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The sliding doors caught Sakumo by his elbows as he practically leapt into the car clutching his canvas bag to his chest, having started to run at the sound of the bell, and made it inside breathing hard, in time for the last train, but only just so. A musical laugh drew Sakumo's attention to the lone woman at the end of the train, a beautiful one in a lavender coloured furisode. She had moon pale skin and night dark hair weaved up in a bun held together with sticks and pins with flowers made of silk, glass, pearls, and there were little strings of bells that jingled when she was laughing into her raised sleeve.
Sakumo was enchanted, he had only ever seen women of such elaborate dress and elegant manners within the tourist district, sometimes Coming of Age ceremonies – and none of those women were this lovely, this ethereal. He gave her his most winsome smile and she smiles back, slyly, her lips were thin but her eyes were lethal weapons of bewitchment, a golden gaze framed by long dark lashes and the use of a purple eyeshadow that was dramatically dark against the mochi-whiteness of her face.
If she was with her friends or if it was daytime, Sakumo might have approached her and introduced himself, but it was the dead of the night and it seemed as if they were the only two passengers on the last train out of the city. He didn't want to put a woman into the position of being intimidated by him and feeling trapped with no avenue of escape. So he settled down on the bench right next to the doors he came through, gave the beautiful woman at the end of the car one last look over (she was still smiling, slyly), and closed his eyes in feign (attempt to) sleep. He drifted off to the scent of roses that must be her perfume, sweet and strong but not overwhelming.
In what seems the blink of an eye, Sakumo was passing through somewhere he had never seen before in his trips home from the city, how long was he asleep? A familiar looking couple broads the train together, arms linked and huddled so close that all Sakumo could see of them was the back of their light brown turtlenecked robes and their hair – the woman, long hair a dark gray blue, the man, short, tousled, the colour of autumn maple leaves. The rectangular luggage case they held together in their black gloved hands were much larger than the canvas bag that Sakumo was still clutching tightly to his chest. Was an instrument? Were they musicians?
It was the woman with the dark blue-gray hair that had noticed Sakumo staring first, and even before their eyes met, killing intent as sharp as Sakumo's tanto has him almost bowing over, then she shakes her head, smiles sadly at him then at the man next to her, some understanding seem to pass between them, and they settled into their seats at the other end of the train.
Sakumo dozed off again, and came awake when the ticket agent came on at the next stop. He was dressed in a uniform that fit him and looked worn in, but he looked like a kid, one that was missing an eye beneath a black fringe of bang over the left side of his face. After the couple showed the kid their ticket, they departed from the train, into what looked like a vast desert.
"Ticket." The kid's one eye was as red as burning coal, patterned with black shapes that Sakumo was too dizzy to make out. The ticket was in Sakumo's hand, and it says, "Konoha, one week – that's the next stop then. See you in a week."
The sound of bells jingled behind Sakumo as the kid followed the couple off the train, in the partial reflection cast on a window's glass, he could still see the woman's slippered feet, at the end of the train, "Have you figured it out yet, Hatake Sakumo?"
Sakumo sets his canvas bag down onto the bench and for the first time since he got on the train (since he could remember, since the last hot meal he had at a campfire outside of Suna), examined his chest – there was a gaping saw edged wound that ran just left of his heart then diagonal across his guts, it's bloody but it's not bleeding. He reached down, and clasp the woman by the cheek as she bent to examine the wound, and her face was not only as white as mochi but just as soft. She looks up at him, challenge in her eyes, and a forked tongue slipped impossibly long out of her mouth and licks the edge of his wound. He winds one hand into her hair, and slides his other hand down the soft skin of her long neck, as far as he could reach.
The train begin to slow down again, and Sakumo reluctantly look between the door and the long-necked woman he had by the hair, "lovely, would I see you again next week?". She smiles at him, soft and sweet.