Chapter 1 - Revelation
(something revealed or disclosed - especially a striking disclosure
- something before not realized)
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Three Years Post Fourth Great War
Konoha
If super-strength ever came in handy in a civilian setting, it would definitely be when carrying groceries. As Sakura shifted the heavy plastic bags into a comfortable grip and exited the store, boosting a little extra chakra into her arms to enhance their weight-carrying capacity, her eyes came to rest on a particular figure.
Even though the streets were crowded, his form stuck out to her like a sore thumb. That was what familiarity did, she supposed, after so many years of working together.
His shoulders were a bit more slumped than usual, bespeaking of his exhaustion. If she wasn't mistaken, she could spot a small, stray leaf wedged in his short brown hair.
"Yamato-taichou!" she called out without hesitation. Despite the significant distance separating them, his progression forward halted as he reacted to her voice, pausing to pivot and face her. As she trotted up to him, the bags swaying in her hands, Sakura couldn't help but note the visible signs that he had just returned from a mission.
Various scrapes and cuts marred his normally pristine skin. His flak jacket was torn and dusty, and a few jagged slices were visible in his uniform. From the haggard look of his features, she could tell it had been an exhausting trip, but he still found the energy to smile warmly down at her.
"Rough mission?" Sakura asked, returning his smile and finally stopping a short but comfortable distance away from him, within arm's reach.
"In a matter of speaking," Yamato replied with a desperate chuckle, and Sakura took a moment to peek at the contents of the small plastic bag he was carrying. "Not particularly dangerous...for the most part." He muttered the last part under his breath, but she missed the hint of amusement in the mumble.
Something else had captured her immediate attention anyway.
A familiar label seemed to shout out at her through the semi-transparent bag. "Is that instant ramen?!" The words slipped out of her mouth before she could help it. Somehow, Naruto's signature food seemed so out of place in her team captain's hands that containing the outburst was impossible.
Chuckling, Yamato raised his free hand to scrub at the back of his head. "Guilty as charged," he admitted freely. "It was a long mission. I'm pretty wiped, so I grabbed a quick-fix."
The bags in Sakura's hand suddenly seemed a bit heavier, as if reminding her of the fact that they were there and full of raw ingredients. One more look at his disheveled, clearly exhausted appearance was all the medic inside of her could take before she began to formulate a plan of action.
Rectifying her position so that she stood beside him instead of in front of him, Sakura shot him a bright smile that betrayed a hint of the nagging to come. With a playful bump, her smaller arm nudged his.
"You can't eat that nutritionless junk," she told him, inclining her head forward in a motion that told him to walk with her. He fixed her with a curious look, uncertain of her meaning.
Seeing that she needed to elaborate, she sighed. "I was planning on cooking tonight anyway. I always make more than I can eat. Join me?"
As his dark, almond-shaped eyes examined her expression, her pale eyes shot him a determined glare.
"Let me rephrase," she amended. "I'm not taking 'no' for an answer. Eating a paltry excuse for a meal consisting of processed carbohydrates loaded with empty calories isn't going to cut it; you need some actual nutrients in your food. Your mitochondria are going to rebel if all you provide them with for cellular respiration is ramen, you know."
Yamato imagined that if her hands weren't occupied, she would be standing in the street with her hands on her hips, jade eyes flashing and an impatient tilt to her head.
The medical jargon might have gone right over his head, but the general point was loud and clear.
It wasn't the first time that she'd scolded him over the years that they'd been working together. Even in the beginning, he hadn't been offended by the apparent insubordination on her part, because he knew what the underlying cause was – a big heart full of more compassion and concern than most people dared to have in their lifetime.
If she hadn't learned to be assertive, she never would've survived this far – certainly not on Team Seven. Now, it was familiar, almost comforting. There were worse things in the world than knowing that a woman cared enough about a man's wellbeing to publicly nag him.
It had quickly become clear to him that Sakura had an enormous conscience to go with that big heart, and he knew he'd feel guilty if he allowed her sense of compassion guilt her into cooking him dinner.
"I don't want to impose," he replied, mentally kissing a home-cooked meal goodbye.
For a moment, she examined him with a sideways glance from the corner of her eyes. He wondered, briefly, if an eruption of anger might occur anytime soon at his refusal.
"Sorry," the soft, far-too-innocent sounding words came from beside him, "it got so loud here on the street for a minute I didn't hear you. I think you said, 'Well, I'd better come along for dinner, if only to keep my mitochondria happy,' but it wasn't clear enough to make it out."
His lips twitched, and just like that it was evident that their debate was over. Holding out one large, empty hand, he waited patiently for her to examine it strangely before bringing her eyes back to his face.
"For the mitochondria, then," he replied, motioning to the bags that she was gripping unconsciously when his outstretched hand remained empty.
It took so long for her to register the gesture that Yamato started to wonder if maybe Sakura had worked an extremely long shift at the hospital, draining her mental processing capabilities. But finally, the light bulb went off, and with an uncertain twist of her lips, she extended the grocery bags she had been holding in his direction.
When he had them settled in his own hands and she still continued to stare at him as if something very strange had just occurred, Yamato had to wonder if anyone else ever bothered to help her carry things.
Well, there were many things that he could teach Sai and Naruto, but he had never promised anyone that they included manners. Some things, after all, were far beyond his teaching capabilities.
*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*
Just as the grocery bags had touched the kitchen counter, Yamato had to reach behind him to catch the rapidly approaching projectile aimed at the back of his head. When something soft hit his hands, he brought it forward to examine it.
With a fluffy towel in his hands, he turned around and raised his eyebrows at Sakura. She was grinning sheepishly at him.
"Just making sure your reflexes aren't getting dull," she quipped. "Dinner is going to take me a while, so you might as well take a shower in the meantime. No offense, but you kind of look like you could use one."
His protest that he wasn't in that bad of shape died in his throat as his eyes roamed over the dust-covered clothing covering skin that was likely layered in it as well.
"Second doorway on the left," Sakura instructed, pointing down the hallway. "Help yourself to anything you want."
By the time Yamato reemerged, remarkably refreshed and immeasurably more cleanly feeling, his stomach was audibly grumbling. The instant the bathroom door opened as he twisted the doorknob, his senses were barraged by an onslaught of delicious scents wafting inwards.
When he entered the main part of the house, Sakura turned from the stove. Unconsciously, her eyes lingered on his form for an extended moment as she absorbed the fact that he had shed his long-sleeved jounin shirt and flak jacket.
The same style of sleeveless dark shirt that Sakura had seen Kakashi wear in the hospital adorned Yamato's form instead, in noticeably better condition than his flak jacket and over-shirt had been.
With the different style of attire came a revelation on her part. Unconsciously, she knew that all jonin were generally well-muscled, with defined bodies that came from their line of work.
But until now, she'd never applied the concept directly to Yamato. Those baggy shirts hid the fine lines of his arms and chest, significantly muscled while still remaining lean enough to not look overly bulky.
Hoping that he'd missed her moment of visual appreciation, she put the large wooden spoon she'd been holding down and approached him.
Having been distracted by his change in appearance, Sakura belatedly noticed that he'd also shed his metal forehead protector that framed the majority of his face. That, however, was something that she'd seen before.
"You don't usually come back from missions this scraped up. It's been a while since I've seen you have so many superficial wounds."
"It's been a while since I've had a mission that was this… challenging." He chuckled briefly at his own choice of words.
Sakura's hand moved up to his forehead, brushing his bangs aside so she could access the small brown bruise surrounding a cut close to his hairline. "Classified information?" A small amount of chakra repaired his skin in no-time, the sides of the cut crawling together to form new, unblemished skin.
"Hardly," he replied, and this time his gaze followed her as she moved on to the small injuries on his arms. More scratches, bruises, and shallow wounds that made her curious as to what exactly he had been doing. "Guard detail on a merchant's caravan."
Her eyebrows shot up, and she paused in her healing to put her hands on her hips. "What," his teammate remarked dryly, "bandits gave you this much trouble?"
The way his lips quirked upwards at the corners was hard to miss. "Try the merchant's nine unruly daughters," he corrected. She watched him shudder in remembrance. "I'd take mobs of bandits over breaking up teenage catfights any day."
For a moment, she stared at him, her face fixed into a rather expressionless format. Then, once of her hands moved up to cover her mouth as a few giggles and snorts escaped despite her best efforts.
"Nine?" Her incredulous tone said it all. "Cat fights?"
"Who knew that civilian teenaged girls were so malicious," he commented, feeling himself sweat a bit in memory of the long trek he had been on.
When Sakura lowered her hand, she still looked fairly amused; however, an expression of sympathy was also in her face. "I think it's a rite of passage for teenage girls to turn into a horrible human being for a while," she explained. "You wouldn't have wanted to see me at thirteen. Ugh."
Shrugging as if shaking off the memory, Sakura gave him an impressed sideways glance. "And you handled nine of them? I sure hope they paid you for an S-rank mission."
"I'm fairly certain that I wasn't hired to protect them from bandits. Their father probably knew they wouldn't be able to travel that far without someone to keep them from killing each other."
"Undoubtably. Can you pull up your shirt so I can take a look at your ribs?" she asked, surprising him with her powers of observation. Yamato didn't think he'd been favoring his left side at all.
Complying easily, his hands found the hem of his shirt and he tugged it upward, revealing an impressive section of bruised ribs that had been colored in a myriad of black, dark blue and purples. She whistled through her lips as she examined it.
"Care to tell me how a few teenage girls managed that one?" Sakura asked in an appalled tone of voice as she assessed the extent of the damage to the bones. "You could've said something right off the bat and I would've fixed it first thing."
Chakra flared in both of her hands as she pressed them against his chest, and in the silence and comfort of her apartment, Yamato began to feel a familiar tingling in the back of his mind that reminded him of something.
Nudging him slowly towards a revelation.
But it eluded him, and he frowned, wondered what it was that he was missing.
As the pain in his severely battered ribs began to ease under her gentle ministrations, Yamato's face contorted into a pensive frown. There was something about the feel of her chakra reaching into his torso that made him think that somewhere, there were dots he should be connecting.
A few silent minutes passed by as Sakura wondered if he was ever going to tell her how a bunch of preteens had caused him to end up in such bad shape.
But whenever she took her gaze off of his torso to peek at his face, all she found was him scrutinizing her with his features drawn into deep thought. Although their eyes met, his were distant and unfocused, almost as if he was in a different time or place.
Her fingers drifted over his side as she took in her handiwork at repairing the damage.
"What, is it that traumatic of an experience to remember?" she joked lightly, hoping to ease the mood. "You're lucky; the bones themselves were just severely bruised. No actual breaks."
As Sakura spoke, she lifted one small hand up to cup his face. Chakra engulfed it again as she healed a shallow gash that marred his cheekbone, flicking her gaze upward to see what his response would be.
Outside of the battlefield where surges of adrenaline would accompany Sakura healing his wounds, and away from the confining chaos of the hospital, a vague memory began to creep out from the recesses of his mind.
The only recollection he had from his time trapped in the underground cavern during the war was vague, and relied heavily on senses aside from vision.
Before he woke in the hospital, there had been a brief moment of semi-consciousness that he had never been able to completely interpret.
Someone's white-blue chakra had been pouring into his body, warming him thoroughly. He hadn't realized he was cold until then.
Three voices echoed in the background. Although he didn't have the level of awareness to distinguish who they belonged too, he could identify one as female and two as male.
It was almost an out-of-body experience. Mostly, he presumed, because he didn't feel as if he quite had a body. The only thing tying him down to an existence seemed to be that inexplicably warm, comforting chakra pumping through him that assured him he had a physical form.
Yamato had been able to conclude that the vague memory could be attributed to the medical team that had rescued him from his confinement.
But as Sakura's chakra entered his cheek and mingled with his own just below the surface of his skin, the last piece of the puzzle suddenly slammed into place. It was so blindingly obvious that he didn't know how he had managed to miss the details beforehand.
When his hand suddenly shot up and clamped around Sakura's wrist, she jumped a few inches before she could help it.
Although painless, Yamato's grip was firm, his fingers unusually tense. Meeting his intense gaze, Sakura wondered what could be causing such an easy-natured person to be staring down at her with such a serious, profoundly concentrated expression.
"Is something wrong?" she asked softly, startled by his uncharacteristic behavior.
It took a minute for him to find the right words.
"It was you," Yamato replied, the words laced with shock.
Wondering what on earth she could've done to unnerve him in such a way, Sakura ceased the chakra output from her hand. His words made no sense to her and sent a wave of confusion stumbling through her mind.
"Wuh?" she replied intelligently, still unable to process the strange sensation of his warm, strong hand gripping her wrist, his fingers slightly encompassing the bottom of her palm.
His dark eyes narrowed. "You were the one who brought me out of Kabuto's jutsu," he clarified, finally releasing her wrist with a shocked sideways glance that belayed he had just now realized that he had been holding onto it.
Absolutely floored, Sakura lowered her hand and searched his features, her own a myriad of emotions that accompanied her deep consideration.
"I must have healed you a hundred times between now and then. What made a difference this time?"
The absolute lack of denial at his claim affirmed his conclusion. Not knowing how to answer the question, he simply stared at her for a long time, digesting the new information and watching her shift slightly, clearly unnerved by his unwavering gaze.
"I had no idea you retained any level of consciousness when we removed you," she told him softly when he didn't fill the silence with an answer. "Were you awake?"
"I don't know if I'd call the state I was in consciousness, exactly. It was a mixture of vague sensations; I could feel something warm, like someone's chakra flowing into me. And I could hear some voices."
Sakura wondered what he'd do if he knew it hadn't been chakra he'd been feeling, but her own life force flowing into him and reviving him.
If he knew the possible ramifications of using such a forbidden jutsu, he'd probably be the one scolding her for a change, she thought with a smile. It was a good thing he'd never know the risk that she had taken.
"Why didn't you tell me it was you?" he asked, his gaze probing.
Sakura's smile turned a bit dry with a hint of sweetness. "You were finally safe. The rest didn't seem to matter at the time." Slowly, she reached back up to put the finishing touches on his cheekbone.
"Besides, how many times have you saved my sorry ass without saying anything?" she deflected. "I could probably make a list. It'd likely take up more than a page – and I write really small. Now come on; the food is going to get cold."
In a whirlwind of action, Yamato soon found himself seated at a table with an impressive array of food placed before him. Beef curry and rice, a bowl of miso soup, a small plate of chicken katsu with dipping sauce, and a large glass of iced tea presented themselves as the best meal he'd had in a long time.
Something in his face must have revealed how impressed he was by the food she had prepared, because Sakura laughed lightly as she sat down to her own plate of food. "It's nothing to be in awe over. It's pretty basic dishes."
Trying to remember when he had last – if ever – had someone cook for him, Yamato heard his stomach rumble, easily heard across the table. "I think the last time I had a meal this great, it was at the hot springs when Sai and I first joined your team," he replied.
"Surely your mom still makes you homemade meals once in a while!" Sakura commented.
His shrug preceded his reply. "I suppose she might, if I had a mother."
Sakura froze in the action of picking up a piece of food with her chopsticks. Suddenly buried in a wave of shame, she wondered how she could possibly be such an insensitive clout.
"War orphan," he explained without her asking. "I assume we were easy pickings for Orochimaru to experiment on. No parents to question our sudden disappearances."
Swallowing the piece of carrot that suddenly had taken on the texture of ash in her mouth, Sakura felt an unmistakable ache form in her chest. Although she knew the details of Orochimaru's experimental efforts to insert the First Hokage's DNA into children, she hadn't known that none of the children had any family to speak of.
"Don't get upset on my account," Yamato spoke quietly, his tone gentle as he slanted her a somewhat pained look. Sakura realized that her eyes were feeling suspiciously watery as she gazed at him from across the table. "I've had a long time to grow accustomed to it."
It seemed that none of the men in her life had escaped from the years unscathed by some kind of tragedy.
"Two of the girls were so caught up in trying to pull each other's hair out that they knocked each other right off the side of a cliff," Yamato commented with laughter lacing his words as he abruptly switched the topic.
Pulled out of her reverie by the strange comment, Sakura blinked at him owlishly for a moment. "What?"
"You asked how my ribs got so damaged. Try catching two hair-pulling, scratching, screaming teenaged girls as they go tumbling over a cliff into a ravine."
The new direction of the conversation worked to lighten the somber mood that had unintentionally overcome the room. Sakura felt herself grinning in disbelief as they both ate, discussing the perils of watching over bunch of rabid girls.
Yamato had just been explaining how one of the younger ones – the five-year-old – had accidentally kicked out one of her sister's teeth when Sakura's doorbell rang through the midst of their laughter and conversation.
"Are you expecting someone?"
The way that Sakura's lips turned downward in a pensive expression answered the question for him before the woman had the chance to. "No…"
Hesitantly, she set her chopsticks down and got up, dusting off nonexistent crumbs from her lap. Yamato watched her make her way to the front door, the angle of the entryway making him lose sight of half of her form as she pulled the door open.
"Sasuke-kun?"
Yamato paused with the chopsticks halfway to his mouth. After polishing off his first round of food, Sakura had happily obliged him by serving him seconds.
Thankfully, her cooking tasted nothing like her food pills.
"Are you busy?" came the smooth, seemingly uncaring voice.
"Yes, actually," Sakura replied, and Yamato had a small moment of surprise at her quick rebuttal. Given her predisposition for the Uchiha, he wouldn't have been surprised if his appearance had taken precedence over their dinner.
After all, they were mostly finished eating.
Shoveling the rest of the food on his plate into his mouth, Yamato rose from his seat at the table, the scrape of his chair clearly audible. Making his way to the sink, he gathered the dirty dishes as he went.
"Are you injured?" Her question was laced with concern. Yamato couldn't help but notice the small hint of confusion that also tinged her words. It was clear to him that she was wondering why the other man was there.
"No." Yamato heard shifting, and could see Sakura lean back on her heels; she had probably been leaning forward, ready to examine him for wounds until he had denied having any.
Sasuke's eyes discreetly roamed over the entryway to Sakura's apartment, not missing the fact that two pairs of standard shinobi sandals had been discarded upon entering – one pair clearly far too big for the petite pink-haired girl.
"Then…?" Sakura prodded.
When his dark eyes fixed on her again, she fidgeted a bit under his scrutiny. "Naruto wanted me to get you," he explained, "for ramen. He's waiting with Hinata."
Yamato snuck one last bite of chicken katsu as he started running water into the sink, pretending he wasn't completely eavesdropping on the two. But then again, he justified, it was a shinobi's prerogative to gather information.
"Oh," Sakura said slowly. "Actually, I already have dinner plans. In fact, I'm kind of in the middle of them right now." A sweet, apologetic smile accompanied her statement. Yamato couldn't see it, but he could hear it in her tone of voice.
"I see," he replied. "I'll let Naruto know."
A few more softly mumbled words were exchanged before Yamato heard the door click closed.
"That was weird," Sakura muttered, preceding her own entry back into the kitchen. He heard her pause at the threshold of the room. "Are you washing the dishes?" If her tone hadn't been incredulous before, it was now.
"Ah… sorry," Yamato replied.
When he turned, she was staring at him with a grin, jade eyes glowing with amusement. Concern for the fact that his actions might have offended her began to abate as Sakura worked her way beside him, grabbing a towel and drying the dishes as they were washed.
After cleaning up, they somehow found themselves seated on the same couch, sitting across from each other playing card games. Cautiously, Yamato routinely searched her body language for any signals that he was overstaying his welcome.
Instead, he found her to be clearly enjoying his company, not anxious for him to leave. The washing machine hummed in the background; Sakura had thrown his discarded jonin shirt and vest into it.
Eyebrows furrowed in concentration, Yamato spent probably a few moments too long examining his cards and formulating his next play and plan of action. Sakura was a quick thinker and a fine strategist. There were few people that presented a challenge to Yamato in card games, and he soon found out that she fit well into that schema.
Finally making up his mind, he pulled a few cards out of his hand and made to lay them on the couch between him.
Raising his vision to his face to assess her reaction, Yamato was surprised to see her head resting against the corner of the couch, her eyes closed, chest rising and falling slowly. She had nestled her way into the junction of the back and arm of the couch, supporting herself on it as she dangled her slender legs on the seat in front of her.
Searching the room until his eyes landed on a clock, Yamato felt a wave of disbelief at how late it was. The time, it appeared, had completely slipped away from him.
The soft lines of her body revealed the relaxation that she clearly felt in his presence. Combined with the long shift she'd had at the hospital, he supposed she had been lulled into sleep, comfortable in the environment even with him there.
Reluctantly, Yamato acknowledged that if he left her there, she'd get a horrible kink in her neck from the somewhat unnatural position of her head against the cushions.
With a practiced motion that he'd executed countless times before, he gently scooped her up in his arms and headed towards her bedroom. The lights were off, but the darkness wasn't an obstacle for him. As usual, her small frame was light in his arms; he always marvelled at the fact that something so tiny could inflict so much damage.
Moonlight shone through her window and illuminated everything clearly enough. Shifting his hold on her, he used one arm to support her back as he leaned forward to throw the blankets to the side.
Marveling at the fact that her sleep hadn't been disturbed by his interference, he gently laid her on the bed, folding the blankets over her petite frame.
After a moment spent contemplating how comfortable she was sleeping in his presence, Yamato found himself lingering a bit longer than be probably should.
Shutting the bedroom door softly behind him on the way out, he made his way to the entryway of the apartment, slipping into his sandals and giving one last glance backwards before locking the front door as he left.
*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*
When Sakura woke the next morning in her bed with no recollection of getting herself there, she took a minute to examine yesterday's clothes that she was still wearing before realizing what must have happened.
Groaning, she put her face in her hands and hoped she hadn't offended Yamato by falling asleep in the middle of their…
Their…
Well, she realized belatedly, she didn't really know what to call it.
Smiling, she found herself somehow lightened by the fact that their friendship as teammates was evolving.
Considering how close she was to the other male members of her team, it was somewhat surprising that she'd taken so long to start forming a closer friendship with her alternate team leader.
A few hours later when she reached her office in the hospital, her concern that her fit of narcolepsy might have offended Yamato was instantly abated at the sight waiting for her on her desk.
Simple but elegant, a slender glass vase filled with an arrangement of flowers was surreptitiously sitting in a previously unoccupied spot on the desk. A note was attached to it, and as Sakura reached out and opened it, a familiar scrawl met her eyes.
Thank you for dinner
The simple phrase made her lips pull up until she realized she was smiling. There were many positive attributes that the men on her team had, but nobody could claim that manners had ever been one of them.
Life, she supposed, found ways to fill in things for the things that it was lacking.
Sai, Naruto, Kakashi and Sasuke might be completely absent of manners, but life had brought around someone to reassure her that polite men weren't a dying breed.
*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*
Author's Notes:
Kishi is driving me nuts. I hate how Yamato has been pretty much completely ignored in the storyline since his capture...
Anyways, although it's somewhat an uncommon pairing, I love Yama/Saku. I think they instantly fit together, from their first mission at Tenchi Bridge. I mean, seriously - did everybody not see how many times he saves her butt, and the instant concern he has for her well-being?
I love how when he's holding her after he saves her from falling off the bridge, and he has one hand cupping her face...
Cuteness.
Anyway... Hopefully the story is enjoyable!
If you enjoy it, I'd love to hear about it!
