Wave Arc: V

The mists thinned the further back I got. I saw Naruto and Sakura before they saw me, though it only took another second for them to notice.

"Bastard!" Naruto shouted, completely undermining my attempts to be sneaky and escape without Haku or Zabuza noticing. "What the hell, what's happening?"

"Zabuza," I said shortly. "Kakashi's fighting him, we have to get the civilians out. Where's Tazuna? I left him on the shore."

"We didn't see anyone," Sakura said, falling in step with me and sending an uneasy glance back at the dense mist. I frowned; had that already been Kakashi that I'd switched with? He must've noticed Zabuza and laid a trap for him without telling me.

I take back everything I said. Kakashi's a dick. Who does that? Assholes, that's who.

"Concentrate on the others then, maybe he's already safe," I said. Sakura nodded and gestured at Naruto.

"Already on it, believe it!" he answered with his hands in a cross seal, and the bridge filled with orange as he rushed to collect the still unconscious workers. A second later and his clones dispersed in a rain of senbon, leaving Naruto reeling back with a startled yelp.

"I'm sorry," Haku said politely, shunshining to a stop in front of us. "I can't let you do that." He'd dropped his earlier Kakashi-henge and was back in the Kiri uniform, complete with red and white patterned mask.

"The hunter nin," Sakura hissed through clenched teeth, dropping into a ready position. She glanced between us and the sprawled forms of Tazuna's bridge crew, eyes darting frantically as she thought of a plan.

"He was going to leave them alive," I said under my breath, shifting my weight on my toes and slipping a handful of shuriken into my palm. They weren't poisoned, but the wire looped through each one was - there wouldn't be enough on the wire to be deadly, just to slow Haku down.

If I could hit him. I was fast, but his kekkei genkai was all about speed. I was pretty sure he was faster.

"Why?" Naruto asked from my other side. I opened my mouth to answer but Sakura beat me to it, already having worked it out.

"Scare tactics," she said. "If they've not managed to kill Tazuna though that could easily change. We can't risk it."

I cursed, but she was right - it was the sensible way to approach the fight. And as much as I wanted to believe Haku wouldn't, I couldn't bet other people's lives on the fact that he'd behave the way I expected him to.

"So what, we just stand here and wait to see if he kills them?" Naruto asked, unimpressed. "Hey, hunter-bastard! Are you going to attack us or what?"

I barely resisted a groan. "Naruto you utter fuckhead. Why."

"My job is to keep you here," Haku said, still weirdly polite. He even dipped his head forward in regretful acknowledgement as he continued, "I apologise for not letting you go, but your sensei has already demonstrated that he will act irrationally where you are concerned. His attachment to his tools is odd, but also useful."

In other words, we were distractions. Great.

"We're not tools," Naruto spat, and I startled at the intensity of his reaction. "We're people! And if you can't see that, then you're wrong - and I'm going to beat you to prove it, believe it!"

"Naruto!" Sakura reached for him but he'd already charged, clones popping into existence around him, many of them already henged into a variety of weapons. She swore, but readied a kunai for her own charge. "Sasuke, get the civilians out, we'll -"

"Wait," I said, grabbing her shoulder. "Sakura, wait. Zabuza's an S class missing nin. He's not going to keep someone around if they're weak. You can't go rushing in." If she did, then it'd just be two of them trapped in his ice mirrors, and then what the fuck was I meant to do.

"You understand," Haku said, tilting his masked head in my direction. "What is not useful is not worth keeping, this is the way of shinobi. But it won't help you." Another wave of senbon, and another round of Naruto clones popping - though I noticed that about a third used the henged weapons they were carrying to block the needles, losing the weapons but easily surviving to make more. Naruto reached him in a flurry of snarling taijutsu that certainly looked impressive, even though it didn't appear to be having any effect.

"You're the fastest," Sakura said. "The civilians are the priority. Switch them out, and hurry."

I grimaced in frustration, but it made sense. Sakura and Naruto together should at least be able to keep Haku distracted, and the workers were too much at risk from the crossfire to leave them. I nodded, she gave me a tense grin and a fist bump that I had to scramble to return in time, and we darted off in opposite directions.

"Naruto, civilians," I reminded the closest clone, beelining towards the nearest worker. Kawarimi would be the quickest way to get off the bridge, but I'd never tried carrying a person with me and I didn't know if I could. Get to land then switch back again, like I'd done with Kakashi-as-Tazuna? That was still only one at a time.

He shook me off, turning on me with a glare. "We're not tools," he repeated. "Tools can be discarded and ignored and he needs to see that he can't dismiss us like that!"

"We don't have time for this," I said harshly, hooking my fingers in his jacket trying to drag him over. He shook me off again, jaw set mulishly, and I stifled a frustrated scream. "Fuck's sake, Naruto! What happened to being Hokage? You're meant to protect everyone!"

"The Hokage is important!" he snapped back. "If I'm going to be Hokage and I'm going to make them see me, I have to start here - I have to prove I matter!"

I felt a distant, teetering kind of dread. Naruto's nindo - his precious people - that had been Haku's nindo. If he didn't get that, if he never made those promises, how much of the story would fall apart?

There wasn't time to deal with it. "I thought the team mattered," I accused, a deliberately bitter comment designed to hurt because I was hurt and I never claimed to be a good person. I turned my back on him and angled towards the unconscious workers, rapidly calculating the distance to the shore and how many I could take on each trip.

I got as far as half-lifting the first into my arms before a precise wave of senbon forced me to leap back.

"I'm sorry," Haku said, appearing in front of me. "Like I said, I can't let you leave."

"How the fuck -" I glanced over at where Naruto - the original, not the clone I'd been talking to - and Sakura were still fighting. Sakura was springing back, firing herself straight up and readying a drop kick to land on Haku as she came back down; Naruto was somewhere in a sea of orange, surrounded by a continuous cloud of smoke as he replaced the bunshin Haku kept cutting down.

"Clone," I accused the Haku in front of me. "Why is it always clones."

"The most basic of techniques can sometimes be the most effective," he said. "Kunai still claim more bounties than jutsu do."

"I'm a shuriken kind of girl," I shot back, already letting a handful fly. He dodged them, sending senbon back, and I dodged in return, yanking on the wires attached to the shuriken to pull them sweeping round. It was enough to make Haku abandon his next attack and I came in sudden and low under the opening he left, hands up in lightning fast taijutsu combination that he barely blocked. I was right; he was fast, but so was I, and all I needed was for him to make one mistake -

I dived for an opening he left and he spun out of the feint, slicing at my hip with a fucking sword what the hell. Had someone forgotten to give me the memo that today was big pointy metal day? His was probably a katana or something like that, I wasn't an expert and I didn't have time to study it. I leapt back, already cataloguing the sting I felt and dismissing it as not bad enough to worry, and dipped my hand into my weapons pouch for more -

"You can't be serious," I hissed, as my fingers came up empty. It - and all my shuriken in it - was on the ground, next to Haku's feet. Shit.

"A good shinobi makes use of his tools," Haku said, not even out of breath. "But he doesn't rely on them. They are only tools, after all."

"Would you quit with the preachy metaphors? I don't care if you think ninjas are bananas, if they're my bananas I'm still going to fight you for them because otherwise what's the fucking point?"

He frowned. "Ah," he said unsurely, "I'm not sure you -"

"Bastard, switch!" the Naruto-clone I'd been talking to earlier yelled, flinging an unreasonably large shuriken at Haku from behind. My heart jumped and I flashed him a savagely relieved grin; a second and a senbon later and both clone and henged-clone shuriken were dispelled, but a second was all I needed to grab one of the clones next to Sakura and kawarimi into a defensive roll while I assessed the situation around them. They'd been leading the original Haku away from the workers and we were now solidly in the mist that surrounded Kakashi and Zabuza's fight; this was probably good in terms of civilian life expectancy, though not so good for us.

Worse for us was the way the mist started crystallising into ice.

"The hell is that?" Naruto - the original Naruto - asked, standing back to back with me and Sakura and roughly pulling a fistful of senbon out of his leg.

"Ice release," Haku said, appearing in front of us with one hand raised in a seal. I looked back frantically towards the workers before our view was obscured, but he seemed to have dispelled that clone. Lucky. And stupid of me to leave them unprotected; a more practical enemy would have used the clone to kill them. "Demonic mirroring ice crystals."

Seriously, everyone from Mist was demon obsessed.

The ice rose in sudden sheets, curving overhead to block us in. "Sakura," I said, and she cut across me with a gesture to Naruto.

"I need protection, I can't hit that straight on."

Two clones obligingly henged into orange knuckle guards. "They'll dispel," he warned. "You only get one hit."

"All I need," she promised. The ice above us was almost a solid piece, just the last gaps steadlily sealing closed. "Shannaro!"

She charged, and the ice shuddered, cracked - and held. The damage healed over and Sakura backed away from the mirror, shaking out her wrist and glancing back at us uneasily.

"It won't work," Haku said, his face fading into view in one of the mirrors. "This technique is cursed. I don't like to use it, but in defence of my precious person, I will. There's no way out."

"I don't believe in no way out," Naruto snarled, his temper rising again. "And I don't believe in curses! People who just accept the way things are are wrong, and I'm going to show them!"

"Can you try again?" I muttered to Sakura. She shook her head. "Shit." My punching strength was abysmal, and I had no weapons. The mirrors were solid, I couldn't kawarimi through them, and Haku wouldn't stay distracted by Naruto's increasingly irate tirade about people having their fate decided for them for long. "Will fire help?"

"Do it," she said, taking a couple of steps to the side to shield me from view. "But fast."

Fast and Sasuke performing the grand fireball technique didn't go together. I flew through the hand seals, forcing my chakra to heat up and bend itself out of water and into fire.

"Faster!"

"You want me to vaporise myself?" I sniped back, but sacrificed the last bit of chakra shaping in favour of just belting out the malformed mess in an uncontrolled burst. It burnt my throat and seared my fingers, and only the arm protectors I wore kept my hands and wrists safe. I was vaguely aware of a swarm of senbon flying my way and being intercepted by an equal swarm of yelling, quickly dispersed Narutos.

"Hit it," I croaked when the flame ran out. "Hit it, damnit!" Sakura wrapped something round her knuckles - a cloth, another clone, I couldn't see clearly - and rammed her fist into the mirror I'd flambeed. It cracked, groaned - and shattered.

"Naruto!" she yelled as the hole started closing up almost immediately. "Let's go!"

He whirled on us, eyes flashing red and his entire jacket turned into a porcupine of senbon. "No! I need to prove -"

I growled in frustration, dodging under Haku by millimeters and diving through the exit. "You're already important, you idiot! Now be important out here!"

He faltered, eyes wide (and blue, did I imagine the red?) and locked on me. "I'm… No, I'm… not?"

Sakura punched the mirror a second time, trying to keep the hole open, but she was fighting a losing battle against it. I couldn't see where Haku was - could he use the reflections while one of his mirrors was broken? - but if Naruto didn't move right now he'd be stuck inside again, and I really really couldn't do another fireball.

"You're important to us," I said with more patience than I felt, but still a very small amount of patience on a cosmic scale. "So will you, pretty please, get your ass out here so we can fight together like a fucking team is meant to do."

He cracked a smile. "Because we're bananas, right?"

Whatever you want. What the hell. Just get.

"I don't understand the bananas," Haku said plaintively, appearing in the middle of me and Sakura and sending us both sprawling back. I flipped over to land on my feet but ended up perilously close to the edge and with Haku bearing down on me, there was nowhere to go but over it. I didn't trust myself to water walk so I ran through the seals Kakashi had drilled me in until I could do them in my sleep, rat dragon boar snake blow dog -

I felt cold around my mouth as the bubble tried to form, but it spluttered and died. There was too much fire in my chakra from the fireball. I hadn't changed it back. The bubblehead jutsu needed water and I had no time to give it water.

Over Haku's shoulder I could see Naruto, fighting to get through the rapidly closing hole in the ice but too late to make it. I don't know what he saw in my face but his eyes went wide in shock, then Haku reached me, Sakura screamed my name, and I wasn't fast enough to dodge.

The handle of his sword hit my temple, and if it hadn't been for his other hand fisting in my shirt and throwing me back on the bridge I'd've dropped straight in the river. As it was I landed badly, dazed and nauseous and barely able to tell which way was up. I struggled onto my elbows then froze, the cold of his sword a heavy weight against my back.

"Stop," he said, not looking at me. "One teammate is trapped, the other will be killed if you move. You've lost."

"No," Sakura said in a shaky voice. "Kakashi-sensei -"

"Will not defeat Zabuza-sama again," Haku finished for her. He almost sounded gentle. I focussed on regretting ever thinking I should save him to distract myself from the growing need to throw up. "You must-"

And then, with an eruption of flames and desperation that formed a towering, firey inferno of demonic chakra, the ice dome exploded.

"This technique is cursed," Naruto spat from the centre of the wreckage, red pouring off him in visible waves. "I don't like to use it but in defence of my precious people I will! They're my team and I'm going to fight you for them because otherwise what's the fucking point?"

Oh my god.

"Run, Haku," I said as politely as I could, and let my shaking arms give way to deposit myself on the floor. Oh my god. I was still reeling from the blow to my head, but I think I heard correctly. Had he seriously spliced together two different pieces of trash talk and turned them into his nindo? Had I accidentally given Naruto his core purpose by telling Haku I'd fight him for a banana? He must've got the memory when his clone dispelled. What the hell. What.

I let the wave of kyuubi-infused protective fury wash over my head as Naruto yelled a battle cry and charged, and hoped Sakura wasn't too freaked out. I just… I needed a moment.

A freaking banana.

.

Much as I wanted to stay on the concrete floor of the bridge and wait for the world to either end or stop spinning, I couldn't. Kakashi was still fighting Zabuza, Haku was still fighting Naruto - though Naruto was doing an excellent job of beating him back into the mist - and, as annoyed as I was at Haku for being a bitch to fight and absolutely trouncing me, he had still saved my life and I did still owe him one.

"C'mon," I said, staggering over to Sakura and tugging insistently on her shoulder until she stood up. "Up. Up, Sakura, I need someone to lean on."

She let out a shaky breath and got unsteadily to her feet. I followed through on my statement and shamelessly used her as a crutch, because the bridge felt a few degrees off vertical and I didn't want to slide off it and end up in the water.

"What was that?" she asked. I frowned, thinking laboriously through the answer, then remembered it wasn't my secret to tell and waved her off.

"'S Naruto. He has a lot of chakra. Can we catch up to them?"

"Naruto?" She shuddered. "But it felt so… bad."

Bad? It'd been impressive, all angry and flamey and hot in the way that fire chakra should be, but she was being oversensitive about it feeling bad. Unless she just didn't like fire? It was possible. Rude. But possible.

"I think he was pissed," I said. "Move, please. I need you to do the feet thing because I can't walk."

"I - yeah." She shook herself and shifted her arm to wrap tighter around my waist. "Wait, you can't walk?"

"Mm. Ears ringing. Dizzy. Think've concussion. 'M fine, go go go."

"You're concussed?" she repeated, but she also started walking, so. Win. "I don't know what to do for a concussion. Should you be lying down? Do you need medicine? I have bandages."

"Focus," I said, tugging on her braid. Huh, she was still copying the one I did for her. It looked pretty. She needed to twist it as she braided it though so the little short bits didn't stick out so much. I'd tell her later.

We limped through the mist, searching for our team. I tried stretching out with my kawarimi sense and discovered that it reached just fine, but it also made me feel violently sick if I tried to move it anywhere but straight ahead. Still, we found Naruto and Haku easily enough - Haku was being pinned by Naruto, his mask in pieces, and from the sound of it he was trying to talk Naruto into killing him because he was a tool who'd failed his purpose.

"Stop that," I chided him, abandoning Sakura to stumble over to Naruto instead. "You're upsetting him. He doesn't want to kill you."

"Bastard!" Naruto said, springing back from Haku with wide eyes. "I thought you were - I saw - you're ok!"

"He has a concussion," Sakura said, coming up behind with a kunai drawn. She seemed the only one still wary of Haku, and I wondered what he'd said to Naruto.

"A small one," I defended. "It's already going." It was - chakra made shinobi much more resilient than civilians, and that extended to our brains as well. At least, it did for physical damage. It'd never approach Naruto's healing factor, but it was a useful benefit when your livelihood consisted of throwing yourself at people who hit you.

"I'm glad," Haku said, closing his eyes in a soft smile. "I didn't want to cause you permanent harm. It's my failing as a tool."

"That's not the way it works!" Naruto said, whirling on him in distress. Emotional backstory? I was betting they'd been talking about Haku's emotional backstory. Naruto was a bleeding heart for lonely people.

"It is for me," Haku corrected him gently. "Zabuza-sama is -" He froze, eyes wide, and I picked up the faintest sounds of chirping birds in the distance. "Zabuza-sama!"

He took off in a shunshin, faster than any of us could hope to stop him - not that either of the other two could know that they had to. I glared in his direction.

"Fuck you, asswipe," I said, shooting a tendril of chakra after him - oh god, nausea - and kawariming with him because I might have a minor concussion but I did not go through this whole traumatic experience for canon to decide that now it wanted to play ball and kill someone I liked.

Appearing directly in front of a tired, bloody Zabuza currently being held in place by an entire pack of dogs with a feral Kakashi bearing down on me, pure electric death in his hands, was, um, exactly the result I should have foreseen and somehow completely unexpected.

"Shit."

"Sasuke -!" I flinched and closed my eyes, too drained to be able to react, and through some sheer miracle of heroic feats Kakashi managed to redirect his chidori to grind down into the floor. I winced at the sound; Tazuna wouldn't be pleased by the giant hole in his bridge.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Kakashi snapped, sounding so much like my dad - my old-world dad - that I snapped my eyes open again and was almost thrown by the lack of beard. He looked pissed, glaring at me with both eyes open and sharingan spinning furiously.

"Um," I said, feeling about as small and pathetic as I'd done every time my old-world dad had used the same phrase on me. You're grounded for the next century young lady, do you have any idea how worried your mother was? I cleared my throat and tried again, wishing that the last bit of ringing would go from my ears. "Um, Haku saved my life. I didn't want him to die."

I sounded like a little kid.

Behind me, Zabuza laughed, low and grating, and Kakashi's face hardened immediately. "Seems like we're both cursed with soft students," Zabuza drawled, and brought a heavy hand down on my shoulder. I tensed, but didn't move - the hand had a kunai in it, resting lazily but with clear intent on the edge of my collar bone.

I was getting really sick of playing hostage.

"Zabuza-sama!" Haku said, appearing next to us with Sakura and Naruto in quick succession behind him. He hesitated, clearly torn between whatever bonding moment he'd just gone through with Naruto and his overwhelming loyalty to Zabuza, and Kakashi took advantage of the hesitation like the champ he was to a) separate him from the two of his students not being held at knife point and b) hold him at knife point himself.

"Really?" I asked, sotto voice. What happened. We were doing so well earlier in the chapter. Now look at us.

"We both know you're going to lose this stalemate, Kakashi," Zabuza rumbled. "You remember how I got my name, don't you?" He moved the kunai until it was digging in to the side of my neck to emphasise his point, and I tensed further. I could make snarky comments, but the truth was this was not a good situation. Zabuza could and would sacrifice Haku if he had to, and he wouldn't hesitate to kill me as he did it. I couldn't kawarimi out - he was holding me too closely, I'd only take him with me - and my weapons pouch was still lying on the floor where Haku had taken it from me. I didn't have any jutsu I could use, and my taijutsu wouldn't be good enough even if I wasn't already starting at a disadvantage.

I was relying entirely on Kakashi.

There was a long, fraught silence.

"Saa," Kakashi said, vanishing his kunai into one of his myriad pockets and stepping back from Haku with a mimic of his usual slouch. It sat wrong on him, like an ill-fitting jacket, or a movement he'd seen someone else do once from a distance. "We were only hired to escort Tazuna-san back to his home. I decided to take my students on a separate training trip, but our mission ended a while back."

"What - Kakashi-dick-sensei - mmph!" Sakura muffled Naruto's protests with a hand over his mouth, eyes wide as she stared between us.

"Is that so?" Zabuza asked suspiciously, not relaxing his grip in the slightest. I didn't blame him - what Kakashi was doing was unthinkable. Abandoning a mission to save a teammate, not just a teammate but a stupid wet behind the ears genin, that was the sort of thing that started wars, tanked a man's reputation, drove him to suicide, and completely fucked up his only son.

As a completely non-specific example.

"Mm," Kakashi agreed. He looked one step from pulling his book out. "Curious though. We ran across this businessman while we were training. Kaito, Sato, Ito - can't remember his name. Tried to hire us, said he had a couple of ninja already on the payroll but he was planning to doublecross them and keep their wages. Interesting offer."

Behind me, Zabuza was very, very still.

"I said no, of course," Kakashi continued blithely. "I was busy. There was this little old lady who needed to cross the road." He eye smiled, then, still moving in a way that was oddly Kakashi-not-Kakashi, turned and started walking away with one hand raised in a lazy farewell. "Missed opportunities, perhaps. C'mon kids, home time."

No one moved. I was pretty sure my heart wasn't beating, I was not moving that hard. Haku had frozen with a poleaxed look of confusion on his face, and I wondered somewhat hysterically if he'd forgotten he wasn't wearing his mask.

"You're lying," Zabuza said.

Kakashi didn't even slow down, still casually sauntering away. "Hm? Oh, no. She needed to get to the fish market."

"He's lying," Zabuza repeated in a snarl.

"It would fit with what we've seen," Haku said, shifting his weight uncomfortably. "Perhaps we should be certain before we proceed?" He very studiously didn't look at me. Naruto, staring alternately at everyone in turn, gaped at him incredulously.

"Munchkins!" Kakashi summoned, practically halfway up the bridge. "Chop chop."

"Um," I said, still very carefully Not Moving. "Is it ok if I go? Only he's Kakashi, he tends to hold grudges."

Zabuza blinked down at me as if he'd forgotten I was there, then snorted and shoved me away from him. I was instantly surrounded by not only Naruto and Sakura but also half a dozen dogs, which startled me - I hadn't realised the summons were still around.

"Scram," Zabuza said. "Sharingan no Kakashi, huh."

"Heel, pups," the littlest dog commanded, trotting out in front with a wary glance at Haku as we went past. It said a lot for how shaken the three of us were that none of us protested, just shuffled after him with our massive fluffy entourage. I was - my brain was - at some point I'd realise that if Zabuza hadn't let me go I'd've probably died, but just then it was too big to comprehend and my thoughts were flatlining when they tried.

We followed the dogs down the entire length of the bridge, past the area where we'd been fighting. The workers, I noticed, were gone. Haku? Surely he hadn't had time. I hoped they were safe, but then again according to Kakashi they weren't our problem anymore.

"Sensei?"

"Not now, Sakura," Kakashi said in the same pleasant-wrong tone of voice he'd used on the bridge. I hunched my shoulders and tried to hide behind the giant bulldog.

"But Kakashi-sensei, you weren't serious about -"

"Not now, Naruto." He turned off the path, leading us to a small clearing in the wood, and sat cross-legged on the floor.

We hovered uncertainly until he raised his eyebrow. His forehead protector was back over his sharingan, though I hadn't seen him move it. "Sit," he said.

We sat. The bulldog did not, standing close enough behind me that I could feel the warmth radiating from it. It was almost taller than I was when I was standing; sitting, it dwarfed me, and I resolutely did not think about how I was more of a cat person.

"Sakura. Status report."

Her back was ramrod straight, hands folded neatly in her lap. If it wasn't for the way her hair was half pulled out of its braid and her entire appearance was scuffed, sweaty, and covered in bridge dust, she'd look like she was sat at a formal dinner. Maybe an execution. "Bruising to my right knuckles," she listed. "Aches in both shoulders and my right forearm, though no strained or pulled muscles. Minor heat burn to my left elbow."

"Naruto. Status report." He didn't give any acknowledgement of Sakura's answer. It was terrifying.

"Um, I'm, fine?"

"Sasuke. Status report."

My mouth was dry. "Temporary concussion, no lingering effects. Minor burns to my mouth and the fingers of my left hand. Shallow cut to my left thigh, no evidence of poison, no limited mobility." It was, I think, the most professional status report I'd ever given in my life.

Again, Kakashi didn't acknowledge the answer, just stared off into the trees with his face perfectly, unmovingly blank. "Sakura," he said. "Team leader is a serious position with many duties attached. One of those is to decide the best course of action for the team as a whole, another is to resolve problems internally to the best of your ability before bringing an issue to your superior and taking responsibility for it. For you, these duties are theoretical; your role as team leader is not recognised outside this team and you have no authority to act on any decisions you make regarding it."

She blanched, but kept her stiff position. Kakashi turned his head towards her without changing the angle of his shoulders. "That being said, I am inside the team and therefore recognise your position, and also have the authority to enact your decisions. So: is Sasuke fit to continue as a member of Team Seven, would he be better placed in the genin corps, or should he be relieved of his headband and returned to a civilian role?"

My stomach fell through the bottom of my feet.

"Sensei, you can't -!"

"Be quiet, Naruto. You aren't the team leader; I asked Sakura."

I stared at the grass. It felt like my thoughts should have been racing, running through the consequences of what was happening, complaining that this wasn't fair to Sakura even if it was fair to me, screaming something incomprehensible about eyeballs and Danzo and Itachi and - but they weren't. I fucked up. I not only fucked up, I fucked up in a way that nearly made Kakashi repeat one of the most traumatic moments of his life, made him throw the mission, and almost got several people killed.

My mind was filled with the mental equivalent of a melted ice cream, drooping and hanging just on the edge of the cone, and when it inevitably fell I'd start crying and wasn't sure if I'd be able to stop.

I waited for Sakura's decision.

"Sasuke… acts recklessly," she finally said. The lack of -kun was an almost physical blow. "He places himself in unnecessary danger, not just today, but… since we left the village. His plans rely on big risks paying off when there are safer options available, and he…" She hesitated, then ploughed on. "He is more affected than he lets on by his past and by the realities of ninja life." By the realities of - oh. The meat. She thought I didn't eat meat because I struggled with people dying. She was right, but. It sounded bad when she said it like that.

"And your verdict?" Kakashi asked calmly. I fought the urge to flinch.

"I would not recommend he join Team Seven," Sakura said slowly, and the melted ice cream in my brain slipped in a pathetic heap and landed in the mud. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe around the lump in my throat and hoped that at least I'd cry quietly.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto yelped, sounding distraught and betrayed.

"Very well," Kakashi said, still unreadable. I kidded myself that I heard a trace of disappointment, but - actually, he probably was disappointed. I was a disappointment. I was so much worse than a disappointment, but disappointed was the only word I could think of. "When we return to Konoha -"

"But," Sakura interrupted, and Kakashi stopped abruptly. She swallowed. "But, as team leader I have to consider what is best for the team as a whole. And I wouldn't recommend Sasuke join Team Seven, but I think it would do irreparable damage if he were to leave it."

The world stopped. Everything froze, and when I snapped my eyes open and stared at her, I felt like I could see in slow motion. She wasn't looking at me, but she'd asked - she'd said - I read every twitch of her facial expression searching for a deception, but I couldn't find one. There wasn't one. She wasn't - she was throwing me a lifeline that I didn't deserve and taking a risk for me that could, potentially, drag her whole career down with me.

I cannot even begin to describe to you what I felt in response to that.

I blinked, and the world shifted out of its hyperfocus and back to normal speed. Kakashi had an eyebrow raised at Sakura, but he looked thoughtful, rather than angry.

"When we return to Konoha," he continued, picking up the sentence Sakura had interrupted, "I am going to nominate the three of you for the chunin exams. Naruto and Sasuke, I do not expect you to get promoted and will argue against any promotions you are given. Sakura, I expect to see you in a vest by the summer festival." He got seamlessly to his feet while the three of us stared at him, unsure if we'd heard correctly. Meaning was surprisingly difficult to pick up when someone spoke with no inflections.

We were still staring when he started walking away, then looked over his shoulder with a quizzical frown. "Are you coming? Tsunami-san will be cooking dinner." He didn't wait for our response, just turned away again and kept walking, leaving the three of us still sat on the floor in stunned silence.

"Puppies," the smallest dog - Pakkun, my brain numbly supplied - said, standing up with a languid stretch. "Shift. You ran around a lot, you need feeding." He waited for us to recover from our various levels of shell-shock enough to get up, then trotted after Kakashi with his curled tail tucked up close behind him.

"Sakura," I started, but she stopped me with a sharp motion.

"Don't. Sorry, Sasuke-kun, just… don't. Not right now."

I felt wobbly and close to tears but also drained and exhausted, as though I'd run an emotional marathon in the last ten minutes. "Ok," I said. "I - yeah, ok. Sorry."

She nodded and followed after Pakkun, still holding herself perfectly straight. It made her look stretched thin and fragile, and I bit my lip against my guilt.

"C'mon, bastard," Naruto said, bumping me with his shoulder. "Food. You're grumpy when you're hungry."

"Yeah," I said again, offering him a wan smile. The bulldog nosed my other shoulder and, surrounded by the rest of Kakashi's pack, we went back to Tazuna's house.

.

Pakkun: Pup -
ANBU Hound: Not now, Pakkun.