Rain was falling, when Sakura woke up hours later.

At least, she assumed it was hours later. In Ame, it was always hard to gauge time, what with the near constant rainfall and the darkness that never really abated. Not two days into her mission, and Sakura found herself longing for the bright sunny skies and lush green trees of Konoha.

She sat up groggily from the bed, her muscles sore, her head throbbing. She recognized the symptoms of chakra depletion, and absently cursed herself for her shortsightedness.

Looking around, she saw she wasn't alone. Sasuke was sitting on the window sill, eyes shut, presumably asleep. She felt irrationally guilty; she knew she hadn't made this mission easy on him so far.

Remembering his aversion to her plan, though, she shook away her remorse. Sasuke's role in this was the same as his role in every other facet of her life: he was an obstacle, and one she would have to overcome.

Her reserves were relatively low, but improving, which was a good sign. She spared a tiny amount, directing a stream of chakra into her head to loosen the tension in her temples. A few moments' careful concentration, and she let out a breathy sigh in relief. It was always easier to think when her head wasn't pounding a thunderous cadence as a reminder to her carelessness.

Not wanting to wake Sasuke, she swung her legs cautiously over the side of the bed, to find that she was barefoot; someone had removed her boots for her. Blushing at the thought that it might have been Sasuke, and hating herself for blushing, she took a careful step onto the plush carpet with all the intention in the world of creeping into the bathroom for a hot shower uninterrupted by her teammate, when the smooth, deep baritone of his voice stopped her dead.

"You're awake," he observed needlessly.

The detached way in which he spoke rankled her, and she threw a glare over her shoulder at him.

"Obviously," she said, her voice cold. "Where are the others?"

"On their way," Sasuke retorted. He was staring at her, arms folded in expectation.

"If you're waiting for a continuation to our conversation back in Konoha, don't hold your breath. I got my answer from you already, I don't need anything more."

"What happened to your family that you didn't tell me." His question was not phrased as such, almost never was, and his expression remained frustratingly calm. She hated that about him, hated how no matter what the situation was, he was always able to effect this mask of apathy that somehow elevated him from the rest of the world. Calm, cold, demanding.

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with," she said stiffly.

"I'm your teammate, aren't I, Sakura?" He stood, and she despised the way he said her name. Slowly, enunciating every syllable, a breathy almost-whisper that sent an unwanted spike of something coursing through her bloodstream. The subtle, mocking inflection he gave to the word 'teammate' did not go unnoticed, and her eyes narrowed into dangerous slits as he approached her. "Or were those just words?"

"You're one to be lecturing me on the importance of teammates," she hissed.

The calm expression on his face faltered for the barest of seconds, his dark eyes flashing almost red, and Sakura figured out what she hated most about Uchiha Sasuke, more than his aloof, icy attitude, more than his frustratingly demanding nature, more than how unsettled he made her feel.

It was his eyes.

Itachi's eyes.

She knew why his quick replacement surgery was a necessity, knew that without his brother's ocular donation, Sasuke would be blind by now. She knew the logic of it, understood it completely. The Eternal Mangekyou was a fierce, almost insurmountable obstacle for an opponent to face, which enhanced his near-invincible abilities on the battlefield. His Sharingan was beautiful and devastating, the gunmetal gray color of his irises stormy and attractive.

But they weren't his eyes. And the knowledge that she would never look into the black, fathomless eyes of the boy she loved since childhood made her sick.

These were the eyes of a murderer, of a defector, of a traitor who still hadn't won her trust back, despite what many would consider an impressive attempt at redeeming himself. They served as an example to something she wasn't proud of, but couldn't deny:

"You don't trust me."

Sasuke spoke the words that painted themselves across her heart like rust on steel. She said nothing in response, confirming his deduction. His lip curled into a sneer, and he looked away like he was disgusted with her.

And what the hell was so wrong with being unable to trust him? He'd damn well earned it, hadn't he? Her misgivings around him? Her doubt that he was really back, back to stay, back forever, the same little boy she used to love? How could he stand there with that aloof, high-and-mighty attitude, acting like she was betraying him with her uneasiness?

They were teammates in name, but not in practice. The notion left a sour feeling in her stomach, and she bit her lip.

"You tried to kill me," she bit out, and to her horror, the words sounded breathy and pathetic, rather than hard and severe, which she'd been going for.

The phantom memory of his grip around her throat, like ice, the crazed look in his eyes, remorseless in his intent…the burning of Chidori, palpable even if it never actually touched her, still had her waking in a cold sweat sometimes. Had her shying away from him while they ate ramen together with Naruto, Sai, and Kakashi-sensei. Had her assigning him positions during missions to ensure that they would have to interact as little as possible.

Far from crumpling in contrition, the way she expected, the way she felt she deserved, Sasuke's sneer became more pronounced, and he flashstepped in front of her in the span of a second. Instinctively, her hand dropped to her weapons pouch, and it was all she could do not to draw a weapon in outright threat at his suddenly close proximity.

"Hypocrite," he accused, his voice dark and contemptuous.

She recalled the kunai she'd brought with her to end him, recalled the deception to her fellow comrades to ensure that she was the one, alone, who would face Uchiha Sasuke, who would take his life to save his soul. She recalled the way she couldn't go through with it no matter what.

"You tried to kill me, too," he reminded her icily. "And you've got the nerve to talk to me about trust? I'm not the one trying to stage a rebellion."

Sakura flinched but held her ground, wishing they were anywhere but a tiny one-bedroom hotel room hidden from the rest of the world. Those damn eyes terrified her for no logical reason, made it hard for her to think, made it hard for her to breathe. But like hell was she going to cower before him like some useless, third-rate kunoichi.

"I should never have told you about anything," she whispered. "I thought…I thought maybe…you might understand. But I was wrong, so just let it go. If anything goes wrong, you'll get to say 'I told you so.'"

"You'd be dead if anything went wrong!" he snapped, losing his temper at last.

"Which I'm sure would be the most devastating thing in the world for you, right, Sasuke-kun?"

She spat his affectionate name like a filthy swear, and Sasuke recoiled as though slapped. She never would have dreamed the name would have had such an effect on him, but to see him so riled up was bitterly rewarding. The desire to smash his face in, to cause him physical pain to some pitiful degree in comparison to the psychological torture he'd inflicted on her for the past four years, became overwhelming.

"Stay here and wait for Naruto and Sai," she snapped. "I'm going back to the hospital."

"The hell you are. Your reserves are too low."

"That sounds suspiciously like a subordinate questioning the authority of a captain," Sakura hissed, knowing it would wound his pride.

Sasuke shrugged off the command like it was nothing, and seemed to think even less of her attempt to abandon this conversation, if it could be called that. Instead, he took another step closer and murmured, "What's your mission, Sakura?"

She frowned in confusion. "What? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your mission in Ame. It's not just to heal, is it."

She had no idea where he was going with this, nor did she have time to figure it out.

"If you sustained a head injury while I was unconscious, I can examine it when I get back. Till then, get the hell out of my way."

"I don't want to use Sharingan on you," Sasuke said, his voice louder, the threat unmistakable, "but I will if you keep lying to me."

This time she didn't bother stopping herself from reaching for her weapons. In the span of a second, a kunai was drawn and pressed tightly against his throat; he surely could have blocked her, was so much faster than she was and in a league of his own that not even her elite skills could hold a candle to, but he didn't move. Scarlet beads of blood slipped from the tiny slit on his pale skin, but there was no satisfaction in it.

Not when he dismissed her abilities so thoroughly that he couldn't even be bothered to defend himself.

"Once a traitor, always a traitor," she whispered, her fingers flexing on the kunai, her gaze fierce on his gunmetal eyes. "Using your kekkai genkai on a comrade?"

"I know something else is going on here, Sakura," he murmured, not flinching even though every word he spoke pressed the blade closer and closer to his neck. "Something you're not telling me…why the hell, for example, the Hokage didn't send more than just you to heal hundreds of people."

Sakura frowned, but not in anger; in suspicion. Sasuke had a fair point.

It was easy to forget about any doubts she might have when she was elbow-deep in someone's chest cavity, trying to remove massive splinters from their lungs. She hadn't had time to think about anything since arriving to Ame except how to treat the enormous influx of patients from the mining collapse that they had yet to investigate.

She lowered the kunai slowly, brow furrowed in thought.

"You know, I'm wondering the same thing," she said carefully. "Any of the younger-ranking medic-nin would have been an asset to this mission. Ino-pig was available, I know that, not to mention any of the others…it would be egotistical of me to assume I could handle every injury here on my own, there's just too many."

Temporarily forgetting her personal quarrel with Sasuke in the face of this brand new dilemma, she took a seat on the edge of the bed she'd just vacated, absently wiping Sasuke's blood off her kunai with the hem of her skirt; seeing it brought her no satisfaction, only guilt.

Sasuke watched her carefully, then looked over to the window. "The dobe's back."

Not a split second later did the window fly open, and Naruto and Sai landed in the room, both of them soaked with rain and looking tired.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto said, blue eyes widening as he looked at her. She didn't know why he looked so horrified until she looked down at her clothes, and saw that they were stained with blood. Understanding, she shook her head.

"It's not mine," she said. "I was healing. I'm fine, just tired. How'd it go with the Kage?"

"That's just it," Naruto sighed, collapsing on the bed next to her. "You're not gonna believe who it was."

Sakura looked from Naruto to Sasuke, whose expression was unreadable but certainly not calm as he looked at her, and privately thought that there were very few things lately she would not believe.

Sasuke was very good at reading liars with or without the use of his Sharingan. Sakura seemed completely revolted by the idea that he would use his kekkei genkai on her, but not fearful of what he might find if he did. The confusion on her face when he asked her about the real nature of her mission seemed very genuine. The Sakura he knew was not a good liar.

But not for the first time since this mission had begun did he note the fact that this Sakura was completely different than the one he used to know. He had no idea what she was capable of anymore, and the knowledge that he didn't trust her anymore than she trusted him did not sit well with him.

What's going on here? He thought, frustrated with his inability to come up with the right answer. So many things are happening all at once…what is this mission REALLY about?

"Who's the new Kage?" Sakura asked Naruto, who'd thrown himself across the bed like he owned it. Sasuke wasn't sure why, but he disliked the picture the pair of them made, casually chatting on the same bed. "And why wouldn't we believe it?"

"Because it's someone who's supposed to be dead," Naruto said, and he was clearly trying to drag out the revelation as long as possible, for dramatic effect.

"Spit it out, dobe," Sasuke snapped, in no mood for anything but concrete answers. He felt Sakura's curious gaze on his face but ignored it.

"You're no fun," Naruto sighed. "There's such a thing as dramatic build-up, and…"

"Damn it, Naruto, enough!" Sakura hissed. "Tell us!"

"It's Aoi."

"Aoi?" Sakura echoed, frowning. "That name rings a bell…"

"Rokusho Aoi," Naruto clarified.

It sounded familiar to Sasuke, too, but he couldn't quite nail it down. His path had crossed Naruto's and Sakura's very rarely over the last few years before his return to Konoha, so it had to have been before that when they encountered this mysterious new Kage.

"Oh! From that mission we had in the Land of Tea?" Sakura looked astonished as Naruto nodded to confirm, and Sasuke's frown deepened.

Vaguely, sifting through memories he hadn't revisited in years, he recalled a jonin with an umbrella full of needles who'd nearly gotten the drop on him. An old familiar anger erupted in his stomach when he recalled the way Rokusho Aoi had belittled him, mocked his Uchiha legacy, dismissed him as weak.

"Yup. With Ibiki's brother." Naruto kicked off his sandals and sighed.

"He was the one with Senju Hashirama's sword," Sakura mused. "He fell off the cliff, though…and a fall from that height, jonin or not, should've killed him…"

"The person we encountered tonight was very much alive," Sai reported, standing by the window. "He seemed to recall your previous interaction with good-natured humor."

Sasuke remembered Sakura flinging herself off a cliff to save him midair, and found nothing humorous about it.

"I tell ya, man, something ain't right," Naruto chimed in. "No one's heard of him in years. Then all of a sudden he pops up outta nowhere, takes control of Ame…"

"Not to mention he's a Konoha defector," Sakura added. He ignored the significant look she shot him. "Why would the Ame shinobi accept a leader who's a traitor from another village? Especially Konoha. Until lately, we haven't been on good terms with Ame."

"What did he say when you met with him?" Sasuke wanted to know, thinking hard, and very close to telling Sakura he doubted Konoha and Ame were on good terms even now.

"He just welcomed us to the village," Naruto said, frowning. "It was weird. Sai's right, he acted like we were old friends or something. Wasn't even pissed I broke the sword he had Idate steal for him, just said he was glad to have our help and if we ever needed anything to let him know."

"Sasuke's right," Sakura said suddenly, and his gaze snapped to her face at her reluctant admission. She was staring right back at him, the expression on her face grave. "Something's off about this mission."

"What d'you mean, Sakura-chan?"

"The mining collapse…in a highly-industrialized village like this one? We haven't gotten a chance to investigate it yet, but that's already plenty suspicious. Then, Tsunade-shishou only sends me to assist with the healing, but assigns three bodyguards to come with me, instead of three additional medic-nin, even though we had plenty who would come along with us. Then, the fact that a Konoha traitor, who's supposed to have died five years ago, is now the brand new Kage of a village with Akatsuki leanings, and no one outside of Ame is even aware of it?"

Sasuke was often frustrated by Sakura's stubbornness, but he would never say she wasn't an asset; she seemed to have caught all the things that made him suspicious of this mission, and was properly unnerved by them.

"Yeah, something's wrong," Naruto agreed. "But baachan would've told us the truth from the get-go, right?"

Sasuke privately disagreed with that. Naruto and Sakura might cling to the naïve ideology that the authority figures were looking out for their best interests, but after his entire family had been obliterated overnight in a bloody move of forceful suppression, he was slower to believe that.

"Tsunade-shishou trusts us," Sakura said firmly. "She would never have sent us on a mission without giving us all the information she had. Whatever her reasoning was for sending us here…I trust it."

He sighed in irritation. Sakura's devotion to her master was blinding her to the truth of what was happening.

Not that he was any closer to figuring out that truth than she was.

"Here's what we'll do," Sakura said quietly. "I'll go back to the hospital tomorrow to finish the healing, I still have a lot of patients to take care of, but I need to replenish my chakra stores." She avoided Sasuke's eye, but he was satisfied that she'd taken his advice nonetheless. "We'll rest here for tonight…then we'll branch out tomorrow and try and get the feel of what the Ame citizens think about Aoi. Figuring out how he's received here by the people…not just the shinobi, but the civilians, too…should be really enlightening."

It was a good plan, Sasuke had to give her that. Part of their mission was to communicate to Tsunade the political climate in Ame after the war, and what better way to figure out the truth of the village than to go right to the people who lived there? Civilians, especially, were more inclined to offer truthful accounts to foreign shinobi, simply because they didn't know to keep their mouths shut.

"I'll go with Teme," Naruto volunteered. "We'll look around here and try and get some answers. Sai should stay with you, Sakura-chan. While you're healing everyone at the hospital."

Sakura nodded curtly, and Sasuke got the sense that she was relieved to have someone shadowing her that wasn't going to browbeat her for explanations.

"Good idea, Naruto."

"There's a first time for everything," Sasuke said nastily.

"Say that again, Teme!" Naruto shouted, but Sakura cut him off.

"Shut up, both of you. We need to rest, not fight; I don't have the chakra to heal you both if you decide to tear each other apart."

"That's fine, Sakura-chan, as long as you have enough to heal me and let Teme rot, then…"

"Enough! I'm going to shower, I suggest all of you get some sleep so we're on top of our game tomorrow. Geez."

With that she hopped off the bed, deftly sidestepped Sasuke, slipped into the bathroom, and shut the door. The sound of the showerhead flicking on followed a few moments later.

"Did you ask Sakura about…you know?" Naruto asked curiously, and Sasuke's eyes narrowed.

"Hn. She wouldn't tell me."

"Why don't you want her to do this, man? This would mean justice for your family, too."

Sasuke was aware of Sai's presence in the room, and took that as confirmation that he already knew what Naruto was talking about. Apparently the dobe couldn't keep his mouth shut about Sakura's insane plan, only reaffirming his conviction that the wrong people would find out, and Sakura would be punished.

"Perhaps it is because Uchiha does not understand Sakura-san's motivation that he is so against her plan?" Sai suggested benignly from the corner.

"What IS her motivation?" Sasuke demanded, furious and insanely jealous that Sai was privvy to information that he was denied. He crossed the room in three strides to stare his milk-white doppleganger in the face. "Why's she doing this?"

"Sai, don't-!" Naruto began, but Sai could always be counted upon to be oblivious to human subtlety.

"After Sakura-san left us in her failed mission to kill you," he said mildly, "the Elders were suspicious that perhaps she was an accomplice in your plan to assassinate Danzou-sama."

Naruto groaned, looking horrified, but Sasuke's eyes were wide with shock.

"What?" he ground out. "What do you mean? She came to kill me, not help me!"

"It appeared to be suspicious. She returns unscathed to Konoha, Danzou-sama is murdered, and the killer runs free. It was thought by Koharu-sama and Homura-sama that she either assisted in the murder, or helped you escape. An interrogation revealed nothing, but their suspicions remained, and prior to Tsunade-sama's recovery, they authorized the assassination of Sakura's parents in punishment."

Sasuke's jaw dropped. Shock overtook him, and that same hatred he thought had long since cooled reignited with passion.

"She…what are you saying?"

Naruto looked furious that Sai had spilled the truth before Sakura could, but now that it was out there, all that could be done was to clarify what was going on. He smacked Sai in the back of the head before turning to Sasuke, looking bitterly remorseful.

"That's why she wants to try the Elders. She knows what you're going through, Sasuke-teme. Maybe not exactly, but…"

"They killed my family because the Uchiha were going to stage a coup d'etat," Sasuke bit out sharply. "They were a threat. Sakura's parents were civilians."

The truth was nauseating. Sasuke felt revolted to be wearing the Konoha hitai-ate. The Elders had had Sakura's parents, innocent, uninvolved civilians, killed in cruel punishment. At least when they had authorized the extermination of the Uchiha Clan, it was to wipe out an existent threat.

This was not removing a threat.

This was cold, calculated murder.

All at once, Sakura's motivation became clear. Like the first time he'd seen the world through Itachi's eyes, and realized that what he thought was perfect sight was cloudy and almost blind until he'd seen through clear eyes. Her stubborn resolution, her determination to see the political overthrow through even at the cost of her own life, if it came to that, all of it suddenly made sense.

He was filled with a bitter self-loathing. All this time he'd been home, all this time he'd labored under the delusion that Sakura could never really understand him, all this time he'd spent with her, and he'd never even once asked about her family.

No wonder she hadn't told him.

"Don't tell her you know yet, Teme," Naruto said quickly, and Sasuke saw him shoot a furtive look to the bathroom door, where Sakura was showering. "She…she should've been the one to tell you." He glared at Sai, who remained blissfully oblivious to the havoc he'd just caused, but Sasuke, as frustrated as he was with Sai's inclusion on the team while he remained an outlier member, was grateful for his slip-up, without which he might never have understood Haruno Sakura's reasoning for this madness.

"We need to focus on this mission first," Naruto said firmly. "Figure out what the hell's going on over here, and get everyone patched up that we can before we report back to baachan."

Sasuke wanted to press the matter, wanted to vent this anger somehow, but knew his idiot best friend was right. They had a mission to complete first, and he knew that Sakura would prioritize that over everything else. Rash decisions at this moment, and even rasher actions, wouldn't help the situation, wouldn't bring back his family or Sakura's, would only destroy them.

He'd need to take some time to think over what he'd just learned, before trying to confront Sakura again.

She emerged from the shower, damp-haired, clean, and smiling brightly at all of them, feeling much better obviously, and she chatted happily as she brushed through her hair. To look to her, you would never know what he'd just learned about her, the horrible truth behind her pretty face and pretty smile.

Haruno Sakura, he mused, was never meant for this life, even if she thrived at it. She was the good one, the kind one, the pretty one, meant for smiling and happiness at every turn. It was what made her such an incomprehensible entity to him all their lives; she had everything he could ever want. Family and friends who loved her for who she was, compassion for others and happiness around every corner, but still she plowed forward with this kunoichi lifestyle, even if it brought her nothing but pain.

It was what divided them so ruthlessly as genin. It was what made Sakura so difficult for him to get along with: their lack of common ground.

Bitterly, as he stared at her with a brand new perspective, he knew he never wanted their common ground to be this blood-splattered reality neither one of them could escape from.

note.. hi everyone! thank you so much for the reviews. writing in-universe is a real challenge for me; it's much easier to write AUs since there's a bit more wiggle room. here, not quite so much. but i'm enjoying it, and i have a whole new appreciation for the writers on this site who write in-universe. it's no joke, yafeelme.

and i realize aoi is a somewhat random, specious character to pull out of seemingly nowhere, but there's a reason for it, pinky swear. i hope you liked this chapter, and are looking forward to the next one, now that sakura's ambition is a bit more clear. let me know what you think!

xoxo daisy