Thursday night.
Near two in the morning.
It was a cool evening, and the city was all but sleeping. Those leaves caught in night breezes were going to assure that some would wake soon.
Sakura's fingers ran lightly over the keyboard. It was a satisfying rhythm that calmed her in light of their mission. Her eyes flitted back and forth between the several monitors hung ahead of her.
She could see the washed out copies of Naruto and Sasuke walking side by side. Grainy replicas of their faces did not do justice to the high emotions at least one of them was feeling. Outfitted in their dark coveralls they looked almost inconspicuous. Or highly suspicious. She could never make up her mind which it was, and that was part of the reason she was staying behind the scenes.
"Coming up to security," she murmured, dropping a quick glance at the schematics beside the keyboard. "Ready for inspection."
The pair were stopped by a lithe security guard and set their innocuous canvas bags on his desk for search. Inside were numerous crescent wrenches, pliers, sockets, even a few pipe-cutting torches. The man looked them over quickly, but thoroughly, and waved them through while Naruto parted with a sympathetic remark about the graveyard shift.
In the stairwell they parted company and directions, Sasuke heading below ground while Naruto moved up a few floors. Their cover gave them plenty of time- plumbers working at night to avoid business hours. Their faces, however, would give them away well before the hour was up. The same cameras Sasuke had hacked into before departing were not so low definition to hide their distinguishing features.
A rent-a-cop they might fool.
The Akatsuki they would not.
The three knew as much going into the mission. It did not stop them from committing to see it through.
Sakura fiddled with her tie's knot before dropping her hands back to the keyboard. It was barely loosened, but she imagined she could breathe a bit easier.
One of the monitors caught her attention, and she turned her focus to Naruto's "eyes" in a large server room. His hands were quickly running a spool of wire between the labyrinth of tall machines. Already in place were several small bricks, liberated from secret compartments of his tool bag. Green eyes scoured the explosives as he passed them.
Biting back a sigh, she asked, "Really, Naruto? You couldn't afford any higher grade charges?" Disapproval was clear in her voice, but Naruto only chuckled lowly.
"If I'm buying my own explosives, I'm getting what I can afford. It's not like we can invoice it this time around, anyhow. Besides, what's wrong with being made in Liberia?"
"They mint coins, not weapons' grade plastiques," she countered unnecessarily. Before he could continue to bait her, she admonished, "From now on make sure you get something up to standard."
"Hey, hey," he returned, not quite so patiently, "Just because you're the Slug Princess' apprentice doesn't mean you can boss me around all of the time." He sniffed and then said with a distinct note of pride, "The Fourth used these all the time."
"Yeah, and they've probably been around since the Fourth too. Those explosives are always made by the lowest bidder."
"It's because of the highest bidder that we're even here!"
Sakura bristled at the jab at her mentor's character, their boss's character. Naruto was so disrespectful of the woman, yet she always seemed to tolerate it, maybe because he was her predecessor's son. Either way, Sakura would not.
"If you don't shut it, I'm going to report you for bad-mouthing your superiors."
"Why don't you both shut it," Sasuke broke in before the arguing could escalate. "Get back to work," he added to the silence.
Sakura turned her eyes to his more elegant reproduction of Naruto's efforts. The positioning of Sasuke's explosives was less urgent, but no less important. The blond had the cornerstone of the mission to look after, but both Sasuke and Sakura's work was just as vital. It was the reason they were here at all; teamwork evaluation. To progress in their chosen career any further, they had to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that they could work together, and not just work together but succeed together.
Almost as if thinking of their evaluation, Sasuke asked, "Why hasn't Kakashi said anything?"
"He stepped out," she replied calmly. She did not feel the need to share with them that their advisor had stepped out to get her a latte. It was satisfying enough without sharing it with her team that the man was pulling gopher duty for the first time in three years. Besides, it would have only distracted them.
"Typical," Sasuke muttered, and went back to connecting conductors between the small plastic-covered bricks of putty.
"If he's not there, who's going to give our report?" Naruto nearly barked, and Sakura quickly shushed him. So much for keeping concentration.
"I'm typing it up," she reassured him impatiently. "All Kakashi-sensei's going to do as evaluator is sign off on it." She paused and then smirked, adding, "…which is why you need to stay on my good side."
"Sakura-chan," the blond muttered, "As soon as I finish, before Sasuke, of course, I will be on your good side, your bad side, your frigid side-"
"Shut up," two twin voices answered heatedly. Neither of them were Sakura's.
She glanced over her shoulder to see Kakashi standing at the open door. He was good. She had not even heard it open. She felt a rush of possessive pride for the man, and gave him a quick once over.
His scarf looked slightly ruffled, but his face belied any tell that he might have rushed. He was just as unhurried as ever as he climbed into the van. Then he closed the door behind him, once more hiding the view of the opened parking garage.
"How are things going?" he asked after turning on the comm-link around his neck, though it was very clear by the monitors what progress was being made. The warm cup in his hand pressed into Sakura's. Then he bent forward and placed a muted kiss atop her crown, while Sasuke and Naruto took turns debriefing. She felt the tension in her shoulders completely melt away.
The quick review showed that Sasuke was ahead, much to Naruto's consternation. The loudest of their party quickly sped up his work, careful not to compromise quality.
Sakura watched on as she took a sip of the espresso drink. It was strong and coated her tongue pleasantly. She glanced towards Kakashi as he pulled out a dark-covered book. A quick glance at the author had her nearly starting.
"I didn't know you liked poetry," she said after taking a moment to gather herself.
"Is it poetry?" he asked, not bothering to look up from the pages.
"Yeah, E.E. Cummings is really famous."
There was a brief silence and then an, "Oh." Sakura turned back to the monitors. "Cummings. Really funny." Kakashi seemed to think so, if his giggle was any tell.
She could not help but blush, annoyed as she was.
Sasuke was already climbing back up the stairs, his bag slung over his shoulder. As he passed onto the main floor and then out a side exit, she could see the smirk on his face. Great, that wasn't obvious at all.
Then, to goad Naruto, he announced quietly, "Heading out." Sakura knew very well his movements, just as she could see what Naruto was seeing. Naruto made a very choice expletive about large male anatomy that had Sakura scowling.
"Yeah that's what your mom said last night," Sasuke replied as he stepped onto the street.
She was still watching through Naruto's eyes, following his motions. An uneasy feeling swept through her. The footage was black and white, but…
"Are you crossing the wires?" she asked carefully.
"No," he said, somewhat impatiently. Clearly he was already annoyed by Sasuke. "I've only done this a million times. These things are all little clones of each other. There's no need to worry."
"If you're installing the wires improperly, the charges won't detonate," she added quickly. Again, perhaps unnecessarily. But it was more than Naruto's job on the line here. They all had to look out for each other.
"Quit being so annoying," he muttered. She hushed.
Her queries grew even quieter as Naruto finished the last charges and then set them all up to his remote detonator. His words had stung some. Sasuke was the one to call her annoying, to attack her character personally. With him, she had learned to let the snide remarks roll off like water off a duck's back. Naruto was different, though. It didn't matter that the barb was only "annoying." He rarely snapped at her, and never in such a critical fashion.
"You're doing fine," Kakashi's voice cut through the van's quiet. Sakura turned sharply to see him staring at her, almost having forgotten his presence. His single eyes was visible, nearly closed he was smiling so. Three fingers were covering the head of his comm, muffling the transmission. The words were meant for her only. "It's part of how your dynamic works. You yell at them, they shut up and do the work. Yours is some of the best teamwork I've seen in a decade so don't stop now."
Sakura calmed at his words, weighing the truth in them. Despite herself, she reached a hand out to him. She felt only better when he bridged the small distance, accepting her fingers. Before he could pull away, she dropped a kiss to his knuckles, thankful and appreciative. He was smirking at her when she pulled away. That would never do.
"You taste like cigarettes," she said, reaching for the latte once more.
"You want to know what the rest tastes like?" he quipped, nose buried in the book once more.
Sakura tried not to spit milk and coffee everywhere.
Sasuke entered the van a few moments later to find Sakura blushing and Kakashi as deadpan as always. He rolled his eyes, not fooled by the silence and quickly began to derobe. As he rolled the rough canvas down to reveal a sleek black suit beneath, he took note of the cups each was holding.
"Where's mine?" he asked, quickly catching on to the reason for Kakashi's absence. Certainly, no one had offered to make a coffee trip before the mission started.
Sakura turned and held out a warm cup to him, smiling as she said, "You can have the rest of mine."
"I don't want your backwash," he grumbled, pulling the canvas over his shoes.
"You can have my backwash," Kakashi offered indolently.
Silently, Sasuke took the cup from Sakura and sat behind her to watch their last teammate emerge from the stairwell. He was all but bouncing in satisfaction.
"Friday, Friday, gettin' down on Friday," Naruto was singing lowly to himself.
"Finally," Sasuke muttered impatiently, not bothering to muffle his link. By now, everyone knew his one joy in life was annoying his blond teammate.
Sakura's fingers rained over the keyboard again, maneuvering the cameras so she could watch Naruto's back.
"Take it slow," Kakashi advised their fourth member.
"I got this, you got this," Naruto sung in response, slinging his bag over his shoulder as he passed the security guard. His freehand was smoothly manipulating a loose wristwatch.
"Shit," Sakura breathed as an unpleasantly familiar face broke onto her screen. "It's Deidara," she muttered, typing commands furiously. The available screens followed his course. He was heading purposely toward the front lobby in a direct heading for their teammate.
She did not see Naruto's fingers compress the dials of the watch, but suddenly several monitors were only reporting snow and static. The van rocked ominously while its passengers rode out the concussive force from the explosion in the building. Naruto was the only one of their party who would so recklessly detonate while still in the building. Sakura grimaced. Even with the danger, the explosion was weaker than what she was expecting.
She did not need to hear, Sasuke announce, "That wasn't all the charges."
"He crossed the wires," she muttered, feeling no vindication in the reality.
Sasuke swore viciously and was already half way out of the van, when Sakura finally got her attention back to one of the screens.
Naruto's glasses were still broadcasting, and all too soon she saw his favorite gun. Jiraiya had given him the handgun a few years ago. The manual weapon was aimed accurately at Deidara and quickly emptied of its first clip, all taken in the Akatsuki's chest. He fell to the floor, and lay quite still.
A quick glance to Sasuke's monitor said he had not bothered with the stairwell, but this time was scaling down the side of the parking garage.
"Others are coming," she said breathlessly, even as she saw Deidara rolling to his side, not very dead. Why was Naruto just hanging out there?
"Got it," Sasuke affirmed, and she was glad at least one of them was listening. He broke into a sprint as soon as his feet touched the ground, and he quickly entered the main lobby.
Kakashi was conspicuously silent. She knew they were going to fail. Their collective membership in Konoha was going to be over before it officially started. Yet, even as she thought it, she couldn't bring herself to care. As long as her boys got out safely, all would be well. They could retest some other time. Hopefully.
Her advisor, her significant other, placed a familiar hand on her shoulder, but remained as taciturn as always. She grabbed the hand, still absorbed in the fighting in front of her. More Akatsuki were converging on her teammates and Deidara, the lucky bastard who was showing off his protective vest. She spied a glimpse of cropped dark hair in one floor-level monitor, then a head with pale, slicked-back hair in another. Her jaw clenched tightly.
More opponents were coming, and some of the charges had yet to detonate. The data would not destroy itself. Even with Sasuke and Naruto fighting together, at this rate they would not complete the mission.
"Withdraw," she commanded hoarsely, standing from the desk. Her comm link followed with her, strapped securely at her neck. It also carried the sounds of battle quite clearly. "Withdraw," she reiterated, reaching for the large, barrel-like weapon stored opposite the monitors.
Once it was tucked to her side, she opened the van door swiftly. Cold air rushed in, muting some of her oppressive anxiety. Still the fighting raged on. "Okay," she began tightly. "I'm on my way, so you better get your asses out of the line of fire." Once on the ground, she stood straight and slung the large bazooka behind her, holding it comfortably with one hand.
"Are you sure that's the best idea?" Kakashi asked blandly.
"As a matter of fact, it is," she said tersely, then slammed the door shut as he turned another page. She completely missed his smile. It had always been small, anyway.
At the edge of the garage, the same edge Sasuke had leaped over without concern for gravity, Sakura hefted the large weapon onto her shoulder. She ignored the scope, close enough to see Naruto and Sasuke both emerging from the lobby, with the others in hot pursuit. Apparently they had taken her warnings to heart.
"Get down!" she shouted loudly. Naruto looked up and saw her poised for action. Surprised understanding lit his face. He looped an arm around his teammate's shoulders and took them both to the ground, even as Sasuke lobbed a grenade between Deidara's feet. The blond never saw it coming.
It was enough of a distraction for the Akatsuki, though. Decided, Sakura shifted her aim, knowing precisely the spot Naruto's server room lay in waiting. She fired without hesitation.
Even at her distance she could feel the backlash, and she quickly planted her feet to keep from falling over. The windows that had broken under the first assault suddenly belched fire and smoke. Debris rocketed down on the street below. Another series of successive explosions riddled the building like angry fireworks, and she allowed herself a satisfied grin. "Liberian, indeed," she thought and sprinted back to the vehicle.
The discharged bazooka she dropped in the passenger compartment, careful of Kakashi's toes. She was intentionally less careful about crawling over his lap to the driver's seat. Hey, if she managed a grope or two on the way, well that wouldn't make it in the report.
"Buckle up!" she commanded as the van quaked to life. Kakashi merely grabbed the handlebar with is free hand and continued reading.
Nearly half an hour later in their favorite diner, safe in Konoha territory, Naruto was ecstatically slurping linguine into his mouth. Marinara was splattering everywhere, and though Sakura was not eating, she was grateful for the bib she had donned.
"Everything went according to plan!" he nearly howled, coordinating his words as his tongue shoved half-chewed noodles around.
"It could have been worse," Sasuke said with a shrug, swirling a stemless glass of red wine.
"It could have gone a lot better!" Sakura countered. They both knew it too, from Sasuke's sudden disinterest and Naruto's flushing. "Half of the charges didn't even go off," she added, eyeing the latter knowingly.
"But we got the mission done," he tried again. The smile he gave her was half repentant and half winning. Sakura was not buying any of it.
"Yeah," she agreed, "but only because I had to do most of the work!"
"That's what you get for whining about being a burden." Sasuke, of course.
"Asking for more responsibility cannot be equated with whining about being burdensome," she said testily. Clearly she had done the former.
"Some of the explosives were duds," Kakashi interrupted as he turned another page in the Cummings book. The silence that enveloped the table caused the grey-haired man to look up from his page-turner. Had… he purposely sabotaged them?
"It was part of your evaluation," he added, as if this should have been clear to all of them already. "To adapt to unforeseen circumstances."
Well, then.
"That sucked," Sakura said grouchily, some of her bite gone in the revelation. She hid her annoyance and embarrassment by tucking a short lock of pink hair behind her ear.
"Hmph." Sasuke, of course. This time, however, he was smirking confidently.
"Hah!" Naruto claimed as he dug in for another bite of noodles. "I knew I did the job right." He did not have to look at Sakura to scold her. She flushed, anyway, and reached out for the decanter of wine Sasuke had ordered.
They all finished eating, each feeling content with the way the evening had ended. They had secured a few more lines of credit for the matriarch of their organization, if only by destroying all of the bad ones recorded in the servers, and they had managed to take out a few of their enemies as well. If this did not get them officially enlisted, well, there was always bribery.
"Sorry for being so… tough on you before," Sakura apologized as they were leaving the restaurant. Naruto smiled at her and shrugged, the offense already forgotten.
"It's good for me, I think. Probably. Maybe." She thought of Kakashi's words from before and nodded. Then the blond darted ahead to where Sasuke was already walking away. It had to be near daybreak, yet he turned back to her and said, "We're going to go catch a show. Want to come? It's really cultural and modern." Sakura snorted.
"I don't watch movies that only have X's on their billboards."
"Suit yourself!" he returned, completely undeterred.
Kakashi paused at her shoulder and they watched the two best friends set off for the theatre.
"You know, some of those films have some surprisingly good plot and character development."
She did not look at him as she reached over and fisted his black tie in her fingers. When she gave it a sharp pull, though, she tilted her head toward his. He complied willingly. She could still taste wine on his tongue.
He pulled away first, admiring her swollen lips, and she breathed out carefully, "That was sneaky of you with the plastique."
"Just doing my job," he replied, his voice less bland and suddenly more interested than normal. She grinned and gave the tie a pull, leading him away from the diner.
"Now I think it's time for your evaluation."