Stripped Bare

Ok people, yes, I know you’re all excited that the new chapter is up but I need to address some issues I’ve been having with some reviews even though I’ve posted about this before. Sending me reviews and PMs saying “What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you update?” will not make me update any faster. What’s the matter with me? Maybe it’s the fact that I’m a full time student and I have been preparing for finals (and let me tell you, a cumulative Japanese final takes some time to study for.) I have a job and I have friends and sometimes I just don’t feel like writing. I also had some beta complications that slowed this release down. If you would rather have me upload substandard work full of typos, too bad, because I happen to believe waiting a little longer is worth it if it means a higher quality product. If it pisses you off that pumping out these chapters isn’t my first priority then go read someone else’s work. I will update when I want to and if it’s not quick enough for you, TOO BAD.

Sorry for all those to whom this does not concern. It’s only a handful of people ruining it for everyone else.

As always, Naruto and its characters are not mine and I make no money writing this story (another reason updating isn’t a first priority.) This story contains adult themes, etc.

XXXXX

Kakashi lay in bed, eyes red-rimmed by the need for sleep, yet all he could do was stare at the water stains on the ceiling as his mind replayed again and again what had happened earlier that night.

He loved Sakura. He knew that now. But the knowledge offered no joy. He was terrified, terrified and angry, both at himself and at his pink haired partner. He could still hear her lustful screams ringing in his ears, the breathless pleas to be fucked harder and the wet slap of flesh on flesh as the yellow eyed man impaled her deep and fast. Kakashi knew that it was her mission to seduce information out of their target, but why did she have to sound like that? Why did he have to hear her? For someone who had been so resistant to the idea of sleeping with another, she certainly sounded like she was enjoying herself, and though Sakura was a skilled kunoichi, he didn’t think her acting skills were quite that developed.

Kakashi’s anger stemmed from more than just the jealousy of another man experiencing something so intimate with Sakura. It ran deeper than a mere insecurity that someone might pleasure his former student better than he could. He was angry and hurt because it confirmed that Sakura didn’t reciprocate the feelings he had only so recently named. She didn’t love him now, and probably never would.

She loved Sasuke, she always had since Kakashi had come to know her. He doubted she would abandon her dreams of being with the Uchiha for someone fourteen years her senior just because he had been the one to sleep with her first.

Ironically enough, Kakashi had fallen victim to unrequited love despite his solemn vow that having sex with Sakura would be for nothing more than training purposes. He couldn’t deny the pleasure he experienced from tasting the forbidden her fruit, and he’d hoped their repeated sexual encounters for nothing more than to satisfy their need for physical satisfaction. Yet he knew that wasn’t true.

The Copy nin pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and groaned softly, mentally and physically exhausted but still wide awake.

He was stupid, so incredibly stupid for letting his emotions get tangled up like this especially during a mission. He wasn’t an emotional person. He hadn’t been since he received the gouging wound inflicted on his boyish heart when his father betrayed the village when he was just a boy, before he was even old enough to understand what had truly happened. Afterward, he had become withdrawn, and only receding further into his shell with every death he witnessed. But this…this was something even he couldn’t ignore. Somehow, the heart he had presumed to be dead had chosen the worst time imaginable to beat again, and it was interfering greatly with his performance on this mission.

He was no longer objective, could no longer trust his own judgment. He was irrational and quick to bursts of both passion and anger whenever Sakura was concerned. The fact that he had actually considered having sex with Tsurenai while Sakura was engaged in the most critical part of their mission was absolutely sickening. Just what kind of jealous creature had he become, leaving his partner alone when he was supposed to be backing her up? And yet he still lay in bed, unable to return to her and see the face that had unwittingly torn apart his heart.

Suddenly, Kakashi knew he was not alone, a presence was on the other side of his door. But rather than reach for the kunai hidden under his pillow, he simply stared stony faced into the darkness, for it was a presence he recognized, though it belonged to a person he was not in the mood to see at the moment.

The doorknob turned and the door cracked open, wider, wider. And then there she was, standing in ratty sweats looking freshly showered and gloriously radiant, even without makeup.

As he sat up in bed, he noted that the recent shower would have washed away any residual filth from encounter with their target, and yet his eyes scanned her critically from head to toe as if searching for proof of the act of her indiscretion even through her clothes.

“Kakashi,” she said quietly, her voice surprisingly soft and almost…wounded. “Why did you leave? I thought the plan was for you to try and tail Yellow when he left.”

She seemed confused by his actions, but she wasn’t the dynamite stick of anger he had expected. Maybe she was feeling guilty for enjoying her romp with their target, but even that possibility couldn’t please Kakashi enough brighten his mood. He simply continued to stare at his partner coldly, making no move to turn on his lamp, leaving them to talk with only the glow of blue green neon from the neighboring bookstore weakly illuminating the room.

“Plans change,” he said shortly, knowing he was being unreasonable, but feeling like he shouldn’t have to justify his actions until she did the same. Even if she did, how could he tell her he loved her? He couldn’t and he wouldn’t. It was as simple as that.

“What’s the matter with you?” Sakura said softly, still surprisingly reserved. “You seem so—”

“I’m fine.” Kakashi snapped, his words sounding harsher than he meant them to. “What did you find out about him?”

The kunoichi’s eyes suddenly dropped to the floor as she bit her lower lip. Kakashi had seen that particular behavior enough to know that she only did it when extremely nervous and he had a sinking feeling in his gut that warned that he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.

“I…um…”

She was still refusing to look at him.

“Sakura,” he said, his voice a low growl of impatience and anxiety. “You did find out something about him right? His name? His occupation? Hell, even the shinobi clan he’s affiliated with would be helpful.”

She said nothing, eyes still fixed on the floor.

“Sakura. you—”

“I didn’t get any information,” she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t know anymore about him now than I did before going into that booth with him.”

For a moment, there was silence in the room, a stillness so dense that they could feel it pressing down on them with suffocating weight until at last Kakashi spoke, the incredulous tone clearly audible in his voice.

“But…how could you…Sakura, the whole mission relied on that one encounter. If you have nothing, this mission is a failure.”

“I know,” she replied, at least lifting her eyes to meet his mismatched pair. “I’m sorry.”

Kakashi couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Not only had she moaned like a whore while a perfect stranger screwed her pretty little brains out, she hadn’t even collected a single piece of data from the target to make her defilement warrented.

“Sorry?” the shinobi growled as his disbelief turned to hurt and anger. “That was our one shot Sakura, and now we have nothing. Nothing.”

She winced at his words, looking absolutely miserable. She was perfectly aware that this mission was probably a lost cause now, but that didn’t make it any easier to listen to Kakashi berate her.

“What the hell happened in there? We needed this lead…the girls needed this lead. How are we supposed to protect them now?”

Sakura wrapped her arms around herself as if they would protect her from Kakashi’s painful words, but she couldn’t stop the tears from forming in her eyes. She had let everyone down. All of her friends were still in danger and she had let their only clue to saving them slip through her fingers. Kakashi was furious with her, furious and disappointed, and that knowledge only compounded the pain gripping her chest. She didn’t know what had come over her in that room. She hadn’t acted like herself. She had been overcome by the primal urge to have raw, animalistic sex, and while he had certainly obliged her, it scared her how everything else had left her brain, how her priorities had rearranged themselves. It wasn’t like her at all and she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was forgetting something important, that she was missing a crucial detail. But then she hadn’t collected any details had she?

Kakashi could see her emerald eyes glistening with unshed tears. Her body posture betrayed how dejected she felt, and for a moment, his heart ached for her. Everyone made mistakes, although it was uncharacteristic for Sakura to make one so big, but yelling at her was solving nothing. Her dismal expression evaporated his anger and suddenly, all he wanted to do was hold her close and comfort her. While her scandalous behavior had hurt him, she hadn’t done it on purpose and, after all, it was for the mission. Their situation was certainly bleak, but he had faced worse odds in his lifetime, and maybe if they put their heads together, they could figure this out.

“Sakura,” he said gently, getting out of bed and walking towards where she still stood at the foot of his bed. “Shh, don’t cry.”

He opened his arms to embrace her, to comfort her, but she was suddenly backing away, scrambling to avoid him.

Sakura didn’t know why, but the thought of being touched by a man suddenly made her panic. She couldn’t explain it, but she instinctually knew she had to get away before something bad happened, before she was hurt.

Kakashi let his arms drop to his sides as Sakura made it clear she didn’t want to be held. All the anger and hurt from moments ago came flooding back as he interpreted her actions to mean she found no need for him after her rendezvous with their target. Their physical relationship had meant nothing to her after all. It was what they had initially agreed on, but it wasn’t what Kakashi wanted anymore, and it hurt to see her slam the door on his hopes of anything meaningful with her, even if they were foolish in the first place.

“I guess I can’t compare,” he said with a humorless laugh. “I was never able to make you moan like that. Nothing will do after a ride like that, will it?”

“What are you taking about?” Sakura said, still on her guard even though Kakashi had turned away from her to slump on the edge of the bed.

“Don’t play dumb,” he seethed, his voice growing acidic at the prospect of her trying to deny his accusations. “I heard you moaning for him, screaming. The things you said, the things you begged for…I must say Sakura, you even had me believing you made a living as a whore.”

Her mouth dropped open, closed and then opened again like she meant to say something but couldn’t find the words.

“And I heard him, saying you were riding him like an animal, that you were the dirtiest thing he’d seen in a long time. It’s no wonder you didn’t get any information out of him. You were too busy fucking him senseless.”

He hadn’t meant to go that far, and as soon as he said the words he regretted them, but there was a cruelness in Kakashi that wanted to hurt her the way she had hurt him.

Sakura could only stare wide eyed. Her cheeks would have been burning with shame if the blood hadn’t already drained from her face and left her skin ashen and pallid.

“Y-you heard? But why were you listening? Why would you…”

“It was a funny sort of accident really,” Kakashi said, although he didn’t see the humor in the situation at all. “I went into the bathroom to wash my hands, only to hear you through the air conditioning vent, talking dirtier than I ever could have imagined. Sex was supposed to loosen his tongue, but it sounded like the only thing getting loose in there was your—”

“Yeah? Well what about you?” Sakura shot back, finally getting over her shock and drawing on her anger, the emotion that had given her strength throughout most of her life. “Maybe if you had stuck around like you were supposed to instead of abandoning me, you could have following him to where he had been taking the girls, or at least gathered some clues. I’m not the only one at fault here Kakashi, so don’t you dare pretend you’re blameless.”

“Well at least I didn’t forget about the mission because I was too busy begging to be fucked harder. You could have at least asked his name so you could moan it and maybe gathered a clue to who this guy is.”

Sakura bristled, refusing to let him sit there and hurl insults at her when she was not the only one at fault. Something weird had happened in that room, something she couldn’t figure out, but she couldn’t tell Kakashi that now. He would just jeer, just make cruel remarks about how the only weird thing was her inability to carry out a mission. But he was also acting strangely. She had expected anger, but he was treating this almost like a personal betrayal. Why was he so fixated on her sleeping with another?

“You’re acting jealous all over again,” she spat. “Maybe you should be the one focusing less on me and more on our target. I know I screwed up, but why are you making such a big deal out of me sleeping with him. That was originally part of the plan, wasn’t it?”

Kakashi stared at her long and hard, his heart swelling with things he wanted to tell her. If only he could shake her and say it was a big deal because he loved her and just when he had figured that out, just when she had stirred up impossible feelings in him, she had smashed him to pieces. He was taking it personally because it was personal, but he couldn’t expect her to understand and this was no time to explain. There would never be a time because it didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t feel the same.

Abruptly, Kakashi stood up, pulling a shirt on over the tank and attached mask he hadn’t bothered to remove and slipping on his shoes. He didn’t say a word as he grabbed his hat and scarf and left the room, ignoring her confused and angry calls for him to come back. He emerged into the hallway where not even the dim lighting could hide the peeling plaster. He slammed the door behind him and she did not follow. He opened the rusted security gate and found himself on the street, not walking towards the club, but away from it, his feet moving of their own accord as if they knew where they were going even if their master did not.

Kakashi wasn’t sure what time it was, not aware of how long he had stared blankly at the ceiling. Their target had come early, and he couldn’t have been with Sakura for much more than an hour. He had probably left the club a little after twelve, and judging by the stars he could see peeking through the clouds, he guessed it to be after four in the morning. While Konoha would have been sound asleep at this hour, Fuzen’s nightlife was wide awake and bustling.

He had to clear his head, had to lock up all the tangled emotions that were winding their way around his mind and heart. He felt too much and thought too little and it was seriously jeopardizing the mission. He needed to get over Sakura and fast. This mission would be so much easier if she meant nothing more to him than a friendly former student should, but somehow he had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to fold up what he felt and neatly stuff it away in a drawer inside his head.

Things had gone from being complicated to being a big fucking mess.

In the darkness, drug cartels, prostitution, and kami knew what else were being pedaled on the black market, and the local authorities apparently felt no need to stop it, turning a blind eye to the trade of sin that was happening right under their noses.

Kakashi walked along the darkened alley ways, his sharpened shinobi senses taking in all that was around him even as his mind was burdened with inner turmoil, a turmoil painted in shades of pink with breathtaking emerald eyes.

At the next alley, a tall, slender man talked in hushed whispers with a man of equal height, but so grotesquely overweight that his neck was swallowed by his multiple chins and his clothes seemed at the brink of bursting as they struggled to contain his mass. Their body posture and nervous glances gave every indication that whatever they were talking about wasn’t meant to be overheard, but even their muddled whispers were easily deciphered by Kakashi’s unusually keen sense of hearing.

“—meet with him. He’ll get you what you need.”

“So I can pick ‘em right off the stage?”

“No, it doesn’t work like that. They bring them in from somewhere else. You usually don’t even see the girl until the exchange when they wire her up to do anything you ask. This operation is still in the early stages so there aren’t too many orders yet.”

Kakashi instantly snapped out of its internal thoughts, focusing completely on the conversation he was overhearing. He didn’t recognize the larger man, but the brown trench coat, slim figure and long scraggly ponytail made it easy for Kakashi to see that this was the same man he had seen in the book shop, the same one he had tried to get information out of at the club, only to have him slip away when he had been sidetracked by Sakura. Either this man had been withholding information from him or he had only just recently become privy to knowledge that Kakashi was after.

The Copy nin pulled out his phone and leaned casually against the wall, pretending to listen to a message as he held the small device to his ear. The couple paid him no mind, figuring he couldn’t possibly hear their low voices from where he was standing, and the skinny man obviously didn’t recognize Kakashi in the dim light.

The fat man grinned, his jowls pulling up to bare a gap in the row of yellowed teeth, perhaps the reminder of a bar fight.

“So if I pay for one of these bitches, there’s nothing she won’t do?” he asked eagerly.

“She’ll do anything you ask,” the slender man replied, his emaciated form seeming to drown in the brown folds of his trench coat. “Just go to the address on the card and talk to the owner. Like I said, I don’t know all the details yet. They just brought me in to this operation. Just show him the card and he’ll know what you want to talk about. Keep it quiet, because this whole business is rather delicate as you can imagine.”

The fat man chuckled, a thick and disgusting sound.

“It’s been ages since I’ve found a woman willing to fuck me. I’m going to use her until she’s sore.”

The two of them parted, the larger man heading down the far end of the alley while the other walked towards Kakashi. With a scarf over his face and a hat covering his hair, it made it very hard to identify the Copy nin, and the slender man didn’t realize who was sharing the alley with him until it was too late, and he found himself suddenly pressed hard against the rough brick wall with a long fingered hand constricting around his neck.

“Whose name is on that card?” Kakashi growled, in no mood to play nice in order to get his answers.

“I-it’s you!” the scrawny man stuttered, eyes bugging out of his head with surprise. “You’re the guy from the bookstore.”

The only sound was the whisper of fabric on fabric as Kakashi reached into an unknown pocket and retrieved a recently sharpened kunai that glimmered dangerously in the dim light.

“The next time you don’t answer my question, you will regret it,” Kakashi promised darkly, pressing the sharpened point of the blade to the man’s ear. The shinobi made it very clear just what he intended to cut off should his prey refuse to co-operate. “Now, whose name is on that card you were passing out? Why didn’t you tell me about this last time we met? You said you didn’t know anything.”

“I didn’t know at the time,” the man whimpered pitifully. “I only just met up with that guy I was telling you about, the one with the yellow eyes, and he said he had a contact he was supposed to meet tonight but couldn’t make it because he had prior…engagements.”

Kakashi growled as his grip on the man’s neck tightened, having no doubt that this “prior engagement” was probably fucking Sakura’s brains out.

The man whimpered again, eyes darting around as he searched for someone to help him, but the alley was deserted except for the two of them.

“He offered me a bundle of cash to meet the contact in his place. All I had to do was give him that card.”

“He wanted a slave girl didn’t he? And you gave him a card to link him to the source?”

“Well…it’s not the source. Nobody knows who the guy actually running this thing is, except maybe the top shinobi working for him, but—”

His sentence was cut off with a frightened cry as Kakashi impatiently shoved him against the wall harder.

“The name on the card is a person involved in the slave ring right? Tell me the fucking name or you lose an ear.”

“Okay, okay! For fuck’s sake, calm down! I’ll tell you the name!” the man shrieked as he felt the kunai’s blade bit into his ear lobe deep enough to make warm blood drip down his neck.

The man breathed the name in a low and shaking whisper, and Kakashi’s eyes widened. No, that couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be him.

“Are you sure?” Kakashi hissed. “Because if you’re lying, I swear I’ll come back and find you and tear out your throat.”

“It’s true! I swear it’s true!” the man sobbed, growing hysterical as Kakashi’s kunai cut deeper into his ear.

“Shit,” the Copy nin growled, releasing his captive and suddenly fleeing into the darkness, back towards his motel, praying that Sakura was still there. If she had already gone back to the club, she was in terrible danger.

XXXXX

Sakura watched Kakashi storm out of the room, noting that he didn’t even spare her a second glance as he left.

He either didn’t hear her calling his name or was choosing to ignore her, but considering his hearing was exceptional, she was guessing it was the latter.

She was furious at him for abandoning her when she needed him the most, at the club and even now when she needed someone to talk to, someone to help her sort through recent events and perhaps discover the critical missing piece of the puzzle. It wasn’t like her to completely and utterly fail, and though her own memory was telling her that was exactly what she had done, she was having a hard time believing it. She needed Kakashi’s help, although she wasn’t exactly sure what he could do for her.

Her skittish and uncharacteristic reaction to his affection was another mystery, and she couldn’t help but think it was all related to what had gone on in that room. If Dajaku had cameras running in the booths, she could check the footage and reveal the truth, but he did not. Maybe that was for the best considering the perverted club owner would no doubt spend much of his time watching the equally perverted acts that took place in those booths, and she was quite sure the girls had no intention of putting on show for anyone except their paying customers.

She felt abandoned, crushed by the heavy weight resting on her shoulders that came with letting everybody down. She knew her series of sexual encounters with Kakashi had come to an end. He obviously had no reason to teach her anymore and he wouldn’t want to anyway considering how mad at her he was at her. She had been preparing herself for this, trying to distance herself from him emotionally because she knew their intimate moments were nothing more than training exercises and a good time for her partner. She had been surprised by the blissful euphoria that came with lying in Kakashi’s arms, at being the center of his world for just a little while. He made her heart beat faster than Sasuke ever had, but maybe that was because when her former sensei was moving deep inside her with slow, gentle strokes as he held her tenderly in his arms, she could pretend for a little while that his feelings for her were genuine and that he truly loved her.

She had longed her whole life to be loved, and it surprised her how much she liked the idea of Kakashi caring for her like that. People back home would shake their heads, calling Kakashi a dirty old man and her naïve and stupid if the two of them ever did really get together, but if he truly loved her, she wouldn’t care.

She shook her head to clear away the fantasy, still standing alone in Kakashi’s darkened room. She was still every bit the child she used to be, fantasizing about an ideal relationship with a man who felt nothing for her.

She looked at the bed where she had first given herself to him, the sheets a rumpled mess. She moved to the bedside and sat on the edge, running her fingers over the place where he had recently laid. The sheets were still warm from the heat of his body and she longed to feel that same heat against her own skin, to feel his arms around her.

She laid down, her smaller body filling the indentation he had left in the mattress, finding that the sheets still smelled like him. Unshed tears stung her eyes now that she had nobody around to act brave for. Pulling the sheets around her shoulders, she began to cry for the second time that night, her soft sobs filling the empty room, only this time, her tears weren’t for the failed mission or even for the girls she had let down. She was crying because it was quite possible that she had fallen in love all over again only to find that, this time too, her feelings would be unrequited. She refused to examine her emotions any closer to see just how deeply they ran, because in the end it was all meaningless anyway.

Her small form shuddered with the force of her sobs as she clutched Kakashi’s pillow to her chest. So caught up was she in her grief that she failed to detect the presence of a man in the room next to hers, although he was so adept at concealing his chakra that she might not have noticed him regardless. With his ear pressed to their adjacent wall, he could hear her cries, just as he had heard the rest of their argument. A smile formed on his lips at the fact that the kunoichi had no recollection of what had happened to her that night. Perfect. It seemed everything was going according to plan.

He stepped away from the wall and reached for his coat before walking out the door. Morning would soon arrive and he had places to be. The plan was in its final stages and he felt quite confident that even two elite shinobi from Konoha couldn’t stop him.

XXXXX

Kakashi raced back to the motel as fast as his legs could carry him, weaving between surprised men in the darkened streets before leaping to the rooftops. Moving swiftly and silently, it was only a matter of minutes before he was at the rusted security gate, his fingers suddenly unsteady as he fumbled the key into the lock.

The gate swung open with a creak and he dashed inside, feet barely touching the ground as his heart hammered in his chest. He had to tell Sakura about what he had discovered before she went back to the club and walked right into the trap that had been set for her.

This whole mission was a set up, and he would deal with the culprit soon enough, but right now he had to make sure Sakura was safe. If what the man in the alley said was true, there was probably more to Sakura’s story than even she knew. Kakashi wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but he intended to find out and was fully prepared to do whatever was necessary to get the information required.

The thought of losing Sakura made his chest constrict painfully, and he knew more than ever that he really loved his former student. Even if she didn’t feel the same way, and even if she didn’t return his feelings, he couldn’t and wouldn’t stop loving her. He couldn’t turn back now.

He burst into his room, heart sinking when he found it be empty. His sheets were more rumpled than before but there didn’t seem to be any indication of a struggle or anything else to signal that Sakura had run into trouble. He walked over and placed his palm on the sheets, finding them slightly warm and his pillow visibly damp with what he assumed were tears and smudged with mascara. She hadn’t left long ago, but he couldn’t sense any trace of her chakra nearby. If he hurried, he might be able to catch her before she got back to the club.

He turned around and retraced his steps, racing back down the concrete hallway and out into the street that was illuminated only by the lamps and tacky neon lights of nearby establishments. Soon the sun would rise, and he prayed that when it did, it would not shine down on tragedy.

XXXXX

Tsunade rubbed her temples wearily as she heard footsteps thundering up the stairs, undoubtedly towards her office. She knew that when her door banged open a boisterous blur of orange and black would immediately start harassing her, begging to be sent to Fuzen Machi to check up on his teammates.

It had been a week since Tsunade’s initial proposal to send Sai, Sasuke and Naruto after the pair, and still she had not received word from them. It could be simply because Kakashi didn’t want to blow their cover by sending a message that could link him to Konoha, especially if there was nothing especially significant to report. The Fifth Hokage was reluctant to send an entire squad after them when the delicate matter of the pair’s true identities was in the balance. However, her gut was telling her that something was amiss, for Kakashi and Sakura were resourceful enough that it was improbable that they were wholly unable to send a message home, meaning that they had possibly encountered some sort of unforeseen problem. She didn’t want to send three of Konoha’s elite away when they could be used on other missions, but nobody knew the missing pair better than the other members of Team Seven, and if she didn’t send them, Naruto would never leave her alone.

As if on cue, the door to her office slammed open and said blonde entered, the wind created from his hasty entrance scattering several mission reports from the ever growing stack on the desk.

“Naruto,” the Hokage said irritably fixing honey brown eyes on the youth that was all but dancing around with restless anxiety.

“Baa-chan, it’s been a week, and we still haven’t heard from Kakashi-sensei or Sakura-chan!” the whiskered shinobi exclaimed, appearing ready to race off to look for his comrades the second Tsunade gave the word.

“I’m aware of that,” she snapped, her twitching eyebrow betraying her annoyance.

In fact, she had spent every day of the past week anticipating the arrival of the mail and sifting through the numerous mission requests, citizen letters and the like, hoping for something as small as a postcard from the woman that had become something of a daughter to her.

But nothing came.

With every passing day, her anxiety grew, for there was so much that could go wrong on a delicate mission like the one Sakura had embarked on with her former sensei. The opportunities for problems were endless, and while Tsunade was trying not to fear the worst, she knew the time had come to send someone after them.

“So when can we leave? I can have Sai and Sasuke at the village gate in fifteen minutes,” Naruto blurted out, acting like every minute he stood before the Hokage was another minute Sakura could possibly be in peril without his aid.

“Calm down,” the buxom blonde barked. “I will not have you three running around unattended by a team captain, and I certainly won’t have you leaving without a mission briefing.”

“Aww, but Baa-chan…” he began, his whining voice friction on Tsunade’s already frayed nerves.

“Naruto!” she said, voice rising enough to startle the normally obnoxious man into silence. “Yamoto will be accompanying you. That is not up for negotiation. If you say you can get you teammates to the gate in fifteen minutes then I want them here in ten and ready for a mission briefing. Understand?”

The kyuubi container could see fire flashing in her eyes’ tawny depths and knew he had better not press his luck. The most important thing right now was getting Sakura and Kakashi back, even if he had to play by the Hokage’s rules and not his own.

Naruto gave a short nod, signifying her understood and dashed out of her office to find the two people she requested.

Her office quiet once more, Tsunade sighed and slumped back in her chair.

“Shizune,” she called out loudly, knowing her assistant was usually within earshot if she yelled loudly enough. “Track down Yamato and summon him immediately.”

XXXXX

The sun was just starting to rise as Sakura pushed open the heavy double doors of the club, painting the already dreary city in pale shades of gray. A patchwork of clouds covered the heavens, promising another overcast day, and the dismal atmosphere seemed only to add Sakura’s inner gloom.

Soundlessly, she closed the door behind her, looking around the club’s darkened interior and nearly wincing at the memory of what had transpired here only hours before. She thought of all the friends she had made, asleep on the floor above, and fervently wished she would have another chance to save them, although she wasn’t very optimistic about her target making a mistake that would allow her to redeem herself.

She noticed immediately that the light in Dajaku’s office was on, and wondered if he was simply up early or had stayed up very late. His sleeping schedule seemed completely random and she wondered how he managed to get by on so little rest.

The kunoichi was about to head upstairs when the sliver of light in the doorway was suddenly obstructed, casting the large room into total darkness.

“Hana,” a feminine voice called. “Is that you?”

The sugary sweet, though obviously false note gave away the woman’s identity immediately, and Sakura was instantly wary, wondering what the hell the snotty diva wanted considering their last encounter hadn’t exactly been friendly.

“Yeah. What is it?” the kunoichi called back, wishing she could just go upstairs and crawl into bed instead of talking with Tsurenai.

“Dajaku needs to talk with you in his office for a moment.”

Sakura could hear the hint of smugness tainting her voice and figured she was probably in trouble for staying out so late. The purple haired woman seemed all too pleased to be the bearer of bad news and Sakura made a mental note that as soon as this mission was over and her identity was revealed, she’d pay Tsurenai back for her gracious hospitality with a black eye.

Suppressing the urge to mutter unflattering things under her breath, she trudged towards the cracks of light the diva’s slender body didn’t obscure. Tsurenai stepped aside and shot her a saccharine sweet and obviously fake smile. Sakura responded with an equally phony expression, trying to play nice since Dajaku was in the room.

“Good morning Hana,” the club owner said smoothly, his bald head looking especially shiny under his office lights on this particular day. He was still in the same hideous red and yellow paisley silk shirt he had worn the night before so it appeared he hadn’t bothered going to bed.

“Morning,” Sakura responded, trying to stifle a yawn behind her hand.

Dajaku seemed to find this amusing, chuckling softly.

“Long night?”

The kunoichi hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep since the club had closed its doors for the night, and between the fight with Kakashi and her lengthy bought of crying, she was physically, mentally and emotionally drained and felt dead on her feet. If she closed her eyes at that very moment, she could probably have fallen asleep standing up, except for the fact that she was still quite aware that Tsurenai was still holding the door half open with a smug expression on her face.

“Whatever it is you have to talk to me about, do you have to do it while she’s here?” Sakura asked irritably, in no mood to hear the arrogant dancer snicker while she was reprimanded.

“This won’t take long,” Dajaku assured. “So relax.”

The kunoichi refrained from rolling her eyes and bit her tongue to keep from saying what she might regret later as she fixed her client and employer with a bland stare that clearly said, ‘Get on with it so I can get this over with.’

The club owner interlaced his fingers, resting his elbows on the desk and propping his chin on his clasped hands, regarding her from head to toe. Sakura got the feeling he was once again undressing her with his eyes and her hand twitched as she fought the urge to punch him in the face, for the image of him reeling backward hard enough to crash through the wall behind him would almost be worth blowing her cover.

Finished with his inspection, Dajaku gave a sigh that was almost regretful and Sakura irritably wondered what this was all about. She watched as he turned to Tsurenai and seemed to give an imperceptible nod. She smiled and shot Sakura a wicked smile as she stepped into the room, closing the door behind her to reveal a man that had been standing behind the door. He was dressed all in black, and though a black cap covered his hair, she recognized him immediately. His yellow eyes gave him away.

Before she even had the time to gasp, he was behind her, crouching on top of Dajaku’s desk with a syringe half emptied into the back of her neck.

By the time she turned to face him, the plunger had been completely depressed, and whatever substance had been inside was flowing through bloodstream. Cold fire burned through her veins as she felt her body grow heavy and unresponsive.

She fixed a hateful glare on her attacker, and then shifted her gaze to Dajaku who was sitting calmly in his chair. He had a hand in this? It didn’t make sense, for that meant he was involved with all the previous disappearances that he claimed to be so distressed about. She had never bought his shit about being concerned for the girls, but they made him money, which he loved more than he could any woman, so why would he risk business for them? And why the hell had he hired Konoha shinobi in the first place if he was behind the crime all along? She couldn’t fit the pieces of the puzzle together as her brain became increasingly fogged by the mysterious drug. Although she was trying to speed up her metabolism to break down the substance and get it out of her system, her body couldn’t seem to work fast enough. Stumbling, the mysterious ninja caught her in his arms, becoming the only thing holding her up as the strength left her body.

“What the fuck?” she growled with as much menace as she could muster. “You’re the one behind all this?”

Dajaku chuckled, his face splitting into a grin that revealed his yellow teeth.

“I’m afraid I’m not the criminal mastermind behind the operation, but yes, I am a profiteer. I can sell the girls that work for me for more than they could make in a lifetime. Nobody misses them but their fellow dancers. They’re strippers, whores, and are missed by no one. It’s not a bad set up at all.”

Tsurenai smiled, taking great pleasure in Sakura’s current predicament and took no offense at what Dajaku said. Apparently she considered herself above the rest of the girls and too classy to be a whore, even if she slept around with more men for more money than anyone else.

“You disgusting bastard,” the kunoichi spat, trying to struggle in her captor’s hold but her muscles were no longer responding to her commands. “Then why did you even hire me in the first place if you knew where the girls were going?”

Dajaku’s silvery eyes seemed to gleam in the harsh lighting as he leaned back casually in his chair.

“Because, my dear Sakura, the one running this outfit needs a body guard, a body guard he can completely control, one that will give her life without a second thought, and one he can fuck anywhere, anytime in any way he wants. Who would be better for the job than a kunoichi that had undergone the same procedure as the rest of his products?”

Sakura couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He had meant to do this to her all along? This whole mission had just been one big setup! No wonder he had been so off perterbed by Kakashi’s presence. For once it hadn’t been about the money. An additional ninja, and a male one at that, didn’t fit into Dajaku’s plans.

“You sick fuck,” she hissed. “How do you plan on explaining this to Konoha? They’ll miss me eventually. You can’t wash your hands of me as easily as you can the other girls.”

The club owner shrugged.

“Shinobi die on missions all the time. Why should you be any different? I’ll send a regretful letter back to Konoha, ninjas will come looking for a body, and when they find none, you’ll be dismissed as dead and they’ll never be able to pin it on me.”

If her body had been working properly, she would have lunged at the pitiful excuse for a man and snapped his neck with her bare hands, but Yellow’s grip was strong and her body numb. All she could so was hang limply in his arms.

”What about Kakashi?” she seethed. “He won’t believe I just went and disappeared. He’ll hunt me down and find me.”

“Doubtful,” Tsurenai giggled, her voice filled with obvious glee. “Where you’re going is hundreds of miles away from here. It would take him months to track you down and by the time he got to you, it would be too late.”

“If I find him poking around here when I return, I’ll kill him,” the man holding her said, bringing his lips close to Sakura’s ear and whispering them as if they were the tender utterances of a lover.

Rage boiled inside of the kunoichi as she tried to turn around and imbed her fist firmly into his smirking mouth, but all her efforts produced little more than a twitch.

Even her highly advanced medical training was proving worthless as she tried to identify the drug in her body. It was complex unlike anything she had seen and worked faster than her body could keep up with.

“What the fuck was in that syringe?” she growled, drawing all her menace to her voice since all other parts of her body were currently useless.

Yellow chuckled.

“You asked that exact question last time, little kunoichi. This drug is truly marvelous isn’t it? Instant paralysis, total mind control, complete memory loss…”

Last time? Sakura’s increasingly fogged brain was having a hard time sorting out the words spoken. A “last time” would imply that she had been injected before, and yet she remembered no such instance. He had mentioned complete memory loss, so did that mean that last night when she had been alone with him, when she had let him fuck her so brutally, when she had failed to extract any evidence, he had drugged her then too? Suddenly it all made sense. No wonder she had let him touch her like that. No wonder she had loved every minute of it and abandoned her mission in favor of carnal pleasure. This terrible, powerful drug had done something to make her forget all that had happened so that she couldn’t even warn Kakashi. For all she new, she had learned something valuable and now it was forgotten.

Tsurenai yawned as if Sakura’s predicament were already boring her, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.

“The others will be waking up soon,” she noted. “You should get her out of here before someone finds her.”

Dajaku nodded and Sakura could feel the man behind her dip his head as well.

“Yes, but there’s just one more order of business to take care of before you go,” the club owner smiled.

Sakura found herself hauled over to the desk and bent over it, the furniture the only thing that help her up since her body was no more responsive than a sack of rice. Her face was turned towards the wall and she didn’t have the strength to turn around, but she could hear Tsurenai gasp behind her.

“W-what are you doing? Dajaku, you can’t be serious!”

There were scuffling sounds behind her before another body filled her field of vision. Tsurenai was forcibly bent over the desk, Yellow holding her down by a hand in her hair as he depressed the plunger of another syringe in the back of her neck.

“Koudo, you bastard!” she spat, struggling weakly against him, but if Sakura could not escape, then a frail woman like Tsurenai, unaided by shinobi power and strength, didn’t stand a chance.

Sakura tried to commit the man’s name memory. She had no idea if Koudo was actually his real name, but it was better than calling him Yellow.

“Calm down Tsurenai,” Dajaku spoke somewhere outside Sakura’s vision. “If you struggle too much, he’ll have to get rough, and I wouldn’t want to damage the merchandise.”

“You sold me out!” the woman seethed, still unsuccessfully trying to throw the larger man off her. “You fucking prick. I practically run your dirty little club for you and this is the thanks I get? How are you going to recruit new girls now?”

Dajaku clucked his tongue at her and Sakura could imagine him shaking his head.

“Tsurenai my dear, I don’t need you as much as you think I do. I can attract a pretty face to this club just as well as you can if the girl is desperate enough. And besides, when was the last time you went out and did your job. Ever since Sakura got here, you’ve spent all your energy on petty competitions against her, and despite it all, she still was making almost as much as you in tips. If a battle hardened kunoichi can be turned into a dancer, anyone can.”

“But I was your star!” Tsurenai cried angrily. “Without me, your customers will stop coming and your pathetic little business will die.”

Dajaku chuckled lightly.

“You were only the star because you were advertised that way. A few new promotional posters can hype up any girl. In fact, as soon as you’re gone, I’ll schedule a photo shoot for Kitsune. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s going to be the new face of Wet Dreams. In a week, people will have forgotten all about you.”

“Bastard,” she said again, although her voice lacked the spite it had previously held as the drug began to weaken her. “That red headed slut won’t make half the profit I do.”

The club owner laughed, the sound cruel and careless.

“I think she can make just as much as you, if not more,” he stated. “But it doesn’t even matter, not after the amount I’m getting to sell you off. I could close shop and retire in luxury if I wanted, but the fact is, there’s too much money to be made selling pretty little things like you. This club’s roster is going to be constantly changing as new girls come in and old ones are sold off. Even if the club doesn’t do as well as it did before, I’ll still be filthy rich.”

Sakura could hear the nearly childish glee in his voice at the prospect of so much money and her disgust was so great that she began to struggle anew. He dared sell all her friends into slavery? Was it not enough that he kept them here and exploited them daily? They bared their bodies and shattered their innocence, pleasing men to get by and yet that still wasn’t enough for him. Dajaku’s greed knew no bounds.

Both of the girl’s meek struggles were easily subdued as Koudo placed a hand on the back of their necks and pumped them full of chakra.

“Sleep,” he commanded, and instantly, both women fell silent, their eyes closed in peaceful slumber.

“Amazing,” Dajaku marveled. “It still seems like magic no matter how many times I watch you do it.”

Koudo withdrew a fat envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to the club owner.

“This is for both of them. The boss will send you his next request soon and wants pictures of any of the new girls you get.”

Dajaku practically snatched the envelope from his hands, silver eyes widening as he found himself holding more money than he could make in a year at the club.

“As always, it’s been a pleasure doing business with you,” he smiled, offering his hand which Koudo took in a firm handshake.

“You’ll be hearing from me soon,” the yellow eyed man said as he slung both unconscious girls over his shoulder. “We’ll keep in touch.”

Dajaku nodded, but his gaze was fixed on the money in his hand.

There was a poof of smoke as the shinobi teleported away, taking the women with him, and the club owner found himself alone in his small office, holding the fortune he previously had only dreamed about.

XXXXX

Thanks for reading. The next chapter will be out when I get to it and not a moment sooner.