A/N: Hello~ This is not a mistake. I'm actually updating Vermilion again :D I'll have more notes at the end, but for now:
Basic recap of what happened recently: Sakura finds out the bookstore owner and Amano (who works in the Kazekage tower) are part of the "Hoki" clan. The main bad guy (Katsuo) is also from the Hoki clan and wrote the poison journal and is the one who made the poison that has been killing Suna's medics and took over a small village as a base of operations.
In the last chapter: Sakura was ambushed by 5 ninja and Amano with the chakra-blocking poison, but it ended with her beating them and Amano even though she got hurt. Yukime (one of Gaara's ANBU named Snow) was the one who healed her.
"I'll be right in the hallway if you guys need me."
Sakura nodded as Kankuro shut the door to the den before turning to look at the two men in the room with her. On one floor cushions Sai sat quietly, his gaze as blank as ever. From the other cushion, Gaara gently placed a third cushion onto the floor beside him. Sakura glanced around the room, her eyes landing on the entertainment center where she'd watched Gaara play video games with Kankuro, and where she'd played the same game with Sai. It hadn't been very long, but it felt like it'd happened a lifetime ago.
Sakura moved to sit on the cushion beside Gaara, glancing between him and Sai before finally speaking up. "Are you sure that you don't want Kankuro in the room with us?"
"I need him out there," Gaara replied as he shook his head. "There are very few people who I explicitly trust right now, so I need him looking out for anyone who might be eavesdropping while Shin and Yukime watch over Amano."
"Thank you for trusting us," Sakura murmured, knowing that it was rare for a Kage to trust people from another village more than people from their own. It was especially telling when so many people from the village Katsuo took over-which was called Moyagakure, they'd discovered-had turned out to be spies living in Suna.
"You two are Naruto's friends. He trusts you with his life, so I feel comfortable doing the same," Gaara said quietly. Sakura turned her gaze to lock with his, smiling gently at the affection she saw there just before Sai cleared his throat pointedly. Gaara quickly turned his attention back to Sai, his back straightening as he returned to business mode. "How has the interrogation been going thus far?"
"Amano hasn't given up any information, even after we healed his jaw so that he could speak," Sai answered. His words brought a scowl to Sakura's lips, but before she could say anything about how Amano deserved to still be in pain, Sai looked at her knowingly and said, "Don't worry, we broke his jaw again when it was clear that he wasn't going to tell us anything."
"Do the people in Moyagakure know that Amano was captured?" Gaara asked.
"They don't know anything." Sai shook his head before continuing, "It seems that the bookstore owner arrived there safely. He fled Suna just before Sakura ran into Amano."
"How would he know exactly when to leave?" Sakura asked.
"They had sensor-nin following your movements every day, ever since he hinted that he was a Hoki. They wanted to draw you out and assumed that you would figure out the connection eventually."
Sakura hummed thoughtfully. If they really had been following her movements for so long, they should have known that she'd been building a resistance to the chakra-blocking poison. And yet they'd felt comfortable sending a few mediocre ninja and Amano to take her out, which meant that they had either sent Amano to her with that knowledge as a sacrificial pawn, or they weren't aware of what she'd been doing. If it was the latter, it would be safe to assume they didn't have any spies with access to the labs or the Kazekage residence.
Still, even if they'd gotten lucky and Moyagakure didn't know about the resistance to the chakra-blocking poison, that didn't mean they could relax. They still had the main poison to worry about-the one that could easily kill them all if she didn't have an antidote ready in time.
"Do we know when the puffer fish is going to arrive so I can finish making the antidote?" Sakura asked, watching as Gaara turned his eyes back to her.
"It should be here at some point in the next few days. I'll ask Shin to take over for you once it's here so that you can focus on creating the antidote with Kankuro."
"My mice have recently informed me about a chakra-blocking poison that they have, as well. Do you know about it?" Sai asked.
Sakura nodded. "We've had a few people begin developing a resistance to it through microdosing, including myself and Gaara, but it's impossible to create an antidote because it directly affects the chakra flow. It'd be like trying to create an antidote for the Hyuuga clan's abilities."
"That would be nearly impossible," Sai said, nodding calmly before his eyes suddenly lit up as if something had just occurred to him, and he glanced toward Gaara. "Speaking of nearly impossible tasks, Gaara-sama, the teleportation scrolls you requested from me are almost completed."
"Thank you, Sai."
Sakura blinked, looking back and forth between the two of them curiously. "Don't we already have a lot of teleportation scrolls ready, though?"
Sakura watched as Gaara looked at Sai for a long moment, seemingly trying to communicate something through his gaze alone, before he turned his eyes back to her. "They're scrolls that would work between two specific points infinitely, or at least that's what the goal is."
"Would they be able to be used in the field?" Sakura asked, her eyebrows furrowing together when Gaara shook his head no. "Then what are they for?"
Gaara's face immediately went blank in the same way it always did when he didn't want to reveal anything through his expression, which only caused Sakura's mild curiosity and confusion to increase. She quickly turned her gaze to Sai-who was sitting there looking as unperturbed as ever-and narrowed her eyes at him, silently willing him to answer her.
"I can't reveal the original reason for the request, but we're planning on using it to get a few reinforcements from Konoha before the battle. We've been given permission from Kakashi-sensei to assemble a small unit, but with some of Moyagakure's people still in the rain forests near Konoha collecting poison from the frogs, we figured it'd be best if we didn't bring attention to the unit's arrival."
Sakura hummed in acknowledgement, listening as Sai and Gaara began discussing the finer details of the mission. They threw a few names around, trying to figure out the best team to request from Konoha, but Sakura couldn't bring herself to add anything to the conversation. Her thoughts were still fixated on Sai's statement about the scrolls, and when there was a brief pause in their conversation, she found herself speaking up before she could stop herself.
"Why is the original reason for the scrolls' creation being kept a secret?"
Sai's shoulders stiffened so slightly that she barely noticed it, but when he didn't answer, Sakura turned her attention to Gaara. He stared back at her with a carefully blank expression, and finally turned away when she raised a single eyebrow questioningly. Sakura had gotten so used to reading his behavior that she could tell he was embarrassed, and something about the way he reacted made her think that the reason he'd requested the scrolls wasn't strictly political.
A few moments of silence passed before Sakura let out a heavy sigh, realizing that neither Gaara nor Sai were going to answer her question just yet. Her curiosity was killing her, but she knew that with Gaara, sometimes patience was the only way to really make any progress when she wanted to know something. She would let the question about the scrolls drop for now, but she would definitely be asking him about them again before the week was up.
Sakura shifted where she stood leaning against the bookcase in the Kazekage office, flipping to the next page of her book and skimming over the words written in front of her while keeping most of her attention on her surroundings. She glanced up briefly, watching Gaara as he sat at his desk in the center of the room, leaning over the large stack of papers for him to read over. He'd managed to get through at least half of the stack so far today, which was something that impressed her. A Kage actually going over their paperwork diligently-she couldn't imagine anything like that ever happening in Konoha.
Just then, there was a knock on the door to the office, and Sakura immediately recognized it as the ANBU code for 'urgent'. She snapped her book shut and moved swiftly to the other side of the room, opening the door for the ANBU agent to move into the office. Once the door to the office was closed, she turned around and blinked, surprised when she noticed that the ANBU's attention was on her instead of Gaara.
"Haruno-san, I have news for you."
"For me?" Sakura asked, her brows furrowing in confusion when the ANBU immediately nodded.
"The puffer fish arrived just a moment ago. Everything has been sent to the lab with Kankuro already, and Shin is on his way to cover for you."
"Thank you," Sakura murmured, nodding as she watched the ANBU agent bow before they left the room.
The anticipation thrummed under Sakura's skin, leaving her slightly breathless as she turned her attention to Gaara, who was watching her with eyes that were no doubt as wide as hers were right now. And then suddenly she was grinning, her body relaxing even as she fought the urge to run to the labs right now.
The poison was finally here, and she could finally get to work creating the antidote that had sent her here months ago.
A/N: I MISSED YOU GUYS! I'm sorry this first chapter back isn't really too exciting, but I promise things will pick up soon. Updates won't be regular like they were before (as in it won't be at a set time every week) but it will definitely be faster than it has been lol.
I'll also be posting some other fics on AO3 (because that's where BNHA, Dragon Age, and Mystic Messenger fandoms seem to be active) while I update Vermilion :) but either way I'm excited to be able to start writing this again!
