Disclaimer: we don't own Naruto.
Author's note: Unfortunately, this is another solo enterprise for Blue. Purple has been eaten by Zetsu. No, not really. But she's a good student now, and I won't take that from her.
Summary: The massacre was averted all those years ago, leaving many lives to see the light of a new day. However, the tension that was breaking between the Uchiha and the rest of the village continued to grow, seething below the surface… and some Uchiha believe that rebellion is inevitable. Team Seven is caught on the wake of this tension, waiting to be broken by the waves of turmoil or to rise above the tide. Team-Seven Centric, maybe SakuraxSasuke or SakuraxItachi. I don't know. Reveiwers have the power.
Sakura frowned at the paper in her hands. Antidote? Is that what it said? The little black lines of print were too sloppy for her to make out in this light, so it may have indeed been the formula for an antidote…or it may have been Tsunade-shisou's grocery list.
Despite her squinting, the words on the paper became no more legible and the night was still steadily coursing on. With one last searching glance at the vexing document, the Hokage's apprentice sighed roughly and decided to wrap her study session up.
"Shisui!" she called softly, praying that her boyfriend was the only Uchiha hanging around the Hokage's tower.
She heard her heart beat a few times before the door across the room opened silently and a slender dark figure stole inside.
"Hey, you. How did you know that I followed you here, huh?" the sole carefree Uchiha asked her as he began to cross the dim library towards Sakura's candle-lit desk.
"Uchihas are too predictable" Sakura replied, leaning back in the uncomfortable wooden chair she'd been sitting in for the past few hours. She tried her hardest to imitate her dark-haired teammate's dispassionate façade so that for once, Shisui might buy into her teasing, but to no avail.
With what she had come to affectionately call "sharingan velocity", the casually attired ANBU operative had wrapped his arms around her waist, securing her to her chair.
"That isn't what I've heard" he teased, nudging Sakura's head with his own.
"Tch. Stop messing around, you two. Shisui has to show up to the meeting on time tonight" interrupted a very irritated young man wearing a konoha jounin uniform.
"Aw, cool it kid. Itachi will cover for me" Shisui groaned, rolling his eyes as he released Sakura and straightened out his body so that he could stretch lazily. "Want to come along with me, Blossom?" he asked.
Sakura, still mortified by the fact that Sasuke had been standing in the doorway, was a little too slow to respond.
"Of course she doesn't. We all know you're forcing her into this relationship somehow, dumbass" Sasuke retorted with a scoff. For once, the dobe's crazy theories suited his purposes. It was much easier to pretend that Shisui was scheming up some plan to spirit his--HIS—teammate off into the night than face the fact that Sakura had willingly accepted a date—or two or six—with his crazy, loose-cannon cousin.
"Sure Sasuke" Shisui replied, laying his hand on Sakura's shoulder, "that's why she abandoned you, the blond brat, and your hentai sensei so that she could come enjoy a picnic on the bridge with yours truly". Sakura couldn't see Shisui's face because she was too busy glaring at her teammate, but she could hear the smugness of his tone.
Being the self-appointed swiper of smug smirks and other signs of self-abosorbtion, Sakura took the opportunity to rile up the Uchiha who was smirking at his younger cousin.
"Yeah, too bad about that. I have to say, Shisui, I was less than impressed when you took your shirt off to go swimming. I'm a medic, remember. You have to have a body that stands out, not one that has to be sucked in"
The two red-eyed men in the room both froze, one with a dropped jaw and the other with a jaws clamped tightly shut to restrain a bout of laughter.
The pink haired kunoichi stood up and stretched leisurely, pretending not to notice how the prideful young men had reacted to her comment.
Shisui of course, was not about to let it go. In the blink of an eye, he was standing behind her with his hands on her hips. "I will have you know, young lady, that I am one of the finest specimens that the Uchiha clan has to offer. I have consistently beaten ninety-eight percent of the village's jounin at the physical exams for the past three years" he declared in a voice that was clearly mocking a certain white-eyed clan who lived in a nearby district.
"But, Shisui-kun, I have ready access to the other two percent" she argued. "Itachi, Kakashi, and even Naruto beat you hands down. I have to beat the other nurses away from them with sticks" she responded sweetly.
Sasuke rolled his eyes as his cousin frowned, almost pouting, for an instant. "Don--" he started to say, but it was too late.
His cousin had lifted his teammate into his arms, despite her startled "oof" and violent twist. His grin was radiating with devious amusement as he kicked Sakura's chair back under the desk.
"I think that Sakura-chan is taunting, me, dearest cousin" Shisui drawled, grinning at the kunoichi who was trying to slip her way out of his arms.
When Shisui looked up from her narrowed emerald eyes, Sasuke was much closer that he had expected.
"Put her down" his young cousin said, tomoe spinning.
Ah ha. So that's where Sakura's teammate drew the line. Naruto had flipped out when Shisui even put his hand on Sakura's back, so Sasuke's opposition to having Sakura incapacitated actually seemed quite lax.
Of course, Naruto had just screamed at him and thrown a pair of chopsticks; Sasuke was starting to pulse with chakra.
"I'm fine, Sasuke. Shisui-kun won't try anything while he's on Kakashi's team" Sakura said warmly, finally able to extricate herself from a sulking Shisui's grasp. The Body Flicker had forgotten about that little detail, and the memory of the White Fang's glare suddenly made him a little disappointed.
Two distinct "hn" noises emerged from the Uchihas' throats.
"We should get going, Shisui" Sasuke said softly as he clapped his hand on Sakura's shoulder.
"Fine..you little mama's boy" Shisui sighed. He reached out and tousled his cousin's hair.
"Stop that!" Sasuke grit out from behind clenched teeth as he turned away from Sakura towards the door.
His taller cousin shot Sakura a grin before doing the same.
"Dawn at Field 4" he called to her.
"No. Morning shift" Sakura called back.
"Then…two…at field 4?"
This time, Sasuke answered. "No. Mission with TEAM 7"
"Ugh. I'll drop by when you get back from your--" Shisui started to say, but his voice was cut short in a way that most certainly implied that he'd felt a chakra signature that he recognized.
Sakura felt it too a moment later, but by that point, both Uchihas had already gone. Brushing some hair out of her eyes and smoothing out her skirt once again, Sakura wondered what was so important that Fugaku would pulse his chakra all the way from the Uchiha district to get two of his jounin to hurry up.