Chapter seventeen
Collaboration

----

Sakura wasn't sure what to think when Kabuto jumped down behind Kakashi. Her brain had already experienced too many shocks today and it just shut down, allowing her to do nothing more constructive than just gasp at his surprise appearance. She watched him exchange pleasantries with Kakashi before she was able to stand, finding her voice on the way up. "What are you doing here?" she rasped, a kunai at the ready.

He nodded politely at her. "Sakura-san. I'm sorry if I've startled you. I'm just here to provide a bit of support."

"For Yumi?" Her lips twisted and she had difficulty even saying the name.

Kabuto gave her an amused look. "Yes, for my sister. In the world we live in, it's imperative to back up the ones who are important to you. You have a comfortable family life, from what I remember, so perhaps you wouldn't understand."

Like hell she wouldn't understand. Just because she had a complete family unit didn't mean she had never empathised with Sasuke's situation or Naruto's loneliness.

"Try me," she ground out.

He laughed and Kakashi took the moment of relaxation as an opportunity to remove himself from Kabuto's hold. He blurred from sight and reappeared beside her, before rubbing his neck and sighing.

"Really, Kabuto," he chided. "I found that all rather unnecessary. Surely you have more in your arsenal than constant invasion of personal space. All that hugging...you're quite the affectionate family, it seems."

"What can I say, Hatake? You're just irresistible." Yumi's voice floated out from her perch in a nearby tree and Sakura gritted her teeth.

"Do we get the grand retelling?" she asked, trying her best to ignore the other girl's presence.

Kabuto looked almost surprised. "Do you care?"

"Not really," Kakashi interjected. "But it almost seems like tradition, and I'd hate to break it this late in the game."

Yumi laughed, dropping down beside Kabuto and pulling out a kunai from her hip pack. "It's a beautiful story. I never get tired of the retelling, myself. Just the right quantities of tragedy, triumph and betrayal."

Betrayal. I'll bet. "So thrill us," said Sakura in the best bored tone she could muster. She leaned back on her heel and crossed her arms, keeping her own kunai pointed out lest either attack.

"Aw, no trust," said Yumi, noting the action.

"I rather think," Sakura replied, struggling to keep calm, "that your past actions warrant any contingencies on my part."

The other woman sighed loudly, but Kabuto nodded and gave her a quelling look. "No, Yumi. Sakura-san has a point. From what you've told me, you haven't given them an easy time."

Yumi pouted theatrically. "But Kabuto-nii -"

"Really," Kakashi interrupted, his mouth pressed into hard lines, "is this going to take all day? Some of us have things to do, people to see. I'm sure you know how it is."

Yumi expelled a great whoosh of air and flopped to the ground, crossing her legs and flipping the kunai up into the air before catching it again. "You tell it, nii-san. You do it better than I can."

Kabuto pushed up his glasses. "If you insist."

Sakura looked between the two of them, searching for some parallels of their appearance that would indicate familial ties. They didn't look all that dissimilar, but their similarities weren't blindingly obvious, either. Maybe the dark eyes and pale skin were all they had in common. Their hair was -

She squinted. "Do you dye your hair?" she asked Yumi, her shock almost overcoming her consuming dislike for the woman.

The other girl grinned and ran a hand through her hair. "Maybe. Hatake can vouch for the annoyance of having such an unusual shade of silver, right?"

Kakashi said nothing and continued to frown thoughtfully between them.

"What are you implying?" Sakura asked hoarsely. Was she saying -

"Nothing, precious. Just messing with you."

Sakura took a step forward but a strong hand clamped down on her arm, and she looked up to find Kakashi giving her a warning look. He shook his head slightly and she tried to relax, giving him a nod in return to show she understood. If these other two were going to do the enemy thing and give out their life stories, then she'd just have to suck it up and listen to the whole thing. The scholar in her wanted to know and the kunoichi in her looked forward to getting information that could potentially help the village anyway.

"Fine," she said, crossing her arms again. "Please, tell us a tale."

Kabuto gave her another small smile. "Ah, Sakura-san. You have changed much since the last time we met. I'd have to say it's like you've grown up, become more mature." His smile deepened. "Did Kakashi-san have anything to do with that, I wonder?"

She hissed at the implications - regardless of truth - and opened her mouth to retaliate, but Kakashi beat her to it.

"Your attempts to rile me are dull and uninspired, Kabuto. I was expecting something a little more clever than a petty crack at our relationship."

She glanced over at him, his profile etched in the fading gold of the sunset. How could he be so calm, all the time? Didn't he understand what these people had done?

Then she saw the tic in his jaw, the corded muscles of his neck. He understood. Kakashi was just as angry as she was. He was only pretending he was unaffected by their words and actions, acting for their benefit as well as her own. He'd done so much for her already; the least she could do was to back him up on this.

She feigned a yawn. "Yes, and I was hoping to catch up with Naruto. You mentioned him before and I haven't seen him for so long, but I might not get a chance today at the rate we're going. Will the talking drag on into the night?"

Kabuto's smile had slipped a notch earlier in the conversation and now it disappeared entirely. "Very well, Sakura-san. I thought any explanation was for your benefit, so your rudeness and animosity are entirely unnecessary."

Yumi threw and caught her kunai again. "Hurry things along, nii-san. I want to get some exercise before nightfall."

He nodded curtly. "Yes, you're right." He gave Kakashi a challenging look. "Now, Kakashi-san, what do you know about me already?"

Kakashi frowned. "Very little."

"You make the mistake of assuming that we care," Sakura said, with more confidence than she currently felt.

Kabuto turned slowly, his face set. "Do not think that you are in any way the equal of your sensei, Sakura-san. You are not untouchable, and despite my orders, I will not hesitate in harming you."

"Orders?" she echoed, feeling sick.

His face became amused again. "Perhaps you've been on the road for so long that you've forgotten why you set out in the first place. Orochimaru-sama needs either you or Naruto-kun. If you'll suffice, I'd rather save myself the trouble of rounding up your friend. It will be far simpler this way, since you've always been the weakest one on the team, haven't you, Sakura-san?"

----

Kakashi increased the pressure of the restraining grip he had on Sakura's arm. Had she always been this impulsive and easily aggravated, or was it the constant exposure to Naruto that had made her this way? Maybe he'd never noticed because any rebellion on her part would be drowned out by her louder teammate. Regardless, he'd need to get Kabuto on to another subject, and soon. Sakura was strong and she only got stronger when she was angry. His near miss from before was evidence of that. If she'd managed to land that punch to his face...suffice to say he wouldn't need the mask for hiding his identity any more.

"You're wasting our time, Kabuto," he said lazily, hoping to get the Sound nin back on topic. He was curious as well now, and half-wanted to hear the hows and whys. "And according to your charming sibling over there, we haven't got much of it left. So why don't you put us out of suspense and reveal all?"

Yumi pulled out another kunai and tossed that one up into the air as well. "Grant a dying man his wish, nii-san."

Kabuto didn't even turn to look at her. "Perhaps with less interruptions, I won't need this incessant prompting?"

She shut up. The only sounds in the clearing were the rhythmic whoosh-slap of the tossed kunai.

"As you're no doubt aware by now, I wasn't always from Konoha. I was recovered from the battlefield at Kikyou Pass, thought to be the only survivor of the group I was with. When I was brought back to Konoha, I was fostered into the house of Yakushi-san, an esteemed medical jounin."

Kakashi nodded. All of this had been in the files back home.

"It was with Yakushi-san that I learned the application of any number of medical jutsus along with a greater understanding of the human body and technical aspects of the healing arts. That was not, however, the first that I had known of such things. My original family, my clan, were once masters of fujutsu, a branch of the ninja arts that dabbles in poisons and their effects along with other powers. I believe you're familiar with the Shoten no Jutsu?"

Beside him, Kakashi sensed Sakura's breathing quicken.

"I didn't know of these characteristics of my clan while I was amongst them, however. I was far too young. This happened later, when I had accompanied Yakushi-san on a trip to gather medicinal herbs. By chance it turned out that one of his suppliers had fled the battle that killed my parents. I waited until night, when Yakushi-san was asleep, and then sought them out, managing to convince them it would be favourable in the long run to tell me what they knew." He paused to adjust his glasses and Kakashi was left with no doubt as to the manner of 'convincing'.

"They were not part of the clan; they had only accompanied them on that fateful journey. I didn't tell them my identity so naturally they were unaware of my personal stake in the matter. They told me that only one child had survived the bloodshed and after some further...prompting...they divulged Yumi's whereabouts."

Yumi added a third kunai and started juggling. "I too had been fostered," she said, taking up the story. "When Kabuto nii-san found me, we were both wary and unsure if our connection was real. But his knowledge of medical jutsu far exceeds my own, and he was able to perform a blood test that showed we were family." She smiled beatifically at Kabuto, who didn't seem to notice. "It was a year later that nii-san entered into service with Orochimaru-sama, and not long after that that I swore him fealty as well."

"How heartwarming," Sakura interjected sarcastically. "What a moving story of long-lost siblings reuniting against the odds. And then you had to ruin it all by turning evil and running off to join the Snake Lord."

"Why, Sakura-san, I sense bitterness," Kabuto replied. "Although, perhaps I can sympathise. You've had other stories ruined by a defection to Orochimaru-sama's side, haven't you?"

She said nothing for a moment, and when Kakashi gave her a sidelong look he found her face pale and lips white.

Yumi was also watching her reaction. "Ah, precious, didn't I tell you to not make your weaknesses as obvious as this?"

"Weak!" Sakura rounded on her, two spots of pink staining her pale cheeks. "Don't speak to me of weak. Who are you to say such a thing? Spouting this shit like you're someone important. If you've been serving Orochimaru as long as Kabuto has, why is he the right hand man and you're someone we've never seen before? Seems like you're small fry, Yumi-chan. Don't act above your station."

He'd wondered that himself but Sakura said it better than he would have. She just had a way with these things when she got riled.

Yumi's face turned hard and she snatched all three kunai from the air, standing and shoving them angrily into her hip pack. "Don't talk to me like that, you pathetic little -"

"Yumi." Kabuto's voice was mild but his smile was amused. "If you girls want to settle your differences, I have no objections. Go find a nice clearing and do whatever you like. But remember, Orochimaru-sama wants her alive."

Yumi's lips twisted and she bowed her head. "Very well, nii-san." She looked up after a moment and let her eyes rest on Sakura. "Are you coming, precious?"

Sakura hesitated, glancing up at Kakashi. He returned the look evenly and considered their options. Whatever happened, it seemed like he was going to have to face Kabuto, and he'd prefer to do it without having to worry about Sakura at the same time. She was a perfectly capable shinobi with any number of untapped skills and while he was unfamiliar with Yumi's talent - apart from her oft-repeated Shoten no Jutsu trick - the girl herself had admitted that Kabuto was by far the better of them. Hopefully Naruto and Jiraiya would be done with their quota soon, and could help them out.

Besides, if he was interpreting Sakura's look correctly, she wanted this, wanted to test her skills against the other girl. And for what Yumi had put her through - put them both through - he couldn't really blame her.

Not to mention, he was learning that it was very difficult for him to deny Sakura anything.

He removed his hand from her arm. "Don't go too far, okay?" he said, giving her a reassuring smile. She gave him a feral one in return.

"Got it." She turned to go.

"Sakura?" She glanced over her shoulder at him, her face already set.

"Yes?"

"Beat her good for me, okay?"

She grinned. "Will do." Then she blurred from sight in a flash of Kumokasumi Senko no Jutsu, reappearing on a tree some way down the stream. "Are you coming, precious?" she mimicked at Yumi, who hadn't moved.

The other girl took off, sprinting across the water. "Try and stop me!"

They disappeared and Kabuto turned back to Kakashi, who regarded him back with a serious eye. Kakashi reached up and removed his eye patch, blinking a few times to make sure the Sharingan was at the ready.

"Do you have anything to say, Kakashi-san?" asked Kabuto, pulling shuriken from his hip pack and slipping them between his fingers.

"I'm a man of actions, not words, Kabuto," he replied. "You should know that by now."

Then he blurred from his location, reappearing behind the Sound nin even as the shuriken were dispatched. The time for talking was over. The fight had begun.

----

Sakura led Yumi downstream a bit farther before veering to the left and moving in amongst the trees. She wasn't too familiar with this forest but no doubt a clearing would present itself soon. She preferred combat in an open area because to her it made fighting a little bit more honourable, with less to hide behind and more incentive to use one's skills. Then again, she was fighting Yumi, so there was no real honour to speak of.

A gap in the trees to her right. She spun to the side and landed lightly on the ground. Pine needles carpeted the undergrowth and the whole area had a clean, spicy scent.

She could only hope it would stay this way.

Yumi dropped down in front of her and took a moment to readjust her hitai-ate. "Nice spot, precious," she remarked, looking around. "You've got a real eye for location."

"Why, thank you," Sakura replied politely. "Always happy to oblige."

The other girl nodded. "Just trying to lighten the mood, you know. And I also wanted to make sure there were no hard feelings or anything. For well, you know."

Sakura did know. "I'm sorry to throw your goodwill back at you, but I'm afraid there are some very hard feelings. I don't know, maybe I'm overreacting, but the part where you killed all those people and tricked me and put that weird seal on Kakashi -"

"Ah, thanks for reminding me!" Yumi's face lit up and she held out a hand to stop Sakura from going on. "Just give me a moment." She brought her palms together and frowned for a second, muttering a few words before dropping her arms and motioning Sakura to continue. "I forgot to keep chakra going into the seal. It's a special one, you see. It's just about the only thing I can do better than nii-san."

Sakura's mouth was suddenly dry. "What are you talking about?"

"It's a special seal, just like I said. When I focus on it, it takes my chakra and feeds an actual poison into the bloodstream. Hatake may think he has it under control but it's nothing like the power seals Orochimaru-sama gives out. This one will never grow in size above the skin - it only affects what's underneath."

Sakura stared at her in a sort of stupefied horror. "Kakashi is getting poisoned as we speak?"

Yumi nodded, smiling again. "Yup! And the only two ways of stopping the spread of toxins are for me to stop putting chakra into it - and sometimes I forget, like before - or for me to run out of chakra entirely. For me to die," she clarified.

Sakura felt sick. Kakashi was in pain and a great deal of danger. She had to beat Yumi regardless, but now she had a time limit?

"How long?" she asked with difficulty around the lump in her throat.

The Sound nin tilted her head. "Hmm, it's hard to say. Everyone's different. Hatake's strong, so I'd give him half an hour before it really starts taking effect." She grinned. "Are we wasting time, precious? Maybe we should be fighting."

"Maybe we should," agreed Sakura, and charged.

The movement didn't faze Yumi, as she'd hoped it would, and the Sound nin dodged, whipping her kunai out and flinging one at Sakura with considerable speed. Sakura somersaulted sideways and avoided it, throwing back a trio of shuriken in retaliation. She landed as Yumi deflected them with another kunai and they stood for a moment, eyeing each other warily.

Then Yumi took initiative, running at Sakura with the kunai held out like it was a katana. She jumped up just before reaching her and sliced down, Sakura narrowly avoiding the hit by rolling to the side.

She was on her feet again instantly. She had to be. There was no time for recovery in a battle that had as much at stake as this one did. Her success would ensure Kakashi's safety. Her failure...she didn't want to think about it. The only option she had here was to win.

She withdrew another kunai and held it this time, the metal sliding in her sweaty grip. She couldn't do anything too tricky until Yumi showed her hand. It would be difficult for Sakura to form any sort of attack until she'd ascertained the other girl's strengths and weaknesses. It was unfair that Yumi knew what to expect of her, whereas the Sound nin herself was an unknown quantity.

This apparently occurred to Yumi too. "You're at the disadvantage, precious," she called over, settling into a loose stance. "I have something over you in every arena."

"That's lucky," Sakura called back. "Because I perform better when I'm the underdog."

She brought her hands together in a seal and melted from sight.

The jutsu was another one Kakashi had taught her in those early weeks out of Konoha, and was a handy one for concealment in an open area. It didn't actually cast any sort of invisibility but drew on chakra to move the water particles in the air between the user and the enemy. It had a sort of chameleon-like aspect in that it changed the colour of the water to the hues of the trees and brush behind the user. It was quite a difficult one even for someone with as much practice in chakra-manipulation as herself, but it was the only thing she could think of to throw Yumi off guard.

It worked. Kind of.

"What are you playing at, Sakura-chan?" The Sound nin glanced around without focus. "That won't fool me for long, you know. It doesn't matter if I can see you or not - I know you're here, and whatever happens..." she paused and crossed her arms, "...you can still bleed." She opened her arms and threw out a multitude of senbon, the small needles going in every direction around the clearing. Sakura dropped the jutsu and spun on her heel, dodging and ducking so as not to be nicked.

"Poisoned, I assume?" she asked from where she'd managed to reach, a few paces from Yumi's back. The Sound nin whirled, a trace of surprise on her face.

"Of course." Her smile was wide but shaky. "I believe if you do a job, do it right. None of this half-hearted nonsense."

"Really?" scoffed Sakura. "If you truly thought that, you wouldn't have given Kakashi a curse seal; you would have just killed him outright. If you truly thought that, you wouldn't have staged that elaborate spectacle with Izanami, and you most certainly wouldn't have tried to fool me as Kakashi. You haven't done a single job right, so far. We've figured you out every time."

Yumi's smile turned sour and her eyes became flinty. "Watch your mouth, precious. You don't know what you're talking about."

Sakura was on a roll. "Oh, I think I do. You know what else I think? I think you're weak. I think Kabuto is ten - no, a hundred - times stronger than you. I think he's achieved much more in the service of that hateful Orochimaru than you ever could and he's probably had to fix up your mistakes on more than one occasion."

Yumi's face was white and her eyes glittered fiercely before she bowed her head and responded. "Shut up. You really don't know know what you're talking about. Don't speak as if you know me or my brother."

"That's funny, Yumi-chan, because I do know your brother. I've had to stomach his presence more often that I would have liked." Sakura laughed, the hollow sound loud in the quiet clearing. "But you're right. Maybe I should stop talking like I know you. I don't, because I don't care. And I don't care, because you are no one."

By this time Yumi's face was so pale she looked like one of the corpses she kept finding for her jutsu. Sakura waited for a reaction to her deliberate goading but none were forthcoming. The other girl's chest rose and fell, but apart from that, she said nothing.

Finally, she spoke.

"I am always reluctant to do this, Sakura-chan. I cannot justify using power that is not my own, even to overcome what you have correctly identified as my major fault - weakness. My brother is stronger than me, and I have always acknowledged that. He is a powerful, talented ninja and I am only a hindrance to him, as you said. But I do my best. I work to appease our mutual master and even if I do not respect him as much as I should, you besmirch his name by saying such things."

She finally looked up and Sakura bit back a gasp at finding the girl's dark eyes bleeding into a deep violet. A fiery pattern crept down her bare arm where it hung out from her tunic, and then it spread across her body, scrolling across her face in a sick reminder of something that had happened to someone else a lot, back in that time.

Sakura swallowed and fought the memory of Sasuke and all that it entailed. "What are you doing?" she asked, the kunai still held weakly in her sweaty, slippery hand.

Yumi's mouth twisted up into another smile, and Sakura's stomach lurched at the girl's now elongated and pointed teeth. "What does it look like, precious? I'm channeling my own curse seal to level two. And as soon as I've got this sorted and ready, I'm going to fight you, and you are going to die."

----------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------

Note:

fujutsu: I made this up. I'm sorry, I couldn't find a branch of ninjutsu that does actually specialise in poisons etc - if anyone knows of one, I'll happily change the name.

Hey everyone! This one was a long time coming too, but blame finals for me and one of my betarers. I've been bashing out the next chapter and with exams finishing soon I'm hoping to be posting more regularly. I've found myself inspired by listening to songs by Kazuhiko Inoue (Kakashis' VA) from Haruka - does anyone happen to know if he's performed in any other anime?

Thanks as always to my betas Nushi and DarkenedSakura, with further thanks to blackestfaery, selle18 and koshkosh for their wonderful reviews.