Chapter sixteen
Deception
----
Sakura felt Kakashi freeze at the touch of her mouth, but he endured the kiss almost stoically and after a moment she had to draw back. There was a twist to his lips, a look of sardonic amusement, and she felt suddenly cheated and not a little embarrassed. Those long days of wallowing in self-pity, the sleepless nights of wishes and abortive fantasies - this is what they'd all come down to. A single, dream-shattering kiss. A gesture that looked like it hadn't been wanted in the first place, as it certainly hadn't been reciprocated.
"I'm sorry," she said stiffly, trying to move out of his embrace. "I don't know what came over me, please forget this ever happened."
His arms stayed firm around her and he gave a low laugh, the sound flowing out and around her like the water keeping them afloat. "No, I'm sorry, Sakura," he said, bringing a hand up to stroke at her damp hair. "You took me by surprise, that's all. I wasn't expecting you to...show initiative like that."
There was something in his tone she couldn't quite identify, but for some reason it sent chills down her spine. No, she told herself, I'm imagining things. And the water is cold and I'm nak-
She repressed a shriek, letting out a stifled gurgle instead. He glanced down, concerned by the odd noise. "What's wrong?" he asked quickly, his eyes flicking past her, looking almost hunted.
"I - bath - no clothes -" she managed, before he laughed and released her, turning his back.
"Ah, of course. Go and get dressed. We'll have plenty of time to talk when you're finished." This time his voice held a note of low promise and she shivered again, crossing to the shore with brisk, fluid strokes. She grabbed the bundle of clothing, along with her discarded weapons pouch, and then raced behind a tree to towel herself off in record time. She donned the patched pants and loose shirt he'd bought for her in Ontou and leaned over, about to dry her hair when she felt hands come to rest on her own and take the towel from her head.
"Let me," he said, and she obliged, dropping her arms and leaning into him as he scraped the cloth across her hair in smooth, practiced motions. He rubbed gently for some time before speaking again. "Sakura."
She started. Her eyes had drifted shut under his ministrations and she mentally slapped herself. This wasn't going at all how she'd planned. She'd been briefed somewhat by Pakkun on what had happened after they'd opened the scroll, but she hadn't asked Kakashi about it yet. Maybe he'd think she didn't care what had happened to him. Maybe he'd misinterpreted that kiss before, hadn't read it as she'd meant him to, hadn't seen it as a declaration of sorts -
"Sakura?"
She coughed. "Uh, yes?" She could call herself names later. For now she needed to pay attention to what Kakashi was saying.
"I said, are you alone?"
She opened her mouth to reply then snapped it shut as something terrible occurred to her. Something terrible and awful and so bloody obvious she should have thought of it right from the beginning.
Oh, play me for the fool again.
"Yes," she whispered, the words almost lost underneath the towel. His large hands stopped their circular movements and she reached up, brushing past them to grasp the fabric and slip it from her head. She straightened from her hunched position and let the towel drop to the ground between them, crumpling on the river stones, a neutral strip of white cloth.
He watched it fall before looking up at her, a question etched in triumph visible on his face. "Not any more," he promised, but it was a parody of a vow and her chest ached at the words. She made herself smile, acted once more for her unsuspecting audience of one.
"No," she said, stepping forward, placing both feet deliberately on the towel like a door mat. "Not any more."
She held out her hands and this time he stepped into her embrace, resting his chin on her forehead with a satisfied sigh. "We've had some troubles, but at last everything is as it should be," he told her, arms draping themselves loosely around her shoulders.
"Yes," she agreed, sliding out a leg and toeing open her hip pack where it lay on the shore next to her towel. "Everything is just how it should be."
She grabbed the handle of a kunai between her big and second toe, flicking it up into the air with a gentle, sweeping kick. Then she caught it, letting it drop into her ready, waiting hand, before she closed her eyes and drove the point into the side of Kakashi's neck.
----
Kakashi's nose tickled and he let out an abrupt sneeze, losing momentum on one of his jumps. The pause let Naruto catch up to him, and as the boy adjusted his leaps to match the pace he also broke their travel silence, startling Kakashi from his reverie.
"Someone talking about you?" The question was casual but Naruto's face was set in hard lines, and the absence of cheeriness was a stark contrast to his usual persona.
Kakashi found himself glancing away. He'd always known the boy was a lot more perceptive than he let on. Naruto wielded his apparent obtuseness like a weapon, and he'd hardly be the Number One Surprising Ninja if people actually expected intelligence from him. Stupidity was in the eye of the beholder and sometimes alleged genius was more a hindrance than a help. He touched his eye patch reflexively and took another moment before answering.
"That may be so."
Naruto nodded, that same hard look on his face. "I wonder if it's Sakura-chan and Pakkun. Talking about you, I mean."
Kakashi grimaced. The boy wasn't obtuse, but he wasn't too familiar with subtlety, either.
"Possibly," he replied carefully. "Pakkun can feel the connection as I can, and my arm is nearly burning from the proximity."
It was true. The closer they got to the symbol, Pakkun, and of course, Sakura, the more his arm throbbed and tingled. The pulses had become so frequent he couldn't determine a pause between them any longer, and the tattoo had settled into a buzzing sensation he couldn't put far from his mind.
Naruto didn't speak for a long while, flipping over on the next branch and travelling upside down for some time. Kakashi had begun to relax, thinking he'd misinterpreted and the boy was just curious, when he was proven wrong again.
"What if," Naruto began, so quietly Kakashi had to strain his ears to hear it, "what if I said Asuma-sensei and Ino went away on a mission together and decided they cared about each other in the time they were away? Not just cared, but...loved, maybe?"
He paused to swallow and Kakashi closed his eyes.
"It wouldn't work, would it?" Naruto's voice was almost pleading. "He's almost twice her age, right? And he was her teacher for so long, too. You'd have to think what her parents would say. And..." he trailed off, rubbing his nose angrily. Kakashi felt the boy's gaze on him, uncharacteristically bitter, yet imploring. "Do you see what I mean, Kakashi-sensei?"
He opened his eyes and sighed. "You're not a good liar, Naruto. Don't try to start now. One of your best -" and worst "- features is your unrelenting honesty. If you have something to say to me, say it truthfully, not couched in hypotheticals." And it's back to being the villain, he thought tiredly. Looks like I'll never win.
Naruto rubbed his nose a bit more, then gave him a bleak look. "Does she feel the same?"
Not obtuse, at all.
"I have no idea."
Kakashi suddenly felt very old. Naruto's objections were valid ones, and he'd thought them through before. He'd sworn he wouldn't dwell on this, that it didn't matter whether Sakura returned his feelings or not. But now, Naruto had seen underneath the underneath...
I'm obviously not as skilled at hiding my emotions as I thought I was.
Although it certainly explained the boy's odd silence over the last few days. He braved a glance and Naruto returned it. They shared a moment of understanding, of uncertainty, and then Naruto's face softened slightly, that old, unnecessary faith returning to his eyes. A smile appeared, his first one in days, and even though it was wry and a little self-deprecating, it was a smile nonetheless.
"It must be the Sharingan," he joked almost painfully, and Kakashi could have cried at the boy's generosity and strength of spirit. "Girls just can't resist a bloodline limit."
He could have cried but he laughed instead, and he was still smiling when they came upon the clearing where Pakkun waited, alone.
----
"Took you long enough," the little dog remarked, when they dropped down to the forest floor and caught their breath.
"Sorry about the delay, I was holding everyone up." Jiraiya gave a throaty laugh and rummaged in his pack for a waterskin. He pulled it out and took a long swig before glancing around and raising an eyebrow. "Are we missing someone?"
Kakashi had noticed her absence immediately, as sharp and jolting as the severed connection from Pakkun. The moment they'd landed, only metres from the pug, the pulsing had stopped and it took a minute to adjust. The sensation had been a constant companion for the last few days, and its loss was very telling.
He ignored Jiraiya's offer of the waterskin and focussed instead on the pug. "Where is she?"
Naruto stepped forward, sniffing the air. "I can't sense her presence anywhere but here." He looked down at the dog, confusion evident on his face. "Sakura-chan..."
Pakkun laughed, a quick, hacking wheeze that he cut off guiltily, as quickly as it had begun. "While your powers of deduction are admirable, I regret to inform you I am not Sakura."
"I didn't think you were!" the boy returned hotly, looking around to see if anyone else had suspected such a thing.
Kakashi hadn't glanced away from Pakkun. "Where is she?" he repeated. They hadn't crossed two borders and made their way here in a week only to be denied Sakura's presence.
Pakkun opened his mouth to answer. "She's -" He stopped, eyes widening. "Did you hear that?" he asked instead.
Kakashi did. He'd heard them before he'd sensed them, something he was not prone to experiencing. At the farthest reach of his earshot came a scatter of shuffling, a flurry of puffing, like...
...like a horde of enemy-nin, appearing one after another, completely surrounding the clearing in which they stood.
"Well," Jiraiya said, after a moment. "Look's like we've got ourselves a welcome party."
"Some party," scoffed Naruto, cracking his knuckles.
Pakkun cleared his throat, a low rumble that got everyone's attention. "Kakashi, I'd just get in the way if I stick around for this. I'd prefer to take my leave, if you don't mind."
He nodded. "Sure, but -"
"Sakura," continued the dog, silencing him with a meaningful look, "is taking advantage of a nearby stream. She's having a bath," he clarified for Naruto, who was giving him a puzzled stare.
"Oh," said the boy. "She's in water, that's why I couldn't smell her."
"Believe me," said Pakkun dryly, getting off his haunches, "that's a good thing." And on that rather cryptic note, he disappeared.
I didn't even get a chance to thank him, thought Kakashi, but his regret was fleeting in the face of Sakura's continued absence and the surrounding enemy-nin. He counted the chakra signatures and felt his mouth settle into a firm line. "Thirty," he said, and the other two nodded.
"We'd probably do better with a fourth," Jiraiya reflected, closing one eye and tapping his chin. "Think we can hold them off until Kakashi can get Sakura-chan, Naruto?"
The boy grinned, cheek markings growing more pronounced even as Kakashi watched. "We should be able to," he agreed nonchalantly, jagged teeth flashing.
"Well then, that's settled." Jiraiya gave Kakashi a devious look. "If you would be so kind?"
The enemy-nin crept closer. He wavered, uncertain of his priorities. He wanted to find Sakura, to reassure himself she was all right, but at the same time he felt bad about leaving these two to take care of things. "Are you sure you won't need me to even out the fight?"
Naruto turned and fixed him in his feral, scarlet gaze, answering in place of the Sannin. "It's already uneven, having only thirty against the two of us. Give them a chance, Kakashi-sensei. I always prefer a challenge, myself."
He still hesitated. "But fifteen on one -"
"Who said anything about one?" laughed Naruto, and with a quick handseal and a muttered jutsu, the clearing was filled with Kage Bunshin.
Jiraiya elbowed a couple of Narutos aside and glared at the real one. "We have to work on your understanding of personal space."
"Later," replied the boy, still with that dark, feral smile. "But now we've got some nin to pummel and Kakashi-sensei has to go and get Sakura."
Kakashi bristled. He was planning on doing that anyway; there was absolutely no need for the boy to give him orders.
"Back soon," was all he said, however. Naruto had matured, and acted selflessly, and it was the least Kakashi could do to repay him in kind.
The other two barely acknowledged his departure as he slipped out from the clearing, in search of the stream. He paused momentarily to trap two unsuspecting enemy-nin, but when they were safely ensconced in rock to the knees, he pressed onwards to where Sakura had gone.
----
Sakura couldn't watch his face, couldn't bear to see the betrayal writ there, regardless of how false the face had turned out to be. She stared instead at the blood spurting from the kunai wound, gazed at it as if entranced by the crimson flow that seemed like it would never stop. It spilled out across the handle and made a path along her right arm, pooling at her elbow before dripping soundlessly to the ground.
She'd busted an artery and cut clean through the windpipe, and she'd calculated the placement deliberately, stabbing directly at that particular spot. She didn't want to see the reaction and she couldn't bear to hear the words, either. With access to his larynx cut off, all he could manage was a rasping gurgle, and if she pretended hard enough, she could almost say it was a forest noise, a rustling on the wind.
Almost.
She had no idea how long she stood there, the kunai embedded in his neck up to the hilt, but it felt like hours before the skin under her hands rippled and bubbled just as Izanami's had done that fateful afternoon. The flesh darkened to a tan and her hands slipped on his shoulders as he lost height and shrunk, reverting back to the original form of the sacrifice. She finally looked up, giving the nin's corpse a perfunctory once-over before shoving it away from her in exhausted disgust. It toppled in slow motion, inching down to the stream, and then time returned to normal as it hit the water with a smacking splash.
He could keep the kunai. She didn't really want it back.
Walking numbly to her supplies, she took out the linseed soap again, crossing back to the water and lathering it up at the stream. She'd just been thinking about how the soap's main purpose was to wash off blood, and now look at her.
She scrubbed furiously at her skin, desisting only when her arms were pink and raw. She needed something physical, something tangible to rid herself - or at least, distract her from - the impotent fury that gripped her at the knowledge she'd been tricked by that bitch, again.
How many times? How many times would she have to go through the self-loathing and remorse that followed each deception? She'd wanted Kakashi's return so badly she had ignored her ninja senses and suspended her belief. The signs had been there right from the beginning of their little meeting but she'd acted impulsively and turned a blind eye. The Shoten no Jutsu had claimed yet another victim and she only had herself to blame.
She stood and flicked the soap over to her clothing bundle, going back to where she'd let the corpse drop and giving it a more thorough inspection. He'd been young, perhaps a little older than herself, but unmarked aside from the crimson slash on the side of his neck. A hitai-ate was wrapped around one bicep and she bent to turn it over, to see the symbol etched upon it. She felt no surprise at finding the single note of the Sound engraved into the metal, and stared dully at the blood that had run down his arm and filled the grooves of the symbol. It was somewhat fitting, if not a little sad.
"Sakura?"
That voice again. She'd already heard it once today. Did Yumi think she was an idiot? She'd been fooled completely and it seemed ridiculous to try another one so soon after the last. Was it twice bitten, thrice shy? Or was it one less than that, and she was just incredibly slow?
"Kakashi." She said the name tiredly, perfunctorily, because she didn't have the energy to waste on the trick again. She'd seen the play and knew how it ended. This truly was too much.
"Sakura," he said again, and his voice was so low, so raw, that it cut her to the quick. Why? It wasn't fair that she had to endure this again. If anything, he sounded broken, weakened, and unbelieving, as well. She wasn't the wraith, the deception. He wasn't allowed to sound so...so...
She looked up. He was a few paces away, standing awkwardly in the clearing as if unsure what to do. His body language was a study in uncertainty; he was tensed and brittle, but cowed as well. He looked so worried, so vulnerable that it hurt her to see him like this, another copy, albeit a more realistic one, one that acted just as Kakashi would if he felt as she did, frightened and alone.
They shared a glance, trapped in a moment, and then something snapped inside Sakura, something that she couldn't quite identify but hurt her nonetheless. And suddenly she was running towards him, crossing the distance between them, and then she was cocking back a fist to punch him as hard as she could.
----
Few things surprised the great Copy-nin any more. He had mused only recently - just before leaving with Sakura, in fact - that he'd become jaded and embittered at the ripe old age of thirty-one. Knowing what the enemy planned to do almost before they did kind of sucked the surprise from their attack, and his intuition seemed to leech into daily life. There was just no verve to anything any more. He'd ruminated and reflected and come to the conclusion that not knowing things made one's life far richer. Before they'd left, his life had settled into dull and unremitting routine, and most things had ceased to interest him.
Since leaving, things had picked up. A lot. He hadn't felt so alive in years. Ah, the irony. Since technically, I should be dead.
And admittedly, some things did surprise him. Naruto, for one. The boy managed to do so frequently. Tsunade's request for them to leave had been unexpected, as well.
Sakura trying to knock him into next week was another.
He thought, for a split second, a single, strange moment, that she was running towards him to fly into his arms, like they did in those terrible romance films that he'd never admit to watching. Or would admit to watching, but with a tilt to his voice so that whoever he was talking to wouldn't know if he was joking or not. He liked to keep 'em guessing.
And, apparently, so did Sakura.
He had more than ten years on her, however, and luckily a surprised jounin was still more than capable of fending off an irrationally enraged chuunin. Even if that chuunin had super strength and such a thorough knowledge of the human body that she knew exactly where to land each hit. He evaded the unexpected blow by a hairsbreadth, then slipped under her arm and jumped over and behind her, landing lightly on the water beyond.
"What was that for?" he asked, struggling to keep his voice steady and free from the shock that coloured it. He wasn't sure what welcome he'd been expecting, but this...this sure as hell hadn't been it. His foot nudged something and he risked looking away from Sakura to check his surrounds, getting his second surprise in as many minutes when he found a dead shoulder under his sandal.
Hurriedly, he moved back. What was the corpse of a Sound nin doing here, with Sakura? Did it have anything to do with her angry state? He paused, a sarcastic voice in his head expressing its opinion of his idiocy. Really. Even Tsunade would win if she bet on that.
"Like you didn't know," she spat, kneeling without taking her eyes off him, and grabbing a kunai from where her weapons pouch spilled out across the river stones.
"You'd be surprised how much I don't know," he found himself returning dryly, giving the Sound nin another interested look. One swift stab to the side of his neck. An efficient and reasonably silent kill, if the trajectory of the weapon was anything to go on. Then something occurred to him and he slipped the patch from his eye, allowing the Sharingan to zoom in and calculate, skimming the corpse's flesh and proving his sudden thought.
Kakashi looked back at Sakura, who still watched him tiredly. She spun the kunai listlessly around one finger.
"He was already dead," he said, and she nodded, a bitter smile twisting her lips.
"Why are you telling me about the corpse? I'm fully aware you're just like him." She jerked her chin at the body lying between them. "You're another one of those undead replacement ninjas our good friend Yumi cooked up, just for me."
She spun the kunai one last time before slapping it into her palm and flicking it outwards, throwing it towards him in a single, fluid move. He shimmered, removing himself from its path, and then reappeared beside her, watching the weapon spin into the shadows on the opposite side of the stream.
"You think I'm one of Yumi's creations?" he asked, and she whirled angrily before jumping backwards, taken unawares. He was surprised by this turn of events, and it was annoying, because he shouldn't have been. He knew exactly what they were facing, and yet somehow along the way he'd convinced himself that he was the target, that Sakura wasn't important enough or powerful enough to tempt their enemies into action. His willful ignorance had endangered her, and although she'd taken care of an immediate threat, there were going to be more along the way. If the other clearing was under attack from enemy-nin, it was safe to assume they would reach the stream as well.
And then something else clicked.
"Whose face did he wear?" he asked softly, pointing at the prone form of the dead man. She'd been unbalanced, unsettled by this deception, and she seemed furious at Kakashi's very presence, so he had a fair idea.
"This one, of course!" she hissed, flinging a set of shuriken at him. He dodged easily and moved even closer, coming to stand behind her in a flurry of leaves.
"And he looked exactly like me?"
She was hurt and he could see that, but while he had no intention of mocking her pain, he needed to know how accurate this Shoten no Jutsu was. He'd been fooled completely, of course, but it had been a sweet lie, an unintentional defeat, one he'd almost craved without knowing. Could it have been the same for Sakura? Had she wanted to believe?
She pulled out a fuuma shuriken and unfolded it methodically, her narrowed eyes never leaving his own. "Not exactly," she admitted eventually, the blades of the weapon fully extended and ready to be thrown. "His hair was still brown from the dye, and he seemed a bit more cheerful."
Well, sorry. "Was he met with a thunderous punch as well?"
She flushed and looked away. "Er, that is to say, not quite, I mean...why am I explaining to you?" She rounded on him irritably, gesturing with the fuuma shuriken. "I'm sick of all this lying and playing around with people's hearts. It's bad form, low deceit and petty trickery. The way of a ninja should be an honourable one."
He avoided the waving of the shuriken and took an innocuous step back, repressing a beam of pride at Sakura's words. "You're right," he said gruffly, and reached out, patting her on the head. Two out of three of his students had learned what their occupation was all about. Or maybe they hadn't learned it, after all. Maybe they'd just known from the beginning.
She froze at the touch and stared up at him. "What are you doing?"
"I'm sorry," he said, dropping his hand. It had been a natural reaction. His arm had just moved on its own. "Old habit."
Truthfully, it had wanted to move to other places, but he'd used some of that thing he remembered as self-control, and corrected its path. Regardless, it looked to have been the wrong thing to do, because now she was staring at him with a mixture of fear, resignation, and...hope?
"Who are you?"
He blinked. "Hatake Kakashi." She'd need better questions than that if she was trying to ascertain his identity. From the little he knew of the technique, he expected that a Shoten no Jutsu would have only the memories and thought processes of the person who summoned it, not necessarily the knowledge of the one they were trying to be. If Sakura wanted to prove he was the real deal, she'd need to ask things only he would know.
"When's Naruto's birthday?"
"October tenth."
"What colour is your quilt cover?"
"Khaki with black prints." Hang on. How did she know the colour of his comforter? She hadn't had that dream too...had she? He gazed at her with a trace of embarrassment, and had to get her to repeat the next question when he missed it entirely.
"I said, what was your sensei's name?"
He gave her a flat look. "Sakura, any nin worth their shuriken could have easily have researched these things. You need to ask me questions only I would know the answer to, things that only a few people would truly understand."
She bit her lip and stood in thought for a moment. "What was I eating, the day we left Konoha, when you came to get me?"
He thought back. "Fried fish and egg with toast."
She swallowed. "What did we get for dinner our first night in Ontou, at the inn?"
"We didn't eat anything. We went straight to bed and then the inn burned down."
"How many plates of tempura did you eat at Izanami's that first afternoon there?"
He frowned. "I didn't eat any. I just drank the miso soup, because I ha-"
His feelings on tempura were cut short as she dropped the fuuma shuriken and flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his waist in their first real hug. He stumbled, surprised once more, this time by her sudden warmth and distracting proximity.
But he couldn't stop the smile that spread across his face, couldn't pause the arms that crept up around her back, pressing her close.
"Kakashi!" she almost sobbed into his chest, rubbing her nose against his shirt. He stiffened and grasped wildly for boring thoughts of non-stimulating things. Running laps, Maito Gai, green tea...just a minute...
"Why were all your identity questions about food?" he asked, honestly interested as to what had gone through her mind.
She pulled back and he wished he hadn't said anything, but she stayed within the circle of his arms and gave a hesitant smile, blinking back what looked to be a sudden onset of tears. "Well, food's the universal coagulant, right? Meal times had to be things you'd remember."
She grinned tentatively and he readily returned it, gazing down at her flushed face, memorising the bumps and freckles that made Sakura herself.
"We've both been tricked," he said, and she sobered instantly, eyes darkening before she raised a palm and pressed it gently against his cheek. He let her trail soft fingers across the skin of his face, tracing his jaw, over his forehead, down his nose and then hoveringly lightly on the curve of his lips.
It was like his dream, only the situation was reversed, and then that was the extent of his thought processes because they were close, too close, and yet not close enough. He had to get closer, had to be nearer, had to have his face, mouth, closer to Sakura's. There were no words so he asked a question with his eyes and she seemed to respond in kind, the rich, dark depths of her eyes like the shifting waters of the stream beside them. He lowered his head and moved infinitesimally down to where her face angled up to his. He had reservations, of course, but for once they could wait and instead of worrying about what could have been he was damned well just going to do it and worry after it was done.
And suddenly, all that separated them was a second, and a sigh, and just as he moved to traverse that final distance between them, a familiar stab of chakra exploded in his shoulder and he hissed in pain, disgustingly weakened, falling to his knees beside Sakura. He scrabbled at his back as Sakura opened her eyes and threw herself down next to him, small hands touching his arm in visible concern.
"Kakashi?" she asked, strain etching her voice. "What's the matter? What happened?"
"Nothing, more's the pity."
The voice came from the forest behind them, and Kakashi turned, gritting his teeth against the pain and squinting through slit eyes for some sign of their foe. It was unnecessary, of course. He knew exactly who was there. The reactivation of the cursed seal told him everything he needed to know.
He got to his feet with a grunt just as she dropped down in front of them. She was dressed in full Sound garb, complete with pale tunic and violet obi.
"You're in uniform this time," he drawled, trying to appear unfazed. "I'm honoured."
She grinned. "All for you. And Sakura-chan, of course."
She nodded at the girl beside him as Sakura got to her feet, hands clenched. "How goes it, precious? Hope I didn't interrupt anything."
There was a tense silence as Sakura gathered her wits, but then she smiled coldly at the Sound nin and picked up the fuuma shuriken from where she'd dropped it on the stones. "Nothing that we can't go back to another time, Yumi-chan."
He felt a hot something at the almost-promise, and it distracted him from the pain for a moment.
Yumi gave him an appraising look. "You seem well, Hatake. Had a nice trip?"
He tilted his head. "You know, I did have quite a journey. But I suppose travel is preferable to the alternative - you know, what I expected from that scroll you gave me."
She laughed. "I'm impressed. You're a very clever Copy-nin, aren't you? And yes, you're not dead. It wasn't the point of the jutsu, after all."
"It was always a teleportation scroll?"
She nodded. "Things didn't go quite to plan, as you might have guessed. For one, you were supposed to end up in Sound, at my esteemed sponsor's place, and secondly, your little tagalong was the one who was meant to use it."
"How did it go wrong?" he asked in spite of himself, genuinely intrigued.
"It was designed to tap into the ninja's chakra to fuel the movement, and when two people activated it but used only one chakra system...well, as you know, you deviated a fair bit. Not to mention you were pulled off course by the chakra of the Nine-tails, to boot. It was an unforeseen outcome, and unfortunate, as well."
"Naruto?" Sakura leaned forward, intent on the conversation. "Naruto is here?"
Yumi gave her a patronising smile. "All in good time, precious. Your little teammate is a tad busy at the moment. And really, I have to learn to do things without talking all day. Shall we get a move on?"
"Please do," Kakashi said, testing his shoulder. Was the pain ebbing, a bit? He could feel something at the edge of his perception.
"Are you going to try to kill us?" Sakura asked, a sarcastic emphasis on the try.
"I do only what my master wishes," Yumi replied obliquely, stretching her arms behind her back to loosen the muscles. As he watched, questions ran through his brain but he couldn't be bothered sifting through them for relevance, and settled on the simplest one.
"Why? What is it about Orochimaru that commands your loyalty?"
"Orochimaru-sama?" She scoffed the name. "Him, nothing. The one I do this for is my brother. He is the only one deserving of my loyalty."
The something at the edge of his awareness changed and moved, a flicker coming from behind him as the air whispered the appearance of someone else in their little gathering. Sakura gasped and steadied the fuuma shuriken, and Kakashi stiffened before recognising the presence. He mentally added another piece to the puzzle and wondered if it wasn't complete, by now.
"Your brother, I presume?" he queried, trying again to feign nonchalance.
Sunlight slanted suddenly into the clearing and glinted off glasses as a pale hand pushed them up. And then Kakashi felt the cool slide of metal as a kunai was pressed gently, but warningly, against the juncture of his throat.
"Hello, Kakashi-san. I'm glad to be able to join you on this fine afternoon."
Kakashi inclined his head, politeness personified in the face of this new - yet old - adversary. He licked his lips and tried to ignore Sakura's shocked outrage, lest he inadvertantly display the same.
"Yes, long time no see...Kabuto."
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Well. I'm not really sure what to say about the last month or so away from TS, but I would like to make aware that I've suffered from extreme writer's block the entire time. Extreme and specific writer's block, only for this fic. I had a plot device that I wasn't sure would work, and I puzzled over it for weeks, only to figure it out at 2:30am yesterday morning when I was trying very hard to sleep. I wrote it down, and wrote more down, and finally I've finished the same chapter (if I'm not mistaken) that I was partway through when I posted chapter 15 here so long ago.
I don't particularly want to apologise, because I couldn't help my inability to write, but I am sorry for setting a specific date and then not meeting it. I work part time, attend university full time and have an active role in two fansubbing groups, and honestly, my times for writing are few and far between. I'm hoping this random burst of creativity is not a passing thing, and that I'll be able to finish the fic soon, but I'm not getting ahead of myself.
For those who have shown their continued support by reading this: thank you so much. I hope I haven't disappointed you with this latest installment. Everyone's wonderful reviews kept me going (or trying to go) and I feel honoured to have hit the 500 review milestone! I take that as quite the feather in my cap, review whore as I am, and it's a great feeling. :D
Thanks to the usual suspects. DarkenedSakura, Nushi, sureasdawn, blackestfaery, icarusT...you guys are my rocks. And I mean that in a good way, not the whole tied-to-my-feet-in-water way. --is delirious--
Comments and questions are always welcomed, and you can contact me here at ffnet or on my livejournal, princess(underscore)dexter.