Author's Note:
Once again, this one's for my reviewers!
Chapter 10
Day 400: The Lanterns
They were minutes from Fire Country's border when they heard it: a loud, booming clap that filled the forest and shook the birds from their boughs.
The heads of five shinobi whipped towards the source, breakfast clattering to the floor as they sprang to their feet.
"What the fuck was that!" Hitoshi yelled. His exclamation cut off briskly by Kakashi's serious rebuttal, a call for silence as he turned his nose into the air.
"2 klicks, northeast," Ino contributed, latching onto the chakra signature. "there's another one, but he's leaving fast."
"Formation 3; Squad A, pursue, Squad B, with me. Move out."
Their shadows disappeared upon Hirosaki's order, black blurs zooming through the forest. Kakashi, mask pulled to his lips and nostrils flared to catch the breeze, found the trail of their fugitive-it was a smell he was familiar with, a mix of sweat, salt, and iron, offset by the subtle tone of chemicals distinct to each individual. Their fugitive had the taste of fireworks clinging to him-hints of charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate clung to the air. Thighs burning from a particularly powerful sprint, he set a path east, the nearly identical chakras of Hitoshi and Hikaru following behind.
Sakura felt the last trace of Kakashi's presence disappear. Sending a quick prayer for him, she crouched over a thick branch, hearing the wood creak beneath her weight. Through nettles of green pine, she made out the body of a crumpled man, and the blood beneath him. His signal was wavering, flickering with the weakness of a candle. Instinct warned that, even with her help, he would die. Her breath latched when the last wisp of his aura blinked into nothingness.
She pressed the communicator at her throat, "permission to proceed."
The crackle of static distorted Hirosaki's voice, but her go-ahead was clear enough: "Granted."
Sakura leapt towards the ground, the hard earth meeting her bones with jarring strength. The chakras of her comrades ignited beside her, circling around her in an alert huddle.
Stretching a tentative arm, she pressed her fingers into his neck, just were his blood should be pumping fiercely. Her senses felt through the man's skin before the pads of her fingers could find a reading: the empty silence of stillness greeted her. His heart lay dormant within his chest. However, that wasn't what condemned him; she could make hearts beat again, but not when they were torn to pieces-not quick enough.
Three muffled footfalls signaled the return of Squad A.
"We lost him." Hikaru stated flatly. There were traces of anger lurking beneath his apathy. Had she not been focusing on her own anger-which spurred from a different sort of loss-she might have offered him a weak smile as consolation. As it was, her lips were thinned into a grim, hard line.
Vigilant Kakashi noticed it first. His coal eye stared at the back of her head. "What is it?".
Two black ribbons fell down either side of her forearm, the metal plate from which they originated clutched loosely in her palm. She held up the dead man's hitai-ate, angling it so the etched leaf emblem faced her team. "He's one of ours." Turning it over, she read from the identification, Speacial Jounin Sasaki Izanagi, ID SJ31-26-54.
"What's the C.O.D?"
She turned towards Hirosaki, her eyes focused on the dead man's headband, on Izanagi's headband. Who did you leave behind to mourn for you? It was a thought she often had in the company of corpses. The dead moved on, as much as the living. Hands busy folding the strips of black cloth gently, she placed it within the pockets of her vest. Her words were clinical-a tone she used often as a medic. "Something pierced his heart, tore through the tissue. There's an exit wound," she hesitated for a moment, struggling to turn the body, "on his back," she finished, touching where the cloth of his jacket was torn into a minuscule, bloody circle. "That means whatever went through his chest had the power to go clean through."
Kakashi, following the smell of fireworks, dug through the ripped bark of a nearby tree, plucking from it's weathered trunk a crushed metal capsule. He held it between thumb and index finger, turning it over as the glint of sunlight caught on its surface. With an expression smoothed by seriousness, he brought it closer to his nose. The scent spurred memories of Hanabi Festivals, of tilting his face to colored evening skies as black powder clung to his nostrils. His gloved hands dropped the shard into an evidence bag, hoping, as he placed it into his pocket, that ANBU could find it's maker, and maybe figure out what the hell it was.
"Lily," Hirosaki spoke, using Ino's codename "tell us what he saw last."
Ino did not hesitate, although she wanted to. Moving to kneel beside Sakura, her hands moved in a rapid succession of signs, then sank into the hair at the man's temple, brushing against blood, sweat, and still-warm skin. She thought of silver cords, imagined weaving them into strong, unbreakable lines; threads to tie her soul to her body. The sounds around her began to fade, her breathing hitched when she felt death claw at her consciousness. It was never a pleasant experience sifting through a dying mind. It was like swimming through a flooded mine shaft that only got narrower and darker the further she went, until she felt that an exit could never be found, that she would loose herself within the hollow as air bubbled from her lungs. Sakura watched a shiver rake through Ino, her head fell into her chest and her spine went slack, hands dropping from their place. She put an arm around her, propping her against her shoulder, "hold on."
Ino felt something warm at her side. From a distance, from her own body someplace too far away for her to measure, she heard the fading ring of a voice. She kicked away from the blackness, moving through it lazily. There were patches too empty-too dead-for her to work on and she could feel the last piece of this man withering away. A rasp left the mouth of her body when the echo of his voice reached her, asking for his family, for his wife and child.
Shh, Ino soothed, remembering long afternoons spent with her father.
The sun tickled the tatami mat, playing over the ridges in a warm glow. Wrinkles scrunched the skin around her nose as she thought. "What do you do then; if they talk to you?"
"You calm them down; reassure them." Her father said reluctantly. He had never wanted to teach her this technique. "Tell them to fall asleep and they will."
"But that's-that's terrible!" Her eyes grew wide, horror-filled. "They'll never wake up! We're the last person they'll talk to and what we're telling them is a lie!"
"Ino," her father interrupted with a shake of his head. She was too young for this. How had he managed it at her age? "Would you rather tell them they're dying? You can't save them, giving them some measure of comfort is the best you can offer before they pass on."
The next day she'd used her mind jutsu on a corpse. She didn't hear anything on her first try, much to her father's relief. It was at the second training session, surrounded by the sterile smell of Konoha's largest hospital, that she talked to a dead man. He had been a student majoring in cardiology, who, in his young passion for science, had signed release forms on his body years before he fell to a heart attack (yeah, life got a kick out of irony). Going through his mind had been as intimate an experience as it'd been a disturbing one-like sex for the first time. Both had made her cry. She had seen all his hopes and dreams; everything that was special to him, that made him. She sifted though slideshows of his life, of his childhood, of hot summer days spent with his brothers, of his mother's smile, his father's pride when he was accepted into medical school, of all the people he loved, of the first time he met his fiancé. His last thoughts were for her, for Jenna. She'd never forget her name; she was there when Ino stumbled through the door. Their eyes locked; hers red with grief, Ino's red with pain, guilt, and things she couldn't understand at fifteen.
In a voice tempered by training, she whispered to Izanagi what she had said to the med student: You're okay. Just close your eyes and fall asleep; just like her father had taught her. The shudder of his breath quieted and she was able to find his last memory. There was no sound for it, that part of his mind was too far gone, but this would have to do.
She watched a man through foggy glass, his features blurry, lips difficult to read as he spoke, pulling something from the jounin vest he wore. Her eyes-Izanagi's eyes-strayed to the hitai-ate on his leg, the symbol distorted but almost legible. Rain, she felt Izanagi identify.
Her-Izanagi's-hand shot out, coming into her field of vision. There was fear, the rush of blood and adrenaline. Despair trailed closely behind.
The other man laughed, chest moving up and down, mouth wide open in a twisted smile: the action jolted her-jolted Izanagi. In his right hand, the man held a weapon she'd never seen before, all black metal worked into an angle. Confusion flittered to her: Izanagi didn't know it either. She couldn't understand how the Rain shinobi made it work, but suddenly there was pain ripping through her chest. The ground rose up to meet her head; light faded from the world. She felt herself slipping away from the memory and back into the mine shaft. But she was going the wrong way, drifting further from the anchor that was her body. There was fire in her heart and the recollection of names that weren't known to her, of the faces of a family that wasn't hers. For a moment, she didn't remember who Ino was. The name tasted foreign to her, unlike the picture of a smiling girl with bows in her brown hair; that was familiar, familiar like the woman who swung her into her arms, like the old ballad that was playing around her, soundless yet still heard.
"Since the day I met you,"
Ino
Ino
She turned her head.
"From the moment I saw you,"
Ino
The song was reaching it's peak, the voice of a man drowning her with images of a wedding, of a bride smiling and calling her for a dance, her lips moving with the lyrics of the song.
"There was no one but you;"
INO!
"Not a one to compare."
INO!
New pain clawed at the melody of the song and the vision of an autumn wedding. She was launched backwards, yanked by silver threads from the narrowing tunnel.
"And I love you."
The little girl. Her family.
"Forever and forever."
Wait!
She struggled against the threads, against their pull. She couldn't leave them! This was her family!
"And I love you."
The little girl! Her little girl!
Rika!
"Forever and forever."
"INO!"
Sound, real sound, shrieked against her eardrums.
"INO!"
Her eyes peeled open, shapes spinning into focus. Sakura's face was looming over her, forest and sky beyond. She leaned back with a sigh, patting Ino's head.
"Gave us one hell of a scare, you idiot."
A hand helped her sit up. Another pushed a canteen to her lips gently. She felt genuine pain in her chest, her own pain.
"I nearly had to restart your heart."
Her head moved towards Sakura's voice, "what?"
"you practically died, you moron. What the hell were you thinking staying linked to a dead man for so long!"
"I," her mouth hung open, "I got lost," she whispered.
"I've called your name so many times there's no point in using your alias anymore."
Ino had neither the energy nor the heart to be angry at Sakura for nagging. She could hear the fear in her voice.
She grasped her friend's shoulder with a smile, "thanks."
"Don't be so grateful," Sakura sighed, "I only saved you cuz Shika would have killed me."
Ino scoffed, "yeah, yeah,"
Hirosaki squatted next to her, forearms resting over her thighs. "What did you see?" She asked without delay, bringing the mission back to the forefront with an efficiency that some might call callous.
Ino's face changed again, "It was some strange weapon. The other shinobi, maybe from Rain, didn't even move, but just like that," she almost said I, before quickly backpedaling, "he was dead."
Hirosaki's expression remained neutral, even through Sakura's statement.
"He was a special jounin. It shouldn't have been that easy to kill him."
Ino's answer carried a hint of bitterness, memories of a wife, a child, a life, lacing her tone with venom. "Well, whatever did him in, seemed to have no problem."
Hyuga Neji was wrapped up in shadows when he arrived.
"Its about time."
The Rain kunoichi dropped from the canopy, her hair whispering to a quiet fall around pale shoulders. "You've kept me waiting for nearly two hours."
Neji observed her arrogantly, the gleam of his white eyes shining like pearls through the darkness of night. He cared very little for this woman or her problems. She was a means to an end; he let her know it. "You'll wait as long as it takes." Ignoring the hardening of her gaze, he continued, "Your payment is on its way to Rain. The final installment will be withheld until we see results."
"He will not be pleased with that," she finished with a curl of her lips, perversely placated by the thought of Kobayashi's retribution.
Lines carved themselves between his eyebrows. "My uncle does not take threats lightly, much less failure. It is his displeasure you should concern yourself with. Tell this to Kobayashi: no results, no payment."
Her next words forced his lips into a tight-lined frown, "The Hyuga have much less power than you think and much more to loose if we take action against you." Before the echo of her voice had died to a whimper of wind, she disappeared, but the triumph of her smile stayed with Neji long after he slipped through Konoha's gates. His uncle was playing with fire and sooner rather than later, Neji thought, they would all get burned.
From its place against the sky, a bird-feathers the texture and color of ink-watched as Hyuga Neji crossed the threshold into his clan's compound.
Friend. The word had a foreign taste. He wasn't a man used to friends. Allies, yes; acquaintances, a few; enemies, undoubtedly; but friends, no. There was only one person he'd ever pegged that word to-and currently his bones were rotting under sacred soil. It was stupid of him to have thought, even briefly, that two air-headed ANBU could count as friends.
Trust no one but yourself.
It was a rule he'd learned in Sound; a useful lesson that had kept him alive more times than he could count.
"Fancy meeting you here."
Sasuke didn't turn his head: he knew the voice. He'd read her chakra signature the minute she stepped onto the training grounds.
With fluid movements, Sakura seated herself beside him; a good distance away, yet not too far, he noted with a sidelong glance. Her left leg was stretched out away from her, the other bent at the knee as a table for her elbow.
Neither of them spoke for several minutes. They watched instead, the way the wind wove through the trees and brushed the grass, stirring up dirt from bald patches. Sakura wasn't too uncomfortable with the silence, it was Sasuke after all, and if she had ever understood him as a child, she would have known that soundless moments were best by him. It was ironic that she came to know him-however tentatively-when she had no interest in him. It was also ironic, and very much in character with him, that he would choose such an opportune moment to turn her newfound knowledge on its head.
"Would you say we're friends?"
Sakura's head snapped to the side, eyebrows high on her forehead as she stared at him. If it hadn't been for the dull monotony of his tone, she would have thought him a clone. "Excuse me?"
"Friendship." He repeated nonchalantly, "Yoshida was talking about it." Sasuke would not admit to asking the question directly, but he wanted to hear her answer nonetheless, and attributing it to Yoshida was the only way he could think of disassociating himself.
She moved her gaze away from his face, stunned by his question. "Would the answer matter to you?"
His shoulders moved casually, "I don't know what matters to me." Nothing beyond the murder of his family, the death of his brother, or the instinct to draw breath held his attention for long.
"Then no." She said flatly. "No, I don't think we're friends. I don't think we were ever friends."
Had she asked him the same thing, it was the answer he would have given. "You've changed."
Sakura flicked her eyes to him in irritation. "Yeah, you mentioned that. It happens, part of the whole 'growing up thing.' Why? Did I hurt your feelings?" She half mocked.
Sasuke ignored her barb, throwing her off balance with another question.
"Tell me, what makes a friend."
His flat tone held more command than inquiry, and his words were strung together with the efficiency of men used to having their way. How appropriate. Passing a quick hand through her bangs, to keep them away from her eyes, Sakura leaned back. "Are you trying for a philosophy degree?"
When Sasuke didn't answer, she gave thought to what he had said. "What made Naruto your friend?"
He gazed back at her lazily, before returning his sight to the sky, as if he could read from the blue of late spring his answer. "I don't know."
"You don't know," Sakura repeated. She nodded, squaring her shoulders, "well then, you're a worse human being than I originally thought." When her muscles tensed, ready to lift her from her seat, Sasuke's voice held her.
"He was always there."
She paused, halfway off the ground, before looking over at him and settling back down. "That's a start."
"He tried to help me where he could."
She waited for him, her silence demanding more.
"He was loyal to me."
Sakura wrinkled her nose, "are you describing Naruto or a dog?"
That brought a whisper of a smirk to his face, "both."
She laughed, a short ring of air through her throat. The sound made him turn towards her. He couldn't remember what her laugh sounded like when they were children, only that it had set his nerves into a tangle of angry energy. This sound, though, wasn't nearly as annoying.
"A friend," she finally conceded, tilting her face to her lap, where her hand was picking at the hem of her tan skirt, the skin of her thighs tempting his stare almost as strongly as her words, "is someone who likes spending time with you. They like talking to you, they defend you when someone speaks ill of you, they consider your happiness, they protect you, they understand you, they stand by you. A friend, is someone who cares for you."
Such a precise list; a simple, short, prettily organized package of requirements. "That makes a friend?"
"Among many other things."
Of course, he thought, there's always more.
With the deliberate flick of her wrist, she brought her hand out in front of her, "you see that spot over there?"
He followed the line of her finger.
"That's where we shared our lunch with Naruto that first day we trained with Kakashi, even though he said we'd get in trouble."
She waited for the memories to crush her, for the aching black hole in her heart to rip to life. But it stayed dormant, even as the image of a hungry twelve-year old flipped to the forefront of her mind. She smiled, a small flick of the corners of her mouth, savoring the memory, happy that it didn't hold the bitter undertone of pain.
"That was the start of us, I like to think. The start of our friendship, although it took a really long time for it to happen, and" she added, meeting his eyes briefly, "it didn't take with you and me."
A flicker of humor entered his gaze, though he still wasn't looking at her. "Maybe because you always tried to steal a look at my ass."
At his side, he caught her lips parting into a half "o", her expression surprised.
Sakura opened her mouth wider, then closed it again, then finally settled on opening it, "you just made a joke. What next, tap-dancing?"
A part of him had hoped to make her laugh, test if the sound of it made him think of bamboo chimes or shuriken grating stone-as it once had. But she didn't, and he turned his thoughts elsewhere.
"Hey, Sasuke?"
He caught her question with an off-hand hum.
Dusting the seat of her skirt as she stood, Sakura moved further into the field, stopping ten feet away from him. She tossed the words over her shoulder, "If one day, you show me that you've earned the faith Naruto had in you, then I think we could be friends."
It was a faint offering reaching out with hesitant hands.
One day. One day; maybe by then he'd believe friendship was possible again. But now, he wasn't sure what he believed in, so he kept his tone neutral, "hn."
It wasn't a "yes," but it wasn't a "no" either. He'd make up his mind one day. For now, though, he'd stick to what he knew: he caught Kakashi's kunai before it could lodge itself in his throat. Effortlessly rising to his feet, he waited, looking towards the silver hair of his ex-sensei.
It was Sakura who set the terms. Pulling on a pair of black gloves that had seen better days, she twisted to him and Kakashi with a sadistic smile. "How about some sparring? Looser buys lunch."
He didn't have trouble with this answer.
The sound of hollow metal echoed softly through the room. She watched the capsules fall like coins, clinging off one another, jumping to a chaotic stop over her desk or rolling to the floor with a faint clang.
Tsunade looked at Shikamaru's outstretched hand, where an empty box was overturned.
"What are they?" She asked, taking one of the polished capsules between thumb and forefinger.
"Bullets."
Her eyes found his, question written in the amber of her irises, "come again?"
Shikamaru placed the box on the desk lightly, slouching his back, "they're called bullets. One of them was what killed the jounin found by Hirosaki's team."
Tsunade was irked that in several decades of existence, travel, and experience, she'd never heard of them, "what do they do?"
He thought an analogy could explain it best, "they're like arrows. Except faster."
Arrows, Tsunade mused, couldn't launch themselves. "Then where's the bow?"
Tsunade turned her head at the heavy thud to her right. Shikamaru's hand was wrapped around a black UW. "Right here."
Impatience registered on the Hokage's face: she set her irritated stare on him "get to the point, Nara."
"This," he phrased, moving his hand, "is a gun. Also harmless in itself. But," and here he picked up a capsule, putting it into-Tsunade was at a loss for words-something, a reel in the gun, "when you combine the two," Shikamaru aimed the weapon towards the roof, "you get an explosive combination."
The noise that followed was a blast of sound waves so powerful they physically hurt. Tsunade slapped her hands over her ears, but the damage was already done, she could hear nothing but the monstrous clap of thunder for a full second, followed, for most of the meeting, by a dull ring.
Shikamaru shook from his stance, lowering the gun as powder fell from the ceiling onto his head. ANBU poured into the room, materializing from the very air, sliding through windows, slipping through the double doors. A wall of human flesh surrounded Tsunade, and it was only her dismissive wave that stopped Shikamaru-already pushed against the floor-from getting a nasty blow to the base of his neck. The watchdogs left when her safety was confirmed, after roughhousing the tactics specialist for his stunt. Then the roar of her voice dominated her office.
"What the hell where you thinking!" She screamed at him, rising to her full height.
He looked back with bored eyes that held just a hint of oops. He rubbed his bruised wrists, "I was giving you a demonstration, Hokage-sama."
"Don't Hokage-sama me!" she accused with a wild pitch to her voice, finally dropping back into her seat. Stupid kids are going to be the death of me. Her heated glare turned to the tiny hole in her ceiling, where plaster was crumbling to the ground. That, she decided, would come from his paycheck.
"How do they work?"
He laid the gun over the surface of her desk, followed warily by Tsunade's gaze, "we're figuring out the mechanics, what we do know, is that they use black powder and they don't need a drop of chakra."
Black powder? "They're mimicking fireworks?"
Shikamaru nodded, "they may have been created by Rock, a run-off, so to speak, of their firework industry."
Arms crossed, Tsunade stared at him. "Is any skill needed to use them?"
"Not much. Good marksmanship is ideal, but its not hard to learn and not completely necessary."
"And," Tsunade considered her question carefully, thinking back to the demonstration. She hadn't seen Shikamaru move, she hadn't seen the capsule-bullet, she corrected-exit the weapon, "how fast are they?"
Now his face darkened. Eyes unwavering, voice with the slightest hint of interest, "faster than anyone we've got."
Her next question was anticipated and the answer fell from his lips almost before she had asked. "Faster than the sharingan?"
"Yes."
Their breaths were the only thing to stir the air of her office. Heartbeat more agitated than she wanted, Tsunade fixed her attention on the papers scattered over her desk, ignoring the glint of bullets mixed between them, "clean up this mess and bring me a full report of your investigation. I want this made into first priority."
Shikamaru had barely closed the door behind him, when her next summons came lumbering through the window.
"Where'd you get the bruises from?" She wondered if he would ever stop by her office without looking black and blue.
Kakashi dropped into the upholstered chair, grunting when his tailbone took too much pressure. "Sasuke and Sakura. We had a match."
Tsunade glanced up with a smug grin, "and so the teacher becomes the student. They too much for you to handle?" She leaned back into her seat, "you're getting old, Kakashi."
Look who's talking.
Reading his face, her eyes narrowed in warning, "careful, Kakashi."
His hands flew up, "I didn't say anything, Hokage-sama." His mask twitched with a smile as she harrumphed with the agitation of a bristled hen.
Seriousness returned to her face easily as her gaze wandered to the hole in her ceiling. A quick flick of his eye found the direction of her fixed stare.
"Doing some remodeling?"
"Hatake, what did you find?"
Kakashi stood grudgingly from his seat, pulling a slip from his pocket, he spread it out before her.
The crest of the Hyuga clan stood starkly against the white sheet.
"Their seal was all over the money used to pay for the UWs."
"Guns," she responded automatically, continuing when his eyebrow rose in question, "they're not unidentified weapons anymore. They're called guns and the things they shoot are bullets. Like bows and arrows," she repeated dryly.
"By the cheerfulness of your tone, I'm guessing they're a lot harder to dodge than bows and arrows."
Her answer was a reluctant nod of her head, blond hair swishing.
"Even for Uchiha specialties?"
Hard amber met his gaze, "yes."
There was a crinkling around his eyes that signaled a smile, "Ah, it's always uplifting when I find something else that can kill me."
"Hatake," Tsunade addressed him quietly-always a bad sign for a woman that was festival drums and firecrackers, "how sure are you of this information?"
Despite the seal that hummed around them, he turned away from the window, not trusting the ease with which he spied a woman moving through her apartment. If he could see out, anyone could see in. "Their clan," he avoided the name, "has over six million ryo-all with their seal stamped straight into the gold-linked to the purchase of the UWs and the payment of the mercenaries who killed the Daimyo's son. It's a strong connection, and my sources are first-hand Hokage-sama. Sai is also confirming what I've found."
Her face turned to him, brow wrinkling quizzically, "Sai?"
"He's taken an interest in the case, for personal reasons."
An unspoken message passed between them.
"I want you at the head of the investigation, take on who you see fit, but keep them in the dark. Tell me what's being planned, what or who's being bought, and who's getting the guns. I want every scrap of information on this. Oh, and Kakashi,"
His form was curled over the window, hands holding onto the frame, legs coiled, ready to spring from the ledge, "Yes, Hokage-sama?"
"Keep Sakura off this case."
"Hai."
Tsunade threw herself into her seat with an angry hiss, hand coming up to rub her temples. She was familiar with that "hai." It meant that her order had gone in one ear and straight out the other. That damn bastard was going to ignore her again.
The keys in her hand were swinging side-to-side, clattering in the quiet of the afternoon. The crash of a broken window, followed promptly by the wail of an alarm, joined the noise. By now, she was used to it. With a sigh and a shake of her head, Sakura moved closer to her house. That's when she felt it: the humming chakra signatures of two civilians. Looking towards her doorstep gave her feet a reason to root themselves in the sidewalk. There, standing warily and looking ready to leave, was Akira's wife, baby hanging from the swing across her shoulder.
They regarded each other silently, the width of pavement and concrete closed by their stares. When the smallest of smiles touched Yukari's face, Sakura moved forward, climbing the steps to her home slowly.
"I was just about to leave," Yukari whispered, her voice as soft as it had always been.
Sakura cleared her throat, twisting the lock and pushing open the door. "My neighborhood tends to scare people off. Would you come in?"
That seemed to be what she was waiting for. Relief loosened her shoulders. "Yes, thank you."
"Have a seat wherever you like," Sakura said, toeing off her shoes. "I'll make some tea."
Moving into the living room, Yukari eased into a recliner, sitting rigidly at the very edge as if afraid of disturbing the upholstery. Her eyes touched the pictures on the wall, the remnants of Naruto's things. Sakura pretended not to see the way she lingered over them. This was why she never brought people home. This was her sanctuary, or her tomb, her and Naruto's.
"You have a lovely home," Yukari called to her.
Sakura nodded her thanks with a forced smile, setting down a tray with two cups, a teapot, and some teacakes.
The clattering of metal against ceramic filled the awkward silence between them.
Bringing her cup away from her lips, Yukari spoke first. What she said had Sakura snapping her gaze to her. "Would you like to hold him?" Her left arm, where Hiroaki was nestled, moved slightly.
"I-" Sakura stuttered, "I don't know how."
Yukari plucked the baby from his cradle gently and moved to her. Sakura tensed, reluctantly putting out her arms.
"No," Yukari chided softly. "Like this." With one hand, she fixed Sakura's arms, easing Hiroaki into them with ease. "Hold his head," she motioned, her headscarf falling over the baby, who reached for the colors of it with a gurgling noise. "There, just like that." She smiled, taking a step back.
Sakura, lips slightly open, held him with two parts fear and one part wonder. The weight of the baby was warm, easy to handle, but so delicate to her mind that she couldn't fathom holding him for long. Uncomfortable with the responsibility cradled in her arms, she moved to return him, but stopped when his eyes snapped to her. They stole the breath right from her lungs. Exactly like Akira…yet not. There was all the gentleness without any hardness-pure to the core. The soft gaze was open, slightly unfocused, and half-lidded with sleepy curiosity at this new face he was watching. A lock of pink hair turned his stare away from her, interest coloring his expression, Hiroaki tried to snatch at it, missing twice before his tiny fist curled over it.
Naruto would have loved him.
"He's wonderful, isn't he?"
Sakura looked at Yukari, smiling "yes, he is. He looks just like his father."
Yukari took him back into his sling. "I know. He'll be eight months old soon."
Pouring her more tea, Sakura nodded, "he's gotten so much bigger."
A soft laugh rang from her, "you have no idea."
Sakura saw the weary lines of sleeplessness etched into her cheeks. She saw the ways Yukari had aged-though it had been less than a year since Akira's passing. She saw the dimmed glow of her gaze. She saw a wife, now widowed, she saw a child, now fatherless, she saw a mother, now alone. She wished it had been her. She wished, as she had so many times before, that it had been Akira who made it back. Hisao, Ichirou, and her had all agreed, he had the most to loose. He had people waiting for his return, relying on it, relying on him. He had people who needed him. What did she have? A gravesite to visit regularly and a bunch of ghosts to keep her company. Yet, here she was. Alive, breathing, and returning to a world that didn't need her as much as it had her teammates. Here she was, while Yukari raised her child by herself, while Hisao's sister worked two shifts to forget, while Ichirou's father wandered the halls of an empty house. "Yukari-san, I-"
"I'm sorry." Yukari said before her. "For blaming you," she added, face serious, apologetic. "It was unfair of me and childish. I was just"-here she set down her tea, gripping her skirt with both hands-"just so angry. Angry at everything; at Heaven, at Konoha, at ANBU, at the Hokage, at you."
"You don't have to-"
"Apologize?" Yukari cut her off. "Yes I do." Her hand played with the fingers of Hiroaki's, eyes downcast, she continued. "I was so wrong to hold you to an impossible promise, when you yourself nearly died, when there was nothing you could have done." She faltered for a moment, her next words coming with hesitancy, with fear, with some embarrassment at the accusation she might be raising. "There was nothing you could have done, right? You didn't leave him, did you?"
"No," Sakura shook her head. "No. I swear to you," she gripped Yukari's free hand, voice like glass, "that I would have done anything to get him home."
Yukari's head bobbed up and down, eyes damp. "of course. I'm sorry." She breathed shakily, pressing her palm against the tears in her eyes. "Here I am, apologizing and then I ask you something like that. Its just-" Her chest wove up, then down with a broken sigh. "No one would tell me anything. Not what happened or how he died. I just want to put it behind me. Bury it and move on."
"I also want to thank you," Yukari began again, "for the money."
Sakura's gaze found hers. "When I went last month, to collect Akira's pension, the teller was new. I guess they hadn't told him that he had to combine your allowance into the total. He gave them to me separately." Yukari looked at her with a smile, "thank you. That money has really helped me."
Sakura took a sip of her tea, waiting for the rest.
"But it has to stop. I can't accept anymore Sakura-san. Its not right."
"Yukari-san," Sakura said. "Look around. What do you see?"
Her brow wrinkled in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"I live in a two-bedroom townhouse in the middle of the second worst neighborhood in Konoha. I live alone, spend most of my time out on missions which means no utilities or groceries. My salary is more than enough to cover my expenses, definitely some of yours."
Yukari tucked a lock of brown hair under her scarf, "that isn't the point, Sakura-san. I can't accept your money-"
"Fine," Sakura said, waving her hand, "then I'll deposit it into an account for Hiroaki."
"Really, I can't-"
Sakura interrupted her one last time, "Yukari-san." Her voice was firm, yet it held a broken edge. "I made two promises to your family. One to you and one to your husband. I failed yours, please, please let me keep his. This is as much for me as it is for you."
The room was quiet while they waited. Yukari sat still, absentmindedly stroking the peach fuzz on her baby's head. "Hiroaki will need a college fund. Would you like to help me with that?"
"I'd be honored."
Yukari pulled on her lip before she spoke in her characteristically soft voice. "This means a lot to me."
Pink hair swaying, Sakura shook her head. "No, this," she said with a wave of her hand, "you coming here, means a lot to me."
That afternoon, after Yukari had left, her baby swinging on his sling, Sakura leaned her forehead against the door. She pulled in a lungful of air through her nose, then let it whisper out past her lips. She swore it was easier to breathe.
She had lost track of time. It happened back in The Beginning, when this was all new; when time was the precise flow of ordered numbers. Now she had her own time system: there was Before and then there was After: before her imprisonment and after her capture. She had subsections for the after though, to keep things organized. At The Beginning she was still fighting, there was hope in her. She kept a tally of days scratched into the wall, she remembered thinking good, wholesome, positive thoughts. Then, in The Middle she started to forget the smell of grass. She knew it was supposed to be clean, damp, fresh, but without her noticing the memories became nothing more than adjectives, and adjectives couldn't take away the stench of hell from her nostrils. That's when she started to loose hope. Then, then there was just Now. Now was a blurry swirl of immeasurable, unremarkable days. There were no mornings, there were no afternoons, there were no evenings; there was only her, a dark cell, the maddening drip of water, the smell of her latrine, the sound of footsteps against stone, the flickering of torchlight from underneath her door, and the mindless hours.
She hadn't moved much in a very long time. If she could think beyond what it took to eat and shit, she'd say she hadn't moved in days. Her legs were wet with what could only be urine, which was enough to tell her she hadn't cared to stand from her spot in a while. But these were observations she'd stopped making years ago. She hadn't had many conscious thoughts since The Middle. Now had stripped her of speech, of mobility, of memories, of lucidity, of emotions, of humanity, and of everything else that had once made her a kunoichi of the Hidden Leaf.
Music pounded against the walls, bounced off glass, and reverberated through his chest. Sasuke narrowed his eyes, pupils contracting against the strobe lights that mixed noxiously with colored flashes of neon blue, pink, and green. Six neat lines of black lights hang in a guided path towards the bar. The white shirt he'd thrown on gleamed unnaturally in the hazy darkness. His bangs hung in his face as he turned to look down the crowded row of clubbers at the bar.
"I can't believe we got him to go with us!" Yuuto screamed from behind him, trying to be heard over the deafening noise.
"I know!" Daiki responded.
Ignoring them, Sasuke wove through elbows, shoulders, and sparsely covered breasts.
"Hey! Sasuke! Where's he going?"
Yuuto's answer, "-ably getting…drink!" was half lost to him, but he heard enough to know they would leave him be. The shock of red hair was hard to miss, even in the mess he was wading through. Pushing aside two inebriated girls, he slipped into the space next to her. Leaning casually against his forearms, he ordered a whiskey from the closest bartender.
"What did you find?"
Karen looked him over, head to toe, toe to head. "No hello for an old friend, Sasuke-kun?"
He glanced back at her, bored, then leaned close, trying to be heard over the noise without being overheard. "There are too many eyes watching me to play games now Karen."
Once, she might have felt a flutter at the way her name sounded from his lips, especially against the shell of her ear. Except now she was twenty-three and too calloused to be getting butterflies from a man who never paid her the time of day.
"Relax, Sasuke-kun. We've got a seal around us and there isn't a shinobi within thirty feet." She plucked an olive from her glass, swirling it through her drink with a stirrer. "He was dead when I got there," she added.
Sasuke gripped the whiskey in his hand, pushing some money towards the bartender. Dead. Something was definitely going on.
Karen bumped shoulders with him, moving her face closer to the side of his head, "there was something interesting, though."
He waited patiently, letting her have her fun, "the old man had some documents, from your brother's time. There was an order, I don't know what for, but it was some top-secret mission given to Itachi only months before the massacre."
"When?"
She brought the martini to her mouth, licking her lips, "April."
Three months before it happened.
"It looks like Konoha was trying to spy on your clan. My guess is they were up to something and the council was getting nervous. Itachi was ANBU wasn't he?" she said, knowing he was, "maybe they were afraid he was double-crossing them, so they gave him some big-ass mission to keep him busy while they figured what your clan was doing."
He relished the burn of whiskey in his throat, it offered a distraction from the questions circling his head. "Find Kisame, see what he knows."
Beside him, Karen sputtered, nearly backwashing into her drink, "are you trying to kill me! Kisame will tear my throat out before I get within talking distance of him."
That could be a possibility. But Karen, however clumsy she could be, knew how to keep herself alive. More importantly, Kisame wasn't working for Akatsuki anymore. "He's more interested in keeping his hide than tanning yours," he told her, "just see what you can find. He knows something that Akatsuki doesn't want him telling." Sasuke was sure that something was strongly tied to his brother.
"Fine." She bit off angrily, slapping her glass over the bar's bamboo countertop.
Sasuke was turning to leave, when her hand touched his elbow, "do you know about Juugo?"
He didn't look back, "yes."
There was accusation in her tone, "well, are you going to do anything?"
Its not like he could leave Konoha and chase after the man. Even if he could, he doubted he would. "What," he asked, looking at her flatly, "do you want me to do?"
Her gaze was wavering, "we're all he has."
"Our team was a business transaction, Karen. We don't owe each other anything."
Her lips pressed into a straight line, eyes boring into his for ten, unflinching seconds. Finally, she moved away, offering one last sentence before dissolving into the crowd, "yet here I am."
By the time Yuuto and Daiki had drifted back to him, Sasuke was ordering his fourth drink.
She could feel the music inside of her. Pushing through her skin, digging into the cavity of her chest. It bounced off the walls of her ribs and forced itself into the chambers of her heart, beating with it, in it, as strongly as it did around the club. Her heartbeat was a fast tempo, fused with the music and echoing within her. If the music stopped, would her heart stop too?
"You're drunk!"
Sakura looked at Ino over the rim of her glass. The blond was leaning heavily on Shikamaru who was looking between her dress-the daring red one she'd bought months ago-and the nearby men stealing glances.
"No, that's you!" She laughed, watching the stone-faced scowl on Shikamaru's face. Guess he didn't like the dress.
"Come on!" she shouted over the new song, dragging Ino away from her boyfriend by the wrist. Time to wipe that look off Shika's face.
Shikamaru yelled at her, probably to bring her back, but Sakura neither heard him, nor was sober enough to care. It registered that he was following them, as well as Lee-who had been on a mission to protect their chastity all night. She was glad Kiba and Chouji had stayed back at their table with Tenten and Hinata. Even for a kunoichi, this place was wild.
Sakura edged herself into a corner of the dance floor, far from the eyes of her friends and from the hands that tended to wander too easily at clubs. She started to move, swinging her hips and throwing her arms over her head. She wasn't nearly as sensual as Ino, nor as bold, but that was fine for tonight, because tonight she was very close to being drunk. The rhythm blaring over the subwoofers intensified, trapping her heart into a deep, fast beat. From the corner of her eye, Sakura watched Ino wave a finger at Shikamaru. His irritation melted into nothing when she pressed herself against him. Then his blank face turned red. Sakura paused in her dance, laughing as she snuck away from them, noticing that Shika's hands were stealing touches she didn't want to catch. Mission accomplished. Slipping by Lee's defenses-currently occupied with some random brunette-she twisted to her left, dancing her way half-heartedly back to her table, then her right, and then straight into someone's chest.
"Sorry." She said, twisting her head up. She was met with a flustered looking Uchiha, who was holding her arm above the elbow and looking down the plunging neckline of her teal dress. Ino's idea, not hers.
"Sasuke," She shouted over the noise, snapping her fingers under his nose.
His eyes found hers, hand dropping away quickly. His features rearranged themselves into his classic, guarded smirk. "Nice dress."
Two can play that game. "Yes, I gathered from your stare."
When his face sobered, a hint of annoyance and embarrassment behind black pupils, she decided to give him a break, "what are you doing here?"
He walked past her, yelling a response over the top of his shoulder, "getting away from my guards."
Following him-to the bar, she guessed-she twisted her eyebrows. "I thought your guards were out of sight now."
"Not these."
"Oh!" Her face lit up with a wicked grin, "you mean those ANBU kids?"
He threaded himself between people, not waiting for her. She had to double her pace to keep up. Here's to one who'll never be chivalrous.
"Are you following me?"
Sakura stared up at him, mouth open, eyes round and wide. Had she heard him right? "Excuse me?", she stuttered.
A hint of amusement touched his gaze. "Never mind. What will you have?" His hand waved at the liquor behind the bar, packed tightly together like books in a bibliophile's office.
She felt like walking away. Its not as if she had any business with him. But a drink was a drink, even if he wasn't paying. "Get me a Suicide."
The thin line of his eyebrow rose sharply at her order. With a smirk, he flagged a bartender.
That dress was scandalous; a flimsy thing that was more skin than cloth. It was sinfully inappropriate that he liked it. Or maybe it was sinfully normal. Stone-hearted or not, he was still a man, with a pulse-and more than enough hot blood speeding through his veins. If he wanted to, he could stare down the valley of her breasts, follow the milky path between soft, curving flesh and spot the fine baby down that peppered her belly. He never thought he'd see the day when that would be a positive. Fucking hell, he was checking her out. He was checking out Haruno Sakura. He was also buzzed, and probably high, whether from someone meddling with his drink or the adverse combination of antipsychotics and alcohol. Maybe even both. Sakura, he noted, wasn't doing much better. It was a small miracle she had ordered an appetizer for them.
"Stop staring," She said. "Your turn."
Sasuke reached for the glass in her outstretched hand. It was their third Suicide; by now he wasn't sure how long they'd been playing Truth, just that they weren't thoroughly smashed, but close enough for loose tongues. "When I was five, I tried to throw a kunai without anyone's help. I nearly killed my aunt's pedigree cat." He brought the drink to his lips and knocked down a swallow. The mix of whiskey, gin, rum, sake, triple sec, and tonic burned his throat like moonshine and kerosene. "What was the dumbest thing you did as a genin?"
Sakura put a hand to her chin, tapping her index finger against her bottom lip. Like a magnet, his eyes fixed on her mouth; they parted, forming the shape for the word I, said too softly for him to catch over the blaring music. "I hid in a tree during training and forgot to mask my chakra."
Bangs swinging to the side, Sasuke shook his head, "Liar."
With a long sigh, she snatched the glass from his hand and tipped it back with a grimace. Mouth and eyes still screwed shut with the taste, she exhaled with a smack of lips, "The dumbest thing I did as a genin was getting caught in my own genjutsu. I nearly got the client, and yours truly, killed." Her hair had fallen from the barrette beside her ear, sliding forward to hang across the side of her face. The sudden urge to touch it barreled to the forefront of his mind. Before he could stop himself, he was feeling strands of it. She stayed still, looking between the lock he fingered, and his face (a picture of stoic interest). Languidly, he drew his hand up her jaw, tucking the strand behind her ear. He lingered there, watching her eyes, then, expression blank, leaned back. "Sasuke-"
"Next question." He interrupted.
She tilted forward in her chair, gripping the top of the glass with five fingers spread across the rim. She could still feel where his skin brushed her jaw, the shiver it sent through her spine. She could especially feel the burn of his eyes on her. Dangerous thoughts, Sakura. The Suicide sloshed side to side, ice clinking as it dangled before her knees. Finally, she asked: "There was a rumor back in our academy days that you liked girls with long hair. Did you?"
The thick air around them lightened with his snort, "I didn't care either way."
That was certainly in character. "Truth."
Sasuke reclined into the upholstered chair. "What was the worst part of your ANBU test?"
The memory of that day lived vividly within her. She bowed her head, staring at the drink in her grip. "They use genjutsu to torture us; see how we hold up under pain. They show us things too, fears, regrets, nightmares. They showed me Naruto's death."
He didn't have a response to that.
It was a long while before she spoke again. Head finally coming up, bangs falling away from her face, she asked her next question. "What is it" she said so softly that he had to read her lips, "you see in the hallucinations?"
His stare, which had been intense, but calm, sharpened. He sucked in a breath of stale air, drawing in smoke, heat, and cigarettes deep into his lungs. Sakura guessed she had crossed a line, that even buzzed as they were it wasn't enough to get him talking so easily. He proved her wrong. "I see him."
Sakura watched Sasuke warily, catching the slight tightening of his jaw, the rise of tendons on his wrist when he formed a fist.
"I see his death," he continued, never breaking away from her eyes, "I see his eyes coming at me from the ground, I see his corpse, I see him in the frame of some stranger, I see my sword rip into his stomach, I see the red of his sharingan or the black of his hair, I see men in long cloaks and confuse them with him, I see him the night he killed my family, I see blood on the floors or walls, I see my mother lying dead, I see my family murdered, I see the blood on his hands or the blood on mine. Anything and everything about him or my family, that's what I see."
They were quiet for ten heartbeats, the pounding of music, the clambering of voices, filling the void. She took another sip of her drink. Then he stood and, without a single glance back at her, walked out into the night.
Air, pure and fresh, smacked against him. The chaos from the club slipped away with the click of a door; sound, lights, and smoke tucked neatly behind black glass. Only the muted thump of the subwoofers bled into the quiet-that and the tap of her heels against brick.
He sat on the curb, resting his elbows on his knees, ignoring her.
Without hesitation or protocol, she plucked the jacket that hang crookedly from his shoulder and spread it over the dirty sidewalk. She settled beside him, legs together, bent only the slightest bit at the knee.
"When Naruto died, I thought I'd never see him again. But he was everywhere. I saw him in our home, on the street, at the hospital, on missions. I could hear him, hear his voice or his laugh, the whisper of his words against my ear. I could feel his breath, feel his touch, or his presence. Sometimes he'd tell me things; that he loved me or that he missed me." She took a breath, neither deep nor shallow, hasty nor slow. It was the normal inhale of balmy air; a pause in her conversation.
Sasuke waited for her to continue, not interested in rushing what she had to say, or contributing to her words.
"On that mission, where my team died, he talked to me then too. He made me fight to get home, he guided me back when I got lost, he helped me find food, he showed me where the plants I needed for my wounds were. He gave me strength. And when I died in the O.R., when I finally thought I can be with him, everything can be right again, he pushed me away because I had a life to live, no matter what I thought."
He moved his head in her direction, expression carefully guarded.
"What I'm saying," she continued, her hand reaching towards his hesitantly "is that you're here, regardless of the "how's," or "why's," you're alive, and you have to make the best of that." She gave his hand a light squeeze, before moving her arm away.
He stared at the place where her hand had curved over his; small, calloused, fingers bending gently underneath his palm and thumb. "What does it matter being alive, if you can't live." There was no question in his tone, only the subtle dejection of defeat, of exhaustion.
A wizened smile curled her lips, "It matters, because we have the chance to fix that, the responsibility to. The dead don't."
"The dead have few responsibilities."
"Yes, and fewer choices." She turned her head to him. "A crappy trade off, don't you think?"
Depends on the day. He could still feel her touch on his skin when he looked at her. "Do you still see him?"
The green of her eyes dimmed with his question. "Feel more than see. Its not as frequent or vivid anymore." The last time she'd felt Naruto had been a fortnight ago, when the whisper of his hand on her cheek had been air to a drowning man. Her private moments with him were becoming few and far between. They were rarer with each passing month, and weaker too. She wondered if her sightings were more than twisted imagination, if some of them were real, if Naruto had ever really come to her. She wondered if the fading visions were because Naruto was ready to cross over. "I'm afraid," she admitted quietly, "that once he stops coming to me, I'll loose him for good."
His voice when he spoke was firm, factual, although not cruel. "You've already lost him." He told her, his eyes resolutely focused on the distant darkness. "But you won't stop feeling him. You never stop feeling them."
The sound of night hung over them, a moonless sky for telling secrets.
"Sasuke?"
"Ah."
The green of her eyes searched through the black of his. A smile, as timid as spring buds reaching from their branches, touched her face. "Thank you."
"Hello, Hag."
She was facing the water, her back to him, forearms resting on the veranda. At the sound of his voice, she turned slightly, face casual. "Hello, Sai."
He fell into step beside her, offering a shallow smile.
"How late do you think he'll be?" She asked, keeping her eyes on the river.
The sun had risen over four hours ago and now the water was crystalline with the overhead light. Soon, it would be noon and the heat would be unbearable. A hesitant breeze, pulling from the ground the last cool wisps of spring, stirred sticky air. Today was a poor day for sparring. Even the wind was reluctant.
"Late enough for heatstroke."
He heard her sigh, an exasperated, over-acted huff of her breath. "I don't know why we bother to be here early."
Picking at the chipped paint of the wood, he glanced at her, "its not for the company."
A second after the drop of her jaw, her arm snagged the edge of his head. "Its too hot for this." She whined, wiping the back of her neck. Back curved over the edge, she leaned into the railing. "The first sweltering day of the year. Kinda makes it appropriate that the festival's this week."
Blue eyes flashed through his mind, the curl of short, blond hair spilling around them, framing a dazzling smile. It was the only time he'd heard her laugh, seen that sort of smile. He would see her soon.
A hand, waving under his nose, forced his gaze back. Sakura was looking at him through big, green eyes, one eyebrow lifted in question. "What?"
"What?" She repeated sarcastically. "That's my line. What's up with that grin you were wearing?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"You were grinning like an idiot, some love-sick-" Her words cut off as the revelation struck her. A sly smile wrapped around her lips, "Let me guess. She's blond, pretty, and from Sound."
The last part was said with some reluctance, but he brushed it aside. He didn't need her approval. Which is why he wasn't afraid of what he told her next. "I'm going to see her during the festival."
Her voice rose an octave, "you're what!"
Calmly, he repeated himself, if only to frustrate her. "I'm meeting her during the festival."
"Yes, I heard that!" She half whispered, half screeched. "What I want to know is how!"
It wasn't rocket science. "We set up a meeting point. I'll see her there."
Sakura watched him, then the water for a moment. "Sai, how far is this meeting place from the village?"
He heard the question in her tone, remembered the cardinal rule of hidden villages: Never compromise the location. "Its far enough."
The touch of her hand guided his gaze to her. Gently, she gripped the underside of his elbow, "Sai, I just want you to be careful, alright." She wanted to tell him more. To tell him to guard his heart; that this girl could be dangerous; that she could be playing him. But there was a set to his jaw that told her not to push it. He wouldn't welcome her worries. Which meant that Sai was falling hard for the Sound kunoichi.
"I've got some news for you," he voiced, changing the subject, lightly pulling her arm away.
"Its about what you asked me."
He saw he shoulders tense, but she kept her gaze steady, her breath easy.
"What about it?"
They both looked out over the river, her watching a leaf swirling through the current, him piecing his words together. When the buzz of her chakra fitted itself around them, he said it.
"The Hyuga are involved in something."
Her eyes, wide with surprise, flitted to him. She expected an individual, some random name from the department, but a clan? The Hyuga clan? Hinata. Less than two weeks ago she had shared a table with her, had drinks with her, talked and laughed with her. Sakura trusted Hinata. She couldn't have, not her. And Neji! He wasn't her friend, but she'd grown up with him, known him when he was still a child practicing his aim. She felt her stomach recoil within her, throat closing against the urge to gag.
"They've traded information with a high nobleman from Rain, who had strong connections to their kage. Its also likely that they're behind Rain's military purchases. Part of their spending money is coming straight from the Hyuga's coffers."
Sakura dug her fingernails into the guardrail, old paint crackling and chipping under her grip. "Does Tsuande-shiso know?"
"She's aware."
"Do you think," She began, eyes distant, voice carefully controlled, "that they…that they had anything to do with my team's murder?"
Sai had been after that answer for months. "I haven't gotten a hold of the information they've exchanged. But, it is possible. Many of the Hyuga work for ANBU and they have more than enough resources."
Her breathing was still carefully controlled, but her heartbeat pounded viciously against her chest. "Hinata and Neji. Do they know?"
The pause he gave curled the hair at the nape of her neck, "The heiress, as far as I'm aware, is clean, but her cousin is up to his neck in this."
She felt relief-and anger. Neji. If it was him…she would tear him apart. She'd fought side-by-side with that bastard, shed blood for him. Sai must have felt the hatred in her aura because he gripped her shoulder. "I don't have enough evidence, Sakura. For all I know this could be clan business. Don't do anything stupid."
She nodded rigidly, taking a deep breath. Her traitor would hang, but Sai was right, she needed proof before he did.
"I have access to ANBU's archives the night of the festival. I have a graveyard shift to guard them. I'll see what I can find."
Looking briefly at her, he cautioned her against it. "Be careful."
"You be careful," she snorted. "I know the festival will lessen security at the archives, but the gates and perimeters will probably be doubly monitored."
Before he could answer with an insult, Kakashi appeared, wisps of a transportation jutsu still clinging to his shoulders.
"Yo." He waved.
"You're late." They both accused.
One hand touching the back of his head, he smiled sheepishly, eyes crinkling, "there was a cat-" he began.
"Who was stuck in a tree, over a waterfall, sixty kilometers away." They finished, walking past him to the training fields. Sakura's hand snagged the collar of his jacket, dragging him behind.
"I'm reducing your prescription."
Sasuke, back to him, continued staring out the window. There was no guard hanging from the ledge today-hadn't been one in a while. Granted, he could still read the chakra of a shinobi sitting somewhere on the roof. "And why is that?"
"Because," Yoshida answered, pushing up his glasses, "you need to face the problem, not medicate it. I started you on the antipsychotics to alleviate the symptoms, which, I'll admit, were much too vivid to ignore, but now its time to try again."
He liked his pills. They were his ticket to oblivion during the night-better than sake-and his path to normalcy during the day. He still felt things, sometimes saw or dreamed them, but it was grainy coffee through a sieve; filtered, weak, and thin. The intensity of red eyes was muted and discolored, visions of blood suppressed. He liked things the way they were, which meant: he liked his pills. The morning sun reached into the office with strong hands, chasing shadows through the room. It felt warm against his skin. He brought an arm up, turning it with interest. How long had it been since he'd last felt the sun? Noticed it pushing through his skin until it was burrowed deep within the marrow of his bones, the cells of his body, heating him outside in as much as inside out? "What do you want me to do?" he asked flatly, already feeling that warmth slipping away.
"Finish the prescription you have now, then you'll start on a lower dose and work yourself off."
Sasuke did nothing to indicate his acceptance, nor his reluctance.
Paper crinkled through the space, the sound of Yoshida flipping through his notes, settling on a new page. "Tell me about your team."
With a roundabout glance to Yoshida-where his eyebrows held a hint of question and his eyes their share of annoyance-Sasuke peered at the pavement below, stepping closer to the window's frame. Pinpricks of people moved through the closed street, hanging lanterns, banners, origami, and flowers. He would be working with them, part of his community service, in preparation for the Lantern Festival. More reason for irritation. "Which one?" he acknowledged finally.
A pen scraped across paper, "whichever."
Seeing as Team Kakashi had one dead member, one grieving kunoichi, and one traitor, he opted for Team Hebi. "Karin was"-a crushing idiot-"enthusiastic. Suiguitsu was"-an asshole-"loud. And Jugo was,"-a berserker-"he was someone you would have liked."
Yoshida's voice held interest. "And why's that?"
Smirking, Sasuke turned to the side, "he was crazy."
A short clap of laughter followed his comment. "Sounds like someone I'd chat with."
"Were you friends? Comrades"
Question of the month. Were they? "We never left each other behind enemy lines, if that's what you meant."
"No," Yoshida corrected, "that's a start, but its not what I meant. Did you like their company, care for it? That's more what I was thinking."
Shoulders falling into a light shrug, Sasuke watched a civilian on the street, focused idly on her movements. There was a source of chakra nearing them from the hall. It caught the edge of his attention. "I don't know. Sometimes yes, most times no."
"That's how I feel about my wife," Yoshida grinned, humor in his voice. "I love her enough, but most of the time she's a handful."
"I'm gonna tell mom you're badmouthing her."
Sasuke turned at the newcomer, the chakra from the hall. A boy, walking the frayed line between child and teen, stood in the office. His hair was a sooty black, with brown eyes and a face clinging to the soft planes and smooth skin of preadolescence.
At his entrance, Yoshida's eyes softened, his aura shifted, warmed and hummed. He stood quickly and maneuvered around his desk. One arm fell around the boy's shoulders, the other coming to ruffle his hair.
The kid squirmed at his father's handling, brushing a speedy hand through the unruly mop.
"This," Yoshida pointed beside him, "is my son, Ichiro. He's a chunnin." Pride seeped from Yoshida in hardly restrained waves.
Sasuke felt a pang of envy. And something else, something like admiration. That was how a father should speak of his son, look at his son; like he was the best thing he ever did. Someday, he would look at his son like that.
Yoshida glanced at Sasuke, then back at Ichiro, "This is Uchiha-san."
The smile on Ichiro's face dimmed. "Oh. I didn't know you were his shrink." He said, eyes not leaving his father's.
A hint of irritation marked Sasuke's stance.
"Ichiro!" His father scolded, looking at him sternly, voice not a scream, but firm enough to carry the same weight, perhaps more.
Ichiro blushed, riled his hair, muttered under his breath, and looked at the ground. "Sorry, dad."
Quickly, he struck out his hand, "Nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you."
All bad, by the looks of it. Sasuke disregarded the barb, and the hand offered.
"Likewise."
Ichiro's gaze darkened, he pulled his hand back with enough force to knock his elbow through the wall behind him.
"Can I talk to you outside, for a sec?" He addressed his father.
Yoshida guided him out of the office, leaving with a sigh.
Through the cracked door, Sasuke could see and hear them.
"That was very rude of you, Ichiro. You know I expect better."
The boy fidgeted in his place, "I know. I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
"No," Yoshida agreed sternly, eyebrows furrowed, voice laced with iron, "it won't."
Neither spoke for a moment. An awkward tension clung to them, reminiscent of days spent with his father at the Uchiha compound. Finally, Yoshida yielded. "Now, what was it you wanted to tell me about."
Ichiro's eyes lit up and with an exclamation, he pulled out a scroll. "I've got a mission today. My first B rank! Just wanted to let you know before I left."
There was conflict in Yoshida's eyes. Pride, as always, but hesitance. Fear, Sasuke recognized.
Hiding his reservations, Yoshida clapped his son on the back, a full laugh attached. "That's my boy. I'm proud of you, Ichiro," he added, pulling him closer.
Ichiro grinned and went to move away, but Yoshida clasped him to him in an embrace. "I want you to be careful, you hear. Take care of yourself and come back soon. Your mother worries." I worry, Sasuke heard.
"Daaaad!" Ichiro whined, looking three shades of red. "I'm too old for that!"
There was an indulging smile on Yoshida's face, "of course. Weren't you late to something?"
That was all it took for Ichiro to grin his way down the hall. He turned back once, with a wave and a loud, "see ya later!"
For six heartbeats, Yoshida watched the door through which he left. When he turned, he looked straight at Sasuke, melancholy in his gaze.
"I hate when he goes off on missions." Yoshida admitted, stepping back behind his desk. He sat down with a heavy sigh, pulling his glasses down and rubbing his eyes.
"He means everything to me." The confession came with a bittersweet smile. Sasuke found it odd to have the roles of their interactions reversed. At times, Yoshida spoke of his life, but not with such honesty, such attachment. This felt like a conversation, a real one. Pushing on his glasses again, Yoshida blinked at him, "don't misread me, I adore my wife. But, when you have children, you'll understand. They're your entire world"
Sasuke wasn't sure how he felt about that. He had a world of people once, and it was a fragile, dangerous thing to love so strongly. If, or when, it unraveled, it took your soul with you.
"How dangerous are B missions?" Yoshida looked at him, somewhat lost.
They were dangerous. But he didn't say it. "The first ones are easiest. They're for training, mostly. His sensei will keep the team away from any real danger."
"Of course," his head fell into a nod. "They're only kids." He laughed, shakily, "Ichiro's just fourteen."
"He'll be fine, Yoshida."
"I'll take that as your professional opinion." He joked with forced humor.
Sasuke moved to the window, eyes sightless. Ichiro and Yoshida's exchange was the only thing he could see. There had never been anything but cold touches and shallow words between him and his father. Rarely had Sasuke seen pride or love in his father's gaze, much less felt its effects. The few times he had were guarded memories. He made a vow that day, a promise, as Naruto would have said. His children would know love. On the graves of his family, on the grave of his father, he swore it.
Sakura straightened her yukata, Ino walking at her left, Hinata at her right. The thought that Hinata's clan might be linked to her team's murder was hot on her mind. When she'd seen Neji…she couldn't even begin to describe the loathing that bubbled up in her. The blood in her veins had boiled to burning before settling slowly into a frozen churn. Training, and the benefit of the doubt-which she was still narrowly offering-was the only thing that kept her expression calm, relaxed. Although the pregnant wife at his side helped matters too. She wasn't sure what she would do when she knew for sure. A part of her was sure she'd kill him and another, more rational side told her a good beating and a trial was the worst she could do-should do. Either way, if it was him, his clan, then she would see him punished. Her gaze wandered to the black-haired woman at his side. Her yukata, a fine blend of cotton and satin, did nothing to hide the swell beneath it. If she took action against him, there'd be another fatherless child on her hands.
The evening pulled them apart, Tenten drifting off with Kiba as soon as Neji had arrived-not that Sakura blamed her; it was clear that she loved him-Hinata following her cousin shortly after, and her making excuses to Ino and Shika-who deserved their time together. Kami only knew how long this peace would hold. No doubt this was Konoha's last Lantern Festival for the years to come.
She was wandering the streets alone, surrounded by the glow of lanterns, the push of people, the sound of holidays, the warmth of company, yet she felt deserted. A hollowness within her that was hard to fill tonight, that crawled from her heart and painted a white line over the empty space beside her. He should be there, standing with her, as her husband. A cruel smile twisted her face. Her wedding day had passed-and she had forgotten. She would have been a bride and today, she should have been a wife. She wished Kakashi was around, with his soft voice and hidden smiles. Even his orange book wouldn't have bothered her, then again, it hadn't bothered her in a while. Sai would be welcome too, insults and all. Her prayers went out to them, wherever they were. Keep them safe. There were few precious people left to her. And they needed to stay, or this time the rest of her heart would fall away.
Swirling colors caught her attention. Pinwheels. An entire stand of them spinning lazily in the dying breeze. One finger fell gently over a red-checkered blade. As a child, her aunt would buy them for her, then before the fireworks started, they would pull the little cord hanging from the handle. The end of each blade would spark, spinning into a glowing circle of light. Children liked to clutch them against the backdrop of night, pretending they held a ring of fireflies. They had been Naruto's favorite.
"Why? I thought they'd be the lanterns." She had asked him.
His face had been distant when he'd spoken. "Everyone gets a lantern. But you have to have parents to get pinwheels. Sometimes Sensei would buy them for me."
Sakura almost moved away, almost slipped into the thick of the crowd, almost vanished into her home. She stopped dead in her tracks. He was here. His lips whispered over her cheek. Stay. After so many weeks of not feeling him, her breath rattled into her lungs, eyelids fluttering closed. A memory showed itself to her.
"Hey, Sakura?"
She mumbled drowsily, digging into her sleeping pallet. Too early, she wanted to say. But he didn't let her, looking to see Sai sleeping, Naruto crawled in next to her silently. His arm wrapped over her waste, drawing her close. "I have a promise I want from you," he murmured into her neck.
A sleepy gutturalism from her throat cued him to continue. His hand strummed along the skin of her stomach softly, languidly, the way a musician played his guitar in the small hours of the morning.
"Promise me that if something happens to me. You'll move on."
The words were like a bucket of ice shoved down her back. She wiggled around, catching his gaze.
"What are you talking about."
The blue of his eyes was calm as he spoke, as if he'd given this thought many times before, "our jobs are dangerous Sakura"-no "chan," he was serious-"people die all the time. I just want to know you'll let yourself be happy if that happened."
Sakura eased one hand under his cheek, then combed the other through his hair, stroking his brow with her thumb. His eyes closed briefly at her touch. This was hers. This man, this life they were building. This was her happiness. No one would take it away from her. "Did the Kyuubi see something?"
"No." It was a lie she didn't catch. His arm moved from her waist, coming to rest over her hand, holding it to his cheek. "Just say it, make me happy."
With a sigh she smiled at him, "does it go both ways? If I promise, will you?"
"Yes." He rolled his eyes in exasperation.
"Fine. I, Haruno Sakura, last daughter of the Haruno Clan, jounin of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, do so solemnly swear to strive for happiness in the event of"-she searched for another way to say it-"in case of…in case something happens."
She looked at him expectedly.
"Ditto." He kissed her, long and sweet. "That was a crappy ending for such a great speech." He said, grinning.
"Idiot."
They looked up when Kakashi fell through the canopy.
"Hate to interrupt the PDA, but its your watch."
Naruto pulled away, muttering about old perverts and slave-drivers. He took the warmth from her, cold seeping into her bones after he left. Sakura spent the night wide-awake, thinking about his words. They had felt like a premonition.
They had been. Naruto had died within the month.
Sakura blinked, shaking, she gripped the side of a post. Remember your promise, Sakura, twice-given. The edge of her vision caught his shadow. He was washing away into nothing. No. She took a hurried step to him, he smiled, the color seeping from his eyes. No.
"Don't go." She pleaded, voice a tiny cry.
Get a pinwheel for me, would ya? Love you, Sakura-chan.
And he was gone. One arm gripping the post of the pinwheel stand, she brought a hand to her mouth, stifling a chocked sob. She curved into herself, hanging tightly to the wood, breathing raggedly. The voice of child buying a treat forced her to straighten her back. She had to control herself. No one needed a shinobi to break down in public, in the middle of a festival and possibly a war. Sakura swallowed three mouthfuls of air. Focus. Then slowly, pushed them past her lips. That's right, she cheered herself, just like that. Palm trembling, she swept it across both of her cheeks, smearing tears. The faster for them to dry. She stepped away warily from the post that had anchored her, moving her gaze from the floor.
Their eyes met, black against green.
"You okay?"
She felt three things at once: shock, shame, and the unhinging of her jaw into a stunned open-mouthed stare.
Prying her eyes from his, Sakura patted down her hair and the obi of her yukata. She cleared her throat, nodding meekly. He always seemed to catch her at her worst.
"What are you doing here?" It was the only thing she could think off. Hopefully he would throw her a line and get the hint. Move on, change the subject.
Sasuke stayed where he stood, shrugging his shoulders casually. "Community service."
The shirt he wore was simple, something to get dirty or sweaty, paired with a standard set of shinobi-grade pants. Both with the Uchiha crest sewn into them. "Right," she acknowledged.
His thumb jerked over his shoulder. "There's an Ichiraku stand close-by. Teuchi's actually serving ramen."
That, Sakura guessed, was as close as Uchiha Sasuke would come to an invitation.
"Some ramen, for old time's sake? Sounds nice."
He was already turning to leave, but when she didn't follow he stopped.
Sakura was picking out a pinwheel. Head bent close to them, searching, sometimes touching one, picking it from the stand before putting it back. Her bangs swept across her shoulders, falling over her face. The decorations in her hair tinkled down beside them, jerking with her movements. The sheen of lantern-light on pearl brought his stare to the comb nestled over the bun at her neck. A cherry blossom, how appropriate. The smile-slow, small, and melancholic-that touched her lips caught his attention. She was paying for a pinwheel, a blue one, the piercing blue of the sky on a clear autumn day.
Holding it up, fingers spinning the blades, she turned it to him. "For old time's sake. And," she added, "for old friends."
"You look tired." She observed, catching the shadows on his face.
That wasn't a difficult deduction. In the past week he hadn't slept more than six hours. He stared at the ceiling fan for half the night, only to fall into a hellish world that woke him with sweat on his brow, fever in his eyes, and bile in his throat. Yoshida's new dose did nothing for him. Dreamless nights were over.
He looked up at her when she spoke, "hn."
Noodles hanging from her chopsticks, she asked quietly, "Nightmares?"
Sasuke kept his gaze on the clear broth of his dinner. Blood, red eyes, crows, swords, bodies, faces, splatters, limbs, tunnels, snakes: a chilling mishmash of the last ten years of his life. A decade spent hunting and killing; what a legacy he would leave.
Beside him, Sakura nodded. "It gets better, Sasuke."
There was poisoned sarcasm in his voice, though it stayed even and unanimated. "Is that why you were crying?"
There was a near imperceptible cringe from her as she remembered Kakashi's words-and how she'd thrown them back. Ironic that she was getting a taste of her own medicine. Karma had a bitch of a memory. "That's how I treated Kakashi when he said that."
He remained silent, watching the way she fiddled with her food. She was vulnerable tonight; off-guard. The acidity of her ANBU station had corroded itself, if only temporarily.
"He told me it would get better." Smiling at him, eyes regretful, she continued. "I wasn't very receptive."
"Did it?" he interrupted, stirring noodles absentmindedly.
Her face was blank, "did it what?"
"Get better."
"Of course." Her hand moved for the tea.
"This is better to you?" One black, thin eyebrow moved higher on his forehead.
She sipped from her tea, glaring over the china. "Don't be a smartass."
"Of course." He copied.
The gentle smile she turned on him cut through his chest from the inside out. It sobered him instantly.
"There are good days with bad moments and bad days with good moments. From what I can tell, the good will eventually outweigh the bad." With her index finger, she traced the rim of her cup. Round and round and round. "Time does heal, Sasuke. It just takes a while, and it always leaves a scar."
Scars were something he had plenty off. Glancing at her, he admitted, so did she. So did every shinobi, every villager. Each man carried his cross, some were just heavier than others.
"Come on," She grinned at him widely-too much teeth and stretched cheeks for it to be genuine-standing from her stool, "No more graveyard talk. We need two lanterns."
Following her, Sasuke stared at the simple obi at her back, the skin of her neck above it and the peek of ankles below. The yukata she wore hid her curves-made it that more interesting to watch for them. It swathed her in colored cotton wrapping, a mystery that made his hand itch.
"Sasuke?"
A red lantern, unlit, dangled from her outstretched arm. Her face searched his and he shuttered his thoughts behind black windows. His gaze followed the swinging lantern.
"I don't need one."
Her expression stayed expectant, as if he hadn't spoken at all.
"I don't-"
Snatching his hand, she shoved the lantern into it. "I heard you. I also don't care."
He glared, having every intention of dropping the lantern. Until her hand curled over his.
Eyes both pleading and irritated-an interesting combination-she pulled the lantern close. "Hold it up, please."
He obliged and watched, with some measure of surprise, as her hands formed the seals for a small fire jutsu. Breath held, she pulled the candle from inside, blowing on it softly. A stream of red fell from her lips. She touched her mouth, smacking it lightly at the dryness. "See?" She held up the candle triumphantly. "I already lit it for you. No work required. Plus, an extinguished lantern is a bad omen. So don't even think about it." Her hand was already retreating from the inside of the lantern, an orange glow painting their faces. The character for heaven was a prominent brush of black over ember.
"Our wishes for heaven," Sakura murmured
She pulled her own candle out, the wick catching as her face neared. Traditionally, he should have lit it for her. They said a lantern birthed by the hand of another flew higher. Better luck for granting wishes. He got his chance when a curl of wind licked the flame.
Her face fell as she followed the tendril of smoke left in its place-like a life, blown away. "That's really bad. If the candle dies, the lantern never flies; to the wisher misfortune lies." She recited with a sigh.
"Nursery rhymes aren't fortune tellers. But," a puff of heat exploded from his mouth; the candle roared to life in her palm, "if they are, there are ways to counteract them."
His head was still bent close to her when she turned, nearly knocking into his brow. She backed away a step, smiling her thanks.
The slow pulse of drums threaded through the air. Sakura and Sasuke looked towards The Pillars: three enormous lanterns anchored by ropes of colored silk flags. The largest, with Konoha's symbol at its center, wobbled when four men undid its ties. Their muscles heaved under the strain of its pull.
"This is it! Make a wish!" Sakura urged him, holding her lantern between her hands, eyes closed.
He didn't have a wish. For too long he had only wanted the life of his family or the death of his brother. One was impossible, the other was already done. Now his wish was to have a wish; something to work for, something to fight for, something worth fighting for. For the briefest of moments, his eyelids sealed. At age seven, his mother had told him men needed three things to be happy: something to do, someone to love, and something to hope for. He could manage the first and maybe, if he learned the third, the second as well. I wish for hope.
Sakura stood still beside him, muscles tense, breath rapid. He waited for her, watching the skin of her arms bristle. She had felt him again.
Remember your promise.
The faintest wrap of arms around her, of lips to her neck, cheek, mouth, of desperate fingers snatching one last touch of skin, of a voice unshakably whispering her name.
Sakura
Sakura
Sakura
Sakura
I love you.
Then silence. The absence of sound and touch. She knew he was gone. This time, for good.
A guttural metallic clang joined the drums that beat around them, and with it, more men appeared, wrapping the ropes of the other lanterns around their forearm. Sasuke saw them do this and he saw Sakura still unmoving, frozen to the ground.
The pulse of the drums wove through her heartbeat, like the music at the club. She wished on promises. She wished for happiness, for love, for strength, for peace, for better tomorrows. She wished, in the end, that the good days would outnumber the bad. I wish for the future.
Her eyes flicked open. Sasuke was staring at her. Grasping his hand in hers, she pointed towards The Pillars. "Get ready."
With their free arm, the men cut through knots on the ground and finally, with the last resounding bang of a ceremonial drum, they let go. An explosion of flowers rained through the streets, from balconies, from villagers, from the three orange balloons above.
"Now." A squeeze of her hand and they let their lanterns go. They wavered, bobbed, then floated up, up, up, through tiny jasmine buds, slow and lazy, like a river at its calmest.
In seconds, the sky turned orange; the glow of saffron fitted against black; a burn brighter than the modest glint of pinhole stars.
Sakura watched with wonder painted on her face. "Its incredible."
His gaze stayed on the sky, where a thousand lanterns, a thousand wishes, grew smaller with each minute.
"May they reach the ceiling of heaven and be heard." She recounted, whispering a blessing he remembered from his childhood, one every parent taught their toddler during the Lantern Festival.
"I'm glad Ino dragged me out here."
Glancing over at her, they caught each other's stare. She had jasmine dusted over her hair, Spring Snow, as it was called.
From her smile burst a short string of laughter. "You have-" one hand pointed to her hair, the other muffled her laughs.
Bamboo chimes, he decided. That was her laugh. Reaching up, he shook a hand through the crown of his head. He grimaced as white flowers drifted to the ground. "You too." He smirked.
Her shoulders rose then dropped, So what? I'm the girl here. A casual swipe of her hand and they were gone.
"What did you wish for?"
"I thought," he chastised, "that you're not supposed to say."
"That's the only rule you're allowed to break."
"Since when?"
She slid into a walk beside him, every once in a while snatching a peak of the sky, trying to see the last bit of orange. "Since girls invented gossip."
He snorted and she looked back at the sky. "They're still there."
Her eyes found the red of his, tomoe spinning slowly. "Cheater."
Hand gliding down, Sakura scooped some jasmine from the street, tucking it into the drawstring purse at her wrist. "For their perfume," she clarified. "they'll leave a house smelling heavenly."
Sasuke didn't say anything, though she was probably right. The air was thick with the ghost of a scent, sweet and light, innocent.
"Anyhow, I wished-" her sentence cut off and her voice changed, smiling she looked back at him, "you know what. Never mind. You're right. Wishes are for us and whoever grants them, no one else."
She had stirred his curiosity, only to smother it. If this was a plan to get him interested, it had worked. Not that he would honestly admit it. Women. "That," he finally said, "was a tease."
"Yes, it was." But she didn't say anymore on the subject. It was alright by him, he wasn't ready to share his dreams yet. Maybe, he hoped, in the future.
Maybe, she mused, in the future.
The lights overhead flickered into darkness. Both her and Myugi-san blinked up at them, sightless in the void.
"What the hell-" Myugi-san whispered.
Static cut from their radios. "Code seven-eighty-two. All agents remain on high alert."
"The festival must have blown a transmitter." She offered, a thrill going through her. This was it; the chance she needed. It would take at least fifteen minutes for the video feed to reboot.
At her side, Myugi-san hummed an answer.
"I'll check the inside. You keep watch."
Her sentence was followed by the crackle of emergency lights coming to life one by one, a glowing string of lines moving down the center of the hall.
"Be careful." Myugi-san warned her, head tilting side to side, peering into shadows.
Sakura put a hand to the pad in the wall, clicking in an access code; the double doors hissed open and, before they shut, she slid soundlessly between them.
Her feet knew the path. For hours, she had searched through files here, looking for information on the jutsu she was recreating. ANBU had been interested in her pet project. They'd given her the grant and the means. There was still a warrant in her uniform from her last visit to Level Four. Clan Information loomed before her. She had to hurry, if she was found, hands stuck elbow-deep in evidence, there was nothing in this life or the next that could protect her. Discovery guaranteed a trip to the interrogation unit, then suspension or worse. Agents, nosy ones, disappeared all the time.
Naruto, wherever your are, watch over me.
She leafed through the file in her hand, the red stamp of a level four classified document putting her on edge. Her heart was beating quickly within her chest, nerves shaking her frame. At every noise her fingers stalled over the page, lungs stopping, pulse rushing loudly in her strained ears. There wasn't much time before the video feed came on again. But she couldn't pass up such an opportunity. To be posted on Level Four, on the night of the Festival, when security was slack, during a power outage, was a godsend. Fate was feeling generous towards her and she'd be a fool to ignore the mood.
She had rifled through three recent files before admitting defeat. Nothing.
Sakura was both disappointed and relieved as she tucked the current file back, her gloves hiding the traces of chakra. She had found nothing on them. Other than a serious incident with Cloud, the Hyuga had no recorded offenses. And their latest activity-down to the last detail Sai had passed on-was being carefully monitored. She was finally walking back to her post-where she was supposed to be-when the character for Uchiha stuck her to the cold cement of the ground. An entire section, as large as the Hyuga's, was dedicated to them. Facing it slowly, Sakura's hand hovered over the last file, the thickest and most recent. There's little time left, a voice threatened her. Fear sent another shock of adrenaline through her. Straight ahead, a camera-red light off-glinted in the soft glow; a reminder. A bead of sweat rolled across the skin of her neck. Steeling herself she plucked the file from the shelf. The overhead lights, three lonely fluorescent bulbs that fed off the generator, cast shadows on the page. Drawing back the manila cover, she was met with the title page: a typed sheet listing the clan's name and the subject matter, Volume 202, The Uchiha Massacre, Level Four Classified stamped ominously below it. Swallowing the knot in her throat, Sakura continued, red ink burned into her eyes. There were pictures; sick, bloody pictures. Kami. She had seen things just as bad, seen the bodies of women and children. But this, this was an album of corpses. She paused over the picture of Uchiha Mikoto and her husband. The matriarch and patriarch of the Uchiha clan; Sasuke's parents. She felt ill. He had stumbled home to this, worse, to his brother doing this. It was a miracle Sasuke still held any sort of sanity. Sakura shoved it back, burying the clan's bloody end between the volumes of their history. Her eyes lingered on the file before it. She plucked it carefully, holding her breath when it fell open in her arms. Her blood came to a screeching stop, freezing within the flesh of her veins. Coup. Gaze swallowing the word, Sakura sped through the writing, cover to cover. Revolting…underground meetings…plans for a coup…imprisonment of the Hokage…village takeover. They had been staging a coup. The Uchiha, Konoha's greatest clan, the faces of the original Police Force, had tried to usurp the government. The shock of the information didn't have time to settle in. From somewhere in the archives, an echo rang.
Sakura's head snapped up. The file was back in its place within a second. Digging one hand into her weapons pouch, she moved noiselessly to the source. Sharp-edged fear honed her muscles, squeezed sweat from her skin and air from her lungs, agitated the heavy thump of her heart.
Calm, Sakura. No one's caught you yet. You're a guard, investigating a noise. She exhaled slowly. You're in the right. At a touch from her hand, her mask slid noiselessly over her face. Focus.
Her movements were lightening striking the ground: fast, unpredictable, and unstoppable. Shame her opponent was faster. The feel of his neck within the clamp of her elbow was gone so fast she thought him a ghost. Jumping away, she narrowly dodged a shuriken, then almost dropped her kunai when she met the pearled gaze of Hyuga Neji.
He was similarly frozen, although the shock on his face dimmed quickly, muscles falling back into a neutral stare.
"Haruno-san." He observed, taking in the color of her hair. "You do not need to kill legitimate visitors." Warily she watched him watch her, hand digging slowly into his pocket. A warrant appeared between them.
"Move your thumb." She growled evenly. His hesitation stirred her suspicion.
Reluctantly, he shifted the warrant, revealing a signature where his finger had been. Myugi-san's signature.
"What's in your hand." Her head nodded to the file at his left.
Neji looked down casually, as if he hadn't noticed he was carrying it, "just some information."
"Why, if that file is a Level One," she took in the green tag, "would you be in a Level Four zone? Looking for anything else?"
The arrogant tilt of his brow preceded his response. "Ergo the warrant."
Beneath the bone of her mask, her teeth ground together. They stood at an impasse, neither speaking. It was then that a sliver of red snatched her attention. Only her eyes shifted to the file in his hand. There it was, the edge of the typical Level Four stamp. A highly classified document hidden within the folder of a public record. Her opinion was biased, she knew. She wanted someone to burn for the death of her team, and that want clouded her judgment. But with every passing day she found herself with new reasons to watch the Hyuga. Don't do anything stupid, Sai had reminded her. She wouldn't, not yet. Sakura moved to pass him, pausing at his side, shoulders touching. She kept her face forward, gaze focused on the doors in the distance. "You have a son on the way, Neji-san. Think of him when you finish whatever it you're doing here tonight."
He remained immobile, impassive, but his heart missed a beat. As the doors slammed shut behind him, a dull, hiss filling the space, Tenten's warning flashed in his mind: Whatever it is your clan's doing is being watched. Yes, and it would seem Konoha was coming to their own conclusions. He thought of what Hyuga-sama was doing; how his decisions were affecting them all. Neji was tired, tired of cleaning up after his uncle's messes, tired of following after the clan, tired of waking up to a woman he honored, but couldn't love. Everything was falling apart.
Sakura wanted so badly to follow him home. She knew what she'd seen. She knew he was tampering with Level Four files. She also knew, that if she followed, she might find out what, why, and who. But she stayed at her post long after he had come through the double doors. No matter how her bones itched to trail after him, she remained next to Myugi-san until the end of her shift. Walking through Konoha under the dark black of predawn, Sakura shook her head. It wouldn't have ended well had she gone after him. Neji was a skilled shinobi, him detecting her was a serious possibility. If not him, one of the sensors or guards at the compound. Then she would have been the one in a compromising situation.
Swinging the duffel bag in her hand forward, Sakura dug through it, feeling over the yukata from the festival, until her fingers curled over sharp paper. Gently, she pried it loose.
The pinwheel was a dull blue under the streetlights, flickering in and out of existence as she moved between them, between light and dark. By the time her feet had stepped over the threshold of the cemetery, the sky was blushing a murky rose on the far horizon. It lent just enough of a glow for her to weave through the tombstones, but not so much that it would ruin her objective.
Kneeling at his grave, Sakura stuck the pinwheel in the soft earth before it.
"You asked me for something today. Two somethings," she amended. "I'm here to bring you one, and to tell you that I'll try." Try to be the kind of happy you want me to be.
She took in a shaky breath, unfocused gaze drifting downwards, "Don't think that means you're off the hook," she laughed, a tumble of air rattling in her windpipe, "I'm still going to talk to you, and ask you for help-after all, you've got a lot more leverage up there than I do, so don't be lazy-and I'm not going to stop looking for you or crying about you. So get used to your ears ringing." Abstractedly, she rubbed the skin of her palm with one hand, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. There was a sting pricking at her eyes, she did her best to ignore it.
"Here," she said through the knot in her throat, fingers curling over the pull on the pinwheel, "your favorite," she finished, tugging sharply. A puff of smoke, the smell of black powder, and the fizzle of a burning fuse later, the edge of each blade sprang to life. Sparks flew from them, wriggling to the ground like burning, ember worms. A sudden burst of wind swept through her hair. The pinwheel shook under its strain, blades spinning themselves into a frenzied blur of color and light.
"Show off," she muttered, a smile softening her face. Forearms pushing into her stomach, Sakura watched it burn; a circle of living light, a string of fireflies spinning out of control. It was beautiful, wild with unrestrained energy-just like him. His grave and her face were bathed in the glow of the pinwheel, a bright pocket of three in the coming dawn.
She stayed until it burned itself out, until there was nothing but singed blue paper, until the sun shook night from the world and was strong in the sky. Then, pressing a kiss from her palm to stone, she left.
Goodbye, Naruto.
