Note: UPDATE 2 of 4 on Jan. 7
The camp was mostly silent. The shinobi had cooked meat and eaten around the fire hours ago. Sakura had been given some food as well, had been made to bow with her hands tied behind her back to eat it.
Now, she sat boredly inside her cage, counting stars to pass the time.
Outside her cage, the shinobi guarding her (a different set now) traded bawdy stories to keep themselves entertained. Only one held back. It was the purple-haired woman from the beginning of this debacle—Akane.
Akane had assumed her shift with a wide smile as soon as dinner had finished.
Sakura hadn't noticed it at first, too preoccupied with other things. But now she saw that there was definitely something off about the older woman. Akane had been staring at her intently for the last two hours—which was not in and of itself unusual, perhaps, because Sakura was her prisoner. But it was the content of her gaze.
"And once there was a lady who bathed in rose petals," one of the shinobi bellowed, having succumbed to the sake in his bottle, "and one day she hid—"
Akane gave Sakura brief, hungry look before walking over to the man. She tossed a kunai into the air and caught it by the blade.
"Akane-san," the bigger man gulped, fearful at her sudden presence. "Was there something you wanted?"
"What I want," Akane murmured, a smile stretching now across her face now, "is for you and your friends to be gone."
Sakura's lips twitched, hiding a smirk. Akane wanted to be alone? Well, that would make escape considerably easier.
At first, the man blinked without comprehension. Then, he stammered. "B-but Jirou told us that four of us had to watch her at all times."
Akane arched a brow, tutting now. "Do you really think I can't handle one itty, bitty lady all by myself?"
Her kunai traced its way delicately down the line of his throat, down his chest and stomach, until it rested between his legs.
"I'm leaving," the man gave in immediately. The other men readily obeyed, abandoning the cage and heading towards the edges of the camp. After a moment, Akane withdrew her blade and the man followed, the stink of his sweat trailing behind him.
The purple haired rogue-nin turned back around slowly, black eyes gleaming. Sakura watched unflinchingly in the shadowed part of the cage.
"Finally." Akane gave a breathy sigh, taking a moment to palm herself. Then, she reached to her belt to pull out the key.
Sakura waited with what she believed to be admirable patience.
"Are you scared, darling?" Great. She wanted to talk.
"Terrified," Sakura said a little too forcefully. Akane paused, lips twisting.
She corrected herself hastily. "Please. Please don't do this to me. What do you want? I'll give you anything—money, weapons, whatever. Please don't hurt me."
The words tasted like blood in her mouth. That was because she bit into her tongue saying them.
Akane was panting now, fumbling to fit the key into the lock, jamming it in and wrenching it to the side in her impatience. And then the purple haired woman was in front of her. The door of the cage was open behind her.
But still, Sakura waited. She wanted to escape with as little disruption as possible. She hadn't watched the men as they left, but she had been listening. And she hadn't heard them enter their tents; she couldn't verify that they weren't still watching.
Sakura had heard their footsteps heading away, and now—nothing.
As she puzzled over this, Akane drew a fist back and punched her in the face. The motion sent Sakura into the side of the cage with a loud clang. Akane gave a delighted giggle.
Gut her, the Voice snarled.
Sakura glowered at the tree in front of her. The purple haired woman packed more of a punch than she'd thought.
A hand curled into her hair, stroking delicately. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mihiko-sama. Did I hurt you?"
The hand slipped down to cup her face as Akane looked down at her.
"You look so pretty, you know," the woman gasped, fingers digging greedily into her cheeks, "So, so pretty. I wish I could keep you forever. But climax is the little death, after all, and—god—you're going to bleed so good for me—"
She was stopped by a terrible coughing fit. After a moment, blood began to spill from her mouth.
Sakura looked down. A hand protruded from Akane's chest. Its counterpart didn't bother trying to cover the woman's mouth.
Rage— jealous and petty—burned through Sakura. She knew exactly whom that hand belonged to. Of course, he had shown up, just at this moment.
Akane gaped at her, black eyes panicked and suddenly childish. "What—" The woman collapsed limply.
The tall figure stood like a specter over Akane's collapsed form. His tanto was coated to the hilt in blood. Finally, she realized why she hadn't heard those men return to those tents.
(He had killed them all. There was no one else was alive in the camp. No one to follow them.)
She hadn't thought to do that.
"Get out," the figure said softly.
Sakura gazed back with remarkable stoicism, or so she thought. Glancing down at Akane's dead body, she gathered the ends of her kimono and stepped over the pool of blood steadily spreading. She didn't quite manage it. As her left foot landed, she felt the—
"I've seen thousands of your kind." Kakashi's eyes passed over the dried tracks of fake tears and blood on her face.
Our kind, the Voice whispered, something like trepidation in its own voice.
She shook her head minutely, brain processing his words through what seemed to be haze of noise.
"Your greatest accomplishment for the ages will be feeding the grass," the copy-nin continued tonelessly. "After the first few years, your parents alone will remember you. Because when others ask them how their child died, the pit of shame in them will continue to burn—that their daughter died for nothing. That, in the end, she was meaningless. And that this, as a result, will also be their legacy."
It was the most he had ever said to her.
When she turned back, she found that he had already vanished into the trees. Her nails dug crescent marks into her palms.
It was an hour or so before dawn that they reached the camp. They traveled in silence, Sakura striving as much as she could to contain her anger and largely mutilating her hands in this endeavor.
As soon as Sakura broke into the clearing, she felt a heavy force drive into her solar plexus. It took her a few seconds to realize that she was not, in fact, being attacked.
She spat coarse, blonde hair out of her mouth. After a moment, the grip relented slightly.
"That—that—" Naruto didn't seem to be able to find a word bad enough for Sai, "He made sure I wasn't here. When I found out what he had done…"
A sweet bolt of relief lanced through her.
"Haruno-san," their newest team member greeted politely, expression untroubled.
"You," Naruto growled, hands contorted into claws, "Don't you dare—"
"Shut up, dickless," Sai said with a smile. "Taichou."
Kakashi's gaze flicked up, pausing his wiping of the bloodstained tanto against the tree behind Sakura.
Sai bowed sharply. "As I was uncertain of how much you intended to intervene, I conducted the team in the most effective way to ensure success in our mission regardless. I trust that you have found my leadership satisfactory."
Naruto was almost incoherent in his rage. "You gave up a teammate!"
"If Haruno-san had been injured," Sai interrupted smoothly, "that would have been most unfortunate. But as it stands, the mission would have gone on unimpeded and—"
Kakashi had suddenly appeared in front of him, inches from his face.
Sakura watched the altogether bizarre scene occurring before with annoyance.
"Taichou?" Sai's smile had dropped.
"I know what you are," the copy-nin drawled, his body entirely relaxed. "I know what you've been trained to do. But how should I put this…"
Kakashi leaned in, until his mask brushed the younger man's ear. He whispered something that Sakura could not hear.
"I don't understand, taichou. I have always received positive…feedback."
The copy-nin cocked his head to the side as though he were mildly amused by the other's words. Or maybe it wasn't amusement. The clouds had stretched to cover the moon, and she couldn't see Kakashi's face now either.
"I will correct myself," Sai said after a pregnant pause.
Sakura watched as Kakashi's hand tensed—as though, for a second, he really were going to swipe the blade still held in it across the other's throat. Then, fortunately, he flickered and disappeared.
And Naruto shoved Sai back against a tree.
Sai's voice, when it emerged, was as monotonous as ever; but he was clearly still distracted by what had transpired with Kakashi. "I do not understand your anger."
Naruto snarled. "What the hell's wrong with you?"
"The mission is my sole priority. It should be yours as well," the dark haired boy began calmly.
"Forget about the mission!" Naruto raged.
"Naruto," Sakura cut him off. She took a step forward and pulled him off Sai. "I'd like to speak with him alone."
Naruto was…concerned, some part of her realized. It had been a while since she'd seen that directed her way. She didn't know how she felt about it. She didn't need it. But…
Naruto's hand tightened at his sides. He looked like he wanted to argue, but something on her face must have told him it would be futile. He left without another word.
Sakura, despite herself, was shocked by his quick acceptance. It made her wonder how unfair she must have been in the past.
No, that wasn't quite right.
What it really made her wonder was if she had been as bad as Kakashi. If they had—her teeth gritted—both played a part in making Team Seven as dysfunctional as it had been.
"And what is your complaint, Haruno-san?" Sai asked delicately. He had recovered slightly, returning to his normal color and begun smoothing his clothes.
Sakura's lips twisted wryly. Suddenly at ease, was he?
Her eyes scanned the thick forest surrounding them, checking for any hint of chakra. Her gaze caught something in the trees—but it wasn't a shinobi. After a brief pause, she clenched her fist and drove it toward Sai's midsection.
He blocked the blow, hands snapping from his sides to catch her fist. Her eyebrow arched; without pause, she twisted and brought her forearm against his throat, pinning him to the tree like he had been just a minute before.
Sai's face still revealed little, but his eyes had narrowed slightly.
"You're ANBU, aren't you?" Sakura demanded lowly. I know what you've been trained to do, Kakashi had said. Not quite familiarity, but something like it.
His lips stretched in a thin, meaningless smile that Sakura was quickly beginning to get sick of. It reminded her of his smile, when he had—
"That would require me to violate protocol, Haruno-san, if it were true."
And now she was hearing her own words echoed back to her.
"As I said before," Sai said, "I do not understand your anger."
And that was…a good question, she thought to herself. She hadn't truly been placed in danger. How could what had happened in the last twelve hours compare to what she had faced on ANBU missions in the past?
But it persisted, nevertheless.
"I do not understand your displeasure," he repeated, eyes flickering over face, "or why the copy-nin considers me to be scum."
Is that what Kakashi had told him? Sakura scoffed. Then, her mind processed belatedly what he had said. Something in them…
Piercing hunger,
the taste of failure.
And—
those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum
Air hissed out through her teeth. That.
"Do you not believe that completion of the mission is the highest obligation of a shinobi, Haruno-san?" Sai asked calmly.
Sakura's eyes snapped to his, distracted. "No."
"Oh?" He looked puzzled now, an odd innocence about him. "Then what is?"
She stared at him expressionlessly for what could have been as long as a minute. She hadn't thought her refusal through, only knew it—instinctively—to be true. Now, she searched for an explanation. He waited patiently.
"Peace," she settled with. She wanted to get back to punching Sai. It was Shisui's 'other human's' stance, she remembered vaguely. She used it now because it was convenient, a large enough concept that Sai could wrestle with it in his own time.
Only a fool believes a shinobi's violence can be driven by an adherence to peace. The Crow had said it disparagingly.
She hadn't really thought about it herself much since. At all, actually.
Unfortunately, Sai wasn't finished.
"Peace?"
"Right," she said without blinking.
"A shinobi maintains order precisely by completing his," he tilted his head to her, "or her mission. This is why the mission is of the utmost importance. Above any individual. Isn't that right?"
Sakura's eyebrow twitched. She wasn't interested in a philosophical debate now—why did he have so many questions? "Order…is different from peace."
"Then what is peace?"
Sakura searched the sky above her for an answer, wondering how she'd ended up here.
"It doesn't always mean completing the mission." Which, of course, explained nothing at all. But she hoped it shut him up.
"Like when a teammate's safety is at stake," Sai pondered, "Is that why Naruto and Kakashi-taichou believe I am…'scum'?"
Sakura's face contorted almost on reflex to a sneer at the copy-nin's mention. But Sai was already speaking again, something like an epiphany dawning on him.
"Enforcing peace as a shinobi means…" the black-haired shinobi murmured, eyes widening slightly. "I see. If one values a teammate, then that teammate must not be sacrificed. Taichou and dickless will uphold this value while completing their missions—despite their missions. There are…certain values that cannot be sacrificed to maintain the peace, because those also contribute to the state of peace."
His words had Sakura's gaze fixated on a small ant crawling up the curves of the bark. "Violence," she muttered, "is a tool."
She turned her head and locked gazes with an unflinching, black pair of eyes.
"Violence is a tool for peace," Sai said slowly, "thus, the mission, too, is only one tool for peace."
She backed away from him, letting her forearm slide from his throat. Somehow, abruptly, her anger had receded, leaving behind only a sense of confusion.
"Teammates," the other shinobi pressed, "are they something all shinobi must hold…precious?"
Sakura's arm paused, half way down from Sai's throat.
"Would you die for a teammate?" Sai pressed.
She grunted. "That's beside—"
"For dickless?"
"Yes."
Her mouth seemed to have taken free reign. Die? For Naruto?
Annoying, noisy, obnoxious, all-around miscreant Naruto. The bottom-last of their class, whose apartment to this day probably violated several health codes.
…who would also readily die for her and for any of his teammates to protect them. Maybe even Sai, if the circumstances were dire enough, because he possessed precisely that kind of sentimentality.
She laughed, a bit humorlessly—and a bit surprised—to herself.
This was an unexpected development, she knew, considering where she had begun. In the beginning, she had wanted to be a shinobi to be like Ino. Then, she had thrown herself into it—there was no point disguising it for anything it wasn't—for survival.
Sakura completed her own ANBU missions because she was forced to by the crow, not because of patriotism. She reconciled herself to the violence she committed because she had been coerced to do it; when she wasn't actively killing people, she used violence only to protect herself.
But…
But, she thought with a farce of a smile, she wasn't managing very well, was she? The mountains of burned uniforms, the chafed skin around her hands from hours of scrubbing, the nights of insomnia—they could attest to that fact.
"I see," Sai said for a second time, interrupting her thoughts. Then he bowed from the waist. "I am grateful for this conversation. I see that I have much to learn."
She surveyed him closely, even as he left. He had walked away with answers; Sakura felt like she had only been burdened by questions she didn't have the time to contemplate. A frustrating outcome for an interaction she had seen going in an altogether different direction.
She reached up hands to shove her hair behind her ears. "You can come out now."
Her words were met at first with silence. Then a soft rustle sounded behind her—silk brushing leaves—and a figure emerged.
Sakura leaned back against the tree, crossing her arms across her chest.
The painter from the palanquin (Asahi, she remembered) returned her gaze evenly. Amongst the tall pine trees and the endless expanse of the sky—the battleground of so many shinobi, of blood and steel—his lounging, silken clad presence seemed utterly at odds.
"Interesting conversation you were having there. One might have thought you were scholars and not shinobi," he commented lightly. "Did you both know I was here?"
Sakura inclined her head slightly. Yes. And a genin would been able to tell.
"What are you doing out here?" she asked. "It's late. As you saw, the woods are not always safe."
He didn't respond immediately, taking the time to remove a leaf that had fallen from the canopy above him onto his shoulder.
Then he looked up, blue eyes piercing. "I think you are like me, Haruno-san."
She was nonplussed at first. Then, understanding dawned.
"I don't mean that," Asahi laughed gently. "Well, not exactly that. You and I, Haruno-san—I have the sense that you too are not what you seem."
"Are you a woman?" Sakura asked bluntly.
But Asahi just ran a smooth hand down the length of his—her?—loose braid. It looked like a black snake curling its way down his shoulder.
"Woman, man," he considered them lazily, "Both suit. I also, incidentally, like to fuck both."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Why are you here?"
"Well, I owe you." The painter's voice was still playful, but delivered through suddenly tight lips.
"Do you?"
"Of course. You saved the only daughter of the royal house that is my benefactor." Vulgarity followed. "She has the most sinful ankles, you know. It would have been such a loss. She could make a killing with those in my old line of work."
Sakura paid no attention to the words. She arched a brow, waiting.
Eventually, Asahi reached pulled out a scroll. Sakura took it and opened it.
"What is this?" she asked after a moment.
"For your back, I would think," the painter said, blue eyes glinting. "Give it to an ANBU tattoo artist. They'll do it justice."
Sakura closed it and tucked it indifferently to her belt. "If that's all—good night."
"Good night, Haruno-san."
The painter turned in a swirl of silk and headed back toward the palanquin.
"I noticed," Sakura called out a few seconds later.
The delicate face turned back in question.
"You moved when they entered. In front of her."
Pink lips curled beneath warning, blue eyes. "Did I?"
"Don't be alarmed, Asahi-san," Sakura said wryly. "I'll keep your secret if you keep mine." The painter had seen her threaten Sai, after all. And it wouldn't do to have that kind of thing going around.
The former kagema's eyes fluttered. "Well, then. I hope you enjoy your gift."
Sakura wasn't actually surprised to find herself in Tsunade's office with the copy-nin less than two hours after returning from their mission.
The hokage looked up from the mountains of paper on her desk with a fierce glare, amber eyes flashing in warning at their entrance. Sakura's gaze drifted to the untouched sake settled on the window sill. Apparently, Tsunade had been too busy to drink herself today to her usual mellow buzz, which didn't exactly bode well for her current mood.
But if her jounin captain was concerned, he certainly didn't show it. He seemed impervious to Shizune's glower as he tracked mud onto the previously pristine floor, settling against the side of bookcase with feline grace.
Tsunade glanced at him and then to Sakura. She addressed her remarks to the latter. "Why are you here?"
Sakura kept the glare off her face with difficulty, striving for indifference. "I'm afraid you'll have to ask him, Tsunade-sama."
The older woman scoffed, wisps of blond hair flaring with the exhalation of breath. Then she turned to Kakashi and demanded: "Well?"
Kakashi's head rolled to meet hers lazily, but his eyes were steely. "I want her off."
Tsunade repeated the word soundlessly. "Off. Off? Off what, Hatake? The roster for the yearly Konoha fly fishing competition? You're going to need to be more specific."
The copy-nin's eyes crinkled. The look in them was not pleasant. "Team Seven."
The hokage's lips thinned into a tight line. "Not this again."
"I want her off," Kakashi continued uncaringly, voice cold. "Now."
Tsunade's hands tightened into vicious fists, like she wished she could strangle him. Sakura sorely wished the same.
"Why?" the woman snapped finally, temper tenuously held back.
He pushed away from the bookshelf, standing at his full, imposing height as he delivered his words. "She's a liability."
"She's my student," Tsunade said warningly.
"So make her a full medic-nin."
"I believe with time," the hokage said through gritted teeth, "she can be more than that."
Kakashi looked imperiously down at the leader of one of the most powerful shinobi villages in the world.
"There isn't enough time in a human's life span for her to achieve that."
Sakura saw the blow land. Tsunade wasn't quick enough to hide her flinch, or the flicker of doubt that passed through her features. Sakura's stomach clenched. She knew she hadn't been as available to meet with Tsunade for lessons in recent years, thanks to the Crow. But she had tried her best.
Only, now even the woman who had given her her first life line couldn't speak up for her.
"Tsunade-sama," she said lowly. Her mentor's attention went to her immediately.
"Yes," Tsunade said, blinking rapidly. "You. What do you have to say?"
"I'm staying," she said unflinchingly, back straight.
Leaving Team Seven wasn't going to remove her from active shinobi life. The crow would probably kill itself before it let that happen. Ironically, in fact, Team Seven offered a mostly benign distraction to the other parts of her life (despite Kakashi being their jounin captain). Sai was a piece of shit, possibly with potential redeeming qualities she had yet to find. And Naruto was—well, she owed a lot to Naruto.
The point was, she wasn't leaving Team Seven.
Funnily enough, her words were all it took.
"Alright," Tsunade breathed, reaching behind for her sake and taking a deep gulp. "That settles it. She stays."
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.
"I would," Kakashi said stiltedly, eyes slitted, "advise you to revise that decision, hokage-sama."
The hokage looked up at him with a thunderous look on her face. "I would advise you to remember where you stand in this hierarchy, Hatake. You're not here yet; and if your current inability to curb your more insubordinate and frankly violent tendencies continues, you never will be."
The sound of a blade being unsheathed cut through the air in a brutal hiss. Tsunade was standing now; Shizune's hands were sheathed in blue chakra.
"I might as well kill her now," Kakashi said lazily. He tilted his head to the side, looking down at the hokage callously.
"Sakura, see yourself out." Tsunade bit out. "Your taichou and I have a few matters to discuss."
Sakura looked at her mentor in disbelief. Leave? That was the last thing she wanted to do right now. Did Kakashi really intend to use his blade against her? Execute Sakura to save their opponents the trouble?
Let him try, the Voice snarled, we'll tear into him before he knows which way's up.
She pretended she didn't hear the slight trepidation in the Voice's words.
"Get out, Sakura," Tsunade growled again, slamming both hands flat against the wood of her desk.
Sakura's eyes jerked back to her at the loud noise. At Tsunade's expression, Sakura grimaced and then gave in.
She spun on her heel and didn't look back.
A Belated Omake (to make up for my absence! 3)
Hyuuga Hinata liked mornings. She liked the crisper than usual breeze, long before the sun had warmed the earth. She liked the quiet and the calm, before the bustling of midday. And above all else, she liked the piping hot, shincha (picked earliest in the season and the sweetest) her favorite teahouse offered its early guests at discount that time of day.
It was a small teashop, worn and homely. Nevertheless, it found more than its fair share of customers.
Possibly because it was positioned right opposite Konoha's best purveyor of ramen.
(So, maybe the tea wasn't the only reason Hinata was drawn to the teahouse).
As it happened, Hinata had spent many mornings, afternoons, and evenings in this particular booth. The shincha really was excellent. And—well, it wasn't so much stalking as—appreciating the view. She was simply appreciating the view.
The shopkeeper had caught her once or twice (actually, every time after the first), but he had never noticed. Which didn't actually surprise her. Naruto attacked his ramen with the kind of one-track mindedness that was genuinely frightening.
And, well, it was the perfect start to her day. For reasons. Even if, nutritionally, she really couldn't condone the consumption of ramen for breakfast.
With a relaxed sigh, she finished off the last of her shincha. It was much needed fuel for what was looking to be a long day.
An ANBU had been dropped off the night before with first degree burns all over his body. The emergency team had worked until nearly dawn to stabilize him. Now, it was time for Hinata and her team to come in to finish the healing process.
It was looking to be a full day of work. Which, normally, Hinata wouldn't mind, except that she had recently been placed in charge of individuals who had formerly been her peers. Peers who had all but told her the previous day that, no, they weren't inclined to listen to her because they very much felt she had been chosen only because she was the hokage's chosen apprentice. Never mind that all their applications had been reviewed by a third party counsel, or that all their names had been stricken out, or that they had all been evaluated solely on the basis of their track records.
Hinata wasn't a person who conscionably entertained violent thoughts (entirely why her career as a field medic-nin had turned out the way it had). But, now, even she was sorely tempted to let one Gentle Fist…
She shook the horrible thought away, a frown on her face.
It was simply that—she felt she had finally found her place. Hinata hadn't been good as a combat shinobi because she hadn't wanted to be. But in the hospital, she wanted to be good. And she was good. It felt good. A calm she had never felt before washed over whenever a critical patient was placed in front of her. In the surgery room, it wasn't hard for her to take command.
Ironically, it was exactly as her father abandoned the idea of her as clan leader, that Hinata began to see it as…possible. Hyuuga Hiashi, of course, did not think someone who had never killed, never 'sacrificed' (as he put it), could lead them.
Hinata privately thought this...close-minded.
As though she didn't make sacrifices each day in the surgery room—cutting the limb to save the life; letting someone go blind to save his chakra paths; focusing more attention on a daughter than her father because she had a better chance of survival and they only had so much time before both were dead.
Hinata, like any combat shinobi, had had a hand in the death of countless individuals as a medic-nin. Unlike combat shinobi, she had not intended for it to end that way. It was a burden on her conscience, each life she lost. But it was one she could live with; killing had not been.
Suddenly realizing how hard she was gripping the cup in her hands, Hinata let go of it abruptly. It clacked against the wooden table with a high ring, but thankfully, did not break.
Setting it aright, she lowered her head and gave a relieved sigh—
"Hi."
Her head darted up. Hinata blinked when piercing blue eyes met hers, then felt her face redden.
"I, uh," Naruto scratched his head, "saw you. From there—" he pointed demonstratively at Ichiraku Ramen—"though I'd swing by and say hi."
Hinata swallowed with difficulty. Her throat was so dry.
"Hi," she croaked finally.
"Right," Naruto said, staring strangely at her. "I wanted to thank you. For taking care of me in the hospital. And that ointment! It worked really well."
He beamed at her.
"I'm glad." But then Hinata frowned, remembering something. "Y-you know, you never told me how you got those injuries."
"Oh," Naruto said, eyes widening slightly. He squinted up at the ceiling. "Well, see, there was this thing, and then that happened, you know? So, it sort of just…It really was an accident—"
"Naruto-kun," she said. "It's not right to lie to a medical professional."
Her voice was still quiet, so she was taken aback when Naruto froze like she had barked at him.
She regretted that, a little. But she didn't take it back. She had seen enough wounds to know the ones on Naruto had not been accidental. They had been made with almost surgical precision—intended, not to harm the most, but certainly to hurt the most. To teach a lesson.
And the thought of anyone touching Naruto like that made her—made her—
"It was a training session," he answered lowly.
Hinata's eyes flew wide open. "Sakura-san did that to you?"
"No, no," Naruto said, waving his hands as though to bat the accusation away. "She's actually a lot nicer now."
Understanding chilled Hinata's body, causing hair to raise on her flesh. "Then Kakashi-san did. H-he hurt you like that."
Naruto looked at her, his face grim and somehow so—so young. After a moment, he nodded shakily.
And Hinata was…
"H-Hinata," Naruto stammered now, "Are you okay? You look really pale. Are you going to faint again—"
"No!"
"You're yelling," he said dazedly. Then his forehead scrunched. "I didn't know you could. Wait, why are you yelling?"
Because Hinata was furious.
"Every shinobi has to go through a yearly checkup," she muttered to herself, "If I move things around—y-yes, I could manage that. It's a little below my position, but it wouldn't look too odd. I can be there—"
"Are you going to hurt him?!" Naruto gleaned from this, arms flapping. "No—no you shouldn't. You're a doctor, you can't…"
Hurt a patient? Oh, yes she could. Funny how until two minutes ago, Hinata hadn't thought her conscience could condone such a thing.
Now? It definitely could.
"—I just, I don't get why?" he finished mumbling, "Why do you care at all?"
"Because I take care of what's mine," Hinata snapped, "and what he did—"
Wait.
A minute.
What did she say?
It took what seemed like an infinity for her gaze to reach Naruto's face. Terror had stolen speech from her. She gaped as her eyes landed on a red face and wide, blue eyes.
She—she had just as good as run him off for good now, hadn't she? Oh god, oh god, oh god…
"Ahhh," Naruto wheezed, "whaaa…I didn't—I mean, did you—"
Her face was beet red. She did actually feel like she was going to faint any second, actually.
But….then she noticed that Naruto didn't exactly look…disgusted. He looked surprised. But also…his face was red…just like hers. And he wasn't running, exactly, was he?
Maybe it was…Could it be? That this was…the best teahouse in the world?
"Huh," Naruto finished dazedly.
Possibly.
Author's Note: Please review! Some exciting *developments* between Kakashi/Sakura about to come :D
