aberrant

chapter three

With sacred, solid ground beneath her again finally, Sakura promised herself that she would never ever trust Naruto's judgement on "fun" again in her life. They had survived the leap - obviously, given the fact that she was still thinking and breathing air into her lungs - though she might have to avoid high places for an indefinite period of time now, because of him. The rest of their little trip had lapsed in mutual, stubborn silence. Well, for the most part. Sakura had refused to say anything to him after that, ignoring anything and everything he said be it about asking why her hair was pink or small talk about the muggy weather. Naruto, in turn, took a small but personal offense to her stoicism after what he'd found to be an exhilarating jump...not to mention a great showcase of his strength, if he did say so himself. And so the two pouted and sulked in their own ways, though Sakura was the clear superior when it came to this talent. She wasn't sure what it was about the silence that opened like a sea between them, but it seemed to make the blonde boy antsy. In the end, he caved first with a mumble of something like a sort of apology before asking if she knew what time it was. Why that mattered, Sakura wasn't sure, but it did remind her of her poor, abandoned, and most likely broken cellphone he was basically responsible for. Sakura remained resolute and said nothing at all, to which Naruto sighed in a long suffering way.

The rest of their journey had passed uneventfully. No more cocky jumps or show off stunts. And even better, no more strange glimpses of things in lurking shadows. Naruto had been right earlier when he'd said that they were almost to a base. It hadn't taken them long at all to reach the supposed complex, an edifice Sakura felt very neutral about. It was a plain building with beautiful old windows, and from the look of it the place seemed to be an almost vintage office or loft space. It was a far cry from the sleek modernity of all the latest building being constructed not more than a mile away.

Naruto had gently lowered her from her unintentional perch on his back, and she'd fought the urge to lay flush upon the ground and feel the solid security of it all from head to toe. Now, she was looking up at the old building, whose facade was basked in faux orange streetlamp light. The corner of her mouth was hitched up a bit in thought. It wasn't exactly what she'd imagined, when she'd briefly wondered what a base would look like. Then again, she hadn't really known what to expect, anyways. It wasn't as if she was in some mod, spy movie where people threw around the term "groovy" and had moats of piranha at the ready.

If Naruto sensed her disappointment, he didn't question her on it.

"C'mon, let's hurry up and get inside. I've been dying of thirst for the last thirty minutes."

For just a second, Sakura felt a pang of guilt when she remembered the condition she'd found him in, and of course even if his organs and muscles and bones were all fixed didn't mean he'd be fully hydrated and working at one hundred percent capacity -

No, wait. She wasn't even there by choice. No sympathy for the abductor.

Her pink hair had fallen messily a bit, covering the side of her face closest to Naruto. From behind her newfound veil, she stole a glance at him. He had his mouth gaped open and his eyes half closed, tongue lolling out like a dog on a hot summer day. Sakura couldn't understand him, biologically or psychologically - not like the latter was really her specialty, but it didn't take a master to know the basics. She flicked her eyes to the dirty sidewalk beneath her in thought. He was always so comical in both speech and body language now. It was an extreme dichotomy from the moment after she'd healed him and he'd just woken up, eyes ablaze and teeth bared. His canines had glinted, winking dangerously at her in a silent promise that they would tear her flesh from her bones.

A touch on the back of her arm drew Sakura out of her thoughts. She looked to see Naruto's hand, pressed gently but firmly against her, guiding her towards the door. She bristled a bit.

"I can walk just fine on my own, thank you very much," Sakura quipped, sliding to her left a bit so that she would be beyond his reach. She marched to the door without his guidance, not looking back. If she had looked back, she'd have seen him scratching his head in a moment of confusion. Instead, she boldly went up to the door...only to deflate a second later at the awkward realization that she didn't know how to unlock the main door and had to wait for Naruto, much to her chagrin. She heard his steady steps coming from behind her, and in a last minute decision, took a new approach. Sakura whirled around, back pressing against the door to block his way. He'd been closer than she'd realized - only six or so inches away - and so she stared up at him with a look of frustration.

"You're different, too. Why?" She asked blatantly, arms crossing over her chest. She wasn't going to just go like a lamb to the slaughter. The pink haired girl had questions, and she'd be damned if she wasn't going to get answers for each and every one of them. Her eyes met his, and she saw they were blue now. Definitely blue. His iris change affirmed her confidence in her defiance, and she squared her shoulders even further. Naruto squinted, as if seeing something very strange very far away.

"Huh?"

Sakura wanted to punch down one of the walls. Maybe even the whole building. Reasonably, she opted against it, and simply puffed out an impatient sigh. "You know what I mean, with your whole 'just so you know, I know, y'know' thing earlier. I'm not going in there unless you tell me."

She seriously doubted she could keep him from dragging her in there if he used his full force, but she counted on him to not call her bluff.

"Well, why are you different?" Naruto countered skeptically. She'd have almost thought he'd taken it to a near philosophical level if he hadn't been wearing such a sophomoric expression while doing so. His tone made it seem like he was doing the kid brother 'I know you are but what am I' idiom. Still, Sakura couldn't give him an answer. Her lips had dropped apart wide as she went to speak, only to hear silence from herself when she found she had no sincere answer to give. If she didn't even know why she was the way she was, was it really logical for her to expect someone else to who was in the same situation? Still, she wasn't quite ready to back down yet.

"But you are different. We both are. If what you were saying is true, and someone really is after you, is it really smart for us to stick together? That places two potential targets in one place and makes for an easy two birds with one stone type of situation. Don't you think so?"

"Uh, haven't you ever watched a horror movie? Splitting up is never a good idea," He said in a sagely way, as though he wasn't calling on pop culture knowledge to prove his point. "Besides, we're stronger as a sort of family, sticking together and watching out for each other, y'know? And whoever said there was just two of us, huh?"

As he grinned, he reached over and pressed a buzzer of sorts to alert #301 of their presence. Sakura jumped a bit at the old, scratchy sound of it. She took a few tiny but noticeable steps away from the door she had been formerly blockading. There was a pause, and then an answering buzz responded to Naruto's unspoken request to be let in. The lock on the door clicked and popped as it released its hold to allow them to enter. He bent slightly at the waist, in a silly mimic of a bow, grinning as he waved her forward to go first. She blinked quietly for a moment, eyes flickering between him and the unlocked door and back again, before feigning a sense of bravado and strolling in. She paused upon entrance, taking in the quaint but overall typical older building atmosphere that permeated the space. Remembering she didn't know where exactly they were going, Sakura stood stiffly to the side to let him pass her, proceeding to follow him once he took the lead. They went straight to an elevator Sakura hadn't noticed before, and stepped in after the little light glowed with a ding and the doors opened wide for them.

They stepped in quickly and the doors closed. Sakura positioned herself opposite of the boy, arms crossed in what looked to be her typical interrogating position. The elevator lurched a bit as it carried their weight up through the different floor levels.

"So how long have you known you've had...powers...?" Sakura inquired, the word "powers" feeling cliche and unrealistic on her tongue as she spoke it. It felt like she was in some poorly scripted movie. She looked at him baldy, exasperated and done trying to ask hard hitting questions. At that point, she was just trying to decide if she was in a nightmare or floating in a dream. Either were just as likely.

"Kind of since forever... Or, well, if I were to really think about it and try to pinpoint it, I'd say somewhere around nine or ten. It wasn't really all that fun at first, but I got roped in by LEAF pretty soon after my powers started acting up and I learned how to manage everything," Naruto said, looking thoughtful as he cast his blue eyes up to the ceiling of the elevator. Then, he grinned suddenly and got a cheeky tone to his voice as he continued. "I've actually gotten way stronger than I ever thought I'd be thanks to being with LEAF and learning under Jiraiya - "

The elevator came to a stop, and the bell dinged again, this time cutting off Naruto.

"Leaf like tree leaves or...?" Sakura trailed off questioningly, the elevator opening the doors of its mouth wide open once again. As it did so, another person was revealed on the other side. He had a cigarette precariously hanging from between his lips, and both hands were shoved in his pockets. When he caught sight of them, he tilted his head back to look at them down the bridge of his nose before rolling his eyes to the heavens and groaning. He hunched forward even more, as if standing upright was a thing too burdensome for him to deal with.

"Naruto, what are you doing?" He asked wearily, tendrils of smoke climbing up higher and higher from the end of his cigarette. His lips had fallen to a lopsided mixture of a grimace and a frown, the annoyed displeasure on his face as obvious as the pungent aroma of his smoke. He must have heard the end of their discussion as the elevator opened, and was far from pleased. "You can't just talk about confidential -"

"Shikamaru! Hey! I..uhhh...well...hey, didn't granny Tsunade tell you not to smoke indoors?"

Naruto and Sakura exited the elevator, the former grinning awkwardly at first before making his accusation. Sakura watched as the boy with the ponytail - Shikamaru - entered inhuman levels of practically tangible exasperation.

"Yeah, almost as many times as she's told you not to call her granny," Shikamaru deadpanned, shifting his weight as he turned his attention to Sakura. He looked at her taciturnly for a moment, not offering or asking a name, before turning back to Naruto. Sakura mostly didn't mind, even though she had been unnerved under the observance of his bored eyes. Being pretty much ignored was better than being asked questions. "Whatever, this is your problem so don't drag me into it. I'm going up to the roof to watch some clouds. Don't bother me if anything goes wrong."

He skirted around them easily, opening a new door to a stairway instead of opting for the elevator - probably because he didn't want to hang around them and endure anymore conversation with Naruto, Sakura mused. The door closed behind him heavily.

"That was Nara Shikamaru," Naruto introduced belatedly, a crooked smile on his face. "He seems kind of lazy - he generally is, to be honest - but he's crazy smart and a really great friend."

Naruto's untempered, loud voice must have carried easily through the corridor and the stairwell, because Sakura could have sworn she heard a troubled "what a drag" echo softly from the same direction Shikamaru had departed in. Naruto shrugged and started walking towards yet another door, apparently eager to get on with the tail end of their little adventure. Sakura spared one last glance over her shoulder at where Shikamaru had exited, wondering if he had powers, and what they were if he did. The meeting had helped build her confidence in Naruto, both in his character and his words. The memory of slitted red eyes and the echoes of his growlings became fainter and fainter with each new piece of knowledge she gleaned. At that point, she was ready to trust him. Her only reservations were centered around why so many other people with abilities had been existing without her ever knowing, and why one of them had brought her to a base they apparently used?

It was impossible that she had been - or ever would have been - in danger. Sakura had always kept her head down and her cards close. If anything, her boldest act had been to actually infiltrate the medical field as a working profession, much to her father's previous worry and chagrin given her abilities. But she had always been careful. She had always been careful, that is, until healing Naruto. Now, she was about to be surrounded by more people who shared secrets like her than she could have ever dreamed of. Her anonymity was gone, but was it sacrificed and traded for something better? How refreshing it was, to know that she wasn't the only one. How serene to realize she had never been alone, but one out of many. How had she lasted so long, without even the prospect or hope of meeting someone like her? Sakura felt like she was breathing for the first time, and she breathed deeply.

Naruto opened the door with ease, the lock sitting unused either because of a frequent coming and going of people or the lack of any sort of real danger. Sakura barely noticed. Besides, would a lock really work against someone unnatural? In her modest opinion, Sakura knew she was strong, but not the strongest. What were average, civilian locks to people like her? She couldn't even imagine. It jogged her memory, and she recalled all those times she had found herself on the unlucky side of a locked door. She'd always followed the polite, social etiquette of either waiting or accepting the latched entry when she could've just pushed it over as easy as a domino.

"This is it," Naruto welcomed brightly, unveiling the room within to her eyes. It was an open, bright place with a long meeting table sitting centrally in the heart of the impressive space. A few other, smaller tables were organized on one of the walls and housed computers on each of their respective flat tops. There were a few potted plants placed tastefully here and there, and a lounge space resided comfortably further within. Lastly, in her quick visual sweep of the place, she noticed that there was a corner turning into a second area, though she couldn't make out what it was for from her position.

Sakura had been expecting a busy room full of people meeting productively and one or two individuals running to and fro with stacks of important documents, but there was no such scene to be found. The peace and tranquility, though not unwelcome, threw her off for a second. Instead of a meticulously working crowd, there were only two people. A blonde girl was lackadaisically draped across a cream colored couch, her hands extended out a bit, clasping a phone as her thumbs worked speedily on the touchscreen. Closer to them, a boy was crouched low next to one of the large, potted plants. He was still wearing sunglasses even though he was indoors, and he had one finger extended and rested gently against a few of the leaves.

She could feel at least fifteen percent of her trust and confidence melt away at the mere impression those two left. It didn't so much as lower her opinion of Naruto as it did of the organization he was affiliated with as a whole. Her eyebrow ticked in disbelief. As nice and supposedly professional as the place looked, this new duo gave it an offbeat, college dorm sort of vibe. Was that guy in the sunglasses high?

'What're you guys doing here?" Naruto inquired, though not unkindly in the least. The tone of his voice conveyed genuine interest and curiosity. He made a beeline straight for an abandoned water bottle on the main table, and Sakura scampered after him. She resisted her desire to all but hide behind him, like some duckling behind her mother's feathers. Naruto, oblivious to her discomfort, opened the bottle and immediately started guzzling the water down. He really hadn't been lying about dying of thirst, Sakura observed before looking back at the other two. The blonde girl hadn't taken the time to look from her phone screen for a millisecond to notice the pink haired newcomer, and either the other guy hadn't or he was just too invested in the plant to care.

It was only when Naruto crunched the empty, plastic water bottle within his hand in satisfaction that the blonde jerked up from her prone position on the couch. "No, don't drink it! That was my water I bought, not some average tap junk you get for free - huh? Who are you?"

She pointed her still glowing phone at Sakura accusingly in one hand, and her single visible eyes narrowed. The boy in sunglasses, to his credit, hadn't budged an inch even with all of the ruckus unfolding around him. Sakura looked at Naruto out of the corner of her eyes but, discovering quickly he wouldn't be much help by the look on his face, she faced the girl head on. Her jaw had clenched a bit, unappreciative of the way she spoke to her, like she was some weird stray Naruto had dragged in.

"I'm not sure that's any of your business," Sakura quipped, the other girl's noted attitude bringing out a defiant side in her. She couldn't be sure if it was female rivalry or just a matter of pride, but Sakura felt like if she backed down now, the blonde would never let her hear the end of it. Sure, she might only be goading the other girl on, but at this point she couldn't really see what she had to lose. "Naruto wanted me to come here for some reason, and once that reason is done I'll be gone as quickly as possible."

The blonde looked startled by her response for a millisecond before recovering with a vengeance. She turned her frown full force at Naruto.

"Don't look at me, Ino. I don't know her name, either, y'know?" He shrugged nonchalantly, the empty water bottle still trapped between her fingers and palm.

"Seriously? And you brought her all the way here? Well then..." Ino trailed off, smirking a bit as she set her phone down on the arm of the couch and straightened her position. "I think I can help you out with that no problem."

As she moved to raise her hands, Naruto dipped down so that his head blocked Sakura's from Ino's view, breaking her field of view. He shook his head, looking a bit more serious. "Nope, I'm not gonna let you do that, Ino. This isn't some interrogation."

Sakura wasn't sure what they were talking about or alluding to, but she was happy enough that Naruto had stepped in. It was easy for her to forget that everyone in that room had some sort of power, and that it would be wise if she didn't go messing with anyone until she'd learned as much as she could about what they could do. Some childish side in her heart wanted to peek around Naruto's head and stick her tongue out at Ino, but she stayed as still and calm as possible. Ino, on the other hand, huffed and snatched her phone again, returning to the digital screen.

"You're looking a little worse for wear."

Sakura - who had been absently watching the sunglasses boy still squatting vigilanting next to his plant station - blinked in surprise at the new voice. Naruto stood up straight immediately, and as he did so, a dark haired figure was revealed before Sakura's now unobscured vision. He had rounded the corner from the other part of the space and now leaned against it casually, taking in the scene before him. Whereas Shikamaru's eyes had been penetratingly observant, his dark eyes burned holes through anything he stared at. She felt fire burn at the tips of her ears, and she averted her gaze.

"No thanks to you. Could've used your help, jerk," Naruto retorted, his upper lip curling slightly.

"Ah, I can see that. I've been busy, though, tying up loose ends for the committee here and there. Not like everyone else, bumming around the base all day and acting like it's a second home," He stated, voice blase and unbothered, and yet somehow still passive aggressively pointed at his obvious targets.

"Oh, Sasuke, Choji and I are here with Shikamaru to process some files and print off paperwork," Ino replied, propping an arm leisurely along the back of the couch as she peeked at him from behind her long bangs. She turned coy quickly, a subtle smile gracing her lips. "If you ever need help tying up those loose ends, just let me know, ok?"

Sasuke, looking unaffected, didn't even turn to acknowledge her or her vague double entendre she'd slipped in so boldly. Sakura glanced between Naruto and Sasuke, wondering if it was common for them to have little stare downs like what they were doing right then.

"Shino, you've got to stop sitting so still by that damn yucca plant. Move a little, at least! You're giving me the creeps!" Ino cried, shifting easily from her coy simpering with Sasuke to address the boy by the plant. True to form, he didn't twitch a single muscle in response. She rolled her eyes, though it didn't help her cause in the slightest.

Both eyebrows raised significantly, Sakura took in the seemingly ragtag team just as a clatter resounded from another, unseen room.

"WHAT? Are we seriously out of chips right now?"