GR's Note: This is a little plot bunny I've been toying with submitting for a while now. It will not halt the progress of Maybe Forever, I'm working on it on the side. I'd love to hear your opinions, so let me know if this little idea is worth continuing or not! As always, constructive criticism is most welcome.
-1-
"Haruno-san? The hokage wishes an audience with you." The pink-haired woman wiped her tears and cast a glance back at the two ANBU standing at the ready behind her, focusing her blurred gaze at the one one the left, the one who had addressed her. Even with the masks on, the two men were very distinctive to the kunoichi and in her current state she despised the pronounced unfamiliarity being shown to her and had no problems voicing it with a particular bite to her tone.
"Tenzou-sempai, your change in wardrobe doesn't warrant your change in attitude towards your teammate. ANBU or not, I won't stand for being assigned such an impersonal address." She knew it was his job to lose his identity as an ANBU officer and thus drop any nicknames he would normally use, but she hated her family name and didn't want to hear it, specifically for the reason she was being summoned to her master's office. He didn't respond to her comment and she knew that that too was part of the job, turning her attention back to the slab of black stone she had been shedding tears in front of before the less than welcome invitation. It may not have been a smart thing for the young jounin medic to ignore the two elite shinobi there to drag her, by force if needed, but she was in no mood with either to cooperate.
"You have no say in the way you're addressed, Haruno-san. Come along without opposition or we are authorized to drag you there by one of those overgrown pink pigtails." The kunoichi twitched at the emphasis placed on her name, one hand curling into a petite but very deadly fist. She stood and wiped the loose blades of grass from the bottom portion of the modest black dress she had been wearing since that morning, but still made no move to join them as her voice, now not much more than a snarl, found a new target in the man standing on the right. She was ired that he had been ignoring her for the last week and now had the gall to say such a thing to her.
"And you, not even so much as a proper greeting? That's a bit discourteous, even for you. Is it a part of the uniform, the stick shoved up your ass, or am I the only one who gets to sample your admirable manners?" She had hit a nerve, and she knew it too. She had a bad habit of pushing her luck with the silver-haired man and so wasn't in the least surprised when her head was jerked backwards as he followed through on his threat, one long pink chunk of hair wrapped in a black gloved fist. She was forced to turn her body slightly to avoid his snapping her dainty little neck and only awarded his violent action with an insubordinate glare that left her untold volumes of pain hidden from him. After all, after what he had done, it may have been preferable for him to just snap her neck, a quick and painless end to things.
"I am still your superior, Haruno-san, and I won't put up with your attitude when I'm just doing my job." She snarled at the infuriating man who was able to push her buttons as readily as she could his and her fist uncurled as she slapped him hard. Hard enough to knock that stupid wolf mask off of his face and onto the grass, exposing the mismatched eyes glaring at her intensly above yet another mask, this one of black cloth and covering the lower half of his face. It wasn't the most ninja-like display of violence he had ever been on the receiving end of, no, this was just a plain old feminine slap across the face. Granted, it hurt more than any other slap he had ever been graced with, but as neither of them relented in their little wordless staring match, he was sort of thankful that she hadn't punched him instead. Her temper and the threatening tears finally getting the better of her, she wrenched her head forward, forcing him to loosen his grip on her hair and let it fall down her back again, to cringe a bit as a memory from a few weeks back hi him hard, one where his hands were tangled in the exotic pink locks in a far more intimate manner as they cascaded across his pillow in the first lights of sunrise. The intonation of her voice said to him loud and clear what she thought of him touching her hair again, if the slap hadn't already.
"Go fuck yourself, Sempai, if you haven't found someone else for that purpose already." She disappeared in an upward swirl of wispy pink steam and he cursed himself, not for the first time, for ever getting to the point where such problems would arise with his favorite ex-student. His partner, once deeming the situation safe, stepped towards him and lifted his mask off the ground, lightly touching the crack that now ran the length of the white porcelain before handing it back to his superior.
"She's definitely not going to like what comes next, Sempai." The brown-haired man had slipped his mask to the side to run his fingers through his hair, his expression one of sullen composure and not betraying the compassion he felt for the two and the net they were to be trapped in. The silver-haired man nodded, knowing well the reason she was so quick to anger today, even towards someone she usually showed nothing but kindness and respect for. Unfortunately, this situation was going to get a whole lot worse before it got better, if it ever got better. The younger of the two continued. "We should get back, or the tower will be in pieces and half the village destroyed before she calms down." A smirk crossed the masked man's face momentarily before he placed the white wolf mask over it once again. His partner followed suit, never noticing the minute change of expression.
"She won't even bother, she'll just come looking for me, probably to strangle me to death." The two shinobi disappeared, one in lazy patches of gray smoke, the other in an updraft of fresh green leaves, leaving the black memorial stone to sit alone in the sun in the empty clearing.
While he was a hardened shinobi normally unaffected by even the most brutal of S-ranked missions, the silver-haired man was truly dreading the next interaction he'd have with the temperamental pink-haired medic, because he knew that within the next ten minutes she'd hate him even worse than she did already and probably wouldn't stop next time at a mere slap. In all honesty, if he could avoid her for the next fifty-five weeks and two days, he would, purely out of self-preservation. Unfortunately, Hatake Kakashi had never been lucky enough for something like that to work, and fate was not about to start smiling on him now.
"No." She was not in a good mood and her day just kept getting worse as she tried to stare down the blond staring equally hard back at her form behind her desk. She had just witnessed her mother being buried six feet under this morning and of course the matter of the will just couldn't wait until she had had a little more time to adjust. Unfortunately, Haruno Sakura had something that she had been trying to deny for the majority of her life and the will was now bringing the matter sharply to the forefront of things.
"You've known that your husband had been picked for you since you were a child, Sakura, and you know that this isn't negotiable. Suck it up and grow a pair." Both women knew that among families like the Haruno clan, a fairly well-off civilian family, betrothals weren't uncommon. Despite that small fact, the livid woman standing with both fists clenched at her sides and her jaw set so hard it hurt was going to fight this unfairness tooth and nail. Sakura's mother had been a kunoichi like herself, a skilled medic-nin, and had married into the Haruno family. She knew that her daughter would be betrothed from birth and had only choice in the matter, who the husband would be. Medical prowess was largely genetic and her mother had a lot of pride in her family's skills, so encouragement was given to Sakura from a young age to be the best kunoichi she could be, to better match the man her mother had so graciously chosen for her. Hailed as a genius, any children they had together would be guaranteed to carry along the traits of at least one of the two families, and of course, Sakura was expected to have quite a few.
"Forget it. I'm not getting within twenty yards of that arrogant ass, much less standing in front of an altar with him! I knew he'd be an older guy, but this is ridiculous!" Forget that they had been sleeping together and it had ended badly. Very badly. The blond cracked her knuckles before resting forward on the desk, her fingers interlaced beneath her chin and her jaw set. She hated the position the young woman in front of her was being put in, having seen her as somewhat of an adopted daughter for the last seven or so years, but it wasn't her place to interfere. She'd seen far worse arrangements, the Uchiha-Hyuuga one jumping immediately to mind, and these two weren't a half-bad couple. They just had to get past this last transgression, that's all.
"You don't have a choice, whether you like it or not. The wedding will be held on your next birthday, and you will attend. You have a duty to your family, Sakura, just as Sasuke and Hinata do to theirs, and you don't see them too broken up about their arrangement. Get a grip already." The pink-haired woman flinched. Her family had, for the most part, been decimated years ago in the Sand/Sound attack on her chuunin exams, and what was left of it had just been waiting until she was old enough to marry off. Forget that she was a kunoichi and her job threatened her life on a regular basis, that she didn't in particular want a bunch of pink-haired brats running around driving her nuts, no. It was her duty. Bullshit, that's what it was, and just for the record? Yeah, Hinata had been broken up by the arrangement, she had gone into clinical depression when she was forced to stop seeing Naruto and it took until her second pregnancy for her to start recovering, damn it!
"Does he know about this?" Her hand twitched as she asked the question, only half wanting to hear the answer. The blond's eyes drifted almost shut before flitting to the half-empty jug of sake on the desk next to her. Apparently the first half of the jug wasn't enough to get through this conversation, but she should have known it wouldn't have been. The very large bonfire a few weeks ago in front of the tower fueled exclusively by well-read Icha Icha novels signaled one of the worst break-ups she had personally witnessed in all her sixty-some years of life. It had been damned funny at the time, but that was before Sakura's mother had been K.I.A. and she was saddled with the unhappy task of telling the younger woman that she was marrying the man she couldn't come within a few feet of without breaking down.
"Yes, he knows." Another noticeable twitch from the younger woman and the hazel-eyed one took a swig straight from the tempting jug on her desk. It was understandable that she was livid, with the way things had been set for her. She had been told that she would be marrying young, and a man that had been picked for her no less, but she had been explicitly deprived of the identity of her intended until today. If her mother had remained alive she would have been kept in the dark until the wedding ceremony, as per her family's customs. Like the most permanent blind date ever.
"How long has he known? I assume that you didn't tell him today, after all." The blond was saved from answering when a very familiar chakra signature made itself known, the owner sitting nonchalantly on the sill behind the hokage's desk. Without even looking the blond pointed over her shoulder at him and the younger woman turned her head away, fighting the urge to walk right up to him and smack the ever-present orange novel out of his hands and watch it tumble down the tiered roofs of the tower to the street below.
"Ask him yourself. He's sitting right there and I'm not going to play a mediator for you two." The tension in the room had increased unbearably and it was making the hokage uncomfortable, a difficult feat in and of itself. The man's gaze only rose from his book long enough to quickly rake up his ex's slender frame and settle momentarily on her face, which was turned away from him in anger. Her simple black dress was about as modest as it got, with long sleeves and an ankle length skirt, the only thing betraying that modesty being the sensual cut of the neckline. It wasn't too low to be appropriate but it still showed a lot more of her creamy white throat and shoulder than he would have liked. Not that he honestly had any right to think any such thing anymore, but it was his possessive nature at work.
"I'm not that desperate to know, thanks. Is there anything else before I leave, Tsunade-shishou?" The blond's ample chest heaved in a sigh as she took another drink. Her student only reverted to calling her that when she was extremely anxious or agitated, like she was becoming now. She tried to wrap her mind around what would possibly have to be done to repair the damaged friendship enough for this to work, when the characteristically quiet and secretive man did the unthinkable and actually volunteered the information, no bugging or begging required.
"I've known since shortly after you turned twelve. I was taken off of active ANBU duty specifically to be your sensei." The pink-haired woman drew back as if slapped, the blow that the previously simple break-up had dealt now being hit again as this new information brought a whole lot of new factors into the equation and their break-up became not so simple anymore. Watching the effect this was having on her star pupil, the blond decided that she would finish this up quickly so that whatever got destroyed in the inevitable tantrum that would be thrown, it wouldn't be her office.
"There's just the matter of your family's assets, that's all." She didn't interrupt her mentor while she was speaking, because she had learned early on that doing so was akin to a suicide move, but she did reply rather curtly as soon as the last syllable had passed the hazel-eyed woman's lips.
"I don't give a rat's ass about my family's assets and you know it, Tsunade-shishou. Is there anything relevant to me that I actually need to hear?" Now, the buxom woman sitting behind the desk had a very short temper under the best of circumstances and a rather sharp tongue to accent it appropriately, both facts that she wasn't ashamed in the slightest for. But the girl addressing her with an attitude she had picked up from her during their years training together, well, she normally would have came down hard on her for not watching her own temper. Normally. Unfortunately, shinobi or not she had dealt with a lot of crap in the last week that very well justified her horrible attitude and looked at from a medical standpoint she wasn't doing to great either. The dark circles under her eyes were only made to look worse by the bloodshot obs themselves which while normally a vibrant, soft seafoam green, now looked a lot darker and almost hollow, devoid of any happiness. It was pretty apparent that the stress from the break-up combined with the subsequent death of her mother had led to a lot of crying and sleepless nights, and so out of friendship and understanding the blond would keep her temper under wraps, at least for now. She waved at the door.
"Nothing urgent. Go home and get some rest, I'm taking you off of both active and hospital duty for the next few days. You're dismissed, Sakura." The pink-haired woman nodded, bowing politely before turning for the office door. She'd walk home, she felt too tired and drained and just... angry, to even bother with a teleportation jutsu. As she left and shut the door quietly behind her, the blond didn't take it as a very good sign and turned her chair to face the man still occupied with his book in the window, his expression darker than normal.
"Thought she burned 'em all. Guess not, huh?" She was referring to the book of course, and his expression grew darker before he replied.
"It wasn't my collection she burned." His words faltered noticeably as he tried to finish the thought. "It was hers."
The meaning was not lost on his superior and she sat back in her chair, trying to guage just how bad this was. On the one hand, she no longer had to worry about one of her best medics reading porn in the cafeteria on lunch break. On the other hand however, it was a gesture that the girl wanted absolutely nothing to do with her former lover and was actively trying to get rid of the things that reminded her of him, including the reading material he had inadvertently gotten her hooked on when she wasn't even technically legal to read them yet. He saw this too, although he probably only saw the bad, considering that not only did he never willingly set foot in the hospital, he openly read the stuff in public himself and saw nothing wrong with it either. The silence hung heavily in the air between them before the woman turned back to her desk and drained the jug on it.
"Why did you do it, anyway?" She cast a glance at the window to see that he had disappeared without a trace, not surprising after everything that had transpired today. In fact she wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if she was now the second most hated person in the world to both parties, right after Kakashi himself. Hopefully he had gone to talk to her, but, no point in getting optimistic, considering the pair involved. One talked too much, the other not enough and while this normally balanced them out alright, to settle thing the unthinkable would have to happen. Sakura would have to reign in her temper and shut the hell up while Kakashi had a lot of explaining and apologizing to do in a very short time. A dejected sigh escaped the blond woman, now alone in her office, as she reached into the bottommost locked drawer in her desk and pulled out another jug of sake that had miraculously escaped her older protege's keen brown eyes and took a long swig straight from it. This would take a lot of delicate planning, but her student deserved to be happy again.