"Explanation. Now."
"Sure, sensei." Sai agrees easily, seemingly not in the least affected by Kakashi's brusqueness. "What would you like to know?"
And Kakashi, for the first time since getting his team, finds himself suspicious of the 'guileless genin' façade, because he's known jounin who weren't able to look him in the eye the rare few times he's gotten serious in the field.
"Let's start with why you thought straying from the mission objective was an acceptable thing to do." Kakashi suggests icily, biting his tongue to stop saying more than necessary.
Sai blinks at his tone, though oddly still doesn't actually look too alarmed.
"I wasn't sure when you'd wake up." he says evenly, as if it can truly be that simple. "Naruto and Sasuke didn't know if you'd ever wake up."
Kakashi absently notes the unexpected switch to first names, and wonders at the reason behind it, though he shelves the thought for now to focus on his student's next words.
"If Zabuza had come when you were unconscious, we wouldn't have stood a chance. Not only would we have failed the mission, but we'd have all been killed in the process. I needed an advantage."
Kakashi pauses, feeling a little thrown, and frowning at the 'I' at the end. For the most part, it's a rational explanation, as much as he hates to admit it, if not a usual one to hear from the mouth of a genin.
But, more importantly, Naruto and Sasuke couldn't recognise chakra exhaustion?
"We're genin." Sai points out dryly. "We're not supposed to have experienced chakra exhaustion yet. And Naruto is an Uzumaki."
Kakashi nearly jumps at the explanation, eye snapping to his student's face. He's certain he hadn't spoken out loud, yet Sai pinned down what was bothering him within a second.
"And your...interaction on the bridge?" Kakashi asks, making sure his glare doesn't ease up in the least, though Sai remains bafflingly unaffected. "Despite our 'nice' reputation, Konoha doesn't make a habit of fraternizing with the enemy."
"I met Haku when I went to look for Naruto after he didn't come back to the house for the night." Sai relays, toneless and more like a mission report than an explanation, and Kakashi wonders, even as he wrestles his focus back to Sai's next words.
"He was dressed as a civilian and looking for herbs, but I recognised him as the fake hunter-nin. We talked, and I asked him whether Tazuna-san is Gato's target, or Zabuza's. He gave me the location of Gato's warehouse and the details of the guard shifts. I agree that I took a gamble, but I find that it was a justified one."
Kakashi...stares.
There's a lot to unpack there.
One thing stands out to him beyond the obvious, and he frowns, even as he tries desperately to absorb the rest of what Sai has said.
"When you say 'fake' hunter-nin," he begins, and Sai's expression does something odd - like he's not sure whether to roll his eyes or laugh, so instead, his face smooths out completely, and Kakashi is eerily reminded of Tenzo, "did you know he wasn't a genuine hunter-nin before I woke up?"
Sai stares at him for a moment, then he sighs, audibly exasperated, and begins rifling through the pack attached to his belt. He pulls out a book and offers it to Kakashi, eyebrow raised expectantly.
Kakashi takes it, eye falling on the title Land of Water: Culture, Customs, and Cuisine with more than a little disbelief, then raises his gaze to Sai's.
"Chapter eight, second paragraph." He instructs, and as Kakashi absently flicks through the book to humour his demand, Sai continues, "'Due to the high number of rogue-nin that have left Kirigakure no Sato since the ascension of the Yondaime Mizukage, the Village has a secret service of ANBU known as the hunter-nin. Their primary task is-!'"
"-I get it, Sai." Kakashi cuts him off, having found the page Sai had mentioned, intrigued to note that Sai had recited the paragraph nearly word-for-word.
He flicks through the text, absorbing the rest that Sai had likely been meaning to say: 'kill target on-site - excellent knowledge of anatomy required - only take the head and destroy the rest of the body' before lifting his eye back to his student, wordlessly asking for the explanation he feels is coming.
"A real hunter-nin wouldn't have taken Zabuza's whole body away. Nor would he have come alone to confront a member of the Seven." Sai explains, and Kakashi wonders whether it'd be hoping for too much that his student's only crime would prove to be that he is far too rational for a twelve-year-old.
"As for my last question," Kakashi announces after a beat, and this time, when he looks at Sai, the boy finally hesitates, the blank mask faltering, a flicker of apprehension in his eyes betraying how ill-at-ease he actually feels, and something in Kakashi relaxes when he realises that Sai's earlier lack of reaction was just bravado, "why did you think that hiding your skills from your team was in any way acceptable?"
As if his words are the trigger, the apprehension vanishes from Sai's eyes, and the blankness of his face is replaced with the usual guileless expression, all wide eyes and easy-going smile, and Sai's voice, when he speaks, is saccharine-sweet.
"Have you shared all thousand jutsu that you know with us, Kakashi-sensei?"
Kakashi takes a step back before he quite realises he's done it, reeling both at the words, and at the unexpected slam of the memory of Sakura saying almost the exact same thing half a year earlier.
But Sai is not done.
"The first thing I told you was that I don't like hypocrites, sensei." He says, and Kakashi recalls that introduction, remembers the whiplash he'd felt then, and he reckons that he should've mentally prepared himself for a similar conversation as the one they're having now the first time he heard the words 'military dictatorship seeking to subjugate all people' come out of a twelve-year-old's mouth.
Sai's saccharine expression has melted into one of genuine discontent and disappointment, and Kakashi hates the fact that this expression seems the most genuine out of everything he's seen from his student so far.
"That holds true now, too. You can't expect us to tell you everything about ourselves, when you neglected to tell Sasuke you have the Sharingan, and didn't think it important to tell us that you might suffer from chakra exhaustion upon using said Sharingan." Sai looks at him then, and Kakashi feels pinned to the spot in a way he hasn't since Minato-sensei was alive.
And Sai seems intent on driving the verbal knife he'd stabbed into Kakashi's heart further because he continues:
"The more subtle aspect of shinobi life may be lost on Naruto and Sasuke, but it's not lost on me. I know how to get information, I know how to blend in with the crowd, I listened when Iruka-sensei told us not to underestimate the usefulness of Academy techniques for information-gathering."
Kakashi realises this is the most his student has ever said in one go as Sai takes a breath to steady himself, and his mouth curls at the corner into a fierce scowl, the disappointment shining so clearly in his eyes that Kakashi would have to be an idiot to miss it.
"I can guess why you didn't want a genin team." Sai continues, and Kakashi freezes. "But you got one. You got one, and you're stuck with us until we make chunin, but we don't know anything about you. You've told us nothing about your skills, or fighting style, or preferred techniques, anything that would help us fight with you, like a team should. And I didn't think I'd need to remind you, but normal genin don't have access to Bingo Books to get their information, sensei."
Another deep breath, and Sai appears to visibly wrestle with his frustration, and when he next speaks, his voice is calmer, more measured, though still sharp.
"You've kept us busy the last three months, but you haven't taught us anything useful apart from how to start a fire or catch fish during your 'training camps'. Letting us go on a C-Rank outside the Village without so much as teaching us how to tree-walk was irresponsible of you, sensei."
At that last part, Kakashi wrenches all the emotions Sai's speech has forced to the surface back down and locks it away, his posture and expression ANBU-still, betraying nothing. His voice, when he speaks is no longer accusatory, but cold and flat and quiet, and all the more dangerous for it.
"Are you building up to a point, Sai?" he asks quietly, and Sai must be much better at emotional sensitivity than Kakashi's given him credit for, because his hand twitches towards his kunai pouch.
(Kakashi hates the thread of satisfaction that shoots through his system at the reaction.)
"Yes." Sai bites out, not rude, not quite, but assertive. Unwilling to bend or break even in the face of Kakashi's anger.
Kakashi's not sure whether his student is brave or stupid.
"You're our sensei, whether you like it or not." Sai announces, merciless, as he does his best to stare Kakashi down. "I'm asking you to start acting like it, because I'm sick of playing mediator. I shouldn't have been the one to tell Sasuke why you have the Sharingan, just as I shouldn't have been the one to teach him and Naruto how to tree-walk. And I definitely shouldn't have been the one to saw off Gato's head in the hopes that Zabuza would be willing to listen before he killed my team!"
Despite his anger, Sai's words turn Kakashi's blood to ice, and he's too frozen to react when Sai's chakra lashes out, a cold, cloying sensation washing over him and making his shoulders sag under an invisible weight before Sai wrenches his control back and Kakashi can breathe freely again.
"So yes, sensei." Sai sighs, all the fight draining out of him in seconds, and the disappointment fades from his gaze like it had never been there. Instead, he seems almost resigned. "I deviated from the mission. I killed Gato. I fraternised with the enemy. I took matters into my own hands, and you can include all of this in your report, because I don't care if I'm punished for it, because I'd do it all again if it meant keeping Naruto and Sasuke alive."
They stand there in silence, the air around them ringing with the weight of Sai's declaration, and Kakashi wonders what the Yamanaka shrinks would say if he ever told them that a preteen genin called him out on every single one of his insecurities within three months of knowing him.
They'd probably try to recruit Sai, thinking of it.
"Oh, also." Sai speaks up after a few seconds of them just staring at each other, and he sounds tired.
Tired with the bone-deep fatigue that Kakashi's intimately familiar with, though he doesn't know why he's hearing it from Sai, and despite his anger, a twinge of worry makes itself at home in his heart.
"I recommend taking all three of us to Psych after we report back."
"Psych deals with chunin and above." Kakashi points out mechanically before his brain quite catches up with his mouth. "Genin are monitored by their jounin-sensei."
"Yes, well." Sai sighs again, and something almost cruel flashes through his eyes when he meets Kakashi's gaze. "Sasuke and Naruto might not be too comfortable with that. Neither of them reacted well to seeing you 'die' in front of them twice, as you might imagine."
"But you're fine?" Kakashi asks, mostly to hear what Sai will say, because he's a masochist like that.
And Sai doesn't drop eye contact, doesn't so much as pause, before he replies:
"I have to be." A few more seconds pass, then he inclines his head in what a generous person may have called a bow. "May I be dismissed?"
Kakashi stares at his student for a few seconds, anger and worry and curiosity warring within him in equal measure, and it speaks to Sai's favour that he waits for a verbal dismissal.
"Why didn't you graduate early?" Is what Kakashi manages at last, tired of the verbal tug-of-war with a preteen who should be able to trust and rely on him yet just admitted to doing everything but. "You're skilled and knowledgeable, and I might not know just to what extent, but it's definitely enough to be labelled a prodigy by Academy standards. Why did you wait?"
Sai seems surprised at the question for all of two seconds, before a bitter smile quirks his lips. "Do you think anyone with half a brain wants to be labelled a prodigy? After what happened to you, or to Sasuke's brother?"
The question feels like a slap to the face.
"I probably could've gone through the Academy in a year, maybe even less." Sai allows. "What then? Graduate, move up to chunin within a year, waste a few years as a chunin before I either get field promoted or allowed to test for jounin, then die before my fifteenth birthday?" The bleak assessment of Sai's view on the fate of prodigies rattles Kakashi more than almost anything else the boy's said so far. Sai snorts at his own words then, the most disdainful thing Kakashi's heard from him so far. "No thank you, sensei. I much preferred to stay a child a few years longer."
Something about the wording of the last sentence pings in Kakashi's memory, but he can't quite pin down what, exactly, sounds familiar about it.
So, he sighs.
"You're dismissed."
He blinks, and Sai's gone.
Sasuke doesn't know what to think.
He caught Naruto up on what happened on the bridge, as much as he could, anyway, given that a) he doesn't know quite what happened either, but he knows it wasn't normal, and b) Naruto's questions irritated him to the point he clammed up after getting across the absolute minimum of information.
He did agree to sitting on the veranda to wait for Sai, though, because he can agree with the dobe on the fact that they both have some questions for Sai.
When Sai finally appears from between the trees, Sasuke is immediately on-guard, and even Naruto can tell something is not quite right.
For the last three months, Sai has been...warm, is the only word Sasuke can think of to describe it. Unusually formal, a little distant, but always smiling in some way and ready to help or diffuse conflict. He was also fairly quiet, and far better than his Academy scores indicated, but Sasuke definitely preferred quiet competence to Naruto's incessant chatter and idiocy, so he didn't mind.
Still, Sai always smiled, even if his smiles were small and didn't always reach his eyes, Sasuke was familiar enough with reading expressions from It- from his childhood to know that most of Sai's smiles were genuine.
Now though, Sai's not smiling.
His face is blank, his back straight, and his footsteps don't make a single sound even though he's treading through the underbrush filled with twigs and dry leaves.
Sasuke is eerily reminded of his cousin Shisui's face that one time he caught him and his brother talking in Itachi's bedroom, expressions similarly empty, words hushed and clipped so much so that Sasuke hadn't been able to hear what they were talking about even though he'd been standing in the doorway.
He mentally shakes the memory off, though he must move somehow, because Sai's gaze immediately snaps to where he and Naruto are sitting. Sai's blank expression doesn't falter, though his shoulders sag slightly with what Sasuke carefully pegs as resignation, and he raises an eyebrow at Sai, gratified when his teammate reluctantly switches course and walks up to where he and Naruto are sitting.
"Uchiha-san." Sai greets, still on a last-name basis even after three months, his tone even, and his little eye-smile phony to the point even Naruto shifts uneasily next to Sasuke. "Something you wanted?"
"What did Kakashi want from you?" Sasuke asks, getting straight to the point, and Sai tilts his head.
"Answers, mainly." He replies without much fanfare, lifting a single shoulder in a half-shrug. "I believe you want the same?"
"Did you really kiss that missing-nin?!" Naruto jumps in then, eyes wide, and Sasuke resists the urge to facepalm at his idiot teammate's lack of anything resembling tact.
"Technically, he kissed me." Sai points out, lip twitching into the tiniest of smirks, but this expression is genuine, that much Sasuke can tell, and he narrows his eyes.
Could he be...?
"But yes, I did." Sai agrees, then flick his focus fully to Naruto and his gaze becomes somehow heavier. "In fact, Haku and I met when I went to the forest to look for you, Uzumaki-san."
Though his voice was quiet, and no part of his words was threatening or accusing, Naruto immediately throws up his hands in the universal gesture for surrender.
"I already said 'm sorry for not coming home!" he defends quickly, and if he could, Sasuke imagines Naruto would be sweat-dropping. "I know not to fall asleep away from base now, 'ttebayo!"
Sai's intense focus eases then, and a tiny smile takes the place of the earlier smirk, and Sasuke sighs, exasperated.
He reaches out, snatching Sai's wrist and pulling down, and though Sai instinctively resists the first few seconds - something which Sasuke makes a mental note of for later, because he could've sworn Sai's guard was down, yet he didn't so much as sway at Sasuke's rather firm yank - Sai quickly gets the message and drops to the ground, sitting in front of him and Naruto with his legs crossed and expression quietly expectant.
Sasuke studies him for a few seconds, but beyond the curious tilt to his head, Sai's countenance betrays nothing.
"You hid your skills from sensei?" Sasuke eventually asks, a non-sequitur but something that has been nagging at him since their first confrontation with Zabuza.
"Yes." Sai admits simply, unbothered.
"And all through the Academy," Sasuke pushes, thinking out loud even as the pieces slowly begin to slot together in his mind, "you were- you were aiming for average?"
"Yes."
"Why?!"
Another tiny smile quirks Sai's lips then, and he shrugs again. "To see if I could."
When it becomes clear that neither he nor Naruto are happy with his answer, Sai sighs.
"I believe that subterfuge and cunning are the marks of a shinobi just as much as you and Uzumaki-san believe in flashy ninjutsu or accuracy with throwing weapons." he explains, rolling his shoulder idly. "When I told her that I found the Academy's teaching material boring, my sister told me of an old practice introduced by the Nidaime which was used by those who wanted to get into ANBU even before Graduation. To challenge me, if you would."
"Hiding skills." Sasuke guesses, because it's the logical conclusion after what Sai has already said, as well as the little he remembers of his brother's brush with the shadow ranks.
Sai cocks his head again, the look in his eyes oddly knowing, the small smile still playing around his lips, then answers.
"Not quite." he corrects, shooting a reassuring glance at Naruto, who's looking rather wide-eyed. "Duping the instructors as to my real competence level, but not getting caught at it."
"You could've been the Rookie of the Year." Sasuke concludes flatly, not sure how he feels about the fact, but fairly sure that he's right.
Sai just regards him with another one of those infuriating smiles of his.
"Maybe." he allows, and Sasuke is proficient enough in Kakashi's 'underneath the underneath' to know that what his teammate means is yes.
"But what I told you during Kakashi's test is still true here: I wouldn't have minded going back to the Academy. I enjoyed it a lot more once I looked beyond the immediate teaching material and pointless tests." Sai points out, and Sasuke absently notes the use of Kakashi rather than sensei, a rather telling slip-up, though telling what, he's not sure yet.
"And saw what?" he presses anyway, because he's starting to feel like he's missing something, and he never thought that aiming for the Rookie of the Year position was a mistake.
Until now.
"The other Clans' traditions for their Academy rankings. How to hide my chakra from the chunin sensei. Or the fact that the outer wall of the teachers' staff room has fuinjutsu on it that makes it work like a one-way mirror, so the teachers can see the students while they're out in the yard on break. Or that genin teams are assigned less on your academic performance and more on your compatibility with the jounin-sensei."
Sasuke knows that he's just wide-eyed as Naruto is by the time Sai finishes, and he almost doesn't register the last point. Naruto does though, and his frown is audible when he asks:
"Whaddaya mean by 'compatibility' with the jounin-sensei?"
Sai looks skyward for the briefest of moments, then sighs, and when he turns back to them, he seems the slightest bit exasperated.
"Genin teams are more like apprenticeships than anything else. Sure, you have to pass the jounin's test, but the test itself also measures compatibility. Team 8's sensei had them track her through the Village, since they have a Hyuuga, an Aburame, and an Inuzuka, which means that they'll be a tracking-oriented team. Team 10, from what I heard, had to get a password of some sort from their sensei, since they're going to be an intel-gathering team."
Naruto gawks.
"How do you know this?!" he demands, and normally, Sasuke would scoff, but now.
Now he wants to ask the same.
Sai blinks at them, the most thrown he's been this whole conversation, his earlier blankness entirely gone now.
"Because I have...friends?" he offers, as if he's just as confused about Naruto's question as Naruto is at his earlier reveal. "And I know how to henge and ask the right questions? And a lot of this is obvious once you look at the team lists and have some basic knowledge of Konoha Clans?"
"Then what was our team built around?" Sasuke finds himself asking before he can bite his tongue, though Naruto makes an interested noise as well, so he reckons the dobe is too distracted to note his uncharacteristic curiosity.
"Yeah, yeah, what the teme said!" Naruto backs him up, almost jumping in place now. "Since Kiba's tracking and Team 10 is, uh, getting information? What were we?!"
Sai stares, then visibly bites back a sigh and points at Sasuke, his expression similar to what Sasuke remembers from Iruka-sensei.
"Uchiha taijutsu and Fire release. Sharingan." he says, enunciating clearly, then switches his finger to Naruto, "Trap-setting, evasion skills, and Uzumaki lineage, which means above average chakra reserves."
His finger turns to point at his own sternum. "I was in the seventies in every category in the Academy. Never higher, but consistent in every field. An all-rounder. Malleable, if you will. Easy to train me into anything that might be required, and that was without revealing my tanto and long-range ninjutsu."
Sasuke takes it all in, shoots a glance from the corner of his eye at Naruto only to find him mouthing 'evasion skills?' and bites back a sigh, then finally turns to Sai, expectant.
And Sai, for the briefest of moments, looks bitter, before his earlier blankness wipes the expression away.
"And our sensei is Hatake Kakashi, a man renowned as the Copy-ninja, rumoured to have learnt over a thousand jutsu, who created his own assassination technique as a teenager and has a flee-on-sight in three Nations."
Sai looks from Naruto, to Sasuke, and back, and concludes: "We're a combat squad."
There's a moment of silence as they take it all in, then:
"Aw, hell yeah!" Naruto cheers, jumping to his feet and pumping his fist in the air, startling some of the birds in the nearby tree, "Kiba can suck it!"
And Sasuke considers all that he's just learned, looking at his teammate in a new light. Sai stares back, perfectly blank, letting Sasuke come to his own conclusions.
After a few seconds of absorbing everything and tuning out Naruto's victory dance over getting the 'coolest designation', Sasuke realises that he wants to spar Sai. All out.
He keeps that sudden desire to himself, and instead asks the next thing that pops into his head when he considers everything he knows about his teammate.
"You think the Hokage is a dictator?" he asks, startling Naruto into silence with his unexpected question, but all Sai does is tilt his head in that annoying way of his and smile again, this one slyer than anything he's seen from his teammate thus far.
"You think he isn't?" he shoots back, his voice steady, always so damn steady, and Sasuke realises that's all he's going to get from him on that matter.
"Uh, guys?" Naruto interrupts, looking between them oddly. "What's a dictator?"
The run back to the Village was quiet. Bat and Crow had subsided after the most perfunctory of summaries from Inosuke, and though Sakura could tell that they were far from satisfied with the explanation of their unexpected detour, they let it go.
When they get to the Village, Wolf-taicho dismisses them almost as soon as they step through the Gates, but Sakura sticks by his side all the way to ANBU HQ. She can feel his curiosity as he makes his way through the corridors of HQ with her as a silent but persistent shadow, and he eventually relents and makes a left-turn towards the training ground they used on the first day Sakura met her team.
The door barely manages to shut behind her when Wolf-taicho turns to her and crosses his arms over his chest.
"Anything you want to say, Mongoose?" he asks, voice cold and blank through the filter of the mask, though now that she's heard his natural voice, Sakura can hear the undercurrent of concern in the words.
So she pushes her mask to the side, uncovering the right side of her face, and sends Wolf a weighted look.
"Taicho, I would appreciate if what we talked about on the mission stayed between us for now." she tells him frankly, and he's too good of a shinobi to react visibly, but Sakura feels the way he pulls his chakra closer to himself to hide his unconscious reaction.
"Why?" he asks simply, and Sakura wracks her brain for an answer that would satisfy him while she scans the training room, unsure if it has cameras the same way ROOT used to or if she's safe to speak her mind.
She errs on the side of caution and considers her words carefully.
"My first team and I…On one of our missions, we purged the forest of its most diseased roots, but doing so, we found similar problems above ground. We never told anyone about it because we'd have had to cut down whole trees to fix the problem." She says slowly, feeling a little ridiculous, but she can feel the way Inosuke's attention sharpens even though she cannot see his face, as he reads the double-meaning to her words: 'Yeah, we got rid of ROOT, but the situation above-ground is little better. Too many people were involved in hiding ROOT's actions.'
"There are many trees in the forest." He says leisurely, and Sakura relaxes a little at the realisation that he managed to follow her admittedly convoluted metaphor. 'There are many people in the Village. You can afford to lose some.'
"I'm aware, but the one that's the biggest problem is the strongest." She explains, stressing 'strongest', and this time, she sees him tense. "Bringing it down would hurt a lot of other trees in the area." 'And what if one of them is the Hokage? He wouldn't go down quietly.'
"And letting it be won't?" he asks after a beat, and Sakura does a double-take.
Is her taicho advocating for kagecide?
"Disease spreads. It can suffocate the trees nearby." He adds almost idly, and Sakura tries to school her expression into something less like a gaping fish when she realises that he's concerned about her.
"They can adapt." She manages through a dry throat, blinking back the sudden burn in her eyes. "They can survive until the opportune moment to bring the biggest tree down."
"Mm." her taicho just hums, considering her, then, after what feels like an age, inclines his head. "Alright."
Sakura almost sags with relief, feeling some of the tension she's been carrying since their conversation on the roof in Waves finally dissipate.
"But, for the record, Mongoose?" Wolf calls, pulling her out of her relieved daze, and she snaps to attention, suddenly wary.
She feels the shimmer of genjutsu around them, though she only notices it because it's not concentrated on her and because she's so on-edge that all her senses are on high alert, and she's more than a little confused when she realises the focus of the illusion is Wolf's mask.
She goes to run through 'kai', but Wolf moves before she can break the genjutsu, one hand rising to his mask and pulling it aside in a similar manner to what she had done earlier.
His expression beneath the mask sends a shiver down her spine: his left eye is focused on her and he doesn't even pretend to hide the bitterness in his gaze, and what she can see of his mouth is twisted into a wry, humourless smirk.
"I know a fair bit about forestry myself. I wasn't going to tell anyone your team's secret." He tells her steadily, gaze boring into her, and Sakura finds no lie or deception in his eye or words.
She nods numbly, stunned speechless and grateful beyond belief, and Inosuke's wry smirk softens momentarily, then he pushes his mask back over his face and drops the illusion.
"If that's all, I'll see you in three days for team training." He dismisses her, and Sakura nods again, slipping out of the training grounds and heading towards the showers almost on auto-pilot.
She doesn't remember a Yamanaka Inosuke from her timeline, and she can't help but wonder why that might be, though she's glad to have him on her side in this.
Still, she winces when she realises that Shin is going to rip into her regardless for spilling their secret so recklessly.
Maybe she'll just drown herself in the showers. That sounds like a much better fate than facing her irate aniki.
Two weeks after the almost-confrontation on the bridge and four weeks after they first set out, they're finally on their way back to the Village.
Sai is exhausted, mentally and physically, but from the way he can feel Kakashi's eye on him every time he edges out to the front of their group, he knows he's unlikely be able to properly relax until he puts his sensei's unease to rest, and that requires his siblings present.
Or simply Sakura, since from what he's heard about his sensei's interactions with Shin, having his aniki there might just aggravate the situation.
He's grateful that Naruto had an unexpected stroke of genius when Kakashi promised that they'd stay to guard the bridge builders until they completed the bridge and volunteered his clones to the task of carrying around the materials, accelerating the building process by at least another two weeks.
Sai pretended not to see the way the other bridge builders kept staring at him when they thought he wasn't aware, as if not sure whether they should be scared of him or grateful that he had rid them of Gato. He supposed even in a place as impoverished as Waves, the notion of preteens murdering in cold blood didn't sit well.
Hearing Tazuna christen the newly-completed bridge the Bridge of Hope did ease the knot of tension in his gut some, however.
Still, the scrutiny he'd been under in Wave left a bitter taste in his mouth, and that wasn't helped in the least by Sasuke's sudden increased interest in his person.
It's this interest that Sai reckons is behind his teammate emerging from their tent in the middle of the night, a good hour before he's due for his guard shift.
Somewhat predictably, Sasuke comes to stand at the root of the tree next to the one Sai has claimed as his guard perch, though Sai doesn't spare him so much as a glance, keeping his gaze on the sleeping forest around them instead, scanning the trees periodically.
With only the barest sounds of shuffling and a quiet grunt, Sasuke scales the tree he'd stopped by, settling on a branch only marginally higher than Sai's, close enough to be accidentally companionable but not so close as to be deemed friendly, and Sai stifles a sigh even as his lip twitches at his teammate's determination to maintain the 'not-friends' façade.
"Trouble sleeping, Uchiha-san?" Sai asks quietly after a few minutes, knowing that if he doesn't make Sasuke spill what's on his mind soon, the boy will keep him there even after Sai's shift ends, and he'd definitely rather sleep than endure his teammate's tsundere-ness.
"Why are you so formal?" Sasuke shoots back, blunt as ever, and Sai closes his eyes briefly, wishing for patience. "We're the same age."
"Actually, I'm four months older than you and a full year older than Uzumaki-san." Sai corrects, because he knows exactly when his birthday is, despite what he maintains in front of his siblings.
He'd found his orphanage file in the pile of files they'd stolen from ROOT but kept from the Hokage as insurance. Even now, he can picture in his mind's eye the blurry little photo of himself around four-years-old, smiling uninhibitedly with a crayon in hand, and the hastily scribbled birthdate November 25th.
Sasuke twitches at his words, causing the branch he's perching on to creak tellingly, and Sai smiles tiredly.
"Then you definitely shouldn't be so formal." Sasuke scoffs after a beat, though his voice lacks the usual bite that Sai would expect from the words. "It's weird."
"What do you want me to say, Uchiha-san?" Sai asks flatly, not bothering to keep his tiredness from his voice, closing his eyes and tilting his face to the sky when he feels the first drops of rain begin to fall. "It's not like you were bursting with desire to make friends when this team was created."
"Friends would only get in the way of my goal." Sasuke brushes him off, though he sounds oddly startled, as if he wasn't expecting Sai to call him out on his hypocrisy.
Safely behind his closed lids, Sai rolls his eyes. He's done with keeping his mouth shut when his team behaves like idiots. The first thing out of his mouth had been that he hates hypocrites. They should've damn well listened.
"And what goal is that?" he pushes idly, though he knows Sasuke is listening. "Hunting down your brother?"
Sasuke's hitched breath is as telling of his shock as the sudden spike in his chakra, and Sai bites back a mean snort.
"What do you know?" Sasuke asks sharply, and Sai can feel his eyes on him, though he doesn't bother reacting outwardly.
"There are few other men you could be interested in finding, considering your history." He explains leisurely. "If my brother suddenly murdered my sister, I'd have some questions too."
"You've no idea what you're talking about." Sasuke snarls, chakra crackling again before he tries to reign it in, and Sai can feel his glare, and his own temper flares momentarily.
"A word of advice, Uchiha-san." He offers, and he's aware his voice is far colder than it had been mere moments earlier. "Don't assume you're the only who's had a difficult life. And don't try to figure someone out if you're not ready for them to do the same to you."
To highlight his words, he lets some of the intent he usually keeps under an iron-fisted control leak out, letting the oppressive hopelessness that is his version of K.I permeate the air between him and Sasuke and feeling more than seeing the Uchiha freeze.
He's never been one for talking circles around people like Shin, or for utilizing people's perception of him and weaponizing it like Sakura, but he has his own talents, and quiet observation and pinpointing weaknesses with unerring accuracy is one of them.
Sasuke just happens to wear his insecurities on his sleeve, and Sai is nothing if not opportunistic.
He reigns his intent back after a few seconds, feeling a twinge of satisfaction at the shudder in the breath Sasuke takes immediately after.
"Also, if I wanted to track down somebody who'd been a jounin when he'd been my age, I'd surround myself with the best and brightest that I could find." He points out into the silence broken only by Sasuke's heaving breaths. "In which case, friends would not only help with your goal, but be almost imperative to achieving it."
They lapse into silence after that, and Sai mentally calculates that he's only got about ten minutes or so left of his guard shift, though he doubts Sasuke is keeping track. He could go, probably, though he has no idea if Kakashi's awake or not, or whether the jounin even cares if they skip out on a few minutes.
"You're not a genin."
Sai startles a little, surprised enough by the words as to open his eyes, staring at the tree next to his and finding Sasuke already looking back at him.
"Excuse me?" he asks carefully, ill-at-ease by Sasuke's unexpected focus.
"I don't know what your deal is, but you're too much like Shi- like someone I knew to be a genin." Sasuke elaborates, and that in itself is interesting because Sasuke never says more than he absolutely has to.
Another minute of silence passes, and then Sasuke adds, voice softer than Sai has ever heard it: "You knew my brother? Or just of him?"
Sai sighs, considering his teammate and feeling an odd stirring of guilt and pity in his stomach. He wonders what he'd have been like if Shin had done what Itachi had – if he'd killed Sakura and Shino and disappeared into the dead of night. Would he have walled off the rest of the world like Sasuke? Would he have gone looking for answers? Or would he have just…given up?
"I met him, once." He says after a beat, apparently surprising Sasuke because his teammate's chakra jumps.
"He dislocated my sister's shoulder." He adds with a frown, remembering that spar.
He's not expecting for Sasuke to suddenly snort, nor for the snort to turn into hastily smothered almost-hysterical laughter.
"You're fucking weird, Sai." Sasuke announces out of nowhere, and Sai sees a glint of white teeth in the pale light of moonlight, meaning that Sasuke is…smiling? "I want to fight you."
Sai blinks.
His brain turns over their conversation, desperately trying to figure out what part of it could have resulted in Sasuke coming to such a decision, and fails. He'd expected anger or insults or at the very least for the Uchiha to shut down and refuse to speak to him again, not…camaraderie?
"Sasuke…" he starts hesitantly, wondering what the hell he's supposed to do with a not-antagonistic Sasuke all of a sudden. He also wonders what Sakura would do in this situation.
Laugh herself to tears, probably.
"…are we friends?" is what he settles on, knowing that, if anything would, the notion of 'friendly-relations' should be enough to bring Sasuke back to normal.
And, true to form –
"Hn. Don't push it."
Kakashi is glad that his mask hides 90% of his expression by the time he's finally done giving the oral report in the mission room, his bratlings uncharacteristically quiet at his side. He knows he's going to get called into the Hokage's office as soon as his written report is processed, particularly since the predicted 'easy C-Rank' had spiralled into a B-Rank the moment they encountered the Demon Brothers, and now might or might not get pushed up to an A-Rank.
Not to mention that one of his students had to deviate from the mission and have his first kill at the same time because Kakashi had inadvertently put him in that position.
He almost groans out loud when Naruto demands celebratory ramen as soon as they're free from the mission office hubbub, not comforted in the slightest when Sasuke shoots down ramen almost immediately and demands Yakiniku, which Sai surprisingly supports.
Yakiniku means Akimichi, and Akimichi means Yamanaka and Nara, and Kakashi knows that if Shikaku hears wind of this mission, half the Nara Clan will know within an hour, and that will mean that whatever Yamanaka gets assigned as his shrink this time will know.
Fuck, Sai wanted him to take them to Psych, too. Now he can't even avoid the shrinks.
Fucking peachy.
Still, he just about survives the dinner with his genin, shovelling down some barbecue when Naruto and Sasuke get distracted by Asuma's team, and Sai seems fascinated by some ink on his arm.
Wait. Rewind.
Ink on his arm?
But when Kakashi looks back to his student, Sai's arm is clear of any ink, and he has neither an inkstone nor a brush in hand.
Eventually, he dismisses his students, telling them to meet him at their usual training grounds in three days. He reluctantly resigns himself to footing the bill this time, because he's already dreading what Naruto and Sasuke will have to say to the shrinks about his leadership, he doesn't need 'lets us starve' added to the list as well.
He can skimp on his ANBU team. The genin, he might actually have to feed for the next few weeks.
He's not expecting Sai to stay at the table even when Naruto and Sasuke take their leave, the former grumbling about needing a week to sleep off the crick in his neck from sleeping in a tent while Sasuke just scoffs and shoves his hands in his pockets.
And he's definitely not expecting Yugao and Genma to slip into the seats his students had barely vacated, a grin he's come to be wary of on Genma's face.
He has no idea what's going on when Sakura slips onto the bench next to Sai.
(She looks a little worse for wear, a pale diamond-shaped ridged scar on her cheek, though its colour makes it seem years old instead of the month max that it has been since he last saw the girl, leading him to believe that it won't stay on Sakura's face for long.)
He's officially lost when Sakura wraps an arm around Sai's shoulders and pulls him into her side.
"Aneue." Sai breathes, melting into his kouhai's embrace. "You got my message."
Kakashi freezes.
Aneue.
Aneue.
Big sister.
"Oh, man." Genma chortles, the senbon in his mouth clacking against his teeth. "What I wouldn't give for a camera right now."
Kakashi barely hears him, gaze trained on the newly-named siblings.
Sai's eyes have slipped shut, lines of exhaustion Kakashi hadn't even realised were there until they were gone smoothing out, but Sakura is staring back at him steadily, her expression open and the look in her eyes the slightest bit guilty.
"Our otouto's the artist."
"We've put everything on the line to give him a normal childhood, or as normal as you can get being an ex-ROOT agent with the remnants of a failed conditioning program rattling around your brain."
"Perhaps, if all goes well, by the time he graduates, you won't even be able to tell he was once one of Shimura's most 'loyal'."
Umino's words to Shin: "Your brother's graduation is tomorrow, now that your sister can't make it, you better be there if you know what's good for you."
Sakura's unexpected concern when his kids had landed themselves in the hospital.
Sakura's apt summary of Sai's role in the team despite never interacting with his students: "The third one seems to be keeping them together, but you can't expect him to do that forever."
Sai's unexpected maturity. The bizarre formality towards his age-mates.
Sai being able to sneak up on him. Sai being able to match Sasuke for speed and throwing accuracy despite only marginally above-average Academy scores. Sai knowing Hosenka.
Sai barely blinking at having the Demon of the Mist's KI pointed directly at him. Sai's lack of reaction at having his 'first kill' on his first mission outside the Village.
Sai having a tanto, of all things.
God, he's an idiot.
"I think you broke him." He hears Yugao's voice, though it sounds like he's underwater.
His eye is burning, watering in a way that tells him he hasn't blinked all though his revelation, and when he snaps back to awareness, Sakura is still looking at him, and even Sai has opened his eyes, peering at him warily.
"So, even after you knew I was his sensei, you still didn't trust me enough to…?" he asks at last, his voice sounding far away even to his ears, and for some reason, Sakura's eyes soften, even as a wry smile plays on her lips.
"It wasn't a matter of trust, taicho." She tells him patiently, her tone apologetic but firm. "I knew he'd be in good hands with you as his sensei."
"Then why…?" He can't bring himself to actually finish the question, his usual masochistic tendencies unexpectedly eclipsed by his sense of self-preservation.
Sakura sighs, her arm still around Sai's shoulders, and cards her fingers through Sai's hair comfortingly, prompting Sai's eyes to slip shut again.
"I knew you didn't want a genin team." She says simply, Genma and Yugao watching their exchange with a mix of amusement and anxiety. "And I didn't want Sai to be stuck with the role of assistant-sensei once you realised that he's basically chunin-level and could do most of the teaching for you."
"You're our sensei, whether you like it or not. I'm asking you to start acting like it, because I'm sick of playing mediator."
Kakashi winces, Sai's accusations ringing through his head, brought to the forefront of his mind by Sakura's words.
"I'm sorry for keeping you in the dark, but I'm not sorry I did it." Sakura adds, the odd not-apology shaking Kakashi out of the worst of his stupor. "But I told you before that I will always put my siblings first, taicho."
"My goal is for my family to be happy."
"You're all disgustingly co-dependent." Is what he finally manages to get out, prompting a poorly-hidden snort from Genma and a startled cough from Yugao. "And terrifyingly competent."
It seems Sakura really does know him, because she doesn't react to his comment beyond a small smile, merely waits him out until he finally sighs.
"I'm not happy about this." He admits, waving a hand at her and Sai and Genma and Yugao who had clearly known about the Sai Situation and kept it from him. "But I can understand why you did it."
As if those words were what she'd been waiting for, Sakura breaks out into the most genuine smile he's seen from her so far, and next thing he knows, she's on his side of the table and has thrown her arms around his shoulders in a hug-ambush.
Before he can quell the instinct that has him reaching for his kunai or reciprocate the hug, she's already pulling away and returning to her seat next to Sai, raising a hand to call over the waiter who'd been rather conspicuously absent over the course of their conversation.
Slowly, Yugao and Genma steer the five of them onto more light-hearted topics, drawing Sai into the conversation little by little, something Kakashi can tell doesn't go unnoticed by Sakura given how much she softens when Sai smiles as Yugao compliments his fashion sense and asks where he found pants with that many pockets.
Eventually, even Kakashi is pulled into the discussion that has taken over the table, and when the food arrives, it's almost like it was the few times they'd gone for dinners as a team before the Mokuton Reveal.
He wonders idly, his masochistic streak returning with a vengeance, whether the atmosphere will still be as easy-going once everyone inevitably learns of the shitstorm that had been their last mission.
Sometimes, Kakashi hates being right.
Umino had been in the Hokage's office when he'd been called in to expand on his report two days later, as well as goddamn Yamanaka Inoichi.
The Hokage had been…far from amused.
Inoichi even less so at the news that he'd left a genin feeling like he had to take matters into his own hands.
Umino looked like he was going to personally gut Kakashi then hug him by his entrails from the top of the Hokage Mountain, but whether that was because he'd managed to make his students lose faith in him on their first mission outside the Village, or because he'd all-but left them alone for three days when an A-Rank missing-nin could've come at any time, that was anyone's guess.
After leaving the office, his shoulders sagging under the weight of his perceived failure as a sensei, Kakashi does what he does best.
He hides.
In plain sight.
In the Jounin HQ.
He isn't hiding from other jounin, or from their judgement – he's more than grown used to it.
He's hiding from his students.
(And, maybe, from Sakura.)
Those who were up-to-date with the gossip circles of Konohagakure, or knew who to ask, would've quickly realised that the girl that could sometimes be found chatting with Yugao or comparing poisons with Genma was, in fact, the second resident child genius of Team Ro.
Anko happens to be both.
She's decent enough friends with Yugao to have been able to ask early on, and apparently tolerable enough for Genma that when she said 'what the fuck's the deal with the kid on your team?' he'd just laughed.
From Yugao, she got a winding tale of the kid's apparent competence and adaptability and 'maturity beyond her age'.
From Genma, she got a wicked grin and a most unexpected explanation of; "She's the first person I've ever encountered whose default reaction to Kakashi's bullshit is humour."
The kid doesn't seem particularly amused now.
Anko notices her as soon as she steps into the Jounin HQ, and she takes in the shockingly pink hair in a messy undercut, loose black pants tucked into thick combat boots and a burgundy zip-up hoodie thrown over a familiar black turtleneck.
She considers the blank expression and utter stillness of the girl's body as she scans the room, and studies the assessing light in green eyes and something in her jolts.
There's something familiar to the girl, and at the same time, her posture screams child-soldier and she doesn't seem bothered enough to hide it.
The girl seems to find who she's looking for and her eyes narrow just the slightest bit, then she's moving, weaving through the crowd with a single-minded focus until she stops a few couches to Anko's left, where Hatake is lounging bonelessly, his porn book held in front of his face in a clearer 'fuck off' than if he'd yelled it from the rooftops.
The girl steps close enough until she can stretch out a hand and push Hatake's book down with a finger, meeting his eye with a non-expression that still manages to convey a deep disappointment that's almost enough to make Anko wince in sympathy.
"Your team's waiting for you." She tells Hatake quietly, and the area immediately around the duo falls conspicuously silent.
Jounin are incorrigible gossips, after all.
"They have been for the past few hours, if I'm not mistaken. You were meant to take them to Psych today." she adds, and Kakashi tilts his head.
"Have they really?" He asks idly, then meaningfully raises his book to his chin. "That's too bad. Guess we'll have to go tomorrow."
"You can't deny them a visit to Psych." she seems to remind Hatake, and it's not quite sharp yet, but her eyes have grown colder, the corners of her mouth curling down. "You don't have to go with them, but they need your rank to get in."
"Just henge into me and give them D-Ranks for the day, and I'll take them to the shrinks tomorrow." Kakashi waves her off, and raises his book so it once again covers his face.
Something in the girl's expression shifts – or rather, any expression that was left disappears – and Anko might not know the exact relationship the two have, but she can tell Hatake went too far.
Quicker than she would've expected, the girl's leg snaps up in a vicious kick, knocking the book from Hatake's hand and into the air, and she grabs a kunai and launches it with enough force that it hits the book and pins the now-ruined novel to the wall at the back of the room.
A hush falls around the HQ, and Kakashi slowly raises his eye to meet the icy gaze of his subordinate, and the temperature around the two drops by ten degrees.
"I already have." she tells him coldly, and it seems to be the answer Hatake isn't expecting, because his eye widens minutely. "And the first thing you teach them once you decide to be a sensei again should be how to spot henges because none of them noticed, and I don't think I need to tell you how much of a security risk that is, Kakashi."
Ouch. Anko thinks, and spares a second to be impressed by the nigh-masterful delivery – an insult, a threat, and a warning all in one.
"What happened to 'taicho'?" Hatake asks instead, eyebrow rising, though his expression is also colder than before. "Not feeling so respectful anymore?"
"You had my respect as my captain." the girl retorts, and if anyone had any doubts about how such a disparate pair knows each other, Anko can see they have been swiftly dispelled.
There are quite a few gaping faces and wide eyes as well, once some of the jounin in the room make the connection.
"But you have to earn that respect as a jounin-sensei."
Then she sighs, and Anko can see her wrestle the frustration back and lock it down, until all that's left is the same blank mask she wore as she walked in.
"Go to your genin, Kakashi." she says quietly, a hint of fatigue under the monotone, and something in her non-expression shifts. "Or I'm going to ask the Hokage to put you on forced leave for dereliction of duty. Your students could do with some in-Village time."
Anko sucks in a breath despite herself.
The kid either has serious balls or is straight up suicidal. Judging by the rumours floating around T that she survived ROOT and rose from Shimura's ashes like a macabre phoenix, Anko's willing to bet good money on the latter.
That finally seems to snap Hatake out of his attitude and he grabs the girl's wrist as she moves to leave, and Anko can both feel and smell the spike of his chakra, and the stench of ozone it leaves in the air.
She knows, rationally, that Hatake wouldn't Raikiri the kid, but she also suspects that this is likely a first for him – few have dared call him out for his behaviour since the Yondaime's death, so she doesn't really know what to expect at all.
"Is that a threat?" he asks quietly, dangerously, yet the girl is unperturbed. If anything, there's something almost...resigned, in her expression.
"No." she answers equally quietly, then twists viper-quick and brings her foot up in a sharp side-kick, and Hatake is forced to let go of her wrist or risk broken ribs. "I know you better than that."
Then, she steps away, out of Hatake's reach.
Her gaze lifts suddenly, flitting to the back of the room momentarily, something like wry amusement flashing through her eyes and her lip twitches, before it's wiped away and she looks down again, shooting Hatake one last meaningful look.
Then she leaves the HQ, just like that.
Anko watches Hatake for a while after that, not scared off like most others when the fuck-off aura he's been exuding intensifies. His eyes stare unseeingly into the door to the HQ where his kouhai had disappeared, then flicker to the clock on the wall, before he draws his book back over his face and pretends to nap.
Yet, fifteen minutes to the second after the girl leaves, he stands and heads out the door as well, porn stuffed into his vest pocket and the usual lazy, lackadaisical aura back in place.
Anko grins and makes a mental note to ask Yugao to introduce her to the kid. She has a feeling they will get along swimmingly.
(She glances behind her once Hatake leaves, to the back of the room where the kid had looked before she'd disappeared, wondering who could've made her smile after the dressing down she'd given Hatake, but only finds Yamanaka Inosuke buried behind Intel reports, the towers of paperwork a comparably clear fuck-off to Hatake's porn book for anyone who might've even thought of approaching.
Anko scoffs.
Yeah, nah, she must've imagined the whole thing. She doesn't know of anyone whose default reaction to that particular Yamanaka is a smile.)