iii. trials of blood and bone.
HALF-BLOODS, IN SAKURA'S limited experience, and from the handful of mindless thoughts that Orochimaru mumbled during her repetitive exams, were better than Pure-bloods—at least, in biological and evolutionary terms. They were faster, stronger, more humanoid in structure than an actual wolf, as Pure-bloods were; but they were not Lupus Medium, nor would they ever be. Sakura would never be as pure as that, because purity implied that she had been born from a Pure-blooded werewolf, and she very clearly wasn't.
The pink hair had been a very good indicator of that.
"Pure-blood werewolves, half-blood werewolves, the Lupus Medium, and Lycans—what are their differences?" Orochimaru had hummed contemplatively. He'd checked her internal body temperature and clucked at the results, almost distastefully, and tossed the piece of plastic in the trash. She had watched it fall, noting all of the others that remained used and useful on the countertop, each with a name taped to it. "The virus clings to the hair dye you used, and so your hair is permanently pink; a loss I am certain you do not feel." He had rubbed the strands between his fingers, testing the fried chunks from repetitive bleaching. "Let us hope it is healed over the next couple of months."
She wouldn't mourn the loss of the dark brown color she had owned previously. Her mother and father, before she had vanished off the face of the earth and left them alone, wondering where she was and if she was dead, had been fond of dyeing their own hair and included her when she was old enough. It was perhaps the only piece of them she had left. The blood in her veins, even her gene structure, would be permanently altered by the virus she had been infected with. Virus, well, because it was parasitic in nature, but lacked the ability to survive outside of the body, and was transmitted through a bite. Specifically, venom, but nothing she had ever seen in animals before.
Pure-bloods, like Sasuke, refused any foreign substances introduced to them, whether that was hair dye, vaccines, or alcohol. He, and others like him, could chug paint thinner and it wouldn't bother their systems except for a slight stomach ache. They were never sick, never ill with human afflictions, but they were plagued by a different type of problem: inbreeding. She had snooped in Orochimaru's notes when he vacated the lab, running tests on her blood, and found out quite a lot about the boy who hated her very guts for being the complete opposite of him. Between the startling concept of uncontrolled self-sterilization in the presence of bad genes, to a lung disease that ate at the afflicted flesh like a cancer, she was unsure if he even had the right to be as stuck up and haughty as he was; unless, of course, he didn't know.
And that was Orochimaru's biggest piece on the board: ignorance.
There were plenty of things Sakura didn't know about herself. One of them was the way she could regrow teeth when they were knocked out of her skull; no one else could do it except for her. The others would take days to grow a singular tooth, but when she had lost her tooth to Sasuke's endless barrage of punches, it had grown back instantaneously, and sharper than it had been previously. The uneven length, coupled with the too-small frame of her jaw, was uncomfortable, and kept slicing into her bottom lip and catching on other teeth. Another was when she broke bones; they, too healed, faster than she could fathom, faster than anyone else could, and Orochimaru seemed aware of it. He was never surprised when she would show up to his lab completely healed, with a few sharper teeth and several sturdier bones, as if she had never been dragged through the dirt by her face and pile-drived into the ground. So, he knew something, and kept her ignorant deliberately so she would be under his thumb just like everyone else in the facility he ran.
Sakura called it a 'facility', because that was what Ino called it. It was bare, sparse of much that would make a 'pack'—Shino, quiet and antisocial Shino had volunteered that information while Sakura was recovering from a deflated lung—like structure, hierarchy, and a fixed species lineage. They had nothing but Orochimaru, and they were a hogdge-podge of different kinds of werewolves that didn't belong together in the first place. Or, she thought so, at least; what little she knew of what she was came from the kinder pure-bloods, Ino, and bits of conversation thrown around where they thought she couldn't hear.
"Another moon hunt, huh?" Ino crossed her arms and leaned against their shared door. Sakura finished pulling her clean shirt over her head—one not flooded with Kakashi's scent—with a grimace. Ino was the only one aware of her little issue, if she could even call it that, and in turn, she was aware of Ino's, since they shared the same problem, above all. Not even their spats could break the secrets they held between each other. "One day, we won't be able to hide it from him."
Ino might not, but Sakura would, even if it killed her. The thought was sobering—she should be dead in every other respect. Maybe Naruto might have lived if she hadn't. He lingered in her dreams, more often than not, telling her that very thing, but, as always, he would never spite her for it.
"Today won't be that day, then." Sakura observed the fresh scrapes on her friend's arms and the bruise blossoming on her cheekbone in the shape of tiny fingers that looked oddly male. As far as she was aware, Orochimaru had never pitted Ino against men; her bone structure was too fragile to heal multiple times. So what had changed?
The blonde girl noticed her staring and tugged her hair forward to cover it. It was long, sleek, and neatly cut, the complete opposite of Sakura's. At one point, it might have made her jealous to have such hair, but when people—namely Sasuke and his group of dogs—wrapped their fists in it and used it to break her nose and face against trees, she decided very quickly that long hair was a small sacrifice in the name of survival. She had healed enough broken nose bridges that it was slightly crooked, even despite her unnatural healing abilities.
"Maybe." Ino paused, twisting hair between her fingers. "So, are we going to talk about it?"
Sakura tucked her shirt, draping it just-so so that her shorts were exposed and she didn't look like she was walking around in her underwear. "About what?"
She admitted that she acted willfully dubious, if only to push Ino's buttons.
"About Kakashi, you pink haired idiot!" Her friend fumed, knocking the door closed and trapping her inside. She even locked it for good measure, ignoring the fact that it was double sided and someone could easily unlock it if they wanted to, and approached her, taking a good, long sniff of her shoulder. Sakura couldn't help the twinge of a growl that rolled in her chest. "See? There it is again, that weird territorial streak you get whenever I smell him on you. It's so weird, and I don't even know how you're able to do it—"
"Do what?" Sakura asked blandly. "Be around him or torture myself by staying away?"
Ino stared at her, eyes suspiciously blank. "Both."
"I don't know." She shrugged and moved slightly away, tugging her sheets back in order and covering the shirt she had tucked underneath it so that the scent would soak into her cover. "It just works. And it isn't like he's receptive to the whole thing, given, you know, he's Orochimaru's lap dog, so…"
"Not the age gap?" Ino prodded, edging closer. "He's, what, twelve, fourteen years older than you?"
Sakura sent her a warning glare and slipped her feet into her shoes. They were going to be late to dinner if she kept needling her for information. "It's twelve years, and no, I don't think that's it. Now let's go, before he's suspicious of both of us."
Neither of them mentioned what would happen if he was.
They all knew what happened to people who earned Orochimaru's suspicions.
With shared glances, they slipped outside and headed towards the dining hall. Several groups, most of them cliques keeping to bloodlines, were already venturing there, idle conversation breaking the quiet night of frogs, crickets, and owls around them. She even spotted Sasuke in one group, with familiar faces from other families, keeping to the back and completely unaware that she was staring at him. But then he stiffened, tilted his head, and she figured he probably was, in fact, aware, and averted her gaze to Ino—who was gone from her side, prancing over to a throng of people, but one in particular.
Sai.
"She's playing a dangerous game there." Kakashi voiced her thoughts as clear as day, beside her but not close enough to indicate they were walking together. This was the second time that he'd come to her of his own volition, and it felt wrong, somehow, when he had ignored her all the times previous unless it was necessary. "One day, he'll see her and it will be too late."
Sakura snorted and turned her head, facing forward and, coincidentally, staring right between his shoulder blades. "So are you. What are you doing? We never talk in public spaces. Someone could see—"
"Don't worry about that," he interrupted her, voice as quiet and tired as ever. "None of them would ever think I would associate myself with someone like you."
It was like he had shoved a knife in her heart and twisted. She knew what he meant, but it still hurt to hear it, even if she knew it as a fact. With a frown, she shoved past him, speeding up and jogging the rest of the way to the dining hall so he wouldn't see the way a humiliated flush crawled up her neck and face. She heard him call her name, quietly, as if he knew what he had said hurt her, but she kept walking, and reminded herself why she never went to him in the first place.
Kakashi Hatake was an asshole. A lazy, pure-blooded, entitled, stuck-up asshole, all the way to the bone. Sakura didn't know how he managed to be so utterly infuriating and draw her in like a moth to flame regardless. It wasn't like he was doing it intentionally, that was for certain. He couldn't stand to be around her for longer than three minutes before the revulsion set in and he began to inch away from her, mouth curling in distaste, and she would be forced to endure the consequences of parting from him. She knew he didn't experience them because he never flinched when they accidentally touched while swapping clothes, or subtly inhaled her scent when they crossed paths.
She did. It humiliated her.
And he was Orochimaru's bitch, which made it even worse. More than Sasuke—Sasuke she could tolerate, if he didn't beat her bloody and leave her in the mud during their training sessions. It was why she nurtured the crush she had on him, even if it was wrong of her. She had no doubt, if she pushed him, that he would tell Orochimaru, and then the man would be in a pickle, because which of them would win if sent on a moon hunt?
She suspected the answer, knew it even, but entertaining it tore her heart in two.
Sakura shook the thoughts from her mind. She needed a clear head to get through dinner. Orochimaru's moon hunts were vicious, and he had a roster for those who would be participating, usually the ones that were last expected. The full moon had yet to peek out from the clouds, but she could already feel the pure-blood werewolves crawling in their own skin, close to succumbing to the virus, while all she felt was a twinge of irritation, and nothing more. But to not be outed further, she would have to shift, and observe, like she always did, no matter who died tonight.
Because Orochimaru, if he knew about a mated pair, would pit them against each other, and only one could win. Mates, in his own words, were weak. They were nothing. They needed to be killed before the bond could take root, sway them out from under his influence—that was the only reason she could think of, at least.
It was why she never encouraged the meetings between herself and Kakashi.
If they weren't careful, one of them would die.
And Sakura knew it would be her.