I can't stress enough how sorry I am that this has taken me SO LONG to finish. I'm so sorry but university is kind of a big deal when you're so close to finishing! (I got a 2:1 by the way, yay for me!) I'm in the big job hunt at the mo, so updates should be quicker, and nmmi-nut's kakasaku story "The Samurai and the Oni Girl" has generated some inspiration along with Christina Perri's song "Distance" which I have decided is my theme for Sakura's feelings for Kakashi in this story.

Things have gotten so bad with me not even noticing how mean to the characters I'm being! Hope you enjoy this chapter, and can understand everyone's motivations and attitudes as much as possible. We're almost near the end! (almost... near...)

Standard Disclaimer Applies!

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"I was visiting Miku..."

"Miku?"

Yoshio nodded. "She lives in her dad's cellar." Sai's face creased, but then quickly smoothed into that neutral expression he used when he was being patient.

"Yoshio, now listen to me; this is very important..." He took a deep breath. "You have to tell me absolutely everything you know about Miku."

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Something was different today.

I could taste it in the air.

The clinic was typically quiet, and I sat at my window, open just a crack -all that my ANBU guards would allow- watching the chaos that engulfed the typically tranquil Hokage tower.

Normally those in a rush wouldn't bother with the doors and would head straight to Tsunade or their department, but today it seemed like the entire ANBU division were tense. I could see the uniforms of the internal affairs personnel rushing about with ANBU teams and I even saw Naruto, with his mask up on the side of his head, talking seriously with a few of the immigration officers.

He glanced over my way, but his attention was quickly directed elsewhere.

It was only when Ino showed up and began heading straight for me that I realized how much my ANBU guard had been stepped up. She had barely made it halfway across the green before she disappeared from sight behind a wall of ANBU.

Conscious that I must be being watched, I ignored the frantic expression on my best friend's face and pulled the blinds shut. With the room in shadow I turned from the window, biting my thumb, deep in thought.

It must be something big, and it must be something to do with me. That left two things that it could be.

Either it was the day of Sasuke's trial, or they'd found Hanako.

If it was the first, I needed to be there to testify... and if it was the second...

My throat closed, my heart froze, and i felt the scream bubbling up inside of me.

That was it. That had to be it.

They'd found her.

They had my daughter.

But why weren't they telling me?

The cold fear had me standing perfectly still, even as I turned over the possibilities in my head. Hanako could very well be dead, I'd known that, somewhere in the cold, logical part of my brain that had kept me away from Konoha for so long. She could have been brainwashed, or been subject to any one of the many horrors I knew of in the world.

What if she was changed beyond recognition?

What if her mind had been twisted by her captors?

Why couldn't I see my child?

I swallowed hard and walked over to the door, pulling it open as gently as I felt able. Instantly, five ANBU were around me, weapons glinting and ready. Under other circumstances their numbers would flatter me, but my mind was elsewhere.

"What's happening over there?" There was no sign of Ino now, I wasn't sure if that was good or bad, but I couldn't afford to dwell on it. "It seems busy."

"Nothing that concerns you, traitor." A young female said, and I recognised her as the ANBU that had roughed me up before my trial.

"Oh, nice to see you again." I said, a little too blithely, and she narrowed her eyes (I think) at me.

Another ANBU put a hand on the woman's shoulder, warningly, and stepped forwards. "I apologise, Miss Haruno, but we cannot tell you anything concerning the affairs of the Village, its a matter of security." He bowed his head briefly, and I smiled graciously, appreciating his manners.

"You're right of course... I was just curious."

One of the masked nin shuffled uncomfortably, and glanced to the man who I knew was the leader. I watched him as his eyes shifted back to me, and I smiled in recognition. He looked down, guiltily, then met my eyes again.

I kept my eyes on his as I nodded. "It has nothing to do with me, right? Sorry to have bothered you."

I closed the door and leant my forehead against it, closing my eyes tightly.

What the hell was I supposed to do? My house was surrounded by ANBU and my closest friends wanted me to just keep my nose clean and out of this mess. But if they'd found my child and internal affairs were involved then she was inside the village.

This meant a villager was responsible for the kidnapping of my four year old.

No, I realized with a sick feeling in my stomach. Hanako's birthday was today.

It struck me at that moment that I'd never told Kakashi when his daughter's birthday was, or what her favourite stories were. Through all of my protestations that I wanted him to love her and think of her as his daughter, I'd made little effort to help him fall in love with her as I had. I'd taken her from her father and despite my words of wanting Kakashi to feel the emotional connection to her as I had, I'd not even let him know she was alive. I could rant and rave about how there was simply no way to contact him in Konoha but we both knew that simply wasn't true; Team Kakashi had long ago created a secret code and messaging service using a technique Sai and I developed using transferrable tattoo ink that could show a message on the recipients palm for exactly ten minutes.

So why hadn't I told him? In a way it was his punishment for not believing me, and in another it was that age old argument we always seemed to come back to...

I could forgive him for his neglect as a teacher, it seemed, but I could never forget.

Angry at myself for sending him away- no, keeping him away (because really, wasn't that all I'd been doing since he found me? Playing games and keeping my distance...) I turned to storm into my room but was suddenly face to face with the one man I really should have expected.

"Sakura!" His hushed voice was harsh, desperate, as he clamped a familiar hand on my arm. "Come on, there isn't much time." Those brilliant blue eyes, the eyes I'd recognised behind the ANBU mask, were wide and fevered.

"Naruto! What..."

"A Clone." He said quickly, dismissively, and I briefly wondered just how many Uzumaki Naruto's wandered the world at this moment, but decided it would be safer not to ask. "Sakura, we have to hurry, please."

I followed him as he dragged me into the clinic with its closed blackout blinds and many shelves, as he pulled me into the darkest corner, and it was only when both his arms wrapped around my waist and his chin tucked over my shoulder (I had to close my eyes so that I wouldn't tense up and kill him on the spot) that I spoke aloud.

"You found Hanako."

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That Hanako had been recovered, I soon discovered, was not actually the case. Naruto's Hiraishin took the two of us to a room I recognised only distantly, from a tour in our academy days. High, stony cielings and rough, damp walls cast long, impossibly dark shadows in the light of the single dim emergency lamp.

"Why are we in the refuge tunnels, Naruto?"

Instead of answering me, my former teammate pulled my harshly by the wrist away from the lamp, further into the cliffs that dominated and protected the hidden village of the leaves. "Hinata's fetching the others. Don't worry."

"Who has my daughter, Naruto?" And finally, at that he paused. He turned to face me, though I couldn't make out his features in this dark, I felt the turn through our now linked hands. "Do you know?"

"... No." The hesitation in his voice was barely noticeable, but even though years had passed I still knew him best. No one had that over me.

"Is it Konoha?" With a small hiss of distaste, he turned and continued tugging me onwards through the black. His palm was sweaty and hot, uncomfortable grasping my cold, tired hands which once had warmed and comforted but now only hurt.

"I wish you wouldn't say it like that. Konoha is not... you are Konoha, Sakura. We all are. Konoha isn't the enemy."

I remembered Kakashi's reaction, so similar, so long ago, to the same words. "Maybe it is. Maybe you are."

Again, he looked at me, but he continued walking. How could he navigate these tunnels so easily? Just how much had changed about the boy in the orange tracksuit in the years I'd been away? If two years with Jiraiya had made a nuisance into a ninja, what had the five years within the village created?

"You really think I'm the enemy?" His voice had lost some of its urgency in favour of a sadder, more lost tone. I couldn't really think of how to answer him so I remained silent. He sighed, and we turned a corner. "Sakura, whatever happens in the next twenty four hours you have to know that I-"

"There you are." Another voice had the two of us pausing mid step, waiting with bated breath as a lantern burst to life somewhere ahead of us. At the sight of so many people, I instinctively crouched, chakra flaring around my fists ready for battle.

People who- while maybe not willing to defy the village for me- I'd thought might at least look the other way in a situation like this stood side by side with those I knew shared no sympathy with me. Tsunade stood with a councilman I'd never met but who'd been at my trial, Kiba side by side with Neji, even the noble newcomer Kazuya with his adoptive daughter was present and- perhaps saddest of all- Ino and Sai allied with Sasuke's wife.

Weak with the fresh wounds of betrayal, I looked to Naruto. Naruto- my comrade, my lifeline, my absolutely indisputably honourable best friend.

His face was creased with sorrow as he watched me prepare to fight. "Sakura..."

Not Sakura-chan. I knew that I'd changed, and I knew that much of what I'd done was unforgivable even for the surest of friends but that was Sasuke's wife stood with Ino and Sai. My former mentor and the woman who'd made me was stood with a council member. Neji, who was so straight-laced and bound to his honour was with the reckless dog-boy who I had thought believed me.

And Naruto didn't call me Sakura-chan any more.

So I did the only thing I could bear to do. And I ran.

Naruto called after me, and I heard his voice echo behind me, around me, in my heart as I melted into the unfamiliar tunnel network that was designed to lose people.

Then a sudden burst of light blinded me and I couldn't move. The steady torchlight showed precisely where my shadow joined another's. With a sickening feeling tightening my chest I closed my eyes in defeat.

No one could escape Shikamaru once he had them.

I turned, stiffly and unwillingly, to face the crowd that ran to meet me.

"Sakura." Tsunade's voice rang clear and authoritative even as her eyes softened upon meeting mine. "There's something you need to hear." With a nudge from Ino, Sasuke's meek, nervous wife stepped forwards. I didn't miss the flicker of her eyes over me in that strangely critical way even as she cringed back in fear of getting too close.

She knew, then, where her husband's hand had been.

Fighting off the too-well-known nausea that threatened to remind me of an experience long since endured, the woman swallowed hard and I felt the mood shift.

Such hostility in the air. Such killing intent. Whose was it?

"Several weeks ago, my husband brought a child to his house."

I noticed the way she said that; his house. Not ours.

Wait, what?

"What?" My voice was low, and dark. "A child?" At my tone the woman shrank back, lips tight and shaking. She shook her head and bowed to me, deep. Falling to her knees I could only hear mutters and whimpers. Desperate, I looked to Naruto again, but he was watching the woman with a twisted look of pity and disdain. "Please... please tell me Sasuke doesn't have my daughter."

His eyes met mine.

"Please tell me he doesn't have Hanako."

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Masako was not in the best of moods.

Since Kakashi had met her in Suna he'd been keeping her on a much tighter rein than he usually would. Under normal circumstances she was free to do as she wished so long as she had information for her adoptive father when he appeared, and if no information, then contacts who could help him when necessary.

But since he'd found his lover he'd been sending a steady stream of instructions to her via the tattoos on her palm. Currently she was crouched in the undergrowth by the only gate into Konoha, much too close to detection for any comfort to be had.

And her orders?

Look for Sasuke, look for a small child, beware of Genjutsu.

That was it.

That was it?

Masako was stealthy, she was good at earning trust and good at hearing things she should't, but she wasn't a social worker. She had no interest in the welfare of a kidnapped ninja child, but Kakashi had her loyalty, and she was really the only one who could do this. She had to be there when Sasuke came out of those gates.

When. Not if.

One of her Konoha contacts had told her of the recent revelations internal affairs were dealing with, and she had dutifully relayed the message to Kakashi through her palm but had yet to receive a reply. This meant that either he was dead -she ignored the voice in her head that started screaming in fury at the very idea- or too busy getting here.

Because apparently the lover had a child.

This, of course, raised a whole lot of questions for him- not all of which were entirely professional, and the feeling of jealousy that he had a child was such a surprise that she didn't know what to think of it. Her allegiance to Kakashi was a tactical thing, and the running joke of being his daughter was surely just that; a joke because Masako didn't need anything but the coin, and that was what she was given.

But apparently her tummy had other ideas, because it was getting all flippy and twisty as someone stepped out under a genjutsu that would have fooled even the best.

But it didn't fool her, and that's why she was so damn good at what she did. Nothing fooled her.

Writing a quick assurance to her father, Masako took off after the Uchiha and the little girl who had the same face shape as Kakashi.

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Kazuya, the noble with his adopted child, cleared his throat. Through a haze of crippling fury, I managed to look at him properly for perhaps the first time, and his young ward who looked a little uncomfortably familiar.

From somewhere behind the group, I also realized that Ino's two children were stepping forward, looking bravely defiant with their upturned chins.

"Haruno-san" Kazuya started, his handsome dark eyes narrow and intent. "I think this is a story best told by the children."

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Cliffhangers are evil, but I'll not leave you hanging long!