Two chapters in less than 24 hours you say?! Why yes m'dears. I felt inspired to write last night and since you all have been waiting for another chapter so patiently, I thought I'd push a second one before the weekend.
Thank you all for your kind words, reviews, favorites, and follows! It's quite energizing to see those coming through and I appreciate each and every one of them, and you!
Happy weekend to you all! Enjoy!
Chapter 12
Upon approaching the Hidden Cloud Village, the entire party breathed a silent sigh of relief. One reason being they could now be considered safe enough from the unknown group of rogues that had been getting slowly closer. It was hard to say if it was on purpose or if the group from Konoha was their target or if the rogues were tailing them simply because they were there. None had gotten close enough to see the party and it's members to Kakashi's knowledge, but he had a hunch it was because they suspected who was in the party that the rogues were hanging back. That said, the ANBU as well as Anko, disappeared onto the rooftops , likely to search out ahead for possible dangers to the hokage.
Another reason for their relief was the end of Naruto's incessant grumbling and questions about dinner. It was late now, the sun had set some time ago, but the restaurants and bars were still in full swing with patrons eating and drinking. This was by no means Naruto's first time in Kumo, and he pleaded with Kakashi to let him part with the group to find some food. Kakashi, who was eager to keep the blonde from breaking down in the middle of the street in a fit of hunger, excused Naruto without a second thought. They had been moving as quickly as the group could for the past several hours and had not deemed it safe to stop for food.
Sakura shook her head as Naruto disappeared with near inhuman speed. "You'd think he had been in captivity for a month…," she muttered as she continued on toward the raikage's tower.
Not wanting Naruto to go off by himself, despite the fact that he could take care of himself normally, Kakashi raised an eyebrow and made eye contact with Sai and Shikamaru.
"Naruto is frequently oblivious when he's hungry. We shall go make sure he doesn't do anything foolish," Sai nodded in response. The two walked off in the direction of a restaurant where Naruto could be heard ordering what must be close to their full menu.
Kakashi nodded his thanks to the pair and proceeded along in Sakura's wake. She was in no mood for Naruto's exuberance. She hadn't eaten since breakfast either with the exception of the bars she had passed around, but she hadn't complained about it. She had, on the other hand, needed to listen to Naruto belly ache about, well, his belly ache for the last several hours, after several hours of his incessent questions about Sasuke. Kakashi was sure she was looking forward to seeing Sasuke as well, but she had matured more than Naruto had in the least few years. And thankfully she was no longer obsessed with the broody Uchiha.
Kakashi was started to reconsider the former thought when a group of young Cloud shinobi cat called her from their spot near the door of a bar. Sakura was obviously in kunoichi garb, but apparently these particular ninja hadn't heard of Sakura before and had decided her long pink hair made her a less than formidable kunoichi. This surprised Kakashi, since Sakura had treated numerous shinobi throughout the war, but these ninja were perhaps a little too young to have been on the front lines where Sakura had been most prevalent.
Kakashi watched from behind her as she stiffened, her fists clenching and leather gloves creaking. He readied himself to intervene as he approached her stilled form, not wanting to create an international incident within minutes of entering Kumo. He was pleased, however, when instead of reacting to the suggestive comments regarding her flexibility and the demeaning calls of "hime" following her, she continued on toward their destination. Had she looked back at him she would have seen his trademark eye crinkle grace his face.
However, she was busy looking for an outlet to her frustration, which she found in the form of a water barrel a few steps later. The cat-calls ended with choked gasps not even remotely befitting a shinobi as she flicked downward on the lid of the barrel with her thumb and forefinger. All that was left of the barrel were splinters of wood and a rather large puddle. Not only had she resisted knocking the overzealous nin into the the next street, she had only used enough chakra to break the barrel, with minimal impact to the ground under it.
Kakashi was impressed at her restraint as well as her chakra control. She had been working on isolating the damage caused by her chakra-filled punches. It wasn't entirely successful, but it had made a difference in some instances. Kakashi presumed there would be a small divot of maybe an inch or two where the base of the barrel had been, but that would be about it. She could certainly still create craters and fissures in the ground, or crumble a boulder ten times taller than she was into gravel, but she was indeed maturing.
Kakashi's amused smile grew into a straight up foolish grin under his mask. Her strength left him proud, and perhaps a little turned on. He had been known to be interested in the demure type of woman before, and he was certainly known to be attracted to gentle and feminine civilians in the past, but he was more intrigued by someone who could hold her own against him. Sakura was definitely in the latter group.
She certainly could hold her own against him, as she had proved many times. Oh, he could beat her in a serious spar if he wanted to, but it was more challenging now after he had lost his sharingan. He was still the Copy Nin, after all, and still faster than even many elite ninja could keep track of. Simply put, Kakashi thoroughly enjoyed going toe-to-toe with her when the opportunity arose.
The foolish grin morphed into a smirk that, if seen, would send most sensible people skittering away, as he quickened his pace. It wasn't only in a physical spar that he liked to go toe-to-toe with temperamental woman.
"Now, now, hime, don't you think you should control your temper better?" he chided, knowing full well she had actually done an admirable job doing so already.
Pink hair whipped around so fast as she turned to him that it swung parallel to the ground and nearly hit him in the face as it rode the momentum of the spin into her own face. The glare was deadly, even as she pushed the hair back from where it had wrapped around her face.
"You know damn well that they deserved that rather than the barrel!" she growled.
Kakashi turned her around gently and keeping a hand on each of her arms he steered her toward the raikage tower again. "I'm sure they did, hime."
He braced himself as she hip checked him roughly to try to push him away as he held her arms to her sides. He patted her arm patronizingly and resisted the urge to chuckle as he watched her flush with outrage.
"Easy, Sakura-hime," he said soothingly, rubbing her arm.
A tingle spread along the back of her neck and scalp at his tone. He had practically purred at her. She stopped paying attention to where she was walking as she realized what had just happened. She found her skin burning where his hands rested.
Where did this come from? A minute ago he was teasing me, and then….
Her train of thought ended abruptly, realizing that once again he was purposely teasing her simply to provoke a reaction from her. It was far from the first time he had done so, and it never ceased to annoy her that he manipulated her temper for his amusement.
3…2…1…
Kakashi had noticed the subtle change in the tension under his hands. He knew she was figuring out what he was doing. Just as he anticipated, she pulsed chakra through her arms to push his hands away from her to retaliate.
As if on cue, a gruff voice rang out from down the street in front of them.
"Kakashi! Sakura-sama!" The fourth raikage was approaching them, followed by Killer Bee.
Sakura glared at Kakashi before turning with a polite smile on her face for the former kage. She suspected he had known the pair had been approaching and would arrive just in time to waylay her attack.
Indeed he had known. He'd become somewhat of an expert at this kind of game, and he loved to play it with Sakura more than anyone else.
"Ay. Bee. How kind of you to meet us here; it's nice to see you," he smiled at them, grabbing Sakura's arm and slipping it through his to escort her. He saw her look at him in surprise but feigned not to notice her brief glance.
"Bee-sama. Ay-sama," Sakura inclined her head to each of the tall men standing before her. Raising an eyebrow at the yondaime raikage, she inquired as to how his arm was.
Following the replication of Naruto's arm using Hashirama's cells, Sakura had done the same for the yondaime a year after the end of the war. Tsunade had offered it earlier, but the beast of a man had been stubborn, saying he was doing perfectly well without it. It wasn't until several months had gone by that during a virtual conference with the Cloud that Tsunade had scolded him rather mercilessly for being stubborn and foolish, ending in challenging him to arm wrestle with her, only to mock him for the lack of ambidexterity with only one hand. Sakura and Naruto had left the following day equipped with everything Sakura would need to replicate the process Tsunade had performed, and the living example as a guard should she exhaust herself in the process, which was not unusual.
The prosthetic limb enhancement had been completed flawlessly to Kakashi's understanding, and the large and muscular man stood in front of him proudly clenching his fist for Sakura in a gesture of strength.
"It's better than the original, Sakura-sama," he declared smiling fiercely at her. "I'm of half a mind to stick my right arm into that accursed black flame just to have you improve that one too. I doubt that bossy woman could beat me in an arm wrestling match then…"
"Lord Fourth, if you lose your arm, or any limb for that matter, intentionally, I most certainly will not replace it for you. And I'll send shishou back here to deal with you."
Kakashi had never seen the man before him look startled, and he was willing to place money on the guess that the slight widening of the former raikage's eyes was as close as he would ever get. A second later, the eyes shifted into a glare, and lastly softened into fondness for the feisty woman before him. Kakashi's arm tucked the pinkette's ever so slightly closer to his body at the look she was receiving from the man before them. She didn't seem to notice.
"Fool, ya fool! You're like an open book! Chasing a woman that could destroy you with her pinky. Where's my brother the nanadaime? Fool, the fool?"
Kakashi wilted somewhat as Killer Bee basically ignored the fact that Naruto was nowhere near being the hokage, and it was in fact, himself.
Sensing his pout, Sakura patted the arm holding hers before replying, "he went to find something to eat Bee-sama. You know how he is. I think he may end up being the first example of a black hole someday, and we'll find it in his stomach."
Not bothering to excuse himself, Bee wandered off in the direction of Naruto's chakra, rapping to himself about hunger and tailed beasts.
Shaking his head at his adoptive brother, the larger man turned to lead his silver and pink haired guests toward their destination. It was a short walk remaining at this point, but he explained that one of the ANBU operatives had sped along to notify the godaime raikage of their arrival and the brothers had volunteered to meet them while some final preparations for the summit were concluded and assistants were dispatched to ready the guest rooms ahead of schedule.
Kakashi inclined his head at that, lowering his voice so as not to be overheard, "I apologize for that, Ay. There was a reasonably large group of tourists we wished to avoid this morning but they seemed to have a similar itinerary to ourselves. We thought it best to hurry on lest we have to stand behind them in a line. You know how I hate to wait."
Sakura snorted at his attempt at a covert conversation, but mostly at the idea of him hating to wait. While it was perfectly true, it seemed Kakashi's biggest mission in life to make others wait. She squeaked as she received a small shock as Kakashi's free hand moved to pat hers in mock sympathy. She thought it strange that static electricity had impacted them when they were already touching, but was too tired to consider it further as they walked on.
Once they had arrived in Darui's office, Kakashi and Sakura reveled in seating themselves on the plush sofa in a more casual corner of the room. The trio spent several minutes reminiscing over war stories before the current raikage was able to join them. Darui was shocked upon hearing of the group of rogue ninja that had attacked the hokage's traveling party. After hearing that the defeated group was restrained and covered by a genjustsu, he immediately summoned an awaiting ANBU operative from his own village with a sharp whistle.
If the ANBU was surprised to hear of the groups of roaming rogue ninja, he did his position proud by not allowing a reaction to show. Kakashi knew however that the man's mind would have gone off like a shot, formulating a plan before his leader had even started to charge him with investigating the group that was still at large and securing those that had already been subdued. Before the ANBU could dash off, Kakashi suggested he take one of the Konoha ANBU, or Anko to assist in finding the hidden prisoners.
Thankfully, at this point no further information was known about what they were after or why, and the idea that Sasuke might be the target was total conjecture at this point, so Kakashi chose not to mention this bit of information. Loose lips sink ships, after all, and what Sasuke had been working on was a sensitive topic.
Conversation soon turned to more mundane topics such as village development. While normally Sakura would be interested in such discussion, or at least when it came round to aspects of healthcare and wellness in the village, all she had attention for at the moment was the variety of onigiri that had been brought up for them. She at as delicately as she could, feeling half starved after hours of moving as fast as she could. She wasn't considered slow any longer, but when you were running with the likes of Kakashi and Naruto for that long, feeling so worn down was par for the course.
Once her stomach had been filled the men nonchalantly decided it was best for the Konoha shinobi to head to their respective quarters to rest. Darui assured them he would send his own ANBU out for the rest of the party to make sure they were made aware of their quarters and where they were located. Pink and Silver heads bowed in unison at not needing to retrieve the team themselves and proceeded to follow a Cloud jounin to thier quarters. To their surprise, they were informed that the new political guest housing was arranged entirely in the form of suites. Each floor was a separate suite with central common areas including a kitchen, surrounded by four bedrooms, each with attached baths. One room would be the largest with the most luxurious furnishings and bath, followed by another that was slightly smaller, but still indulgent in size and accommodation, with the final two being the smallest and of comparable size to one another. While the whole suite was quite lovely, the design had been decided upon in order to cater to the socially expected ranking of their guests while also providing a central and private location for the party to congregate.
Once they reached the floor that Kakashi, Sakura, and two of the ANBU team would be occupying, their escort handed them each an electronic key to access their suite with and promptly left them to assist with locating the other Konoha visitors.
Unlocking the door with his own key, Kakashi promptly stepped aside to allow Sakura entry first. Ushering her past him and into their accommodations, he was not expecting her to have stopped dead just inside the door. He realized just as the door swung shut behind him that Sakura was staring at a cloaked figure collapsed on the couch in the center of the room, arm hanging limply off the side. A figure that they both knew well, despite having not actually seen him for several months.
"S-Sasuke-kun?"
