"Enough," said the impossibly deep voice.
Sakura backed up as far as she could, the gilded bird cage she was in swaying on its chain as she shifted her weight. "You don't scare me! SASUKE!"
"Who or what is 'Sasuke'? I have down here that the Contractor for the dragons of my world is 'Naruto Uzumaki' so..."
Sakura made a noise deep in her throat as the dragon pulled closer. She'd been dismissive of the whole dragon thing because all she'd really seen had been the tiny Mushu. This particular dragon was easily the size of the Hokage Mountain. Just one tooth was bigger than her entire body.
"The obvious conclusion is that you are an enemy of the Contractor, who tried to use the directory - perhaps sabotaging it so that he couldn't use it," rumbled the dragon. "Hmmm. Well, I can fix that."
Sakura began trying to pry the bars apart, well able to comprehend how she could be 'fixed' - and in a fatal manner. "You better not! I'm his TEAM MATE!"
"Hmmm. Truth. So what were you doing with the directory?" The dragon regarded her.
"He... let me read it!" tried Sakura.
"Lie," said the dragon. "So a member of his team, but going through his things without permission. The trap would not have activated from simply handling the book. So what were you doing?"
"I..." Sakura tried to think of some explanation that didn't make her sound guilty.
"Enough. I would not do this if there were an alternative, but it seems in order to know the truth - I must."
"What are you..." began Sakura.
"Hi, I'm Sakura. Sakura Haruno!" She bowed slightly.
"Ino Yamanaka!" said the blonde girl. "You seem to like flowers."
"No!" said Sakura, clutching her head and glaring at the dragon. "You're in my memories!"
"Clever girl," said the dragon. "For something with the rough IQ of a flatworm. Now, let's see what's in there."
Sakura felt it then. As if her entire life was being replayed at high speeds. Images, sounds, sensations - all playing out in front of this inhuman being. It occasionally slowed or paused as the dragon went over the details.
"Quite intelligent among the human hatchlings, but not so much around this male. Observe. He quite obviously has no interest in you. Whereas the Contractor has interest in you, but you have no interest in him. Considering you live your lives in less time than it takes me to digest a meal, you'd think you'd be a bit more pragmatic about such things."
Sakura slid down the bars in her cage as imagery played out in her head, highlighting Sasuke's disinterest and Naruto's attempts to ask her out. Each sequence slamming her as an inhuman intelligence played out the details and pointed out things she'd somehow missed.
"He was shunned and hated by the adults in your village? Odd. And so he became a prankster and started wearing orange to draw attention to himself so that he wouldn't be ignored. How very human of him."
Sakura closed her eyes, curling up on herself as memories were dug out and brought out for examination before being slapped back into place. It seemed to go on forever, far longer than the twelve years of her life.
"Hmmm. Well that's enough. Not an enemy exactly, but far from being a friend. It's your motives for doing this that are the sticky point as I understand it. You forcibly took his directory away from the Contractor. You did it to benefit someone else, and you knew the relationship between the two was rivalry of some kind. I wonder if it's because of you that the two are at odds. Can't really tell as I've only got access to your memories and not that of anyone else."
Sakura stayed where she was, trying not to throw up.
"Still, broken thing that you are, I can fix you."
"Don't you have to obey Naruto? He wouldn't like it if you do something to me," said Sakura, trying to get her shaking under control now.
"No, human child. I'm not part of that contract, I abstained from the whole process. They wouldn't have included me anyway as I am considered quite insane. Now, let's first fix things a bit. Oh, and this might hurt."
"We got her back, unharmed," said Mushu. "Though it was old Fumeichi who had her."
"'Fumeichi'?" asked Naruto, beginning to go through his directory of summons.
"Not in there, crazy old drake, always taking things apart and seeing how they work," said Mushu.
"That doesn't sound so bad," said Naruto.
"Then he puts them back together, with improvements," said Mushu.
"That still doesn't sound so bad," said Naruto.
"Uh huh. This here is the dragon who put took a bat and a cat apart and put them back together," said Mushu. "You ended up with a cat that flies after birds and a bat that swooped up fish. BIG fish."
"Uhm, so you're saying you got Sakura back okay anyway right?" asked Naruto.
"Well, nothing physically added we could see," admitted Mushu. "No extra wings or horns or tails or such."
"Meh," said Kakashi. "We'll just have to keep an eye on her then in case anything pops up."
"Or out..." said Mushu thoughtfully.
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(Posted Sat, 01 Sep 2012 22:46)
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