Bear considers the reports he's gathered, feeling somewhat exasperated that it's taken him this long to realise.
Of course, of course the kid with the best sensory range since the damn Nidaime would be ROOT, and related to his other pint-sized headache.
He should've seen it earlier: Hound's mission where Fox had gotten poisoned had had reports from the border patrol of tiger summons. Then, Wolf had come back on a tiger, too. There was only one common denominator there, unless tiger spirits have decided to seek out poisoned Leaf shinobi and make sure they get home safely. And that's not counting Fox and Wolf's survival despite the poison and the fact that there was no official medic-nin on the teams.
Mongoose's sabotaged mission with Not-Lizard; tigers there, too. Not to mention a civilian slipping out of the Village then coming back with Mongoose, parting ways before the main gate and entering Konoha in the short gap during the patrol change. A civilian who somehow knew where to find her, despite the fact that the report Mongoose had filed claimed that their informant was in Kumo. The same civilian, if reports are to be believed, who'd picked Mongoose up when the tigers had brought her and Wolf to the Village and made sure nobody outside of the invisible ANBU patrol guard saw the summons.
Gekko Hayate agreeing to have another apprentice despite stonewalling any previous attempts to get him to do so; Gekko's magical recovery from his illness; Gekko's subsequent injury, but not death, because his apprentice found him in time. Gekko's apprentice being able to track him from half-way across the Village. Gekko's apprentice knowing the ANBU SOS signal to alert the patrols. Gekko's apprentice not only knowing Hound, but being able to talk the man down from doing stupid shit.
God, there was nowhere else the kid could have come from.
Mongoose being ROOT from the beginning makes rather startling amount of sense; her recruitment didn't come from him, but top-down, around the same time as Shimura went down. He should've guessed.
Gekko's apprentice also being ROOT and Mongoose's brother at that is just poetic irony at this point, but nowhere else could've produced someone so capable, yet someone who, for all intents and purposes, doesn't exist on paper.
Bear sighs behind his mask and gathers the files, throwing them into his desk drawer and sealing it shut. He's glad he okayed Wolf being Mongoose's shrink outside of ANBU; at least he has someone capable and in-the-know to mitigate the fallout when his best infiltrator, a.k.a ROOT revolutionary, a.k.a Hatake's darling kouhai learns that he's going to recruit her brother to the shadow ranks.
He stretches and stands, heading for the door. Might as well see if Gekko's mystery apprentice is even interested in his offer.
"So." Inosuke says the morning of the last day before the final stage, pinning her with an unreadable look. "Parents."
Sakura sighs, relaxing back into the armchair she's unofficially claimed as hers, meeting the man's gaze tiredly.
She'd gone through the final training session with Naruto the previous day, felt quiet awe at the fact that he'd been able to repeatedly produce a full Rasengan without the need for clones, then gave him the day before the final stage off to relax.
She'd had enough energy after their training to go home, eat something, and shower, then she was passing out in bed, dead to the world. For the first time in years, she'd needed her alarm to wake her up in the morning, and as soon as she'd eaten and was more or less dressed, she was back on the street and heading towards Intel for her and Inosuke's session.
She hums, stretching a little to work out the crick in her neck, then smiles wryly at the man.
"Remember the S-Ranked secrets I told you about?" she asks idly, and Inosuke's gaze jumps to her at the words, but when he speaks, his voice is even and measured.
"I do."
"This is one of them." She divulges, blinking slowly. "Albeit unofficially."
"Secrets later." The man dismisses, studying her. "I'm more interested in your reaction to seeing your parents again after six years."
Sakura sighs, somewhat exasperated, eyeing Inosuke irritably, though he's completely unfazed, seeming almost amused at her annoyance.
"It was weird. Uncomfortable." She says eventually, considering how discomfited she'd felt. "And I'm worried about them being here, especially if Orochimaru is still lurking around the Village."
"How did you feel about being replaced?" Inosuke asks calmly after she's done, and Sakura startles, gaze jerking to him, not having expected the question, particularly not phrased so bluntly, and she finds Inosuke already watching her, cataloguing her reaction, and-
-ah.
Bastard.
She huffs, reluctantly conceding the point. If he wants genuine reactions, surprising her with his questions is probably the way to go.
"They thought I'd died." She says bluntly, meeting his eyes, because if Inosuke can be tactless, so can she. "And it's been six years."
When he simply keeps looking at her, she sighs, rolling her eyes.
"It wasn't pleasant." She admits, frowning absently, dropping eye-contact in favour of picking at the seam on the armchair. "Knowing they were still alive was a distant comfort, for all that I didn't often actively think about them."
She pauses, considering what she'd been thinking when she'd found out what her first mission in ROOT had actually been for. "I guess I just never expected to see them again, so I never even thought about what they'd do after they moved on."
Inosuke hums noncommittally and makes a note she doesn't catch. "And the child?"
Sakura smiles humourlessly. "That's part of the S-Rank secret."
"Feel like sharing?" he asks, looking like he wouldn't hold it against her if she said no, and Sakura speaks before she's aware of it.
"Why don't you watch it first, and you tell me what you think?" she challenges, because she's noticed his hesitation in using the Mind-Walk, and she's not above using his own tactics on him.
Inosuke eyes her for a moment, and Sakura wonders whether her scheming has been found out, then he sighs, lip quirking.
"You'll need to learn to talk about these things eventually, brat." He tells her simply, a sharp, self-deprecating look in his eyes when he adds, "Inoichi probably wouldn't be most impressed if he found out how often I'm in your head."
"It's none of his business, is it?" Sakura shoots back, feeling somewhat defensive on the man's behalf. "I want you in there, and I trust you."
Inosuke's face smooths out at that, expression once again unreadable and Sakura stifles an exasperated sigh at the fact that almost all the men in her life are allergic to the full spectrum of human emotion.
They are making some progress, though, because Inosuke does stand up a few seconds later and comes closer to her, extending his hand at the same time as she leans forward slightly and lets it connect with her forehead.
Sakura concentrates on the memory, lets it play out as she relaxes back into the armchair and soaks up Inosuke's calming presence she can feel on the edge of her senses.
[what she doesn't know is that Inosuke sees another memory superimposed over the one she's showing him. One where she's walking alongside her mother, her hair shoulder-length and kunai-chopped and her dress long and red, a bouquet of flowers from the Yamanaka shop in her hands. 'For Lee-san' she tells her mother when the woman asks, curious and worried at once. This Sakura isn't supressing her chakra, isn't walking soundlessly, doesn't even have her kunai holsters strapped to her legs. This Sakura moves through the Village like a child through a playground, unburdened and unconcerned. Contrasted with the Sakura he knows, the one with night terrors and CPTSD and far more scars on her skin than a child her age should have, the second memory – because it is undoubtedly that, however improbable it seems – feels like somebody else's life.]
When Inosuke pulls away, Sakura blinks, focusing back on reality and the man's contemplative expression.
"Uchiha bastard?" he asks after a good minute, his tone almost idle, and Sakura would be fooled if not how sharp his eyes are as he watches her.
"Not a bastard." She replies simply, waiting for the implications of the admission to register. Inosuke blinks, processing that, then steps back so he can lean against the desk, tilting his head with a hum.
"I'd like that explanation now, if you're willing to give it." is all he says.
"Have you ever worked with Uchiha Shisui?" Sakura asks after a few seconds pass, unbothered by the non-sequitur, wondering what Shin's reaction will be when he finds out how carelessly she spilled this secret yet finding that she isn't scared of doing so.
"Once or twice." Inosuke replies, studying her. "Good kid, great shinobi. A lot like his grandfather, in a way."
Sakura twitches, glancing at Inosuke sharply, but he doesn't seem inclined to elaborate, so she shakes the thought off and resolves to come back to it at some point, focusing back on her words and just how much she wants to share.
"He was with us, in ROOT." She picks up slowly, smiling wryly. "Him and Shin were practically inseparable, for all that Shisui still had obligations to his Clan outside of ROOT."
"You regularly call Shin a genius." Inosuke butts in neutrally, watching her thoughtfully, though Sakura can't even begin to guess what he's thinking. "Am I to assume Shisui was comparable?"
"In different fields to Shin, but yes, undoubtedly." She admits, fond and regretful, for all that she knows Shisui isn't really dead. "And he was very, very observant."
Inosuke's focus seems to narrow at that, and his gaze on her seems to grow heavier, so Sakura takes a breath and continues.
"Shisui knew something was going on with the Uchiha Clan. There was too much tension, too much scrutiny towards them after the Kyuubi attack for it all to just- fade. And he made Shin promise – made us promise – that we would do what we could to make sure that, should anything happen to him, we'd do our best to save as many from the fallout as we could."
"What are you saying?" Inosuke asks after a good minute of silence, and his face is blank now, his chakra still, and Sakura inhales, holding the breath for a few seconds, and when she lets it out, it's with the quiet, damning admission she hasn't dared to so much as think in over five years;
"I'm saying that Sasuke isn't the last Uchiha."
Inosuke stills.
For a moment, neither of them says anything. And then, Inosuke slaps his hand to the desk, pulsing his chakra. Seals light up the walls, not unlike what she herself had activated in the Hokage's office when she'd first delivered the Sandaime the news of Danzo's scheming.
It's both reassuring and terrifying to realise that Inosuke is taking her safety and her warning of S-Rank secrets seriously.
"How many others." He demands quietly, and his voice is completely flat, even and cold, but Sakura still can't find it in herself to be scared.
"We saved nine." She replies just as quietly. "Eight infants and a teenager. They are spread around the Nations now, hopefully living normal lives, in places no one, not even my brother can find them."
"Teenager?" Inosuke echoes, and Sakura can guess why that might stand out as odd.
"Under Sharingan genjutsu." She divulges easily. "Shin couldn't find homes for all the children, so we needed someone who would be able to look after the youngest ones until they reached an orphanage."
Inosuke simply stares at her after that, and he's so still she's not sure whether he's even breathing.
A minute passes in silence, then two, then five, and Sakura wants to break it, wants to ask whether he's alright, but the words die on her tongue every time she goes to open her mouth. So she keeps quiet, determined to wait him out no matter the anxiety twisting her stomach into knots the longer he stays silent.
"You were children." Inosuke breathes eventually, and his face has regained some life, only she's not sure it's a good change. His eyes are wide and he's staring at her like he's waiting for her to- she's not sure. Say she's joking? Take her words back? He looks disturbed and disbelieving, one hand covering his mouth while his pale eyes bore into her. "Fuck, you are children still; you and your brother- you're twelve."
"We were also ROOT." Sakura says after a beat, deciding against correcting the man just yet, and when Inosuke simply blinks, she smiles humourlessly. "Not many childhoods to be had there."
Inosuke shakes his head sharply, and he looks- confused, if Sakura's reading him right, the earlier horror wiped away in favour of a frown.
"You misunderstand." He says curtly. "The Massacre happened five years ago. You were seven. Even your other brother – Shin – he would've been thirteen? Fourteen? At the time?"
When Sakura simply nods, unsure where the questions are going, Inosuke rubs his hand over his eyes, pulls it through his hair, then down his face again before he drops it, seemingly collecting himself, and meets her gaze.
"What I don't understand," he says slowly, as if frustrated that she isn't following, a quiet intensity in his eyes that makes Sakura somewhat wary, "is how you knew what to do."
Sakura blinks, thrown. "Beg your pardon?"
"Genius aside," Inosuke dismisses, the corner of his mouth ticking up slightly, though he doesn't look amused, "you were children. How could you – any of you – think rationally enough to devise a plan like that? Especially in such an unprecedented situation? While the oldest of you was barely older than you are currently?"
Inosuke scoffs, and it's not derisive but it's still sharp, and Sakura tenses at the sound before he continues.
"And how would your brother – while in ROOT, no less – have people outside of the Village he trusted enough with- with whatever you did? People who wouldn't question suddenly being given a child to look after? Who wouldn't look into the child's origins?"
It's not suspicion, whatever the undercurrent of Inosuke's voice is, or at least Sakura doesn't think it is. Whatever it is sounds more like genuine bafflement than anything else, and Sakura realises she doesn't quite know what to say in response to these questions.
They just…did it. They never really stopped to think about why they shouldn't.
"I-" she starts, frowning right back at the man, her words, for once, failing her. "We couldn't not do anything-!"
"Yes." Inosuke cuts her off, and he looks bitter, and almost like he wants to laugh. "You could've."
He takes a deep, steadying breath, and when he looks at her next, he seems almost annoyed, and he still looks somewhat disturbed, deep down.
"People older, wiser, and with more resources than you have sat by and done nothing in the face of tragedy for decades." He says sharply, mercilessly, and Sakura flinches despite herself.
"You were children. A promise made between children in an underground bunker is a touching story, but it's not enough to motivate such a-" he cuts himself off this time, shaking his head as if to dislodge that particular train of thought from his head. "Nothing, beyond sentiment, would've bound either you or your brothers to that promise. There was nothing that demanded your involvement. It could've faded into memory, a naïve promise made between children with no means of affecting the change they were promising. It's-! You don't-!"
He makes a frustrated sound and covers his eyes with his hand to collect himself, and Sakura frowns at him, studying him blatantly now that he can't see her.
"Except Shisui lives." Slips out before she can bite it back, and once it's out, Sakura realises that she doesn't want to keep it back anyway.
But Inosuke freezes.
"So really," she adds quietly, hesitantly, the odd calm she'd been feeling in the face of Inosuke's tumultuous emotions fading at the sight of the complete blankness his face and posture settle into, "there was all the reason to involve ourselves."
"I- need a moment." Inosuke manages jerkily when he unfreezes, and then he's across the room, wrenching the door open, cancelling the silencing seal as he goes, and stepping out, all but slamming the door behind himself.
Sakura ends up alone in his office, suddenly anxious and more than a little confused. She takes a deep, grounding breath, and wonders what she should do.
It's unlikely Inosuke will tell on her, or go and scream about Shisui's survival from the Hokage Mountain, but simply sitting in his office when she's as keyed-up as she is all-but drives her spare.
She hasn't brought her pouches with her, hasn't thought she'd need them, so she can't even sharpen her knives to keep her hands busy. She eyes the bookshelf lining the wall briefly, but reading feels too passive for the anxiety buzzing beneath her skin, and she's not sure what Inosuke would think of her just- helping herself to his belongings.
In the end, she settles on honing her Mokuton, coaxing a small tree to bloom in her palm, a mockery of what she'd once done in her first meeting with Shisui. She watches the tree grow, roots spilling from her hands onto the floor, then shrivel out and recede, then grow again.
The door opens about ten minutes later, bringing with it the scent of smoke and an almost-buzzing silence as the seals reactivate. Inosuke slips into the room, and Sakura unconsciously cuts the chakra, ending up with a bonsai-sized tree in the palm of her hand, the roots brushing the floor.
Inosuke eyes her briefly, face unreadable, then looks away and makes his way over to the desk, collapsing heavily in the chair behind it, and by that time, Sakura has already spat a tiny fireball at her construct and reduced it to a handful of ash, which she tips into a nearby plantpot.
"I'm sorry." Inosuke offers after a few seconds, and his voice is a little hoarse but more alive than it had been before he'd left, though Sakura hadn't noticed the change until this point. "I…should not have done that."
Sakura blinks, her earlier anxiety replaced entirely with confusion.
"I told you some shocking news." She says slowly, watching the Inosuke's reactions warily. "You reacted accordingly." Then, because she can't not, she huffs, a little exasperated. "You're allowed to act like a person, senpai."
Inosuke sighs, but rather tellingly doesn't laugh, and Sakura sobers.
"Your reassurance is noted, but unnecessary." He tells her flatly, and he seems the most serious he's been since she's known him. "As your therapist, the last impression I want to give you is that there are things you can't mention out of concern for my reaction."
When Sakura opens her mouth to assure him that that's not even remotely the case, he holds up a hand, cutting her off.
"So, while yes, the news that Uchiha Shisui is alive and so is a handful of Uchiha orphans was shocking, I should not have allowed my personal feelings into the mix and reacted so viscerally." He almost glares at her until she subsides with a nod, at which point he seems to relax somewhat. "For that, I apologise."
Sakura bites back a smile, feeling the last of her tension leave her.
"Your apology is accepted," she parrots, unable to help herself, "but unnecessary."
She sees the moment Inosuke catches what she did because the corner of his mouth ticks up, ever so slightly, and she only catches it because she's actively looking for it. Then, when she's content to relax in the once-again comfortable silence, her stomach growls.
Inosuke snorts, loud and startled and Sakura flushes, mortified, but the man just shakes his head and pushes to his feet.
"Come on, brat." He beckons, and Sakura stumbles to her feet. "I'll treat."
That evening, she's sitting on the sofa, warm and loose and relaxed after her bath. After her talk with Inosuke, she'd gotten free brunch and a spar out of the man, then spent the rest of the day stocking up and running the errands she'd pushed aside in the whirlwind of the month she's spent training Naruto. Sai's not home, though she found his note on the counter so she's not particularly worried about his absence, merely curious what her brother has planned for his match tomorrow.
Then, the front door opens and Shin walks in.
They both freeze when they catch sight of each other, and Sakura's heart lurches painfully at the wariness in Shin's gaze as he forcefully makes himself relax, shutting the door behind himself and stepping fully into the apartment.
Another painful lurch when she realises that she hasn't been informed that he would be getting discharged so soon.
Then, as if the lock clicking is her trigger, Sakura's on her feet and half-way across the room before her mind catches up with her body, and she's throwing her arms around Shin's torso and crushing him to her in a tight embrace.
Shin tenses like she wrapped him in ninja wire not a hug, and Sakura has a short, heart-stopping moment when she tries to remember when the last time she'd hugged him was.
A good ten seconds of scrambling for any memory of casual physical contact between them makes her realise with no small degree of horror that she hasn't properly hugged Shin since that time she killed Neko and discovered Shin's illness.
Five years ago.
The realisation makes her feel almost physically ill, and she tightens her grip on her brother almost unconsciously as a result.
"I'm sorry." She mumbles into Shin's chest, not sure whether she's apologising for her words in the hospital, or for unconsciously keeping her distance, or for the fact that she hasn't noticed that despite living under the same roof, she never offers Shin the casual physical contact she so freely gives out to Sai and her teams.
Shin sighs, and Sakura feels more than sees his arm move as he tucks away the kunai he'd grabbed and she swallows past the lump in her throat that he'd thought she was going to attack him. Then, Shin slowly, almost mechanically, raises that same arm and loosely wraps it around her shoulders, though he doesn't pull her to him or squeeze, like he's not sure he's allowed.
Or, worse yet, isn't sure how to navigate something as simple as a hug.
"Me too." He says quietly after almost a full minute, and his muscles have mostly released the tension they'd held when she first wrapped herself around him.
Sakura sighs and pulls back after another few seconds, dropping her arms from his torso and letting her hands come to rest on Shin's hips, unwilling to cut the physical contact now that she's realised she's been depriving them both of it for so long.
Shin's arm loosens too, though, as if reading her mind, his hand stays securely on her shoulder, and when she tilts her head to study his face, she finds him already looking back, seeming almost bored.
But Sakura's seen that expression on Kakashi's face often enough to know it's a mask and nothing more, and she sighs again, her lip quirking in a self-deprecating smile.
"I never thought I'd ever say anything in ROOT was easy." She begins dryly, meeting Shin's gaze and snorting humourlessly at his raised eyebrow. "But our relationship was. I don't- every time we clash, we hurt each other."
"We're both goal-oriented." Shin agrees quietly, and he too seems almost wry. "Paper-ninja at our core. It makes sense that once you remove the shared goal, you rip out most of the foundations our relationship was built on."
Sakura leans forward and lets her forehead thunk against Shin's collarbone.
"I do genuinely care for you." She mumbles, because she doesn't want that to ever be in doubt. "You just make me so mad sometimes."
"Right back at you." Shin eyes her briefly, then sighs, sounding almost resigned. "I don't think we'd be making each other so mad if we didn't love each other, though."
Sakura forces down the reflex to jerk to look at him at the 'L' word, but Shin must feel her startle regardless because he chuckles shortly. "What's your shrink say about us?"
"That you're young and human and allowed to make mistakes, and that I shouldn't deify you." Sakura recites, and feels more than hears Shin snort.
"Funny." He says dryly. "Mine says the same thing about you. And that I shouldn't hold present-you to the standard of ROOT-you, because your maturity and pragmatism there was likely a result of repressed trauma, and not a yardstick I should continue to use."
This time, Sakura loses the fight with the reflex to jerk away and stare at Shin, thrown by one particular word in that sentence.
Shin, seemingly reading her mind despite the fact that they're currently discussing not understanding each other, merely raises an eyebrow. "How much of a hypocrite would I be if I kept telling you and Hatake to go to therapy and wasn't doing it myself? Sai would disown me."
Sakura blinks owlishly, absorbing that.
"Huh." She finally manages, letting go of Shin's hips and grabbing the wrist of the hand still on her shoulder, using it to pull him over to the sofa.
"What are you doing?" Shin asks bemusedly when she makes him sit, then plops beside him and curls into his side, promptly going boneless.
"Rearranging my worldview." Sakura replies honestly if a little dryly, and Shin huffs, poking her side experimentally.
"With me as your pillow?"
"Cuddles are good for you." She declares, batting his hand away absently as she curls her legs under herself and tries to sort through her feelings at the conversation they've just had. "So be still and indulge me."
"We may have bared our hearts, but I can and will kick your ass, imouto." Shin jibes, and Sakura's sure he's scowling even though she can't see his face. He falls silent for a few seconds, long enough for Sakura to think he'll actually indulge her, then starts laughing. "Sai would have a heart attack if he saw us right now."
Sakura turns to scowl at Shin, annoyed at the fact that her pillow refuses to be still, but when she gets the mental image of Sai's complete bewilderment at seeing them not only getting along but cuddling, she, too, dissolves into laughter.
[Not all is fixed between them and definitely not all forgiven, but it's the biggest step they've made towards understanding each other since ROOT, and for the moment, Sakura's content.]
The next morning comes almost too quickly, but Sakura packs all her supplies and restocked weapons into her scrolls and picks out an outfit more inspired by practicality and durability than aesthetics. She doesn't know how much she's changed in this timeline, she doesn't know whether the invasion will look the same as the first time, but she does know that she hasn't done anything to actively prevent it as such, too lured by the prospect of Orochimaru getting the Sandaime out of the picture and the freedom that would bring to her and her brothers.
(Surprisingly, she doesn't feel as much guilt as she expects at the thought of the collateral damage the Invasion brought with it the first time and knowing she's one of the reasons for it this time. Her dwindling morality is something she tends to avoid scrutinising too closely, preferring the out of sight and – literally – out of mind approach.)
Shin falls into step with her as she heads to Naruto's apartment, and he too is more dressed up than usual, a long-sleeved mesh undershirt appearing under his standard sleeveless kimono top, his signature long ponytail braided, ninja wire laced through the sections.
(Not for the first time, Sakura wonders how much more Shin knows about what's about to happen than he lets on. She doesn't ask.)
They pick up Naruto without issue and Sakura's once again surprised by the fact she's been more successful in getting through to Naruto on the importance of tactical clothing in a month here than she had been in six years before.
Naruto's still wearing tracksuits, but the bottoms are brown and reinforced, while the top is more akin to a long-sleeved version of the chunin flak jacket with many more pockets than the orange monstrosity had offered, and Sakura knows at least half of them are filled with smoke bombs, ninja wire, or flash tags.
She almost pities Neji.
"Now we just have to hope that Kakashi won't decide to be dramatic." She mumbles to Shin as they step out onto the busy street, and her brother surprises her when he snorts.
"Don't worry, that shouldn't be a problem." He assures her, and the little smirk on his face is mean. "I paid him a visit when I was discharged yesterday. If he knows what's good for him, he'll listen."
"I'm feeling threatened."
Sakura can't help herself – she laughs.
Kakashi's tone combined with the way he suddenly appears beside Shin – Shin, who doesn't so much as twitch at the new presence, though he does glare at Kakashi when the man throws an arm around his shoulders – it's almost comical, and the notion of Kakashi, S-Rank, Rokudaime, Copy-Nin Kakashi saying he feels threatened by Sakura's idiot of a brother is hilarious.
When she glances away from her favourite idiots, she spots Sasuke about half a step behind Kakashi, and Sakura's grateful to note he decided against the dark-and-broody look he'd assumed for the final stage in her timeline.
Instead, Sasuke is dressed…suspiciously like Shin, she realises with a jolt: sleeveless navy kimono top, bandages wrapped around his upper arms, grey knee guards under his black shorts. There's a belt around his waist and thigh with a sword sheath attached to it, and Sakura can't spot an uchiwa on any part of Sasuke's clothing. It's not obvious, but Sakura has a reference to what Sasuke with Kakashi's influence but without Shin's had once worn, and the difference is stark.
She shoots Kakashi a look and he smiles, looking far too innocent to be ignorant of similarities, and she bites her cheek to hold back the slightly hysterical laughter at the notion of Shin having gained himself a pupil.
"You should be." Shin snaps back, palming a senbon and pointing it suggestively at the hand that Kakashi's still got on his shoulder, all three of them ignoring the way Naruto and Sasuke start bickering the moment they spot each other. "I wasn't kidding."
"Oh, I'm aware." Kakashi eye-smiles, managing to snatch his hand back miliseconds before Shin stabs down with the senbon. If not for the mask, Sakura's pretty sure Kakashi would've blown a raspberry at Shin, but instead he just swans over to Sakura's side, putting her between him and Shin.
Kakashi makes a show of looking around, though Sakura's more than certain he's already scanned their surroundings ten times over. "Where's Sai?"
Sakura and Shin exchange a look, then turn and shrug at Kakashi.
"He'll be there." is all Shin says, and Sakura hums in confirmation.
The rest of the walk to the arena passes rather uneventfully, and when they get to the main entrance, Shin salutes sarcastically.
"I'm gonna go find Hana and Yugao." He informs her and Kakashi, then turns to Naruto and Sasuke. "Assorted brats, good luck. Remember, you're allowed to lose, but you're not allowed to die, so bear that in mind."
And then he's gone, disappearing between the crowds heading into the arena, and all Sakura can do is sigh exasperatedly. She is only half paying attention as Kakashi gives some last words of wisdom to Naruto and Sasuke, then when all three of them turn to her, she pulls first Naruto, then Sasuke into a quick hug.
"Kakashi and I both believe in you." She tells them quietly, keeping her back turned to Kakashi, not wanting him to see her face, though she knows he can still hear them, "And we'll be proud of you whether you become chunin or not. So do your best, but remember that there is no pressure on you from either of us, okay?"
Naruto and Sasuke look a little shell-shocked at her words, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. There's a final call for the contestants from the main arena, so all they manage is a jerky nod before Kakashi ushers them towards the entrance to join the rest of their competing peers.
"You really had to blindside them like that?" Kakashi asks as they're making their way up the stairs to the viewing gallery, shooting her a look out of the corner of his eye that Sakura snorts at.
"We both know they need to hear it, and neither you nor Shin were likely to say it." she throws back matter-of-factly, using her dry tone to hide the complicated emotions warring within her at her memories which prove just that. Kakashi huffs, amused, but doesn't comment further.
They reach the viewing gallery and settle down just as Genma starts trying to get the crowd to quiet down, and Sakura ignores the stab of pain in her chest when she remembers the last time she saw the man.
Then, Kakashi makes a choked-off sound beside her, and when she turns to him, his eye is trained on the contestants, and he looks-
On the verge of laughing, actually.
"I guess we know where Sai is." He manages, his voice oddly tight, and Sakura follows his gaze down to the genin in the arena, frowning-
-oh.
Suddenly, she understands his reaction, though she also feels a wave of fondness crash into her when her eyes take in the figure that can only be Sai.
He's wearing a kimono, brown and fine, with the red and orange detailing on the hems and sleeves visible even from as far back as Sakura's sitting. Burgundy hakama pants peak out from under the layers of kimono, and his tanto is also in a much more visible position than usual, looped as it is through his obi.
Sakura's gaze is drawn to Haku, and she's only distantly surprised to find him in a similar state – clad in a grey kimono with accents of blue and green, long hair swept back into a topknot, a katana sitting proudly on his hip, and it's still odd to see his face without the mask that had once haunted Sakura's first nightmares of her shinobi life.
"Do you think they coordinated?" Kakashi asks suddenly, and there's laughter in his voice though no small degree of exasperation alongside it, and Sakura snorts.
"Wouldn't surprise me, but I'm gonna say no." she replies, then falls silent when Genma starts to properly open the final stage. They sit through the opening ceremony and the announcement of the battles, the rather peaceful silence between them only interrupted when Genma orders all other contestants but those in the first match to the contestants' balcony.
"Did you tell your student to dress to impress?" Asuma asks from a few seats over, startling Sakura as she hadn't noticed the other sensei, too focused on Kakashi next to her and their students in the arena.
She frowns at the man's tone, though she stays hidden behind Kakashi, waiting for his reaction.
"Sai's the last person who needs fashion advice from me." Kakashi brushes the comment off, smiling sunnily at Asuma if Sakura's reading the shadows of his mask right. "But he is the opening act, and he's always known how to make an impression."
Sakura bites her cheek to hold back her laugh, then sobers when Genma calls start and jumps away from the centre, leaving Sai and Haku to their fight.
The moment Genma clears their immediate vicinity, senbon start flying, neither Haku nor Sai being partial to the more traditional weapons like shuriken or kunai.
Sakura watches the match with rapt attention, and even then, she can only spot the glint of metal and the ever so subtle clinks as the needles collide, both boys throwing far too quickly for the untrained eye to track. Beyond the throws, she can't help but appreciate the way their skirts and sleeves swirl around them as they duck and dodge each other's throws, and their outfits, combined with their speed and agility making them look almost unfairly graceful.
Their match, she realises absently, looks less like a fight and more like a dance. A deadly, high-speed, high-accuracy, high-stakes dance.
And it's mesmerising.
And then, as if on some unseen signal, both boys abandon their long-range battle and spring forward, Sai drawing his tanto at the same time as Haku draws his katana, and they collide in a clang of metal and a spray of sparks, and what follows is an even faster exchange of blows.
Distantly, outside of her and Shin, Sakura thinks that this may be the most evenly-matched Sai has ever been.
Haku is Zabuza's apprentice. Sai has been under her and Shin's tutelage for the last seven years. She's almost surprised at how unsurprised she feels to find that their skillsets mostly match.
And then, Sai's tanto catches Haku's thigh at the same time as Haku slices a worryingly deep gash in Sai's left arm then spits a water bullet in Sai's face.
The speed of the shunshin Sai executes to get out of the path of the water bullet would've made Shisui proud, and then Haku has to kawarimi to get away from the canyon Sai opens up beneath his feet.
What follows is a low-rank but high-speed ninjutsu battle, with Sai throwing around Earth and Fire techniques while Haku counters with Water and Wind.
Both, rather tellingly, avoid using their signature styles, and Sakura has a suspicion that Kakashi might've been more on the money with his question than he'd realised.
Haku calls up a water wall to block Sai's Hosenka, and the subsequent mist that fills the arena is too thick to be just the steam that the counter created. It also makes it difficult to see if any of the shuriken Sai tends to slip into Hosenka connected.
"That is not a genin." Asuma mutters when Sai blows the mist away with a C-Rank Wind jutsu Sakura recalls Shin using – arguably to a much more devastating effect, in Shin's case – but it's nonetheless the third element Sai's showcased, on top of the kenjutsu from earlier.
"Sai's just motivated." Kakashi demurs, then sends Sakura a look as he adds, "And has very scary, very demanding siblings."
"Oi." Sakura protests, elbowing Kakashi, though his jacket softens most of the pointiness of her elbow.
"He's talking about you?" Kurenai asks, leaning over Asuma and frowning at Sakura, though she doesn't look hostile just yet, but Sakura's still not exactly appreciative of her tone.
"He is, actually." She shoots back, trying not to scowl, then turns her attention back to the fight. "Sai-chan's my brother."
"Adopted, I assume." Asuma grumbles, and Sakura stills, trying to figure out what, exactly, in their words, is pissing her off this much.
"Does it matter?" Kakashi steps in, twisting his hand subtly to pinch her outer thigh, wordlessly telling her to settle down. "The effect's the same."
Any further comments from the other two jounin are cut off as Sai and Haku switch to a high-speed taijutsu battle, and now Sakura's almost convinced Kakashi had been right.
Sai is no slacker, but him and Haku are both long-range fighters. And Sakura knows Sai's fighting style.
Yet as she watches them collide, their movements, from the blocks to the hits to the twirls and dodges, look almost choreographed. There's a barely-contained viciousness to the hits, and Sakura knows that if even one of them landed properly, it would hurt. Haku had used senbon and been able to masquerade as a hunter-nin – it makes sense he fights almost like a Hyuuga or a med-nin, targeting nerve-clusters and weak spots with almost surgical precision. Sai, in turn, has always been the most flexible of the four of them, and, despite what some might think once they meet Shin, also the meanest.
Sakura can't help but draw the comparison to dancers once again, and she knows that she's not the only one thoroughly entranced.
And then, around the fifteen-minute mark, Sai goes down, landing flat on his back, and as he does, Sakura's heart skips a beat.
Haku's foot is on Sai's chest as soon as his back makes contact with the dirt and he whips his katana out again, the sharp point resting snugly and suggestively against the fragile column of Sai's throat.
There's a beat of silence, the rapid-fire movement ending just as suddenly as it began, and then Sai sighs.
"I forfeit." He calls quietly, but in the hush that's fallen around the arena, his words are perfectly audible.
Haku tilts his head but doesn't let up, and Sakura wants Genma to hurry up and declare the winner already because no matter Sai's relationship with Haku, the boy is still Mist, an ex-missing-nin at that, and he's got a very sharp sword in a position where it could kill Sai if he put even a touch more pressure on it.
"I declare Haku of the Mist the winner of the first match!" Genma calls, breaking the expectant silence that had taken over the arena, bringing cheers and boos and excited chatter, but Sakura's eyes are on the two boys.
She channels a bit of chakra to her eyes to sharpen her vision, and she doesn't miss the way Haku's countenance changes as if a switch had been flipped. He sheathes his katana and removes his foot from Sai's chest, stepping aside and extending a hand out instead, which Sai takes without a moment's hesitation.
Haku pulls him to his feet, then Sakura watches as they clasp forearms, nodding at each other, before adjusting their hands and forming the Konoha Seal of Reconciliation too, and she can't help but wonder whether this is still part of the performance. Then, they let go and turn and bow, first to Genma, then to the audience, then to each other, and finally make their way off the field and onto the contestants' balcony.
Yeah, she muses, feeling an absently amused smile tug on her lips, definitely choreographed.
"Next match: Hyuuga Neji vs Uzumaki Naruto!"
Kakashi's not sure what to expect from Naruto's fight after the performance Sai had just pulled off, but it's certainly not the strategic testing of Neji's range and reflexes with wave aftwe wave of Shadow Clones that he does in the first two minutes of the fight.
He surrounds Neji with a ring of clones, and they come at the Hyuuga first taijutsu, then with kunai, then kunai with explosive tags attached. The last one is what finally makes Neji prove precisely what makes him a genius even on the backdrop of the Hyuuga Main Branch, and Kakashi would've paid real money to see Hyuuga Hiashi's face when he, along with half the Village gathered in the arena, saw his nephew pull off the venerated Kaiten.
But Naruto, being Naruto, is undeterred, grin only growing.
He's not expecting the Wind jutsu Naruto throws at the Hyuuga as soon as he stops spinning. Nor the considerably better-coordinated dodging and taijutsu he pulls off when Neji decides to close the distance and actually use the Jyuuken to its full potential.
"What did you do with the boy?" Asuma asks after a few seconds of Naruto rather tellingly not-losing, eyeing Kakashi curiously. "He shouldn't be able to keep up with the Hyuuga."
"Mm." Kakashi hums, and with the ease of long practice pushes his irritation down, pulling out his most saccharine smile. "Technically, I didn't do anything. My kouhai was in charge of Naruto's training."
Sakura scowls at him openly at his reply, and he knows that he's not alone in his annoyance with his friends.
She shrugs when Asuma and Kurenai turn to her, and Kakashi can tell that she makes the movement as insolent as possible. "All I taught him is control and proper taijutsu."
Asuma makes a doubtful noise and even Gai looks dubious, but it's Kurenai who speaks. "The Hyuuga boy's a recognised genius. It would take more than that."
This time, Sakura lets her displeasure show, growing visibly irritated, and Kakashi has half a mind to pinch her thigh again.
"Even geniuses can be brought down by hard work." She bites out, shooting Kurenai a challenging look. "Wouldn't you agree, Gai-san?"
Gai looks momentarily startled and there's a conflicted expression on his face.
"I would." He says, considers the battle below, where Neji is visibly off-guard, but still keeping up, and adds, a little quieter. "I do."
Sakura sighs, and she's not trying to hide the way she rolls her eyes at the adults.
"Shadow Clones allow the user access to whatever they learn and experience. After working a bit on his concentration, Naruto was able to maintain three clones while working with me, and absorb upwards of 90% of their memory." She reports tonelessly, sounding as if she's reciting a textbook what with the complete lack of inflection in her voice. "The clones were tasked with the theoretical study – strategy, jutsu theory, chakra exercises, tree and water walking; so on. Naruto himself worked with me on improving his taijutsu and speed."
Kakashi knew this, had heard of the plan Sakura had hatched after the preliminaries, but seeing his friends' taken aback expressions still makes vindictive satisfaction curl in his gut.
"That still seems... basic." Kurenai replies slowly, studying his kouhai closely. "It's hard to believe it would've made this much of a difference."
Sakura shrugs.
"Naruto has all the benefits of his heritage, and all the drawbacks of his status." She says cryptically, and all the jounin minus Kakashi shoot her a warning look, which she, much like Shin would have, staunchly ignores. "He has the legendary reserves of the Uzumaki as well as the stamina, but no one bothered to teach him how to control the sheer raw power at his disposal."
Kakashi can read the mix of irritation and sadness in her expression, the feelings familiar to what he usually feels when he tries to marry the image of Minato's sheer genius and Kushina's creativity with fuinjutsu with Naruto's clear discomfort and unfamiliarity with anything even remotely academic.
"Didn't it strike anybody as odd that he can produce dozens of kage bunshin at a time, but flunked the Academy Three?" Sakura asks absently, almost rhetorically, and Kakashi turns his hand so instead of pinching, he can poke her gently, a silent reassurance.
Sakura takes a steadying breath, and when she turns to shoot Asuma and Kurenai a look, it's less antagonistic than before, a sign she's visibly trying to listen to him. "That's a sign of neglect on the part of his Academy sensei, and probably no small amount of prejudice. All I did was try to make up for that neglect and provide a training environment geared towards his learning style."
When all that gets her are blank looks, she rolls her eyes, efforts forgotten or patience spent, and Kakashi muffles a snort at the short-lived exercise.
"Naruto has learning difficulties. That, combined with his enormous reserves, make exercises like the leaf-sticking not only useless, but also mind-numbingly boring. So, we improvised."
They lapse into silence after that as the jounin process the implications of her words.
And then, Naruto moves to the grand finale.
Sakura exhales, trying to forcibly release the tension that still clings to her frame after being cross-interrogated by Kurenai and Asuma, and focuses back on the match.
And then she has to whip up a hand and shield her eyes, because Naruto suddenly glows. Bright blue, bursting with pure, unfiltered chakra, and her head spins as she quickly calculates how much chakra Naruto just wasted purely in the effort of making it visible like that.
It's over a half of her natural reserves. Gone, just like that. And he's not even out of breath.
Neji stumbles, cursing, squinting his eyes shut and deactivating his dojutsu, and she wonders whether Naruto had been planning to blind the Hyuuga.
Naruto directs a new wave of clones to throw more kunai, and she watches as Neji spins blindly, Kaiten sending a gust of chakra-charged air into the stands and scattering the wave of kunai, but Naruto's projectiles appear to have been merely a distraction.
Instead, Naruto kawarimis with one of the discarded kunai, suddenly dangerously close to the still-spinning Hyuuga, but the audience's eyes are glued to his right hand, outstretched behind him.
In his palm, he holds his own little sphere of pure chakra, and it glitters like a snow globe with a whirlpool trapped inside, a poetic reminder of his heritage. Pale blue tendrils keep snapping out like whips, sending lashes of cutting wind into the stands, and Sakura feels satisfaction curl, warm and sating, in her very bones.
This time, even Kakashi gapes.
Naruto brings his hand forward and the Rasengan tears right through the fading protection of the Kaiten and keeps going. He moves with it, through the leftover wisps of chakra and into Neji's personal space. When his hand is within inches of striking the still-blinded Hyuuga and the audience is collectively holding their breath, Naruto drops the jutsu, balls his hand into a fist, and decks Neji clean across the face.
The Hyuuga goes flying, exhausted, blinded, and dazed, and Naruto takes out a kunai and throws it with far more accuracy than he had a month ago so that it pins the ends of Neji's headband to the ground.
Satisfied, Sakura sits back, smirks, and soaks in the stupefied silence. When Neji makes no attempt to break free, Genma steps forward.
"I declare Uzumaki Naruto the winner of this match."
Deafening cheers break out, but Sakura's eyes are trained on Kakashi's, wondering if he had suspected anything remotely like this result when he'd appointed her as Naruto's trainer.
Judging by his expression, he hadn't; for once, the Copy Nin seems to be at a genuine loss for words.
"How?" He asks at last, and there's shock writ clear in the visible lines of his face.
Sakura shrugs, but her smirk doesn't fade.
"You used it a few times over the years." She says, not exactly a lie but not the full truth either. But she reckons she can't say 'I'm from an alternate timeline and I've actually seen Naruto use that jutsu hundreds of times' so instead she adds, her smug smirk gaining a wry edge, "And Iwa's library has a full shelf on the Yondaime."
People who didn't understand the Hatake Clan's pack-mentality - which largely amounted to everyone but the Inuzuka and, miraculously, Tenzou and Genma - didn't understand why Kakashi simply refused to allow anyone close after the Kyuubi attack.
His pack had been broken. Torn to shreds and ripped from him in the most permanent way possible.
It wasn't that he didn't want to allow anyone close, he simply couldn't allow himself to. A half-feral Hatake wasn't easy to deal with the first time around; it hadn't been Kakashi's initiative to throw himself into ANBU, the suggestion having come from Minato, after all. But after his sensei's death, he'd grabbed the opportunity to lock away emotions and only form the most essential bonds, ones that could be shrugged off after the mission was over, with both hands.
Then, Team Ro happened.
First Genma, then Yugao, then Kotetsu and Itachi and Yamato and Sakura.
All of them wore him down, though it took them years.
And then, his kids had come along.
After that first verbal slap he'd gotten from Sakura and Shin when he'd stupidly panicked over being assigned children, who were young and fragile and worlds away from seasoned ANBU agents, followed by the disaster of the Wave mission, it was smoother. The clear instruction of 'train them until it'll take the Kami themselves to take them down' he'd gotten from his kouhai afterwards had definitely helped.
Kakashi had grabbed onto his kids with the desperation of a drowning man and done just that.
What he hadn't realised at the time was that Sakura was just as possessive and paranoid when it came to those she allowed close.
Latching onto three boys in a madman's bunker and sticking with them through a revolution just for the hope that whatever uncertain future awaited them on the other side would be better than the reality they were stuck in.
Finding comfort in the ANBU squad she'd ended up in, going from one anonymous bunker to another, yet managing to make friends despite the masks and hierarchy and age difference, whittling them all down until even Kakashi couldn't help but be pulled into her circle.
Grabbing onto his team with all the protectiveness of the tigers she summoned, caring for the boys not just because her brother happened to be one of them. If that had been the case, she wouldn't have stuck her neck out like she has.
Speaking of, he watches her now, watches as she takes in the cheers of the crowds, a viciously satisfied expression on her face. Not for herself, but for the success of the boy down in the arena, her peer yet their shared student, Minato-sensei's son.
The same boy whom she'd just given a tangible link to his family, even if he's likely - hopefully - still unaware of that fact.
She'd found a weakness, Naruto's attention span, and given him a solution to it that capitalised on his strength, then honed a skill even Kakashi had neglected, focusing not just on the immediate goal of the Exams, but on giving Naruto the tools to be an even better shinobi in the future. Caring for him not just for the month-long deadline Kakashi had assigned her, but for his success in the long-term.
Caring for him the same way she cared for Sasuke when she'd dissuaded Kakashi from teaching a traumatised twelve-year-old an assassination jutsu, and instead offered the Uchiha a link to his family. In the same way she'd told them words they likely haven't heard for years before their matches, with a tone of someone who knew that, sometimes, actions were not enough.
"Why did you do it?" Kakashi murmurs, only for Sakura's ears, and her eyes flit to him briefly, though she doesn't turn her head.
"Thought it pertinent to remind people just whose son he is." she mutters back, barely moving her mouth, counting on Kakashi's heightened hearing to pick up what she's saying over the roar of the crowd.
Then, her expression shifts, and she turns to look at him, her smile dangerous and the look in her eyes a threat, pronounced in a way it hadn't been when she'd talked to Asuma and Kurenai.
"He looks too much like his father for the gag-order to be anything more than an excuse for mistreatment. That stops today, or I will make it stop."
Kakashi eyes her proudly, feeling an answering sharp smile pull at his lips beneath the mask. Still, outwardly, he hums noncommittally, just in case someone else within hearing range is paying them close attention.
"It'll paint a target on your back." he points out, because for all that Kakashi is a big fan of throwing metaphorical middle fingers up at the hotshots in power, he's never done it in such a public or unmistakable fashion before.
"Let them." Sakura hisses, looking like she'd like to see anyone try. "You think I wouldn't do it again?"
When Kakashi doesn't answer, because he's known Sakura long enough by this point to know that she absolutely would, some of that indignation fades.
"He's pack." she murmurs, and the single word knocks the air out of Kakashi's lungs. "He's ours. He's more than worth it."
Kakashi stares.
Pack.
He forgets, sometimes, that summoners take on their summons' characteristics, and Sakura summons tigers. For all that she's their age, Kakashi's willing to bet he isn't the only one who thinks of their team as cubs.
Ignoring the rest of the shinobi gathered around them, most of whom have never seem Kakashi give out anything more than a nod or a shoulder squeeze, he reaches out, wrapping an arm around Sakura's shoulders and pulling her to his side, pressing her tight against him and resting his chin on top of her head, reeling.
Pack. Ours.
Our pack.
In light of his revelation, he reckons he's more than justified in the extreme prejudice he reacts with when, a few minutes later, he finds out that Sand and Sound have decided to threaten their pack.