Hiya, babes! Sorry this is coming later in the day than I wanted it to lol it's been a weird week. Happy Fire Friday! :)
You guys really didn't like some things about last chapter, huh?! xD That's okay, I spoke about it a lil bit over on Tumblr but since these next few chapters aren't about that at all, I'll only properly address it once that particular plot point is fully unraveled.
I hope you like this one, I sure do heheh
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Sakura adjusted her pack and took to the trees. It was still early, only nine in the morning when they had to meet their client at ten, but she wasn't about to take any chances. Just like her first mission with Tachibana, this wasn't only about the escorting, it was also everything that was said and left unsaid. Being late wasn't an option and with her partner, she had to take matters into her own hands.
While Sakura wasn't exactly tied down to her family anymore, she still kept her surname and it wouldn't be smart to completely disregard her clan head. While she affiliated herself to the Senju shinobi clan and was Tsunade's heir, in the civilian world her connection to the Haruno clan could possibly mean more. Sakura wasn't stupid enough to completely burn that bridge like some clan shinobi would.
Shinobi were careless in the way they underestimated civilians. The daimyo held as much power as the Hokage and civilians were tricky in their machinations. They controlled commerce and politics as much as shinobi and that made them dangerous. Coupled that with the fact that they had much better ties with the other countries, Sakura couldn't ignore a direct summons from Haruno Yuuka.
She had dressed that day as if she was going to a special meeting. This was a jounin mission and not ANBU so she had been able to forgo the formal uniform and instead dressed as she had for Tachibana. Stating her clan but clearly showing she was a shinobi and a good one at that.
She was wearing her dark shorts and her usual halter top bodysuit with a red sash around her waist, fingerless gloves that disappeared beneath the sleeves of her haori. Armed to the teeth and strapped with her full arsenal of pouches, there was no denying that she looked like a dangerous shinobi.
Her haori was Haruno red but there was no mistaking her for anything other than the Red Wolf of Konoha. Sakura-hime.
She stopped outside Kakashi's window, perching on his empty flower bed for a second to disarm his traps but not hesitating before going inside. Despite knowing for a fact that he would have avoided her for some time if they hadn't been assigned as partners, she didn't linger on the bad taste it brought to her mouth.
Sakura knew that Kakashi was difficult, his trauma was so deep seated that she wondered if he could ever be considered normal. She also understood him, to his very core. She knew he was right there with her in this crazy, undeniable attraction and that in his head, she was important. She also knew that he had a lot to deal with to accept things like she had.
Still, while she would have liked to have given him at least some space to figure himself out, this mission took precedence over their complicated feelings. For this mission, he was her partner and all of that bullshit could be pushed to the side until they were back home.
"You're napping," she said, her voice blunt and not at all surprised. He must have made his rounds to the memorial earlier in the morning and she wondered distantly if he had lost sleep over her if he was tired enough to take a nap before their mission.
Kakashi had one arm slung over his eyes as he laid on top of his covers, Icha Icha opened on his chest. He grunted at the sound of her voice but didn't take long to look at her, squinting through his lashes.
"I'm not late yet," he replied after checking his clock.
Sakura shrugged and went over to the desk where his bag was packed. She took out everything he had and laid it out next to it, taking stock of everything. Weapons, a change of uniform, toiletries, soldier pills and a sealing scroll.
"Do you have anything with your clan symbol on it?" Sakura asked. She heard rustling from behind her and Kakashi's almost silent sigh as he sat up.
"What are you doing here?" he asked instead and Sakura frowned at the confusion in his voice. He didn't sound mad that she had invaded his privacy but there was a harshness to his tone that most wouldn't notice but was clear as day for Sakura.
She paused in her tidying, set the scroll back down on the desk and turned to look at him. She tried not to let any of her anxiety show on her features, set them to be as much of a clean slate as possible and forced herself to relax back against the desk.
"I need you to be my partner, Kakashi," she said honestly. She knew by the widening of his eyes that he had misinterpreted her meaning so she continued before he could react. "This mission is more than it looks like and I need the two of us to be in top shape to see it through. I can't be wondering if you have my back or not. I know you were planning on pretending I didn't exist for the next month at least but you're gonna have to hold off on it for a while longer, okay?"
Kakashi was still staring up at her, both eyes opened and looking all confused and called out and sweet. He coughed awkwardly and nodded, averting his eyes and closing the Sharingan again but not saying anything.
Idiot, she thought, her lips curling into an involuntary smile. She clapped her hands like she did with her students.
"Right!" she exclaimed and turned back to his pack. "Do you have any more traditional clothes? Preferably one that has your clan symbol on it."
Kakashi got up and made his way to his closet and Sakura tried not to breathe a sigh of relief that he had complied with her wishes to just move past this awkwardness.
"I have a couple of old shirts back at my father's house but nothing here," he said, making Sakura frown. She knew that he hadn't exactly bothered with maintaining his clan but she figured he'd have at least one piece of clothing with his symbol.
"What about traditional clothes in general?" Sakura asked, turning to watch him worriedly. This wasn't a huge deal but it would surely have helped. She was hit in the face with a piece of fabric as soon as she turned around.
"There you go, Sakura-chan. Hakama and kimono and even a haori to go with it." The bastard sounded cheery as she hurriedly took the fabric off her face, her hair messily falling over her eyes.
She glared at him briefly but was ultimately glad that he seemed to have made a conscious effort to go back to his old self. It would have been better if he had looked like a proper clan head but Sakura could adjust accordingly to this. Instead of a clan head look, they could go for the dangerous shinobi vibe. That could work. Sakura nodded to herself and discarded the haori on his bed.
"You're not going with your jounin uniform," she told him, knowing full well how bossy she sounded. She took the spare uniform he had packed and placed it on his bed as well. "I need you to dress like you would gladly live up to your name anytime, okay? No cheery façade and pretending to have been a jounin sensei or anything like that, I need Hound-taichou for this mission. Maybe you could wear your ANBU pants, the undershirt and…"
Sakura mumbled almost to herself while she anxiously ran her hands through her hair. She had really hoped he would have had anything resembling clan clothes but that had been stupid and unprofessional of her to assume. What she should have done was to have taken her head out of her ass and gone to him yesterday to settle everything but she had naively thought it would have been best to give him at least a day of space. Of course, that was stupid and—
"Sakura." Kakashi's voice was harsh, making her eyes snap to his in surprise. She wondered how long he'd been calling for her. "What's wrong?"
He looked worried and completely alert now, looking mission ready. Sakura sighed and ran a hand over her face, trying to let go of some of the tension in her shoulders. Kakashi was an elite shinobi, if he thought she was actually this worried about a mission, of course his head would instantly go towards a threat.
"It's just…" Sakura swallowed and raised one shoulder slightly, trying to convey her worries without sounding like a scared twelve-year-old. "The Haruno clan is incredibly important, Kakashi. I'm not on the best of terms with them and I just want to be prepared for anything."
She felt small, standing next to him in his room, her familiar insecurities laid bare for him to see. It's not like she didn't trust her abilities and appreciated how far she'd come, but there was an old fear rooted in the knowledge that she had never been enough for her parents that somehow meeting the clan head for the first time ever since she was a child would dismantle everything she had worked so hard to build for herself.
Sakura wasn't exactly scared of the power Haruno Yuuka held but more of how much her great aunt could affect her personally. This was just dredging up old feelings of inadequacy that she had growing up and what made her ultimately run away from home.
Kakashi's hand fell heavy on her shoulder.
"The mission will work out fine, Sakura," he said, his voice low and comforting and it threatened to make her shiver. She looked at him to see his eye already trained on her, a serious expression hidden by his mask but not the hitai-ate. "I think I know where you're going with this. Let me pack something other than the uniform and change and then we'll go to the meeting point."
Sakura nodded, suddenly speechless, as he took a step backwards and moved around the room quickly and efficiently. Sakura tried not to stare but it was hard given how beautiful he was. Even completely covered up, seeing the concentrated expression on his face, the way he moved fluidly and without pause was enough to draw Sakura's attention.
When he closed himself inside his bathroom with a change of clothes, Sakura sat heavily on his bed and buried her face in her hands. She took a deep long breath, counted until eight and forced herself to release it in twelve seconds. When she was done, Inner had pushed away all of her feelings and had given her a cloak and mask to wear.
This one wasn't meant to intimidate or scare but it was the one she held over herself when dealing with people like the Elders. Detached but polite, scarily put together and in control.
Kakashi came out of the bathroom and she let her eyes rove over him clinically. He was wearing his ANBU pants, the new ones that were made from the most expensive material a shinobi could wear. Sakura could see from beneath the jounin sweater he was just sliding down his chest that he had on his chainmail mesh undershirt and standard black gloves. Instead of wearing his flak jacket, he had on various pouches much like she did and a tanto strapped to his back. Both of them were ready for the colder weather of the North.
"Let's go," Sakura said and the two of them left. Kakashi paused only long enough to lock up and then they took to the roofs.
They arrived outside the Hokage's office fifteen minutes before ten.
"You're actually early," Tsunade said, raising her eyebrow in amusement at their clothes. "Ah, good choice."
"Thanks, Shishou," Sakura said, forgoing protocol and stepping around the table to sit on the windowsill behind Tsunade's desk. She was supposed to be waiting patiently for the daimyo's wife and her clan head to arrive and be ready to give them both over the top respectful bows, but Sakura wouldn't play that part.
She raised one leg to rest her elbow on her knee and stared at the sky outside as Kakashi situated himself on Tsunade's other side. She looked him over to see he was leaning against the windowsill, one leg crossed over the other and Icha Icha in hand. She wondered distantly if it was actually Violence or if he was reading another one that day.
"You okay?" Tsunade asked, not looking back at Sakura and not stopping her stamping on paperwork. Her voice was quiet but not overly worried and Sakura appreciated it.
"Yep," Sakura said, infusing some cheerfulness in her voice and popping her 'p'. She pretended not to notice the side eye Kakashi gave her.
It was merely a few minutes later that someone knocked on Tsunade's door. Sakura immediately frowned when her enhanced sense caught on to who was behind the door, not having expected this turn of events.
An older woman entered first, her features strikingly beautiful even if her age was apparent. She had long dark hair that ran shiny down her back in a style not exactly befitting of royalty. The crow's feet in the corner of her eyes and the lines around her mouth were more pronounced but she held herself in a way that commanded attention and made Sakura do a double take.
The second woman to come through the door, only a step behind the first, was most definitely Sakura's great aunt. She had red hair just a few shades lighter than the shade Sakura used for her ANBU disguise as Akari, and half of it was held up by a golden hair comb. She looked older than the first woman but not by much and Sakura was sure her great aunt was approaching her sixties. She was only a few years older than her sister, Sakura's grandmother, so if Sakura had her math right, Haruno Yuuka was around fifty-seven years old.
Behind the two of them, came Sakura's parents.
"Nohime-dono, Haruno-dono," Tsunade greeted the women and spared Sakura's parents with just a look. "Will your guests need escorting to the Flame Capitol as well?"
"Not at all," Nohime, the daimyo's wife, said, her voice sweet and melodic, her accent the polished sound from the capitol. "They'll accompany us to the gates to say their goodbyes."
Sakura swept her eyes over the four of them, not stopping to notice her parent's expressions when movement from the door caught her attention.
"Nohime-sama." A guard kneeled at Nohime's feet. "The rest of the guard is ready with the caravan outside the gates."
"Very well." Nohime nodded and the guard got up. He seemed to be around Kakashi's age, maybe younger, with short brown hair and classic shinobi blue, a white band around his hips with the symbol of the land of fire in it. He turned towards Tsunade and bowed, doing a perfectly executed ninety-degree bow. It was polite, certainly, but less so than the way he had kneeled for his own mistress.
Sakura frowned.
"This is Sakura-hime and Hatake Kakashi," Tsunade said, her voice coldly detached as she raised an eyebrow at the guard, surely having realised how he had slighted her. Sakura fought the urge to roll her eyes at how her shishou had introduced her.
Despite finding it exasperating that the princess thing had stuck, she really appreciated that Tsunade was doing everything she could to show the proper deference that Sakura should be given and even going as far as introducing her without mentioning the Haruno name so that the others would know Sakura wasn't there acting inside her clan's capacity.
Sakura nodded at Nohime and fought the smirk that wanted to spread across her lips as her mother gasped in outrage. Kakashi bowed but it was a bow much shallower than what he would give the Hokage. Honestly, Sakura couldn't believe the audacity of that guard.
"I take it your guard will want to discuss strategies with the team captain before you leave," Tsunade said, finally getting up from behind her desk. Sakura wondered if it was just her that felt how Tsunade's presence seemed to take up the room but then she saw the tiniest of fidgeting her parents did and this time she couldn't fight the slight twitch of her eyebrow in amusement.
"The royal guard will take position in the trees as we move forward with the caravan so your shinobi won't need to bother with that, Hokage-sama," Nohime said and Sakura fought a frown. She didn't like that they had basically been summoned for a needless mission. "I'll appreciate their company inside the caravan, however, and whatever stops we make along the way."
Stops? There had been no mention of that. Sakura frowned further, not liking one bit all of these things thrown their way.
"I wasn't aware there would be any deviations during the trip to Hinote no Shuto, Nohime-dono," Tsunade said, raising an eyebrow at the woman. The daimyo's wife laughed beautifully but it was Sakura's great aunt who answered.
"We're old women, Hokage-sama, we indulge our whims," she said, her voice husky and a smooth smile that Sakura didn't trust in the least on her beautiful features. "Besides, there are also a few Haruno stalls it wouldn't hurt to check up on along the way."
"We will increase the pay if the mission exceeds a week, of course, and pay for the rest of the days if it ends earlier than that." Nohime smiled as well and inclined her head politely.
Sakura turned to shoot a look at Kakashi and he caught it with a two fingered salute. They moved forward as a unit past the Hokage desk to get closer to the door.
"Well, we should get going," Kakashi said, nodding at her before putting his book away.
"I'll take it you're the team captain," the guard said, coming to stand in front of Kakashi. "I have seven men working the streets and I'll be at the head of the caravan."
He looked like he was about to keep going but Kakashi raised a hand and stopped him.
"I'm not the team captain. Sakura-hime is," he said before placing both hands inside his pockets and slouching like he usually did.
The guard turned and blinked at her for a few seconds, prompting Sakura to raise her eyebrows expectantly as if to say: "Well?"
"Oh, well," he cleared his throat and continued. "Your job will be to accompany Nohime-sama and Haruno-sama inside the caravan. Whenever we stop for the night, my guards will take care of securing the place and you can rest."
Sakura stared him down until he looked away uncomfortably. Their presence in this mission was completely unnecessary and it made unease pool in her stomach. She exchanged a look with Kakashi, seeing he was as annoyed as her even though no one else would be able to see it, before she gave a nod.
"Let's head out."
Sakura exchanged goodbyes with Tsunade and then the group left as one. Sakura and Kakashi were in the front leading the way for Nohime and Yuuka with her parents a few steps behind and the annoying guard bringing their rear. Outside the village gates, they stopped for Sakura's parents to bid them goodbye and for their clients to board the caravan.
"Until later in the year, oba-sama." Kizashi bowed towards his aunt and Mebuki followed suit. The four of them exchanged pleasantries before her parents turned towards her.
"Sakura," her dad said, his voice tight as he nodded at her. There was an awkward pause where it seemed like he was going to say something else but nothing came out so Sakura raised her eyebrow slightly.
"Father," she acknowledged him but didn't go any further as well. Her mother's mouth tightened but the two eventually turned to go back inside the village.
Sakura fought the need to sigh and turned towards her clients.
"Before we leave, I'd like to summon my wolves to accompany us on the way there. They will be able to sense danger way before any of your men," Sakura said, directing it at both Nohime and Yuuka. The two women exchanged glances, the type that only someone really close would be able to read and Sakura catalogued it in the back of her mind.
"If you insist," Nohime said, nodding approvingly.
"Shinobi paranoia sounds unnecessary until it isn't, Nohime-sama." Sakura smiled at the woman, her most charming and disarming smile in place, before she bit into her thumb and performed the seals to summon her pack.
"Sakura-hime," Hotaka greeted her when the smoke cleared. He surveyed the assembled guards disinterestedly, sniffing the air around him, before turning back to wait for Sakura's instructions.
"We'll be headed towards Hinote no Shuto, Hotaka," Sakura said, using her fingers to scratch slightly at the wolf's chin and thoroughly enjoying the way the other shinobi tensed when he growled slightly in content. "Once we stop for the night, I'll trade you for someone else so you can rest."
"Hai, Sakura-hime," Hotaka said dutifully. He bumped her hand with his nose and paused briefly to sniff and lick at Kakashi's toes before disappearing into the trees.
"Well, come on then, we don't have all day," Yuuka said, hiking up her skirts in the most unladylike way as she ushered Nohime forward towards the caravan and climbed in herself.
Sakura blinked at the sudden change of the woman and shook her head a bit before following Nohime's giggles inside. She exchanged a bemused look with Kakashi before he closed the door behind him.
The caravan was overly large and Sakura figured that alone would slow their travel down considerably. As soon as they were inside, the horses pulling it started moving and Sakura and Kakashi stuck their feet with chakra to the floor to stay still.
There was a low table just before them right in the middle of the caravan. All around it, fancy purple and red cushions lined the floor and walls and there was a sliding door on the other end of the caravan. A bathroom and a bedroom, Sakura could see, and there seemed to be only one bed.
"Well?" Yuuka asked from where she was crawling over the cushions to the other side. "Are you two just going to stand there like two shinobi statues? Sit down, already."
Sakura took her knee high black boots off and scooted on a cushion until she could make way for Kakashi to sit next to her. He took his own sandals off, cleared his throat awkwardly when he looked to the other women and sat dutifully beside her. Sakura followed his gaze and almost choked on her spit.
Yuuka was unknotting the obi around Nohime's waist as the two of them stood on top of the cushions and giggled while they tried to maintain themselves standing upright. Nohime was holding both of their sandals and when the obi was loose enough, she stepped into the separate bedroom and was hidden behind the wall.
Yuuka followed her but didn't bother to close the shoji door.
"What the fuck," Sakura whispered, low enough that the other two wouldn't be able to hear it but Kakashi huffed a half amused half incredulous breath. A few minutes later, Yuuka came back.
She was wearing a long dark red yukata, the type that one should only wear while inside their home in privacy because of how loose and frankly suggestive it was. Sakura was horrified to realise she could tell Yuuka wasn't wearing a bra.
"So, the Hatake wolves, huh?" Yuuka said as she reached for a box sitting on top of the small table and pulled a shiny jade pipe from it. "I wouldn't have expected to see them with you, girl."
There was a pause as Yuuka opened one of the tiny windows and lit her pipe. Sakura could smell tobacco but also different herbs and she raised an eyebrow.
"How did you recognise they're Hatake wolves?" Kakashi asked the question that should have been on Sakura's tongue but she was too busy gawking at her clan head.
Yuuka laughed and her laugh was the same husky sound as her voice, it surprised Sakura to no end how carefree it sounded.
"Hatake Sakumo was your daddy wasn't he, kid?" She pointed her pipe towards Kakashi and Sakura could practically feel him tensing up from beside her. "He escorted me towards Kumo once. A nice man, dutiful. Honourable. A shame what happened to him, truly. I'm glad my niece is someone the Hatake would consider enough to pass down their wolves."
There was a beat of silence where Sakura only gaped at Yuuka as the woman puffed on her pipe before Kakashi said something.
"You knew my dad?" His voice wasn't exactly affected but Sakura could see his hand had clenched on top of his pants before he forced himself to relax.
"Yes, our trip took about a week." Yuuka nodded and puffed her pipe again. "I believe your mother was pregnant with you at the time. I sent back a baby blanket with your clan's symbol on it when we parted ways."
Yuuka was smiling at Kakashi now and Sakura didn't have to look at him to know how shocked he felt. She didn't know exactly what was going on but having Sakumo mentioned like that in conversation had thrown her off, she could only imagine what Kakashi was feeling.
Nohime called for Yuuka from the bedroom and her great aunt raised gracefully to her feet without a backward glance towards them. Sakura took the opportunity to place her hand around Kakashi's forearm, on the skin peaking between his shirt and gloves. She tried to regulate his chakra flow from the erratic movements it had taken to doing.
Kakashi's face snapped towards her, his eye boring into hers intensely. She had never done this to him before and she didn't know exactly if he was feeling like she overstepped a boundary or relieved that at least some of his emotions had been calmed by her chakra manipulation. The fact that he didn't pull away was promising but before she could search him for more, Yuuka and Nohime came back.
Sakura took her hand away and focused back on their clients.
Nohime, while considerably dressed down, was only wearing a light yukata, her hair now up in a loose bun. Yuuka's yukata fell on one shoulder and she made no move to fix it as she engaged Nohime in a game of shogi.
Kakashi and Sakura were invited to participate but they refused. Kakashi because he seemed to have closed up after the mention of his father and Sakura because she was finding it all too odd the sudden turn Yuuka's personality had taken.
This was the Haruno Clan Head and she wasn't at all like Sakura had expected. She remembered meeting the women a few times before she turned six and joined the Academy and had stopped going to the annual clan gatherings because she couldn't afford to miss any of the classes.
Sakura and everyone else had always been dressed to the nines at those encounters, putting every ounce of her etiquette training to use as if they had been ready to meet the daimyo himself. She eyed Nohime curiously. Considering the company her great aunt kept, it wouldn't be too out of character.
Still, she couldn't have imagined that Yuuka would be so… casual. More importantly, this only served to confuse Sakura further as to the reason she had been asked to come along.
"Right, we have to change!" Yuuka said suddenly when the caravan started to slow and the sounds of a city could be heard in the distance. She jumped to her feet in a move Sakura wouldn't have expected from a civilian her age and pulled Nohime up with her.
"Excuse us, Sakura-hime, Kakashi-san." Nohime bowed her head demurely before the shoji door slapped shut.
Kakashi and Sakura just sat in silence for a while before Sakura sighed and slumped in her seat. She was so confused. What the fuck were they even doing stopping so soon, anyway? Fuck, she wanted a cigarette.
"That thing with your chakra…" Kakashi said suddenly, bursting into speech so abruptly she was startled and then wondered how long he'd been trying to convince himself not to speak. "What was it?"
"I don't know, actually," Sakura said quietly, shrugging her shoulders. She turned her head to see him but he was still resolutely facing away from her. "I felt your chakra… churning anxiously, I guess. I'm familiar enough with chakra manipulation and insertion to be able to calm it down to its normal levels?"
Sakura shrugged again as her sentence ended in a question. She really wasn't sure what she had done, it had felt a bit like she used medical-ninjutsu to put someone into a coma but instead of manipulating his body with her chakra, she had used it on his chakra system.
"So you... " Kakashi trailed off, trying to make sense of things. "You were able to control my chakra?"
"I don't think I was controlling your chakra," Sakura said slowly, trying to understand it herself. "It was more like I used my chakra to guide yours to slow down? I… Was it too much, should I not have done that?"
Kakashi ran a hand through the hair over his hitai-ate before he answered, slowly.
"No, it… It calmed down," he said. In the next second he was up and moving towards his shoes but Sakura's hearing caught his muttered, "It felt good."
Sakura blinked at the short table in front of her but didn't have time to mull over his words because their clients came out of the bedroom then and she had to fight to keep her jaw hinged.
They were dressed up to party.
Not in the way royalty did, with layers over layers of kimono, their hair up in complicated dos and tittering on top of their geta sandals. Yuuka and Nohime despite being over fifty, were wearing revealing party dresses, low heels and makeup.
Yuuka's sparkly green dress had long sleeves but the cleavage was just short of vulgar and Nohime's dress was held up by thin spaghetti straps. Sakura only managed to get herself together when they stopped completely and their guard was opening the door.
The women moved outside and Sakura and Kakashi followed behind them dutifully even as Sakura had about three identity crises inside her head. They had stopped in Tanzaku Gai, the city closest to Konoha heading north. A gambling city.
Yuuka and Nohime were immediately escorted to an establishment in front of them which Sakura quickly recognised as a casino and she followed behind them, snapping out of it now that she realised they were in a city and despite the women's guards, Sakura was there to protect them.
For the next two and a half hours, Sakura and Kakashi watched over the women and Sakura tried to hide how horrified she was. Yuuka was a scoundrel. Sakura had seen her kiss more than a few men, some of them half her age as she moved across the floor with Nohime, winning more games than she lost.
Sakura and Kakashi held their guards separately while the other went to eat and relieve themselves but the sun was just beginning to set when the two women decided to go back to their caravan.
They travelled through the darkening streets for about an hour before reaching their destination. Yuuka and Nohime had brought a bottle of sakura sake from the bedroom and practically forced Sakura and Kakashi to drink at least one cup with them as they exchanged stories from twenty years before and laughed themselves silly.
Sakura wanted absolutely nothing more than to have a cigarette but she stopped herself from doing it. They had arrived in Hasaki, an industrial town that had a foggy feeling to it and buildings bigger than what Sakura was used to back home.
They entered a luxurious hotel and were immediately led to the top floor towards the daimyo suite. Sakura had a brief moment in her room, a bedroom connected to a common area that all four of them shared, in which she talked to Hotaka. She let him go for the night and summoned Kaede to look over the hotel for the night, letting him know that she would be calling Kimi in the morning.
She had only a few minutes to herself before there was a knock on her door.
"They're going downstairs to the casino." It was Kakashi, still dressed in his day clothes. Sakura mentally cursed the old ladies. "I sent a clone to follow them since they didn't bother to inform us they weren't retiring for the night."
She could hear the irritation in his voice and she couldn't help but agree. Clients who treated their safety so carelessly were hard to deal with and Sakura wasn't about to be manipulated by a couple of old crones.
They made their way to the casino on the first floor, this one much bigger than the one in Tanzaku Gai, and Sakura quickly tracked down the two women. They were gambling in a private room and Sakura had to threaten the guards until they created enough of a commotion that Yuuka came to let them through.
Sakura berated her clan head like she was a child and the old woman brushed her off and told her that if she absolutely must be everywhere she was, then the least she could do was participate. This made Sakura take a deep breath, push her irritation away and change gears.
If Yuuka wanted to be like that, completely disregard the fact that Sakura was from her clan and her employee, then Sakura would do what she did while working in ANBU. The best way to complete this mission was to fit in, so she did.
She let her haori pool around her elbows to expose her back, laughed at the men's jokes, gambled like she had been taught and drank her sake. Of course, she metabolised it out of her system as soon as possible, but no one needed to know that.
Kakashi for his part had quickly caught on to what she was doing and adjusted his character appropriately. They still kept the aura of danger around them, a clear warning to anyone who wanted to start trouble. While Sakura wasn't quite the cheerful version of Akari and Kakashi kept most of his eccentricities and quirky habits to himself, they had kept a certain amount of teasing and enjoyment to their countenances. Dangerous but approachable, mean but enticing.
Of course, Kakashi kept a much better hold on the amount of alcohol he ingested.
By the time the women had finally grown tired—and Yuuka had taken a man with salt and pepper hair to the adjoining bathroom for quite a while—it was well past four in the morning. Sakura was used to staying awake like this for missions but it was still draining and she had barely made it into her bedroom before collapsing on her bed.
A few minutes later, she heard the door creak open. Her instincts instantly made her body tense for attack but it was only for a second before she recognised the presence. Kakashi dropped in the bed next to her.
It was colder in Hasaki than in Konoha even if not by a lot but Sakura didn't bother getting beneath her covers. She didn't bother even removing a single article and neither had Kakashi by the look of it.
"Kashi," she mumbled into her pillow where she was lying face down, not even knowing if she sounded coherent. "The alarm."
The last thing she remembered was feeling the bed shift as Kakashi reached to set their alarm for the morning before she fell into a deep sleep.
.
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The alarm sounded at exactly seven in the morning and both Kakashi and Sakura got up without much hassle. They had had only a few hours of sleep but they were shinobi and this was a mission so the slight discomfort hadn't even settled. Sakura made their bed as Kakashi went about putting himself together in his room. She summoned Kaede by their bond to let him know he could leave and to ready up Misaki to take the night shift before summoning Kimi.
Sleeping in her day clothes hadn't been the best of ideas because now she had various sore spots from where her weapons had dug in during her short sleep and her haori was so wrinkled Sakura didn't even dare put it back on when she left the shower.
Instead she put on a long sleeved version of her bodysuit and hoped it was warm enough for the weather paired with her shorts.
They were in the caravan by eight in the morning after having ordered breakfast at their suite. While Sakura and Kakashi dutifully sat through their journey with their senses sharpened and ready, Yuuka and Nohime went straight to the bedroom in the caravan and fell into a deep sleep that was uninterrupted even by the bumps on the road.
When it was around noon, the caravan rolled to a stop outside a village.
Kamisu was a big village much like Konoha but it wasn't as modern as Hasaki and Sakura remembered having visited this place during the summer when she was five or six. They stopped at the Haruno summer house where a man named Ikeda manned the stall at the civilian market.
While the Haruno family had only Sakura's father and Yuuka's son as heirs, the family held several stalls in all major villages and quite a few caravans that moved throughout the continent. The stalls were run by people under Haruno protection and while they ultimately served Haruno Yuuka, they could live a happy life and be considered part of the clan.
The summer house wasn't exactly a huge place but it was bigger than Sakura's childhood home back in Konoha, mainly because it was placed in the outskirts of the village where there was much more space. The house had two stories, more than five bedrooms, and a stable in the back.
The four of them had lunch in the civilian market, Yuuka and Nohime sitting at one table with Kakashi and Sakura at the other next to them, and then they spent the rest of the afternoon manning the Haruno stall. While it wasn't something Sakura strived to do and took great pleasure in, that afternoon felt especially nostalgic to her.
She didn't know the names of the people coming up to the stall but helping them find what they wanted, haggling prices and catering to their tastes was something she used to associate with the good times her family had. Back when she was young and being trained by her dad to learn how to read people and react accordingly and by her mom how to keep up with finances. Sakura remembered getting out of the Academy exhausted and coming up to the family stall to help sell their wares while her parents failed to appreciate how much effort she had been putting in being a good kunoichi inside the Academy.
Kakashi had spent most of the afternoon with Nohime in the back of the stall as she drank tea to warm herself and played shogi. But there had been a point where Sakura, Yuuka, and Ikeda had gotten mildly overwhelmed by the big influx of clients where he had smoothly gotten up and stepped in.
Sakura forgot sometimes just how much of a shinobi Kakashi truly was. It wasn't always about his prowess during a fight or the innate strategist that he was. Sometimes it showed in his skill in manipulation and the quick way he adapted to his environment and Sakura found herself admiring that part of him just as much as the others.
He knew how to work a crowd, how to entice someone and figure out how to respond accordingly to each individual with barely a look at them. Sakura wondered how a man that had such a skill could be so emotionally stunted.
They made their way back to the estate at night and Sakura had commemorated that they seemed to be gearing up for a quiet night in.
She had celebrated too soon.
Yuuka and Nohime had taken to the drawing room where they raided the liquor cabinet, made the staff serve them late dinners with more dessert than was warranted and turned up some music. Kakashi and Sakura, ever the dutiful shinobi, stayed with them and participated in their festivities, Sakura metabolising her alcohol and Kakashi tricking the others into thinking he was drinking more than he actually was.
At ten in the evening, Sakura excused herself to relieve Kimi and summon Misaki but when she came back it had seemed like their private party had just been getting started. Yuuka taught them how to play a game of cards Sakura had never heard of before and the four of them talked and drank and played well into the early hours of the morning.
Sakura saw the women to their bedrooms when it was around three in the morning. Not as late as it could have been, granted, and Sakura would take that as a win.
She took a quick shower and put on the yukata the staff had laid out for her and when she came back, Kakashi was just coming in from the window. The two of them stared at each other for a beat, thousands of feelings and thoughts crossing their minds and clear on their faces for the other to see.
Sakura could see the resignation on his face, covered up by the mask as it was and it made a weight lift from her shoulders. He wasn't fighting this anymore, it seemed. Sakura wondered if he understood all of the implications of him being there that night—and the night before—but figured it would be better if she didn't dwell on them herself. She was quite content with going with the flow, doing what felt natural.
And this, Kakashi, felt natural.
He picked up the clock on her bedside table and set the alarm for seven again and the two of them slid into bed together. For a while Sakura stayed on her side of the bed but then his hand reached for hers, his warm skin immediately soothing. His fingers caught on the scar on the palm of her hand where she had cut herself for the first time to summon the wolves and Sakura shivered.
She didn't know who moved first, maybe he pulled her to him because he thought she was cold or maybe it was her that instinctively sought out his warmth, it didn't matter. They met in the middle of the soft bed, his hand gripped hers tighter and she returned the hold, pulling him so he'd put his arm around her from behind and she could snuggle back into him safely, warmly.
Sakura fell asleep before they had even properly settled in their new position.
The next morning had them waking up just like the day before, way too soon for either of their liking and slightly harder than the day before but not a hassle for their shinobi senses. Kakashi made the bed this time while she quickly put herself together in the bathroom.
The maids had taken her haori and some of her dirty articles the day before and were just about to knock on her door to deliver them when she exited the room. Sakura gladly pulled on the haori and put away the rest of her things before making her way downstairs for breakfast.
The two women were quieter than Sakura had seen them so far bar their first introduction in Tsunade's office but Sakura knew the two old jerks would have the whole ride to their next destination to nap about.
Sakura fought a pout as they all sat down to eat together.
She called for Hideki after Misaki left and was ready to depart when Nohime deviated from the plan.
"Hatake-san," she said sweetly when Sakura had come back from the garden. "Could you escort me towards the market for a bit of last minute shopping?"
The tactic was obviously a way to try and get Sakura alone with Yuuka but Sakura hadn't felt any ill intentions from either of the women so far so when Kakashi turned to confirm with her, she simply nodded and then he was out of the door.
"Have tea with me, girl," Yuuka said, not leaving space for Sakura to refuse as she made her way to the drawing room.
The two of them sat at the low table, Yuuka kneeling primly in the elaborate kimono she had been wearing in the village, a complete contrast to the woman from two nights ago. Sakura eyed her carefully as the maid served the tea before leaving the room.
Yuuka brought her cup to blow lightly on it and raised an amused eyebrow at Sakura.
"I know Sakumo's boy spent the night in your bed last night."
Sakura controlled her features to keep her surprise away but couldn't contain the sudden quickening of her heartbeat. She had never heard anyone refer to him like that before and it made something warm settle on her stomach. Boy. The thought was equal parts endearing and laughable.
Sakura figured fear should be an appropriate response to Yuuka bringing it up like that. Rumours had power to them and so far Kakashi and she had had enough space to themselves to figure out what was happening between them without anyone interfering. Yuuka was in the perfect position to really ruin Sakura's life.
And the thing was, Sakura could see in Yuuka's face that this wasn't a bluff or a guess. Somehow, she knew.
"The bed was made when the maid came in," Sakura said, expression shuttered as she put her tea back down without drinking it. Yuuka smiled at her like she was being let in on a secret.
"Not like it's done in the Haruno household," she said and Sakura had to fight a wince.
While Sakura had learned different ways to make the bed—the usual shinobi utilitarian way they were taught at the Academy, the way her parents had taught her, and the way the maids at one of Kiri's lords did for a particularly hard infiltration mission—Kakashi wouldn't have known how to do it the way the Haruno's did. The staff inside a house like this knew much more than they let on and Sakura had to wonder just how fast the news had made it to Yuuka.
She sighed, placing a bored expression on her face.
"Let me guess, Haruno-sama." Sakura raised an eyebrow. "You want me to let go of my position as the Hokage's apprentice and go back to living with my parents so I can be married off to someone that could bring the most benefits into the Haruno clan? Oh, I even know who. Tachibana Shinsei is still on the market for a wife, isn't he?"
Sakura was barely done with her bored tirade before Yuuka burst out laughing. Her husky voice echoed in the room as she threw her head back and placed her tea on the table hurriedly so she wouldn't spill on herself.
"Sakura," Yuuka said when she composed herself, shocking Sakura. She was calling her by her name and not girl like she had taken to doing. "Look at yourself. You're a Haruno woman through and through. I couldn't be prouder. With the amount of influence you garnered in your short years as a shinobi, it would be stupid of me to make an enemy out of you. "
Sakura gaped at her great aunt, not knowing how to react. Her hands were briefly covered by the older woman's before she retreated into her cup and gave Sakura a smile.
"I know my little sister had always been dutiful to a fault towards the clan and that it passed onto your father in some ways. With your mother as strict and unmoving as she is, it's no surprise they drove you away." Yuuka took a sip of her tea and shrugged. "Stupid, the both of them. We can only hope they try and make things right before it's too late. I'm not stupid."
Sakura stared at her clan head more curiously than before, trying to decipher everything the woman was surely hiding from her. Her parents had treated this woman like a goddess among men, someone to admire and fear in equal parts and whose mere presence ensured they followed through with their duty.
"What if your son doesn't have an heir?" Sakura found herself asking finally. This has been the root of all problems, hasn't it? Her parents thought she had to get ready to be the heir just like her father had in case Yuuka's son didn't sire an heir.
Yuuka scoffed.
"He'll have a child, I'm sure of it." She waved her hand in the air dismissively. "If he doesn't, your parents are still young they could try for another. And there's always room for me to adopt one of the shop owners into the main branch. There's plenty of them who would fit the role quite well. Just make sure my little sister never hears what I'm saying, she's such a stickler for the rules."
Yuuka smiled mischievously at Sakura and for the first time she found the actual urge to return that smile. Sakura hid her grin behind her teacup as she took a few sips but Yuuka's smile had grown and Sakura knew she'd seen it.
"You're not at all like what I remember from my childhood," Sakura said at last.
"Neither are you, girl. You were a meek little thing back then, getting chastised for hiding behind your mother's skirts." Yuuka winked at her. "I dare say running away was the best decision you've ever made."
Sakura hummed and continued sipping her tea, feeling somewhat lighter. While she had never been close to her great aunt, having someone from her family praise her and admire her for who she'd become was highly gratifying. Even though Sakura tried not to be affected by it, she let the feeling wash over her, warming up her chest as it went.
"Let me tell you a story, girl," Yuuka said when their first pot of tea was gone and she had called for another maid.
The two of them sat there for the next hour while Yuuka told her story. She'd had an older brother who was raised to be the heir to the Haruno clan so she had always indulged in her wild side, knowing not much responsibility would fall on her shoulders. When her brother died before having a child, Yuuka was forced to take over when she was seventeen.
By then she was already married and had just delivered her son. Since her own parents had been alive at the time, she had been given time to calmly settle into her new family before taking over. When her son was four, however, and just a week before her husband would officially become the head of their clan, he had struck her son.
According to Yuuka he had always shown a violent side, some of it being what had attracted Yuuka to him in the first place. However, he had been showing progressive levels of aggression towards her little family and when she had gotten home that fateful day to see her son cowering with marks on his arms and her husband standing over him with a shinai, Yuuka had flipped.
She had waited until two months after he had been made clan head so that there were no possibilities for the position to be given to her sister and her husband who had already given birth to Sakura's father at the time and then she struck.
"I poisoned his morning tea without another thought," Yuuka said, the smile on her face sharp and conspiratorial. "The poison was one of ours, something they had been experimenting on in Iwa to use as a perfume but if you added belladonna to it, became deadly."
The grin on her face made Sakura wonder if Yuuka also didn't have an Inner who would help her make decisions like these and carry through with them and another distant part of her began to wonder if it even was something she could have inherited from her family.
"No autopsy?" Sakura asked, sounding slightly impressed because she was.
"There's no need for that when the crying widow is telling you how bad his eating habits were and the history of heart attacks his family had, is there?" Yuuka replied. Her voice was casual but the glint in her jade eyes was decidedly mean and Sakura was torn between feeling horrified and the sudden wave of kinship she felt towards the older woman.
She could understand that violent need to protect. There is nothing Sakura wouldn't consider doing to keep those she loved safe, she could only imagine the kind of drive Yuuka had to protect her small and defenceless son back then. So Sakura simply shrugged and went back to her tea.
"Good riddance," she said quietly, shooting her great aunt a small grin and making the woman bark an unbridled laugh.
"There's no denying we are family, girl." Yuuka poured the last of the tea for herself and called for a maid to bring another one. "I hope you know you can count on me for whatever you need."
She looked at Sakura with raised eyebrows as if daring her to contradict what she said. Sakura cleared her throat awkwardly, not really knowing how to deal with this kind of support after years and years of feeling inadequate in the eyes of her family. She ended up just nodding slightly, reverting to her manners instinctively.
"Hai, obaa-sama."
"Don't be so serious, girl!" Yuuka laughed again before extracting a pipe hidden in the long sleeves of her kimono. "Have a smoke with me and tell me about Sakumo's handsome boy."
Sakura spent the morning trying to avoid saying too much while being quite honestly peer pressured into smoking and talking about boys. Bizarrely so. It was a relief when Nohime came back with Kakashi in tow even if she couldn't quite meet his gaze with Yuuka's teasing remarks fresh in her mind.
They made their way outside Kamisu before lunchtime and the women had once again slept through their travels. This time at least, Sakura and Kakashi could enjoy themselves with the packed lunch the maids had prepared for them. Sakura indulged herself with a cigarette while attaching herself with chakra to the roof of the carriage.
Despite it getting progressively colder the farther north they went, Sakura circled chakra to keep her warm and smoked her cigarette as she tried to sort through everything her great aunt had told her that day.
She took a few moments to herself, finished another cigarette and then came back down through one of the tiny windows. Kakashi raised an eyebrow at her as he read his book. Sakura simply sat down next to him, not bothering with pretences as she scooted closer to him until she could bury her nose in his shoulder. She breathed in his scent while he passed a page and then she spoke.
"My great aunt murdered her husband because he hit her son," she whispered into the fabric of his shirt.
"Oh?" Kakashi said, somehow sounding bored and amused at the same time as if she had just told him something funny but mundane.
"Yeah." Sakura nodded against his arm, maybe a few too many times until she realised she was practically rubbing against him like a cat. "Everything seems okay out there, by the way. I saw Hideki through the trees for a while."
"Aa," Kakashi said, turning another page.
Sakura closed her eyes fully and turned her focus towards her chakra. She entered the same meditative state she had learned how to train with years ago and focused on calming her breaths, her heartbeat and her chakra flow. While like this, it was easy to extend her senses outwards to keep track of any threats around them. She stayed like that for a few minutes before Kakashi interrupted her.
"Are you asleep, Sakura-chan?" he teased and Sakura frowned even though she knew he wouldn't see it.
"I'm meditating, you idiot. This way I can sense any threats better." She pinched his thigh slightly and moved quickly before he could smack her hand. "There's also a plus that it can kind of trick my body into thinking I'm actually resting."
The lack of sleep was beginning to catch up to the two of them. While during a mission they could keep going for a long time, especially ANBU missions, this was different. During those missions, they had adrenaline, high levels of cortisol and brief periods where they could be absolutely at ease while their team took watch. This was infinitely worse.
They didn't have any type of outlet for their energy, no type of fight that would get their blood flowing and their adrenaline sparking whatsoever. At the same time, they were only getting about three hours of sleep every day while still being on relatively high alert. Sakura wanted to either fight someone or go home already. She had Kakashi's party to plan after all.
Her hand sought his skin without her consent. One minute she was trying to focus on her meditation and the next she was feeling her fingertips closing over his forearm between his shirt and gloves. Sakura instinctively matched her chakra's waves to his and guided his system into entering the meditative state she had achieved.
After a few minutes, Kakashi moved. Sakura thought he was moving away from her and was getting ready to retreat when she realised what he was doing. He closed Icha Icha and put it back into his pouch before taking off the gloves he was wearing. He grabbed her hand in his, interlocking their fingers and waiting for her to match their chakra again.
When she found her stride, Kakashi relaxed back against her, his head coming to lay on top of hers. Sakura focused on their joint meditation for the rest of the journey and she wondered if she had hallucinated when he pressed his nose briefly to the crown of her head.
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I had Haruno Yuuka in my head for a loooong time. At first she was supposed to be very much the imposing figure Kizashi made her out to be but not even halfway through I changed my mind and had Sakura's grandmother play that role instead. I hope you guys enjoy her character as much as I do, next chapter there will be more... revelations about her. ;)
The KakaSaku action is starting to pick up a bit and I absolutely LOVE where it's going xD At first I wanted them to just... well, bang and get over it, really, but I changed my mind (yeah, it's a common theme with me lol) and wrote another fic where that happened to satisfy my need for it. I love that explosive coming together trope and then dealing with the aftermath BUT this fic became so much more than that, it didn't feel right doing it like that. So I give you slightly angsty, definitely fluffy coming together until the filth comes full force. They're not quite there yet, there's so much happening all around them, but things are definitely happening lol. Please let me know what you think! I know some of you don't even ship KakaSaku (actually quite a few of you? I'm interested in what brought you guys here!) so let me know what you think of this direction I'm taking them.
I'm... immensely happy that I can explore the Haruno clan further. You guys have no idea. :P
On another note, thank you so much for engaging like you guys do? I know some of you weren't satisfied with Shizune last chapter and all that but it never fails to amaze me how much you guys care about this story. It's like a stranger in the street complimenting my baby lmfao, it makes me soft bc I know you guys don't fucking owe me anything so... yeah. Thanks 3 I absolutely loved hearing those tidbits of info about you guys? Please, feel free to keep doing that if you are comfortable with it. This year has been terrible to all of us and honestly this story is one of the few things that's kept me going and it makes me so unbelievably happy that I can give you guys a bit of constancy and something to look forward to when things are just so fucking uncertain. If you're interested in knowing how things are going over here just do a quick research on how Brazil is dealing with Covid and you'll see lol I had to stop watching the news bc it was getting too much for me. But yeah, you guys always help me whenever I see a review or someone sends me an ask on Tumblr or whatever. Again, thank you.
Okay funny story now. I read a comment on this fic saying the person found it through tiktok and just... forgot about it for a few weeks maybe? But I woke up again with that comment in my head and went looking for it and it's... gone? So the question remains if I dreamt about it or if someone really did say that to me LMFAO. I have no grasp of reality anymore. You guys, I suck at keeping up with this fic's image, the peeps who follow me on Tumblr know I frequently forget to make promoting posts about it and shit so if you see smth out there on the internet about this pls let me know so I can thank the person xD
Happy Fire Friday and have a nice weekend, all 3