Hey everyone! It seems like we have some new followers on this story, after that last update, so I just wanted to give a big welcome to the story! Hurrah! I definitely encourage y'all to message or review so that I can get to know what you want from the story and what I can change! I swear I don't bite.

Anyway as usual, I want to apologize for being late in this update, although I'm sure many old readers are just nodding their heads saying "alright, get on with it." But I actually had a number of writing projects to do last month! But okay, okay, you're right—no excuses.

Without further ado:

Chapter Twenty-Five:

more fish to fry

"I don't think I've ever heard you talk that much in your life," Naruto joked.

Sai wrinkled his nose. "Don't expect that to be the norm."

Sakura could only laugh. She smiled at the two of them, and then suggested, "Okay, how about we go join Anko again and figure things out?"

The other two men agreed, standing up from the bench and following her inside. Naruto went ahead to press on the elevator button. Sakura suddenly felt Sai grab her wrist.

"Hey," he said, looking at her for a moment and before redirecting his eyes out the window. "Thank you…for making me talk about…Shin."

She held back a blush. "Oh, no, that's not something to thank me for!" she replied, laughing nervously and feeling herself heat up upon realizing that his hand was still in a firm grasp around her wrist. "You did it yourself."

"Yeah," he said, his eyes moving back to hers. "But you made me do it. Your words gave me courage."

Sakura was so struck by the line that the moment didn't break until Naruto called out to the two of them, calling them slowpokes and preventing the elevator door from shutting them out on a ride back up to the seventh floor.

Sai let go of her and swiftly half-jogged to join Naruto, Sakura following after, but she could help but unconsciously touch her wrist—still warm from his touch.

moments after

Anko had been waiting patiently for them, still sitting in the same position that she had been before the three of them had left. Her face hadn't changed expression either, so when the three of them came back inside her apartment, there was a silent tension that hung in the air that all four of them knew that only Sai could responsibly break.

"Anko," Sai started. "You're right. I'm sorry."

His purple-haired superior just looked at him, waiting for more explanation. She finally moved, twirling the pen in her right hand and leaning back in her chair.

"I mean…" he tried again. "I'm sorry about acting up around Tenzou."

She nodded, after a moment. "It's okay," she said. "I get it. I was worried about him too. I've been on close guard on him since he's gotten here. I've literally been breathing down his neck every second since he's arrived. I don't think there's anyway that he could be communicating without me knowing."

Sai nodded.

"I'm just hurt that you didn't trust me to have already done a background check."

"Yeah, I'm sorry," Sai repeated.

"That's okay," she sighed before giving him a stiff smile. "It's a good thing. We always need someone to have our back, right?"

The superior looked over at Sakura and Naruto, acknowledging that they had helped Sai figure things out. Sakura smiled weakly—not sure how else to return a silent you're welcome.

"So you're fine working with him on this one case?" Anko said.

Sai nodded.

"Alright—let's finally fucking finish this debriefing," she huffed. "It was just one interruption after another—first, you," and her eyes turned toward Sakura, "and then, you," her eyes shifted to Sai, and then turned toward Naruto. "And hopefully you don't have any bullshit up your sleeves to get out as well—because you might as well do it now."

While Sakura and Sai shamefully looked to the side, Naruto gave her a cheery thumbs up. "Nah, I'm in the clear. Nothing bothering me these days."

"I'm going to call back Tenzou into the meeting then," Anko said, standing up from her chair. "Just promise me that you'll keep it together until the end of this case," she told Sai. "And then when this is all closed up, I can always assign him in another project and you can do your own thing with…Ugly and Zombie."

Sakura bittered at her name. "Is that nickname still being used?" she asked, hearing Naruto guffaw in the background. "And you actually like the nickname Zombie?" she turned around, questioning the blond.

"Yeah, it describes me well—dead on record but actually alive," Naruto laughed. "Sorta like how your nickname describes you too!"

The pinkette nearly punched the blond kid out the window, but she saved her fist—they did, after all have a meeting to get back to.

post-meeting

"Sounds good," Naruto agreed, repeating his responsibilities out loud to the group. "I'll start working on finding out whose safety deposit box Sasuke stole from."

"Perfect—then we're all in understanding, right?" Anko concluded. "Tenzou and I will continue processing the information that he brought back with us during his infiltration, and Sai—you'll stay on stand-by until we get more information—take a break. I know you don't like sitting around doing nothing, 305, but just keep it together until we have a better lead, alright?"

Sai nodded. "I'll handle until then."

"Okay then," the purple-haired ANBU agent exclaimed. "We're finally done. Get the hell home."

"Understood!"

Sai immediately turned to Sakura. "Come on, I'll give you a ride home," he offered softly.

Sakura was half-surprised by the agent's gesture—especially since she was still thinking about how he had held her wrist—but she quickly stashed the awkward feeling anyway, realizing that she didn't really have another way back home anyway and that this was completely normal for Sai to have asked her, especially since they were neighbors and it just made logical sense.

Right?

Naruto got up from his chair, putting his arms around both of their shoulders and bringing them into an informal circle. "Alright, friends," he said. "I know you're all worried about how quick I'm going to get to the bottom of this, but I promise I'm going to work my ass hard on this so you don't even get a break."

"Good," Sai said.

Surprised to see such determination in him, Sakura turned her eyes to Naruto's. He seemed to have gotten over the whole fact that Sasuke—their childhood friend—was the perpetrator.

But when she looked at the edges of his blue irises, she could tell that it wasn't just her that was still working out those feelings. And within that second of eye contact, it seemed like Naruto knew that Sakura was in the same position as he was.

There was a brief mutual understanding between the two friends—before Naruto finally closed his eyes and stood up from the circle, crossing his arms.

"Well then, I'll be off to get cracking on this," he announced, swiveling around on his heel.

"Naruto," Sai suddenly said, tone serious and low.

And the blond glanced back at them, realizing that Sai still had something to say. He rejoined their circle.

"Keep an eye on Tenzou, alright?" Sai told Naruto.

Naruto looked at Sai for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, of course."

Neither Naruto nor Sakura judged him for the request.

on the way home

"You still don't trust him," Sakura simply said, about five minutes into the car ride back home.

"I never said I did," Sai quickly returned. "I just promised that I would work on this case with him." He looked at her briefly before turning his eyes back to the road. "Tenzou may never be cleared from my suspicion, but for me, as long as we're able to get to Sasuke, I'm okay with that."

She didn't know what to say in response to that, she looked back outside the window, reflecting.

It would indeed be a long and hard road for Tenzou to prove to Sai that he was trustworthy.

As for Sakura—Sai seemed to trust her right off the bat. But what if all the way back when Sai had moved in to his new house and decided to open a case against her because she had Sasuke's number? She couldn't help but realize that she was fortunate that she was on Sai's good side.

Someone like Sai could only be a really good friend or a terrible enemy.

She also couldn't help but wonder if this was the case for Sasuke as well.

And before she knew it, they had arrived back at her home.

Sakura looked out the window at her house—and it was strange how familiar yet at the same time so foreign the building felt. She hadn't been back home in a long time, had she?

"Here," Sai suddenly said, and he passed her something.

She took it into her hand, a heavy metal something, and looked at it—

A phone.

"I know you don't like these things very much anymore," he said to her, trying to meet her eyes. "But I want to be able to know when you're in trouble."

She looked up at him, but his eyes were too intense, and she looked away moments after.

"Got it?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding before taking her leave.

"Hey," and suddenly he grabbed her wrist again—just like earlier that day.

She hesitated before turning back around to him.

Momentarily, she remembered a whisper of a kiss, from the last time that the two of them had been alone in her house, sitting on her couch—right before they had been called off Anko.

"Sleep well, tonight, okay?"

She pulled her arm back from him. She did it a little rougher than she expected to—she could tell by the slight surprise in his eyes and the way he drew his hand back—but she didn't apologize.

"Y-yeah," she said, only.

the next morning

Waking up was an even stranger feeling.

Seeing the familiar cracks and spots in the ceiling of her room was as jolting as it was comforting. After sleeping in a variety of places the past several weeks, being back home felt right, but also wrong—and while Sakura had most definitely been back home just earlier that week, she hadn't expected to be back here so soon.

She thought she had given up her residency at Konoha General Hospital. She thought she had given up this part of her life and moved onto the next one.

She thought she had put her history behind her.

Yet when she swung her feet over to the floor, she felt her body automatically going through the same motions that she would on a normal day.

And by the time she had put on her worn-out running shoes and started jogging down the block, she realized that she was still stuck in this never-ending cycle—never-ending cycle of coming to terms and then not questioning them once again.

Miles later, without even stopping once, she was out of breath.

When she looked behind her, she realized that she had run a very far distance—but she had made no progress in her thoughts.

She hesitantly reached into her pocket, looking at the phone that Sai had given her to use last night.

She looked at it for a while, seeing her tired face in the black reflection of the screen before she clicked the home screen, checking the time—and realizing it was Friday.

Friday, huh?

later that night

Sakura knocked on his door hesitantly, balancing the pan of sautéed fish carefully in the other hand.

Sai seemed surprised to see Sakura.

"It's Friday night," she explained, with as good of a smile that she could offer. "I thought…I thought we could share dinner like we used to."

He blinked a couple of times—facial expression unreadable—before stepping aside to let her in.

"I was just about to eat," he said, simply.

She laughed nervously. There was most definitely an awkward tension between them. Sakura knew that this was because of all the mixed messages that had been passing back and forth ever since—

Ever since that kiss.

"So…what are you up to?" she asked, placing the pan down on the stove, intending to heat the meat back up to a more pleasant eating temperature.

"Nothing much," he said. He passed behind her, reaching up to grab two plates from his cabinet and giving her one. "How are you?"

"I'm fine," she replied, taking the plate from him. Desperate to clear the awkwardness, she looked around, trying to figure out something she could talk about. She spotted the papers sprawled out on a nearby table and nodded to them. "Are you still working on that novel of yours?" she asked, jokingly.

The quiet laugh that she elicited from him was the saving grace of the night.

"No," he said. "But remind me to show you the painting that I started earlier today."

He looked up to give her a smile—a stiff smile, but nevertheless monumental to slowly breaking down the tension between them.

after dinner

"Wow," she said, looking at the ink painting of a tiger.

It was just in black and white, yet she could feel the passion behind every line and curve on the paper. The tiger was crouched, snarling at something, its eyes wide, teeth bared, and every muscle from its forearms to its hind legs sculpted out by his brush.

Something about the tiger's snarl—focused and determined, not from strength, but from resilience, from loss and injury—felt familiar.

She had seen that expression before. And she briefly looked back at the raven-haired agent, who looked passively at his work, arms crossed and weight of his body leaning on his left leg, and then looked back at the tiger's snarling face, before realizing—

"Does that tiger represent you?" she asked him.

He took a moment to respond. "Maybe."

"What's it snarling at?"

"I don't know."

Sakura didn't press him further. "Are you going to title it anything?

To this, he turned around, giving her a confused face. "Title? There is no title. It just is."

"But you have to express what the concept of your art is, right?"

"I think what is on the page is enough of an expression."

She smiled, knowing that she probably wouldn't be able to argue further with him about this one. Despite his blank face and calm façade, he could be serious about a lot of things—that was definitely something that she was realizing more and more about him as the days passed by.

In fact, Sai's hidden passion yet insouciant attitude towards life reminded her of—

The smile quickly faded from her face.

"Have you ever had trouble killing people, Sai?" she suddenly asked.

He sensed the change in her tone. "Why are you asking that?"

She took a breath before explaining. "I know…" she confessed. "I know there's a difference between you and…Sasuke." She took another breath before admitting, "I'm just trying to figure out what that difference is."

His answer came quicker than she expected it to.

"I already told you, Sakura," he replied, as if he were already weary of her asking the question again. "I'm no different from him. It just happens to be that you're on my side."

But Sakura didn't like this answer. Sai and Sasuke were not the same people—even if the amount of people they killed the same, and even if the amount of risk that they were willing to take to protect what they believed in was the same. And yes, she was on Sai's side—but she wasn't comfortable with that being the only difference between the two males.

Because what that implied was that if life had turned out any other way, Sasuke would have been the good guy and Sai would have been the bad guy to her—and that fact was unacceptable.

She closed her eyes. Sai was not helping her answer this question. This would have to be something that she would have to figure out by herself after all.

"Hey, um," Sai suddenly interrupted her thoughts. "I'm…sorry about yesterday."

She turned her head toward him. "Huh?"

He didn't go into further detail. "Just let me know if I'm doing anything…that you're not comfortable with." She didn't respond, so he continued to stiffly ramble. "Like yesterday...or anything from before."

Her eyebrows furrowed momentarily before she realized that he was actually talking about—everything from the wrist grab to the kiss.

"I—" she started, but then the loud ring of Sai's cellphone interrupted them.

Sai picked it up right away—and Sakura wasn't sure if that was just part of him fulfilling his responsibility or because he wasn't ready for what she was going to say.

"Told you I'd get shit done. Get your ass over here real quick!" Naruto's voice loudly said through the phone—loud enough for Sakura to hear. "And don't forget to bring Sakura too! I want to show her this funny cat video I saw earlier today."

And of course—they had no choice but to go meet the blond.

after a quick drive

Surprisingly—or maybe not so—the first thing that Sai asked Naruto once the ex-military man let them into Anko's apartment and lead them into his room was not about his lead on Sasuke's victim, but rather about Tenzou.

"Have you seen him around a lot?" Sai asked Naruto, quietly, looking around the place.

Naruto waved him off. "Don't worry—he's not here. He's apparently crashing on Kakashi's sofa."

"But have you seen him at all? What is he up?"

"I don't know," the blond replied, a little irritated. "He seems totally normal and completely fine to me. I promise I'll let you know if I feel something fishy."

"Sorry."

Naruto didn't berate him any longer. "Okay, but check this," Naruto said, shuffling them over to his computer workstation. "I was able to get the bank to tell me who the safety deposit box belongs to—and you're going to die when I reveal who it is to you."

Both Sai and Sakura wasn't sure if Naruto meant this in a good or bad way.

"It's one of the Leaf Country past presidents," he specified, azure eyes sparkling.

"Hashirama Senju?" Sakura tried.

Naruto shook his head.

"Tobirama Senju?" Sai guessed, going in order.

"Nope."

"Don't tell me—the current president—Hiruzen Sarutobi?!" Sakura exclaimed.

It was almost relieving when Naruto shook his head.

"Here he is," Naruto hurrumphed, moving the mouse and activating the computer's screen, congratulating himself for having done a good job and for having fooled his teammates, stretching backwards in his chair and cracking his knuckles.

Sakura leaned forward, squinting at the name on the screen:

Minato Namikaze.

"So that's the guy we're going to have to investigate a little bit more deeply," Naruto smirked, before repeating the name on his tongue again.

"Minato Namikaze, huh…"

Well then. ;) Did you see that one coming?

Btw, let me know what you're thinking regarding Sakura right now. I'm trying to show that she's still wavering in and out of figuring out her feelings regarding Sai and Sasuke, and that every time she seems to differentiate between the two of them, they seem to have more similarities, and she's questioning why she likes or trusts either of them at all.

But I'm not sure if I'm doing the best job at that, or if I'm overdoing and making her seem OOC every now and then. Personally, I'm trying not to spend too much time on it, and I'm also not trying to pass off all this weird awkward stuff that happens to them and pretending it's all okay, either.

Anyway, lmk! Would love to hear what you think!

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