NOTES:

Many thanks for taking the time to read this story. A special "thank you" to all the reviewers and critics who keep me motivated and make me want to work more on this story.


November 4th – morning

Sasuke woke up to an empty tent, with the last traces of her warmth gone from the sheets they had been entangled in. He remembered how his arms had tightened around her frame when she first attempted to make her escape, and for a while, she had remained still in his embrace, allowing him to feel the softness of her skin and the heat of her body. But when his hands had started their slow caresses, she had immediately tensed up and was quickly out of his arms, before he had the time to protest. He had watched with still sleepy eyes how she dressed up in a sitting position, making quick work of her wrinkled medic outfit.

She had turned around slowly to face him with searching eyes.

"I have to go," she whispered.

"Ah." At least she stayed the night.

She seemed to hesitate for a brief second, pearly teeth biting her full lower lip in the darkness. But whatever made her pause, she shook it off, and a few seconds later she was fumbling with the entrance of the tent and was out. He had closed his eyes and let a heavy sigh out, his body torn between the remaining sleepiness and the growing erection that called for immediate attention. With a lazy hand, he had reached down and stroked himself slowly, the vivid image of her reddened cheeks and open mouth burned in his mind. Once satisfied, he had felt back into a much needed sleep, a dreamless one.

Waking up for the second time, he felt a pang of loneliness and frustration at her absence, but if anything, he felt like he finally was starting to understand Sakura's mixed signals. She wanted him. That he was certain of. If she still loved him was not something he could determine yet, but she wanted him. But there was something she was not telling him. Something she was holding back. And his instincts were telling him that whatever secret she kept from him, it somehow had to do with her tensed reactions during the act. The sex had been awkward, and her grimaces and sharp intake of breaths had betrayed more pain than pleasure, something that deeply bothered him. She had not asked him to stop, she had just laid there beneath him. But once the difficult penetration had been over, she had surprised him by leaving her body closely entangled with his, his heart beating in a happy nervousness as her hands had softly stroked his arms and shoulders, as timid lips left humid kisses on his neck and shoulder blade. Her tenderness had been short lived, but he already felt like the memory of it would keep him awake on lonely nights. A small smile crept on the Uchiha stoic features.


November 4th – later that same morning

In the pale morning light, Sasuke made his way through the camp, fully clad in his ANBU gears, smooth long strides shortening the distance to the entrance of the underground meeting room where Captains had been called up. Close to the facility, he saw Naruto sitting on a tree trunk, cerulean blue eyes fixing him from afar. Knowing that avoiding the dobe was pointless anyway, he walked in his direction and stopped in front of the brooding form of his friend.

"Your team?" enquired the dark-haired man.

"Will be okay," muttered the blonde. "Yours?"

"One injured. Nothing too serious."

"Good," said Naruto with before letting out a small sigh. He raised his head up to face his standing friend, and said in a serious tone: "Many Captains are talking of sending new under-covered agents within their ranks. You were not there for the meeting last night. What do you think?"

"It could work," said the Uchiha heir with a pensive expression on his aristocratic features. "It's risky though. It will depends on who they sent out."

"Some Captains expressed the ideas to send out more such as Rookie ANBU still in training."

"Now, that's foolish," said Sasuke. "Kakashi won't allow that," he added with certainty.

"Kakashi left for the frontline last night. Akira, the Hyuuga, is in charge now."

"Shit," breathed Sasuke. With Kakashi at the head of the platoon, they were part of the small council of decisions-makers and had a direct influence on the course of things. Without his presence there, both young men were deprived of a much needed authority and influence over the group of battle-hardened and few blood-thirsty ANBU Captains. Sasuke was not above them in hierarchy and Naruto lacked any official title beside the one as "apprentice Hokage". Sasuke kicked a mutt of frosted earth in frustration and put his hands in his pockets in a brisk motion, anger bubbling behind his serious demeanor.

"Can I ask you something?" asked Naruto. His blond friend's voice held an emotion that Sasuke couldn't quite pinpoint but who made him turn around more fully to face his friend all the same.

"What?" he asked back, cautious.

"What about Sakura?"

"What about her?" asked back Sasuke quickly, too quickly.

"I saw her coming out of your tent this morning," explained his friend, deep cerulean eyes unwavering under his intimidating dark stare. "Did she spend the night with you?"

Sasuke's first reflex was anger, a wish to deny it or yell that it was none of Naruto's business. But something made him pause before his angry speech lashed out: the expression on Naruto's face. What he saw there reminded him that his friend cared about Sakura as much as he did, that he viewed her as a sister. He was asking out of concern for her, not misplaced curiosity.

"Ah. She did," he admitted in a barely audible voice.

Naruto nodded at that, and stared hard at the floor for a full minute before speaking up again: "I know how much you care about her, Sasuke. But I can't help but feeling uneasy about this…"

"I don't plan on hurting her," said the brooding Uchiha patiently.

"I know you don't. But there is so much left unsaid between the two of you that… that I can't help but think that you should both confront your own demons, your own reasons as to why it took you that long to try to be together when you are so obviously crazy about each other."

"I'm not sure she feels that way," countered Sasuke, a feeling of insecurity that the young man had been confronted to in his life coursing through his veins.

"Please," sighed Naruto exasperated. "She never stopped loving you. She does not know how to breathe without the idea of you."

"That's really exaggerated, you kn-"

"It's not," barked Naruto in interruption. "You don't know her like I do. You never saw her break down like I and Kakashi did. There is so much you are not seeing, Sasuke."

Sasuke did not feel the strength to contradict his friend, and part of him could not help but agree with the accusation of his friend. How could one love someone so much and yet know so little at the same time? He felt like he did know her. He felt that they had this implicit understanding that no words would ever be able to convey. However, he knew deep down that Naruto was right. Whatever the strength of the bond he had with Sakura, that bond always failed to reveal the enigma that was his now pink-haired lover.

Naruto stood up from the trunk he had been sitting on and let his serious gaze meet the onyx eyes of his friends.

"There is something wrong with Sakura," said Naruto slowly, waiting for his friend's reaction.

Sasuke snapped out of his thoughts at his friend's declaration, one that resonated deeply with his own conclusions about the young woman. Although he wondered exactly what Naruto was referring to. He knew his friend could not possibly know about her apparent fear of intimacy, so the question was: What did Naruto know that he himself did not?

"What are you referring to?" asked Sasuke cautiously.

"I think"… started Naruto hesitantly, "I think someone is after her or something. Even abusing her maybe..."

That is definitely not something I know, thought Sasuke.

"Who?" asked the Uchiha, a dark aura already spreading in the air around him, something that Naruto did not fail to notice.

"Some ANBU guy. I don't know who…" added Naruto sadly, bowing his head low so as to avoid the fury in the gaze of his best friend.

"What?" snapped Sasuke, all countenance forgotten, raw anger pouring out of every pore of his being.

"I just saw the guy once, okay? And everything happened so fast. I was under shock, alright? My first concern was for Sakura. When I came back to my senses, the bastard was long gone."

"What the hell did he do to her?"

"I think he was trying to… choke her or someth-… yeah, well. And her clothes were torn too."

Sasuke had to use all his self-control not to snap at his friend and let his killing fury take him on a wild rampage. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths with exaggeratedly slow motions so as to regain the some sort of control over his body and mind. If whatever Naruto was hinting at was true, then there was more than what he suspected behind Sakura's uneasiness around him and her avoiding them since she joined ANBU a few months ago. Whoever did that and whatever actually happened, someone would pay. Sasuke would made sure of that.

"Any idea who that could be?" asked Sasuke with still closed eyes so as to hide his bloody spinning sharingan from his friend.

"All I can remember was that the guy was really tall."

Sasuke thoughts raced in his head, trying to narrow down the ANBU males fitting that description. Only, most of them fitted that description. It's no use, he sighed mentally.

"Anything else?" he asked again.

"No, I'm sorry… I first rushed to Sakura and then got into a sort of argument with her as she would not tell me who the fucker was or what the heck had happened."

Sasuke groaned in frustration, no longer bothering to conceal his spinning red eyes from the world. Naruto's brows rose slightly at the sight, but he did not comment. Sasuke's mind kept racing, trying to figure out who could be after Sakura and also how the hell had she gotten herself in such a situation in the first place. Sakura was not a weak person, neither physically nor mentally.

So why? How? Sasuke kept thinking:

She would not have been intimidated by a fellow ANBU. Collective blackmail would have been heard of, so that could be ruled out. It must be just one person. Her team? Mei, that prick Ashai and her Captain. Who was the guy again? Ah right, Shinji Nakahara. The team was not known for conflicts or issues of that kind. Could they be ruled out? Other Captains? Was it someone trying to target him through her? After all, more than a few ANBUs, especially Captains were jealous about his rapid ascension through the ranks and his close ties with Kakashi and Naruto (thanks to whom he had been reluctantly accepted back at the top of Konoha's ruling elite).

Sakura. Sakura. Sakura. She must have felt isolated in ANBU, cut off from her old team, from her friends of the Rookie 9. Why had she kept silent all along? Was this the reason behind her growing suffering since she joined ANBU? Whoever was doing this must be pressuring her with something… probably someone she fears … someone with authority. As much as she was rebellious at heart, Sakura was a trained soldier who fell in line with her commanders' directives.

So… it definitely has to be a Captain, concluded Sasuke.


November 4th – late morning

Sakura wept the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand. She walked out of the operation cubicle with a weary but satisfied sigh and dropped on the first wooden box, her tired body and shaky legs welcoming the sitting position with relief. She had done a total of three operations in the span of a few hours, and her chakra reserves were seriously low. She knew that if Tsunade or Shizune were here, she would get a serious scolding. Luckily for her, they were not. The short night before had not helped her already tired condition either.

But I would not change it for the world, she thought.

Medic assistants chatted happily around her and she felt an unexplainable surge of happiness and contentment run through her being, the feeling lately so foreign to her and so strikingly intense that a small smile crept to her lips.

"And one more saved," said Azumi, a red-haired medic in her late twenties with large round glasses that made her eyes look much bigger than they actually were. She patted Sakura on the shoulder affectionately, and Sakura returned her smile.

A tall ANBU walked in the medic tent, politely nodding to the people on his way. Even without his pale eyes and black long hair, his air of natural authority and his manners would have betrayed him. The handsome Hyuuga Captain walked straight to the crouched form of the Hokage apprentice and after a curt "Hello" he handed her a sealed scroll.

"Akira," greeted Sakura while closing her hand around the white roll of paper.

"How are things in here?" enquired the Hyuuga Captain.

"Serious injuries but we managed to avoid further casualties so far…" Coded words to avoid mentioning the horror they never got used to in spite of their profession.

"Good. Kakashi left for the front lines yesterday night. Sasuke and Naruto were dispatched earlier this morning as well. I thought you would like to know," he added in a softer tone.

"Thank you, Akira."

"You too have been assigned to a new mission," said the Hyuuga more gravely. "The scroll will provide you with all the information you need. The remaining Captains present this morning opted for a new infiltration within their ranks. Your Captain recommended you," he added, his tone letting Sakura understand that she should be honored to have her superior's recommendation for sch a high risk mission.

"Alright, I'll get read-"

"He will be accompanying you," said Akira. "Your Captain, I mean," he added quickly, scratching his head nonchalantly.

Sakura felt as if the air was being painfully forced out of her lungs.