Rabbit Princess [Gaara] [2]

☾ 1 ☽

"Tsukiko?" Sakura asked as she knocked on the white-haired girl's apartment door. Sakura looked around awkwardly as she stood there, as she had never visited Tsukiko's home ever before. But she needed to see where Tsukiko was, it was almost time for her shift at the hospital and Tsukiko was never this late.

When there was no response, Sakura sighed and pulled out the key that Tsunade had provided her. Sakura had looked all over the place for Tsukiko: at the library, at the academy, at the monument, at the gambling houses, everywhere. She put it into the keyhole and unlocked the door, heading gingerly into the dark apartment, hoping that Tsukiko was not in any sort of trouble. Was Tsukiko sick? Was Tsukiko hurt? Was she kidnapped?!

Sakura took off her shoes and entered the living room, turning on the lights. She was shocked to see the condition of the room. It worse than Tsunade's office – there were books and scrolls of all sizes set around the room. The racks were filled to the brim with books toppling over toppling books that the remaining books and scrolls were placed around the floor in a strange order that Sakura was sure that only Tsukiko would understand it.

But that wasn't it. Tsukiko had all sorts of weapons set around the room, hanging from the walls and ceiling, piled atop each other. And Sakura was sure that Tsukiko hadn't hung them for safety, just placed them around wherever she found space. There was a large rack on the wall that was filled with brushes of all sizes and Sakura noted that a few of them were missing.

Carefully, Sakura found a narrow path in the living room and took it toward the direction of Tsukiko's bedroom. She shook her head when she saw large bottles of what Sakura could only imagine being poisons and antidotes filling up half of the kitchen while several empty boxes of Daifuku sat on the table right next to them.

Sakura was half afraid that Tsukiko is going to end up dipping her Daifuku into one of the poisons. But Tsukiko was Konoha's most recent Poison Genius. There was not a single poison that Tsukiko did not know of anymore and she had created antidotes for several poisons that didn't have any beforehand. She was impeccable, and Sakura knew that it was Tsukiko's genes from her mother. Tsukiko had already been nicknamed 'Konoha's Higanbana' or 'Konoha's Manjushage'.

"Tsukiko?" Sakura whispered as she tried to open the door to the younger girl's room but the door took a lot of strength to open. It wasn't that the door wasn't working properly itself – the floor of Tsukiko's bedroom was littered with even more things that prevented the door from being opened properly.

A large scroll was sitting open in the middle of the room and was spread all over the room, and looking at the Kanji on them, Sakura figured that Tsukiko had been halfway into writing it before she left it alone. Large inkpots and brushes sat nearby, and Sakura found that several more (closed) scrolls and a Koto was keeping the door from opening properly. And then, Sakura found Tsukiko.

Tsukiko was laid out on her bed, snoring slightly as she hugged a pillow with her long legs. She was dressed in just her blue 'Love' t-shirt and pyjama shorts. Her shirt had been ridden up, exposing her toned stomach. Her extremely long hair was hanging off of the bed and her bangs were off of her face, showing off her new blue Strength of a Hundred Seal.

Sakura felt rather envious as she stared at it. She had wanted to get the seal as well but hadn't been able to so far. It was that – and Tsukiko's puberty-hit body. She had grown so tall, and her chest had filled out very nicely. Tsukiko wasn't overly busty but... Sakura sighed, shaking her head at her thoughts.

"Tsukiko," Sakura said as she reached out, and shook the younger girl awake. Tsukiko looked at her groggily and rolled away from the pink-haired girl, ignoring her existence. "Come on, Tsukiko, it's time for your shift at the hospital!"