- Chapter 20 -

Mist

Her whole life, she had to run. Run away from the loss she had suffered, run away from her emotions, run from her father. And now, she had to run once again to save all that was left for her.

The sun was setting and the last of the sun rays were chasing after her, giving a head start to her shadow. She wasn't even puffing as she was giving up her last ounces of energy. Gaara's house was her only objective at that moment, eyes widened and focused on the road in front of her. 

Maybe Gaara was already dead. Maybe she was too late and all of this was going down the drain. 

'I'm a bad friend, I'm the worst,' she thought as her exhaustion started creeping under her skin. 'Gaara, I'm so sorry, please be okay, please be okay, I'm sorry.'

When the familiar dried-out garden and red door came into sight, Akira slowed down her pace and walked through the entrance. She stood in front of the door and tried to drown her breathing in order to listen to the activities of the house. Chatter.

Her hand automatically rang the bell. The chattering stopped and she slid her hand in her pocket, ready to pull out the knife she had carried with her in case she was attacked. But her worries came to a stop when the door opened and Gaara stood in front of her - intact, breathing, alive -, surprise swimming in his pale eyes.

"Akira."

"Hey," she breathed out and lowered her head, feeling her knees weak.

"Did you - " he took a peek of the road, " - run all the way here? Come on in."

Akira nodded without uttering a word and entered the house. She had made it, she wasn't too late. Relief washed over her, her now ghost-pale face turning the right shade. 

"What are you doing here?" he whispered, his hand finding its way to her back instinctively. "I thought we agreed to meet up in two days, before I leave."

"Yes, yes, I know but . . . I missed you." Akira swallowed her lie hardly as she tried to regain her normal breathing pace. 

Gaara nodded and disappeared through the entrance of the living room.

"It's Akira?" Kankuro's quirky voice came from the room. "Nice, tell her to come in here. Unless you two want to go to your bedroom."

Akira walked in the living room, noticing firstly Kankuro sitting on the couch with his usual goofy grin and then Gaara leaning up against the wall next to him. She was quick to notice a third person sitting opposite of Kankuro who let their cup of tea on the table and turned to look at her. 

Her bones burned. Under the bandages, her wounds screamed. The same sly eyes, the slight smile and the delicate features. The man who had almost killed her during her mission was sitting right in front of her, eyes boring into her with a covered mischief. 

Kankuro noticed the two persons looking at each other. "Oh, Akira, I believe you haven't met my friend yet. Akira, this is Haku."

The same empty, dark eyes that she had last seen before blacking out. The same name Deidara had told her after she had listened to the myth surrounding the school about this murderous student. It all fit in the puzzle, yet it was too late.

"Gaara . . . " Akira trailed off, managing to catch sight of Haku lowering his hand on the couch besides him. "Fall down."

She wiped out her knife faster than she expected but not fast enough. Haku was already in front of her when her knife was in her hand and she managed to duck in the last minute. A second later and his glistening knife would have cut her throat open. She flung her body back straight and managed to slice his arm before backing off. Haku didn't even hiss and simply stared at her, anger clouding his dark eyes.

"What th-"

"Run! I said fucking run!"

Kankuro and Gaara ran off to the room connected to the living room; Akira didn't let her eyes leave Haku's form. 

"You really are an annoying brat," he voiced airily, sighing softly. "Meddling with things you are not supposed to know about. You'll die either way. Your friend, too."

"Not today, Satan," Akira hissed. Her knife twirled in her calloused hand before she grabbed it from its tip and threw it towards Haku.

The boy easily avoided the hit but didn't see the ginger lunging towards him. He had the reflexes to avoid her and he stepped to the side, bringing up his foot and kicking her to the stomach. Akira tried to ignore the menacing pain of her insides as she clang on his foot and pulled him violently towards the ground. Haku fell on the floor with an awful crunching sound, gasping as the air was kicked out of him. 

"Motherfucker!" Akira yelled as she fell on top of him.

She slid her backup knife from her sock and pulled it down on his throat. Haku grabbed both her hands before she could slice his artery open and tried pushing her off. Akira wasn't heavy enough to hold him down and she flinched, trying to apply more pressure on the knife. 

"Gaara! Get out of the house now! Leave!"

Haku grinned maniacally, his eyes widening at the sight of Akira's face, scrunched up with despair and anger. "Even if they escape from me, they'll die. We'll find them."

"Fuck off," Akira thundered and pressured the knife towards him.

The knife slipped and stabbed Haku on the shoulder, giving the male the perfect opportunity to flip her over and punch her square in the face. 

"This time, I will fuck you up even mo-"

A loud bang resounded in the room and Haku fell back, lifting the pressure off Akira. The girl immediately sat up and scurried away from the now lifeless body of Haku. He had fallen on his back, hands spread like angel wings and blood leaking from his head. She stared breathlessly at the parted lips, the dull eyes and the face which was slowly losing each color.

Haku was dead. 

"Fuck . . . " she murmured and reached up to her face, realizing there were blood splutters on it. 

Akira turned her head and looked at the entrance of the living room. Pein and Deidara were standing on the doorway; the taller male was placing something in the inner corner of his jacket while the blondie was walking towards her.

Deidara knelt besides her. "You okay, un?"

"Y-yeah . . ."

Akira wiped her face with both hands, feeling disgusted being covered with someone else's blood. Someone who was alive just a few moments before.

"How did you find me?"

"Saw you rushing outside. You looked like you had seen a ghost, hm." He reached inside his pocket and took out a crumpled handkerchief. "I called Pein when I saw people rushing out of the house."

Deidara suggested the handkerchief and she gladly accepted it. "People?"

"Yeah, three persons. One was that friend of yours from school."

"Gaara, yes . . . " Akira trailed off and stared off to the very end of the living room, where the entrance to the kitchen was. A switch clicked in her brain and she snapped her head towards Pein. "You knew Gaara was a Jinchuuriki."

Pein was wiping his hands with a hankie. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You damn well know what I'm talking about, Pein," Akira retorted, finding her previous rage and letting it overtake her. "And you were going to put someone take Gaara's fortune, to kill him and his family." 

"Gaara was a Jinchuuriki," Pein corrected, immediately earning a questioning look from the girl. He huffed and sat on a chair near to the dead body. "Gaara's family used to be one of Konoha's economic superpowers. After their demise, half the money was given to charity and the rest went to the children. Most of it has been already used so we don't consider the Sabaku's a target anymore."

"But someone else does," Deidara piped up, glancing quickly at the motionless body of Haku.

Akira stood up on her feet. "But not for the money. Why else would they approach them?"

"Probably to get close to you," Pein answered instantly, metallic eyes boring in Akira's figure. "Before you ask me why, the reason is simple: you are a new member. It would be easier for them to get close to you through Gaara and either make you their mole or kill you and blame it on us."

" . . . Makes sense."

Akira sat on the couch, clutching her stomach in pain. The kick she had received was strong, so strong she wondered how an internal bleeding wasn't caused. 

"This may sound dumb but . . ." , she looked at the lifeless body, "What are we going to do with that?"

Both males turned to look at Haku and the blood that had quickly spread on the carpet. Pein shrugged. "Guess we'll have to chop him up, roll up the carpet, cremate it, put his body parts in bags with rocks and throw them in the sea."

"What the  . . . I didn't realize you were that sick," Akira pointed out, making a face at his sayings.

"Also you didn't realize that I'm merely kidding," Pein mused, a tiny smile appearing on his lips. 

Akira clicked her tongue and buried her face in her hands, trying not to cry out how stupid this situation was. They were standing in a room with a dead body, evidence that they had killed them on Akira's skin and clothes and three witnesses on the loose. For a gang, they were helpless.

"Deidara, I'm going to call Sasori and the Zetsu's for this," Pein rejoined and pulled out his cellphone. "Take Akira back to the headquarters, make sure he doesn't look like he killed someone."

"But I didn't kill - "

"You're right, I did. Oh, how am I going to cope with this now?" the ginger male mocked, not budging an inch when Akira raised her middle finger to him.

"You really are an asshole."

  。。。＊ 。。。＊。。。＊。。。 

Konoha was really quiet during its hazy nights. The city was decorated with green lanterns for the upcoming food festival and the only sounds which were busying the tired citizens were the workers setting up their stools. No one dared to step out of their house during these heat haze days.

A lonely male was sitting on a bench, a yen being played on his fingers as he waited. He checked his watch again; the person he was expecting was late. Sighing, he stood up and stretched his hands. He hated the heat haze days; too much heat and humidity together caused his bones to hurt and his head to beat hardly like his heart.

And during these days, what he hated the most was waiting. Waiting for a mission to be completed while it should have been finished from the moment the damn kid had stepped in the organization.

'They're all kids, anyways,' he thought as he waltzed through the empty streets, pulling down on his hood. 'Pretty damned kids.'

He checked his watch again. He should be going back or else he could totally blow his cover. Besides, he knew that Haku was not going to show up. Haku was never late. Therefore, the mission had failed.

"Ah, Akira-chan," he murmured, pausing his step to shove his yen back in his pocket. "You are making Tobi's life difficult."