Second Time Around
By Frozzy
Chapter Six
Burlesque her ass, Sakura thought to herself when the three of them stepped inside the scrubby doors of Sakamoto's unofficial headquarters. They were all disguised in the skins of three Peach Parfait regulars. Kashiwagi Sui, Osamu Kato and Hayagawa Nobu. Kakashi had wanted them to memorize the names. He had specifically said so. And neither Sakura nor Naruto had felt any sort of disinclination towards the idea. Kakashi tended to forget that they knew how to do protocol. In all fairness, however, they often still did suck at following protocol in practice, so she supposed that Kakashi was excused for his paranoia on that account.
Surveying the dimly lit area and memorizing all exits, Sakura concluded that the place was a glorified strip joint at best. And perhaps that was even too much praise to give the centered stage with its six poles and adjoined bar. The atmosphere inside Peach Parfait had nothing to do with the tasty meat of the fruit. The air was heavy and stifling, like cotton, and Sakura half-choked on the first breath she took.
"Stay out of sight," Kakashi ordered. "And stay in contact. When you have located the position of the target, you give word. You do not act alone."
The last line was added for Naruto's benefit.
"Got it," a blonde Sakura nodded in the affirmative.
"Sure thing," Naruto chimed in rather informally.
They separated. Sakura went off in her search for the staff restrooms. Unfortunately, she found it incredibly hard to stay out of sight in the body that Naruto had plucked to be her vessel for the night. By the time that the fifth toothless hillbilly had grabbed her ass and thrown a sleazy comment her way, Sakura decided that it was not in the respectable sense that Kashiwagi Sui got around. Though she certainly did get around and this seemed to be her preferred hunting ground.
"Sui-chan!"
Huh?
"Sui-chan, over here!"
A petite black-haired woman was crossing the room. She advanced on Sakura with quick, dainty steps and judging by the scarcity of fabric on her body, the woman was one of Sakamoto's dancers. Marvelous, Sakura thought as she plastered a smile onto her face. She could only hope that this dancer didn't know Kashiwagi Sui too well, or else her job had just become unfairly difficult.
"Sui-chan," the woman exclaimed for the third time. She reached Sakura and took a hold of her elbows, pulling her into a hug that Sakura fought not to pull away from. "It's about time you came here!"
"About time?"
"Yes!" the woman confirmed eagerly. "I'm going on stage in a few minutes with my new scene show. You promised to watch and give me feedback on it afterwards, remember?"
No?
"Yes. Of course."
The stranger eyed Sakura curiously. "Hon, are you okay?"
"I guess I had a bad night's sleep," Sakura said and gave a small shrug. "I didn't think it was this obvious."
"Ah," the woman smiled secretively. "Don't we all?"
Sakura had no idea what the smile meant, but she returned it anyhow.
"You're gonna love it," the woman then blabbered on in a fashion much like Naruto when he got overexcited about something. "Sakamoto-sama has allowed me to fire up the stage."
"Fire?"
"I'm gonna use it for my splits. Imagine how it's gonna shock the crowd-"
"Aiko!"
The woman, Aiko, blanched ever so slightly and looked over her shoulder in the direction that the voice had come from. Sakura followed her gaze and caught sight of no other than Fukuda Hisashi heading their way. In that moment, her face might have betrayed her. Where Aiko's face radiated unease, Sakura was halfway certain that her own face was radiating death. Death and murder. And that wouldn't do. So, with difficulty, she turned her head to the side and pretended to study the empty stage until she had her face back under control.
"Fukuda, sir," Aiko greeted the older man with her head respectfully lowered. Her body was as tight as a bowstring, and Sakura briefly wondered what sorts of reprimands Sakamoto's employees were faced with. And if the reprimands on the paper fit those in practice.
"Don't dawdle. Yer bein' paid for this," Fukuda said. He grabbed Aiko's arm in a grip that made her wince.
"Sorry, sir-"
"Get backstage an' get ready. I ain't got all day," Fukuda cut Aiko off mid-sentence and more or less flung her to the side. She very nearly stumbled over a chair in her heels until she regained her balance. She was off without any sort of goodbye to her friend Sui. Sakura didn't care, but Sui probably would have. It was funny how quickly mutual aversion could make you sympathize with a stranger. Sakura had no doubt that Aiko abhorred Fukuda. Hate walked hand in hand with fear. And it was very likely that Sui did as well. That made Sakura's job easier.
"Kashiwagi Sui, is it?"
"Indeed it is," Sakura smiled and made a mental note to wash her tongue with acid later tonight.
"I would prefer it if ya didn't keep my employees from doin' their job," Fukuda told her, looking her over in a fashion that didn't match his cold tone. Sakura kept the disgust off her face, amazingly enough, but she bet that it still showed through her body language when she straightened her spine and cleared her throat before she spoke next.
"I will try not to."
"Don't try. Just do."
"Of course."
With a last look at her breasts rather than her face, Fukuda took off in the direction of the bar. Since it technically wasn't Sakura's breasts, she managed not to follow him and punch him in the face. She didn't move from her spot for a good few minutes. Eventually she felt someone come up behind her. Thankfully, she recognized the familiar presence of the person before she kicked the person in the groin. If she ever kicked Kakashi in the groin, it would be because he was an ass and not because she mistook him for a lecherous assaulter in a scruffy bar.
"Well done," Kakashi said as he came up next to her and slipped an arm around her middle. They had done that before. Acted for the sake of the mission. Sakura had also played this sort of act with Sasuke of all unimaginable persons. The two of them had pulled it off too if you didn't take into account the months of post-awkwardness. Though that time it hadn't been on a mission, but just during a regular night out. He had needed a way out of a date, and Sakura had been kind enough to provide it. Somehow, despite his past, Sasuke still managed to pick up an unfair amount of women. He was good eye-candy. He hadn't lost that. But Sakura would have thought that his desertion from Konoha ranks would have lessened his overall appeal. It hadn't. It had amplified it.
"Of course. I love playing the cheap slut," she said. She adjusted Kakashi's hold and put more distance between them. When she spoke next, she was still trying to decide why she had done that.
"He didn't sense the jutsu. I thought he was in her league, but he didn't give off any indicators that he knew I was an imposter."
"His strength as a professional equals hers. It's the basis that differs."
So, it was much like how the old Team Seven now equaled each other in strength, despite how they excelled in different areas. Sakura was a chakra specialist and a kickass medic, Naruto was an endless source of willpower and stamina and Sasuke was a doujutsu and genjutsu genius. If Sakamoto was a master with poisons and had enough brains to plan out distributions of illegal goods across land borders, then in what area did Fukuda excel? How could he possibly be Sakamoto's equal if he couldn't even detect a foreign ninja when the person was right up under his nose, impersonator or not?
"Think he's headed for her?" Sakura asked.
"Possibly," Kakashi answered in Osamu Kato's voice. He kept his eyes fixed on Fukuda, who had reached the bar and was signaling for the barkeeper to let him in behind the bar. They both watched Fukuda's broad back disappear through the westward door that read 'storage'.
"We can't go through that door," Sakura pointed out somewhat unnecessarily.
"Yes. They seemed to have doubled it," Kakashi said.
"What?"
"Doubled the security. Fetch Naruto and be outside in five minutes. Exit separately."
He then let go of her waist and sauntered off to God knows where, leaving her the task of locating Naruto in a body she had forgotten what looked like. Sometimes Ino was right. Sakura's life sucked ass. At least now she knew that her and Kakashi's professional relationship was still in good shape despite the awkward stalemate that their private relationship was stuck in.
Exactly three minutes later, the three of them were positioned just outside the burlesque in a convenient spot where the brushwood of the forest met with the western wall of the building. Now that the masquerade had served its purpose, they were back in their own normal skin. Their focused needed to be elsewhere now.
"A window?" Naruto suggested from where he sat crouched in the bushes.
"The roof," Kakashi answered.
"The ventilation system," Sakura filled in upon noticing Naruto's blank expression. Although, she thought to herself, surely the ventilation system had to be out of order for the air to have been so bad inside.
"What's the mode of engagement?" Sakura asked.
"Sasaki will have delivered his report by now. Discretion will have no effect. They know who we are and why we are here. Sasaki will have told them and they will have figured it out. He saw my Sharingan. And the amount of medics that can perform procedures on the level you openly displayed is scarce," Kakashi said in such a simple manner that Sakura was sure she had heard him wrong. No discretion meant that they would drop straight into combat and rely on the element of surprise. That was battle strategy you could understand.
"The doubled security," Sakura said suddenly. "They know we are here. That's why the security has been doubled. Like you said earlier."
Kakashi nodded and continued. "Sakamoto will have the jewelry in her possession-"
A couple of Sakamoto's henchmen chose that moment to walk by their hiding place and Kakashi waited until they had passed to finish his sentence. With Sakamoto knowing their identities, it meant that she knew of their capabilities and limitations. If it meant that Sakamoto would be less rash in her decisions to use her poisons, Sakura could live with that. It meant less medical work for her, which meant that the odds were in their favor. However, if the expert poisoner had fled her headquarters and had left Fukuda in charge, Sakura would hunt the bitch down and retrieve the jewelry from her dead body. Sakura had not gone through this professional and personal hell without getting her prize.
Make that prizes, she thought and shot Kakashi a look he didn't notice.
"Naruto," Kakashi addressed the other man. "You go first."
And off they were. Captain's orders.
The ventilation system wasn't out of order, amazingly enough, and five minutes later the three Konoha shinobi plopped down onto the carpeted floor of the westward staff passageway. As expected, the corridor was patrolled by Sakamoto's henchmen. Naruto took down one guard with a neat kick to the stomach. He then sent him onwards to Sakura who smashed his face in, knocking him unconscious. Kakashi, who was in the rear, narrowly sidestepped the body that was hurled backwards from her punch. The body rolled a few rounds, skidding across the floor with limbs flapping wildly about, until it rested against the back wall with the neck quirked at an obscene angle.
Things came to a brief halt.
"He's down," Naruto said. His voice sounded faraway to Sakura's ears. She should have had eased up on the punch. She had felt his neck snap. That had not been her intention.
"Keep moving," Kakashi instructed.
Spilt milk was spilt milk, right?
Sakamoto's office wasn't that difficult to locate. Offices always lay at the end of corridors, really. Sakura kept it to herself that they probably would have found it faster if Kakashi hadn't put Naruto in the lead. Then again, Naruto was all about close combat and naturally that had played a part in Kakashi's reasoning. Sakura was all for fists as well, but as a medic her safety was of greater importance than the safety of the other team members. She had never liked that logic and had had a hard time adapting to it back when Tsunade had first introduced it to her. It was that logic which now placed Naruto in the front and Kakashi in the rear, and left her with the safe middle. How could she be okay with that?
The office door was unmanned. That in itself was a bad sign.
Naruto went through first, Sakura and Kakashi filling in behind him.
Almost immediately, the situation felt amiss.
"Well, what have we here?"
Sakamoto sat perched upon her desk, her legs delicately crossed by her ankles. Fukuda was standing beside her with a nasty grin contorting his face. Sakura recognized choreographed play when she saw it. The lack of security and muscle in the office reeked of choreographed play. It was staged. Staged was not good. Suddenly, Sakura didn't feel so very bad for having snapped the guard's neck in the corridor.
"Are you lost?" Sakamoto smiled. "Or are you here with a purpose?"
"A welcome committee. How thoughtful," Kakashi spoke up first, sounding vaguely amused, probably in an attempt to keep up the illusion of a friendly encounter. He knew that Sakura and Naruto would follow his lead.
"I'm nothing if not a good at what I do, Hatake-san," Sakamoto replied and ran her red-tipped nails through her curls. "So, what can I do for you lot? I'm afraid that my girls are all caught up in other affairs at the moment. Otherwise, I would have introduced them to you. They would be ecstatic to meet a great legend such as the Copy Ninja Hatake Kakashi."
Fukuda's leer was positively slithery and Sakura's skin wanted to crawl off her bones.
Sakamoto pursed her lips. "I can make some of the girls lower their price, if that should be-"
"We're here to retrieve the belongings of Imagawa Kaito. Nothing more and nothing less," Sakura said and drowned out the rest of Sakamoto's sentence. She earned herself a sideways glance from Kakashi that she no doubt would get to experience head on later. She even received a confused look from Naruto. She hadn't followed their Captain's lead. In fact, she had cut his usual playtime short. Part of her was delighted. Another part, the part that respected Kakashi as an equal and a friend, was less so.
"A call would have sufficed," Sakamoto said, her eyes zeroing in on Sakura. Reflexively, Naruto stepped up next to her and Sakamoto's eyes narrowed in on him instead.
"Pretty," she sneered, all fake politeness gone.
"Hand over the jewelry or have us take it from you," Naruto said, now following Sakura's lead.
Fukuda took a step forward towards the group, but was stopped by Sakamoto's hand on his shoulder. Her grip reminded Sakura of a claw. Stealthy and secure. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, Sakura was shocked by the strength of her animosity towards the other woman. She couldn't pinpoint the roots of it. But for now, the hate added fuel to her determination and so she welcomed it like a long lost lover.
"None of those options really appeal to me," Sakamoto said. "What if I have sold it already? Did you consider that?"
"You haven't," Kakashi replied. Sakamoto seemed to evaluate Kakashi's surety on the matter. It was fun sight. No one could outstare Kakashi, but Sakamoto was fighting a tough battle to do so.
"You can have it," she then said and gave a bored flip of her hair. "It's of no use to me, anyway. Piece of junk. No value at all. Such a disappointment. Fake rubies, imagine that. I always knew Imagawa the bastard was a cheapskate. It was a gamble to even consider that he would be any different this time."
"This time?" Sakura asked before she could swallow back the words.
"Yes," Sakamoto confirmed with an uninterested look in Sakura's direction. "This time."
Clearly, she saw them as no threat to her business empire and unfortunately, she could safely do so. Hired by Imagawa and not the administration of either Grass or Waterfall, their authority didn't stretch that far. Grass and Waterfall had given them permission to cross their borders in order to retrieve the jewelry, but they hadn't given Konoha permission to take down Sakamoto. Even though they were currently sharing the same air and space as Sakamoto, they couldn't fight her. Not unless she charged at them. And Sakamoto clearly knew that. That was why she had held back Fukuda. They couldn't even imprison her on grounds of theft, because they were only hired to retrieve the jewelry. And this wasn't Konoha jurisdiction where they could override mission objectives if the situation called for it. Sakamoto was safe if she gave up the jewelry. Her business empire was safe if she just gave up the jewelry. It was a minor fallback in Sakamoto's overall business plan. Sakura felt like crying. Not from anger, but from desperation. She hated politics. Politics restrained you.
"The jewelry, please," Kakashi said.
"Ease up," Sakamoto said. "Don't get too excited now."
"The jewelry," he repeated and Sakamoto rolled her eyes.
"Yes, yes. I hear you, big boy."
Fukuda moved back to his former position by the desk and Sakamoto let go of his shoulder. She slid off the desk. By some miracle her dress stayed in place. She then opened a drawer and pulled forth a black velvet pouch. With a delicate flick of her wrist, she threw the pouch at them. Naruto grabbed it midair. The situation was as off as it could be. And none of the three Konoha shinobi made any move to retreat, even now that they had gotten the jewelry. Sakura personally didn't want to move. The same counted for Naruto. She didn't know about Kakashi. She never knew about him.
"What?" Sakamoto asked with her eyebrows raised. "It's all in there. Check it, kid."
Naruto did as she asked, but not because she asked it.
"It's there," he confirmed, his brows furrowed as he didn't know what to make of the situation. Sakura was on the same page.
"Mission accomplished," Sakamoto commented with a small smirk.
"Them idiots seem to doubt ya," Fukuda said, speaking for the first time since they had entered the office. Suddenly, he seemed much less imposing. That was what stoic silence and strategically placed stares could do.
"Speak nicely of our guests, Hisashi. Their doubt is justified," Sakamoto chided him and sent the three of them a beguiling smile. "If there is nothing more you need of me, I will have to ask you to leave. I'm driving a business here and I need to brief my staff about tomorrow's schedule. Given that you entered by yourself, I trust it that you can find the exit by yourself as well."
When they returned to the inn with the velvet pouch in their possession, they packed their stuff and headed for the road.
No discussion. No request for food or sleep. It had been voiceless communication at its best.
Now, a few hours well past sundown, they had settled down near the border of Konoha after having sped across the forested terrain of Grass with only a few breaks in between the hours of steadfast traveling.
"So," Naruto began as he sat down in the grass beside Sakura, both of them rubbing the sore muscles of their legs. "Just why are we fleeing like hell is on our heels?"
"She set Fukuda to trail us," Kakashi answered from where he was leaning up against a tree trunk. He was observing their surroundings, no doubt looking for oddities that would make their campsite unfit for camping. From Sakura's point of view, the space was neither too open nor too constricted. Even with Fukuda supposedly tailing them, Kakashi ought to be satisfied with their chosen settlement. At any rate, he wasn't going to make them take more ground that day. Not now when their bodies had been granted a break long enough for their muscles to start feeling the stress that they had been under for the past many hours. It wasn't when you kept going that you felt the strain. It was when you stopped.
"She didn't want to fight out the battle for the jewelry in the heart of her business where it would do most damage. By giving us the jewelry and then sending Fukuda after it, she's moved the fight to an area where it won't hurt her reputation and make her business lose profit," Sakura said and summed up the situation.
Truthfully, Sakura had figured out the motive behind Sakamoto's actions during the past two hours of speeding across rivers and hills. She had been slow, too, though not as slow as Naruto. Naruto just didn't think that much ahead. He wasn't stupid, but he lived in the present. It was only during actual battles that he was an expert at thinking ahead and gaining the upper hand. Outside of the actual battle ground, his mind preferred to wander off. Sakura suspected that it was a side effect of his desirability. Enemies always sought him out. He didn't have to seek them out himself. So, therefore, he simply had to wait for the enemy to appear and then he would engage in battle and show his superiority on that front. It had been like that all his life. You couldn't fault him for it.
"Tracking. That's Fukuda's forte, right?" Sakura asked suddenly.
"Strategy would be more precise," Kakashi corrected her.
"He's a strategist? And you knew this from the start?" she asked Kakashi, her voice taking on an accusatory tone.
"It was never vital for the accomplishment of the mission."
"The accomplishment of the mission," Sakura said and stood up from the ground on wobbly, tired legs. "And I suppose that as Captain you can withhold information from team members inconsequently?"
Kakashi seemed to hesitate, but that might have been because he was simply bored with the topic.
"Damn it, Kakashi!"
The man's face blanked as though she had thrown a kunai pointblank at his face. Hell, Naruto's face blanked, though that blankness was caused mostly by surprise. As for Sakura herself, her face might have lost its majority of color in the aftermath of her impromptu outburst, but she didn't intend to stick around long enough to find out.
"I'm taking first watch," she brushed off whatever Naruto or Kakashi could have said. With a concentrated burst of chakra, she hauled herself up into the nearest tree. Outpost or sanctuary. It sounded the same to her.
It was two hours later that he joined her. He sat down next to her on the branch, while Naruto's snoring from below flittered up through the leaves.
"Go look for an apology elsewhere," Sakura said.
"You're in an awful mood."
She threw Kakashi a dirty look, which was completely ineffective given that the man wasn't even looking in her direction. He was surveying the ground below. It was for the better. Her eyes would have melted the flesh off his face, lousy mask included. In her awful mood, that would have been a sight to revel in.
"I thought you would appreciate a lighter topic than the one I should be bringing up right about now," he said and shifted his attention onto her, leveling her with an iron coated gaze that she immediately turned away from.
"So, now you're in a talkative mood," she said a bit petulantly and refused to look at him. It might have been childish. In fact, she knew it was childish. But it was her only defense up there amidst the green leaves and the cool air. Up there, she suddenly realized the advantage of being the one to seek out the other in a conflict. If you were the one who sought out the conflict, you were the one with the liberty to call the shots. This time, as opposed to all the previous ones, she had no such liberty. Kakashi was seeking out the conversation and he had control over it. She now understood how cornered Kakashi had to have felt those times where she had approached him.
"I wanted recognition from those that mattered to me. I wanted you there that day at my inauguration," she said, for some reason referring back to her jonin inauguration. "I wanted you to see I had succeeded. What I got, was strangers who emphasized what a delight it would be to work with me in the future. It felt more like a job interview than a promotion."
"Safety measures."
By reflex Sakura turned her head to look at him.
"Safety measures?" she asked, small and tired.
"They seize you up to see if their job is on the line," Kakashi said. His eye crinkled by the corner and the fact that he was smiling shouldn't have eased up the pressure on her chest as much as it did.
"Careful," Sakura said. "Your face might crack if you keep up that smile."
"I don't know if it should bother me that you three can tell my mood by looking at one-quarter of my face," Kakashi said.
"Then take the mask off," Sakura said. "I've seen you without at the hospital plenty of times."
A short break in the conversation followed. Sakura pulled her leg up from midair and gathered both her legs to her chest with her arms. Her balance on the branch remained impeccable.
"We didn't see much of you from that point onwards," she said. "After my inauguration, I mean. You just sort of disappeared on us."
"I showed up when you turned eighteen," Kakashi said.
"Because Genma drank his ass off and chose to commandeer my bed with me in it," she said and sent her former teacher an odd look. "You were the only one we were sure he wouldn't maim when you moved him."
"I was protecting your virtue."
"A bit counterproductive now, don't you think?"
It had slipped past her lips before she had realized what she was saying. Although this time, Kakashi really had been the one to steer the topic down that road. Not her. She had simply followed his lead. Now, it was all awkward and messy again.
"Sorry. That wasn't-"
"It looks like it," Kakashi said.
"What?"
The question hovered in the air between them.
"It looks like it," Kakashi repeated eventually. He didn't elaborate. Sakura recognized a way out when she was handed one.
"Is this something that-" she broke off mid-sentence when her right foot slipped off the branch. She regained her balance easily enough, but she saw the twitch in Kakashi arm when her foot first skidded across the tree crust.
"Is this something that we're taking home with us?" she asked, finishing her question. "Or are we leaving this behind on the mission?"
For a long moment, Kakashi said nothing. Sakura was convinced he would drop the topic. He was just thinking of the least painful way to do it.
"People always seem to blame others instead of themselves, do they not?" he asked.
"I'm not up for the big philosophy lesson right now," Sakura said, less inclined to keep up the conversation now that the topic had drifted off towards something different. "Is this the shift to second watch? That's why you're here, right?"
"It was the second watch half an hour ago."
"Funny how that doesn't surprise me," Sakura said and got to her feet, preparing to take off towards the ground.
"You can't bring something home that's already there," Kakashi said. "And I think our attraction to each other, morally questionable as it may be, started before this mission was ever requested. In fact, I think it began when you asked me if I wanted to have sex with you, drunken mouth and all."
He said it so nonchalantly that she should have just taken it for one of his usual cryptic comments. One of those comments that you didn't really listen to. As it was, she processed the words solely because she had chosen that moment to step past him in order to descend the tree. His words stopped her before she could do the latter though, which put her in a standing position directly in front of the crouching man. He could have been humming a tune and she would have heard it instantly. The space between them was that miniscule. Granted, the two of them occupied a tree branch together, so it wasn't really a surprise that the space was tight.
"I didn't ask you if you wanted to have sex with me," Sakura said. "I asked you if you had thought about it."
Kakashi stood up then, forcing Sakura to back up slightly so she wasn't trampled off the branch. In the back of her mind, she didn't like how neither of them weren't really doing what they in fact should be doing, which was keeping watch. Of course, she could only speak for herself. Still, Kakashi didn't look like much of his attention was on the mission at the moment.
"Is that so?" he said, looking over her shoulder and past her.
"Growing deaf on your old days, are you?" Sakura asked with a small smile.
His response was a noncommittal shrug. With a shake of her head, Sakura left the second watch in his capable hands.
