Sakura lies supine on a fallen log, limbs hanging limply down, not reaching the ground. It's dawn, but the massive trees block most of the sunlight. After a long night of training, she wants nothing better than to sleep—in the hollow of a gigantic tree, of all the fairy tale things—but the idea of actually chakra walking up the tree to get to the hollow seems insurmountable.
Katsuyu is all over the Forest—enormous Katsuyu, sliding through the forest like a whale through the ocean; tiny Katsuyu, perched with dozens of itself on plants and rocks; and all sorts of sizes in between, such as this Katsuyu that just finished teaching her. This particular Katsuyu is about the size of a moose.
"I must say, Sakura-san, that it is nice to have a mistress who doesn't complain about the dark and the damp and the smell."
"The smell?" Sakura blinks and turns her head towards the right, where the portion of Katsuyu she had personally summoned—about the size of a large dog—is likewise resting. "This forest smells fantastic. Tsunade-shishou didn't like the smell?"
"Mm. She used to mutter some very rude things. I pretended not to hear," Katsuyu titters. "Perhaps that's just her Fire nature, you know. You're Earth, so you feel more at home."
"Huh." Having had her attention drawn to the scent of the forest, Sakura purposely inhales deeply. It rained over night. At the time, Sakura hadn't been too fond of training in pouring cold rain, but now the scent of petrichor is mixing with the pines and cedars, and when the breeze blows just right, it brings with it the scent of night-blooming jasmine from somewhere. Tsunade is crazy. Can sake kill your sense of smell? That's the only explanation I can think of. "Is there jasmine nearby, Katsuyu-sama?"
"Yes. Do you want to gather some? I do not know of any medicines incorporating jasmine. I would be honoured to learn, Sakura-san."
"Ah, no," laughs Sakura, with a bit of guilt at asking about something so frivolous. "Just… smells nice."
"Humans like flowers, don't you? I enjoy them very much as well. Some of them are almost as good as lichen." The voice comes from a kitten-sized Katsuyu which slides over her shoulder and down her body, where it attends to some superficial scratching on her knees. Sakura takes in another deep breath and lets it out slowly. Training herself out of her disgust at sudden cold, slimy touches is tough. She tries instead to focus on the cute aspects of Katsuyu—how kind and gentle the slug is; the softness and squishiness of it, like a pudding; its adorable little mouth and the way the eyestalks wiggle.
"We don't eat most of them, but we do like the way they smell."
"I hope the food has been satisfactory for Sakura-san."
"Oh! It's been wonderful, Katsuyu-sama. I've enjoyed hunting here."
"I would prepare something for Sakura-san, but I do not possess limbs." Katsuyu sounds a bit distressed at this failure in hospitality.
Sakura rolls off the log and into a crouch, the tiny Katsuyu hopping nimbly off as she does so. "You've been a marvelous hostess, Katsuyu-sama. Please don't distress yourself. Naruto told me the food on Mt. Myoboku was terrible."
"What can you expect from frogs. Horrible creatures." If slugs had noses, Katsuyu would have sniffed in disdain. "And so noisy too. No consideration."
Sakura runs up the tree. The portions of Katsuyu she had been talking to don't follow her, but that doesn't matter; every piece of her knows what all the pieces know together. She pauses at opening of the hollow to address a cluster of Katsuyu perched on a nearby branch. "Katsuyu-sama, do you ever get lonely here, when Tsunade-shishou isn't summoning you?"
"Lonely?" a few of them say in unison. A single one continues, "I am not like the snakes or the frogs, Sakura-san. It is not in my nature to need others. I don't have young and I don't die; I renew myself continually."
Sakura cannot help but think of Orochimaru jumping from body to body in an attempt at immortality. "Did Orochimaru ever try to… I don't know, solicit your help?"
"He wouldn't dare!" Katsuyu replies vehemently. "Snakes don't stand a chance against me, Sakura-san. Don't you know that? Not even Manda, let alone some… snake-man."
"I don't understand, Katsuyu-sama. Orochimaru used his summons because he couldn't use his other jutsu, I thought, so then why…?" Sakura doesn't know how to phrase it without potentially offending Katsuyu.
"Why was it a difficult fight? Oh, for several reasons, Sakura-san, but you know it would be very troublesome for me if I ever did destroy Manda. The snakes keep the frogs in check."
"The enemy of your enemy?"
"Something like that. It's best for peace to keep a balance. Although Manda is too proud and too short-sighted to think the same way. Perhaps at some point he'll make an end of Gamabunta, and then I'll make an end of him. That's the way his kind die, Sakura-san: it's always ultimately their own greed."
Sakura thinks of Orochimaru again and sighs. Thinking about this now is not a good idea when she's about to try to sleep. "Well, good morning Katsuyu-sama."
"Sleep well, Sakura-san! I think when we practice tonight you should be able to summon a portion of me of your own size, or a little larger. Tsunade-sama will be so pleased with your progress when I report to her tomorrow."
"Thank you, Katsuyu-sama." She closes the flap behind her, strips down, and summons and heats some water into a basin for a quick sponge down before dressing in nightclothes and climbing into her sleeping bag. With a black eyemask tied to block out the light, she drifts off hearing the sounds of birds, and thinking hazy thoughts about balance… she, Naruto, and Sasuke-kun could have been so balanced…
—
Kakashi runs his hands over the traditional high, scoop necked funeral shirt, checking for any blemish on it or on the stiff white lining of the collar, before slipping it over his head.
He picks up the white belt and rechecks the time. He never got back to sleep after Kurenai stumbled into his room. He took her to the hospital where the Hokage, looking strangely magnificent in her nightgown and robe, eased the symptoms of shock and questioned her gently but inexorably about what she had sensed about Asuma's fight. Then the rest of Asuma's team and the reinforcements returned, with Asuma's body.
Kurenai had insisted on being allowed to see the corpse, and to Kakashi's surprise Tsunade had agreed immediately. Kakashi ought to have left but he couldn't bring himself to wrench free of Kurenai's grip on his wrist.
She had let him go when the corpse was brought in, bringing its right hand to her face and weeping at the sight of the unmarked palm where her mark used to be.
"Asuma-sensei gave me his last words for you," said Shikamaru, which was the impetus Kakashi needed to get the hell out.
Kakashi ties the white belt, glad that his perpetually tired appearance and the general gloom of a funeral will spare him any particular notice.
The Sharingan memory is like having access to a vast, perfectly collated collection of videos cataloguing every moment of your life, except you're not the only one with access to the remote control, and whoever else has it insists on replaying Your Worst Memories: Greatest Hits Vol 1 to 100 at any relevant moment.
The current relevant memories are among the worst.
"Kakashi…"
The light leaving her eyes.
The blood dripping from his hand.
The corpse falling to the ground.
The physical agony, the dissociation, the disorientation as the part of him that was within her died as well.
"Kakashi-kun, you… really want to do this… with me?"
His adult mind could now see what she was really asking but he was so stupid back then.
"It's the best solution. I'll always know where you are, you'll always know where I am. I'll know what's happening and if you need my help, I'll always be able to save you."
"Yes… I know, but…"
"We don't have to do it after this time if you don't want to."
She bit her lip. "Well… if it's you, then it's okay."
The possibly least romantic mutual virginity taking that ever occurred. Poor Rin. Kakashi had gotten anatomy textbooks to prepare him for the challenge but he had never once thought about her heart.
Her heart, ripped from her chest by his hand.
His mate.
He forces himself to the funeral, watches as Kurenai lays flowers on Asuma's grave.
She's handling this with such grace and dignity, it amazes him. Her hands keep unconsciously moving to the barely perceptible convex curve of her belly, to the son or daughter that Asuma will never meet in this world. Kurenai stands ramrod straight as she accepts condolences. Her team, and Ino and Chouji, hover protectively around her, as loyal as any family could be, but Shikamaru is conspicuously absent.
The boy—no, the young man—is planning something, and it's almost certainly revenge on Asuma's killer.
Kakashi wants in.
—
"Why didn't you summon me back earlier? You didn't even let me know about it!"
"Don't get mouthy with me about my orders, Sakura. There's a line between cheek and insubordination and I won't have it crossed."
Sakura recoils back as if slapped by Tsunade's famous right, then hangs her head in shame. Her master is absolutely right. "I'm sorry, shishou."
"Don't let it happen again. Honestly, Sakura, sometimes I think there's no satisfying you. You beg me to let you train, then you want to cut off your training for something you can't even help with? Do you think Katsuyu will just ferry you back and forth from the Forest on a whim?"
"No, shishou."
Tsunade refills her sake cup, knocks it back, and then softens a bit as she regards the cherry blossom pattern decorating the cup. "Sakura. You are the kind of girl who immediately wants to drop everything and rush in, damn the consequences. It's admirable, in some ways, but let me warn you seriously: sometimes the consequences will damn you."
"Yes, shishou." She isn't exactly certain what Tsunade means, but the general theme of Tsunade bemoaning her intense need to help and save is something she's well familiar with.
"Damn medic nins with your damn saviour complexes!"
"But shishou, nobody has a bigger saviour complex than you."
"Ha! A long time ago, and I know where it got me. Yet here I go again."
"I think it's wonderful, shishou."
"You're as bad as that brat. I don't know why I like either of you!"
"I do need you now. Kakashi's team should have back-up, and that includes my best medic nin."
Sakura bites her tongue to prevent herself from protesting that Shizune-sempai is better. Self-deprecation would only make Tsunade angry again.
"You'll join Yamato and the others for departure immediately. Don't summon Katsuyu unless actually necessary. Let's keep that a secret if we can."
"Hai, shishou."
"Oh, and Sakura?"
"Yes?"
"Keep working on your seal. Think about consequences."
"Hai, shishou."
—
With Obito's eye open, Kakuzu's hand signs are as obvious to Kakashi as if he is casting the jutsu himself. He files the skin-hardening jutsu away in his mental library for a later occasion. With an earth jutsu like that, it's at least a pretty good chance that this enemy is earth natured, which means that raikiri will work even better if he should happen to miss the heart. He has Shikamaru's capsule ready to catch blood with the other hand for just that eventuality.
But with the Sharingan, he will not miss.
"H-how did you… I never even sensed…!" Kakuzu gasps with Kakashi's arm through his torso.
"So you really are an earth type," taunts Kakashi. "I guessed as much from those hand signs."
"You read the signs… and you're a lightning type, so you must be…"
Kakashi of the Sharingan, Kakashi mentally finished.
"Earth is inferior to lightning. Bad luck for you. You're through." He pulls his arm free with a wet pop and looks over at the shadow-bound enemy still remaining as the corpse falls to the ground.
Hidan looks at his partner's body, thoroughly unimpressed. "I can't believe you let yourself get sucker-punched right through the fucking heart, Kakuzu."
In retrospect, Hidan's odd manner of mocking Kakuzu's "death" was a warning bell, a thing as strange as a puddle on the ground on a dry sunny day. Grandstanding and bravado in the face of death is a shinobi tradition, but Hidan was talking to his partner. Therefore Kakashi should have immediately checked more closely that Kakuzu was actually dead.
Kakashi's principle of always following through on the plan B preparations, even when plan A seems to have worked, makes up for this slip-up. He has the vial of Kakuzu's blood, which should take care of another one of Kakuzu's lives. They just have to improvise a way to kill Kakuzu again… and again… and again.
As far as Kakashi knows, the Shikamaru's contingency plans accounted for an initial and a secondary failure to kill Kakuzu, but not for a fourth and fifth need to kill him. At the point in the plan where they were supposed to feign confusion and dismay, therefore, at least a little of the emotion underlying Kakashi's whispering is genuine.
Shikamaru's answer makes the next step clear, and Kakashi passes him the vial.
In one way it feels very strange to be ceding command to someone so much younger, but Shikamaru is handling it flawlessly. It's a glimpse of the future that Asuma gave his life for.
It's a rough fight. When Tenzou shows up with the rest of the reinforcements and his first comment is how shabby he looks, Kakashi resolves to get the cost of a new outfit out of him in free meals.
Naruto's devastating improvement of his father's jutsu, his strange, knuckleheaded way of coming at problems sideways, takes out the final two hearts. Kakashi technically delivers the coup de grace, but he's merely speeding up the inevitable and removing the responsibility for the kill from Naruto's shoulders.
Shikamaru returns with Sai and Sakura, having not needed either their fighting strength or Sakura's medical ninjutsu. Sakura mends them both enough to make it the short distance back to the Hokage's office. After such a series of complete or partial failures, it feels fantastic to be able to say, "Mission success, Hokage-sama: no casualties."
—
"Shikamaru… could I talk to you for a few minutes?"
The Nara eyes her. They've just finished their report to Tsunade and everyone is scattering. "I'm walking over to the Memorial Stone. Will it take longer than the walk?"
"I don't think so," Sakura says.
"Then let's go."
She bites her lip a little as they start to walk. "Although, maybe it's too public… I want to ask you something we have in common, but…"
"Yare yare," he sighs. "I don't particularly care if it's a secret or not, but it'll make my mom burst a blood vessel which I don't want to deal with. If you already know, talk."
"You're not… worried that people would think less of you if they knew?"
"You say that like it's a bad thing." He sighs again. "So many expectations, it's such a drag. I wouldn't mind if stupid people decide to bother me less, but my mom… seriously, how is she so scary…?"
He screws up his face and pulls out his pack of cigarettes. When Sakura doesn't say anything for a while, he prompts her, "Did you have a question?"
"Why do you think we exist?" She makes a you and I gesture with her hand, hoping that indicates that she's talking about omegas specifically.
He pauses in the act of flicking open the lighter and gives her a look. "You don't want much, do you. Troublesome."
"Shikamaru! You're probably the smartest person I know, and you think, so surely you've thought about this?"
"Hn. I have, to be honest." He resumes the ritual of lighting up, jerky and unaccustomed to the habit. "Humans are strange creatures… determined to survive, but determined to kill their own kind… flowing into every space we can, and pushing out those who are already there… seems to me it's another diversification. Look how many colours and shapes and sizes we are, how many chakra natures… throw in different ways of mating too, why not? At the very least, it assures that a certain subset of the population is extra focused on reproducing and that the parents stick together. Like, imagine being a beta. You could just… walk away."
Shikamaru stares at the lit cigarette as if he deeply loathes it before putting it to his lips and inhaling with a grimace.
Sakura ponders if she should ask why he smokes if he hates it so much, but doesn't quite have the nerve, since it must have to do with Asuma-sensei.
"So… you don't think it has any more effect than chakra nature or height or whatever…?"
He grins with smoke around his face. "But chakra nature and height and whatever have enormous effects on our lives, don't you agree, Sakura?"
Sakura thinks of the day that Kurenai-sensei tested her chakra nature. The chakra paper crumbling in her hands, and feeling as if she was always the one breaking apart, falling to pieces, trodden under foot. Of Naruto and Kakashi-sensei's flashy original jutsus, and Sasuke-kun breathing out fire long ago.
"What's your chakra nature, Shikamaru?"
"Void."
"Void?"
"Oh, sorry. Lightning." He coughs a little bit and scowls at the cigarette then takes a particularly deep drag as if in retaliation.
"Why did you say void then?"
"Ah, that's the old name for it. That's we call it in our clan hiden lessons, so I'm used to that name." He shrugs. "It's a better name for it, anyway. Why the hell would lightning submit to wind, or dominate earth? Have you seen lightning struck ground before? Is the ground hurt?"
"…it is, isn't it? The plants die…"
"Does the ground care that the grass has died? No, to the extent that lightning hurts ground or rock, it's by breaking it apart or forcing it together. Earth can hold back water, but how can it resist a vacuum? Void is what makes the earth unearth. It's part of what makes InoShikaCho work, why our clans have stuck together for centuries. They're mostly alphas, we're mostly omegas, but they're earth nature, so our chakra natures and our dynamic natures counteract each other and keep us on equal footing overall. And then the Akimichi are mostly fire and beta and round us out. It's the perfect team. Lightning." Shikamaru snorts. "Bunch of nonsense. Just because the most common void techniques are electrically expressed. Shinobi are supposed to see under the surface."
Sakura is silent for a moment, and then she says cautiously, "In the academy, they said strong and weak, superior and inferior. Why do you say dominates and submits?"
For the first time in their conversation, he smiles. "Hell, I knew it didn't matter that I never paid attention in class. You're an omega too. Can't you guess why I phrase it that way? Unless you'd rather think that being submissive means you're weaker and inferior. And if you don't think you'll ever be that way, forget it. I saw it every damn day of my childhood with my folks. That's why I'm never getting married. Alpha women are so troublesome."
Sakura feels a hot stab of anger on Ino's behalf, but actually manages to check her initial impulse to scold him. Instead, she strikes in a way that will actually connect. "Temari-san is a wind type, isn't she?"
Shikamaru's expression twitches a little and his ears redden. A palpable hit. "You know she is," he mutters.
"I think maybe you like troublesome—"
He lifts his hand as if to flick his lit cigarette at her and she runs away laughing.
—
When Kakashi gets out of the hospital, he takes a shower. It's his usual post-hospital routine, no matter how short the stay. Getting off the slightest trace of the antiseptic odor is only part of the reason. The shower is one place where Kakashi can always relax. The white noise, the steam, the warmth, the familiarity, the good scents, the privacy, the ritual of cleansing—every aspect of it soothes him.
But sometimes he can't even escape here.
He's been feeling it at the back of his consciousness for a while now… the need for… release. A false euphemism if there ever was one. Even though his mate is dead, even though he's no longer a hormonal teen, his sexuality is still inconveniently present, and dealing with it is a matter of figuring out the point where the pain of dealing with it is less than the pain of letting it continue to build. Generally if he starts having wet dreams about Rin, he's let it go too far, and embarrassingly enough he'd had one in the hospital.
The shower is the perfect place for this filth.
He takes a deep inhale, filling his lungs with warm moist air, and exhales it forcefully, then pictures Rin as she was in life. Intrusively, the image shifts to her last moments alive, but he bites his cheek and forces it back to her in a calm moment, smiling at him. His cock stirs already, but he won't touch himself yet. There's only so depraved he's willing to go. She was too young—they were too young, he knows that now. It's been seventeen years.
If she had lived—don't think about why she didn't—a face that would have been longer, less rounded, he thinks; more rounded elsewhere, but not too much. She was always slim in build. She would be taller, just tall enough to tilt her chin up and kiss him as he takes her in his arms and presses her up against the tiled wall.
There, that's the image. Just like that…
It isn't sex that makes this disgusting, but he can't think about that now as he summons up long, long ago experienced sensations of a tightness that was more than just his hand on his cock, a slickness that was smoother than water, a warmth that was a human being. A beautiful, living, human being.
He can't rush it, he can't just try to get it over with, he knows from unfortunate experience. If he lets the self-loathing win all that will happen is that he won't get off and then he'll have put himself through this for nothing.
Kakashi keeps his eyes squeezed shut as he pumps, chanting her name softly to keep him focused, like a mantra to a deity.
More, he imagines her moaning into his ear, or I love you, but never his name, never Kakashi, lest he remember how that name sounded choked out with broken lungs.
The orgasm feels good. The shower helps keep him dissociated as he takes the disposable sponge he brought into the shower for this purpose and diligently scrubs away any trace of his semen, then cracks the curtain to toss the sponge into the garbage.
He washes his hands.
—
"…therefore, if the Aburame is conscious, by directing the kikai insects to temporarily leave the body, we can avoid having healing chakra siphoned off." Sakura takes a deep breath as she finishes knitting together the shattered bone in her patient, then begins working on the muscles and tendons.
"Correct. What can be done if the Aburame is unconscious?"
"First, if possible, rouse the Aburame. If not possible, then: if another Aburame is around, the insects may follow the direction of a fellow clan member. If not possible, then: if the condition is not emergent, non-chakra techniques should be used to stabilize the patient until consciousness is regained." Her hands move slowly down the patient's leg. "If emergent, one of three techniques may be used alone or in combination depending on the situation. These are: increasing the total chakra use; applying chakra in another location to lure the majority of the insects away from the site of treatment; and increased observation and/or slowed-down and/or intermittent treatment with periodic checks, to enable the medic to determine to what extent the insects are interfering with the treatment."
Tsunade smiles as Sakura's hands move back up the leg. Skin melds and smooths together. "Correct again. You make it look too easy, Sakura."
"No, Hokage-sama," says Aburame Shino, watching his formerly smashed leg return to fighting form. "No one would think that what your apprentice is doing is easy. Why? Because not even other medic-nins do it so well."
"Ha. Wouldn't they." The Hokage laughs. "You don't know the half of it. Just wait until you're in the field with her, Shino. People will be screaming at her. She'll be ordered to work faster and faster, yet not allowed to make the slightest error. Not to mention that I've set a bad example. Now medic-nins are expected to fight, just because we can. Suddenly if we're not jumping in to attack, we're being cowardly. But if we do join in and we get hurt, we were reckless."
"That must be why you're so cruel to me, Shishou," says Sakura cheekily.
The pigtailed woman rolls her eyes. "Don't think I won't throw you out the window and make you heal your own injuries again, because I will." She glances at the clock. "Well. As fun as this has been, I think I have been keeping the Daimyo's representative waiting just long enough to impress upon him that I'm doing him a favour, not the other way around. Shizune should be in by now, so go ahead and take the rest of the day off, Sakura."
Since the rest of her shift would only involve routine check-ups and paperwork, Sakura thanks her master sincerely.
"I must meet with my team for training," Shino says as he stretches the leg and then shifts himself off the examining table. "Should I be aware of any particular restrictions, or may I consider my leg fully recovered?"
"Actually, some physical exertion and ninjutsu will be good for it." Sakura walks alongside him out of the hospital. "Because it's completely new bone, muscle tissue, and so on, fully integrating it into the rest of the body by pumping both blood and chakra through the new cells seems to decrease complication rates. It's actually one of the reasons that shinobi have better surgical outcomes than civilians. Especially if you're training with Hinata-chan, I don't think you have any reason to worry. She'd be able to notice something going wrong even before you would sense it."
Shino barely perceptibly nods. "That is useful information. We ordinarily have a taijutsu session on Wednesday afternoons, but I will add in some extra ninjutsu practice on my own."
Sakura perks up at this. "Taijutsu? Would you mind if I joined in? Trying to track down anyone on my team to spar is impossible, and while I know Lee-san would be overjoyed…"
"A fourth would only be a favour to me. Why? Because while two of us spar, the other watches, and Kiba cannot be quiet." A faint, irritable buzz emanates from him, so brief that Sakura isn't quite sure she really heard it.
"Well, in that case I—"
"You! Aburame!"
The two of them turn, and Sakura is surprised to see Ino's father storming up to them, his ice blue eyes trained on Shino. Shino doesn't react at all. "Good afternoon, Yamanaka-san. You wish to speak to me?"
"You know damn well I do," he snaps. "You've been avoiding me for weeks."
"I understand that you have been asking my clan about someone who is bothering your daughter, but my clan could not give you any reply. Why? Because I am not bothering her," says Shino. "My girlfriend and I—"
"You have no right to call her that, Aburame!"
"You interrupted me, Yamanaka-san. You speak of rights. I am unfamiliar with the clan laws of the Yamanaka, so perhaps as clan head you have the right to forbid or compel her marriage. But there can be no law about who or how many she chooses to have sex with."
"How many—you dare speak about her that way to me!"
"I find nothing problematic in Ino's past choices of partners. She has been both shrewd and generous."
From the expression on his face, Sakura begins to worry that Inoichi might have an aneurysm. "You scum. I'll never allow her to marry an Aburame, do you hear me?"
"I have a name beyond just Aburame, Yamanaka-san. If you do not know it, you may ask your daughter. Why? Because I have heard her say it many times." As Inoichi's face turns almost as purple as his daughter's clothing, Shino calmly turns to Sakura. "We mustn't keep my team waiting, Sakura-san."
As they walk off, some wag cat-calls "Someone call the police—I've just witnessed a murder!"
"Poor Ino," Sakura breathes when they are out of hearing range.
Shino does react to that. He turns with a slight raise in his eyebrows. "Do you think she will feel embarrassed?"
Sakura thinks of how to put it. "She won't be embarrassed, but… she's a complete daddy's girl, you know? I know being at odds with him about the whole… issue… was bothering her, but I didn't realize things were that tense. I really can't understand Yamanaka-san's reaction. He didn't want her to—" Sakura stops herself, realizing almost too late that she was about to give away Shikamaru's omega status. "Never mind."
Shino doesn't press it, and she has a solid workout with Team 8.
—
Kakashi runs over the plan to find Sasuke through Itachi with his ninken, and asks if they have any questions.
"I want to be with Sakura-chan!" Shiba bursts out at once.
Bisuke whines, "Will you shut up about bitches for once? This one isn't even a dog!"
"Don't be disgusting," Pakkun says. "That's Boss's student you're talking about."
Bisuke flattens himself a bit. "Sorry Boss. I didn't mean anything towards her. Even if she is a bit noisy."
"What's wrong if I like her the best? Sakura-chan smells the nicest, and she's a very good girl. Boss oughta put you with the blank."
Kakashi listens for a few minutes, amused as the dogs bicker among themselves about who Kakashi should stick with who, then finally cuts it off and assigns them.
Later, when he explains the procedure to the humans, Sakura is clearly taken aback by Shiba's enthusiastic greeting of her, paired with Bisuke once again whining for him to shut up. None of the other dogs are particularly happy with their assignments, although Bull endures the repulsive (to a canine nose) scent of the nine-tailed fox stoically.
"Boss," says Pakkun as they spread out, "are you sure it was a good idea to put Sakura-chan with only Shiba and Bisuke?"
"She's stronger than she looks."
"Yeah, but she's got a weak spot where the runaway is concerned, doesn't she?" says Pakkun. When Kakashi doesn't respond for a while, the pug continues, "And Shiba and Bisuke, they're good, but against even just Sasuke, let alone Itachi…"
"Sakura-chan follows the rules," Kakashi argues, trying to reassure himself as well. The possibility hadn't even occurred to him, and he wonders, not for the first time, why she seems to live in his mental blind spot. Last time she tried pleading with Sasuke rather than following protocol, it ended with her unconscious on a bench and Sasuke gone, so surely she will flee and regroup if she encounters him.
Won't she?
Pakkun doesn't say anything more.
—
It's normal to be depressed after mission failure. The depression after a mission failure to bring home Sasuke-kun has become all too familiar, but this depression was something else. They got so close, so often, and at the end, not only did they lose Sasuke-kun again, but they lost the only thing left they could think of to attract him home, and then they lost both Sasuke-kun and Itachi's corpse (with its lethal, transplantable eyes) to Akatsuki, the organization that wants to kill Naruto.
Naruto's depression is just as bad as hers, but what she didn't expect was for Hinata-chan to look almost as bad as they cross through Konoha's gate. Kakashi-sensei told them he and Yamato-taichou needed to consult with the Hokage alone. The rest of Team 8 scatters, but Hinata-chan slows to a trudge and then suddenly stops, staring at the ground and fiddling her index fingers.
Sakura looks around and sees that Naruto and Sai are already gone. "Hey, Hinata-chan, what's wrong?"
The huge blank eyes blink at Sakura slowly, so that Sakura wonders whether she's being looked at or through. "B-besides the failure?"
"Well, that seems like enough, but…" Sakura lets it trail off. "Want to come over for tea? I'd rather not be alone with my thoughts either, to tell you the truth."
"O-okay."
Sakura puts on the kettle for tea without bothering to give Hinata-chan the chance to beg her not to bother. To her surprise, Hinata-chan starts the conversation herself.
"Sakura-chan, why do you want to be a ninja?"
Sakura settles herself on the other side of the kotetsu, wishing the heat would work faster. "Well. Because I can do it, I suppose. It's so… rewarding, when I save a friend, when I stop an enemy. I feel like… I have power, and I'm using that power to make the world better."
"And you enjoy it."
It's a statement, but Sakura answers it anyway. "Yes, I think I do. There's something about just… fixing things. Willing the poison out of the wound, and the bone to put itself back together. There's a problem in my way?" She makes a fist with a grin. "Not anymore!"
Hinata-chan grins a little back, and says quietly, "Shannaro?"
Sakura laughs. "Yeah! It's too bad Gentle Fist doesn't lend itself to screaming, Hinata. It's incredibly satisfying."
Hinata's smile is gone again. "I don't… I never feel that… that enjoyment you're talking about. I mean, a little, in the success, but… when I'm fighting… I hate it. I always, always hate it."
Sakura tries to think of what to say, but Hinata-chan continues before she comes up with anything. "And it isn't just fighting… medical ninjutsu is a little better, but not much… I don't feel that satisfaction you're talking about, and I'm so… d-distractable, and… and hesitant…" Her lip wibbles, but she doesn't cry. "Like today, I failed so many times… I should have seen Sasuke-kun's fight before the explosion, and I shouldn't have gotten d-d-distracted when we faced that masked enemy, so that you had to t-t-tell me to focus, and Kakashi-sensei shouldn't have had to t-tell me where to look for the second fight, I should have seen it long before… Neji-nii-san would have seen all of those things. And my little sister too… The m-mission failure is my fault…"
"Hinata-chan, that's nonsense. One of Kakashi-sensei's ninken got a trace of Sasuke-kun, but we didn't figure out that it was coming from one of his companions. I probably walked right past them without knowing it. Does that make the failure my fault?" Internally, Sakura had been thinking exactly that, but in the face of Hinata-chan's self-recrimination she develops the sudden ability to absolve herself.
Hinata shakes her head but doesn't say anything. They sit in silence for a while until the kettle whistles.
Sakura comes back with the tea and a dish of umeboshi and sets the tray down. "I know you work hard, Hinata-chan. You've come so far since the first chuunin exams. We both have. I actually think… the way that you press on and don't give up, even though you hate being a kunoichi and wish you could quit, I think that's admirable, really. Even Lee-san has been tempted to give up sometimes, and nobody enjoys what they do more than he does!"
"It's because of these eyes…" Hinata-chan takes a sip of tea and sighs. "You know, before I became a genin, I used to… daydream, sometimes, that I would go into heat and bond with somebody… somebody wonderful, who would take care of everything and nobody would expect anything of me anymore." Her mouth flattens into a thin line. "But that was childish and cowardly. I have this gift that my uncle died for. To serve the Leaf with it is the least I can do. I just wish… I wish I had inherited more than just these eyes… because in every other way, I don't feel like a Hyuuga at all…" The milky eyes glance at the clock. "I should go home… but I hate the idea of m-my father asking about the m-mission at dinner. He'll p-probably start talking about how it's for the best if the Uchiha made an end of each other… and asking Neji-nii-san how he would fight a Sharingan user…"
Sakura never liked the Hyuuga clan head, but now she hates him. "Then have dinner here."
"I'd like to, but I can't."
"Can't nothing. I'll take care of it." She crosses to the phone and dials. After a lot of throwing the words Hokage's apprentice around, she finally gets a hold of Hiashi. "Hyuuga-sama? How do you do. This is Haruno Sakura, the Hokage's apprentice."
Hinaa fidgets.
"I'm flattered to hear you know of me, Hyuuga-sama. I was on a mission with Hinata-sama today and I think she'd better stay here with me for observation." Sakura waves off Hinata's look of shock. "Hyuuga-sama, that is entirely unnecessary. Do you think I can't care for a simple case of chakra exhaustion on my own? I am sure that Ko-san can better employ his time elsewhere. Mm. Certainly she will. Good evening."
"I can't believe you lied right to my father," Hinata says, impressed and hushed, as Sakura cradles the phone.
"Easiest way to get away with lying is not to lie. I do think you'd better stay here; I don't mind looking at you at all; sending a lackey here is unnecessary; and as for chakra exhaustion, I could care for it with my eyes closed. I never said you had chakra exhaustion."
They pass a pleasant, quiet evening, with the biggest challenge being to find a top among Sakura's clothing that will work for Hinata to sleep in. Since it's a cold evening anyway, they eventually settle on an oversized sweatshirt.
"Hinata-chan?"
Sakura hears the shift of fabric in the darkness. "Hmm?"
"Sorry, did I wake you?"
"No, it's fine. What is it, Sakura-chan?"
"What's your chakra nature?"
"Eh? It's lightning. Why?"
"Just curious."
Sakura stares at the faint streetlight from the window, thinking about how Naruto had been so excited to tell her that he was wind nature which would complement Sasuke's fire.
Hinata-chan is lightning, which means she would complement Naruto… but if I'm earth and Sasuke-kun is fire, then… She turns over, suddenly angry with herself. I'm not going to let something like that mean that I'm fated not to be able to help Sasuke-kun. And besides! Isn't he lightning too? Then I am compatible with him! Naruto and I are going to save him. We'll save him for sure! He beat Itachi, he can escape Akatsuki too, and then he'll come home… he'll come home and we'll all be together like before…