It was almost comical, the way Naruto's demeanor changed the instant Sasuke told him that something was wrong with Sakura.

Immediately, the grogginess of sleep melted into wide-eyed concern. He ripped off his ridiculous sleeping cap and demanded, nothing but urgency, "What do you mean, she's in trouble? What happened?"

Sasuke's lip curled, and he glanced around him covertly. Standing outside Naruto's apartment, anyone could be listening, and should Sakura's machinations be heard by the wrong person, it could land her in prison. Or worse. "Not here. Let me in."

Naruto stepped aside to admit him, and once both boys were safely inside, the door behind them locked, Sasuke went to check the windows. Stepping around piles and piles of filthy, smelly clothes that Naruto clearly never washed, he shut the window that was open to beckon in a balmy summer night breeze. Once he closed it, he wished he hadn't; without the pleasant draft, the stench of sour milk and sweat pervading the small apartment became almost overpowering.

"Come on, teme!" Naruto demanded. "What's going on? You're acting crazy!"

"Keep your voice down, you dobe," Sasuke snapped. He folded his arms and said, "What do you know about what Sakura's planning?"

"Planning?" Naruto frowned in confusion. "What do you mean, planning?"

Sasuke studied his best friend's face for a trace of a lie, but found none. Naruto was annoyingly sincere, and couldn't lie to save his life.

But this raised another question: why the hell had Sakura gone to Sasuke first, of all people? It was common knowledge that there was no one in the world she trusted more than Uzumaki Naruto. It was also common knowledge that there was no one in the world she trusted less than Uchiha Sasuke. What were her motives, truly? What wasn't she telling him?

"She told me she wants to overthrow the Konoha Council," Sasuke said in a rush. Paranoid that someone might be listening, still, he activated his Sharingan and looked out the window he'd just closed. No one was there; he couldn't detect any chakra signatures besides those of Naruto's neighbors, most of whom were civilian and all of whom were sleeping peacefully in their beds.

Naruto burst out laughing.

"Who knew you had a sense of humor, teme?" he guffawed, slapping his knee. "All this time we thought you were too uptight to joke around, but this is pretty good! I mean, a little amateurish for your first official prank, but you came to the right place, if you want to improve!"

"This isn't a joke, you idiot!" Sasuke snapped, his teeth clenched together in anger. "Sakura came to my house just now, telling me she wants to overthrow the Council. Replace it completely. Put the elders on trial. You had no idea she was thinking this?"

"You're…not kidding? She really said that?"

"Yes," Sasuke said, seething. Naruto was one of the dumbest people he'd ever met in his life, and his slowness in this matter was beyond frustrating. "She said that. I want to know why."

Naruto frowned to himself, before his blue eyes took on an expression of sadness that Sasuke wasn't expecting. I was right, he thought, studying his best friend's face closely. He knows something I don't. Some reason Sakura's gone crazy.

"Maybe…you should hear it from her," the dobe responded, and it was the absolute last thing Sasuke was expecting to hear. It enraged him, that Naruto might have an inkling as to why Sakura was doing what she was doing, and holding out on him.

"You mean you know?" Sasuke demanded. "Tell me, you idiot! She's gonna get herself killed!"

Naruto crossed the room and sat down on the edge of his bed, turning his sleeping cap over and over in his hands, lost in thought.

"She told me she wants a new Konoha," Sasuke said, trying to control his temper. "She wants to try Homura and Koharu for the massa…for what happened with my family." He was still unwilling to go into much detail on the fall of the Uchiha Clan, even if he'd put it behind him. "I know she was a medic-nin during the war. She must've seen some shit. But none of that would explain fully why she's lost her mind!"

"She's not lying about those things," Naruto said wistfully. "When she found out what happened to your family…it broke her heart. Sasuke she didn't know right away. Me and Kakashi-sensei found out before. We didn't tell her."

This was new to Sasuke. Against his will, he thought of the way Sakura had challenged him back in the Land of Iron, the poisoned kunai she'd carried that wouldn't have worked on him anyway. The kunai she hadn't been able to use on him. She really hadn't known that day? The motivation for Sasuke's madness?

It was irrelevant right now, though. There would be time to ruminate on Sakura's motives for her actions that horrible day later, after he'd ensured that she wouldn't get herself assassinated in some ill-conceived quest for nobility.

"I don't care about that," he lied smoothly. "Maybe she's not lying about that. But she's not telling the whole truth."

He wouldn't beg Naruto for answers. He wasn't really, entirely sure why he was going this far for Sakura in the first place; they were teammates again, but it wasn't like she trusted him the way she used to. There was a wall between them now and they avoided each other wherever possible.

But that didn't stop him from wanting to know what was pushing Sakura so hard.

Didn't stop him from wanting to stop her, at whatever cost.

"Look," Naruto said quietly, and hearing his best friend speak at a soft volume was more shocking than anything else that had happened tonight, including the knowledge that, if she had her way, Sakura was about to become a traitor to the village she loved. "I…Sakura-chan is…"

"Spit it out, dobe," Sasuke snapped.

"I don't think you should hear it from me, what happened to her," Naruto finished. There was an air of finality in his words, and he pointedly looked away from his best friend. "She's not going to try an assassinate the Elders. If what she wants is a trial? Well…after what happened, that's pretty justified, far as I'm concerned."

Sasuke experienced a rage so powerful, he couldn't see straight. His Sharingan reactivated on its own, as it often did when he was angry or distressed. This was bullshit. All that talk of "what it means to be a team," thrown out the window when it mattered the most. All this time, he'd been demonized as the member of Team 7 who'd turned his back on the ones who cared about him most, and here his hypocritical teammates were doing the exact same thing to him.

"It's not that I don't think you should hear it," Naruto said, his voice stronger, emphatic, and he met Sasuke's angry gaze with something like serenity in his own. "Just that…it's her story to tell. Not mine."

"Maybe you don't understand what would happen to her," Sasuke snapped, advancing on his best friend with all the intention in the world of punching him in the face. "But the Uchiha Clan serves as a pretty good reminder as to what the Konoha Council will do to people who threaten them."

Naruto flinched. Good. At least he was getting through to one of his teammates tonight.

"Just because she's not approaching this with violence, doesn't mean they won't. You think shit's changed around here, just because Madara's dead? Just because the war's over? How can anything change when we're still taking orders from the same bastards who-"

"Maybe you understand what Sakura-chan's thinking, then," Naruto cut him off swiftly, and Sasuke stopped cold. "Sounds like you two might agree on this, actually."

"Of course I agree with her," Sasuke growled. "I hate the Council. They had Itachi kill our whole family. But overthrowing them? She's gonna get killed!"

Naruto's temper flared the more Sasuke emphasized Sakura's inevitable fate in all of this, and finally he was on his feet, hands clenched into fists and more than ready to meet Sasuke blow for blow if necessary.

"Look, asshole," he snarled, "maybe you're not the only one who lost their family because of the council, okay?"

Sasuke's attention was caught; immediately, the desire to pound Naruto dissipated as he realized his idiot best friend had slipped up.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, eyes narrowed. Something hollow rested in his stomach, a sick, dull dread he hadn't felt in awhile. He watched Naruto's face pale. "Sakura's parents aren't dead."

Promptly, without any kind of warning, Naruto drew his fist back and punched Sasuke as hard as he could in the jaw. Unprepared for the onslaught, Sasuke was thrown backwards against the wall, hitting hard enough to crack the plaster. Furious, he whirled around to face Naruto, only to hear him say something that made his blood run cold.

"Shows what you know about your own teammate, teme! No wonder she didn't waste her time telling you!"

Sasuke was just about to retort with something vicious when there came a knock at the door. He cast his best friend a warning glance, his hand flying into his pocket for a throwing star just in case they'd need it; Naruto shook his head and answered the door to Sai.

"Sai, what're you doing here?" he asked.

"Good evening, Naruto," Sai replied, working on his manners with the help of Sakura, and one Yamanaka Ino, whom he was seeing a lot of lately, for "extra lessons." He smiled courteously, before turning to Sasuke, who was rubbing his swollen jaw in the corner. "And to you as well, Sasuke. Please forgive my interruption of what was no doubt a stirring sexual romp between the both of you. But I was sent from Tsunade-sama to inform you all that we have a mission."

"You gotta be kidding me," Sasuke swore under his breath, pointedly ignoring Sai's implication; murdering one of his new teammates would not reflect kindly upon him in this uphill quest for redemption in the eyes of the village.

"Right now?" Naruto asked. "What kind of mission? It's like three in the morning! Who's all going?"

Missions were few and far between lately. Most of the villages were rebuilding after the war, and with peacefulness being the new standard to maintain, the majority of missions being distributed were ambassador's trips, reconstruction, that sort of thing.

Not the type of mission issued at 3 in the morning, to a team like Team 7.

"We're to head immediately to Amegakure," Sai replied patiently. "The three of us, and the hag as well." Sasuke rolled his eyes at Sai's stupid nickname for Sakura – it didn't apply at all – before seeing that this was actually a blessing in disguise.

Better to get Sakura out of the village before anyone else could hear about her stupid plan. He'd have more luck convincing her to knock it off if they were away from anyone who could potentially agree with her.

"For what?" Sasuke pressed.

"There seems to have been an accident at one of the landmines," Sai explained. "Many miners were killed and many more are injured; their medics are ill-equipped to deal with the volume of wounded and the severity of their injuries. We're to escort the hag safely, so she can deal with the worst of them."

"Wouldn't they need more medics than just Sakura?" Sasuke asked, frowning.

"Yeah, none of us are medics like she is, we couldn't really help much," Naruto added.

"Hokage-sama is suspicious that the mining collapse was no accident," Sai replied. "We have not yet met, nor do we understand the motives of, the new Kage of Amegakure. This is many missions rolled into one: Sakura is to heal the wounded, we are all to make sure she is protected, and serve as both ambassadors to this unsteady nation…and spies, if necessary."

Something twisted in Sasuke's stomach. Already, already, the tenuous bonds each village had established with one another following the war were being tested. Granted, Amegakure had a shaky government at best right now; it was unknown who was actually leading the village, after Konan's death. It was, perhaps, wise to exercise caution, even suspicion, when you didn't have all the pieces to a puzzle.

Still, though, it was an unsavory reminder that even if peace was the objective, it was not necessarily probable.

"Got it," Naruto said, his previous bad mood with Sasuke vanishing with the prospect of a new adventure. Apparently, Sasuke's uneasiness with the situation was not shared by his naïve best friend. "Well…let's get our shit and wake up Sakura-chan!"

Sasuke and Naruto took a few moments to collect their things, requiring an extra trip to his house for clothes, food, and weapons, while Sai summoned Sakura. Alone in his house, he checked that his weapons pouch was well-stocked with kunai, throwing stars, paper bombs; even if Sasuke rarely bothered with any of those, preferring the deadly reliability of his sword, it was never a good idea to ignore anything that could save his life when it came down to it, or, more importantly, the lives of his teammates.

It was impossible to squash the rage that was growing within him. Naruto knew something about Sakura, something important: it would seem that, contrary to his belief that Sakura lived an idyllic life with loving, living parents, it was not the case. If Naruto's slip-up revealed anything, it was that Sakura's parents were dead.

And that somehow, the Council was involved.

That meant they could relate to one another on some level, he and Sakura, in a way they never could have before.

He didn't want that to happen. While he could say he wanted a connection with Sakura, he never wanted her to know the horror and hate that accompanied working for the same people who took away everything you loved.

He never wanted her to go through life alone, without the stability and love a family could provide. She was older, granted, than he'd been when he lost his family, but she was still seventeen. A girl, by anyone's standards, and too young, too delicate to be alone in the world.

Sasuke was angry at her, for as much as he sympathized with her situation (even if he had no idea what that included.) He was equally a member of Team 7, same as Naruto, wasn't he? Didn't he deserve to know something as important as a teammate's trauma?

It occurred to him, with a sick, sour feeling in his stomach, that Sai might be aware of what had happened.

Sasuke reluctantly accepted his look-alike into the team, simply because he'd done what Sasuke couldn't do for Sakura and Naruto all the years he was away: protected them. Even if he was a complete asshole with no concept of human nature, Sasuke begrudgingly respected the fact that Sai was important to Naruto and Sakura. Team 7 had grown.

But the idea that his essential replacement was privy to knowledge that Sasuke himself was denied, made him sick with bitter resentment.

How can she say we're a team, he thought furiously, strapping his sword tightly to his waist, if she keeps a secret like this from me?

Well, no matter. He'd get to the bottom of this one way or another.

They met up at the village gates a half-hour after Sai had arrived at Naruto's. Naruto looked exuberantly happy to be taking a mission with his team; Sai had his creepy, soulless smile on his face as he greeted the others; and Sakura looked ruffled, irritated, and refused to so much as look at him.

His eyes narrowed.

"Hokage-sama has assigned Sakura to be team leader," Sai reported. Sasuke found it interesting that he only ever insulted Sakura's appearance when she wasn't around. Apparently, he had the sense to know that calling a girl ugly to her face guaranteed one a quick trip to the hospital.

Though he never really understood why Sai called Sakura 'ugly' or 'hag' in the first place. There were many areas in which Sakura was lacking, (sanity, temperament, reasonability) but certainly not in her appearance.

Quickly, he derailed that train of thought and turned his attention to the forest beyond the gates, as Sakura took point in their group.

"We'll make better time if we take the new roads," she said, adjusting her pack and pulling her longer pink hair up into a ponytail, so it wouldn't get in her eyes as they ran. "Naruto, left flank. Sai, right. Sasuke, rear."

He scoffed under his breath, seeing through her game completely. With Sai and Naruto between them, there was no way he could get her on her own to talk to her. Beyond that, there was something utterly bizarre about taking orders from Haruno Sakura. Granted, she was an excellent team leader, levelheaded where she needed to be and constantly thinking about the safety of her teammates.

But remembering the shy, frightened little girl who'd needed him to step in front of her at every sudden movement all those years ago, it was impossible to reconcile her with the capable, confident young woman she'd grown into.

He respected her as both a kunoichi and a captain. But there was something foreign about seeing the white circle displayed on the back of her clothes as she ran ahead of him.

They took off at an impressive pace. Sakura was moving rather quickly, given her previous fatigue. Sasuke couldn't help but note how her speed had improved so drastically in the years they'd been apart. He still, to his consternation, was not fully aware of her capabilities now that she was seventeen, and a true kunoichi to her core.

It occurred to him that there was still so much of Haruno Sakura that remained a mystery.

They made the journey straight through, overnight, with stopping. Sakura said it was because she wanted to reach the village as soon as possible, to begin tending to the wounded, but Sasuke strongly suspected that a far more personal reason was her blatant refusal to speak to him for any length of time.

They met no trouble along the way, fortunately. Naruto had plenty to say about that. "Who the hell would try and attack Team 7?"

The arrogance in the question, though, had some basis in reality. Team 7 had garnered itself quite a reputation as a very powerful contingent of shinobi, each one lethal in his or her own way. Sasuke couldn't think of many who would tangle with a team with a reputation like theirs.

Still, there was a palpable tension in the air between the four of them. Sasuke was sure it was because of his current argument with Sakura; she was still angry with him, and wouldn't let it go even knowing he was tasked with the duty of keeping her safe on their trip. Their bitterness towards one another was clearly felt throughout the group; Naruto's many attempts to start an amiable conversation were met with cold, curt replies and eventually he gave up entirely. Silent and tense, they arrived in Ame, knowing they'd reached their destination when it began to rain.

Sasuke hated rain.

Sakura led them quickly to the main gates, where two shinobi were standing guard in a birds' nest similar to the one they had back in Konoha.

She raised her hand in greeting, and both shinobi appeared in front of them on the ground.

"Name and purpose," one demanded.

"I'm Haruno Sakura, from Konoha," she replied, handing him a scroll that Sasuke guessed had been given to her by Tsunade. "The Hokage sent me here to help with your wounded. This is my team."

Any suspicion the guards may have had was wiped out when they read the scroll.

"I recognize you!" the other one exclaimed, and Sasuke's eyes narrowed as he tensed for confrontation, but to his shock, the guard wasn't pointing at him. Or even Naruto.

He pointed at Sakura.

"You're the famous healer from Konoha!" he said excitedly. "The one trained by Tsunade-sama!"

Sakura smiled professionally, all business.

"This is great, man!" the excitable guard said to the other one, clapping him on the back. "Sakura-sama saved my brother's life during the war!"

Sakura-SAMA? Sasuke thought, astonished.

The more composed shinobi guard nodded solemnly and returned the scroll to Sakura.

"Welcome to Ame, Haruno-san," he said. "We greatly appreciate your assistance. Please make quickly for the hospital; we've relocated the survivors there for the time being, but our medic-nin are overwhelmed with the volume of patients moving in. Civilian doctors have been dispatched there as well, but they don't have the necessary experience required to treat shinobi wounds. Have one of your teammates announce themselves to our Kage as well. We've been waiting for you."

"Right," Sakura replied, bowing. "Thank you very much."

With that, Team 7 hurried inside the gates.

Sakura led them quickly through the streets of the small, but industrialized city. Apparently she knew her way around, and Sasuke had to guess she'd been to Ame before.

"I'm gonna be locked down at the hospital for awhile," Sakura said, all determination. "I have to get as many patients stabilized as possible. Naruto, Sasuke, head to the government building downtown and report to the Kage that we're here."

"Aw, why can't I stay with you, Sakura-chan?" Naruto whined.

She rolled her eyes. "Because Sai can keep his mouth shut while I'm operating. Now go."

"If I may so, Sakura," Sai spoke up quickly, "perhaps Sasuke should stay with you, instead of me. His history as a traitor may work against him in meeting with the new Kage; I can go with Naruto to introduce ourselves, and explain Sasuke's unique situation."

Sasuke's eyes flickered to Sakura, who was biting her lip. It was clear that Sai had a point, and she was compromising the mission with her refusal to cooperate. She finally relented.

"Fine," she said flatly. "Head there immediately, and when you're done, come straight to the hospital. Even if you guys can't heal, you can at least lift."

Content with their orders, Naruto and Sai vanished to deal with the new Kage, while Sasuke glanced at Sakura. She promptly looked away from him.

"Not a word," she said warningly, and without further ado, she took off at a run for the hospital doors.

These foreign shinobi knew about Haruno Sakura, recognized her before recognizing Naruto, or himself. It was shocking to note that far from remaining the weak, fragile little girl he'd always known her to be, Sakura had grown up, worked hard, and earned her own merit.

It raised an unsavory thought within him, as his Sharingan eyes locked onto her long pink ponytail whipping behind her as she flew into the hospital.

Did I ever really know you to begin with?

note.. Hi! Thanks for waiting on this one. I'm having a good time writing it, I hope you're having a good time reading it.

For those of you who are unaware, my Phillies are riding a seven-game winning streak and are back in contention for the playoffs. Just in case there is someone out there who needs to know that. There you go. I love you Phillies. More than anything.

Anyway, I digress. I always do. Let me know what you think! Have a good weekend :)

xo Daisy