Chapter 1
Haruno Sakura didn’t know where she’d gone wrong growing up.
All she knew, was that her friends had become this dependant on her and, by the looks of it, they were now desperate too. Desperate enough to be fussing up a storm outside the Yin and Yang library with absolutely no regard for bystanders, let alone the headmaster’s magic thrumming underneath the wooden floors and brick walls.
“Sakura-chan! Pretty please with a cherry on top? Just this once can you get my name off the ero-sennin’s damned book!?”
Why or how Naruto had managed to get his name on Jiraiya’s punishment scroll was beyond her at this point.
The Uzumaki was the spitting image of his father, what with the unruly blonde hair and blue eyes. His tan cheeks were whiskered since birth and he still had poorly timed growth spurts, becoming the tallest of their graduating class slowly but surely.
“The walls have ears, dobe, are you trying to get us all in trouble?”
Sasuke, however much in love with him, wasn’t one to cheat the rules without reason, which meant whatever the consequences of his boyfriend’s actions would affect them as well.
The ravenette wore his spiked bangs partially over his face. It was easy to connect the black eyes and angular, pale features to the Uchiha crest proudly displayed by his clothes.
“ Eh ? What did you even do?”
Fate seemed to be against her, on that particular day, because Karin was getting involved and it was part of their bitch code, that when one of the two got involved, the other had to help out- Sakura had been so engrossed in the spell she’d been working on that all she wanted was to crawl back into bed with her grimoire and ignore Naruto’s stupidity for the rest of the day, until they had to go to Sasuke’s house for his mom's dinner party.
The red head was tucked into her boyfriend’s side, cleaning her glasses on the hem of her shirt. Suigetsu was leaning against the large windows of the opposite wall, purple eyes thoroughly amused at her predicament, grinning to reveal two rows of pointed teeth. Karin thugged on a single white hair to stop him from pushing Sakura’s buttons.
Seeing her unamused stare, Sasuke clamped his hand down on Naruto’s mouth and pulled him to his chest, locking his head underneath him with his chin. “He interrupted the godaime’s meeting this morning.”
“With the sexy technique, no less.” Snickered Suigetsu.
Sakura snapped. “Do you even know why Sunagakure diplomats were here? The Kazekage’s kids are going to enroll here today, dumbass- ”
“Mmf- What’s that matter? Hiruzen- Jiji pranks me back all the time-”
Sakura thought backwards from thirty, shooting an exasperated glance in Karin’s way as she tried to hold back her temper.
“It’s politics, cousin dearest,” The redhead singsonged. “Not your cup of tea.”
“It’s an olive branch, usuratonkachi.” The Uchiha muttered, keeping his hold on the blonde. “Their way of saying they trust Konoha.”
“I’m going to show them around later, Naruto, with Lee- just what made you think that was a good idea? Today of all days?”
She had to give it to him, out of all their friends Naruto was the winner of their who-can-get-Sasuke’s-panties-in-a-twist-faster game by far and despite the pureblood never admitting it, he liked it, even if he found himself cleaning up after the nine tailed fox all the time.
“Sakura, my mother would have our heads.”
Her whine was pitiful even to her own ears- why did she let these idiots reason with her?
“Yeah, don’t wanna see that again. Come on, crazy pink, help a guy out?”
The look she shot Suigetsu was murderous but alas, she gave in.
“Karin?”
“Roger.”
They walked the large hallways in comfortable silence, at first. Karin had her hand in Sakura’s jeans’ backpocket and, unlike the morons she called friends, they spoke without advertising it to the wandering eye.
“You’ve been going at it pretty hard these past few days.” Karin mused.
“‘m fine, Karin, thanks, just one of those weeks, you know?” She shrugged, “What should we go with?”
“How about… Your clearance headband, damsel in distress?”
Sakura snorted, opening the first quarter of her qipao-style top to show her cleavage and letting the redhead take the headband from her, “I swear, one of this days he’s going to figure it out.” She grumbled.
Karin laughed and her grin turned sly.
“I don’t know, you’re pretty convincing.”
Her laughter echoed through the hallways at Sakura’s swatting palm.
They ended up messing her hair up and pinching her cheeks to make her flush so her tears were more believable. Once they got the narrative straight and Karin gave her a pep talk, she knocked on the heavy wooden door to his study.
Nothing could be heard from outside because of the silencing spell he had, but she was confident that even if there was someone inside with him, she could probably pass this off. She knocked twice before she started sobbing softly.
“Eh? Sakura-chan! Why are you crying?”
Jiraiya’s infamous long, spiky white hair was rough on her skin when she threw herself at him and wrapped her arms around his neck, making sure to drag her chest down on his to draw his attention to it.
“I’m sorry, Jiraiya-sama, I didn’t know where else to go!”
It was easy to play distressed when she knew exactly what his reactions would be. She stopped the door from closing with her ankle so Karin could walk in after her- under a cloaking spell, of course- and pretended to stumble so he spun and ended with his back to his desk.
“It- it’s alright- but-”
She hadn’t been able to see who was in the room clearly, but the punishment scroll seemingly moving on it’s own in his desk was directly in her line of sight- Sakura had to admit that Karin was ridiculously good at doing this type of dirty work.
The punishment scroll worked with blood magic- the writer had to have magic in their veins, and if they were powerful enough, the punishment would be fulfilled no matter what, no matter who’s will it had to bend.
”Sakura-chan, what’s wrong?”
The only way to undo a punishment was for a bloodwitch to cross out the words with their own blood, which was by default stronger than any other supernatural being’s, thus erasing the words permanently. Which was where Karin, an Uzumaki bloodwitch, came in and did just that, with Naruto's punishment.
“My clearance headband, for Tsunade-shishou’s labs! I can’t find it anywhere and her punishments are-”
Biting her lip for emphasis on her supposed bashfulness, Sakura sniffled and averted her gaze.
“What are her punishments like, Sakura-chan?”
She met his eyes through her lashes, playing with the blush in her cheeks and the odd face he always made at the implication of Tsunade-shishou punishing her sexually.
“They’re embarrassing!”
Perhaps the most important part of their plan was playing on his shame at being caught thinking of his students- particularly, Tsunade’s pupil, pervertedly.
Karin pretended to burst into the room. “Sakura, I found it- oh, am I interrupting something, sensei?”
“Not at all, Karin-chan, I was just, um-”
“Helping me calm down.” Sakura let him go, wiping at her cheeks. “Thank you, Jiraiya-sama.”
“Well, break’s about to end, we have to go, Sakura.” The redhead’s tone of voice was purposefully cold, contrasting Sakura’s to a fault.
“I’m sorry for bothering you, Jiraiya-sama.”
“N-not at all-”
She turned to find three people in the room, all leveling her with varying expressions of amusement and all wearing very distinctive cloaks- the white outline on the red clouds left no room for doubt. The heads of the Akatsuki, Jiraiya’s prodigy trio, Yahiko, Konan and Nagato were all staring at her in a way she had never been stared at before. She had to bite down the string of curse words that threatened to stumble past her tongue.
Jiraiya and Karin were talking about Juugo, she gathered, Karin’s childhood friend- something about him wanting to join his advanced Fuinjutsu class, but her heart was blaring by her eardrums and it was hard to focus.
Konan took a step forward and twirled one of Sakura’s pink strands of hair between her fingers, before pushing it behind her ear and cradling her jaw tenderly. The flush that warmed her ears was very much real this time. She felt small, albeit admitedly in a strange, good way.
The woman was so unlike anyone she had ever met, so sure of herself- her blue hair fell straight from a delicate bun and a paper flower and her eyes were a warm amber colour Sakura hadn’t ever seen on anyone.
Yahiko moved to stand closer as well, but by then Sakura had begun to get her mind to stop reeling. The man was beautiful, of course he was, all three of them were. His tan skin was littered with piercings and his hair stood upwards in orange spikes. He towered over her with ease, contrasting Konan's slender figure with broad shoulders and a stronger presence.
Behind the two, she met Nagato’s infamous rinnegan gaze- while Konan and Yahiko were both Shapeshifters, the crimson haired man was a hybrid Night Walker, the only living demon of his kind. It wasn't mindless fear but the assessing tilt to his head that made her snap out of it. Either they were mocking her for the fun of it, or they had an agenda.
She plastered on a smile quickly, distancing herself and bowing in apology to get her act back in order.
“I’m sorry for cutting in on your conversation.”
“No harm done...”
The lingering question in his voice brought shivers down her spine. They already knew who she was. The Akatsuki didn’t go around seducing random people for the fun of it, she was sure now.
“Haruno Sakura.”
They definitely had an agenda.
When she and Karin left the room, she muttered a quick spell to fix her appearance. Her magic was drumming timidly under her rib cage, fluttering in colourful swirls. She thought back to Yahiko’s stare and the way it made him feel when he reached for her, how her flush had deepened and she’d had to force rational thought to the front of her mind- what she would have done if they’d gone on interrupted was something Sakura didn’t think even she knew.
“So what was his punishment?”
Immediately after the words left her mouth, Karin scoffed. “We’re not doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Changing the subject- what was that?”
“What was what?”
“They were ogling you.”
“No they weren’t.”
“I call bulshit-” She squinted, pursing her lips. “Whatever. Have it your way. Naruto was going to clean up the common showers.”
“That’s… honestly disgusting.”
“That bad?”
Sakura nearly jumped out of her skin as they started down the steps to the ground floor. “Sasuke, what the hell- I told you to stop doing that!”
The vampire smirked and averted his gaze, taking the vengeful swatt she landed on his back like a satisfied cat that had just gotten a big stripe of tuna-
“He wouldn’t even have left tonight.” Karin humored him.
“Yikes.” Suigetsu laughed, taking her hand in his and pressing a kiss to her knuckles- for all of his bravado he worried about Karin more than anyone else- he didn’t like her wasting her blood on frivolous things.
“Sasuke’s mom that scary?” The redhead mocked.
“You have no idea, babe.”