What can I say?

I have become very unpredictable with my updates.

Let's just get on with the story, shall we?

Let me know if u r still reading this, despite my sporadic updates.

3 impromptumelody

Falling Prey to Darkness I

"Cherry blossoms are short-lived...they are gone within days after they bloom. That is why you should notice them - appreciate them while they last."

They sprinted onwards, using more and more chakra in their desperation to reach the site on time and yet painfully aware that they needed enough left in their reserves to engage in combat once they arrived.

Drawing to a sharp halt, clouds of sand rising at their feet, they stared dazedly at the huge boulder obstructing the cave entrance.

Tenten licked her dry lips and spoke aloud what they were all thinking. "It can't be that easy..."

Neiji activated his byakugan. "It's not. There's a seal on the entrance."

"Gai-sensei?" Lee prompted tentatively.

"It's possible isn't it, Tenzou?" Gai said slowly.

Yamato scratched the stubble on his chin thoughtfully. "This fuinjutsu isn't too difficult to remove…All we need is five people - one for each of the five seal combinations - and immaculate coordination or teamwork skills to input a considerable flux of chakra into the seals at precisely the same time…"

"… it's not a seal you can break alone." Chiyo-baasama echoed raspily, reminding them all of her presence.

"They're stalling again," Sai concluded.

Yamato nodded grimly. "There are most likely consequences of breaking such a simple seal, but we'll just have to deal with it. The kazekage's survival is our top priority - fortunately there's more than five of us – Sakura, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong?!" the pinkette snapped. "Gaara's still trapped in there, that's what!"

Yamato stiffened. Neiji stared at the obviously agitated kunoichi, surprised at her lack of composure. Was Gaara more than just an acquaintance?

"S-sorry, it's just time's ticking… and it's goddamned Akatsuki in t-there…" Sakura growled.

Yamato frowned. "Sakura, calm down - "

"- I just…what if it was Naruto who was in there, huh? They're after the bijuu, after all. I can't not imagine that it could be him in that cave right now and…"

Yamato laid a comforting hand on her unusually tense frame. "I know how you feel, Sakura, but we're doing our best –"

Next to them a furrow appeared between Nejji's brows, his milky eyes transfixed with horror at some point beyond the cave entrance. The apprehension that seeped into his voice as he called out for Yamato's attention, was all that was needed to throw Sakura off the fine balance she had been treading on throughout the whole ordeal.

"Sakura!"

Yamato only belatedly registered the force at which his hand was flung back, and the blur of movement at the corner of his eye as Sakura shoved past him, sprinting with chakra-enhanced speed towards the boulder.

"What are you thinking, SAKURA?!" Tenten shrieked in sharp disbelief. She couldn't just smash it to pieces even with her monstrous strength. Fuinjutsu didn't work that way.

"Sai, report our location to the Hokage! We will need back-up."

"Hai, Taichou." Sai replied and set off immediately despite the faint flicker of concern in his ebony depths that betrayed his unease.

"Sakura-san! It's not safe!"

"Damn it!" Tenten swore.

"Gai, Tenten, Neiji and Lee - get into position! We're breaking open the seal!" Yamato ordered.

"What about Sakura?!"

"Let her be."

This was the worst! They were running out of time. If Sakura was deciding to lose her cool and rebel against his orders now…there was simply no time to even worry about her mental wellbeing!

They all steeled themselves to ignore the pinkette as she veered away from the boulder and half-leapt, half-climbed the walls of the cave.

"You heard me. Get into your positions," Yamato ordered the others – he only hoped Sakura had enough sense not to endanger the rest of them by getting in the way. Or collapse the cave roof in a sorely misguided attempt to save the Kazekage's life. The young man was most unlikely unconscious and such an attack would only secure his demise.

"Everyone channel your chakra – on the count of three!"

Sakura suddenly let loose a vicious snarl and Neiji tried his best not to look up. Tried not to let his concentration lapse – and kami if it wasn't the most torturous task ever.

"Don't worry. Chiyo-baasama has gotten her under control," Yamato assured them. "Just focus! Ready? One- two…NOW! That's it! Keep it steady!"

Sai had transformed his ink scrolls into crows which obediently flew off towards Konoha and returned just in time to sight Sakura frozen in an awkward position on the cave roof. Her arms were tightly held against her sides and - his eyes widened – he'd be damned if it didn't look like her foot had fallen through the cave roof and she was buried to her knees in ochre rock. Yet there was no sign of pain, blood or bruising. As Sai followed the direction of Sakura's glare – the old, withered woman hunched over in a walking stance with her right hand and fingers strangely spread out in front of her - the reason for Sakura's current immobilisation became apparent.

Thin blue chakra strings came from the shriveled tips of the ancient puppet master's digits and were firmly wrapped around Sakura's limbs and torso, preventing her from any kind of movement.

Chiyo-baasama breathed raspily, dull eyes squeezing shut in exertion then slowly opening back up again to a small slit of sight, bordered with age-old wrinkles.

"Why are you looking at me like that, child?"

("Promise me. Promise me you won't choose to fight alone...No matter how strong you've gotten, Forehead.")

Sakura's glare seemed to lose its intensity.

"I...know how to get into the cave...without breaking any seal or leaving any mark.

"It's a jutsu that lets me bypass physical barriers. But I can only take myself."

Silence.

"I'm sorely tempted, child, but do you have any-"

"Let her do it," Sai spoke up suddenly, much to Chiyo-baasama's surprise. "She can reach the target in time...and she would never forgive herself otherwise."

Contemplation.

"You have my permission, Sakura."

There was a momentary lapse in concentration as Gai, Neiji and Tenten looked up at him with looks ranging from confusion, incredulousness and deep concern.

Yamato winced. If Sakura got herself killed, Kakashi would never forgive him...

The chakra strings securing her body slowly retreated, and Sakura numbly stared at her make-shift team in somewhat belated awe at the trust they held in her. Could she do this?

Sai looked over at her with a tiny reassuring smile.

"Sakura-san! May the springtime of youth be with you!" Lee yelled, managing to sound both bright and serious at the same time.

They trusted her to survive.

So she would.

There were no hand-signs. Her lips did not move to announce the technique that she had truthfully only very recently developed sufficient control of – and a technique that had to used very sparingly.

Effortlessly, Sakura closed her eyes dropped through the roof of the cave into the cold, damp darkness within.

The desert air was warm even at night. Sai lay on his futon still dressed in his ANBU uniform, contemplating the last time he had been in such climates.

As always, it wasn't long before his thoughts revolved around his mentally unstable teammate again. That Suna mission had marked something of a milestone for them. But for him personally, it also marked the point at which his perception of Sakura altered substantially.

They had camped out in the humid forest on their way back to Konoha after the mission and due to some inexplicable reason Sai had woke up in the dead of the night to find that Sakura was missing. Now that he thought about it – it had become a habit. Seeking her presence the moment he woke up.

He had always felt as if Sakura was going to slip away if he didn't keep tabs on her – it was an irrational kind of fear that drove him to rise early in the mornings and accompany her to the first shift at the hospital, among many more obvious reasons such as her tendency to skip breakfast.

Anyway, her unexpected absence had sparked something he was sure would have been coined as a 'severe panic attack' and he had been driven to restlessly search the area with the uncomfortable sensation of his heart pounding in his ears and throat until he found her curled up in a fetal position at the base of a cedar tree, staring listlessly at the forest floor.

"Ha-" he stopped himself. "Sakura."

She hadn't been crying like he had originally thought, but her eyes were weary and dull unlike their usual shade of emerald and after a moment's hesitation she finally returned his gaze.

He waited expectantly.

"Why is it that power and corruption go hand in hand?"

He is surprised that it this kind of political debate that occupies her mind and prevents her from sleeping.

"Where is the satisfaction in manipulation and power, if you have no-one but yourself to protect?

"I do not remorse when I ki- commit murder because I can rationalize – they would have killed my people. There has never been any glory for me in taking away life. Not even Sasori's. I don't get it, Sai. How could anyone be inherently evil?"

She'd sounded so naïve and it went against so much of who he had thought she was, especially after seeing her coldly make quick work of the dark, beating organ in her calloused hands.

Seconds after the flash of light that indicated the breaking of the seal and the release of the chakra-clone decoy copies as a failsafe, the boulder had shattered from the inside out into a cascade of fragments in a display of tenacity, mental and physical strength he had long-learned to attribute to his pink-haired teammate.

(Strong. Sakura was strong. Which was why it would always be horribly wrong to see her cry, break-down or even writhe in pain but then he was always late in learning – "We're human, Sai. We show emotions. We're not invincible" – it applied to her too.)

"Immortality. Revenge. Luxury...

"It makes more sense than power for power's sake.

"…Danzou…"

Now!

Sakura backed away from the clone in front of her – they had been more prepared that she had expected - clutching her bleeding side but not quite daring to heal herself. Her back hit the boulder and as quickly as her mind formed the thought she threw a blue-lit fist dead in its centre – trusting her team outside to dodge the flying fragments. A surprised smirk formed on the blonde pyromaniac's face which quickly faded to one of annoyance when he saw her allies approaching the cave. Chiyo stared slack-mouthed at the obliterated boulder, momentarily paralysed, but Sai, already used to Sakura's display of monstrous strength, had slipped into the cave behind her without missing a beat.

(Without missing a beat...without missing a beat... without missing a -)

"Do it, old hag."

Chiyo stared at the remains of Akasuna no Sasori, a single palpitating heart in the palm of her hands, then at the tapestry of a thousand dead puppet corpses strewn about the cave.

"It's time to end this, Chiyo-baa."

Ancient, grey eyes grew moist as she took in the sight of her only nephew's limp, wooden body caught in the fatal embrace of the Mother and Father puppets for one more time - for the last time. His eyes closed and unmoving.

Her wrinkled, trembling fingers closed over the weak organ in her hands...yet she could not summon the force nor the will to do it.

"Weak," he snarled, eyes snapping open.

Her tears escaped into the fine wrinkles lining her eyes.

"Let me help, Chiyo-baasama."

A stiff, teary, almost imperceptible nod.

(It had to be done...)

Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump.

Slender, pale, deceptively frail fingers wrapped firmly around wrinkled, stubby digits.

Th-thump. Th-thump.

Sob. Silence. Sob.

Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump.

It was the sound of his heart beating in its cage as Sai stiffened and blocked his ears with his hands, a terror-stricken expression plastered over his normally vacant face.

Th-thump.

"Sai? What's wrong!

Th-thump.

"Why are you reacting like this? All I said was Da-"

His lips covered hers, in a hasty attempt to silence her and still keep his hands on his ears. His heart began hammering in his chest. And in the midst of it all - of relishing in the novel sensation of her breath mingling with his, the shock mirrored in bright emerald eyes, he was desperately hoping. Hoping that nothing had transpired. That the stupid seal on his tongue hadn't activated at his master's name and that Danzou was still unawares.

Stupid. Stupid boy. What did I tell you about hoping? When you work for me, boy, remember that I don't tolerate anything less than a hundred percent success. Never ever leave anything to chance. I chose you because of your ability. Is that understood?

Sai.

It means ability.

But it also means debt.

Danzou chuckled. Sai writhed as invisible flames gulfed his tongue, carving some chakra-laden detestable insignia on his tender flesh.

Remember that you are indebted to me.