Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the characters therein. I do not make any money from writing fanfiction.
Her mouth tasted like week-old road kill.
Ugh. Toothbush and toothpaste. Pronto.
Sakura rolled over and promptly fell off her couch, hitting the ground with a thud and a yelp. Mildly dazed, she popped right back up, scrambled to her feet, and swore loudly.
They had broken into her house!
She was in her living room and the morning light was streaming through the windows. Even if they had broken into her house to bring her home, some serious personal boundaries had been broken. She checked the windows and the front door; all were locked.
Showoffs.
In a furious mood, she trod into the bathroom and winced when she saw her face in the mirror. Large purple bags bruised the skin below her eyes and her hair hung lank. Someone had wiped some of the blood off of her arms (how nice of them to wash an unconscious woman, totally not creepy) but they hadn't been too thorough; dried blood rimmed the edges of her nails and stained the skin between her fingers.
Gross. She looked like she had just eaten breakfast, zombie-style.
Her clothes hadn't fared any better. She fingered the flecks of blood that had gotten on her shirt and pants unhappily before stripping them off and tossing them aside. They weren't going to wash out easily. Her head medic's coat was missing, she noticed, but it had been so dirty she would probably have bad to get another one anyway. At least they hadn't tried to change her clothes or anything like that; highly trained shinobi or not, asses would've had to be kicked and balls would've had to be broken.
She washed off her hands, brushed the gross off her teeth and stepped under the spray of the shower. The water swirled murkily down the drain as she scrubbed the blood stains off her skin with a vengeance.
This was ridiculous. All of it. Anbu, the kidnapping, the secrecy... she didn't even understand where she fit in last night's mind-numbing onslaught of events. Everything defied sense.
And to be honest, she was surprised she could remember last night at all. She had a hunch that most people who interacted with Anbu agents didn't get to remember their encounters. They'd be too much of a security risk.
That left her with one conclusion: she had her memories because Ibiki wanted her to have them.
Which made last night even more baffling.
If anything, she was the last person who they should let keep their memories. They had to know that she would kick up a storm about their sorry excuse for a medical facility. And that was a security risk. It didn't make sense.
She rested her forehead against the cool tiles of the wall. The heavy water hammered down on her shoulders; her body was the kind of heavy that demanded she snuggle into the enveloping warmth of her bed. She couldn't have had much sleep.
The image of her marching up to Ibiki and handing him a very long bill for overtime flickered in her imagination. She snorted.
She had a feeling her payment for last night would be something akin to a 'glowing sense of patriotic duty' or something like that. Too bad it didn't pay for her groceries.
Her smile faded. The longer she stood under the shower's spray in the familiarity of her own apartment, the weirder and more distant the last night seemed, like it had happened to someone else.
She needed to put aside time to stop and digest what had happened to her and decide what to do about it. But even more, she needed to talk to somebody about last night. She needed a second opinion from someone she trusted.
Tsunade jumped into her mind instantly. Sakura trusted her mentor implicitly. She had always answered her questions about any aspect of the village's affairs forthright or not answered at all, but she had never outright lied to Sakura.
Her gut twisted a little. Well, that she knew of.
Tsunade had to know about the Black Op's 'medical facility.' Ibiki had admitted the Hokage knew about Anbu's business. But Tsunade had never, not once, even hinted of its existence to Sakura.
There had to be a reason why Tsunade had never told her about it. Under her tutelage, Sakura had worked in every medical building and in nearly every medical room in the village. But she hadn't recognized the room last night. None of the buildings she had worked in had treatment rooms underground.
If she confronted Tsunade would she, like Ibiki, say she didn't have the security clearance?
A glum despondence came to rest in the pit of her stomach. Nearly a decade had passed since she had started her apprenticeship under Tsunade, but maybe there were some heights her mentor didn't think she could reach.
Moron, she chastised herself. Sometimes, when she was feeling down, the little insecure girl that she used to be peeked her unwelcome head up. It happened more often than she liked to admit, but Sakura refused to let her fears of inadequacy have such a tight grip on her anymore. They had never done her any good and other people, namely Naruto, had always had to pick up her slack when she gave in to those feelings. So she had promised herself she would never be a burden again. She shoved the thought aside and refocused
If Tsunade did know about the facility (and how pathetic it was) there must be something that had been holding her back from telling her for the past few years. The same something that would prevent her from answering Sakura's questions now.
Sakura needed someone who regarded their position with enough nonchalance to bend – okay, break – a few rules to help her.
She needed was someone who knew about Anbu. The real Anbu. Inside and out.
She needed someone who could separate myth from fact and tell her what she was actually up against.
She needed someone who knew Ibiki, someone who could decode his weird behaviour for her; someone she could trust, someone who wouldn't lie to her in the name of village security; someone who didn't mind hanging the rules to help out a friend; someone who would listen to her, talk to her, give her advice, someone who –
Dear god... She could have slapped herself but settled for a long-suffering groan.
She was an idiot. And she called Naruto a moron!
Who else had an old sensei that happened to be ex-Anbu?
The realization that she didn't have to take on this mystery alone perked her up more than a whole pot of coffee could have. She rinsed off and five minutes later she pattered into her room feeling slightly more human.
She didn't have a shift today but she wanted to go back to the hospital anyway to check on the staff and hopefully to find some sign that Anbu had been there. There wouldn't really be much point in reporting whatever she could find if Tsunade already knew what they were up to, but she wanted to look around all the same. Curiosity made a good little ninja.
And then she would hunt down her dear old sensei.
She dried her hair, threw on a tan slitted skirt over a pair of snug black shorts and slipped on a loose navy shirt.
With an apartment-shaking slam of the door, she left.
"G-aaah-good morning, Sa–," the young man let out another enormous yawn, "Sakura-senpai."
"Good morning, Kenta-san. Busy night?" She put down her keys on the reception desk of ward four and flipped through a binder, feigning interest.
He shrugged his shoulders and rubbed his eyes. "Not really. Genma's team came back last night but they just needed a patch-up." He stared at her civilian clothes with envy. "Say, aren't you supposed to be off today?"
She smiled at him. He was one of the medics who had been kidnapped last night, but apparently he didn't know it. "Yeah, I just came in to finish up some paper work that I didn't get done last night." A lie. Her paperwork still lay on her desk but didn't she have any intention of finishing it.
He gave her an incredulous look. 'Workaholics,' he thought. He was never going to get promoted with them around.
"Well... have fun with that. My shift's done so I'm going to go home and get some shut-eye."
"Okay, Kenta-san. Make sure you rest up a bit."
Kenta nodded tiredly and waved to her over his shoulder as he pushed through the clinic's doors.
Sakura snapped the binder shut. She hadn't been disappointed. They didn't remember anything.
With a new determination in her stride she marched through the halls to the supply room.
She opened the door to find one of the new interns restocking the cabinets.
"Morning, senpai."
"Oh, sorry Daisuke, are you busy?"
"Sorta, I'm just helping reorganize the supply rooms."
"Reorganize?" They were always meticulously organized.
"Yeah, Hokage's orders after her last inspection. I guess she wants the supplies to be better distributed throughout the hospital wings..." He looked a little confused but cherub-cute boy gave her a timid smile, trying his best to be helpful.
So Tsunade did know. Sakura was willing to bet her next paycheck that a sizable amount of drugs, equipment, and bandages would mysteriously disappear in the bedlam of paperwork necessary for transferring medical supplies. Triumphant, she excused herself from the room with a smile and went to find Kakashi.
But Kakashi apparently didn't want to be found.
She checked his apartment; no one answered when she rapped on his apartment door. He wasn't ignoring her, his living room was vacant (peering through his blinds while was a necessary invasion of privacy. Besides, it wasn't like she was going in. There was a difference, she told her conscience.)
By the time she had checked his usual haunts, the sun was high in the sky and it beat down one her unforgivingly as she made her way through the streets. The temperature was rising to uncomfortable and she was getting irritable.
The shrieks and cheers of Academy kids reached her ears from over the rooftops. Curious, Sakura made her way through the crisscross of streets and over to the school's chain link fence. The kids were in the training area playing what looked like a modified version of 'capture the flag,' complete with rigged waterballoons, ninja wire and... jingling dogs?
Sakura watched as a dog who looked suspiciously like Bisuke, one of Kakashi's ninken, allow a chubby-legged kid within ten feet of him only to pelt off causing the kid to give chase... and promptly trip over some subtly positioned ninja wire.
Smiling happily with his tongue lolling out, Bisuke darted in and grabbed the red bandana hanging out of the kid's pocket and then bounded back into the frenzied mob of screaming children and wagging tails to pick up a new target, the little bells tied to his collar jingling merrily with each step.
Ninken versus kids? The class would need a nap before lunchtime.
She found him sitting on a lone bench where he could keep an eye on the game in comfort while leisurely thumbing through a new catalogue of specialty weapons.
"Come to see the next generation of mighty Leaf-nin?" Kakashi asked, not looking up from his book.
Sakura was about to reply, but she paused.
To their right, Iruka jogged out from around the corner of the Academy building and froze when he saw the whirling mess of hyper kids that sprawled across the grounds. Poor man. He looked like he was ready to pull out his hair. She really didn't envy him. Iruka spotted Kakashi and threw his hands up in the air.
"I asked you to watch over them for twenty minutes!" he wailed. He marched over to meet them but he had to stop every few steps to scoop up delighted grass-stained kids and drop them on their feet.
"Kakashi," she whispered urgently, "can I talk to you? Soon?"
His exposed eye raked over her in concern. She hoped she didn't look as anxious as she felt.
"On the roof in five minutes okay for you?"
Instantly the bubble of pressure in her chest released. He would be able to provide her with some answers. Even if he didn't have all the answered she was looking for, he would help her figure out what to do. He had never been the type to throw in the towel or abandon a teammate when they were in trouble.
Yes she was comparing her personal problems to the battlefield. This Anbu mystery was totally a battle.
She nodded her thanks and quickly left before Iruka could rope her into helping out too. Honestly, he had the patience of a saint to still be doing his same job all these years later. She felt pretty bad for what her year had probably done to him. Although how he had convinced Kakashi of all people to help him out she would really like to know.
Unusually punctual, Kakashi joined her at the edge of the Academy's red tile roof five minutes later and let his legs dangle over the edge beside hers.
For a moment they both enjoyed the breeze that had eluded them down on the ground between the buildings. The air was sweeter above the streets.
Sakura didn't know where to start now that she had found him. Luckily for her, Kakashi was the one to start the conversation.
"If you've jumped on the bandwagon and fallen in love with Genma, you have my blessing."
Sakura burst out laughing. The tension and stress of the last twenty-four hours lifted from her shoulders.
"Well thank you, but I didn't come and find you to get your approval on my love life."
"Oh?" he cocked a thin eyebrow, "With the face you had a minute ago, I thought something momentous must have happened... Naruto hasn't started an international incident, has he?"
"No. Not unless you count choosing to hug the crap out of the Kazekage on a diplomatic mission."
Kakashi chuckled at that.
"God help us when he's Hokage."
They sat for a moment. Sakura enjoyed the breeze beneath her feet and watched two bird chirp as they chased each other in circles.
"So... I was kidnapped last night."
She told him everything that had happened to her, starting with the phone call. Sometimes he would interject to ask a question about a detail she had left out but for the most part he sat silently, watching her hands flutter about as she talked or staring out at the city's horizon, listening intently. She didn't notice how he got quieter and quieter the farther into her story she went.
"...So?"
"So."
"What do you think?" She was still anxious for answers, but now that she had shared the craziness that had been her night, she felt better. She felt lighter.
He let out a soft but deep sigh and lay back onto the roof.
"Well, you were right," he admitted. "Every medic gets their short term memory altered. You're the only exception I've ever heard of. Congratulations." The last word was uncharacteristically bitter for Kakashi, but she willed her tongue still. The more she let her silences drag, the more he would talk. It was a tactic she had discovered a few years ago and she had used it multiple times to get the damningly reclusive man to open up.
Kakashi must have heard the tone in his voice because he grimaced behind his mask.
"Ibiki wants you to join Anbu," he said in a decidedly more measured and calm voice.
Say what?
Sakura turned her head to him sharply, but he didn't meet her gaze, preferring to stare up into the blue, blue sky.
"Oh. Of course. I suppose it would have been silly of me to expect a formal invitation since he's proven himself quite inept at those," she said in an airy voice that utterly belied the feeling of her stomach plunging out from beneath her. Join Anbu? "But how did you get that from... that?"
"You saw Anko's face. Ibiki showed you his face. You can remember them and they need you."
"Need me?" To say she was shocked was one hell of an understatement.
"Need you." he confirmed, eyes still trained on the wispy clouds. "You're a medic, and probably the only one in the village who has a chance at passing an Anbu entrance test."
"Why do they – wait, there's an entrance test?" She'd thought people were just asked to join Anbu.
He sat back up and ran a hand through his hair. He looked... stressed? Sad?
"Very few people can join Anbu," he started haltingly. "Some ninja, though they may be talented, don't fit our psychological requirements. Ibiki arranges for anyone he thinks could be an asset to find their way to him." She snorted, "If they want to join, they take an entrance test so we can gauge their limits, mental and physical, and if we like what we see... you're in," he finished lamely with a vague hand gesture.
"And how do they find your limits?" She would love to see them test Naruto. His very personality defied limits.
This time he looked at her.
"They push you until you break," he said with a dry smile that didn't reach his eyes.
Below them, people milled about in the sunshine in twos and threes down the rows and crosses of neat streets. She didn't think he was kidding. And she hadn't missed the 'our' and 'we' that had slipped into his speech. She'd thought Kakashi hadn't been in Anbu since he was their genin instructor. He had never mentioned it to her before. Just another thing she was wrong about, she guessed.
"And last night was my 'arrangement'?"
"Yep."
"No shortage of subtlety there."
"Nope."
She blew out a long breath, taking a moment to digest everything he had said.
Ibiki wanted her to join Anbu. He'd thrown out his hook by showing her their crap medical facility. And she had gobbled it up when she'd berated him. What had he said? 'No medic has the security clearance to work here'? 'Not a member, not affiliated'? She knew people in Anbu – well, suspected who might be in it – and the thought of them getting substandard medical care and no follow-up treatment plans when they voluntarily took the most dangerous missions set her blood boiling. And the only way for her to help was to join, Ibiki had made that clear.
She knew she should be furious at being so expertly manipulated, but the possibilities were blooming before her eyes. She could design her own clinic. And once she got it established she would push for more medics to be allowed to assist her; Ibiki had another thing coming if he thought she would give up on that. She was going to need some help.
And being off the record, there wouldn't be mountains of paperwork... Oh, it could be her dream job! If she could pass the test.
Talk about hook, line, and sinker.
She was aware of Kakashi watching her, no doubt guessing what was flying through her head.
He had given her the answers she had asked for. The answers had blown her mind, but she had no doubt he had told her the truth. And if he was still a member of Anbu, as she suspected he was, then he had probably ignored all sorts of oaths of secrecy to tell her this much about the organization, but that was so him. He had never let his team down. She knew he thought he had in the past and that he blamed himself for things that quite frankly had been outside of anyone's control, but he had always done everything humanly possible to keep them together and alive. He knew Ibiki, he had decoded his crazy behaviour for her as easily as he might pull a wrapper off a candy. And he had listened to her talk on and on with endless patience...
Why hadn't she appreciated how awesome he was before?
She felt relaxed now. It made sense. It was absurd and preposterous and bat-shit insane and she was aching to get started. She wasn't scared of hard work. Hard work had never done anything but chisel away her insecurities, sculpting her bit by bit into the person she'd longed to be. She was excited. She bubbled inside. She knew what she needed to do... but she wasn't a hundred percent sure how to do it. She was rusty. Not bad, but not her best either. She'd spent too much time sitting in an office to face whatever Ibiki had lined up for her, and failure wasn't an option. She wanted to be better than her best. Tsunade had guided the chisel for her first reformation, so maybe this time...
She pulled up her legs and tucked her ankles under her bum. She sat up straight and looked him right in his weary eye.
"Kakashi, will you help me train for the entrance test?"
He looked away.
"Ask Yamato."
He stood up and left her.
Author's Notes:
Boom! One super-duper long new chapter! Sorry it took a while, but I've been writing as much as I can!
Please do review; I love to hear all feedback. It makes my day when I know someone has enjoyed my writing, or has read it and has constructive criticism. Thank you for reading!
P.S. I have quite a few other stories featuring Sakura and Kakashi, so if you liked this one, please check them out too :)
Love, KaKiara
