A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Dark-Subtext, who wrote me what is probably my longest review to date. It is you and readers like you who keep me firmly entrenched in the world of fanfiction rather than chasing that elusive dream of real-world publication.

Hokage By Necessity

-Chapter Ten-

Without Censure

The apartment sat empty and still after the humans had left, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator. A distant thump marked the inapt passage of a shinobi overhead. Somewhere down the hall a cat loudly demanded the attention of its human.

The candle that Kakashi had snuffed came alight with a wumph of consumed air. The orange tongue of flame held steady in the absence of a breeze to stir it, then it twisted suddenly as the wick bled black into the fire. The tip fractured, one distinct tongue becoming nine that clustered upon the wick like the fluff of a dandelion. When the black had bled all the way through the flame, an action accomplished in the space of a heartbeat, the candle unfolded itself into something else entirely.

Wooden geta impacted soundlessly on the floor, a triple loop of wooden beads interspersed with red magatama settled against a chest covered in fine navy cotton. The color of the magatama was reflected in his eyes, the navy contrasted in black hair as fine as corn silk falling to his knees.

Nine black tails shifted restlessly as he stepped further forward into the room.

"One day someone is going to notice you if you persist in lurking here," another voice said. It had an oddly hollow quality, as if was an echo without a source. Across the room, one of the kirin's outlines began to blur as an identical shadow peeled itself from the wall. Sai's flowing, traditional lines shifted into another humanoid form, the ink seeping away until a second kitsune had joined the first. Eight tails billowed like clouds behind this newest apparition, each white as newly opened moonflowers but tipped with black, as if he'd once used them as a brush. The coloring was echoed in the hair that fell the length of his back, settling more slowly from his movement than gravity should have made possible.

"The day a human sees through my illusions is the same day I will allow myself to be made into a stole," the elder kitsune replied carelessly, eyes tracking the path Kakashi had taken through the apartment.

"Is this really appropriate?" the second inquired when the first made no further conversation.

"There is a clause in our summoning contract that allows for us to freely use the contractor as an anchor point into the human world. So long as I am reverse summoning myself and not imposing on her chakra, there is no reason I cannot be here."

"That's not what I meant, though I doubt that Sakura-sama expected that particular clause to see use. After all, that is implicit in any summoning contract, yet how many shinobi expect their companions to pay them social calls?"

"Hatake stunk like those filthy creatures he'd contracted with."

"Yes, but somehow I doubt drooling on all one's possessions can quitebe equated with haunting one's contractor. You might try introducing yourself, if you're so impatient."

"It is only polite. The contractor hasn't summoned any of us above the smallest and least of our brothers. Messenger foxes. Therefore perhaps she has no interest in meeting us."

Pale brows rose. "I am equally certain she also thinks she is being polite, following as she is the established etiquette for summoning. How exactly was she supposed to know that you would sulk if she didn't summon you, Ichirou?"

"I am not sulking."

"Really? Forgive me then. Nine hundred years as your brother and I'd simply never noticed your propensity for lurking in the empty apartments of our contractors. As they say, my bad."

"Jirou, whether I am sulking or lurking or doing something else entirely, why are you here?"

"Watching you. It proves an amusing past time."

"Oh?"

"Yes. You're not usually this focused on new contractors."

"We haven't had a contractor in many years. Human generations have come and gone. Curiosity is a powerful thing."

Jirou made a sound of polite disbelief.

"And Mother keeps asking about her," Ichirou confessed irritably.

"Ah."

"I dislike your condescending tone."

"We've returned to the simple and obvious measure of introducing yourself to Sakura-sama? Or are you worried that she'll take one look at those black tails of yours and make some assumptions about nogitsune? It can't be helped, Mother being who she was and you with that sour expression eternally fixed on your face."

"I doubt the any uneasiness would be assuaged by anything so simple as a veneer of goodwill. Here more than anywhere, I would be thought a spirit of malice, chaos, and disease. I'm sure it hasn't escaped you that the contractor has never used our contract openly."

Jirou stared at Ichirou for a long moment. "...you might, at some point, want to consider coming out of your sulk enough to call her by her name. Especially when you meet her."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ichirou responded with a great deal of dignity.

Jirou chuckled. "Have patience. Sakura-sama will find there is more to the sons of Hoji than foxes barely old enough to hold a human henge. And, in the meantime, we can make certain that dog doesn't meddle here at home."

-[-]-

There was no feasible way to stop the plotting of the Elders, but one could occupy them in fighting each other for a bit of peace and quiet. Sakura had left them very politely-well, in varying degrees of politeness, at any rate-debating on who should be assigned to her protection detail. The Kage might be the strongest shinobi in the village, but no one was invulnerable and, being pragmatic, most of the Kage had seen fit to prepare for the eventuality that some opponent might one day get the better of them.

She'd made what she first thought was a tactical error of not having any candidates in mind due to the detail being generally filled by ANBU operatives, but it had worked in her favor in the short-term. The Fourth had kept a special squad and Naruto had been very casual about it, but most Hokage had six operatives who served in pairs throughout the day. At any point during days evaluated as high-risk, two were on duty, two were in reserve, and two were supposed to be at rest. On the average day the rotation was much less demanding, allowing the members of her detail something that resembled a social life outside their duties.

Sakura had already mentally resigned herself to it being more a representation of major clans and emerging powers than anything else. Highly competent, of course, because incompetent ANBU came home as ashes, but the position was considered a high honor and came with the very real advantage of being on close terms with the Kage. Naruto's detail had been dissolved with his death as protection details were never inherited, so there was currently quite a clamor presenting possible candidates and pressing for her final selection.

But while they debated, she had her own agenda to fulfill. Sakura caught sight of her target just ahead, waiting somewhat awkwardly in front of a foodstand.

"Hinata-chan!" she called when she was close enough to not embarrass the girl by raising her voice in public, which was apparently not acceptable. Sakura didn't believe in ideal childhoods, but she was grateful she hadn't had Hinata's, useful as it might be in dealing with ninja from very traditional clans. Luckily most of them were very willing to make allowances for inadvertently uncouth behavior, as their graciousness reflected well on them and the differences further underscored what they understood to be the superiority of their own way of life.

Or so had pointed out Tsunade-shishou, who'd been drifting further from the Senju traditions with every year of her life. That hadn't stopped her from teaching her young apprentice her first lessons in the rules of engagement for a different kind of battlefield, though they'd never come as naturally to her as for someone who'd known them from the cradle.

Hinata twitched her fingers in a kind of restrained hello, closing the distance between them before she gave a verbal greeting. "Hello, Sakura-sama. Um, have you been well?"

Sakura caught her sarcasm before it could escape her mouth. Playing for the Elders in council always left her a little less careful when she was among friendlier faces. "As well as can be expected. And you?"

"Well. I'm doing well," Hinata repeated, though she didn't look entirely convinced herself. "Why did you want to see me?"

"Mind walking with me somewhere?" Sakura asked.

"Of course not," Hinata replied.

"Good. You're one of those don't eat while walking types, aren't you? Do you mind?" Sakura indicated the dango stand Hinata had been waiting in front of.

"Not at all."

Giving her order to the vendor, Sakura allowed herself a few happy moments with one of her favorite treats before she raised the topic that had taken her from the Tower and kept her from that state she thought of with nostalgic fondness as 'sleep.' "Shizune told me that you approached her about that extra training."

Hianta nodded, biting her lip. "She said she was really sorry, but she couldn't spare the time to train me properly. But that's...it's alright. I knew I only had basic field medic training. That it might take a while to learn enough to be useful."

"Don't discount your interest in traditional medicine," Sakura said, remembering the herbal pastes she'd been making even as a genin. "It's valuable. It just happens to be the wrong currency at the moment. But I've had a little more time to consider your request. I think much more clearly when I'm not about to be elected Hokage. I'm sorry if it felt like I was abrupt."

"I think that was one situation where you had every right to be," Hinata said kindly.

Sakura gave her a wry smile in return. "Regardless, it was unfair to tell you to find your own trainer in a field that isn't exactly the most open. Tell me, have you met Uzumaki Karin?"

"The kunoichi that came back with Sasuke?"

"The barnacle that refused to be dislodged, yes. Exactly how unbearable do you find her personally?"

"Um, I don't mind...?"

When Naruto was resurrected, she was going to forget all her own insecurities about her place in Team Seven and do her utmost to make the oblivious shinobi see sense. Two people so painfully good being together would probably create some karmic imbalance that meant catastrophe elsewhere, but she was becoming quite experienced at managing those. Someone should earn a little happiness from it.

"Excellent," Sakura said, disposing of her trash in a receptacle when she'd reduced her lunchlet to bare sticks. They'd almost reached Konoha General by that point, the hospital where she'd spent so many grueling hours of her life as a genin and chunin. It was the hospital that had taught her one of the hardest lessons of being a shinobi. Not everyone got to die in glory on the battlefield. Some made it home, where they persisted, crippled and in agony, for the rest of what passed for their lives. Or maybe they didn't survive that long, but lasted days and days in excruciating pain that could only be managed by drugs so powerful that it was doubtful any last tearful goodbyes managed to filter through. Or, sometimes, it wasn't their body they broke.

Sakura had never regretted leaving that behind on a day-to-day basis, because a little bit of that misery seemed to seep into her hair, her clothes, the very air she breathed, until she was haunted by it as she slept. That was the cost of being a prodigy medic-nin. Her skills were never wasted on any ninja with a decent prognosis. That was the reason she very rarely turned down Shizune when she requested her to come in and consult. For most of their patients, Sakura and Shizune represented their last real chance for a cure.

The people who made a career of it were among the strongest people she knew. Or the most indifferent.

Uzumaki Karin was an exceedingly strange mixture of both.

"Sakura-sama...?"

"As you should know, this is Konohagakure's largest hospital," Sakura said as she urged the confused kunoichi inside. "It's also the most prestigious research hospital in the entirety of the Elemental Nations. Some say that is because only Konoha is so focused on its medical programs, thanks to Tsunade-shishou's influence. That might be true, but regardless, this is the best funded, staffed, and equipped facility for investigation into curing the ills of mankind. My lab is superior, of course, but our purpose is rather less nice. In these halls, these medics are here purely on an altruistic mission. They want to heal people." And return shinobi to active duty, but most of the medics preferred the vision of themselves doing good rather than the pragmatic reality of most of their cases.

Sakura led the way down a series of corridors, then steered Hinata to a staircase that took them to a basement level. They passed a security checkpoint, then a series of doors that required seal sequences to open. "Karin-san came to us a virtual cornucopia of data about the human body. She assumed control of the research program here two years ago after she finished Konohagakure's formal program for medic-nin. She's been invaluable."

"I thought-it sounded like you didn't like her very much," Hinata said softly.

"It's a conflict of personality. Mutual. But professionally I respect her a great deal. Occupational hazard of top-level medic-nin. You can't afford hesitate in the middle of delicate procedure, so you have to convince yourself that your judgment is infallible. It only becomes a problem when you begin thinking you're infallible. We've all learned a lot of lessons these last weeks." Sakura shoved the last set of doors open, revealing a bustling lab filled with the low murmur of conversation. Most of the people within hardly even glanced up from their tasks. One particular redhead did look up from where she was observing the experiment of two of her staff members and grimaced.

Signaling for Sakura and Hinata to meet her in her office, Karin marched in after them and shut the door. Hinata stared at the solid obstacle as if she could see through it even without the aid of her kekkei genkai. "Are they...?"

"Are they what?" Karin asked impatiently.

"Working with the virus?" Hinata asked softly.

"In that room? Under those conditions? Hardly," Karin snorted, adjusting the set of her glasses. "What you see in there is the staff that takes care of the day-to-day labwork of the hospital and some of the medic-nin who've come down to consult with them on the results. We can't all have the leisure to set our entire staff on a single project."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "You have five times the subordinates I have."

"And yet you seem to have five times the funding. You look awful, by the way. Do you have any idea how many health problems have been conclusively linked to chronic exhaustion?"

"And I think I can still recall this argument verbatim. And yes, I do know. I'm not here to reassess your place in the village's budget. I am here because I want you to teach Hinata everything we know about this virus. You'll have to start with basic virology and go from there. She has a very limited background in the field."

Karin gaped at Sakura and spluttered her response. "Say what?" She darted a glare at Sakura. "Is this a tactic to make sure your lab makes the discovery? Because if it is-"

Sakura spoke over her protest. "You will do this, because neither of our labs are having any luck with the cell lines. You wouldn't be in the outer labs if you had even a hint of a reaction from any of your active experiments. You can spare the time. Teach her. And while you're doing it, reevaluate everything we know about the virus without the lens of having to find an immediate solution. Maybe Hinata will be able to provide fresh insight."

"She doesn't have any training," Karin growled, but Sakura could see that she was considering it.

"Because she doesn't have any training, she'll think to ask questions you or I take for granted. And she has a kekkei genkai that would be most useful if she could observe live virus in a human host, but it might still be useful even outside a host. We still don't understand how this thing depletes not only the immune system but also the chakra system. It's still anomalous that a jinchuriki should even be effected by something like this. Let alone the complete silence from Kurama when Naruto was...put into stasis. "

"True," Karin said slowly. She looked over at Hinata again. "Is she at least intelligent?"

"Yes, she is," Hinata said softly, but with clear emphasis. "I am capable of making a significant contribution to your team."

"Is that so? Well, good. I hope you're prepared for some misery, because fun is one thing a crash course in virology isn't."

"I'll do whatever it takes," Hinata said firmly.

Sakura slipped from the room, intent on leaving her at Karin's mercy, but Hinata caught at her sleeve just when she would have shut the door. The other girl flushed, releasing the fabric. "Thank you," she said. "You didn't have to go this far."

Sakura gave her a sad, tired smile. "There is one thing true about Team Seven. We'll go as far as it takes." She paused only briefly, realizing she'd already made a decision. "Tell your father that I would be honored to accept one of your clan into my protection detail. I'll trust your judgment, Hinata. Pick me out a pretty one." And then she swept from the lab, leaving a shocked Hyuuga in her wake.

-[-]-

Sakura felt vaguely guilty for slipping out of Konoha, but it was in the interest of international relations rather than personal pleasure, so finding herself in a well-recommended inn in Kawa no Kuni shouldn't have pricked her conscience at all.

But she couldn't remember the last time she'd actually taken the time to have a proper bath either, rather than the cold shower that traditionally started her day. This particular inn had its bathing area laid out in a series of rooms, beginning with a changing area, a second room where one actually scrubbed clean, then a last chamber where one was free to soak in the hot water with a rather nice view of a garden whose high walls prevented passerby from looking in. Sakura was thorough as she washed herself, but she certainly didn't linger in the second room. When she slipped into the warm water it was with a sigh of guilty pleasure, sinking shoulder deep and feeling her muscles relax despite her trepidation at the coming meeting.

But her muscles clenched again as the someone she hadn't been expecting stepped into the room. Sakura might not have had Karin's talent, but her sense for chakra was advanced. She hadn't sensed the man at all until he allowed her to.

"Gaara-sama," Sakura said without turning. "It's a pleasure, but I was expecting your brother."

"Kankuro sends his apologies. But I would think an audience with a Kage preferable to one with his sibling. Especially when the content of your message makes it seem like information I should be hearing. I have very little patience for playing political games, Sakura-san."

After she'd referred to him with the honorific due him, that was something of a slight, but she could live with that. It might also mean that he wanted to bring the conversation down onto friendlier terms, but his tone was so opaque she couldn't make out which it was.

Sakura forced her body to relax again as Gaara padded softly across the room, entering the bath at the opposite end of the room. His towel was left in a crumpled heap at the side. It was a fairly small bath, as such things went, one that had been reserved for the duration so that they might have limited interruptions.

Sakura found his body language to be as closed and unreadable as his tone, though there was far more of his milky skin on display than she'd ever seen. Gaara was that most fearsome and impossible of beasts, a shinobi almost wholly without scars. Even she had scars, though none from jounin onwards. As she'd said to Shikamaru, she experienced regeneration almost as an automatic function, much as she breathed. Gaara's unbroken skin was a testament to the strength of his defense, which had been breached only on supremely memorable occasions.

Sakura found that she was curious as to whether her strength would be a match for it. She could literally bring down mountains and she could kill with a touch. It would be an interesting match, that was certain, but she'd been sober for long enough that the need for a drink was an insistent refrain in the back of her head. She didn't have any excuses for a lapse in judgment that large. She promised herself extra time to train upon her return and decided to open the discussion, as Gaara apparently had no such intentions.

"I have no doubt as to the efficacy of your information network, so I'm going to assume you're aware of some basic facts. Konoha was recently stricken by a still unidentified virus. Our Hokage caught the virus. I succeeded him as the Shichidaime."

"Those things I was aware of, yes," Gaara agreed.

"And I'm also certain that you've heard the virus was a weapon I utilized in a coup. The reasons for said coup being many and various."

"Yes."

"And what did you think?"

Gaara was watching her closely, which was slightly unnerving as he seemed to blink less than normal people ought. "Tell me what I should have thought," he said at last, leaning back and spreading his arms so that they rested comfortably on the edge of the bath.

Sakura tentatively took that as a sign of receptivity. "You should have thought the rumors were, if not unfounded, at least untrue."

"So the rumors did have some foundation?"

Sakura shrugged, but she wasn't quite at ease enough to mimic his body language. "It was no secret that I disapproved of Naruto's handling of some important matters."

"The Uchiha."

"The Uchiha," Sakura agreed dryly. "Among other things. Our friendship was strained. But that isn't a reason I've found compelling enough to kill people for before. And it wasn't in this case either."

"But you never caught the virus, despite your exposure."

Sakura's smile turned slightly bitter. "I find myself disinclined to apologize for being very good at my chosen field. If an expert marksmen hits an unlikely target, no one so much as murmurs. There's a virus and the best medic-nin in the village doesn't catch it and suddenly it is evidence that the virus was of her engineering."

"Could you have created the virus?"

"Created is a strong term. A virus? Certainly I could have cultivated one and weaponized it. If I was an idiot. Some things humans were never meant to meddle with. I happen to think that viruses are one of them. My hypothesis is that there was someone out there who found the risk/reward paradigm more favorable than I did, but I can't rule out natural occurrence just yet."

"So you think it was an attack?"

"I'm almost certain of it, what with the outbreak in Iwa."

Gaara made a thoughtful noise deep in his throat. "Good. Then we're agreed that you didn't do it. Are you here to ask my cooperation to find who did?"

Sakura blinked at the unexpected shift, which he hadn't telegraphed at all. "No. I don't have enough data to make any kind of search for a culprit feasible. Until we have an established path of infection, I won't be able to limit the area we'd need to cover."

"So the Doku-Ou is the key."

"Poison King?" Sakura asked blankly.

"It is what Kankuro called the Uchiha. If you're not here for my cooperation, why call this meeting?"

"Because it's unwise to allow allies to think you've killed their friends," Sakura said dryly. "Makes relations a little difficult. I was here to reassure Suna that I had no part in the virus's spread and to make certain that the chunin exams would proceed as planned."

Gaara inclined his head. "The necessary changes have already been made. My siblings and I will still be hosting you as planned, but your gift was significantly easier to choose than one both dignified enough for exchange between Kage and one that would please Naruto. A survey compiled by Chiyo-sama on all the known herbs native to Suna that have medicinal properties."

Sakura's eyes widened. "That's-that's rather excessive, don't you think? Doubtless generations of work went into it. Why share it with another village?"

"Because I have no intention of going to war with Konoha within my lifetime. And you kept Chiyo-sama alive long enough to give my life back to me. Indirectly, I owe you my life and many of my shinobi owe you theirs far more directly. And if there is anyone fit to inherit the teachings of Chiyo-sama, it would be you. You impressed her, when so very little in life did. But more than these things, I have grown...accustomed to friendship with the Hokage. I am hoping to continue that."

Sakura tried not to gape. She wasn't sure she accomplished it. First Sai, then Gaara. Why was it that these men were the ones who managed to vocalize so easily what she felt so awkward speaking of openly with the rest of Team Seven? "Yes," she blurted, then she immediately tried to not seem so eager, thought the damage was already done judging by Gaara's smirk. "I mean, of course."

She ducked her head, staring down at the water. "Thank you, Gaara," she said softly.

"You're welcome, Sakura."

-[-]-

A/N: ...I'm going to stop lying about the OCs. They will appear when and as necessary. But no one seemed to mind the tigers of Five Kingdoms, so perhaps you'll also come to like the foxes of HBN, the only animal summons to participate in recreational 'haunting'. For all that bishounen fox boys are cliche in shoujo manga at this point, in folklore they're beautiful women or take other human forms as one of their basic powers, so my desire to write pretty fox boys was probably only about thirty percent of the reason you find them in their current incarnation. Space concerns-having conversation with creatures taller than every building in your village does not make for subtle-and plot provided the other seventy.

I always wondered what the incentive was for the summon creatures of Naruto to participate in the contracts. For all that Manda was unpleasant, I sort of saw his point. Being potentially summoned at any point in your day to fight in a battle you have no stake in really deserves some recompense.

...I finally read the last two chapters. I'll let you know how I feel about it when I figure it out, though I'm pretty sure that fanfic was previously the realm of wish fulfillment. But in the meantime, I'm returning to not-busy-dusting-the-house Sakura. And away from Gaara's character design. And there will be no computers in this fic. Because if there are computers, using courier ninja and messenger hawks is stupid, and if there are computers, there the weapons systems that computers were originally developed to use and that would kill the wonder of it all.