TH: I very much dislike being sick. I blame any errors in this chapter on whatever blasted little thing is making my head feel like an overripe grape. Also, kudos to those who guessed at Itachi's purpose in ANBU.
Going Sideways
Chapter Fifty-four
Theme:: Spider Web
Sakura sat on a balcony in the building at the center of the Forest of Death, staring blankly out at the trees around her as tears ran silently down her face. She had henge'd again into her human form, needing her human capacity for grief. Foxes couldn't cry.
:Itachi is ANBU…: she thought, again. It hurt as much as the first time. She closed her eyes, a few more tears slipping down her cheeks. :What went wrong? I got Itachi into medic-training, and gave him champions in his mother and the Hokage. Minato is the Hokage, and I… I'd thought that he would never allow someone as young as Itachi to join. Was it Danzo, then? But the paperwork to make someone ANBU has to go through the Hokage. In fact, the only reason Sandaime allowed Itachi to join in my time was because of the problem with the Uchiha… And relations between the Clan and Konoha are much better this time around… unless something changed drastically while I was gone.:
She wished Itachi hadn't gotten caught up in that spider's web. ANBU may be idolized by younger ninja, and romanticized in novels, but the truth of their existence was much, much grimmer. They did the things that were not necessarily ethical or moral. The things Konoha could not admit to doing. Kakashi has spoken little of his time in the corps, but anything he ever said had been accompanied by a bleak, dead sort of tone and a thousand-yard stare. It had clearly changed him, and not for the better.
She didn't want that for Itachi.
"So here you are," said a voice behind her. Sakura jerked, and lost her grip on her henge. Startled, she looked up into the masked face of Kakashi. She felt a quick burst of joy at seeing him again.
"Kakashi!" she paused, tail twitching. "What are doing here?"
"That's the greeting I get after years of absence?" he asked lightly.
"You're right… Sorry. It is good to see you again, Kakashi," Sakura said, though subdued. His hand dropped on her head affectionately.
"Hokage-sama sent me to talk to you," he said. "He thought that it would be better; you'd be less inclined to yell at me, and I can tell you about ANBU… and Itachi-kun."
"I wouldn't yell at Minato-sama," Sakura said. Kakashi tilted his head.
"No?"
Sakura shook her head. "I'm not… angry, exactly. I'm just… Sad. I didn't want Itachi to be in ANBU. It'll break him. I was told once that ANBU kills everyone who serves in it, one way or another."
It had been her Kakashi that had said that.
"I think you may be underestimating Itachi," this Kakashi said.
Sakura gave him an incredulous look. She said, pointedly: "It broke you."
"I am not Itachi, and my reasons for joining were different," he said. Then, looking at her face and blinking, he asked delicately: "You do know Itachi's reasons, don't you?"
"Well…" Sakura said. Kakashi shook his head and interrupted.
"Before we do anything else, you should know that," he said. "But maybe not from me. You can come out here now."
Sakura blinked, not understanding, before she realized he wasn't talking to her. Itachi stepped soundlessly onto the balcony, his face canted downwards, expression carefully blank.
She knew that blankness. And saw how he avoided looking at her. He was hurt, and it was her fault.
:I ran away from him,: she realized, with a twist of her stomach. :I ran away from him and I hurt him… I have to fix this.:
She was tired from all the henge and shunshin she'd been doing that day, but she forced a henge one last time and threw her arms around him. He was so tense his muscles under her hands were trembling. "Oh, Itachi, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"You don't have to apologize, Sakura-sensei," he said, voice slightly muffled by her shoulder. "I chose to join ANBU. And… I would have joined even if you had been here."
Clever boy; he knew immediately what Sakura felt guilty for. But… "I don't understand," she whispered, trying to tamp down her gut reaction to his words, trying to hold herself together. "Can you try to explain it to me?"
Gently, she let him go and looked at his face. He was still not looking at her directly. "I chose to join ANBU. I know that I began my apprenticeship with you with the intention that I would wait until my agemates graduated the Academy, but that option disappeared when I began to learn fuuinjutsu from Hokage-sama. It would be permissible for me to be placed on a Genin Team if my most advanced skill-set was medical jutsu, but if I was also a Sealing Master on top of that…? So I looked for the best alternative option. And that was ANBU."
"But—!" Sakura blurted desperately. She bit her lip to stop the tumble of words on the tip of her tongue, took a deep breath, and started again: "I'm not going to insult your intelligence by talking to you as if you don't know what ANBU is, what they do. But I'm afraid what will happen when you're in the corps. They don't exactly follow your set of morals."
Itachi was silent a moment, thoughtful, deciding how to explain it to her. "For all that they are the most elite of our forces, the rate of survival for ANBU Teams is thirty-one percent lower than any other rank Team," he said slowly. "By that statistic alone, I would judge that ANBU would benefit the most from the inclusion of more medics on their Teams. But there is also the consideration that the best way to treat a wound is to avoid being wounded in the first place. For ANBU, this means avoiding detection, avoiding conflict whenever possible. The vast majority of ANBU missions are classed as stealth missions; having a Team member who is proficient in genjutsu and fuuinjutsu as well as medical jutsu would decrease a Team's likelihood of detection by a third and increase its survival by over half. Sakura-sensei, I joined ANBU not to help my Teammates with their missions, but to help them stay alive during those missions."
"He asked me to sponsor him in," Kakashi said. He'd retreated from the conversation once Itachi took over, but hadn't left. "I refused until he explained that to me. Sakura, I know what ANBU can be like. Itachi knows. But he did not enter into this blindly, and was not forced into this by me, by his family, or by Minato-sama."
"I have no authority to challenge this, if your family and the Hokage have decided to allow it. But I can't pretend that I like it, or accept it," Sakura said quietly. "I understand your reasons, Itachi. I'm not angry with you, or disappointed in you. It's just that I'm afraid."
"Itachi's Team only takes certain missions," Kakashi said. "I can't say more than that, but knowing that should reassure you."
"Don't try that with me, Kakashi," she said, though without rancor. "I know just how wrong even the simplest of missions can go."
She stepped forward and touched Itachi's shoulder lightly. "That said, I will never turn you away, Itachi. I ran because I was afraid, and I didn't understand, and I thought it was my fault. I ran from my guilt, not from you. If you ever need anything, anything, you can come to me. And… if you still want it, I will always be your sensei. For as long as I am able, I will be there for you."
And Itachi finally, finally, looked up at her and met her eyes.
TH: The feels. I have them.
