As she stood in the observation chamber, Sakura watched through the one way glass with a cocktail of emotions churning in her stomach. She was hoping to see something, anything, that would indicate that this person was a murderer, but all she could see was a person. That thought frightened her more than she cared to admit.

Anyone could be a cold-blooded killer.

With a deep breath and a glance to her partner before she left, Sakura decided it was time. The door clicked shut behind her in the interrogation room and she forced herself into a state of calm. It was what Tsunade would have done.

Keep a level head if you want to catch this son of a bitch.

"Sakura! Thank goodness you're here. They won't tell me anything and I've been waiting here for hours."

"Hello, Mei." She took small comfort in the fact that Kakashi was watching her behind that glass. But at the same time she still had something to prove. She wasn't about to let her first case as lead go unsolved. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"I'm just glad you're here. I know you'll tell me what's going on. You know they separated me from Haku—where is he? What do they want with him?"

"Yes, well, they were just following orders. My orders." Sakura sat opposite Mei, not taking her eyes off her face, gauging every reaction. "But I am sorry to have kept you waiting in the dark. There were some things I had to follow up with before I could speak to you."

Mei's eyes narrowed a fraction as they bore into Sakura, demanding her for explanation without actually asking.

"'Your orders?' I'm afraid I don't understand." She looked puzzled but with a hint of anger to her tone. "I thought, Detective, that you were on my side. My son and I were dragged down here, separated, and made to wait hours without anyone telling us why we're here. You made a promise that you would catch his killer—"

"Oh, I have." Sakura kept eye contact with Mei, kept her own expression impassive while Mei appeared to be frozen to the spot. "Recognize this?"

She had brought the file with her, opening it and taking out the first page before laying it delicately in front of Mei Terumi.

"N-no. What is it supposed to be?"

"Well, this is a composite sketch. A patrolling officer witnessed this person." Sakura tapped the paper for effect and continued, "at the scene of Zabuza's murder."

"That's—"

"Interesting, isn't it? We're fairly certain that this woman was the one who lured your husband to the side of the road under the ruse of a flat tire. Before she shot him to death." Sakura waited purposefully for the moment Mei took the sketch in hand. "You don't see the resemblance?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't, Detective. And frankly, I don't see what this has to do with me or my son."

"Perhaps you'll recognize this." From the inside of her jacket Sakura retrieved an evidence bag. She dropped it onto the table with a loud clunk of metal on metal, the proverbial smoking gun. "This is the gun Zabuza gifted to you for protection."

Mei sat in stoic silence. It was difficult to tell whether it was out of surprise or disdain from the look on her face.

"I wouldn't know, Detective. That gun was reported missing a while ago and this one is covered in dirt, how can you expect me to—"

"—Why don't you look a little harder then." Sakura resisted the urge to slam a hand on the table but she made sure to put as much acid into her words as possible. "The gun was never missing, was it? You had this all planned out for months."

Something shifted in the woman seated across from her, in those green eyes which had once appeared genuinely hurt and grief-stricken. Now a shadow passed over Mei's features and a smirk tugged at her lips. It had finally reached the point where she knew that Sakura was no longer wrapped around her finger.

"You certainly have a rich imagination, that's for sure. But that's all it is and I have no interest in playing along with mind games. If that is my weapon, as you claim, you'll have to prove it."

Sakura knew that in an interrogation, the caliber of the questions was just as important as the caliber of the silence. She took this opportunity to calm herself, steel her nerves for the next part, and perhaps lull Mei into a false sense of security for the moment.

"Funny, he said you'd say that." Sakura didn't wait for her to take the bait. "Haku knows you so well. The gun was exactly where he claims you buried it."

"What? The boy is delusional, he's just lost the only father figure he's ever had that amounted to anything."

"He also claims that you were the one, who lured Zabuza to the side of the road that night, that you forced your son to watch as you shot his father."

"Pure and utter nonsense! Why would I—?"

This time she did slam her hand on the table to turn over the next piece of paper in the file.

"I asked myself the same question, and I must admit, you even had me fooled for a while there. But then I did my job, did some digging to back up what your son told us." Sakura placed a finger on the paper. "This is the enrollment form for Haku to join the Konoha Gymnastics Academy. I found it odd that only one parent endorsed his education. It seems as if Zabuza had big plans for Haku... that didn't include you."

"This is absurd."

"No, what's absurd, Mrs. Terumi, is that you phoned the Academy hours before Zabuza's murder to withdraw your son's application. I bet you were pissed that Zabuza had enrolled your son without your signature, without your support."

"You have absolutely no proof of any of this."

Sakura stood.

"Really, you think I'd bring you down here without any proof? I may be a rookie, but I'm not stupid." She leaned forward on the table as she turned over the next paper in the file. "After Haku told me the story, my partner had your phone records pulled. Interesting, isn't it? That a call was placed from your cellphone to Zabuza minutes before his death."

"He was late; I could have been calling to check in with him."

"Oh, he was late, alright. Late to catch on to you. See, that call, it places your location. We know exactly where you were when that call was made and your son backs up our records."

"And you honestly believe him? He's a child. One worked to the point of exhaustion 'training' with his father for some ridiculous academy in the middle of nowhere. Anything he says without a parent present can't be considered fact, surely."

"Was that the reason you did it, Mei? Was it to keep your son close, or was it for the hefty sum from the funding campaign?" Sakura didn't break eye contact with Mei as she turned over more pages from the file. "See, I looked into your finances. That money would be enough to pay off your debts and get you out of the circus game for good."

"Did you consider, Detective, that this is all a set up? Did you consider that the boy may have taken the gun, taken my phone, shot his father to get out of going to this school?" The smirk on Mei's red lips was something Sakura was desperate to slap off her face. "You have no evidence, only circumstantial bullshit."

"Think about it this way..." Sakura leaned right up to her face, confronting that fickle beauty that had lured men to their doom, "You had motive. You had means. You had opportunity. And I have two witnesses placing you at the crime scene. I've got forensics sweeping your home, your car, your clothing... and when they find something, you're going to prison."

Perhaps she had been expecting something more in keeping with her hospital days when a patient or family member was given bad news. Sakura had expected Mei to break down, confess perhaps, to give her some shred of human emotion in response. But there was nothing. Just an evil calm that kept her smoothe.

"I'd like a lawyer now."

Sakura smirked this time, collected her papers, and slammed the door behind her with a deep breath. Her eyes must have closed for a fraction of a second because suddenly her vision was filled with Kakashi even though he hadn't been there a moment ago. He said nothing, but his eyes were speaking for him. He was written with concern, the way his forehead was creased, the way his scarred eye was watching her. It was sweet yet irritating: she didn't need him worrying over her. All she needed now was a speck of evidence and a bed.

"You did well in there, Haruno."

"Did I though? She's right, her case is circumstantial. She gets a good enough lawyer and they have an argument for dismissal."

"That's only if we don't find anything at the house. There will be something, Sakura." He placed a hand on her arm. "Gunshot residue, bullet casings, hair—there will be something. And on the slim chance there isn't, you've still got a strong case."

Something, maybe his touch or his tone, bothered her enough to step back out of his reach.

"I'm not doubting the strength of my case. I'm doubting who pulled the trigger, and it's pissing me off. You don't think it's just a little suspicious that Haku spills his guts as soon as we get him alone in that room? That he was conveniently witness to it all and didn't say anything sooner?"

Kakashi was as seasoned as they came. Surely he would be able to see the inconsistencies. To Sakura, it felt all too convenient. There was no doubt that Mei had played her for a fool, but could a mother really throw her child under the bus to protect herself from a murder charge? If she had done it all to protect Haku from the kind of lifestyle Zabuza was leading, why would she then blame the kid for his murder?

"Sakura, you're going to have to get used to the fact that we may never know exactly which one of them pulled the trigger. The soil that the gun was buried in got rid of any partial prints or DNA to link them. Haku is a kid, he's confused, he's scared. But all of his information has been accurate. But you did everything you could possibly do. You did your job."

"It doesn't feel like enough." Sakura hadn't intended for the words to sound so dejected. She then overcompensated by straightening her posture and meeting Kakashi in the eye. "Can I go home now, Captain?"

There wasn't any need to throw the title at the end of the sentence. It caused Kakashi to scrunch up his nose in displeasure but only for a second.

"Sure, I'll have Genma put Mei into booking. Haku is still being processed—"

"I don't really care," she lied. "I'm tired, I can't remember the last time I slept in my own bed."

"Occupational hazard, that one. You sure you don't want to stick around?"

"I'm sure. See ya later."

Sakura couldn't bring herself to look at him. She turned and made a beeline for the elevator, leaving her jacket and the keys to the sedan on her desk. As soon as she hit the street she scanned for the first yellow cab on the horizon and flagged it down. Later on she wouldn't even remember telling the driver her address. Everything seemed so blurred, so singular. She needed to get home and get into bed. Then maybe things would start to make sense, though she doubted it.

Once within the sanctuary of her own apartment that fleeting notion seemed so much further from her reach. Nothing made sense. Not about this case, about the lives that were ruined because of it. It was senseless. Perhaps it was tiredness alone that was making her feel so conflicted. It churned her stomach into knots, no doubt the byproduct of switching sleep for caffeine and sustaining herself with junk food. She managed to nap for a few hours before the tumultuous turn of her thoughts caused her to wake with a start.

The tiredness had subsided, and now all she was left with was unadulterated anger.

It didn't matter what she chose to do with herself—catching up on laundry, checking the latest medical journal, or watching garbage television. Inevitably her mind went back to the case. The stupid, solvable case that she had messed up somewhere along the way. If only she had been better at her job then she wouldn't have missed it. There had to be something that she wasn't seeing.

By the time darkness began to creep over Konoha, Sakura had been unable to stop herself from accessing the case file from the precinct laptop that sat on her kitchen table. What raised the biggest red flag for Sakura was the letter from Fuguki to Haku. It didn't make sense that someone in a secure facility had been allowed to contact the object of their restraining order without raising any alerts. Had someone else sent it for him? Was Fuguki really the author of the letter at all? Without it they would never have found the money trail, the gymnastics school, or the dubious intent of Mei Terumi.

It all seemed so unsure, so grey and senseless. It didn't matter how many times she read the medical examiner notes or the crime scene report. The puppet Kakashi had won for her at the circus wasn't saying anything from its spot on the side table. Nothing was clear about the murder of Zabuza Momochi, and there were no clues left to follow up.

There had been no evidence to suggest that Haku was even at the crime scene, but if that were the case then how did he know so many details? From the moment Haku opened up to them it seemed deliberate and calculated, as if every word had been weighed and measured before it was spoken. It was all very suspicious.

They had both been there, but which one of them had pulled the trigger?

At the very moment she had come full circle on the details for the umpteenth time there was a knock at the door. Lady Katsuyu immediately retreated to the bedroom which confirmed Sakura's theory.

"Come in, Kakashi. Door's open."

"You really shouldn't leave your door unlocked. You never know what kind of trash might try to come in."

"As opposed to the trash that I invite in?"

She looked up from the screen long enough to catch the eye roll of her partner. He huffed with a smirk before turning to shut and bolt the door behind him. Sakura had gone back to burying herself in the case file. It wasn't out of the ordinary for Kakashi to turn up unannounced, but come to think of it she hadn't exactly checked her phone in some was a dip in the sofa next to her.

"Thought you would want to know that Haku passed a polygraph."

"Mmhmm."

"Not sure yet if the kid is going to go into state care. The DA is still going through the charges for Mei." Kakashi leaned forward to get a look at the screen as well. "You were meant to be resting. You're still going over the case?"

"Something doesn't feel right. I can't explain it." Sakura stood abruptly. When she was deep in something, study or work, the proximity of any person was a distraction. She felt like the closer Kakashi got to her the further away she was from finding the truth. "It just feels messy. There has to be something that I missed, an inconsistency, something that ties everything together."

Kakashi didn't answer but there was a familiar look on his face. One that she was suddenly tired of seeing. It was a combination of pity and concern. Just because he was the more experienced detective didn't make her feelings any less valid.

"Things aren't always black and white, Sakura. You do all you can for an investigation but there isn't always an answer at the end of it."

"Don't give me that bullshit, Kakashi. You were the one who told me to follow my instincts, and right now they are telling me that I missed something."

Kakashi stood so she shifted further away.

"Of course you listen to your instincts, but you don't let it consume you, not for a case. I know that better than anyone."

"This wasn't just a case to close." Sakura couldn't control the volume or tone of her voice. "This was my case to close. Get it?"

"Of course I get it, Sakura. You know who you're talking to." He followed her, his tone calm and collected which only served to piss her off more. "Maybe it was too soon for you to take the lead, and maybe this was the wrong case to do it with. But it's an unfortunate truth we all face as detectives and sooner or later you will have to come to terms with it."

"So I need to stick to the nice girly murders, hm? That it? I've got news for you, Kakashi, I'm not the kind of person to let things go when they don't feel right."

Something about that finally sparked some semblance of anger within him; she could tell by the way he followed her as she paced the living room. But his voice was never angry—frustrated, perhaps—but there was no anger in the way he spoke. She couldn't bring herself to look at him, though she imagined that he was watching her with those dark and discerning eyes.

"That's not what I'm saying. Just, next time you make a promise, make it to the victim, Haruno."

Before the end of his sentence she had already turned, shaking her head wildly. Kakashi followed closely.

"I knew it, I knew you would bring that back up and lord it over me."

"I'm doing no such thing. You know better than anyone that I've made enough mistakes to be able to recognize them at least."

"This is all my fault, I get it—"

"No, it's the fault of whoever murdered Zabuza, and you know that. You're just too close to see objectively."

Kakashi stepped towards her and something snapped. He was too close for her to think clearly, too close for her to be able to keep her cool for much longer. She felt her back hit the wall and she finally looked at his face. It was impassive and not at all what she expected, which only served to irritate her further.

"This whole case, this whole fucking thing is so stupid. None of it makes a lick of sense."

"Murder doesn't make sense, Sakura." He took another step towards her.

"And stop saying my name like that!"

"Like what?"

"Like you being sweet is going to fix everything! Nothing can fix this, Kakashi, nothing. A man is dead and I have no idea who killed him. I tried my best and I failed, my first chance at lead and I failed. Tsunade would be so disappointed..." She felt her lip tremble at her aunt's name.

This case had consumed her wholly for the last three days, and now she felt all the more terrible for not once thinking to check in on her comatose aunt. It was like being kicked in the stomach after the match had already been called. If she had allowed it, the tears would have escaped. Instead she held onto them, letting them blur her vision of the world as if it might help her make some sense of it all. If Tsunade had been there, they would have known definitively who had shot Zabuza. If Sakura had been a better detective she would have been able to find out on her own. If she had been quicker she could have saved her aunt in the first place.

Sadness was a fickle emotion, able to morph into something less passive at the drop of a hat. When her vision was clear she got a good look at Kakashi's face, he twitched as if to move slowly towards her. Frustration followed quickly on the heels of sadness and it was about to claim another victim.

Sakura's eyes latched onto whatever was closest and breakable. It just happened to be that stupid puppet from the day this case had fallen from the sky and destroyed everything it landed on. In a flash the head of the puppet was in her firm grasp, a growl of frustration rose in her chest as she flung the thing across the room and to the opposite wall. The sound of breaking ceramic and thud as the pieces hit the floor echoed for a moment.

And just like that, the Molotov cocktail of emotions raging within her fizzled out in the aftermath of destruction.

Kakashi approached cautiously.

"Better?" He was close again, so close that he filled her whole vision, so close that they were touching. His knuckles came up to brush against her cheek and for a moment she felt lighter at his touch.

"Maybe a little."

"Good."

She wasn't sure if it was his intention to lean closer in to her, to rest his forehead against hers in a way that made her whole body harder to control. The intense emotions and vulnerability that had displayed themselves tonight, despite all the work she usually put into hiding such things, had brought them closer and not just in the physical sense. There was no way to control it now.

"Kakashi, I'm sorry I—"

"Shut up." He whispered to her lips. "Just, shut up, for once."

Before she could argue that the best way to shut her up was to give her mouth something better to do, Kakashi took matters into his own hands.

What started as a subdued and tentative meeting of lips escalated more quickly than Sakura could anticipate. It certainly helped to clear the remnants of misery and uncertainty that were clinging to her mind. Suddenly all that mattered was this closeness, Kakashi pressing her to that wall with his body, and lining up in all the right places against her. The heat between them was cathartic and all-consuming. But she wanted more. More of him, more of the peace and calmness that he was somehow able to exude. In an attempt to draw him even closer she wrapped her legs around his waist, and strong hands came to her backside to hold her there, not once breaking in the now urgent battle of tongues.

The pent-up frustration from not acting on urges was flowing freely now as if a dam had given way under immense pressure. It flooded and touched every inch of them in the aftermath and Sakura was content to allow herself to drown in it, in him. Kakashi wasn't going to be outdone by her bold move—with a grunt he took some steps backwards towards the sofa, still holding Sakura to his body.

With zero grace or ceremony he turned them around, all but falling onto the couch, pressing Sakura into the cushions while he continued to plunder her mouth. She wanted more, she needed more of him and whatever he was willing to give her. Just like before when they had gotten closer in that shitty sedan on that awful day, the world and all its brutalness faded away. Her hands found their way to tug at his hair, making trails along the covered muscles she'd longed to touch.

They had both been frustrated for too long, and not just about the connection between them which had foolishly been placed on hold. They were both frustrated for so many reasons: the case, the inability to work in the open, the separation as Kakashi acted as captain.

Now it was finally spilling over.

Kakashi's hands were greedy as they roamed her body. This was frenzied and without any finesse, but that only served to stoke the coiled heat in her belly. When his lips abandoned hers only to lavish her neck in a tortuously slow path, Sakura closed her eyes as she bit her bottom lip. It did little to stop the burbling groan of need as he nipped at a particularly sensitive area. When she felt his confined hardness press against her, her eyes snapped open.

Before she could coax her body to respond in the way she wanted it to, to wriggle her way closer to that delectable hardness, by chance her eyes fell onto something else.

It was the debris left by the puppet which she had smashed into small pieces.

And that was the moment her entire body froze as her mind suddenly raced to catch up with what it was seeing. Kakashi paused on top of her.

"Something wrong?"

His face came back up to hers but Sakura was no longer able to pay attention to him. Slowly she began to move, he jumped off her quickly as if he were concerned that he had caused her pain. But Sakura was not in pain, there was nothing wrong, she just needed to make sense of what she was seeing.

"Sakura, you're worrying me."

"It's hollow."

"Wha—"

"Kakashi, it's hollow!" Sakura knelt down on the floor beside the broken puppet. It's head had smashed into several pieces to reveal the nothingness within. She picked up the pieces with a smile so wide it threatened to crack her face.

"That's nice, Sakura, but if that's what you wanted you shouldn't have gotten me so damn hard."

"That shipment, Kakashi, the shipment from the Suna border. It was puppets, right?" Sakura was ignoring anything he had to say, she had to keep following that prickling instinct all the way through, she had to keep moving. In a couple of strides she made her way over to the piles of papers and research about the Kyuubi case and the Akatsuki. "The puppets were hollow, Kakashi! That's how they got the damn explosives across the border."

"Oh...oh!" Kakashi moved quickly, the pouting look of rejection had faded.

"Look at this." She shoved the piece of the puppet into his hand. "That's the logo for the Red Sand Company, on the inside of the head. The only reason you would put a freaking logo there is if—"

"—You were getting inside the head of the puppet. Sakura, you're brilliant."

"Look at the weight of the shipment—that's too heavy to only be hollow puppets. I knew there was something that I missed. And if these puppets were at Zabuza's circus, that means the Akatsuki were using it as a fence. Circuses order in all kinds of bizarre shit from everywhere. No one would suspect anything."

Kakashi had a look on his face that she almost considered pain, but it was familiar, it was that look when he was onto something himself. He raised a finger and went straight for the laptop on the coffee table.

"The money, Sakura. The money in the funding campaign. Where did it come from?"

Quickly she was beside him, throwing him aside so that she could bring the information up quicker.

"That's how they are laundering the money. Kakashi, you're a genius!"

"I'm only a genius if I'm right. Can you bring up the names of the donors?" Kakashi swore under his breath but Sakura continued to type and try to find the list they needed. She didn't even hear or feel his phone go off. "I better take this. Keep going."

Nothing short of a freight train through her living room was going to stop her. There was so much money in that funding campaign she should have thought to check it sooner, but there hadn't been cause to. She had wrongly assumed that it had been the hundreds of circus fans who wanted Haku to succeed in his schooling. Instead what she found was a few small, normal looking donations...and two extremely large ones.

"Gotcha," she whispered, only now realizing that Kakashi had gone to take his call in the kitchen. It was all she could do to wait until he came back into the room before she burst with the new information. "Get this, the money, Kakashi! The money came from Kisame Hoshigaki, he was paying off Zabuza." When he didn't react to the information and continued to stare at the phone in his hand she froze in apprehension. "Kakashi, what is it?"

"It's Tsunade," he said in a foreign tone. "She's awake."