Kill Your Heroes
-Chapter Forty-Six-
Acerophobia (Part II)
Tsunade sat with her chin pillowed comfortably on her interlaced fingers, thumbs framing a jawline that remained striking through very liberal use of illusion. Some people called it vanity; Tsunade thought of it as strategy.
Perhaps in her weakest moments, awash in enough sake to travel through time, it also allowed her to pretend that she was still in a world where here team wasn't as infamous for leaving the village as they were for protecting it.
Judging by the look in her eyes, Haruno Sakura was a couple decades and a few bottles short of anything approaching nostalgia. Oh, she didn't say anything—one of the things Tsunade appreciated about Kakashi's young partner was that she hadn't accrued any unnecessary arrogance or lost any of her manners with her appointment to jounin—but her mouth could have been painted with a single slashing brushstroke.
"Something to say?" Tsunade asked, unable to resist prodding the wound.
"With the Akatsuki actively moving to acquire the bijū, is it wise to send Naruto with us? Will the spy even show up? Surely he or she will have heard that Sasori is dead."
Tsunade snorted. "What am I supposed to do, lock him up for the duration? I'm not that kind of Kage, even if Naruto's personality was something a hell of a lot more biddable. He'll leave the village at some point. I'm sending an ANBU along to keep an eye on him, though it'd be best if you didn't tell Naruto that he's along primarily as a minder for our favorite blond knucklehead. And there's a chance no one will show at the rendezvous, that's true. But given your description of Sasori's true nature, there's also a chance that the spy might suspect that Sasori survived the battle. We also don't know how isolated Orochimaru's village is or where the spy is placed within it; they might not be in a position to hear of his defeat before they're due to report to Sasori."
Sakura's expression was still conflicted, but she nodded, the unhappy set of her mouth partially hidden by her shemagh. Tsunade had no doubt she'd be wearing the same expression when she passed on the news of their mission to Kakashi—she really enjoyed this aspect of their partnership, being about to tell the prompt, polite half what needed done and allowing her to wrangle the half who knew exactly what he could get away with.
While the Elders had questioned partnering such a young, inexperienced jounin with Sharingan Kakashi, Tsunade had found even in the short time that she'd been Kage that with Kakashi it was less a matter of matching skills—honestly, the boy had those to spare, with whole reams of techniques that the Sandaime had asked him not to make use of in peacetime for the very good chance of property damage and injury to unlucky bystanders—but rather a matter of finding someone that he was willing to work with. He'd been refusing any sort of permanent partnership since he'd been processed out of ANBU, but when Haruno Sakura had been promoted, it had been him coming to Tsunade to make the request.
Just for that, she would have granted at least a temporary dispensation, but by the time that request had been made she'd had time and opportunity to familiarize herself with the only member of Team Seven whose name alone wasn't enough to build expectations of greatness. She'd already been looking forward to seeing what kind of career this kunoichi would shape with her own hands; when she'd defied a truth that had been accepted since the founding—the Sharingan could not be successfully transplanted and therefore was in no danger of being stolen like the Byakugan—Tsunade had been required to stifle the impulse to transfer her into the medic program and never let her go.
These weren't desperate times, however, so it was her job to respect the decisions of her shinobi and not trample on their dreams and ambitions just because it would make her life easier.
Besides, Sakura made up for it in other ways aside from just being a good field operative; for all that it sounded like something out a bad novel, the young kunoichi had somehow tempered the worst of Kakashi's antisocial habits. Tsunade doubted she'd done it on purpose—or that she was even aware of it—but the fact remained that in making an effort to take better care of his remaining student, Kakashi had begun spending less time with his dead and his books and more time in the presence of real people. He was eating better and more regular meals; he wasn't subject to the drain of a Sharingan turned parasitic with what would have been a perfectly good transplant under other circumstances. His skin tone had improved and he'd gained a little muscle mass under that flak jacket.
As a member of a team that had fallen apart once there wasn't a common threat to hold them together, she really envied that kind of partnership. More than that though, she wanted it to succeed, to continue being a source of strength for them both. Whatever those idiots thought in other villages, Tsunade stood behind the philosophy that shinobi would fight for their village, die for their friends, and survive against all odds when they had something to come back to. For a long time, Hatake Kakashi had lacked that last and she was glad that he'd found it again. Let some other village have their martyrs and their dead heroes. History had given them enough of those; for now she would do all in her power to see that her that her shinobi were given the opportunity to become curmudgeonly old grandmas and grandpas.
This did not mean she could not tease a too-somber teenager while she was still young enough to be easily embarrassed.
"There was just one thing you left out of your report," she told Sakura solemnly.
"Ma'am?" came the anxious reply.
"Isn't Uchiha Itachi the prettiest man you ever did see?"
[Kill Your Heroes]
Sakura could still feel her ears burning as she did everything in her power not to stomp out of the Hokage's office like a toddler throwing a tantrum. It was one thing when one of her senpai teased her—that was nothing new or special—but she hadn't expected it from Tsunade-sama. Some part of her was flattered; leaders didn't tease subordinates they didn't like. She was also really, really embarrassed, because her stammered reply hadn't been at all dignified or convincing.
Sakura was also confused by the part of her that resented being asked to discuss Itachi the person rather than Itachi the informant, even when it was just the Hokage teasing her. It was strange and stupid and in its way as intensely private as her time with Gozen-san.
When she arrived at senpai's apartment, she wasn't surprised to discover he was out and left his copy of the mission brief with the ninken without waiting for his return.
After the directed, relatively quiet bustle of the Hokage's tower and the quiet neighborhood that Kakashi-senpai called home, the crowded streets of the commercial district came as something of a sensory shock. Wanting neither to train nor to study, but most of all not to be left alone with her own thoughts right now, she looked for someone not so closely tied to the Uchiha issue.
She wasn't surprised that it took some time to find someone; it was still early enough that most of her friends would still be doing morning training if they were even in the village. The person she did find, however, more than made up for the wait.
Especially given the company Ino was keeping.
Judging by his facial markings—similar to Kiba's, only thinned and elongated until they more sharply resembled fangs and there were two of them beneath each of his eyes—he belonged to the Tsukigawa clan. Though given the enormous silver-white wolf that flanked Ino's other side, it wasn't exactly an inspired deduction.
Smaller and more reserved than the Inuzuka, the Tsukigawa did not share their wolves outside their clan. The only way to partner with one was to marry in; something that would happen only if one of their unmatched wolves decided that you weren't a waste of their time. In the clan proper, wolves were matched with children at birth—the children were raised to address them as "aniue" or "aneue". After so long together, they even came to have eyes of the same color.
This particular specimen fell well into the handsome part of the tall and dark spectrum, his black hair slicked away from his forehead in thick, unruly spikes. He was probably three or four years older than Ino and nearly a head taller.
He was also, Sakura thought ruefully, sensitive to people staring—he glanced over at her while she was busy cataloguing Ino's catch and quirked both eyebrows in silent question. Ino followed his gaze and smiled broadly when she saw Sakura, waving her over to their side of the street.
"You're back!" she said gleefully, pouncing on Sakura and surprising her with a swift hug. As she released her, she settled into a familiar pose, hand fisted on one hip. "I hear you've been up to some exciting things lately."
"Define exciting," was Sakura's wry retort.
"Oh, you know—saving the Kazekage, killing an infamous S-class missing-nin, things like that."
"I didn't realize that S-class missing-nin came in any other category than infamous."
"And that," Ino replied tartly, "sounds like you're avoiding the subject."
"I might have been there," Sakura allowed. "And what about you?" she asked, letting mischief creep into her voice. "Looks like you've also been up to something…exciting."
Ino, being Ino, didn't blush at the teasing, nor did her companion. Ino grinned instead. "Azumi-sensei was mostly a bodyguard, y'know? So when he decided our tracking skills left something to be desired, he called in a favor from a friend of his, who had his squad take us out for one-on-one field training. This magnificent gentleman," and her hand dropped to pat the wolf's head, "was my partner. We got along so well that we decided we'd try dating."
Ino sighed gustily. "And then he told me that if I wanted to take him out, I'd have to bring this lug along too," she said, thumping her taller companion on the chest, which only caused him to smile down at her fondly. "Anyhow, this is Tsukigawa Gin," the wolf's ears twitched, "and this is Kaoru. Gin, Kaoru, this is Haruno Sakura."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Haruno-chan," the wolf offered. "You've done some good work."
"No, not at all," Sakura demurred anxiously. The only thing she wanted to talk about less than her fight with Sasori was her public encounter with Itachi; she was dreading the day when someone was insensitive enough to ask for details. "I'm also pleased to make your acquaintance."
"You don't need to make light of it," Kaoru rumbled, his tone gruffly kind. "There's such a thing as too much modesty."
Sakura felt the tips of her ears flush. "Well, too much modesty isn't something you'll have to worry about with Ino around. I hope your date goes well," she said cheerfully, bidding them farewell and making sure she was well out of sight before she let her expression fall.
Other people get to grow up and move on with their lives, she thought to herself as she allowed herself to wander aimlessly through the crowded streets, abruptly no longer in the mood for the kind of company her friends had to offer. Sasuke, who's the one holding us back now?!
Her bitterness wasn't something she wanted to share with the people she cared for, but there were others in her life. People who stood outside the simplistic categories of "like" and "dislike."
Gozen-san—well, she won't be worried, but…
It was just as weird to miss someone like Gozen-san, who was unapologetically sadistic and without contest the most cynical person she'd ever met. But what Gozen-san offered, aside from practical advice she was never quite emotionally ready to hear, was perspective.
Shunshin made the journey to Gozen-san's home a short one and it was only as her feet hit the steps of the front porch that Sakura realized she was still in the mission wear that she'd reported to Tsunade-sama in. God, if I don't pull myself together, she's going to eat me alive, Sakura realized ruefully.
But it was too late now to go back home and change, as Gozen-san might be getting on in years but she'd certainly sensed Sakura's arrival. So she stepped boldly forward, rapping perfunctorily on the doorframe and letting herself inside. She shed her boots in the genkan, neatly arranging them to face the door as she stepped into a pair of house slippers that had become "hers" in the course of her visits.
She wasn't surprised to find Gozen-san in the kitchen.
"What are you staring at, girl?" Gozen-san asked her. "If you're waiting on me to welcome you back, you'd do better to take off that flak jacket and make yourself useful."
Sakura obediently complied and was soon putting her hard-earned knife skills to more mundane use as she diced and chopped and generally did as she was told, reflecting wryly that not only had Gozen-san honed her genjutsu, most of her current housekeeping skills could really be attributed to this unforgiving woman. Today's task was pickling vegetables, which was far more labor intensive than simply plucking them from a market shelf.
By the time they were finished the sun was sinking low in the sky. If some of the vegetables tasted especially sour when they enjoyed them through the winter, Sakura would know that some of her turmoil and bitterness had seeped into them, because some of her turmoil had disappeared in the process.
"So I hear that you went to play in the world's biggest sandbox," Gozen-san remarked. "I suppose I should recognize the fact that you crawled out of there with all your limbs intact. I have something for you."
"…something for me?" Sakura repeated warily.
Gozen-san rolled her eyes and shuffled off to another room, which briefly made Sakura consider bolting for the door. Steeling her nerves and gritting her teeth, she instead took a seat at the table and waited for Gozen-san to reemerge. It didn't take very long and the old woman plopped a journal unceremoniously down in front of her.
Unsanitary, was Sakura's first thought. Not only was it tattered, the paper the old kind that wore soft as cloth instead of yellowing, it was stained with what appeared upon first, second, and even third glance to be blood. Who died all over this? was what she wanted to ask as she reached out tentatively toward the journal.
"That's Araki Kenta," Gozen-san said, as if she could read her thoughts. "He left a little bit of a mess behind when he went."
"An enemy?" Sakura asked, wondering whether she was about to receive some trophy of
"To himself, in the end. Before that, he was a member of my ANBU squad. I told you how we made use of genjutsu on the battlefield. Have you ever been curious about how we were able to do such a thing or were you making stupid assumptions about my chakra capacity in my youth?"
"…stupid assumptions?" Sakura ventured.
Gozen-san snorted. "You'd think after enough time spent with me, you'd outgrow that nasty habit. Think about it for a moment. Ninja with kage-level chakra are the exceptions, not the rule. We certainly never had enough of them for them to play extended roles in any campaign. So we had to develop a way to make use of S-rank jutsu ourselves, without having anyone collapse of chakra exhaustion. Nowadays there are lots of methods, some less polite than others, to use the chakra of several people cooperatively, but we were in an age where there was still resistance to working on teams not only of mixed gender, but mixed families. So we were feeling our way through the dark and it was Araki who was our expert, such as it were."
Sakura frowned, her fingers spread over the splotched cover of the journal. "…if he'd been carrying this with him in the field when he died, he would have sealed something like this, wouldn't he? It's too bulky to shove into a pouch."
"Oh, not all of us get to die in the field. The world's not that merciful. During one of our operations, Araki and another member of our squad were exposed to an experimental chemical weapon. The other man died during the mission, but Araki survived. Or that was what it looked like from the outside. On the inside, he was rotting—it was eating lesions in his brain the whole time. He hid it well; every ninja who spends any time in ANBU gets to have a closer personal relationship with paranoia. But he was surrounded by people whose lives depended on their observation skills. We knew something was wrong and the medic-nin began treatment, but even with today's advances in medicine I don't know whether it would have done any good.
"We thought the treatment was working, right up until the day he butchered his lover. And then it came out that he was still suffering periodically not only from intense paranoid delusions, but also auditory hallucinations and fits of irrational rage. The rage ended and he had her blood on his hands; I heard he walked into police headquarters and begged them to put him down like a dog. But he was also a victim. In the end, he spent the rest of his life in prison in solitary confinement. Writing this," Gozen-san said, stabbing her finger emphatically down on the journal. "His methods and his techniques, liberally interspersed with his madness. And when he'd finished, he did to himself what they wouldn't do for him."
"…and you're giving it to me?"
"Well, it is a nasty, tangled mess from a troubled mind, so it's not as if you won't have to work at it," Gozen-san cackled.
"But why now?" Sakura pressed, which made the old woman's expression grow somber.
"Old farmers learn to forecast the weather; old shinobi learn to forecast storms of a different sort. Whenever anyone starts collecting bijū and finds themselves successful, it's already too late to start worrying. Think of this as a countermeasure. Trouble is coming to this village. You ought to prepare as if you think a war is coming."
"War?!" Sakura asked in alarm.
"Well, they might not call it that when they write it down in the history books, but when you're the one standing on the battlefield, it won't matter what they want to call it."
[Kill Your Heroes]
Sakura was making an active effort to avoid Naruto; judging by the ninken information network that faithfully arrived at her house about five minutes before she was really ready to be awake, Kakashi-senpai was also avoiding contact since he'd sent a messenger bird with the particulars of their official mission to their blond teammate. Not just with Naruto, but with Sakura and the ninken as well.
She felt like she was listening to a housewife complaining about her son when Pakkun grumbled, "He stayed out until all hours of the night, too. He hasn't done that in years. Even when it comes to women, he's back—"
"Stop," Sakura demanded, holding out on hand to reinforce the command. "I neither need nor want to know. We leave later this morning, so it'll be over soon, one way or another. Speaking of leaving, I'm going out now. I'll leave the door cracked if you'd like to stay, just remember to close up the house when you leave."
"Where're you going, Sacchan?" Shiba asked curiously.
"I have someone that I need to visit before we go," Sakura replied quietly.
The dogs exchanged speaking looks, but Pakkun only said, "Be safe."
"Mm-hm," Sakura hummed in noncommittal reply before she slipped out the door. She'd gotten into the habit of using the body flicker to travel, what with avoiding Naruto and sharpening her skills in anticipation of a Sasuke who'd had three years with a Sannin to widen the skill gap between them. Her hands slid over the hilts of her knives. No matter how much I sharpen my fangs, what does it matter if I'm not strong enough to bring down my prey?
Not that this was a kill order; they were authorized for retrieval only. The mission came with a strong recommendation to abort if they encountered Orochimaru—the plan as it stood was for senpai to interrogate whomever they found at the meeting point and to hope that Sasori was as talented at placing spies in Sound as he had been in Suna.
On the heels of the ninken, there'd been a message from the Hokage. Their numbers had multiplied along the way, so it would be two strangers instead of one waiting for her at the gate.
She passed into the Hyūga compound and traveled the now familiar path to their memorial garden. "Good morning, obā-san," she offered quietly to the elderly woman who could be reliably found here in the early morning.
"Good morning," came the warm reply from a woman who faithfully came to eat breakfast with a husband who'd been dead almost as long as Sakura had been alive.
People did strange things for love.
Though she was here for Tatsuo, she felt a closeness to senpai in this garden, knowing that somewhere, he was having his own consultation with the dead.
[Kill Your Heroes]
"Senpai," Sakura began sweetly, "you are in charge of this traveling circus. Please reign it in," she hissed.
Kakashi-senpai glanced up from his book and looked back toward the source of the atmosphere that was threatening to bring on a headache. Senpai raised a brow at the commotion, then shrugged, turning back to the open pages of his novel. "Mah, mah, you can't interfere too much in these things. Children need to learn how to get along with others."
Coming from you, that sort of makes me want to smack you.
Judging from the exasperated sigh that came from Kakashi-senpai's other side, their ANBU companion, who'd given his name as Yamato, was also suffering from a fraying temper.
"Sakura-chan!" Naruto demanded. "Come back here and explain to this idiot—!"
"Oh, so you need someone else to finish your arguments as well as your battles?" From the tone, it couldn't be characterized as a taunt, but the words were enough to set Naruto off again.
"Naruto!" Sakura said sharply, "If you don't like what he has to say, ignore him and stop starting conversations with him. You don't have to be friends, but you do have to work together."
"Why aren't you yelling at him?!" Naruto protested.
Sakura's eyes slid over to the boy he was jabbing his finger at, meeting placid black eyes. Seeing her attention was focused on him, the boy smiled, a stiff and unnatural movement. Sakura fell back until she was right beside him and could lean close and whisper into his ear. "You're holding it for too long. A "natural" smile is brief; humans can't hold on to happiness for that long." She pulled away and raised her voice to a normal speaking level. "Sorry about my teammate, but just bear with him."
It was her turn to smile, just a little too falsely bright, as she pulled away, "After all, it'd be a shame if it was the senpai who ought to know better that was causing trouble, wouldn't it?"
He just blinked at her and, tilting his head slightly to one side, said, "I'll consider taking your advice, hag."
[Kill Your Heroes]
There would be no subterfuge. With senpai and his Sharingan along, it was purely a capture and interrogate mission. That did not mean, however, that they wouldn't take precautions.
They'd split into two groups, with Naruto begrudgingly agreeing to remain with Yamato, who'd kept his squad back outside the normal sensory range for a jounin. Kakashi-senpai had placed Pakkun with them; if he summoned the dog, they were to come and reinforce their position. If for some reason Kakashi-senpai was unable to summon Pakkun, Sakura had submitted herself to being painted on by Sai. Several of his ink animals, primed with his chakra and requiring only a slight nudge of her own to activate, hid beneath her clothes. With someone else it might have been strangely intimate, but Sai had been so indifferent to the process she couldn't even work up a blush.
For now they were observing the Tenchi Bridge, Sakura's back pressed comfortably against the trunk of a tree as she surveyed the wooden stretch through her binoculars. That's that man who I thought was a hidden proctor in the chunin exam, Sakura thought with an unpleasant jolt of recognition. Yakushi Kabuto. But he was registered as a Konoha-nin, so why…? Then she recalled those too-accurate ninja information cards. He was a spy, she registered numbly. But whose originally? Sasori's? No, if he was Sasori's, there'd be no reason to have him follow Orochimaru. With Sasori's techniques, he wouldn't have to risk transitioning someone into Orochimaru's organization and waste his time and effort if they ended up useless. He could have taken someone that already belonged to him and made him his puppet without anyone the wiser.
…but if Orochimaru trusted him enough to put Yakushi in deep cover in Konoha or recruited him as a sleeper agent, would he be careless enough to miss Sasori's jutsu? But Suna did…
"He was in Konohagakure during the chunin exam," she said softly to senpai.
"Aa," Kakashi-senpai acknowledged, "I remember. The only one who opted out before the preliminary round. He'd have stood out less if he'd just lost his fight."
"…we have no way of confirming he was actually Sasori's. Do you think it's a trap?"
"Oh, probably," Kakashi-sensei answered lackadaisically.
"…we're going to spring it, aren't we?" Sakura sighed, resigned to the idea. She tucked away her binoculars and slipped on her combat glasses, pulling her shemagh up the bridge of her nose. "Are you going to take responsibility if Orochimaru himself is lurking somewhere?"
"I'm sure he's busy. And if he isn't, he's the kind who isn't satisfied with just killing you. He'll want a little conversation first."
Sakura had some very vivid memories about that aspect of his personality and wasn't eager to experience a reprise of the Forest of Death. But she knew what Kakashi-senpai was intimating. If Orochimaru decided to have some entertainment at their expense, that would be their only window of opportunity for escape. After that…
"If you get me killed, you'll owe me dinner," she grumbled aloud, while some part of her wailed in protest.
"Remember to mind your manners when we go say hello," Kakashi-senpai called up to her as he vanished from his perch.
Sakura took a deep, unsteady breath and followed his lead, her knives resting lightly against Kabuto's back while Kakashi-senpai's hand came to rest none too gently on his shoulder.
"Let's chat, shall we?" Kakashi-senpai invited and from the way Kabuto stiffened, she'd guess that his Sharingan was in full view.
Whatever he was to Sasori, whatever he was to Orochimaru, this man had fed information from their village to people who wanted to do harm to the people and places she cared about.
Whatever Kakashi-senpai showed him, she did not feel in the least sorry or guilty for what they were about to do.