ni.
KAKASHI BRAIDED HER HAIR for her when it became evident she couldn't do it by herself. Despite the extensive wrap job he had done on her arm, soaked in antibacterial gel and burn spray, he had been too late to catch the damage to her nerves. What little medical ninjutsu he did know had salvaged the damaged muscle underneath and prevented boils, but the upper layers of her skin had been utterly ruined. She had range of motion, but it came with pain, and flexing of sensitive muscles that weren't quite ready to be moving yet. So, he braided her hair—it was not as neat as if she had done it herself, was messy with inexperience, but it kept the longer lengths out of her face and, for the most part, she looked like Sakura again.
She didn't ask him where he had learned to braid. She also didn't ask him about the scroll he tucked into the bag he had packed for her—filled with spare clothes, necessities, anything she could wish for as a girl going into virtual exile—that looked suspiciously like a summoning scroll, the wooden end ornate and the Hatake clan symbol carved into it. It looked nothing like the summoning scroll he used for his dogs, but she kept her inquiries to herself and focused on the mission statement she held in her burn free hand.
"Amegakure and Kumogakure." Sakura traced the names written in red with a single finger. He paused from where he was tucking pre-made seal papers and explosive tags into a side pocket, turning his head back towards her incrementally to indicate she had his attention. "The last I heard we were on neutral terms with both villages. What happened?"
Kakashi hummed as he unzipped the secondary larger section of her pack and tossed a handful of nutrigrain bars inside, along with five bottles of water and a flask that she assumed was also filled with water. She watched him sneak a tin of jasmine pearls in there as well. "No one knows. One day, out of the blue, they declared they had an alliance and set their sights on Suna, Iwa, and Konoha. Tsunade didn't think they had enough shinobi to do it—it turns out they did, and in vast droves too. They'd been planning it for a while, I think."
"But Konoha hasn't declared war with them; why not?" Sakura rolled the mission statement back up against her thigh, using her hand to tie the tiny string together messily. "We're allies with Suna and Iwa, we should be helping them."
Sakura forgot, momentarily, that she had no say in matters like war, or even Konoha at all, and chided herself mentally for forgetting such an important fact. She was as good as dead to Konoha, and she knew they hoped she would die on the battlefield in the end.
She, secretly, hoped she did too.
"We are. Discreetly." Kakashi zipped up the pack and hefted it experimentally. Deeming it light enough for her to carry, he set it beside the door frame and took a seat beside her on his raggedy couch. It was green, littered with claw marks and obscure stains that looked like blood, and had Gai's taste written all over it. "It would be illegal for normal Konoha nin to do what the War Ops do in wartime. There are rules, sanctions that prevent unjust actions between nations. The War Ops are similar to ROOT, but far worse, in my opinion. I was never part of it, but Genma was, at some point. They forsake the village in the name of the village, sabotage what they can, kill who they can, and when the war is done, whoever's left alive will return and reinstate their Konoha citizenship, wiped clean of their crimes during the war." He paused, then, his only visible eye filled with guilt and sadness. "But you won't be able to come back when it's all said and done. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"I have no other choice, do I?" Sakura shrugged lamely, ignoring the pull of her skin beneath the bandages. "It's alright, Kakashi. I deserve it for everything I've done. If they consider my crimes paid for dying on the battlefield, then that's fine. I don't see any reason to try and escape it."
He was quiet for a moment, looking away from her and through his living room window, just barely lit with the first rays of dawn. She had maybe an hour before she had to report to the rear gates towards Amegakure. "Konoha will miss you. They might not realize it, but when they need you most, they will remember what you did for them."
"Other than killing their friends and family?" She raised an eyebrow and laughed, but it was a pathetic imitation of one. "Maybe. But it'll be too late by then."
"Maybe."
Sakura reported to the gates when Kakashi couldn't put it off any longer. She carried her pack on one shoulder, wearing the uniform that had been delivered to his front door in the dead of night while they had slept. There were no identifying crests on the dark flak jacket, no familiar stitching in the hems or seams, and the fabric was foreign, exported from the hidden island nation of Hanagakure. While it was comfortable and stretchy, the long sleeves pulled and dragged on her bandages, irritating the previously calm skin. The rest looked like standard ANBU attire, save for the mask they had given her when she arrived at the gate. It was black and white, opposite of the red and white that ANBU typically wore, and depicted the face of a crow upon it: a silent jab that crows brought death, just as Sakura brought death to her teammates.
She may have found it funny had it been happening to someone else.
"Be safe," Kakashi said as two War Ops members moved to flank her cautiously. There was no need for farewells; they had already said them the previous night. The dew on the trees evaporated as the sun rose higher in the sky, as the village woke and got ready for a new day. "And take care, Sakura."
"Thank you, Kakashi-sensei. For everything." And then she was snapping on the mask with one hand, pinning her braid to the back of her head, and was gone, vanishing into the trees with the two War Ops members as if she had never been there at all.
"Wait!" Ino Yamanaka's shrill yell broke through the admittedly peaceful silence the morning had brought. Birds startled at the sound and took to the sky. She looked worse for wear, her once neat hair bedraggled and frizzy, dark circles lining her eyes. Behind her, following at a slightly more hasty pace than he was used to, was Sai, his pale face pulled into an expression of aggrievement—Kakashi had never seen such emotion displayed so openly before, at least from the former ROOT member. "Shit! Kakashi, did I miss her?"
"Yo." He gave them a two fingered salute and nodded his head towards the trees. "If you had been a few seconds earlier, you would have caught her."
"Damnit." Ino sunk to her knees on the ground, dirtying her skirt and tears beginning to stream from her eyes. Sai, though he was not crying, knelt beside her and rested a hand on her back, rubbing awkward circles on her back in an attempt to soothe her. "I wanted to apologize to her—I didn't think—"
"Ugly doesn't blame you, Beautiful," Sai said in that same blank tone. "You're her best friend."
"What kind of best friend am I?!" Ino wailed, a dark red flush crawling up her neck, a product of rage, anguish, and sadness. "I'm the one who practically had her sentenced to death! I'm the one who reported her! If I had just kept my big fat mouth shut, maybe—!"
"Ino," Kakashi sighed, kneeling down to her height and grasping her shoulders. Sai paused, giving him a knowing look, and stood, taking a few steps back to deter the growing crowd of civilians flocking to the gate. "Sakura would have been caught eventually. It's alright. She doesn't blame you. This way, she knew what was coming; she believes she deserves it, so she doesn't hate you for it. She hates herself."
Ino hiccuped, her tears growing steadier and faster. "Then why do I feel like I just killed my best friend, Kakashi?"
He closed his eyes and tamped down the flare of anger in his chest. "Because you probably did."
Sakura heard Ino's cries from half a mile away. The War Ops were determined and moved fast, neither speaking a word to her as they leapt from tree branch to tree branch, infusing chakra into their steps to move a little bit faster, to push her a little more harder. She was able to keep up with them but only barely, her heart tugging her back to comfort Ino, to see the village one last time. She had to stop herself several times from looking back for a brief second, just to see if she could make out a head of pale blonde hair, and focused on the rapidly moving backs of her escorts, their nondescript brown and black hair the only hints of color on them.
While they were fast, they were also silent, but Sakura could taste the animosity crawling all over them anyways. They had likely been briefed on her status, and there was always a chance she would be fighting with a relative of someone she had killed, be it Yamanaka, Hyuuga, Akimichi, or a civilian. She would not only be watching her back for their enemies, she would have to watch out for her allies, too; there would be no friendships made here, she thought grimly, and adjusted the straps of her pack. Kakashi had been smart to add a lightening jutsu to it so it wouldn't hinder her progress, but it would be a nuisance if she had to fight with it on.
Though, if her latest fights had been anything to go by, she was more likely to obliterate organs and brains with a single rush of chakra than breaking bones with blunt, chakra enhanced fists. She would have to test it when they arrived at camp—some miles away near the borders of Ame—or if they chanced upon a group of rogue ninja along the way. And her seal needed to be examined, too, but she didn't trust any one of the War Ops members as far as she could throw them. Her own abilities would have to be enough.
"Caravan, three o'clock. Possibly rogue ninja." The first ninja, a woman, held her arm out in an order to pause. Sakura landed lightly on the tree branch behind her, eyes darting over the horse mask she wore and then into the underbrush, where she could just barely make out the wheels of a carriage and several men dressed in what appeared to be Amegakure gear. "No. Amegakure forces… Six chuunin and four jounin. Orders, Crane?"
The second ninja hummed in thought. Sakura would recognize the sound of Neji Hyuuga's voice anywhere, her gaze hyper focused—the long brown hair, slight build, the way he carried himself… She should have guessed. As far as she had been aware, Neji had been sealed by his clan and virtually disappeared from the public eye, but if this was what he had been doing for the past year or so, then she would have to be wary.
"Engage hostiles. Horse, crowd control. Crow… close combat. Fight to kill."
Sakura scowled behind her mask. He was already putting her at risk of death. She shouldn't have been surprised; the last time she had seen Neji, they hadn't been on good terms. If this was how the rest of her life was going to be while they fought this war, she would rather throw him to the wolves and fend for herself.
Their orders received, the triad scattered to surround the caravan. The contents were obscure, but Sakura could make out the kanji for 'explosive' on a barrel tied to the top. They were nearly thirty or forty miles out from Konoha, so they were clearly intended for the village, perhaps to weaken the defenses or take out enough ninja to cause an issue.
The plan of attack was clear. Sakura would be forced to go in first; Neji would come in with Horse and keep them all limited to the small pathway and prevent them from vanishing into the forest. It was a smart plan… if only it had gone as she thought it would.
Sakura leapt down from her perch on a branch and slammed down on a man's shoulders hard enough that the chakra in her feet sliced clean through the ball and socket joint and severed his arms from his torso. It hadn't been intentional, but she sawed a kunai across his throat anyway, arterial spray flying into the air in an elegant arc. It was warm and wet as it poured down her face and absorbed into her clothes, but she couldn't linger on just one. She shoved the body to the ground, the impact causing her knees to jolt unpleasantly, and darted for the nearest ninja in her line of sight.
He was large, burly, with cracked teeth and eyes full of red blood vessels. The vest he wore was more kevlar than a standard vest, so when Sakura tried to force her kunai through it, she was met with enough resistance that she had to change her plan. She swung her fist towards his face, intending to break his jaw and slam the delicate bones in his nose bridge up into his skull, but he caught the chakra laced hit with his bare hand, unaware of the horror crawling over Sakura's face as her razor sharp chakra tore through skin and muscle and flesh and bone, all the way up to his elbow, bits of gore and shorn veins flying through the little crowd they made.
Horse and Neji never came to back her up.
When the man screamed, hand flying up to grab at his bicep, she lunged forward and ground her fist into his skull. She heard the crack of bone and the soft give of brain matter and then he was dead, slumping at her feet, blood pooling between the webbing of her toes and sinking into her brand new shoes.
She was on her own, she realized, and had been set up quite spectacularly. Horse and Neji's chakra signatures were well on their way towards Amegakure and fading fast. This must have been the elders' plan: set her up, get her killed, and no one would be the wiser if she died due to foul play.
Sakura slaughtered her way through the Ame nin with tears burning in her eyes and a knot in her throat that she couldn't work through. She had thought she had been done with crying when she had left Konoha. She had thought she would be stone hard and cold when she left, unmoving, and stalwart in the face of her own death. Instead, she was as scared as the day she had faced off Orochimaru in the Forest of Death; as scared as the day Sasuke had knocked her unconscious and left her at the gates; as scared when she killed that poor girl when she was trying to heal her instead. Terrified, even, and fear fueled her anger, which fueled her determination to live.
She wanted to live. But did she even deserve it, anymore?
The last of the Amegakure ninja fell to her feet, his head rolling to a stop against a tree stump. A large lake of blood, demolished organs, and gore had grown the more she killed, and the mark on her forehead stung something fierce, as if someone had taken a hornet stinger to her skin and was painstakingly drawing out the circles and lotus flower like a cruel tattoo.
Sakura reached under her mask and brushed the tears away, blood streaking across her cheek and the corner of her eyes. There was nothing left to do now but move forward. She could let them believe she had died and flee to a far away country where no one would think to look for her; but a darker part of her, whispering in the back of her mind, told her to go to Amegakure, to show Neji and Horse that she was worth more than a few chunin and jounin, and when they weren't looking, stab them in the back as they had her.
She closed her eyes and sighed. "An eye for an eye, right?"
With one last cursory glance to the ninja she had killed, she began heading towards Amegakure, following the invisible trail that Neji had left behind.
a/n: thank you all for reading this! 3 reviews are always welcome. you may also read this on tumblr or ao3, if this format doesn't suit you, under the same username: catharticvillains. i'd love to know your thoughts, as this is just a project for me to get over my burnout, and expect the next chapter very soon. have a lovely day/night. :)
