Sasuke had been dying because of his injuries; her primary concern had been an oncoming avalanche of rocks.
And yet, both Sasuke and she were held overnight for twenty four hour observation—because Kakashi apparently had never undergone any official medical ninjutsu training in his near two decades of being a combat shinobi.
Sakura spent the night glowering at the vase of daffodils an overexcited nurse had left at her bedside.
Twenty four hours later, she was generally unsurprised to find herself filling out a thick packet of the hospital's discharge paperwork. That Sasuke had been deemed to be in sufficient condition as well and was filling the same beside her was a bit surprising, but she took it all in stride—Hinata was an excellent healer.
As they waited for the nurse to check their documents over, Sakura rested her chin in her hand. She couldn't help the curl of distaste in her stomach.
"A thank you," she considered, "could be appreciated."
He leaned back into his chair across from her, dark eyes unreadable. "Your actions were unnecessary and unwanted."
It had occurred to her, sometime during the past half hour (and between contemptuous glances directed her way), that given…recent actions, he might still somehow think her still a devoted fan.
"I really don't know how it's escaped your notice, Sasuke," Sakura said, smile dropping, "but I actually don't like you very much."
The contempt didn't leave his expression.
Sakura arched an eyebrow. "You put a hole through Naruto's chest, and have tried in the time since to put a hole through mine. That's not very nice. Kind of makes me want to put one through yours too."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow back. "What animus to overcome yesterday, then."
"You're back on Team Seven now," she retorted. Sakura rotated her shoulders to get some residual soreness out of them. "So, yes, I tried to save your life. Because that's what I owe you as a teammate. Same as what you owe me and every other person on this team too."
Sasuke's mouth thinned. "I pay my debts."
"Paperwork looks good," the nurse called out, giving them a nod. "You're all set to go."
"Amazing," Sakura announced, giving a wave to the nurse as she walked toward the exit.
She swung open the door to leave the medical ward with extra vigor, pausing when she realized that the recognized the two individuals on the other side.
Naruto and Sai stood side by side, locked deep in conversation. It took a few seconds for them to see her and Sasuke.
"They've let you out already?" Sai asked.
Sakura gave a grunt of assent.
"Right," the blonde beside him declared abruptly, "so we should have dinner together."
Sasuke scoffed. Sakura was polite enough to not do the same out loud. "We just got out of here, Naruto. This isn't the time for…whatever it is you think it's the time for."
"It's my idea," Sai interjected calmly.
That brought Sakura up short. "Yours?" she clarified.
"Yeah," Naruto affirmed. "I support it too, though. Obviously."
"And I rather think you owe me a dinner, Sakura," Sai said, smiling slightly.
Her mouth flattened. It was the least of what she owed him.
Naruto's smile widened as he read the resignation on her face.
"And because you owe me and Sasuke owes you," Sai continued, equally assuredly, "I believe he might owe me a dinner too."
Sasuke's gaze narrowed.
"If I have to go, you're coming too," Sakura muttered. "You pay your debts, don't you?"
Naruto turned on his heel with business-like focus, making straight for the door. Sai tilted his head, a curve to his lips.
She was modestly surprised when he brought them into a crowded bar, dim lit and with pulsing lights and music.
"Uh, Sai," Naruto said, hands in his pockets as he surveyed the establishment he had unsuspectingly entered. "I thought we said dinner?"
A pair of giggling chunin—a green-haired girl and a rail thin boy—brushed past them. Sakura's gaze tracked the pair with some interest, before a new figure appeared before them.
"Sai," the bartender greeted, a wide smile across her full lips. Her eyebrows raised a second later. "And…friends?"
"Mirai-san," Sai said, bowing his head in acknowledgement. "You have the table as I requested?"
"Of course," she said, still sounding a little shocked. She cleared her throat, pointing above the bar counter to a point to their left. Sakura turned her head and located what looked to be the last free table in the establishment, a circular booth with plush red seating.
Sakura followed Sai and Naruto followed Sakura. Sasuke sat down on the very edge of the curved cushion with an air of extreme detestation.
A waitress passed by, depositing a tall bottle of shochu and three glasses. "Mirai-san said on the house."
"I know that you just left the hospital," Sai announced, unblinking, "However, you were both cleared for discharge, so I see no reason you cannot partake in this…team-building exercise."
"Team-building exercise," Sakura echoed with polite disbelief.
"Precisely," Sai confirmed, dark eyes glinting. His gaze shifted toward Sasuke. "Unless you just happen to have weak stomachs."
Sakura rolled her eyes.
"Ha," Naruto barked out a laugh. He jabbed a thumb in Sasuke's direction "One time, this bastard forgot to bring water on a mission, so he stole a water pouch off of one of our assignments. He started chugging it—only it wasn't water—and spewed his guts out for the next hour. I had to hold his fucking hair back the entire—"
A glass clanked loudly against the ebony finish of the table. "Pour," Sasuke hissed.
"Of course," Sai said with a plastic smile. He tipped the heavy bottle over with elegant ease, filling all four cups to the brim.
"How on earth did you find this place?" Sakura sniffed at the cup.
"I had read that bar-hopping was a socializing activity commonly practiced by both civilian and shinobi. I conducted some research into locations preferred by shinobi in our rough age group, and this location was referenced most frequently."
Naruto grunted.
"I discovered 'pin pon pan' in a similar manner," Sai stated.
His words were met with blank stares.
"I, too, was unfamiliar with this exercise," Sai acknowledged, tipping his head, "It is, however—I have observed it to be—extremely popular among shinobi our age. We must sit in a circular formation, as we are now. Someone begins the game by saying 'pin,' and the person to their left has to follow with 'pon,' while the person to their left must follow with 'pan'. Once the 'pin, pon, pan' has been said, the person who said 'pan' must immediately point to a random member of the group who starts the cycle again. If you're caught unaware and lose the cycle, you lose and must drink."
"And what exactly is the point of this?" Sasuke asked, lips curling.
"Obviously to test our comparative reflexes."
"Sounds good to me," Naruto agreed sagely.
"Then," Sai prompted, "shall we start?"
At minute ten, Naruto lost his patience and elbowed Sasuke in the gut. The advent of violence introduced new rules into the game.
One hour later, the bottle was empty.
"Fuck," she said out loud, rubbing her eyes as the room spun.
Naruto smiled at nothing in particular. He frowned, rubbing at his ribcage. "You all have really jab—jab-by…fingers."
"Your elbows," Sakura accused, scowling, "are large."
"Compensation for his dick," Sai murmured, "which is—" he hiccupped—"overly small."
A choked noise—vaguely like laughter—emerged from the least likely of sources. Sasuke grimaced a second later, as though in pain.
"Leave," Sakura said suddenly, sitting bolt upright. "Time to leave."
"I can't," Naruto whined, head burrowed in Sai's lap.
Sakura pulled him up with one hand and then swung him onto her back. She rocked forward slightly but stabilized herself with concerted effort.
"Sakura," he whispered, a tone of horror to the words, "I think I might throw up."
"Don't," she hissed, "you dare."
"Okay," Naruto hiccupped. He rested his head on her shoulder and shut his eyes.
Sakura shook him. "Don't go to sleep either," she muttered. Her gaze shot to Sai, then to Sasuke. "Can you get him?"
"Don't touch me," Sasuke snapped, batting the other boy's hand away. He stood—and then veered to the side.
He cast his arm about for some means of stabilization.
In the end—and determinedly not looking at him—Sasuke's arm ended up swung over Sai's neck, using the other boy's bodyweight to keep himself upright.
"They look alike," Naruto whispered confidentially to her.
"Huh? Are you blind?" Sakura demanded, squinting at them. "Whatever. We're getting out of here."
They stumbled out of the bar and onto the moonlit dirt road with more or less success, if not grace (more than one threat had been shouted at them because of an unintentionally upturned drink).
They paused once there, examining their respective passengers.
Sai blinked at Sasuke. "I have no idea where he lives."
He turned to her with a questioning look. She had nothing to offer him.
"I believe I can help with that," a new figure interjected smoothly, emerging from the shadows. Sakura turned (a little slower than usual). Sai stiffened.
Itachi stood before them, in a simple white shirt and black pants, expression revealing nothing.
"Ha," Sakura breathed out in delighted astonishment, straightening. "Were you waiting out there? Does Sasuke have a curfew? Did he break it?"
"Sakura," Sai muttered, seeming abruptly sober, "perhaps don't antagonize the person who went on a murderous killing spree for—"
"Nii-san?"
Itachi's mouth parted fractionally.
"What are you doing here?" Sasuke asked blearily. He seemed suddenly to realize Sai next to him and shoved him away. He stumbled for balance.
Itachi caught him, hands wrapping firmly around his brother's upper arms. His sharingan spun—and then Sasuke collapsed, unconscious. He handled Sasuke with infinite care, shifting him in his hold.
"About Naruto," Sai said lightly.
Sakura twisted to follow his gaze. Naruto's face was scrunched up and paler than usual, like he was trying valiantly to hold something back.
"If you don't mind," Sakura said with a bright smile, depositing the blonde next to Sasuke. Naruto swayed forward and then moaned piteously as he collapsed against Itachi.
The older Uchiha stared down at both his charges, gaze narrow.
"Feel free to do the same—" Sakura waved her hands, in vague reference to the sharingan trick Itachi had pulled—"to him too. Have a great night."
"How did you meet it?"
Sakura stilled.
"The crow," Itachi said slowly.
Her shoulders tightened. "By accident. Have you seen…it recently?"
She could feel Sai's curious eyes burning into both of them.
"No," Itachi returned softly. The older man's mouth curved without feeling. "Licking its wounds, no doubt."
Even though Shisui had won those wounds fending Kakashi off for her, she felt no pity for it.
"Good," she said shortly. She nodded her farewell to Sai and made her way home.
Seven hours later, Kakashi's dark gaze assessed them with transparent disgust. Denial was pointless, of course, when their captain could smell better than a dog in heat.
"Just a late night," Sai tried very calmly, gaze protected from the sun by a pale hand.
Sasuke winced at the noise. Naruto was still cowering from any and all sunlight. And Sakura fervently wished that she had just thrown her alarm clock into the wall like she had wanted that morning and never left her bed.
"The hokage has received intel on the location of a sleeper cell of sound operatives close to the village," Kakashi stated coldly, crouching on the boulder.
"They're after Sasuke?" Naruto demanded, straightening.
Kakashi's expression didn't change. "We're capturing them for interrogation before they can ever reach Konoha soil."
"Oh?" Sasuke questioned through gritted teeth. "And I hope that the hokage has decided in her infinite wisdom to take off these shackles this time, given our last mission."
The copy-nin's feet hit the grass soundlessly. "Don't worry, Uchiha," Kakashi rasped, eyes glinting with cruel amusement. "In her infinite wisdom, the hokage has assigned us assistance to compensate for your…current handicaps."
But there was something off about his demeanor, Sakura noted distantly. The upper half of his face was mocking and insouciant, and yet there was a tension in his forearms that he wasn't trying to hide—not from anyone observant enough to look.
She understood only when three figures made their presence known, emerging from the shifting shadows beneath the gently swaying trees. The blood rushed out of Sakura's face.
Hyena body-flickered to Kakashi's right, head lowered slightly in deference. Snail and Bear blurred into corporeality at Hyena's shoulders.
"ANBU," Naruto muttered, mouth agape. "A mission with real life ANBU."
Sai turned a polite smile toward the newest occupants of the training ground. "You are Kakashi-taichou's ANBU team, I assume?"
Sakura fought hard to regain control of her expression.
"We are," Snail said, bowing lightly. "We look forward to working with you, Team Seven."
"I am Sai," Sai said pleasantly. "These are my teammates: Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke. We apologize ahead of time for how ungrateful Sasuke will undoubtedly be during this mission."
Sasuke's head rolled back to give the black-haired boy a dark, considering look. That disrupted Sakura momentarily from her stupor.
"Don't," she said tonelessly.
Sasuke's eyes flashed, like that made him consider it more.
An unexpected figure intervened. "Back off, Sasuke," Naruto said lowly, face hard. He shifted his position slightly, so that the breadth of his shoulders blocked Sai from his line of sight.
Sai looked like he had been struck over the head. Sakura was also…mildly surprised. She didn't think she had ever heard Naruto take that tone with Sasuke.
"God, I'm sick of these fucking brats," Bear growled, annoyance thick in his voice. "We just got the redhaired one off the squad, and now this."
"Bear," Hyena snapped.
"They can never handle themselves," the man continued, venomous, "just marching onto that field with a temper and no brain and a fucking expiration date—"
"Enough," Snail barked out, hair swinging forward. Something more than anger rang in her voice—something sharper, harder, grating like broken glass.
Sakura's lips thinned. She didn't know if the grief in Snail's was for her—it could have been for anything, given how frequently terrible things happened in ANBU—but it made her…wonder. What they had been told. If there had been a ceremony at the headquarters for her. If they had said anything.
Maybe it was better, she thought bitterly, not to know.
(She had…missed them. Funny, how she hadn't really been aware of it, until now. She had thought it was just the violence.)
"Don't betray yourself," Kakashi commanded lowly. Sakura's head snapped up. He wasn't looking at her.
"It will be sunset when we infiltrate," the copy-nin informed them, expression unreadable. "Make sure your henges are flawless. Give no indication that you are shinobi."
"Our relationship with the hidden village in the Land of Steam is tenuous and cannot be compromised," Hyena explained.
Naruto shifted uncomfortably, scratching his head. "Ah, I've never been on this kind of a mission before…"
"Yeah?" Bear said irately. "We're here to keep you in check too."
Sakura inhaled the scent of the warm ocean deeply, yukata fluttering in the gentle breeze. Holding onto her arm, Snail stared silently at the reflection of the moon onto the crystal clear waves as they walked.
"What a handsome young couple," an old woman called out, emerging from her stall. Examples of her wares—light, gossamer scarves—dangled from her thin arms. "Just married?"
"We're good," Sakura said shortly, determined to follow the route Hyena had indicated on their map. The inn the sound-nin were purportedly occupying couldn't be far.
"Honeymooners," Snail responded with a sweet smile, making a show of eyeing one of the scarves. Sakura grimaced. She supposed one of the sound-nin could be in their vicinity.
"See?" the woman tsked, "The lady is interested. You'll learn quickly, young man, that the key to a good marriage is saying yes to your young lady. Always."
Sakura nodded impatiently.
Snail patted Sakura's face, pouting. "Don't look so glum, Yakiro. Indulge me for a few minutes, and then we'll head to the inn."
"Honeymooners indeed, I see," the old woman commented, grinning wickedly. The smirk persisted as she asked, "What colors do you like, miss? With rich, brown hair like that, this pink one would look stunning."
"You think?" Snail asked shyly, her henge's round face blushing lightly.
"He'll go wild when he sees you in it," the woman whispered confidentially—and not every quietly.
Sakura kept her expression blank with determined effort.
After some back and forth, coins exchanged hands, and they walked away from the beaming shopkeeper at a leisurely pace.
Snail craned up to brush a kiss on her cheek. "Naruto and Bear ahead at 12 o'clock," she murmured by her ear.
They were all on schedule, then. Sakura smiled down at her and then subtly sped up their pace.
The inn—loudly proclaimed 'Secret Lovers' Paradise' on a bright flashing sign—was not in fact an inn at all, but a love hotel. Sakura could see how this was strategic. No one questioned or paid attention to the comings and goings of a love hotel's occupants, employees often being paid precisely not to.
"Ten thousand yen for a room," the squat man at the luridly colored front desk stated. "No negotiating."
"We're honeymooners," Snail cajoled, blinking prettily. "Can't we get a discount?"
"Ha," the man said, unsmiling. "Keep the fantasies to the bedroom."
As Sakura handed over the required amount of money, she surveyed the area discreetly to locate easy exits.
"First floor room, please," Sakura asked. When the squat man looked like he was about to protest, she said firmly, "I'm scared of heights. Deathly."
He released a beleaguered sigh and then bent down to rummage for a different key from the one he had been about to hand them. "Don't complain to me about the noise," the man said crassly. "The first floor has been bizarrely popular tonight, kami knows why. When you put a second mortgage on your house to pay for a first-class ocean view—"
"Have a great night!" Snail called out cheerily, tugging Sakura forward. They climbed the plush red staircase until they reached a hallway.
A door cracked open soundlessly just as their feet brushed the carpet, revealing a tall, silver-haired woman with red, hawkish eyes. There was something instantly sensuous about how she carried herself, like she had been born beautiful, knew it, and had had years of practice at it.
She scoffed internally—what else would she expected of a female henge from the copy-nin? She slipped quickly behind the door, tugging Snail behind her.
A man was tied and gagged on the bed, unconscious.
"Are all of the targets in the hotel?" Snail asked, eyes scanning the unconscious sound-nin.
"According to him—" Kakashi's red eyes flicked disparagingly to the sound-nin as well—"two left around sunset to gather supplies. Hyena and Sasuke are after them."
"Where is Sai?" Sakura kept her voice as even as possible.
"Handling the woman on the floor above us," Kakashi said shortly, sliding kunai beneath the thin material of his dress. "There are seven in total. Six sound shinobi and an A-rank mercenary Kabuto hired to spearhead the infiltration."
"How are we getting the bodies out?" Snail started tying her henge's thick hair back from her face.
"Laundry chute. Naruto and Bear are stationed there to collect them. Haruno—take the twins in 612. Snail, 334 and 214. I'll handle the mercenary in 701."
"Taichou," Snail asked hesitantly, sending Sakura a strange look. "Wouldn't it be better for me to take 612? I might be better back up. In case the A-rank mercenary gets too noisy."
"She'll do," Kakashi said distantly. Snail bowed her head sharply and then slipped out the door.
She yanked her gaze away as Kakashi turned towards her again.
"Enter through the window," he ordered. He slid into the hallway as well a second later.
She shifted stiffly over to the window and pushed it open. Bracing her foot on the ledge, she swung herself on to the top of the window frame.
Nudging her toes and fingers into the grooves where the ocean wind had naturally eroded the building's façade, Sakura pulled herself up the side of the building. It was dark, thankfully, or she would have been more concerned about being detected by civilians. The breeze was stronger the higher she climbed, and she became increasingly grateful for the male henge's short hair.
Five levels up and shifted five rooms to the right positioned her exactly where 612 would be. Sakura loosened a kunai from her sleeve. She used it to pick the lock and then rolled into the room.
The first occupant—who had been exiting the bathroom, door still swinging shut behind him—she caught in a genjutsu, dropping him to his knees. The second, seated on the bed, she struck with blunt fingers to the throat; this twin was quicker, managing to side-step the full force of the strike. Two fingers landed, damaging his larynx enough to keep him from making noise.
He flipped over to the other side of the bed, eyes slitted. He was rangy in build, but his features were delicate, even doll-like, beneath lime green hair.
Sakura leisurely strolled over to his brother and dropped a heavy fist on the top of his head. He crumpled like a sack of potatoes.
She raised her head again to the twin across the room, arching an eyebrow. "Come on."
As his form began to flicker with impressive speed, it occurred to her that she might have underestimated her opponent slightly. She had gotten the drop on his twin, but this other one wasn't of the same caliber.
Tubes emerged from beneath his sleeves, emitting a high pressure of air that she couldn't hear but that caused piercing agony in her ears. Sakura scowled and flung a pair of kunai at him; as he evaded them, she slid over the bed and twisted, flinging her leg around with the momentum of her body.
The green-haired shinobi ducked her leg and shoved his palm into her midsection. Sakura's body was blasted back by a violent pulse of air, but she managed to latch onto his wrist. Using this hold, she flung herself up, feet skating across the ceiling, until she landed on the carpeted floor behind him.
Before he could turn, she grabbed his throat from behind and squeezed until she felt his body relax into a state of unconsciousness. His body dropped with a heavy thud.
Sakura frowned. Well, the noise was probably nothing out of the ordinary in the likes of a love hotel.
She lifted the twin she had knocked out first onto her back and located the laundry chute at the end of the hallway. Wary of any opening doors, she shifted him from off her back and sat him onto the edge of the chute. She pushed him down.
An middle-aged man exited one of the rooms and passed by her with heavy, slightly clumsy footsteps, waving drunkenly. She waved back absentmindedly.
She hadn't heard any unusual sounds above her, she considered, head cocking to the side as she turned back toward the room. It seemed the A-rank mercenary upstairs was being handled without much difficulty. Once she got the second twin down the chute—and assuming everything else had gone generally to schedule—they could be out of the Land of Steam and back on their way to Konoha within the hour.
Opening the door and shutting it quickly beside her, Sakura approached the second twin, who lay prone along the bed. His eyes scrunched at the sound of her footsteps, a telling sign of impending consciousness.
Just as she was about to apply a measure of brute force to his head—just enough to knock him out but not enough to make him unusable for interrogators—a scratching noise reached her ears from the bathroom.
Sakura froze, eyes narrowing.
Twins, Kakashi had said. Two sound-nin.
Was there a third combatant in the bathroom, unaccounted for?
She shunshined to the bathroom door and nudged it open. Her nostrils flared, put off by the smell.
She found nothing out of the ordinary. Then, she looked down.
A girl, scantily clad and thin—so thin that she couldn't have seen a good meal in months, maybe even in years—was stretched along the pale pink tub. Her wrists, bony and scarred, were shackled to the faucets. Each breath she took sounded painful, outlining the painful definition in her ribs.
Round, blue eyes, framed by messy, smudge eyeliner like bruises, met hers, bleary and dilated from drugs.
Sakura took an unwitting step back, shoulder blades thudding with the door. The girl flinched at the noise, wrists tugging helplessly at her shackles in a futile motion to cover her head.
"No," Sakura said, "I'm not—"
It didn't matter what she said. At the sound of her voice, the girl in the tub began crying, the noise muffled because the gag in her mouth. Her body shifted, and suddenly Sakura was able to see the welts and purple bruises all along her legs.
She had ripped out the still-beating hearts from grown men and women. She had smelled the sweet-rotten incense of burning flesh. She had been party to the violence that had evoked the most agonized screams she had ever heard in her life.
But she had not been inured against this.
She bent over the toilet. Nothing came up as she panted through the nausea, eyes firmly shut.
"You've been more trouble than I anticipated."
Hands restraining her arms. Other hands on her legs. The sharp pain of hair being ripped from her scalp. She couldn't move, couldn't fight—
The man behind her bending down, sniffing her hair, grunting at what he smelled.
"What do you think?"
Thick, cloying liquid dribbling from her mouth.
"I think it's only fair compensation, given what she's done to our friend over there."
Hands on her legs, pulling—
Sakura's eyes snapped open, the phantom taste of blood and milk on her tongue.
The Voice nudged within her, insidious and hungry.
The girl continued to whimper in the tub. Sakura pivoted on her knees and grasped her head.
"Quiet," she instructed. The girl looked even more frightened. "I'm going to remove the gag. I'm going to untie you. But you can't scream."
Blue eyes watched her, wide, as she snapped the metal like it was a cracker. Giving her a warning look, Sakura slowly removed the gag.
"W-who are you?" the girl stammered, voice weak.
Sakura stood, expression dead. "Don't come out. Not until I say."
She exited the bathroom and shut the door behind her. The sound-nin on the bed had regained enough consciousness to roll onto his side. Purple eyes opened sluggishly, enraged.
You saw, the Voice coaxed. You saw what they did to her.
Sakura folded up the sleeves of her yukata.
It's exactly what those traffickers would have done to you, the Voice whispered in her head. That would have been YOU, if not for ME.
The sound-nin sat up, hands clawing at the bedsheets.
Sakura struck his face with blinding speed, watched stoically as his head smacked against the headboard.
"I'll kill you for this," the man choked out, blood dripping into his eyes. "I'll slit you from groin to your throat—"
She used the back of the same hand to hit him again, harder. He cursed through the damaged remains of his vocal chords.
Sakura's shoulders rolled back, her fists braced loosely in front of her. The Voice started to laugh wildly in her head.
She heard nothing else.
Her fists were weightless, there was the feeling of something dripping into the grooves of her fingers, beneath her nails, into the lines in her palms, and discomfort too, because her mouth was stretched wide like she was grinning—
Grinning.
"Stop," a harsh voice ordered in her ear. Hands wrapped like manacles around her forearms.
The feeling of being restrained agreed as well with her as a hot poker down her throat.
She tensed her muscles and broke the hold, whipping around. The entire lighting of the room was done in a deep red, casting the lithe female body in front of her into a monochrome of crimson.
Sakura bared her teeth, fist clenched as she started to turn back to the sound-nin.
"You're scaring her," Kakashi said, almost soundless.
Her head snapped to the bathroom. The door was ajar. A gaunt, slight figure trembled in the doorway. Blue eyes were watching her with something like hard-won clarity, a sort of petrified focus cutting through the haze of drugs.
It wasn't the sound-nin she was watching with fear.
The air rushed out of her lungs. Sakura swiped the hair back from her face. Damp fingers intertwined with knotted pink strands. She had dropped her henge at some point.
"I'm not," she said hoarsely. She took a small step toward her.
Something in the frail figure snapped. A desperate sort of violence seemed to come over her, compelling her forward with clawed hands. The girl-from-the-bathroom didn't scream—she didn't even have the energy for that; ragged pants filled Sakura's ears as she was attacked, nails scrabbling weakly at her face, palms hysterically shoving her into the bed.
Sakura let herself be pushed back, numb.
Pulling a bathrobe off from one of the hooks, the girl tied it clumsily around herself and sprinted out the door, shoving it shut behind her with all of her meager might. The final thud echoed thunderously in the room.
For a few, infinite moments, Sakura could hear only her heartbeat. Then she pulled herself off the bed, teetering onto her feet.
Kakashi watched her, silent.
"This is your fault," she whispered. She began to wipe the blood on her hands onto the bedsheets, slowly at first, and then in a frenzy of motion.
"Sakura," he said sharply.
She jolted at the sound of her name (not Haruno?). Then, she ripped her hands out of the bedsheets and lifted one hand, pointing a lone, quivering finger at him.
"This is your fault," she said lowly.
The copy-nin's gaze shifted to the unconscious figure on the bed. "You'll need to heal him on our way back or he'll be useless."
"Look at me," Sakura demanded, voice guttural.
After a long pause, red eyes flicked up to meet hers. Kakashi's jaw—softer, more delicate in his henge—tightened.
"This is your fault," she repeated into his face. She clenched her teeth until it hurt.
He stared at her, expressionless. But his gaze—it wasn't skeptical or disbelieving. It felt, instead, like he was merely been waiting—that, maybe, he had been all this while.
The air burned in Sakura's lungs.
"And mine," she garbled out, rocking on her feet. She shoved the meat of her palms into her eyes. "I was weak and stupid, and you let me be."
"I let you be," said Kakashi without pause or particular inflection.
"But they didn't," Sakura panted. "They didn't let that brainless, oblivious, moron of a girl be. They held my arms and my legs and they pulled my hair when I tried to scream—"
The body against her convulsed—every muscle abruptly, ferociously activated.
"And for what they tried," she said, as unflinching as rock, voice cold, "I killed them."
The ocean wind blew, rattling the not-quite shut window.
"And then," she said hoarsely, "I got into the habit of it."
She exhaled—and maybe she imagined it, that he exhaled with her. That it felt like—in that moment—they were the same entity, united by this singular thing, this affliction—or was it something else? She didn't know. She couldn't think.
How could she? She gritted her teeth in futile resistance, because the air burned in her lungs. Was her own breath poison to her? What had it been like to breathe without pain? Was this how it all ended? To be ruined from the inside out?
It was something like the desire to live that drove her forward—not lust or veneration. She surged against him, lips landing painfully on his—only they were different, fuller, not-his, until suddenly they were—
He forced her head away; her neck snapped to the side.
"Don't," he told her, voice brutal.
The henge had…dissipated. Sakura's eyes trailed over his restored features: the patrician nose, the thin lips, the pale, scarred skin, the mismatched eyes.
Her gaze roved over him, eyes narrow. "Don't?"
She shifted forward, testing him. She found herself flipped and shoved into the wall, cheek scraping against the rough wallpaper.
Sakura inhaled and exhaled, breath even. Then, she stepped away, cool.
His expression was tightly restrained—and forbidding.
She stared at him as she bent down to pick up the body of the sound-nin. She stared at him even as she lifted that body onto her back, bile rising in her throat. She didn't break his gaze until she left the room to send that final body down the laundry chute. He didn't look away either.
Author's Note:
Hiiiiii sorry this took kind of long; this chapter required a lot more foreplanning / strategizing than usual. BUT I hope you've enjoyed it!
As always, please comment, kudos, bookmark, and shower me with love. I've started writing the next chapter, and I can't wait to get it out to you!
- madstoryteller999