Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliations…I am merely borrowing its characters and settings to indulge my own fantasies and then share said fantasies with other people who equally do not own Naruto. I am not making any profit off this.

Author's Note: Welp.

O O O

crawling in the midday sun, chasing the one

O O O

He had lingered at the next knot in the rope for so long, building from the clawing suffocation of twelve to the crack of thirteen for a hanged man's sins in the hold of the noose.

Kakashi's outlook on life was a rather dreadful thing, when he thought of it – of the way he viewed and carried out his existence – all the knots that had steadily wrapped into place. He came into the world with a cord round his neck, and the loss of his mother was the first coil. Then the loss of his father, leading to the loss of his empathy and patience, and there were three knots in the rope before he had even lost a tooth.

Condemned and at war he was too efficient for his age. Kakashi thought it was borrowed time he had anyway and so that tightening freedom of disregard was oil to a fire of prodigal skills.

Obito was fourth, the searing white number that made him spasm with awareness and resistance. For a spell there was a lax in the line. He started to question orders to which he had previously adhered without doubt. Question and change his values, reach for life beyond the bloodied lead of a soldier.

But instead Kakashi had lost his second best friend and he had been emptied of purpose and thought. He lost his teacher and surrogate parents next. Strung up and left to dangle.

There wasn't any ground beneath his feet but Kakashi had pressed on and did his duty with a stiff grace. He had trained subordinates, had seen hope and talent in another, had for a brief moment felt warmth returning to his blood and a pulsing in his chest – only for death to drain him once more.

It must have been that loss that made him blind, too. Made him dim and uncaring. The Massacre at the blade of his kouhai and he had nothing more to protect. After that, he had stopped looking, stopped observing, stopped thinking.

A ninja must look underneath the underneath... What a load of shit for him to say when he had been wilfully covering his eyes for years, and even when he had thought himself to be so clever.

Kakashi had gone and espoused that motto as if he were it, though he wasn't. But it seemed like at least some of his students had heard him. Naruto had listened, had taken to looking at things with an emotional depth and widened perception that not many in their world could ever manage. He could pull back layers and see into the hearts of problems – into the heart of his opponents. It was a beautiful and unique gift and people responded to it in kind.

Sakura had heard the motto, too, in a way different from Naruto. She was analytical, calculating; she wanted to know all the variables. A cerebral player who aimed to better situate herself and her own ends. Was it as honourable as Naruto's motivation? No, probably not. Was it one way to survive and prosper in the ninja system? Certainly. She was looking underneath the underneath by the necessity of her curious, studious nature.

Kakashi didn't exactly disagree with her ends, either. As it was, neither did Ino. He thought it strange how Sakura had pulled them in with her openness and honesty – all the while still holding certain things close to her chest and she had brought them to fold.

Strange.

Not as strange as the situation involving his estranged kouhai, however.

Uchiha Itachi.

Underneath the underneath.

On their way to Suna, Kakashi allowed his gaze to flicked over to Sakura on occasion. With Naruto's company, and after picking up Temari on their route, it had been too conspicuous to talk with her any sooner, and they had had other issues to address. Sakura had stumbled a bit at the news Gaara was Kazekage and the one in need of rescue, but her expression and silent contemplation over Naruto's vow to rescue Gaara was what caught Kakashi's attention most.

She was quiet as the four travelled, in words and movement. The loudest thing about her was her peach petal hair and thoughtful frown lines.

He had to wait until they made camp to approach her. They had set up for a few hours in a thicket not far from a stream; the last water before Sunagakure, and using its current as a muffler, he went to talk to her a few minutes before they were due to switch watch.

Sakura was leaning into the body of a tree while straddling a branch twenty metres high, one leg up to her chin as her eyes stared into the murky hues of the night. She was sensitive to chakra signatures, and he doubted she saw him walk over so much as felt it. She tapped the tree and silently asked him to join her on the perch.

"I thought you might use this time to catch up," Sakura said in lieu of greeting as he settled into a seat on an adjacent branch. Her voice was quiet, calm, carefully bland. The metronome where others were keys and strings. "What is it you wanted to talk about?"

Quite a few things, actually; such as her probation, how she had ended up on this particular mission, who she had been in contact with over the past year and a half, if she were still practising medical ninjutsu, how long had she been back in the village, and so on.

There was other stuff, too, that he didn't want to talk about aloud but mulled around in his head like a melancholic child kicking at dirt. How was she? Had she been taken care of properly on her time away? What were her thoughts on the whole thing, the hearing and probation, losing her apprenticeship? Where had she been? What exactly had she been doing all that time away?

Those questions could wait.

And he thought the obvious, "how are you?" might have been a little trite.

Instead he started with, "your friend Ino seems to have been busy these past months."

Nothing in Sakura's posture or tone shifted. "Ino is always busy. Team Ten, family shop, training to be a medic-nin. She's not the type to slow down."

Evasion.

Kakashi felt a pull at the corner of his mouth – what had he just been thinking about her keeping certain things close to her chest? He might have considered himself on her side these days, but she was still careful around him. All those times talking with Ino had him forgetting he had been more an antagonist in Sakura's life than a trusted ally. Her guard must have meant she had yet to speak to Ino since her probation had ended and therefore felt uncertain about his value as a variable.

But Sakura had allowed for this possibility, had foreseen Kakashi picking up on Ino's subtle invitation to help, and had set up a fail-safe of sorts if it had come to pass and he hadn't made the grade.

As if he were uttering a pass code, he said, "she caught me up on the Kiri swordsman."

Relief like a sail coming to life with a breeze after days of lull and all in the lines of her shoulders. "Yamato always said you were a genius. I knew you would sniff us out. But, I'll admit, I was worried you wouldn't pass Ino's judge of character. She's sharp, you know."

"I think she read up on my history, too," he joked. That or she was extremely intuitive. Both? Kakashi went on, "that man's death isn't on your record. Is it part of the redacted information?"

"It's not. Neither Iwa nor Konoha know the circumstances. I think Deidara was worried about the repercussions and he covered for me."

Deidara no Iwa. At her mention of the man, Kakashi drew his lips to a thin line and made a thoughtful sound. Sakura's Iwa sensei who had disappeared suddenly and mysteriously years ago, leaving her to die a slow death in the backwoods of Stone, a lengthy block of redacted black ink on her dossier. Terrorist Bomber of the Akatsuki as Kakashi now knew.

"He did that for you, huh?" Kakashi asked, thinly hiding his scepticism with redundancy.

"Yeah..." Followed by a sigh. Sakura moved to readjust her seat, facing him more fully as her focus, to his minor relief, switched. "What did you two learn about Sh– Uchiha Itachi. Was Itachi connected to the dissolution of the CID? The police force?"

"You knew that much about the Criminal Investigation Division?"

"Some stuff I remember reading about when I was younger, but after Tsunade mentioned it concerning my hearing I was curious. A lot of the information regarding Konoha's founding gloss over it, but originally the Uchiha clan were designated as our military police and made head of the division by the Niidaime, right? They took in those in the ranks wanted for trial. A few years ago the division was dissolved and that timing overlaps with Itachi's defection." She took a moment to shrug her shoulders and he heard the movement as her shoulders brushed against the tree at her back. On a breath, "...honestly, I'm guessing at Itachi's involvement, but it was his clan."

There it was: looking underneath the underneath. And she had once accused him of connecting dots.

Kakashi made a vague gesture. "Ever wonder why Sasuke is an orphan? Why he's the only Uchiha in the village?"

Sakura shook her head, bashful. "I didn't know he was orphaned until recently. Civilian background, remember?"

"Don't think anything of it – it was part of the gag order. Only higher ups and certain clans would have known at first, and it did trickle down to some more astute individuals." Such as Ino.

But not to unprivileged academy students, apparently, as Sakura sent him another grimace. "So you're saying the Uchiha weren't just redistributed in the ranks? That Sasuke's an orphan because –"

Damn the gag order.

"His brother killed their parents and every member of the clan? That's what I'm saying."

"Oh."

"It took him a few hours one evening. He fled the village before anyone was any wiser." Kakashi stretched out his fingers, kept himself from tightening them into fists. "Talented, that one."

Sakura jerked her head back, incredulous. "But no one noticed several blocks of the city had gone silent? He just...left a ninja village with no one noticing?"

Remarkable even for a prodigy in a clan of geniuses. But then, "he was an ANBU Captain at thirteen, Sakura, and had half the village behind him becoming Hokage one day."

"So what happened? Did he snap from the pressure?" She asked, then shook her head. "I mean, to kill an entire clan without any planning seems impossible. It must have been premeditated or else how could he have been sure every Uchiha would have been in the district when he acted, right? If it wasn't a breakdown, then, why do it? Resentment of his family? Why not kill Sasuke-kun, too? Or take him when he left?"

Kakashi stopped her before she became too engrossed in her crime web. "He told Sasuke why he did it."

"He told Sasuke-kun?"

"After Sasuke interrupted his parents being killed."

"Oh."

"Mhm."

"He wanted Sasuke-kun to see what he had done."

"He wanted to be able to tell Sasuke he had done it for power." Kakashi shrugged. "At least, that was in the report the higher ranks received after the incident."

Sakura tilted her head a fraction. "Wait. This is all still information you already had? That a guy who was very much in the way of getting promoted to Hokage was so power hungry he killed an entire extended family of people in one night when he was barely a teenager? Every woman, man, adult and child aside from Sasuke-kun?"

"Keep in mind, the reason we have as for why he did it is from the testimony of a traumatised child.. But yes. That's what we know. Ah – that and – he is also the primary suspect in the murder of Uchiha Shisui, which occurred several weeks before The Massacre."

"The Massacre."

"That's how it's known."

"Lovely." It was a bit of information to take in, and he could see the weight of it making Sakura's head sway on her shoulders. "What kind of power could he have been looking for if not the position of kage? And to then leave the village and exist on the fringe as a member of a mercenary group? What kind of power could come from killing his family? The clan?"

Kakashi had an idea, and felt the urge to adjust his hitai-ate. Her questions were ones that he had started asking as well. If the Mangekyou Sharingan only developed after the despair of losing a close bond, as it had for Kakashi, then why kill so many? Unless Itachi didn't have the full knowledge of the technique and had acted in desperation? Being the heir, though, he must have been somewhat privy to family secrets. Was the lore ambiguous? But then – if he had any question as to the type of bond, or number to sacrifice, why leave behind his youngest brother? One of the most obvious bonds to sever.

Was Sasuke to be a test for Itachi in the future? Had he seen potential in an otherwise average boy? Shisui would have been a fine candidate to allow to grow... Ah, but if Itachi had killed him first and the Mangekyou hadn't developed, perhaps that had been a factor driving the massacre.

There again came the problem that Itachi hadn't gone through with Sasuke's murder. Could the parents have been the key? But why not start with his parents before his other relatives? A punishment, maybe, for the clan not trusting him? Of course, their distrust was an assumption.

Kakashi looked to Sakura, watched her features tighten with thoughts.

"Well. If anything, now I can see why Sasuke-kun was always so serious. And also his reasons for becoming an avenger... The man he has to find and kill." She huffed at the recollection. "And he went to Orochimaru of all people to get power to do that. I mean, the guy is strong. Terrifyingly strong. But isn't he also a little –"

"Evil?"

"I mean, it's hard to draw a line in the shinobi world, but yeah. He gets pleasure out of toying with people."

Drawing a deep breath, Kakashi let it out slowly. "Maybe he thought to fight fire with fire? Orochimaru was a person strong enough to defeat our Hokage; if Sasuke wanted to see a path to power in him, then that is what he saw. Sasuke's been tormented. He was isolated, scared... and he definitely did not find strength in the people around him. "

Not from Kakashi. And thanks to his brother, the only person who had reached out to Sasuke – that person being Naruto – had nearly died for the sake of destroying bonds and 'getting stronger.'

Sort of a fucked up situation.

"You've been talking with Ino, right?" Sakura asked, and he nodded. "Did she know any of this beforehand?"

"This and that." Having pieced together what she could given the information she gleamed from her clan elders.

"And has she found anything more?"

Ah, to the heart of their discussion then. Kakashi nodded. "She's got an interesting thread round her finger."

Sakura had more to say and he heard the slightest of inhalations. Something made her still and shut her mouth. She relaxed against the tree and turned to watching the two asleep by their snuffed out fire. Naruto rolled over, mumbled, and took a moment to settle again. Temari leaned up from her spot, glanced from Naruto to where Kakashi and Sakura sat in the shadows. With a visible, 'fuck if I care' shrug, she turned over as well.

After a moment, Sakura spoke again. "You said the group Itachi is with calls themselves Akatsuki? And that they are also the ones responsible for Gaara's – ah, Kazakage-sama's – disappearance?"

"That's right."

"But it wasn't Itachi?"

"Not according to the intelligence we received."

Sakura sighed. Tilting her chin up, he watched her scrutinise the canopy above them; making more connections, he thought, filling in the equations. A little more quietly, "do we know who it was? Does anyone in Konoha?"

Diplomatically, he said, "there are some who have their suspicions."

"Huh," was all she said to that. There was more she wanted to ask about, he could tell, but she didn't. Instead, looking elsewhere, "I guess we'll find out tomorrow."

He thought that he had heard that tone in her voice before and he remembered the town on the northern coast. Winter, flames, blood, and death.

Sakura had her suspicions, too.

She left soon after to get rest and he watched the sun rise alone. He loosened the collar at his neck, felt the thrum of his heartbeat there. The morning sky was a warning red.

O O O

The last time her chakra had entered another person so extensively, the man had ended up a fountain of himself.

Sakura could feel the hot splash of Makyou's remains striking her face as she thought about it.

As she was in a room full of shinobi, her flinch did not go unnoticed.

"Sakura-chan?" She heard Naruto say. He was on the other side of the hospital bed across from her, stood next to Temari and a Suna medic nin, his face fierce and worried at once.

Temari was glaring, scared under her anger. "What the hell – can you help my brother or not?"

Beneath Sakura's finger tips was Kankurou. He was filmed in sweat and the heat of his body rose to her hands. Pale skin tainted with a sickly yellow hue. Eyes and lips purple and blue. He looked the same as Otsuka Tomiko had on the day she died.

Poisoned.

Sakura flinched again and felt a tremble in her arm. A vice in her throat. Her words were sounds tapping incomprehensibly off her tongue. "I- I c-can..."

Physically she felt fine, even after three days of heavy travel she was still energetic. And as for the medical aspect, she knew intrinsically what needed to be done. She was perfectly capable.

It was just that her hands wouldn't cooperate.

People were talking back and forth. "Didn't she say she could help?" and "why volunteer if this is all she can do?"

"Wasn't she an apprentice to the Fifth?"

"Some successor. I heard she dropped her..."

"Is this some joke by the Leaf?"

"She can't do it..."

Her breathing quickened at the suggestion and the voices were a rise in the water pushing in on her. Noise, noise, white noise around her and was she even taking in any oxygen any more? Too much weight on her chest.

Someone had their hand around one of hers. An anchor in the water, "Sakura..."

Above the dim, loudest yet, was the voice in her head.

'If you're going to think of that woman, then you must let that drive you to save this boy. You can keep him alive. '

She used chakra to tear people apart...

"Do you need help with the seals?" Kakashi said, interrupting her thoughts. His grip was steady and his voice low. "Start listing them when you're ready. You know how to do this."

'So you use chakra to shred them. Use it to put them back together.'

And so she did, starting with one hand seal and one long breath in and out.

It took her hours just to remove the traces of poison, hours more to repair damage to Kankurou's body, and an overnight working on her antidote. But focus and clarity were things she had been forced to find on her probation, and once she had overcome her initial inertia, the movements following had been fluid and effortless. If not mentally taxing by the end of it.

Sakura was slumped down on a bench outside a laboratory she had temporarily commandeered when Kakashi took a seat next to her. It had been the night before when she had last seen him and from his appearance, he had gotten exactly the same amount of sleep as she. Which meant none at all. She made an incoherent noise of disapproval, wanting a moment of peace, but straightened herself up.

Shaking sleepy musings from her head, she let the images of the battle worn Sunagakure enter her mind again. Because that was why had come to find her, she thought. No time for indulging in her victories.

Instead she saw pock marks on the cityscape from explosions; Sakura knew them like she knew the sunborn freckles on his nose. Akatsuki. Mercenaries. Deidara.

Careful not to give away the beating of her heart, she huffed at the lock of hair over her eyes. Said wryly, "now I see why I was requested for this mission."

Kakashi shrugged, fumbled his hands in his pockets while looking away. "They've gotten a report from Kankurou about the person he confronted while in pursuit of the Kazekage-sama. He identified the man as missing-nin from Suna. Genius puppet-user who disappeared over a decade ago."

"Oh."

"Akatsuki at this level work in pairs."

"Right." Sakura frowned, felt something like a pinch in her brain. Puppet ninjutsu. Poison. Felt a stronger twisting in her chest. She willed away the reactions, calmed her system from the influx of adrenaline.

'It's right there!'

"What's our move now?" She asked Kakashi.

He took a moment to answer her and she watched him staring at his feet while he hesitated. His voice was lower, had lost some of its character nonchalance the way it did when he was battling. Serious.

"Just as a note off the record" Kakashi started, "as your CO, I can order you to stay behind for this. I can say your medical expertise was more warranted here than in the field."

The suggestion was plausible, but flawed. Firstly, Kankurou was in the clear, and secondly, any higher up would call out the blatant tampering that action would reveal. He wasn't doubting her professionally, and he wasn't being condescending; Kakashi didn't want to force her to face the situation, and in a way it was a thoughtful sentiment she would have normally thought beyond him. Deidara was her sensei – former – and an enemy to Konoha.

If Kakashi was being anything other than considerate of her feelings, then he wouldn't be dully wearing a hole into his shoes with his averted gaze.

Sakura eased from her analysing and turned away to look down the hallway. There were Suna nin and staffers going about their business and pretty much ignoring the two allied shinobi as well as they could. She smiled. Reserved.

"As your med-nin, I'm going to have to insist I accompany my primary team mates in the field. Off the record, who else is going to save your lazy bum and Naruto's thick head when things get rough?" Her humour didn't move Kakashi. She relaxed her face, stared at her own sandals. "Besides... I should go. I'm the one who knows... I know him best...that's why I'm here."

"That's why you're here," he agreed.

She and her Iwa sensei were on different sides of the same coin of the shinobi world, but that wouldn't stop her from seeing him. She wanted to see him. Mostly, she wanted him to see her.

But first she saw someone else.

O O O