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bones grating thin strip back the skin
-o-
Their cell was well outside friendly territory.
As an academy student, Sakura had never appreciated how often missions would take her to places Konoha nin were very clearly Not Supposed To Be. She had never appreciated how often her missions would not be about battles or skirmishes, quick jabs and powerful explosions. How long she would be inactive when out in the field, waiting for action.
She had never considered, in her profession, how much and how often she would have to lose in order to progress.
It was dusk and she was finishing helping Sai with his new cover. It was important that they all matched a certain look for their mission infiltrating their new targeted territory, this time in leftover clan lands north of Grass country borders, and it was a lengthy process getting the details just right. They observed first, they stalked and they stole.
The first step had been a week long cleansing ritual, involving specific oils and tinctures, steaming and purges. Jutsu had helped mimic the appearance of a lifetime of such habits. They had hidden scars and trimmed down their physiques, coached one another in shedding inappropriate body language and presenting more authentic habits to their covers.
Sai had cut off Sakura's hair, shaved most of her head and darkened her eyebrows with semi-permanent dye. She was returning the favor, taking care to keep his scalp blemish free and healthy, as hers now was.
They spoke to each other in an increasingly familiar accent. They sparred in an increasingly familiar style.
"I can feel too much air now," Sai said to Sakura, words affected in an increasingly less strange manner, remarking on the loss of his hair. Instinctively, his hand went up to rub at the bared skin.
Sakura did the same to her own head with his reminder, her fingers too rough and traveling too quickly without the usual resistance. He was right. It was like she was extra sensitive to any slight change in the breeze. The sun felt hotter than it used to. There was nothing to brush from her face and tuck behind her ear, though the want somehow still existed like an itch in her hand. She felt out of order and exposed.
But it was getting better. This wasn't her first cover.
"Does this mean you're not going to stick with this new look after our mission conclusion?" She teased.
"Definitely not. I hope none of us do. Look at sensei. His eyebrows are offensively out of proportion like that."
Sakura fought a smile from her lips. Parroting quietly to herself with humor, "'offensively.'"
There was more to be done than hair. Piercings and inkings and other modifications. By the end of the transformation, she didn't recognise herself. She was once again someone else.
Or maybe it was more like –
As she was thoughtfully and, she thought, subtly glancing at Ken, when he caught her eyes.
– this was who she always had been.
-o-
Orders for the mission intended that the Otogakure raiding party find their cell, under the assumption of their covers, and to make contact. The goal was to learn about Orochimaru's intentions, about his forces, their tactics. More intelligence gathering after the fall out of the Carbon Man mission. All the information gathered would then be passed on and examined by others, and the board espying the political and military spectrum of the shinobi nations as understood by Konohagakure would be appropriately adjusted or redefined.
As with most missions, there were risks. Hoping for contact with an enemy upped those risks.
Weeks had gone by when Sakura and her cell finally caught the raiding party's attention. Cautious surveillance and preliminary scouting was then succeeded finally by an encompassing attack.
Her cell was using the cover of an unaffiliated shinobi clan; not mercenaries and not traitors, just an isolated lineage that wasn't usually worthy of much attention from any larger players. But for someone interested in getting himself more bodies – well, that was what made them attractive to an outfit like Orochimaru's. While he made a point of pursuing certain bloodlines, he also had a pattern of seeking out those who were skilled but not too skilled.
Bodies.
She was just a body. A vessel. Something separate.
"Risu, on your left!"
Sakura was 'Risu,' and the warning came from Sai. He only said it for show, and she reacted as a less experience fighter would. Over-extended a kick and then got slammed in her torso for the effort.
Her cover knew only a limited amount of taijutsu and was better suited to setting traps than brawling. Nonetheless, Sakura was able to curl over the knee at her stomach and swing her weight forward. She took out her opponent's other leg with her own and they both toppled to the ground. She had more advantage there; flexible and writhing and unrelenting.
The man she was grappling made the mortal error of losing his grip on his knife.
Sakura disabled one of his arms, managed in their tangled movements to coincidentally sever tissue that kept him from properly moving fingers, keeping any sort of grip, and hindering the force of any punches he might try to land.
Her cover was weaker, maybe, but that didn't mean she had to lose.
She put all her weight over the man under her thighs, applying a good bit of force to the man's neck as she nearly popped his arm from its socket. His free hand went to her face, thumb reaching and failing to find a hold in her eye. Instead she bit into his wrist.
Her cover was weaker but she was valuable yet.
Around her, in the small wooded area in which her cell matched weapons with the raiding party, Sakura looked up from choking out the Oto nin to watch her teammates play their roles admirably.
Everyone had a part to play and she had maneuvered herself as best she could amongst them.
Ken didn't seem to be paying her any mind, but Sakura knew better.
They would catch the nin for interrogation. Or, really, taking one prisoner would be sufficient, and at least one enemy would have to escape.
Again, she heard Sai call out her name. Within the span of those two syllables, a particular and painful order of events took place: firstly, Sakura lost her vision; almost simultaneously while hearing a sharp sort of thwack; and feeling a shockwave of pain rupturing out from a specific spot on the back of her head. She lost her grip on the man she was holding down. She might have lost her grip on anything, and her body seemed to slacken some, like how a sack does when the rice inside shifts suddenly. Most importantly, during this quick succession, something wrapped around her – multiples of something like metallic cord – and she was yanked backwards.
It all happened too fast to register immediately. Someone was pulling her away and she felt sedated and numb and still full of aches. Instinctively, as she noticed Sai reaching his hand out for her, Sakura reached back. She couldn't tell if she really moved at all.
They might have touched their fingers, she didn't know, but in the next second she was gone.
-o-
Sometimes she didn't make it to their prearranged meetings. It happened. It was expected in their sort of mission. They had plans for it.
Kakashi was only annoyed because the backup plans weren't panning out either. Sakura was on another mission outside of the village and back in her slot as a medic for Ken's cell. Nothing she could help, really. It was a good thing, really.
He wasn't disappointed by the lack of a message left for him with the staff of the rooftop cafe, signaling to him she was ready to meet again in another secure location. And worry wasn't the word. Kakashi was...impatient? He had things he wanted to talk to her about. Thoughts that had been plinking off him like stones off the wall across from a bored kid on a summer's eve. Flick, smack. Flick, smack in a tiresome loop.
He was agitated, maybe.
The thought that shadowed him most – "I've lost all my students."
Sakura's circumstance was different, in that he might have lost her to the job, to the demands of their lifestyle, rather than lost her to another, more powerful and attentive mentor. Or maybe it was that as well? No, no.
It wasn't that he had really lost her.
He didn't think that for several more weeks.
-o-
Sakura was not unconscious for very long after she was taken from the fight. But she had been drugged or put under a jutsu and for what her memories were worth, she might as well have been flat knocked out the entire time. She remembered sensations of being cramped and it being hard to breathe, like she were wrapped in spider silk and sunk into a warm, wet clay pit. She remembered brief flashes of being terrified and confused and then succumbing to darkness.
She had been transported somewhere for an indeterminate time and by an indeterminate method.
Awake again, however, she had a general grasp of her situation – if only because she recognised the face of the man observing her, and so many others in their tight and writhing space, from a balcony high over her head.
Kabuto.
.
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.
-o-