(Sen-sei.)
She could have dropped a bomb into a minefield, and it might have had less disastrous of an impact. It took just a fraction of a second; and then, his state of inexpression fractured completely. Red eye—insidious, cloying like blood—and black eye both so dark the pupils were undiscernible, both so contorted like he might just kill her. Kakashi took a sudden, menacing step forward.
"You're going to kill me," she said slowly, just to hear it out loud.
Fight, the Voice whispered, trembling.
His face was averted from hers. The words reached her ears slowly, through a thick, rushing sound.
"You don't have the chakra to fight me now."
She gritted her teeth.
"Not the best strategy to waste it on all those clones, was it."
The wind whistled through the trees, sending a scattering of leaves fluttering down between them.
"But then," he said darkly. "I suppose your sensei is to blame. We can both agree that that wasn't me."
She flipped the kunai in her hand.
"Who was it?" he demanded, coldly. "That you would devote yourself so thoroughly to their cause?"
It took her a second to parse the meaning of his words, When she did, Sakura felt her own kunai dig into her own fingers.
"I suppose it's hard to deviate from such long-standing precedent. But as always, you're wrong about me." A flash of motion caught her eye. Sakura kept her expression unchanging.
He watched her, features drawn harsher by lividity. "Oh?" His voice was dangerous. "And what are you?"
STRONG, the Voice roared.
Two minutes, she calculated. That was as much of a head start as she needed. They were a stone's throw from the outskirts of the village.
"Capable of so much more than you've ever given me credit for," she said bitterly.
Shisui burst forward with a shower of feathers, cawing loudly in attack.
Sakura ran toward the cave.
Coward, the Voice spat. It didn't sound as upset as it usually did though. Apparently, even the bloodthirsty creature in her brain recognized a fight it wasn't likely to win.
She hurtled through the trees and, at an admittedly ambitious distance, launched herself into the mouth of the cave. She landed inelegantly, upsetting the gravel on the cave floor. Itachi grunted, shifting away from her.
She picked him up and settled him onto her back. She hit the ground sprinting. There was no time for doubling back or circuitous routes. It was straight to Konoha now.
"What," he asked weakly, voice almost soundless, "are you doing?"
"Running from certain death," she muttered, "We're not that far."
A thunderous explosion sounded a few kilometers behind them.
"Fuck," Sakura hissed. She pumped chakra into her legs and raced faster. They were so close.
So close.
"Pretend you're unconscious," she hissed. He bent his head marginally just as the first sentry peeked his head out. Maybe Itachi had some self-preservation instinct after all.
"Haruno Sakura," the guard instructed, recognizing her on sight and by chakra signature like he was trained to. He squinted at the person on her back. "Identify your passenger."
"Emergency situation," she called out, bending her knees in preparation, "He needs immediate medical attention."
"You know the rules," he responded indifferently.
"Sorry," Sakura called out as she barreled through him.
There were ANBU on her in less than five seconds.
"Cease and desist, Haruno Sakura, or we will be forced to engage."
"Maybe…next… time," she huffed, charging forward. In seconds, she was cut off by a new squad of ANBU stationed further inside the village.
As the squad attacked, she maneuvered her body, protecting Itachi from the cross fire. As one ANBU attacked her from above, Sakura brought her katana up, angling her feet in. The full brunt of the strike rocked her body.
She saw the man's eyes widen above her arms.
She smiled humorlessly. Then, she swarmed her muscles with a sliver of chakra and tossed him effortlessly backwards.
She twisted and caught another ANBU's wrist before the woman's chakra-coated weapon could spear her through the stomach. She swung her into the air too, just in time to duck beneath some heavy-duty earth ninjutsu. She shoved the heel of her hand blindly into another person's throat, sending him backward, choking.
The roiling electricity of familiar killing intent suddenly overwhelmed the air, making it difficult to breathe. Every shinobi in her vicinity jolted in response too.
She didn't have any time left.
Her glance darted backward at the veritable legion of ANBU gathering behind her. Having cleared a path through now unconscious bodies, she was somewhat ahead. And she was one building leap away from the hokage's office now.
She exhaled, and then careened through the air—and then through glass—into the office.
She lifted her head to find Tsunade leaning against her desk, arms crossed like she had been waiting for her the entire while. The hokage's amber eyes—cool and warning—belied her otherwise relaxed appearance.
"You've been causing quite the stir, Sakura," Tsunade said lightly, gaze flashing. "And with such a… choice guest."
"He's more valuable alive than dead—and he needs healing now. I can explain," Sakura said urgently.
Tsunade's gaze flicked down, narrowing.
"I'm not a traitor," Sakura said, staring hard into her mentor's eyes. After a moment, she dropped to her knees in seiza—slowly, because Itachi was still on her back.
"For the chance you gave me then, for the trust you believed I deserved then," she reminded, gaze still connected with the hokage's.
For the rest of her life, she would never know what made Tsunade's mind in that moment. In her position, Sakura knew she almost certainly would have turned the ostensible traitor, protége or not, away. But perhaps, there was a god above watching in that moment, and in one of its many whims, it had decided in that singular moment to move Tsunade's mind.
"Get off the damned ground, girl. Fuck, I don't get paid nearly enough for this," the hokage snapped, waving errantly at a wide-eyed Shizune. "Take him to the hospital. As she's said, at the very least, we'll have a living Akatsuki member we can interrogate."
The hokage's assistant obeyed without a second of hesitation, vanishing a second later with Itachi in her hands.
In the next instant, Tsunade's right hand snapped up to make a signal to the ANBU to stand back. Sakura's pinched face turned toward the window, watching as one by one, the black ops members blended back into the shadows of the village—that is, all except for two.
A broad-shouldered, menacing figure, whom Sakura recognized immediately as the commander of the ANBU, remained on the rooftop, arms crossed. Beside him, crouched low was Kakashi, the muscles in his arms tensed in acute, savage restraint.
Sakura swallowed heavily.
The blonde-haired woman sent her a long, examining look.
"Start talking," she said at last, coldly. "And I should remind you that—while I'm a damn sight nicer than those two—I didn't become hokage because of all the very gracious people I've kindly healed."
Sakura nodded, moving towards the seat across from the hokage.
"Let me just make sure I have all the facts straight," the hokage declared lowly. "Four years ago, you broke into our archives, stole a summoning scroll, forged a contract, only to realize that your summon not only had its own agenda and but was also willing to abuse you and threaten you to accomplish it. Do I…have that all right?"
She hadn't reached for her sake for an entire hour. Sakura didn't think she had ever seen that before.
"And then we have your consequent series of offenses," Tsunade continued, without waiting for even a nod, "Identity fraud, credential fraud—believe it or not, it's against the rules for a genin to be ANBU—and just recently, insubordination on an S-rank mission, in which you turned on your own team captain…using a sharingan, which I should note, is technically Uchiha property and which no living Uchiha actually consented to give you. Hm?"
"…Yes," Sakura muttered after a considering pause.
"And why should I let you keep your head?" Tsunade asked with a poisonous smile. A small, rush of air signified Shizune's return. Sakura exhaled sharply.
"Report," the hokage demanded.
"Uchiha Itachi is in stable condition," Shizune said lowly. "Because of his fragile constitution at the moment, T&I was only able to do a preliminary scan in terms of interrogation."
"What did they find?"
"From what they've seen," the black-haired woman said carefully, all emotion meticulously removed from her features, "it seems that Danzo secretly ordered Itachi to eliminate the Uchiha clan. After the massacre, Itachi infiltrated the Akatsuki to prevent them from moving against Konoha. As a public traitor, his true status was clearly never documented…consequently, the knowledge was never passed to you following the Sandaime's death."
Tsunade stared for what felt like an eternity, face reddening steadily. At last, she said, voice deadly, "And I see dear old Danzo never saw fit to inform me."
Shizune nodded slowly. "That appears to be the case."
"So what will happen now?" Sakura questioned, voice low. Her eyes switched rapidly between the two women.
But both were silent, staring silently at each other instead. Finally, the hokage's eyes narrowed. "Itachi will be safe—there's no doubt about that. Those old codgers have been slobbering all over themselves for a decade now to get the sharingan back."
"Well, that's a relief." She reached toward her aching shoulder, rubbing it distractedly.
"But you, Sakura, the council will happily sacrifice on the altar of bureaucracy."
Sakura stopped rubbing her shoulder.
"Identity fraud, credential fraud, insubordination on an S-rank mission," Shizune recited almost apologetically. "The council will almost certainly demand your execution, regardless of your motives."
Ah. Sakura carefully smoothed her expression and took a small, soundless step back.
Tsunade caught the motion immediately. "It should go without saying," the woman said shortly, "that complying with the council's demands is almost categorically the bane of my existence. You're no traitor; fortunately for you, I don't condone punishing mere stupidity."
She turned to the windows and arched an imperious brow. Sakura, who had forgotten altogether about the figures outside the office who had been watching them this entire time, stiffened so quickly that she felt her back crack in protest.
"Commander," the hokage greeted in her usual no-nonsense way. Her amber eyes flicked to Kakashi next, who leaned silently against the edge of the window. Her lips pursed. "Hatake. I assumed you followed along our conversation."
The commander bowed his head immediately in confirmation. The man next to him remained upright, gaze cold. He did not look at Sakura.
"Saori Mori," the hokage said swiftly, "died on a solo assassination mission in the Land of Waves at noon today. She fought nobly and bravely in service of her village."
A dull ringing sound echoed in her ears. Sakura winced. "Tsunade-sama—"
"That is the price you pay to keep your head," the woman said warningly. Amber eyes examined her. "No goodbyes, no closure with former teammates. Saori Mori dies right here in this room."
She shut her mouth stiffly.
"In fact," Tsunade said bluntly, "don't ever mention her name again. Forget she even existed. That is an order to all three of you. Let her…fade into anonymity like so many ANBU do: family-less, child-less."
"As for Haruno Sakura," The hokage stood suddenly, gaze flashing as she crossed her arms. "Haruno Sakura was following my orders this entire time, to the very point where she led my ANBU on a merry chase through the village and then crashed through this window. I suspected there was a traitor in our midst. I strategically withheld my suspicions and my protégé's progress from the council, and she carried out my will when I deemed her prepared, as is my prerogative. And lo and behold, we have proof now of Danzo's treachery."
"Of course," Shizune hummed, "Sakura cannot be tried if she didn't break any laws."
"It's legal grey area," the commander said gruffly. "The hokage might have some leeway during times of war, but to go above the council during a professed state of peace is—"
"The council won't look that closely."
"With Itachi back in the village and the younger one on his way as well they won't press the issue," Tsunade agreed, nodding.
Shizune's eyebrows arched high on her forehead. "The younger one?"
"Yes," Tsunade said, clearing her throat. "According to Sakura, the rest of Team Seven should be bringing him back now."
"Tsunade-sama," the assistant responded lightly, after a long pause, "the council might finally like you."
The hokage's expression shifted into one of disgust. "Yes, well, this will at least silence their usual nagging for a little while. Stay—all of you. Until Sasuke comes."
Sasuke made his appearance an hour later and with great tumult, dragged cursing into the hokage's office by the remaining members of Team Seven.
"You should tell him," Shizune prompted, looking slightly pityingly at the younger Uchiha.
Glaring, Tsunade finished off her cup of soju. After swallowing with gusto, and without a breath of pause, she delivered the truth ruthlessly.
As generally unsympathetic as she was (and she was), even Sakura winced, wondering if her mentor might have handled the issue a little more delicately.
—your brother massacred your parents and the rest of your clan on the orders of a council member, Danzo, in order to save your life, so maybe 'stay in school' next time around instead of defecting before you have all the facts—
"You're lying," Sasuke hissed, face twisted in hatred.
"Apologies, Hokage-sama," Sai said with a bright smile. "We haven't quite managed to get him house-trained yet."
The hokage wasn't impressed. "To what end?"
"This man, Danzo," Sasuke accused nastily, "you must want him out of the picture. Pin a crime on him so that he stops angling for your seat—"
"That would be awfully crafty," Tsunade agreed, "if Danzo were remotely the type to angle for something like the hokage's seat. Unfortunately, a man like him never likes public attention or oversight; it rather hampers his generally unpalatable agendas."
Sasuke glared.
"Danzo acted without approval," the older woman said, a little more softly now. "Itachi never should have been placed in that situation. I wasn't in Konoha when it happened, but I do truly regret—
"Lies," Sasuke charged unblinkingly, the veins in his forehead straining.
"She isn't lying, Sasuke," Sakura interrupted at last. "Itachi—"
"You shut your fucking mouth."
Sakura turned slowly, mouth positioned in a sneer.
"Sasuke," Naruto muttered urgently. His gaze darted to her, a little pleading. "Sakura."
"As it stands," Shizune interrupted swiftly, "although Sasuke defected, he has done very little in the way of endangering Konoha. There were no deaths as a result of his defection and no critical intelligence was leaked, correct?"
"Right," Tsunade confirmed, sending a warning look Sakura's way. Reluctantly, Sakura forced her gaze away from Sasuke. "Pointedly, like Itachi, the council will want keep him and weaponize him for Konoha. But make no mistake, Sasuke, if you were anyone else, you would be—"
"Executed," the ANBU commander grunted.
"Exactly," the hokage said, eyes suddenly rapt at the copy-nin. She stared at him for a long time, unblinking. At last, she sighed. "You're still the one who's most qualified to keep the last Uchiha in line."
"No one is keeping me in line. Get these cuffs off me."
"You mean," Naruto stammered, "Sasuke, he'll be back on Team Seven?"
"He shouldn't be," Tsunade hissed irately. "But the council—"
Naruto crowed in joy. Sakura's mouth flattened. Really? How…ludicrously unfair. If Sakura had abandoned the village like Tsunade had originally suspected, she would have been greeted by a swift death upon return by the council.
"You. All of you. You're going to be on your best fucking behavior from now on," the hokage said dangerously. "Take the chunin exams; save a few kittens for the village. Not one fucking toe out of line."
Naruto nodded rapidly.
"And someone take Sasuke to see his brother when he's conscious," Tsunade snapped. "If no one else can convince him of the truth..."
Shizune nodded with some skepticism.
Tsunade released a frustrated gust of breath. "Dismissed," she spat out, waving a wild arm at the door. "Get out. All of you."
Sakura left without a backward glance.
As she walked home, the dusk golds and reds faded into a rich black-blue, enfolding the houses and shops in shadow. It had been almost a month since she had traced this path home, she considered. After almost a month of limited airflow, the air in her room must have turned a little stale. After climbing the three staircases leading up to her place, she opened the door and made straight for the sole window to crack it open.
She paused there, examining the scene outside through the glass. It took her a few seconds to find her watchers. The ANBU blended with the cover of night, masks angled skillfully away from the moonlight which might otherwise have revealed them. Having been one of them, however, Sakura was well aware of the tricks of the trade.
She would have liked to have said goodbye, she reflected. To Snail especially, but also to Hyena—even to Bear.
There was no use thinking about useless things. She stalked to the bathroom and ran the hot water.
Her reflection looked…wan. Exactly like she'd had the bare minimum of sleep these last forty eight hours. Sighing, she pulled off her clothes and sank into the tub, skin prickling with brief pain before pleasure sank in.
And Kakashi—
No, some part of her asserted with near violence.
The water quickly turned brown. Sakura examined it with a sort of fascinated disgust, continuing to scrub her skin and hair with equal vigor. She froze when the door to her bathroom suddenly swung open.
Sakura blinked back at her intruder, unable to comprehend why exactly this particular person could be in front of her at this particular moment.
"What the fuck are you still doing here?" Ino hissed. "God, I came here just in case, but I didn't think—you can't actually be that stupid—"
"Excuse me?" Sakura asked slowly.
Ino uttered a noise of outrage. "In less than an hour, there's going to be a warrant for your capture and interrogation. And I might crack open people's minds for a living, but I stomped over your sandcastles when we were four. It's not happening."
Sakura paused. "I haven't done anything wrong."
"As all guilty people say," Ino snapped, before her expression forcibly cleared. "Not that it matters. Now get the fuck up and leave."
Sakura arched an eyebrow, leaning back. "Even if I did, I'd have ANBU on me in less than a second. They've got four squads lined up outside my window."
"I know!" Ino hissed, her fist snapping out to collide with mirror. Shards rained down from the point of impact. Sakura felt like her mind was moving through molasses.
What was Ino proposing, in the case that Sakura was actually guilty? That they would fight their way out of here? Together?
"We haven't," she started. She tried again. "We haven't been like that in—years. So why are you…"
"Been what?"
Sakura swept back the damp hair from her face. "We haven't even given each other the time of day. "
"And I would have called you bitch to your face if you'd asked for it," Ino sneered. "Probably."
Sakura's eyes narrowed as pulled a towel over her body. "You're not making sense, Ino. You're the one that decided that—"
"Oh fuck him," Ino exclaimed.
Sakura, startled, twisted to look at the other girl.
"You think Sasuke really had anything to do with it?" the other girl ranted, sweeping her hair back. "It was about the competition, forehead, about you and me—and the fact that you'd won, and I'm too proud to tolerate it. It was never meant to be…"
Sakura exhaled. "I wasn't lying," she said, toweling her hair slowly. "Despite what it looks like, I was…acting on Tsunade's private orders."
Ino's eyes widened. "What?"
"I understand that's probably not what your colleagues have been saying, but it's the truth. I haven't committed any crimes."
"Oh," Ino said faintly.
After a pause, she straightened her clothes and brushed back hair, until once again she looked impeccable. "Fine." Her pointer finger raised to point to the back corner of Sakura's bedroom. "Now explain that."
Sakura followed her finger until she reached a particular damning article of clothing hanging still from her wardrobe. She held back a tortured groan. The crimson, busty piece of lingerie was offensively bright even in the dimly lit room.
She rubbed the space between her nose and her eyes. "It's mine," she tried.
Ino gave a shrill laugh. "Don't even try it, forehead. In your dreams."
Sakura's hand lowered. She stared blankly at the other girl. "Seriously? Now?"
Ino's mouth gaped incredulously. "I would never have guessed."
"Thanks," she returned shortly.
"It makes sense of course, now that I think about it," the blonde sniffed, sweeping the heavy curtain of her hair over one shoulder, "Growing up around me must have been formative."
Sakura rolled her eyes.
"Right," Ino said, looking pleased now. "Well, now that you're not actually about to die—I hope you rot in a ditch, bitch."
She turned on her heel and made for the door. Before it shut fully, though, pale, long-nailed fingers wrapped around the edge of the door, keeping it open by a sliver. "Dinner," the disembodied voice said a second later, "Friday."
The door shut.
Stalking forward, Sakura yanked the curtains shut. She slid into her bed and shut her eyes.
While Sakura may not have been dragged into a cell by T&I, she was subpoenaed to testify before the council the next day. (She honestly wasn't sure which one, given the choice, she would have preferred).
It was clear, by the time of her entrance into the circular room, that proceedings had long been underway. Sakura found a rather tired, if stoic, Itachi at the witness stand before the gathering of council elders. A short distance behind him, in an area clearly designated for other witnesses to wait, was Sasuke.
Sasuke's dark gaze flicked from his brother to her.
Sakura paused to look at him. "You look calmer today."
His dark hair, which had grown longer in his time away from Konoha, hid his expression.
She shrugged to herself and then sat in the chair beside him, arms crossed.
"Obviously, Itachi will join our ANBU forces again," a silver-haired councilwoman with purple, beady eyes intoned to nods around her. "With your inside knowledge against the Akatsuki, we will be able to move openly against them with far more efficacy."
Tsunade cleared her throat with barely restrained annoyance. "As I've said repeatedly, Itachi cannot be cleared for active duty until he passes his physical readiness tests—and that will be some time yet."
"Surely within the month."
"I think that Uchiha-san's condition has perhaps been understated thus far," Shizune cut in politely, sending a warning glance at the hokage, "He has a rare lung disease that, while not incurable, has progressed for years without any treatment. It will take him at least a year to reach a state remotely resembling battle readiness."
The council did not look pleased by this news.
"Fine. But as for the younger one," an older man now spoke, voice a deep bass, "his health is in a far better state, and his sharingan will be invaluable. We might reconsider given these circumstances, hokage-sama, the terms you have set—"
Sakura started tuning them out, bending over to pick at a hangnail on her toe. She felt a burning sensation on the side of her face, as though someone were looking at her.
"How did you do it," Sasuke asked, almost soundlessly. She looked up, and he still faced the council—she wondered if she'd imagined the sensation of being surveyed. "You were the weakest one when I left."
Sakura sighed and leaned back on the uncomfortable bench. "You're not wrong."
"Then?" he pressed emotionlessly.
She pursed her lips, staring at him. "Why do you think people try to become strong?"
He didn't respond.
"It was survival, I think," she said curtly. "Hardly unusual. Probably the same for Naruto. Maybe even you, now that I think about it…even if Itachi never really was actually trying to kill you."
"And what tragic event happened to you, Sakura," Sasuke said coldly, turning toward her at last, "that forced such a dramatic change in your priorities?"
Sakura's eyes narrowed. "I was almost raped and sold for parts by organ traffickers," she returned equally coldly.
She blinked a second later, surprised and a bit alarmed that Sasuke was the first living person she had revealed this to. And she couldn't even see his face.
"Kakashi?" he pressed boredly, like he suspected she was lying.
Sakura's lips contorted into a snarl. "Evidently," she said with great difficulty, "not there."
They lapsed into silence again. The chatter of the council members filled the quiet: dull, static noise.
"But that wasn't the point," she said lowly.
Sasuke's dark eyes examined her coolly.
Sakura's lips tightened. "He never took me seriously the way he did the two of you, never paid attention to me and taught me like he did—"
"You were constantly falling over yourself to catch my attention."
"Believe it or not, being a stupid, brainless teenager isn't a crime. It's—"
"Normal? The shinobi life isn't for normal," Sasuke said cuttingly, "It isn't for frivolous, lovesick girls like you and the Yamanaka or for lazy dumbasses like the Nara. All of you were equally pathetic."
"There are different brands of ineptitude," Sakura sneered, "and he was more than willing to try with yours and Naruto's."
But her ears burned. She didn't want to acknowledge the potential truth in what Sasuke said—the possibility that Kakashi trying might have changed nothing. Because that meant that those organ traffickers had been necessary, that something terrible like that had needed to happen: that Yamato was right and that shinobi, the ones who were strong and survived the worst, could never also be happy, well-adjusted people. And how the fuck was that fair?
"Sakura," Tsunade beckoned shortly. She stood up immediately and stalked toward the witness stand. She didn't make eye contact with Sasuke again the entire trial.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Sakura jolted out of her bed, snarling like a wet cat.
"Sakuraaaa," she heard a familiar voice whine through the door. The sound of a key being turned in a lock reached her ears, and then the door was open, revealing Naruto—bright-eyed and beaming.
"Do you know how many hours of sleep I've had this week, Naruto?" she hissed. "Do you?" She could have cried—just burst into ugly, strangled sobs—that's how tired she was.
"But everything with Sasuke's finally smoothed over, and it's our first team practice together. Don't you want to head over together?" Naruto smiled fiercely. It looked painful.
"And?" Sakura grunted. "It's going to be a shitshow."
"It's not."
"It is."
"It's NOT," Naruto snapped, face reddening.
To be fair, she reminded herself as she considered murder, Naruto wasn't aware of even a half a dozen of the reasons her attendance of any Team Seven practice would be catastrophic.
A soft set of knocks on the open door turned both their heads.
"Naruto told me to be here at six in the morning sharp," Sai said with a bland smile. His eyes flicked over the both of them, and the smile slowly dissipated.
Naruto took a shuddering breath. He straightened to his full height. "Look, Sakura, there's a lot of shit I'm ignoring right now, and some of that is the—some of that is the stuff you never told me, even though I've always been honest with you, even though we made a pact to be honest. But like I said, I'm ignoring that. Because if I think about that, I could…"
He broke off, his expression strained. There was an edge to his features that Sakura wasn't accustomed to seeing.
"Just come to the fucking practice."
"Yeah," she found herself saying stupidly. "Okay."
Fuck.
Feeling resigned to her fate, and distinctly like she had been emotionally manipulated, Sakura dragged her weary body to the bathroom. After washing her face and brushing her teeth, she rustled around in the closet. She pulled out a dark top, a crimson so deep it was almost black, and tugged it over her head. The material settled loosely around her frame, the sleeves reaching just short of her wrists. Still rubbing sleep out of her eyes, she pulled on a pair of standard issue black pants and then stumbled out the door with them
"I think he got about as much sleep as you did last night," Sai noted as they walked.
"And you?" Sakura asked, eyes fixed straight ahead.
"Probably the same," he responded sedately. "Shikamaru and I were up until—"
"Not the same," she said shortly. "But seriously. Are you happy about this? Sasuke being back, the negligible punishment for what he's done?"
"It does seem unfair," Sai agreed. He blinked calmly at her. "But other than that, I don't have any other feelings on the matter. You, however, have, I think, many feelings. Some of which don't overtly appear to be…entirely fair."
Sakura arched an eyebrow at him. They stared at each other for a moment, until she finally turned her head away.
Just as dawn broke, they stood in front of their assigned training ground. Sakura peered down at her watch—they were early.
Even so, the training ground itself was not deserted.
Sasuke leaned against a post at the edge of the grounds, expression stoic. Sakura's gaze flicked down. Metal bracelets inscribed with characters too small for her to read shackled his wrists. They were small enough to not impede his mobility, but they had almost undoubtedly been created to restrict his chakra use.
"Who's that?" Naruto asked loudly, pointing at the masked woman crouched on a tree above him.
"His guard, undoubtedly." Sakura gave her a cheery wave.
"You're somewhat of an asshole," Sai observed.
Feeling a sharp gaze on her, she turned her head slightly to meet it. Yamato, looking a great deal more recovered from the trials of the previous few, examined her with open incredulity.
"Dolphin."
(The sound of that imperious, arrogant voice—)
The ANBU stepped off her branch, landing crouched with her head bowed. "Taichou," she greeted.
"Report," Kakashi commanded.
In any other situation, Sakura thought longingly, she might have been tempted to close her eyes and catch some sleep.
"In summary, since yesterday, he has used three jutsus, all low-level, made eye contact with ten persons, and communicated directly with three," the woman finished, gaze travelling up at last to meet Kakashi's.
His gaze, however, was directed at Sasuke.
"It's my opinion that one in your position," Kakashi said silkily, head tilting lazily to the side, "should be fully informed before making any…critical decisions. This is to say: given the slightest step out of place that Dolphin reports to me—if I have even the slightest suspicion about your loyalties—I have the authority to take action."
"You betray this village one more time," he murmured with a savage sort of interest, "and your throat will be slit before you even make it past the gate."
Sasuke's jaw visibly tightened.
"And in case it should need stating, there are many up to the task," the copy-nin said, "Your own teammate has proven herself more than capable, hasn't she?"
Sakura stiffened. Sai and Naruto both were similarly stiff beside her.
"In fact, I think it's fair to say that Haruno is heads and shoulders above all of you," Kakashi continued coolly, his gaze still directed toward Sasuke.
Sakura stared at the copy-nin, unsmiling.
Yamato cleared his throat. "And let that be motivation to make you all work harder. Naruto, Sai, pair up for a warm up spar. Sasuke, once you're finished here, spar with Sakura."
Naruto crowed, dragging Sai away. Face strained, Yamato followed them.
"Understood?" Kakashi asked leisurely.
After a long silence, Sasuke nodded . He shot a dark glance at Kakashi and then turned on his heel.
Sakura moved to follow him. Without her conscious consent, a fraction of a second later, her feet pivoted on the dirt ground, spinning back around.
Kakashi gave no reaction to her sudden movement other than to move his gaze, which had been fixed somewhere above her head, unconcernedly to her.
Sakura's lips twisted, as she tried to find the proper words. She stared past him too, mouth working.
She swallowed, ignoring the pain from the rough sensation against her dry throat. "Saori Mori—" she started, nostrils flared.
"Who?" he responded, voice emotionless.
Sakura's mouth snapped shut, strangling any other words that might have followed. Her gaze roamed rapidly over his features. True to his words, there was not one sign of recognition on his face. Not even the slightest muscle had twitched out of place.
Don't ever mention her name again. Forget she even existed. That is an order to all three of you.
It seemed, Sakura realized with an inappropriate sense of hilarity, that this was to be the one command in recent memory that Kakashi truly obeyed.
A trickle of sweat escaped her hairline and traced its way down her cheek. The sun beat down unforgivingly (shouldn't have worn the crimson shirt after all).
If she followed his lead, she considered distantly, this would be it. They would both treat that as though it had never happened—exactly like the absurd anomaly it was. And there was so little to lose, she considered. Wasn't it better, in the end, to forget?
What could possibly be said that wasn't better left unsaid?
She thrust her hands into the pockets of her pants.
"Never mind." She forced her numb lips into a smile.
His dark gaze didn't change.
She turned around and walked towards Sasuke.
Author's Note:
GASP. Yeah, so that just happened.
also SORRY, I know it's been too long :( My semester started out a little more hectic than I had originally thought and then coronavirus happened :( my college has been one of many to kick students off campus-and for very good reason-just been a little down because it's my senior spring, and I didn't really get a proper chance to say bye to so many of my friends. Hope everyone is staying safe though and practicing social distancing! Hopefully (looking on the bright side) I'll be able to churn more chapters out with all that social distancing and you'll be able to read them and leave even more / even LONGER comments :o :o :o
Let me know what you thinkkkkk. Feed meeeeee :D