There was a chill in the Iwa mountains that was unlike any sort of chill Sakura had experienced in her lifetime. Even with her new garments, the wind seemed to blow right into her very bones.

Gaara was a blessing in disguise. He kept the wind off their backs with a thick layer of sand, something that looked like it took a reasonable amount of effort to keep up for the hours they spent hiking through the mountain trails. When Sakura asked, he said it was good training. Like she'd implemented with her sensing jutsu, long term, continued use of jutsu would only serve to strengthen one's chakra reserves.

(With the Ichibi inside of him, Sakura wasn't quite sure why he needed larger chakra reserves, but she wasn't going to fault him trying to improve anyway.)

At night, even with a roaring fire inside their self-made huts, Sakura shivered with cold. It was near impossible to sleep, a challenge to even find food. Whatever shinobi Iwagakure raised, they had to be strong to have grown up in this. Sakura almost envied them. Comparing Konoha to here, even to Suna, it felt as though she'd lived a sheltered life, with calm winters and pleasant summers. But, if anything, that only made Sakura more determined. Surviving the mountain, in its own way, was also training. When she returned to Konoha…

If she returned to Konoha…

Because she was very well still afraid of dying out here, if not from the cold, then from the shinobi who had become infamous for their hatred of other villages, Konoha in particular. But if she returned to Konoha, she wasn't going to be considered squirrelly little Sakura anymore, Sakura who couldn't keep up with her teammates, Sakura who couldn't make it to the finals of the chuunin exams. Naruto and Sasuke would have thrown a fit at being subjected to these mountains, and here she was living them. Maybe she wasn't an Uchiha, wasn't a Jinchuuriki, but if there was one thing Sakura was finding out about herself, it was that she could endure.

She knew that Sai was desperate to know why they were heading to Iwa. Oh, he knew the details of why, he knew that they were going to speak with Iwa's Jinchuuriki and pass on information about Akatsuki, but she got the feeling that Sai didn't know the motivation behind why they were doing it. 'Because it was the right thing to do' didn't seem quite the satisfactory reason, though Sai had written it down in his scroll regardless. Sakura supposed coming from the secretive world of the Anbu, seeing what happened behind the scenes of the hidden villages, probably made one suspicious to the intents of others, but had the boy really not heard of altruism before?

But the more Sakura thought about it, the more she really thought about it, she almost had to wonder herself if it was a good enough excuse. She was doing this for Naruto, for Gaara, for all the other Jinchuuriki. She was doing this to eventually find Sasuke and save him from Orochimaru's grasp. Wasn't that good enough?

It had to be. But something in Sakura just...wasn't quite sure she had the whole picture anymore. She had scars for this journey. Ruined her career as a Konoha shinobi for this journey. She doubted Naruto or Sasuke would have wanted this for her. She doubted her parents or Ino or Kakashi or any of the others she'd left behind would have wanted this for her.

(But she'd wanted it, and maybe…)

"Deep in thought, Fisticuffs?"

Sakura inwardly flinched at Sai's newest nickname. Apparently her punch had gotten some sort of message across about calling her names, but Sai still seemed insistent on settling upon something. She couldn't complain too much about 'fisticuffs'. At the very least, it was more flattering than ugly. (And she was so glad Ino hadn't been around to hear that comment.)

"Well, when the cold keeps you up, not much else you can do but think." She admitted aloud.

"You could try something productive." Sai offered.

"What, like doodling?"

Sai was silent at this. Sakura hadn't known until recently how much Sai practiced his art, as he usually did it when she was asleep. But now that she'd found insomnia, she was learning all sorts of things that happened while she was typically asleep. Obviously Sai needed to practice to keep up his skills as an artist, but what Sakura was dying to know was how one brought something to life from a page.

"Can you bring anything to life?" She found herself suddenly asking. "I see you do animals, but what if you decided to do...a sword? Would it come out sharp or would it come apart the instant you hit someone with it?"

Sai looked to her, his face unreadable. "I'm not sure why I need to answer any of those questions."

Well...he had a point. Sakura frowned and rolled her eyes. They weren't friends, not like she and Gaara. Sai was technically here to spy on her, she was just tolerating him, which was the only reason Sai wasn't hiding in a tree twenty feet away while they holed up for the night. She'd thought, incorrectly it seemed, that he might be grateful for their companionship, but…

"Maybe I'm just trying to make small talk." She finally answered. "Maybe I thought we could be civil and learn about each other instead of just faking being nice."

"Information is never free."

"Then ask me something." Sakura offered. "You tell me about your drawing jutsu and I'll tell you about something you want to know."

She saw Gaara shoot her a look. She wasn't stupid, she knew Gaara didn't have any sort of positive feelings for Sai, but that didn't mean they couldn't try to make friends. Maybe, just maybe, if she could convince Sai that her heart was in the right place, she could convince Konoha and Tsunade too. (And then she could go back, consequences be damned.)

"Tell me how you found out I was following you."

Sakura smirked. Oh, had that been nagging at Sai this whole time? Well, it wasn't as though it had been entirely her that had done it.

"The man with the Akatsuki robes told me." She said, not even bothering with any dishonesty. "Hidan was his name. I somehow managed to liken him to me and he returned the favor by telling me about you. From there, it was a matter of using my sensing jutsu." She hesitated before speaking further...if she admitted she stole a scroll from Konoha's archives, she'd probably get more trouble than just running. Well, it wasn't as though Sai needed to learn how she'd learned such a technique. Nobody asked Sasuke where he'd learned the Chidori from, they'd just accepted that he had a new technique and gone with it. "My abilities with sensing are...kind of limited. My range is about two hundred feet, and I can locate anyone with a chakra signature. So, once we were out in the fields, far from the Plains village, the only signatures I should have been able to sense were myself and Gaara. But there you were, behind us, and that's how we found you."

"A sensing jutsu…" Sai pulled out a scroll and began to take more notes. "There nothing in your record about ever knowing a jutsu like that before."

"A shinobi doesn't tell everyone their secrets."

"And yet you're telling me yours."

"It's called building trust, ever heard of it?"

"In the shinobi world, there is no such thing as trust. As a shinobi, you should know that."

"Well, as a person, I can't accept that!" Sakura found her voice raising. Maybe it was exhaustion, but she couldn't hold back her emotions. "Do you honestly think Gaara and I managed to get this far because we were holding knives at each other's backs the whole time? No human being can possibly succeed without having people they trust. That's why genin are divided into squads. What ever happened to your squad, huh?"

Sai went quiet. He looked down at his scroll, his pen faltering. "I...didn't have one."

Didn't have one?

Well that couldn't be, Sakura was certain all shinobi were required to go through the Academy and be assigned to a genin squad, even if there were some who graduated earlier than others. Bypassing a team entirely? The Hokage would never allow such a thing.

As if reading her mind, Sai spoke again. "Sometimes children stand out from a young age, and sometimes people in the village take notice. We of Anbu Root do not have teams. We are simply tools, shaped to serve Konoha. We take no names. We have no purpose but the mission. And we feel no emotions." He turned to face Sakura again, and his fake smile came to his face. "So no, I never learned anything about squads or trust."

Sakura felt her anger deflate at that. This boy...did such an organization really exist within Konoha? Not just Anbu, but Root...children groomed from a young age to become tools...this was not something she pictured the Third or the Fifth Hokage deeming appropriate, but the proof of Root's existing was standing right in front of her.

Konoha was...it had secrets. Not just about Naruto or the nature of the Uchiha massacre...there were secrets far deeper than she'd even considered. Konoha was her home. She wanted to think the best of it. She wanted to think that only the other villages recruited soldiers so young and forced them to fight. But…

Konoha was just as bad as everyone else, and Sai was the proof.

"I'm sorry." She mumbled aloud.

"Whatever for? I'm just answering your questions, like you wanted."

"I'm sorry you don't know any better." Sakura continued. "I'm sorry you never had a team or learned about the things that matter. I'm sorry you've been...alone." She stole a glance at Gaara who looked...far more pensive than usual. Gaara's loneliness was a subject she'd heard about before. Even though Gaara had been assigned to a genin team, he hadn't been with people who trusted and supported him. Sai...was it possible Sai'd had it worse than Gaara? Sai had purpose, at least, a mission, and he claimed he wasn't supposed to feel but no human being could exist without emotions. It was impossible. She'd learned that back in the Land of Waves, back when she'd cried over Sasuke's body, thinking he was dead, unable to be the tool that the village had wanted…

(And with that thought in her head, about the rules of being a shinobi, how she was supposed to suppress her emotions and put the village first...maybe it wasn't so strange that Root existed after all. Maybe she just hadn't wanted to see it.)

"The shinobi world is a cruel place." She admitted to herself, more than Sai. "That Jinchuuriki even exist at all is a testament to that. That Root exists, even more so. I...I really think I hate it, you know?" Was she actually crying? Her face was numb with cold, but the tears were warm on her face, and she noticed that Sai seemed almost shocked at the action. "Because we aren't tools, we're human beings with emotions and desires and dreams, and no amount of training or conditioning is ever going to erase that. I don't believe you when you say you feel no emotions, Sai. I don't believe shinobi have to live this way. That's why I have to see the other Jinchuuriki. That's why I have to be there for them. Gaara and I, we can show them that they don't have to be alone. That there's another way. Shinobi can learn to trust and help each other. We can learn to understand...to really understand each other." Without thinking, Sakura reached up, clutching at the Jashin amulet around her neck.

You can be an emotionless killing machine and never think twice about the lives you take, but for worshippers of Jashin, every life means something.

Every life...and only through knowing each other's pain could shinobi really hope to understand each other. She may not have understood Sai before, but now, after hearing just that simple explanation, she was certain she understood him perfectly.

"So that's it." She decided. "That's the real reason we're out here, Gaara and I. To show the rest of the world that there's a better way. We're Konoha and Suna, working together. But more than that, we're friends who trust each other." She wiped her eyes and gave Sai her biggest grin. "So what do you think about that, Sai?"

"Hmm." Sai looked down at his notes before rolling up his scroll. "I think…you're delusional, Fisticuffs." He smiled at her, but this time...Sakura could have sworn this time the smile looked genuine.

"Fine by me. Just you keeping watching, Anbu boy. We'll prove you wrong."

They reached the outskirts of Iwagakure as the morning sun first peaked over the mountain, when half a dozen Iwa shinobi appeared around them with all manner of kunai and shuriken aimed at their vicinity.

It was a main road, so it wasn't as though they were traveling suspiciously, but Sakura realized all too quickly that this wasn't a normal patrol when she was addressed by name.

"Sakura Haruno. You and your companions will surrender your weapons immediately or be executed where you stand."

The woman who spoke was pretty, but carried a look about her that screamed serious. Sakura found a small sort of satisfaction in that the woman was wearing a deep red outfit that was not dissimilar to her old one. (Take that, Ino, red dresses were in now.)

They had come here to be diplomatic, so for Sakura, there wasn't a question of what they'd do. Slowly, so that she wouldn't startle any of the shinobi trained on her, she began to remove her weapons and lay them on the ground in front of her.

"We're here to speak with the Tsuchikage." She announced, noticing out of the corner of her eye that Sai had yet to disarm himself. (Gaara didn't carry kunai, she realized, as he could easily make his own weapons with sand.) That they didn't know about Sai yet meant that their information on her and Gaara was somewhat dated...but that they had information at all was disconcerting. What news had been spread about her? And since they hadn't mentioned Gaara by name...did they know he was the Ichibi Jinchuuriki? Gaara had thought Suna would keep his absence a secret and she believed him. For now, she would do whatever she could to convince these shinobi that Gaara was simply her traveling partner and nothing more. "My friend here on my right doesn't carry any weapons on him. And…" She looked back to Sai, hoping he'd see reason.

"That's a Konoha Anbu, look at the mask on his hip!" She heard one of the shinobi hiss. "We should just kill them all now!"

"Quiet." The woman in front of her ordered. "Haruno, we know of your one companion. However, there was no information about an Anbu traveling with you. Those who are from Konoha are considered enemies to our village." With a small hand gesture, four shinobi flanked Sai, pushing him to the ground and twisting his arms behind his back. "What reason do we have to believe that you are not working with him?"

Sakura winced at Sai's treatment. She didn't like seeing the boy manhandled so much, but...what could she do, in this situation? "He was sent to gather information about me." She decided to go with the truth...at least, what might help the situation. "I have...defected from Konoha, you see, and the Hokage thought it might be to join up with another missing shinobi that defected a while back. This Anbu was under orders to follow me in the hope of learning where the other shinobi had gone, as his current status was that he defected to join the sannin Orochimaru."

"A spy, then." The woman concluded. "So you do not consider him an ally?"

Sakura grimaced. If she misspoke...would Sai be killed? "We allowed him to travel with us as my intent was not to find Orochimaru's location and there was no point in hindering his mission. In that respect, as he has been at our side, I consider him an ally, but...I have no current loyalties to Konoha or any motivation to further his mission."

"Very well." The woman gestured again, and the shinobi vanished, Sai along with them. Sakura's breath hitched in her throat. She could only hope she hadn't condemned Sai to death, but...what else could she have done? Sai wouldn't have stayed behind if she'd asked. He'd known what he was getting into.

We have no purpose but the mission.

She gritted her teeth. The idiot was so damn dedicated to his mission that he might have just thrown his life away for it.

"You will follow me." The woman ordered. "I will take you to see the Tsuchikage myself, and from there we will discuss if you are worth keeping alive."

The woman turned to leave down the path, and Sakura gathered that she was expected to follow. For a moment, she felt frozen in place, terrified by what Iwa had to offer her.

And then Gaara's hand was on her shoulder, and she felt herself breathe again.

She had someone she could trust. If things went bad, she and Gaara could rely on each other.

It just pained her, in the back of her mind as she began to walk, that Sai might die without ever knowing that feeling.