Sakura opted to be the one to inform Captain Tsunade on their findings once they were back at the precinct. She'd anticipated that her superior would be displeased that there had been no arrests, but it appeared as if Sakura didn't know the woman as much as she thought she did. Instead Tsunade sat back in her chair, smiling ever so slightly and lacing her fingers together, her eyes looking past Sakura and to the bullpen behind her.
"Excellent work, Detective Haruno. Commissioner Jiraya will be pleased that we finally have a sample of the drug."
"Detective Hatake was the one who found the hidden crawl space, m'lady, he's the one who should be getting recognition-"
"Yes, yes I know he's the one who found it. But I'm not ignorant to the fact that he would never have been back in the field in the first place if not for you. I'd been hoping for a long time that a new detective would rise up and restart that old bastard's head, but none of them were up to the challenge. But I knew you could do it, Sakura, excellent work."
"Thank you, Captain. How would you have us proceed?"
"Have a look at the records for that unit first, probably a waste of time but it needs to be done nonetheless, we have no listed aliases for the Akatsuki and I doubt they will reuse one but it's necessary. Is there anyway to actually trace those scrubs to the hospital they came from?"
"Probably not, but we'll make every effort to. I was hoping that forensics might be able to get DNA from them if possible..."
"Good idea, follow that up too. Also, you've got to file the report as soon as possible, I don't want you or Hatake leaving the building until it's filed and on my desk along with the arrest papers for Mizuki."
"Yes, Ma'am."
It was odd to see Kakashi working so hard at his desk, he had the phone receiver at his ear and his cellphone to the other. It was a stark contrast to the lazy detective she had met just a few days ago. The bullpen had also been shuffled while they were away this morning, now Sakura's desk was face to face with Kakashi's. By the time she sat down he'd hung up one of the phones.
"I'm on hold with the field office, I want to get those drugs transferred to Yamato as soon as possible but they aren't playing ball. How'd it go in there?" Kakashi asked, gesturing to the Captain's office behind Sakura.
"She's in a good mood, surprising since we made no arrests, she's asked for the reports by the end of the day."
Kakashi's eyes widened.
"End of the day? You've got to be kidding me- Oh, no not you Mrs. Raconteur, I wasn't... Yes I'll wait. Great, now it looks like I've got to wait another twenty minutes, if you piss off the field lab you're screwed- No I'm not screwing you, please don't hang- and she hung up." Kakashi dropped the cellphone to the desk while Sakura smirked quietly to herself.
"I'm going to run through the storage unit records for the alias that the Akatsuki might have used, Tsunade wants any and all information we can get, even if it isn't something they use again."
"Just make it quick, this paperwork is going to take all day and night if we're not careful. Are you sure you're up to it with that hand?"
"Yeah, it'll be fine."
It did still sting a little, but it wasn't as if it was strenuous activity, typing into the computer. Perhaps just a little cumbersome without full use of her fingers but she doubted that the work would take her much longer to complete. It was just the right kind of mind numbing exercise that she needed after the madness of this morning and yesterday. She'd been running off adrenaline and pure curiosity for the past couple of hours, and that energy was starting to wane. She made every attempt to reignite it with caffeine but it was a poor substitute.
She would have eaten something but her stomach was not sitting as it should. Was it pain, nervousness, a byproduct of running on empty for almost a whole week? Some combination of all of them perhaps, but more than anything it was a foreboding sixth sense that she couldn't place a name to.
It had festered with the thought that they were getting closer, and so far all signs pointed to an Uchiha, and Sakura had swore when she left medicine that she would never cross paths with them again. Not until she could prove what they had to have done all those years ago and bring them to justice. Pouring herself a coffee in the kitchen she made her way back to her desk with a surge of bitterness, just thinking about Sasuke made her angry sometimes.
She made the decision to try not to let it ruin her mind for the day, she had work to do, they had a murderer in holding and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of drugs sitting in evidence.
"Did you manage to get the evidence transferred, Hatake?"
"Hmm? Oh, yes, that's all done."
"What are you-"
"I'm looking at the Uchiha family murders actually. What's on file anyway, there isn't a lot here."
Sakura felt her blood run cold for a moment, it was a night she wished she could take back but no matter how hard she tried the clock would not move.
"What did you want to know? Maybe I can help."
Kakashi's eyes flicked to her for a moment before going back to the screen.
"See, that might be problematic, considering Sasuke used you as his alibi."
The bitter coffee had nothing on the surging bitterness that took hold of Sakura in that moment.
"Is my statement there?" She tried not to take it out on Kakashi but there was an edge to her tone that had seeped out beyond her control.
"No, it isn't. Ten years ago not everything was digitized, it'll still be in the physical folder somewhere. All I have here is the first detective's notes."
Sakura sighed deeply, trying to exhale that negative energy before it stuck to Kakashi and she said something that she would regret. Sakura had always told the truth about what had transpired that day, and today would be no different. She just hoped that her new partner wouldn't think any less of her.
"Five years, Sasuke and I were together, I knew his parents well, liked them a lot. In those five years Sasuke very rarely went out in public with me, not to a party, not to the grocery store. He was... well, he was something else. Couldn't see it back then, unfortunately. That night his parents died, he suddenly turns up on my doorstep at my apartment, makes a big show about taking me out to dinner. My room mates thought it was weird too, but I thought, maybe he had decided to change for the better, y'know..."
"I take it he hadn't changed..."
"He had in a way, he was unrecognizable from the boy I met in school and fell in love with. Suddenly he was only thinking of himself and his own career, and anyone else was a stepping stool he could use to get it. That night he acted the perfect gentleman, which was also odd because his parents had cut him off a couple months earlier. He took me back to their house to have coffee with them, and that's when we saw the police cars, saw the blood everywhere."
Out of reflex the bile began to rise in her throat, she had seen so much blood in her time as a surgeon, she'd seen her fair share of death as well... But there was something about seeing the trail of blood that lead to someone that she had cared for. And seeing that red demonic look in Sasuke's eye, something she had described to the police at the time but no one would listen. She understood that a look could mean anything and nothing, it wasn't hard evidence that they could go off, but it had frozen her so completely that it couldn't mean nothing.
She knew what those instincts were now, Kakashi had shown her what they were. It was her Detective's gut guiding her to a puzzle piece that didn't fit, some clue that needed to be found and was calling to her.
"So he had motive, was there anything to tie him to the crime scene?"
"No, and despite my protests, the detective's really couldn't find anything tangible on either brother. The house alarm code was only known by them, it couldn't have been anyone else, it was someone close to the family. Sasuke and Itachi... well they became monsters after that."
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe monster is the wrong word, elitist, too good for any of us. The insurance pay out put them at the top of everything. Sasuke paid his way through school, both he and Itachi came out of med school with zero debt and the best placements in all of Konoha. Something just didn't sit right with me, but no one would listen, I was just some girl he used as an alibi. It didn't matter how much research I did into the case... and that was when the calls started."
"Calls?"
"Threats, from Itachi specifically, telling me to leave them both alone and get as far away from them as I could."
"Did you report it?" The expression on Kakashi's face was an odd mixture of concern and annoyance that she couldn't quite place.
"I did. Repeatedly. Much to the annoyance of an detective I could get on the phone. But nothing happened."
"It says here that they were both brought before a judge separately but were both acquitted... They accused each other?"
"The best lawyers money could buy, everything was quashed, I wasn't even aware of that detail until much, much later. But it was all conjecture, no evidence of a pay off, not forensics tying them to the scene, both of their alibis proved to be can't arrest someone based on the testimony of a co-conspirator after all. Then the case went cold and we all moved on, it just never felt right to me, I wanted... well I wanted the truth."
"Of course, I know how that feels, trust me." Kakashi offered her a look which was full of sympathy, at least she liked to think that it was, she still couldn't exactly read him 100%.
Sakura went to work on the tasks before her, trying to focus intently on what she was doing and nothing else. She wanted this report to be especially thorough as it was her first as a detective, she wanted to make sure everything was flawless so that Mizuki couldn't find a way to worm himself out of a harsh sentence. They may have agreed to a deal but it didn't mean that he would ever be a free man. Not if she could help it. Whatever Kakashi was doing she couldn't see from this angle, but he was intently looking at the screen, writing things down in a folder at his side.
It was just unfortunate that Kakashi had not been exaggerating when he said that drug cases incurred extra paperwork. Every single spec of evidence was measured and counted into the system to be signed off by everyone who had entered the premises. But there was light at the end of the tunnel for Sakura, while her search engine was running data on the names 'Hebi' and 'Shukaku' she continued to write her report with every detail she could remember. It was sometime after lunch before she got close to finishing and the call of her stomach was louder than her will to finish the task at hand.
"Almost done, did you wanna grab some lunch now Hatake?"
"What do you mean, 'almost done'?" He deliberately mocked her tone. "How can you even be close to finishing, that's insane..."
"How can you not be close to finishing? We've been doing nothing but writing these damn things up since we got back to the precinct."
"I don't believe you, let me see it..." Kakashi stood up, rather petulantly, and rounded the desk to stand behind her. "Holy shit, what the hell is this... are you a wizard?"
"No, I'm just using the digital precinct program instead of doing it manually like you are. You know it takes a quarter of the time to file a warrant if you do it through this, right?"
"You've got to be shitting me."
Sakura tried not to laugh.
"No, I'm not. You seriously don't know how to use this? You just type your badge number and PID into the bar, enter a password. It even gives you a forwarding option so that it's privately emailed to whoever you're working the case with, or your superiors, see?"
She made a show of clicking around the screen for his benefit so that he could actually see what she was talking about. The way his draw dropped and stayed that way for a while had to be Sakura's favorite part of the whole thing.
"I don't think I've ever logged into this before... I've just been using the Konoha PD database and filing the reports by hand..."
"Let's have a look."
Sakura turned and squinted at the numbers on Kakashi's badge that was fixed to his belt. It wasn't as shiny and new as hers, but it had seen some action and deserved the same respect she showed hers. Typing the numbers in an option came up to make a password for the account, confirming that he had in fact never logged into it before. With a smirk Sakura started typing.
"Did you just... make my password? That's extremely unprofessional. Thanks by the way, what is it?"
"Sakura-is-better-than-me, all lower case, one word."
"Ha ha, very funny but you didn't type that much, smart ass."
"You're right, well done, Detective. It's Pakkun69, I figure at least you won't forget that one. And yes, my ass is smart, thank you for admitting it."
Kakashi made an exhaling sound which could be construed as a stifled laugh. What appeared next on the screen was a list of all cases that had been touched by Detective Kakashi Hatake, and the sheer volume on the screen had Sakura blinking hard. At the very top was Samantha Winters case number PO83682.
"Well I'll be damned. It's got everything in there, huh?"
"Everything you've filed from this precinct. If you were to change to another then you'd have to use the PD database, but it doesn't hold the hard copies of scans. It should, it's going to be one of the first things I change when I become Commissioner."
"So you're aiming for the top job now, huh? Interesting." He lazily strolled back to his chair, Sakura took her time being nosy at his impressive arrest record before logging out and back in as herself.
Kakashi didn't seem to be interested in lunch though, he was on his computer, typing furiously and not even looking at his keyboard. It was like he was in a trance. The peace allowed Sakura to finish all of her report, she stretched in her chair and shook out the one hand that had been working away without break.
"You're finished, aren't you? That's so unfair, I only just worked out I could log into this stupid thing-"
"You only figuring it out now, Hatake? That's pathetic."
A deep voice spoke from over her shoulder, she turned slightly to see another Detective looking down at her with a wink before snapping his attention back to Kakashi. He had shoulder length hair, a toothpick in his mouth, a very large weapon on his hip. Complete with a leather jacket it made him 'cool' by the usual characteristics, the jury was still out on whether Sakura thought much of him though.
"Detective Haruno, this is Detective Genma Shiranui, make sure you're up to date on all your shots before you shake his hand."
"Very funny, old man, all that fresh air in the field finally wake up that brain cell of yours? Anyway, yeah, call me Genma. Hope this bastard hasn't got any more of your bones broken."
"Why don't you swallow that toothpick, Shiranui, so that we don't have to listen to your shit. Some of us have work to do."
"It's been so long since you did any real work, Hatake, you don't even know how. That online precinct has been around for a year, idiot, you never even logged into it-"
Kakashi hadn't been looking at Sakura or Genma, despite the volley of insults, he'd been concentrating on the screen. Until he abruptly stood and grabbed his jacket, his eyes quickly darting to Sakura, he spoke while he was already storming toward the elevator.
"I'm getting some air."
Sakura swallowed thickly, Detective Shiranui deciding to sit on the corner of her desk.
"Looks like the problem took itself out, nice to meet you, Haruno was it? You're far too pretty to be a detective you know that, I heard you used to be a nurse, I would've liked to see-"
As he spoke Sakura very slowly stood up from her chair, Genma continued to talk but she was not in the mood to listen. With her right boot she stamped down hard on Shiranui's dirty sneaker, he bent over in pain but Sakura had already grabbed the skinny excuse for a tie he was wearing with her good hand. She drew him in close to her face, enjoying the wince of pain on his features.
"Listen good, Genma. I promised not to fight my partner's battles for him, but you piss him off, you piss me off. And I was a doctor, jackass, so I can hurt you and make sure others can't tell. Got it?"
"Understood..." he gulped out.
"Understood...?"
"Ma'am, understood Ma'am."
"Better. It's Detective Haruno to you. Now scoot."
She released his tie, watched him adjust it before he limped away. Sakura folded her arms in satisfaction. It might not have been subtle, or professional, but damned if she was going to let these punk men ruin the progress she and Kakashi had been making. On the case and on their partnership, hell even Tsunade had said...
Sakura paused, realizing exactly what, or who was standing behind her. In the doorway to her office Captain Tsunade was standing with her arms folded and a brow quirked in Sakura's direction. She turned and tried to stand in a way that exudes innocence, but it was all for naught, the Captain simply nodded her approval with a smile before disappearing back into her office. Sakura fought the impulse to laugh before she sat, it was reassuring to know that another woman had her back.
Despite her hunger, it wasn't Sakura's stomach that pulled her away from her desk, but the constant vibrating of a phone. It was Kakashi's, he'd left it behind, likely because he'd been in such a hurry to get out of the place. When it didn't stop, Sakura stood and took a look at the screen, Yamato. She looked around before she decided to answer it.
"Hatake's phone."
"Either Kakashi has hired a sexy secretary or that is you, Detective Sakura."
"Yes, we really should stop meeting like this, Yamato. What have you got for us?"
"Well, I've got the preliminary test results for the bijuu that you confiscated, definitely high potency liquid speed. The good stuff. I also have a match for the tools you guys gave me, to the damage to Samantha Winter's skull. You can go ahead and arrest that asshole for murder if you haven't already, there's enough here to get him."
"Thanks, Yamato. He's in booking already, basically confessed as soon as Kakashi punched him in the face."
There was a heavy exhale from the other end of the line.
"I wish you were joking but I know him too well unfortunately. Where is he now? Did Tsunade beat him to a pulp?"
"Not quite, he's just gone out for air. Think he was a bit pissed that I finished my report before him."
"That's not hard, it takes him forever to do anything since he refuses to use technology to file his reports, he doesn't even have a log in…"
"He does now. Had to give him a crash course in how to use it, but he's been typing stuff up all morning."
"That's… actually amazing. I'm impressed, Sakura. Hey listen, I know he's put in a DNA transfer to Axiom for this pair of scrubs you guys found, but I'm not sure the tech and I can get it done all today-"
For some reason, Sakura didn't want to wait, this case was a high priority for her, for Kakashi, for the Captain and the whole of Konoha. Without a plant in hand she wasn't quite sure how to strong arm Yamato into putting in the work before the end of the day, until she remembered a small and innocuous detail from the first time she had met Yamato. Something that she had meant to ask Kakashi about but hadn't remembered to do so.
"You really don't think you can manage it today, Tenzo?"
"How… do you know that name… Oh, dear lord what has Kakashi told you? It's all lies, I swear, just don't tell anyone else what you saw-"
"Saw? Is there something to see?"
"No, no there isn't! Fine I'll work overtime! Just don't look into it anymore, okay?"
"Thank you, Tenzo…"
"Don't call me that where other people might hear it!" Yamato sighed deeply. "You've only been working with Kakashi for a couple of days and you're already turning into a demon like him. He is such a bad influence…"
"Oh, I don't know about that, maybe I was bad to begin with?"
"With pink hair like that? Yeah, sure."
"Why are you guys so obsessed with the hair?"
"Do you dye it that way or is it natural? Is it a wig-"
"Goodbye, Yamato." Sakura slid her thumb on the screen and hung up on him mid sentence.
She didn't realize that at some point during that conversation she had sat down in Kakashi's chair. Now she sat staring at the lock screen to his phone and she suddenly felt a lump in her throat. The picture was a familiar sight, but that wasn't what caused her heart to ache for the man. It was a picture of Obito's grave, that name bold across the marble, the picture must have been taken when the grave marker had been placed. Sitting next to it on the grass was a small tuft of fur which was the same color as Pakkun.
Sakura had long trained her emotions to be under her control, so she was able to rein in the tears that welled unexpectedly in her eyes. The man was so hopeless, he really was. He would torture himself to an early grave if he didn't find out what happened to Obito. With that thought, Sakura pocketed his phone and stood, she bumped the mouse to his computer and the screen lit up. He'd been in such a hurry he hadn't even logged out of the cases he had been looking at.
She hovered over the icon to close the tab but stopped herself. What met her eye was a wall of text, a list of cases, that all belonged to a different badge number. It wasn't hers, or Kakashi's, but it did belong to Obito Uchiha.
With a sigh and a tutt she shut the screen off, stomped over to her own chair, grabbed her coat and left.
And Sakura knew exactly where to find him.
A brisque walk in the cold and she had reached the dark arched entrance to the cemetery. Before she was even passed the gate she could see the white shock of hair that belonged to Kakashi. He stood exactly where he had been a few days earlier, with the same look on his face and a sadness in his eyes. The kind of sadness one sees in the eyes of an animal, not because he's hurt or suffering from anything in particular, but a kind of elemental sorrow for the nature of things. She approached with caution.
"You found me."
"I did. You left your phone back at the precinct." She held it out for him to take. "Tenzo called."
"Did you call him that?"
"Yes. It was the only way to get him to fast track the evidence…"
"Nice. You catch on fast…"
HIs voice was distant, his posture hunched over ever so slightly, like he was being weighed down by something. When he took the cellphone from her hand their eyes met and it was a look that she didn't recognize. If she could compare it to anything she would say it was the same look as when Tsunade or Kakashi didn't have an answer to a puzzle. It was confusion, but something else as well.
It felt like she was being studied.
"We should get something to eat before we head back…" Sakura tried to shift the focus away from her, she felt so utterly scrutinized in just a short moment it was unsettling. Kakashi finally shifted his gaze back to Obito with an imperceptible nod. "Are you alright?"
"Just realized I didn't have time this morning to visit, that's all."
"You visit every day?"
"Well, yeah. It's the only thing I can do for him now, apart from catching the killer." Kakashi's voice was soft, as if he were afraid that others were listening. His gaze switched back to Sakura and for a moment she felt unnerved, until he spoke again. "What do you feel like eating?"
She smiled.
"Anything that isn't fried."
"No promises there, Haruno."
Kakashi sighed, his hands in his pockets before he turned and looked toward the exit. For a minute Sakura thought that he would suggest somewhere to eat or make some comment about how eating salad was for rabbits and not grown men. Instead he appeared… nervous.
"Sakura, can I ask you something?"
It was disconcerting.
"Of course."
"Why didn't you tell me?" The question hung in the air between them, Sakura scrambling to figure out just what he was referring to, whatever it was held a weight of importance. The confusion must have shown on her face. "The Sargeant you treated, the one who told you to become a detective… Why didn't you tell me it was Obito?"
Sakura blinked, as if the action would allow her to form some kind of coherent answer quickly. Kakashi waited patiently while the cogs whirred slowly in her mind, finally deciding on the truth, which she knew he needed to hear.
"Well, at first I didn't realize it was him, I didn't remember. But the more I saw his face around the precinct and heard his name, the more I remembered, and the more awkward it became to just… bring up. And then, well, I didn't want you to get it in your head that it was fate that brought us together, I didn't want you to credit the universe for the hard work it took for me to get here."
"Sakura, no one who has ever worked within a mile radius of your brilliant mind could give any credit to fate. You're a brilliant detective, and I know that." Kakashi smiled, and it changed his face so completely that it was beguiling. "You'll be almost at my level of brilliance in no time, just stick with me a little while longer."
She snorted before she laughed.
"Very funny, when I get as senile as you then it really will be up to the universe to save me." She remembered the list of Obito's cases on Kakashi's screen. "You were looking into Obito's old cases?"
"Yeah, I was looking for the Akatsuki aliases or Samantha Winters's name, but I stumbled across yours instead. Threw me for a minute there, I must say, you're a tricky one to read, Haruno."
"And you're a regular Agatha Christie novel, Hatake. Can we go eat now?"