Lightning Field

"Maybe we're victims of fate
Remember when we'd celebrate
We'd drink and get high until late
And now we're all alone
Wedding bells ain't gonna chime
With both of us guilty of crime
And both of us sentenced to time
And now we're all alone
Protect me from what I want...
Protect me protect me."

-Placebo "Protect Me From What I Want"

Chapter 7: Discretion


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As Sakura walked away from the village, she rehashed the mission specifics in her mind, if only to avoid the pain of being unnecessary. She was to go to Kyoko, and garner information on the culprits who were kidnapping shinobi as weapons. Sakura had decided the best possible solution was to simply go as a musician and, with Naruto's help, had come up with a back story. She would not hide that she was a Konoha citizen, but she would display distaste for the practices of the current Hokage, Tsunade.

As she went through her story repeatedly, committing it to memory, the parts of her she kept hidden railed against the lover she had once had. Kakashi hadn't shown up to even see her off. Anger slowly seeped into the hurt she felt. The lazy bastard was probably still sleeping, trying to forget the fact that he had basically propositioned her the night before.

A low hanging tree limb as big around as her head felt the force of her resentment as it suddenly snapped in half.

If she hadn't been so engrossed in her brooding, she would have realized she was already entering Tanzaku. The sounds finally registered to her and she looked up sharply. The mechanical dings of the slot machines set up in small gaming parlors mixed with the Pachinko noises, granting Sakura a mild headache from the din. She took large strides, attempting to cross the gaming district without incident. One more step and she would be near the variety of hostelries and inns available to travelers.

Just one more step.

"Oi! Sakura!"

Kiba.

Sakura whirled around on her heel to greet the Inuzuka heir. Any number of smart replies were lost on her tongue when she caught sight, and smell, of the girl that Kiba was dragging around with him. When the other woman met Sakura's eyes, the mildly annoyed look turned to pure hatred.

"Kiba, you dumbass! It's rude to talk to other girls in front of your… date?" Sakura decided it was better to voice her curiosity at this woman's position. A self satisfied smirk bloomed on the redheaded female's face at the insinuation that she and Kiba were more than a one-nighter.

"Nah, she's my Tuesday." The smirk turned to astonishment, and the poor young woman swiveled her head none too slowly to regard Kiba. He chuckled and scratched the back of his head, oblivious to the girl's plight.

"Your Tuesday?" A resounding slap turned the heads of many bystanders. "Now you just wait a minute! I am the niece of a feudal LORD!" Her voice became swiftly louder and higher in pitch as her anger got the best of her.

"Raiya, really-" Kiba tried to protest, his arms easily deflecting the wild slaps she was directing at him.

"No, Kiba. I am nobody's whore!" Raiya spun on her heel after delivering a well placed kick and, tugging her almost indecent yukata over her skinny thighs, moved off toward the Red Light District. She was almost out of hearing range when Kiba put his hands over his mouth.

"Coulda confused me with that scrap you're wearing, you painted up tart!" A finger was easily slung in his direction as the girl smiled at a man leering at her.

"A painted up tart?" Sakura asked, confused at Kiba's wording. "Since when do you use terms like that?"

He met her eyes with a wolfish smile, tinged with pain. "When you get kicked in the jewels, you use whatever you have in your arsenal." He stood finally and put his arm amicably over her shoulder. Upon seeing her look of disbelief, he exclaimed, "What?"

"So… your balls were the innocent bystanders of romantic warfare?"

"Tch, there was no romance involved, Sakura." The way he said it really grated on Sakura. He acted like she was just a naïve little girl, still obsessed with romance and fairie tales. She had stopped believing in those the moment Sasuke had tried to kill Naruto when they first discovered where Orochimaru's lair was. She remembered that day very clearly, and could almost taste the sweat upon her upper lip, recalling how she ran from room to room in the vast cavern with Naruto.

'Not this one.'

'Not here.'

'We'll find him, Sakura.'

'Sasuke-kun.'

'Sakura.'

"Sakura?" Kiba's worried voice trailed into her thoughts like a ten-ton brick through a tea kettle, smashing the memories from years ago to dust. She only then realized they had stopped walking, to rest in front of a small, somewhat broken down inn.

"I'm okay. It's just been a long day already, and I would love nothing more than to hunker down with some grub and relax in a bath." The brown haired man nodded knowingly, without really knowing anything at all. How was he to know a man 14 years their senior had broken Sakura's heart? He couldn't. He'd been gone for the past year in Mizugakure researching the kekkei genkai of the Hino clan.

"Grub we can do. There's a restaurant inside we can eat at." Sakura was grateful for Kiba's friendly face. It was just a shame she had to lie straight to it.

"Sure, Kiba. Let's go."


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Dinner had been filled with laughter and nostalgia, but Sakura had to fight back the petulant face she had wanted to make as he brought up the Chunnin exams and their own brief time dating. He had been a very conscientious lover, more concerned with her needs than his own, but he simply wasn't inventive enough to keep her attention for long. They had begun dating as friends, and eventually split as friends, and no one had known they were any different. If there was one thing ninja excelled at, it was the art of tact and discretion. Relationships in the shinobi world were very much akin to the missions they undertook; perfunctory and on a need-to-know basis.

Dessert came and Sakura could sense the change overcome her companion. Her double mocha cheesecake suddenly lost its rich texture, the flavor becoming nothing more than chalk on her tongue. Her head slowly raised and she fought to maintain eye contact.

"What?" The man across from her shook his head slightly and smirked.

"I didn't think I'd run into you in any other place than the hospital, is all." His eyes dipped to his dessert as he tucked into it. Around a mouthful, he continued, making eye contact through his thick lashes. "What I mean is… what are you doing outside of the village?"

Slowly, she nodded, taking another unappetizing bite o her own treat. "I get it. Why am I traipsing around the countryside instead of traipsing around the village?" A false grin split her face, before she suddenly dropped it, as though deep in thought.

"Sakura? Oh man… I didn't say something to…" He dropped his fork to his plate, the metal kissing porcelain with a sharp noise. His hand reached to grasp hers, and she pretended to pull away, as though she were afraid of his intimacy. In truth, part of her was. Kiba Inuzuka was a ninja before he was a man. He was taught to kill and gain information even before he had learned how to shave. It would be careless of Sakura to assume he wasn't gathering information even on his way back to the village they called home. Even out to dinner with a friend.

"It's fine, Kiba, I'm just… I'm tired is all." She deliberately looked to the left, forcing Kiba to believe she was lying. And she was, just in regards to a different subject. As long as Kiba thought she was keeping a terrible secret, she could go onward with her real mission without the threat of friends jeopardizing it.

"Is that all?" His whispered words reached her ears with far more intensity than if he had yelled them. He was feigning hurt, silently asking her, 'Don't you trust me?'

"I…" She allowed herself to trail off, as though unsure of what to say. Unsure of whether or not he would judge her based on what she was about to divulge.

"Sakura, you can tell me anything. You know that." It was true, she did know. She had been fortunate to run into Kiba in Tanzaku, and not, say, Shikamaru, who would have known her plan before she had even schemed it. She sniffled, and hid her face behind her hair with a simple twitch of her neck.

"I'm just… I'm…" Kiba's hand squeezed in genuine concern and somewhere in Sakura's chest, a muscle twitched and beat rapidly. His other hand reached across the table to cradle her cheek and force her to look at him. Sakura's crocodile tears shone crystalline in the low lighting of the eatery.

"Oh, Baby… you can tell me." With that, she broke down, controlling her shoulders and sobbing with gasping breaths. She squeezed her eyes shut, much like she had done in the past after Sasuke had defected and she would break down.

There was a very special place in hell for women like her, she was sure.

"I did something so b-bad…" she sobbed. He very nearly leapt up from his side of the booth to sit next to her. Her senses were assaulted with his very male scent as he lifted his arm to put it around her. He smelled of deep forests and sunshine, all fancy free and adventurous. The candy haired woman buried her face in his chest.

"You can tell me," he murmured against her hair. Kiba kissed the top of her head, and she swore she could feel his slightly chapped, full lips as though they were against her naked skin. She barely registered the spark of arousal that settled low in her belly, a reminder of what they had once had.

"I… I've been… I'm not…" She searched for the words she needed to say. The words that would allow him to go back to the village without threat of him coming back for her. "I've been banished," she whispered finally, knowing his keen ears would pick it up.

"Excuse me?"

She raised her tear-stained face to his, finding him only centimeters from her. The stone in her belly suddenly became a boulder as she pushed the thought of his lips on hers to the back of her mind. "I-"

"I heard you. What happened?" His voice became insistent, demanding, and she pretended to shrink back in trepidation. His bright brown eyes stared into her green ones, searching for any hint at a lie. Idly, she realized if there were one thing she had learned from Kakashi, it was how to conceal emotion.

"I had been cleaning Shishou's office. It's so stupid, never mind." She attempted to shrug him off, only to find, to her relief, that he was still holding fast to her shoulders. She now had him at her mercy, believing everything she said to be gospel. He motioned her to continue, and she did, with the most asinine story.

"I had been cleaning Shishou's office because Shizune had taken time off for once, and was almost done. I had found one of her robes tucked into her chair, and had been trying to hang it up. When I went to her bureau, I must've hit a latch without knowing it, because a false back opened containing scrolls and tomes."

"Sakura?"

"I… Kiba… I stole one of the forbidden jutsu that day. Nothing too serious. Just the ability transfer objects from one place to another."

"That doesn't sound so bad," he remarked oh so helpfully. She let loose a sardonic laugh and picked at the table.

"Yeah, except you don't even have to know where the object is in the first place." Heaving a sigh, she continued on, "I wasn't going to do anything with it! I just… I wanted to be et in on the secret too. Naruto uses forbidden jutsu all the time, as do the Hyugas and Kakashi-s-sensei." She stumbled over Kakashi's honorific unexpectedly.

"So… what happened?" Slowly, his arm was loosening up. She didn't hold it against him. No one stole forbidden jutsu without some sort of punishment, the least of which is being ostracized by their peers.

"The Elders cried out for prison, stating that I had committed a crime against the state, and that my intentions could be less than pure. Homura was especially tenacious, citing the feelings I had for Sasuke, and how I may defect as well, regardless of the period of time that has passed since he left and came back."

Dead.

"Tsunade did what she could, short of prison. She… Kiba! She banished me! I'm her apprentice, and she banished m-me…" Sakura feigned another set of sobs, trying very hard to portray the spoiled mini-Tsunade everyone thought her to be. Even in the short time they had dated, more than once, Kiba had alluded to the favoritism shown to Sakura by her mentor.

If only he had known, THEY had known, it was not Tsunade that showed me favor.

"So," Kiba began awkwardly after calming Sakura down. "What are you going to do now?"

The pinkette sighed and ran a hand through her hair, ratty from the day of travelling. "I was thinking… Tsunade didn't freeze my accounts, so I was able to take all of my earnings with me. Um… I'm… I'm going to Kyoko." Kiba's chocolate eyes widened significantly, and he sputtered in indignation. Sakura raised her hands, still trapped beneath his arm, in a placating manner. She refused to make any more eye contact, instead allowing her hair to once again shroud her face.

"It's okay, Kiba. I have a plan. But… I… I can't tell you. You already know too much. If enemy shinobi were around to hear… Kiba… " her emerald eyes conveyed her point perfectly. If any enemies of Konoha should find out that Tsunade had banished her own apprentice, Sakura would be a target for recruitment. Or assassination. What better way to ruin one of the great superpowers than to kill the leader's favorite student and surrogate daughter?

After a moment's thought, Kiba nodded decisively. "You're right. We need to be very careful from here on out."

We?

"Kiba, you're not going." Those four words made her feel like she had just kicked his puppy. His knuckles turned bone-white with the force of his clenching, and she could make out the low, steady noise of his teeth grinding. She sighed and slumped her shoulders again, this time in mock defeat. "Fine, Kiba… but… can… um…" Sakura gazed intently at him from beneath her lashes, the perfect coquette.

He met her gaze with one of his own, and the same boulder of arousal became a landslide. His brown eyes had turned almost black as he sniffed her scent. He could smell her excitement, and was subtly letting her know he wanted her too. Her eyes darted to his lips as he licked them, and she mimicked the movement perfectly.

"We'll leave tomorrow," Kiba replied to her unspoken question, laying down some ryo for their meal and directing her to his room.


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The curtains blocked out what Sakura was sure was a dreary day. She could make out the cold light filtering in the cracks between curtain panels, and she shivered in response. Turning her back, the petite girl stepped toward the bathroom. She gazed at her reflection in the mirror and would have been disgusted with what she saw had she not had that pesky affair with that pesky Copy Ninja.

Now, she simply saw the woman she had become; devoid of illusions, unafraid to admit attraction, need, and want. When they had arrived at Kiba's room, the dog-nin had wasted no time divesting her of her clothing, stating, 'it just got in the way.'

His clothes followed shortly after, and she was astride him on the bed, biting and licking his neck, chest, and stomach. When she took him into her mouth, his hands clenched in her hair, and she could feel the dampness between her thighs at the sharp sting that accompanied his sweet abuse. She suppressed the need to gag simply to drive him to the edge, and only to watch him suffer as she refused to allow him to meet his oblivion in her mouth.

When he entered her, it was rough, and true to his clan. She allowed him to be behind her, because to look him in the eye would break her heart even more than it already was. When she came, she bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. She would not cry out Kakashi's name.

When he came, it was hard, fast, and on her back. A shower washed away the evidence of her weakness and his nepotism. He was a hypocrite, but he was the best kind; the kind that knew, but still continued to be so. As long as he would continue with her in the future, he could be whatever he wanted, whether hypocrite or not.

Kiba watched her while she was in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. He harbored no illusions about last night. He had known before they had even gotten to his room he would not be travelling with her. Instead, he contented himself with dreams of what could have been.

A headache was already settling behind his eyes, so he turned over, back to her. He refused to watch the once vivacious female wither even more under her own scrutiny. He sensed her come up behind him and, when he felt the bed dip under her weight beside him, he fought the urge to turn back over and catch her in his arms.

Goose pimples erupted across his shoulders when she touched her surprisingly cool fingertips to the base of his neck. When he would awaken four hours later, his only memories of the candy-haired girl would be a whispered, "Thank you."