogakure. You've wanted to join Akatsuki for the longest time, but you chose to stay. Why?"
Tobi set down his pen and rubbed at the orange eye patch that covered his sharingan eye.
"Haruno-sama's one of the kindest people I've ever met. And you've seen her! She doesn't treat us any differently 'cause we're Akatsuki. Plus, she's strong. Didn't you see what she did to the training grounds?! It was amazing! She's just like the sannin!!"
Kisame furrowed his brow. "Like the sannin?"
"Didn't you know, senpai? Haruno-sama used to train under Tsunade when she was still a Konoha shinobi!"
It was rare for someone to defect from Konoha. That village in particular was renowned for having the most loyal of shinobi. Something had to go dangerously wrong for someone to even think of leaving those walls. His partner was one. And his partner's younger brother was another. Both were equally frightening in their own right and had understandable reasons for abandoning their home. So the question stood—
"Why did she leave?"
"No one really knows," Tobi frowned, "I did ask a lot of people, but they said she and Yakushi-san showed up one day and took control of the village. Also, I did some research outside..." He leaned forward and pitched his voice low like he was whispering a rumor. "... Konoha's still looking for her. She's been gone for 'bout one and half years and they still haven't found any leads. They say she went poof! Like the never existed! Isn't that weird?"
It was more than weird. Everyone has a reason for doing what they do.
What was hers?
"But I don't think that really matters," Tobi continued as he went back to grading papers. "I didn't know what to do at first, so I started thinking. We're not really good people... but we were given a choice. We could stay in the Akatsuki and be on the run forever, or we could be here. We could join another village. All of us messed up the first time but, I mean, this could be our second chance!" He smiled sadly. "It's a second chance for me, at least."
'A second chance... huh?'
Day 31
"Oi, Haruno-sama. I've got another question for you."
"Oh? What is it?"
"When I wear that Otogakure hitai-ate, does it have to be purple? I'm more of a navy type of guy. Compliments my skin tone."
::
83 kg ~ 183 lbs
18 kg ~ 40 lbs
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EDITED 2.18.18