Chapter 21
I sleepily walked up the stairs in the Hokage tower towards Tsunade's office. I had managed to get up this morning without waking Itachi up, even with the loud insistent alarm going off at 5:45am. He seemed so peaceful, and it looked like he needed the sleep.
I knocked on the door and stepped in when I heard a voice telling me to enter. Inside the room Tsunade was sitting at her desk, three sake cups at her desk. My eyes were then drawn to a red head sitting opposite Tsunade. "Sakura you're 10 minutes late. Take a seat and have a cup of sake, while you're at it." Tsunade said, smiling.
"Sorry Shishou. Isn't it too early in the morning for sake?" I asked, knowing what her answer would be.
"It's never too early for sake, and anyway after what I tell you I think you're going to need it." She commented. The last part she said had me curious. I sat down and picked up the sake, thinking that it might not do any harm just this once. "This is Hotaru." She said motioning to the red-head sitting next to me. I looked more closely and saw that her shoulder length hair was really more of a dark ginger than actually red, she had dark blue eyes which almost verged on a purple colour, she was slightly bustier than me but looked a little shorter. "She will be taking you to see her clan, whom will explain things in much more detail today."
"Which clan is she from?" I asked interrupting her explanation.
"I'm from the Haruno clan." Hotaru said, her voice seemed very familiar. It then dawned on me what she had just said.
"The Haruno clan!?" I burst out, completely confused. "I'm not from a clan, am I? My parents are civilians!" I exclaimed.
"Your mother is a civilian, but your father wasn't always. The Haruno clan is a small clan affiliated with Konoha but has always been a secret clan. They are a bit like root, but more loyal and answerable to the Hokage of the time." Tsunade explained a little more. "The Haruno clan is very matriarchal and so when your father left to live in Konoha as a civilian, they let him. As a man he was never in line to become the head of the clan and neither were any of his children." She told the story of how my father and I came into being in Konoha itself. "However the Haruno clan have decided that it's time you knew about them and their special abilities. I'm sure that Hotaru will explain it in more detail on your way. I have arranged for you to take the week off. Tell no-one about anything from this next week unless you have permission, as far as they are concerned you have been sent on a mission."
Something else clicked in my head as I heard her name for the second time. "Hotaru, you're not who I think you are, are you?" I asked hesitantly as I tried to get the idea around my head.
'Of course I am.' She said in my head. "I'll explain everything in detail once we get on the road." She told me, this time out loud.
"Okay..." I said hesitantly. I was still very confused about the whole situation, which had just cropped up from nowhere.
"I would advise you to go and pack now, since you have a fair journey ahead of you today." Tsunade told me, effectively dismissing the both of us. I nodded and walked out of the office, still a little bit in a daze from the onslaught of information I had just received.
"So can you explain how you're inside my head, but at the same time an actual living real person?" I asked, still trying to get it round my head.
"I don't really want people to over-hear anything. Most things within the clan are very top secret. So I promise to tell you in detail when we have left the gates, but for now let's stick to simpler questions." She replied quickly.
I glared at her, not liking being out of the loop. I knew how stubborn she could be though so I dropped it. "So how exactly are we related?" I asked her, thinking this would be simple enough for her to answer.
"I'm your cousin." She told me. "Your dad and my mum are siblings. We also have another Aunt and two more cousins, and you have another cousin who is my little brother. We have grandparents, and a few cousins once removed. Over all I think there are probably about 30 odd people within the clan. This week I'll just introduce you to all of the main people you need to know, but eventually you will probably come to meet the whole clan. We're just too small to not know everyone, especially since our clan makes up the entire village." She explained the family in a little more detail than I had asked for initially, however it was something I would need to know eventually, why not get it out of the way now.
As Hotaru finished her explanation we were approaching my house. The time had to have been somewhere around 7:30 from the colour of the sky and the activity which had been starting within the streets of Konoha. I walked straight through the front door, taking my shoes off in the entrance. Hotaru followed my lead. I walked straight up to the bedroom, hoping that Itachi had already gotten up and was out of the house.
Obviously luck had escaped me today as I walked in our room to find that Itachi was still changing. He turned around when the door had opened. He stood there without his shirt. I wasn't sure what to do. I hadn't been prepared for this situation. "Morning." Itachi said as he walked over to me. He stopped when he saw Hotaru standing behind me.
"Hello, I'm Hotaru! So nice to actually meet you in person." She said cheerily.
"Hotaru, as in the Hotaru from inside your head?" He quizzed me.
"Yes, don't ask me to explain. I don't know everything myself." I told him as I walked into the room, fully prepared to ignore his shirtlessness. Itachi stared at me before solving that problem by putting his shirt on. "I'm going to be gone for the next week." I told him as I pulled out my pack and started to fill it with things I may need. I decided to pack a few changes of clothes, my small medics pack and some of my favourite weapons.
"You'll need to pack more weapons than that. We'll want to see your full arsenal, so I would also advise packing more comfortable clothing." She then started to rummage through my wardrobe. "And this." She said handing me one of the pretty kimono's Mikoto had bought for me. I packed it along with the matching accessories. I swapped the small medic kit for my extensive one and added all of the weapons I could find, which I was comfortable with using. I also exchanged some of my casual clothing for clothing which could withstand more wear and tear.
"You are not taking any provisions." Itachi noted.
"I won't need them. I..." I trailed off as I didn't know how much I could tell him.
"She's going to meet the rest of the Haruno clan." Hotaru said for me. "We'll teach her a few of our things, and just get to know her." She explained roughly.
"I've never heard of the Haruno clan before, and I thought that Sakura came from a civilian family." Itachi stated.
"That's because we are Konoha's secret clan. Loyal only to the Hokage of the time. We are a very small clan and saw no need to try and compete with the other much larger clans." She answered is unasked question. "Sakura, we have to leave now if we want to arrive on time." She said.
"Okay I'm ready." I told her, although I made no move to actually leave. "Um, can I have a moment alone?" I asked her.
"You have 5 minutes before I come to drag you away from him." She said before she walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
"Will I ever get to spend more than a few hours alone with you?" He rhetorically asked me.
"I don't know, but I hope that things might start to settle out a bit once we find the traitor." I answered anyway, knowing that it could turn into war at the end. "And it's not my fault that my long lost secret clan decided to reunite with me now either." I expanded. "I don't like being apart from you for this long either, but we're just going to have to make do." I told him.
He sighed before kissing me softly. "I love you." He told me when we broke apart. "I'll talk to Tsunade while you're away. I shall ask her to give us a day off when you get back." He said before kissing me again, this time with a little more force and passion.
"Do I have to drag your ass down here!?" Hotaru shouted up the stairs, breaking our little bubble.
"I'm coming!" I shouted back down to her. I quickly kissed Itachi before picking up my pack from the floor and leaving the house like a whirlwind.