A/N: I didn't think to note it before, but I am very glad that most everyone liked Gozen-san. Or was at least intrigued by what she had to say, because she's here to stay. I felt like canon-wise we were told a lot of things-like there was tension between the Uchiha and the village-without meeting characters who strongly felt that way. And given that the point of Madara/Tobi is that no one knows about Madara/Tobi, I was always a little curious why people who were in a position to know it was a risk weren't more angry about the Kyūbi attack. Hence Gozen Reiji, someone who thinks that the Hokage should be willing to put the village above everything else in his or her life since they're asking others to die for it and who has no patience with hypocrisy.

Kill Your Heroes

-Chapter Twenty-Nine-

Chronophobia (Part I)

When no one immediately spoke—Sakura was cringing in anticipation, Naruto shamefaced but stubborn because Sasuke wasn't speaking, and Sasuke wearing the iciest expression he could muster—Kakashi sighed. "Fine. We'll do it your way," Kakashi-sensei said flatly. "Sakura, when your teammates have decided that the best way to settle their differences is a public duel, I don't care about the property damage you caused seperating them. That'll come out of their pay. Is your arm alright?"

When she hesitated, glancing over at Sasuke, who was pointedly not looking at her, he ordered, "Go have someone look at that."

"Now?" Sakura asked, because though it hurt, she'd been really hurt before. And this conversation seemed like a very important one.

His single visible eye narrowed, but when she tucked in her chin and met his stare mulishly, he relented. "I suppose you're owed just as much of an explanation as I am, since you're the one who ended it. Now, who wants to tell me why it seemed like a good idea to use lethal techniques to settle your differences? I didn't teach you Chidori to have you use it against your teammate, Sasuke, any more than Jiraiya would have taught you that particular technique if he'd known what use you'd put it to, Naruto. I don't care if you lost your temper. I don't care that you didn't think—that wouldn't have made either of you any less dead if Sakura hadn't interfered. From the moment you step past the Academy doors, you're taught to respect your weapons, that they're tools, not toys. Ninjutsu isn't any different."

"Yes, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto agreed miserably, staring down at his hand and then clenching it into a fist. "I...I wasn't thinking. I was just so pissed. But it won't happen again," he promised. "Because...just 'cause you didn't mean it doesn't mean anything, not if someone gets hurt."

Kakashi-sensei spared the remorseful genin a brief smile. "There are always accidents during training and no will hold those against you, but that is one technique that is never appropriate to use during sparring." Naruto, glancing down at the crater he'd left, winced and nodded.

Attention turned to Sasuke, whose eyes were shadowed by temper, not regret. He scowled at Kakashi-sensei, lips barely parting as he muttered, "Got it."

Kakashi-sensei's brow rose. "Really?" he queried. "Then I suppose you won't mind walking Sakura down and explaining why she has minor electrical burns?"

There were clear lines of tension in Sasuke's jaw as he stalked toward the door. Sakura wasn't certain whether she was meant to follow, but when he reached the door, he turned and gave a look that was a silent demand to follow. She trailed him silently, Naruto staying behind with Kakashi-sensei. She could hear the low, indistinct murmur of their voices as she followed her dark-haired teammate down the empty stairwell.

Once Sasuke had made her uncomfortable through sheer embarrassment, too afraid of looking less than her best to ever really be at ease with him. Now—now it was unease that made the hair on her arms prickle as their footsteps echoed, the stairwell creating a sense of intimacy despite the people that were just on the other side of the doors. She'd feared fire first and conquered that fear, but now it was Sasuke himself. Or, perhaps, a Sasuke less than himself. Sakura couldn't forget him in the grips of that seal and though she couldn't see that livid, living tattoo peeking from under his collar, the look on his face as he'd launched himself at Naruto bore an awful resemblance to the one he'd worn back then.

She was occupied with considering the idea of never really feeling safe with Sasuke again when he spoke. "Thank you," he grunted, almost too soft for her to hear.

Sakura didn't have to ask him to clarify. She still didn't feel comfortable, the scent of sweat and ozone too much for that as he paused to let her catch up, but she felt better, lighter somehow. Team Seven might never be Team Ten, but there was still time for them to find their own balance.

[Kill Your Heroes]

Sakura had just gotten her vest back from tailoring when she received the notice from the mission office. Zipping up the vest and settling it as comfortably as she could manage over her habitual outfit—she wasn't going to wear the standard uniform unless it was a formal occasion—Sakura was surprised to find that her trepidation was almost swallowed by her eagerness to not see the reminders of the recent invasion whenever she stepped out the door.

Also, a mission would distract her from the fact that her mother was coming home. Just for a little while on leave, but it would be long enough. Sakura didn't know if she could or should tell her about everything that had happened since she'd become a genin—she'd been worried enough that her daughter had already made chūnin. Proud, yes, but worried, just as she'd been when she'd heard about Sakura's team roster. Her mother's team had drifted apart when two of its members had taken support positions and the other had been absorbed by another team undergoing similar growing pains as young genin found career paths they wanted to follow. Her father's team, by contrast, had remained intact.

The Sakura first assigned to Team Seven had thought she'd follow Sasuke anywhere, but now, a little more battered and a little wiser, she could read between the lines of her mother's letter and see that Mebuki had hoped that she'd find her calling a little further from the battlefield. Her mother clearly knew what a field promotion implied. Konoha had taken her heaviest casualties among her field shinobi. With this promotion, without a noncombat specialization, her career as it stood ended in an urn or as a jounin.

Sakura bundled all that up and set it aside as best she could as she reported to the mission office. The Hokage herself was giving mission briefs this morning, which gave Sakura an additional incentive to nervousness above and beyond the absence of her teammates. Shino was there, however, and Tenten slid in the door only moments after Sakura. Sakura's brows soared even higher when Hinata peeked around the door, then was gently shoved inside by Ino.

The five of them—well, alright, the four girls—stared curiously at one another as Tsunade-sama finished briefing an older team on a C-rank. When the door had closed beyond them, they were waved forward.

"Well," Tsunade-sama said, resting her chin on her interlaced hands, "here's your first taste of a mission outside of your genin team, without any jounin to supervise. I'll do broad strokes for you. The details will be provided in the mission packet. There's a ryokan in the south that's been having some trouble with a group of bandits that have moved into the area. We suspect the bandits of having some ninja training, because local law enforcement hasn't been able to track them back to their base. It's a small group, no more than ten, and on the grounds of the inn they've confined themselves so far to making lewd comments to the nakai and demanding food be prepared and served. But they're growing more aggressive about harassing the girls and recently the travelers they've been accosting aren't just being robbed, they're being badly beaten as well. In our last communication with Gion-san, it was done basically at her doorstep. So, before any of her nakai are raped or any of her guests murdered, Gion-san commissioned us to take care of her problem.

"You three genin are going to replace the nakai, several of whom have returned home until the problem is taken care of. A ryokan's reputation is its lifeblood, which is why Gion-san isn't willing to let her service of what guests are still coming to suffer while we get the rest of it straightened out. In theory, you're young enough that even if the bandits think that you're shinobi, they won't consider you a threat. Your leads for this mission will be Aburame and Haruno, who have the responsibility of tracking the bandits, restraining them, and turning them over to law enforcement. Understood?"

A somewhat ragged chorus of affirmatives answered the Hokage, who nodded sharply. She plucked a manila folder from the chaos of the desk and proffered it. Sakura glanced over at Shino, who tilted his head toward the Hokage. So it was Sakura who went forward to take the folder. Weighing its weight in her hand, she suggested they adjourn somewhere else to go over the details and was met with ready agreement.

The thought of facing ten men might have made her more nervous with a different partner, but if they only suspected that they had ninja training, she had some confidence that Shino's kikaichū would at least negate their ninjutsu. It worried her a little that they were only supposed to subdue them, but she'd cross that bridge when they came to it.

Once they'd left the Tower, it was Ino would took the lead, finding them a neat little café whose walled courtyard offered them almost total privacy this early in the morning. Inside the folder were printed packets for each of them, Sakura and Shino's different from the others, and a handful of photographs and topographic maps of the area. They studied the information in relative silence—Ino badgering them for their orders and reciting it faultlessly back at the waiter when he appeared—until everyone had read over the data at least once. Sakura, by virtue of practice, apparently read faster than anyone else and she'd only read it over a second time out of habit. Her memorization scores were even better than Ino's.

"This sounds like it might be fun," Ino offered. "Well, for the three of us, at least."

Tenten grinned. "I have to admit, there hasn't been much call for dressing up on my team's missions before. I haven't worn a kimono since kunoichi classes, though. Unless you count yukata."

"No worries," Ino reassured her. She flipped her long ponytail back over her shoulder with her hand in an exaggerated movement. "We'll have your feminine wiles up to par in no time. And Hinata-chan should be even more used to kimono than I am, right?"

Hinata flushed at being addressed directly and ducked her head. "Yes," she answered in a small voice.

"If it comes to looking demure in anything, I'd take Hinata-san's advice over Ino's," Sakura confided to Tenten. "Ino always managed to look one photographer short of a glamour shot whenever we did formalwear—It was the only thing our kunoichi instructors ever criticized her about."

"I can't decide if that was supposed to be an insult or a really backhanded compliment," Ino retorted. "Hinata-chan, you do already own cosmetic contacts, don't you?"

"Yes," the girl replied, more firmly this time. "Do you have to wear them too, Ino-san?"

"Not for the same reason you do," Ino said with a smile. "I'm unlikely to be kidnapped or anything, but if I want to pass as a civilian, my eyes are kind of a dead giveaway."

Sakura glanced over at Shino and asked tentatively, "Do you think we'll have trouble with our end of the assignment?"

She'd never been close to the shinobi in the Academy, finding the idea of bugs living beneath his skin too much for more than politeness, but that was before she'd watched spiders drip down out a leak in the ceiling. Sakura was far from liking them, but she was confident she wouldn't embarrass herself or him by shrieking.

"There should be no issues," Shino responded after a moment's consideration. "Weighing their numbers and what intelligence we have on them against our collective skills, barring unexpected circumstances, we should find them only a moderate challenge."

Given how closely Shino's analysis paralleled her own, she wasn't surprised to find her own confidence buoyed, though she winced at the mention of unexpected circumstances. When they dispersed to pack their own supplies, Sakura and Ino were left to walk home together, which was deeply nostalgic. Especially as Ino was clearly anticipating the mission, but away from an audience she was quieter than most people suspected. Social engineer, moodmaker, trendsetter, all those things were true, but that wasn't all that she was.

They walked in almost-comfortable silence for a long time, but then Ino spoke. "I'm glad," she told Sakura. "We never really got to work together much in the Academy when we started running practice scenarios, because, well, you don't want to put the first and second ranked kunoichi on the same team. And we don't really hang out anymore. I miss that," she said, tone turning wistful. "Mom and dad keep asking if we've made peace over the Uchiha and wondering if you'll start coming over to eat again. I've tried coming to your house to ask, but you're either ignoring me or you're never home."

"Not ignoring you," Sakura responded. "Even when we were fighting over Sasuke, I couldn't manage that. I don't think anyone could," she said slyly, which made Ino grin. "I just-I'm busy and the house feels empty with dad still gone. I do training sessions in the morning, then if I'm lucky there's a solo D-rank open for me. If not, I go to the library. Kakashi-sensei is a huge fan of assigned reading, because it's like training me but without any effort on his part. Then there's this one old lady that I've been helping out in the afternoon. I was doing D-ranks for her for a while, but now I just go," she admitted.

What she didn't admit was the amount of time she'd spent lurking in Kakashi's apartment while he'd been in a coma or that the old lady was a large part of the reason she didn't want to be alone in her own home.

Ino eyed her until Sakura shifted uncomfortably. "You should come over once we get back," the blonde said. "I know that you've seen and done things that I haven't yet, but I don't think that's a good enough reason to let you deal with it by yourself. I let you try to end our friendship once over Sasuke and I shouldn't have done that. And I shouldn't have just let you walk away the last time, either," she remarked. "You know you could always talk to my Dad, if you need to talk to someone. He's super-good at keeping secrets."

"In the job description?" Sakura offered in an echo of an old joke.

"In the job description," Ino confirmed with a grin, but it faded quickly. "You don't look like you're sleeping at all, Sakura. And trust me, your looks need all the help they can get."

Sakura scoffed. "I'm fine," she lied.

"Uh-huh," Ino replied in the tone of the unconvinced. "Right, well, I'm just going to go pack. Are really going to wear that vest with that outfit?"

"For now. All the extra pockets might make up for the fact that it is likely the most unflattering thing I've ever worn. At least until I can afford a sealing scroll. I didn't realize how expensive they were."

"You're bending space-time with chakra," Ino pointed out as she stopped at the door to her house. "You think that would come cheap?"