A/N: So, as a recap for those who might have had trouble following the timeskips between vignettes in the recent chapters, which covered almost three years. Sakura spends relatively little time without a team before being assigned as Tatsuo's partner; their partnership lasts two years before he's killed in combat. Within five months Sakura is appointed a jounin. She's been working with Kakashi since. They've only been on one major mission together, which involved a dip beneath the ice of a frozen lake on Sakura's part, but that's for a bonus chapter. For now, enjoy (or not).
Kill Your Heroes
-Chapter Thirty-Eight-
Helianthophobia
Naruto knew he was grinning like a fool, but he didn't care who saw. After well over two years of absence, trailing after a man who was three parts pervert to one part sheer ninja genius, this was his first glimpse of his village put to rights. No rubble, no half-collapsed buildings, none of that sharp, unpleasant smell of anxiety clinging to the crowds like the stink of sweat on a humid summer's day.
Just Konohagakure, just as he remembered it, except for Tsunade's face having joined the other Kage on the mountain. Naruto grinned, briefly contemplating the expression on her face if he announced his arrival with a very public prank, but he was a little too old for the mustaches-on-monuments stuff.
Also, he knew she'd know exactly who did it and he didn't plan on spending his first afternoon back in the village scrubbing on a rockface.
So instead he cupped his hands around his eyes like field glasses, crouched down on the electric pole that he'd scaled to get a better view of the streets, and looked for anyone he recognized.
"Kakashi-sensei!" he bellowed when he spotted a familiar unruly thatch of hair, waving both arms wildly and earning only a desultory little hand flick of acknowledgement in return. But that only made him grin wider, because he could almost hear that lazy 'Yo!' that had accompanied Kakashi-sensei's every chronically late arrival.
Flinging himself from his perch, Naruto landed softly on his feet, winding his way through the crowd without looking back to see if Jiraiya followed.
"Sensei!" he greeted him enthusiastically as he came within what most people would consider speaking distance. From here, he could confirm his initial thought, that Kakashi-sensei hadn't changed at all. Leaning comfortably against a wall, he was paging through Icha Icha Violence—which as he knew all too well, had released three years ago. He has to have that thing memorized by now, Naruto thought with a snicker. Jiraiya had assured him about seven times that the ultra-rare advance copy of Icha Icha Tactics currently living in his hip satchel—and when he'd carelessly slid it in there alongside his kunai, Jaraiya had looked fit to strangle him—would make Kakashi-sensei's year, but Naruto really thought having Team Seven back again would do that.
He caught a glimpse of a bag semi-hidden behind Kakashi-sensei's legs, but the angle made it impossible to read the logo. "Doing some shopping, sensei?" he queried. "Whatcha get?"
"Eternal gratitude," was the wry answer he received. Then, "Ah, there she comes."
Naruto followed his gaze and couldn't help that he was suddenly smiling so widely that it was almost painful, because it was Sakura. He made to rush forward and sweep her up in an exuberant hug that he'd probably get a head-thumping for, but she held out a repelling hand even as a smile quirked her lips.
"Naruto, I'm really, really glad to see you, but I've just spent three hours in line standing next to the most pernicious, unpleasant overweight harpy ever to be allowed through the doors of my favorite bookstore. If you wrinkle my signed limited-edition bonus poster, I'm going to be obliged to pulp your head. Really."
Naruto could only gape as Kakashi-sensei shifted to gather his bag, which he proffered to Sakura, who accepted it curiously. But her cheeks flushed with pleasure as she glanced down into it. "Is this what I think it is?" she demanded.
"For the record, getting that was even more painful than going with you to the first showing of the Tsunade to Tsundere-kun movie adaptation."
"Please," Sakura said, rolling her eyes. "I saw you, you know, going for your second viewing. I only didn't sit with you because it was weird watching it with you the first time."
"Abandoning me to the conversation of housewives. I should take that poster I just handed over back and leave you to sulk over only having a life-size Neko-kun when you might have had an Ōkami-sama as well. All that long, flowing silver hair, those steely eyes, those rippling muscles...," Kakashi-sensei teased, only holding up his hands in a playful warding off as Sakura closed the distance and socked in the arm, blushing furiously.
Naruto could only stare, feeling more than slightly left out of this almost impenetrable conversation.
And because Sakura had changed so much that with the initial, blinding joy of reunion slipping away, Naruto had to scramble to marry all those fond daydreams of Sakura—not romantic, because he'd taken her at her word, but the ones that also featured Kakashi-sensei and the treasonous asshat they were going to beat sense into—with the version standing, breathing, living in front of him. He'd seen so many things, learned so many things, grown so much while he was away, but despite recognizing her burgeoning changes when he'd left, he'd somehow expected...
Well, he'd expected himself to be the only one really changed by his long absence and Kakashi-sensei's unchanging Kakashi-ness had fed that delusion, that life in the village would pause and be waiting for him to slip back into it like a familiar, well-worn pair of house slippers.
It wasn't just inches and curves, though she'd added those too, shifting away from 'cute' and 'sweet' to something else. Her hair—always so long and worn loose in the Academy—was shorn short and hardly brushed her shoulders. Gone was her red dress and even the red vest and petal-like skirt she'd taken to wearing right before he left, though she still wore a shemagh knotted around her neck. Her sleeveless vest was now in black, her shoulders defined and her arms lean with muscle, her forearms protected by vambraces that provided protection from her elbows all the way down to the first knuckle, leaving the ends of her fingers, her thumbs, and her palms bare.
Over that sleeveless vest was a familiar flak jacket, two pouches setting at her back beltline, the upper long and narrow—a scroll case?—the other a slightly wider rectangle. He could recognize the complex harness that kept knife sheathes and other pouches in place from hips to knees, where her boots began, worn over fitted black pants, but those intervening years—well, there was a reason certain shops sold certain kinds of magazines that sold a lot of issues of women kitted up like soldiers.
Luckily, she didn't catch his brief ogling—he was convinced that she'd meant what she said, but c'mon, he was a teenager and he'd liked her for a long time—and he was able to meet her eyes as her embarrassed flush died down and she stepped back from Kakashi-sensei, turning her attention to him. "So, having found both of us, I bet the next thing on your reunion tour is a visit to Ichiraku, isn't it?" she teased. "Tell you what, I'll treat."
Sakura held up her bags. "It'll just take me a minute to rush these home, so stay right there," she ordered, vanishing.
"Got a quick one on your hands, Kakashi," Jiraiya murmured.
He said something else too, but Naruto was distracted by another familiar face. It was Konohamaru, who'd clearly been hard at work on his version of Naruto's pervy ninjutsu and was eager to show it off. His eagerness was catching and Naruto almost got so caught up in a round of trump-this that he failed to notice that Sakura was suddenly there again, but the instant he noticed her he grinned sheepishly at Konohamaru, scrubbing his hand through his hair. "Y'know, maybe we shouldn't do this in the middle of the street like this. Meet me later and I show you what a real Naruto original looks like, okay?"
Flicking a knowing gaze toward Sakura, Konohamaru smirked and gave him a thumbs up. "Got it, boss!"
Sakura watched him as he scurried off. One brow arched and she said, "You know? I don't really want to know. Ready for that ramen, Naruto?"
"Always," Naruto told her earnestly. "We taking these two along?" he said, jabbing his thumbs at the two older shinobi.
Sakura shrugged and glanced over to Kakashi-sensei, who made a shooing motion with one hand. "You two kids go ahead and have fun, we'll go have some grown-up talk."
"Grown-up talk?" Sakura queried. "Doesn't that usually involve actual grown-ups?"
"Ha-ha," Kakashi-sensei said dryly. "Poke fun while you can. I'll see both of you at seven at training ground three."
"What happens then?" Naruto asked curiously.
"It's a surprise," Kakashi-sensei told him, before vanishing just as suddenly as Sakura had earlier.
Naruto scowled at the empty space Kakashi-sensei had recently inhabited, but followed willingly enough when Sakura prompted, "Naruto?" from where she was standing several paces ahead.
"Really, we're not twelve anymore," Naruto complained to her. "Does he really need to pull that mysterious sensei stuff?"
"Senpai only has a few hobbies, but he's really, really dedicated to them. Unfortunately, they're almost all annoying," Sakura complained, but it was said with clear fondness.
"Senpai?" Naruto asked.
Sakura flinched, anxiety flashing across her expression. "Um, yeah, about that, Naruto...I—" then she stopped short, the nervousness giving way to relief. She raised a hand and waved at someone and he followed her gaze, his eyes catching on a very perfunctory return wave.
"Hey, Shikamaru!" he greeted, more than making up for the Nara's lack of enthusiasm. His gaze slid over to Temari, who was eying him in return. Now, most days it only seemed like Jiraiya had dragged him from one end of the continent to the other, but he'd picked up a thing or two along the way. Some of it had even been intentionally taught by his mentor.
Unintentionally, Jiraiya had taught him everything he'd ever need to know and then some about reading body language—he could name twelve signals off the top of his head that indicated that the master pervert was seconds away from being slapped.
Sort of irrelevant at the moment, as he couldn't imagine Shikamaru working up the energy to do anything worthy of retaliation, but he'd learned in his time away that for all that the world seemed peaceful, even shinobi from allied villages didn't show up uninvited just to hang out. People made friends outside their villages—he had made lots of memories outside the village walls himself—but they chose places other than their villages to meet.
So, not a social visit and as he'd kept a mental tally of the days since he'd been gone, it wasn't hard to guess why Temari was here. Still, he couldn't resist. "So," he observed with a grin, "look who's on a date."
While Temari scoffed aloud, Shikamaru didn't even bother to roll his eyes. "Not even close. I'm being forced to proctor the chūnin selection exam and as an added bonus, I get to escort the ambassador from Suna. Also, since I am apparently now a courier, there's letters from Taki for you, Sakura. Their ambassador brought them. Judging by the feel, I think Umehara sent something not meant to go by regular post. If I keel over, I'm blaming you."
Sakura moved forward to take them as Shikamaru produced a pair of letters from his equipment pouch. "Your sacrifice is much appreciated," she said with a smile, tucking them away, giving a nod of greeting to Temari, who returned it with a slight smile.
Naruto realized only belatedly that that was weird, because women who almost killed each other tended to hold grudges about it, but they'd apparently worked through it. "So, Sakura, when we host the exam next rotation, are you going to take the liaison position?" Temari asked.
Sakura shrugged. "That depends on whether or not Tsunade-sama offers it to me," she replied.
"Of course she'll offer," Temari assured her.
"It would put you in Suna when Naruto is taking his exam," Shikamaru agreed. "Unless you have some sort of plan for scrambling together a team at the last minute?" he said, addressing the last part to Naruto.
Naruto blinked, then felt sheepish embarrassment turn the tips of his ears pink. Making chūnin, compared to everything else, hadn't even made it on the list of things-that-need-worried-about. "Ah, yeah, I guess I would need to find some teammates, what with Sakura already being a chūnin and all."
"Jounin," Temari corrected.
"...what?"
"Sakura's a jounin," Shikamaru replied with just the faintest hint of exasperation. "Same for Temari here, Kankuro, and Neji. Shino's halfway through his evaluation for promotion to jounin. And everyone else has already made chūnin, so you're going to have to look outside our year for teammates."
"...but Gaara hasn't made jounin yet?" Naruto asked hopefully, because while he might say that it was just a ranking, it stung to be the only genin, training journey with one of the strongest ninja alive or not. They hadn't been near Suna for a long time. Jiraiya claimed he was allergic to deserts; Naruto was pretty certain he just didn't like countries where women didn't spent most of their time in a lot less clothing than was necessary if you didn't want to burn to a crisp under an unrelenting sun that was coupled with a stinging wind.
"Gaara's the new Kazekage."
"Say what?!"
[kill your heroes]
Her eyes might have been fixed on the little group conversing in the next clearing, but Tsunade's mind was elsewhere, tangled up in the past. It hadn't just been personal loss that had spurred her to leave the village all those years ago, though it had been the deciding factor.
There'd been certain elements in the village that had been gaining power and causing strife that she'd wanted no part of. As one of the last Senju, she wouldn't have had much choice but to start taking sides. Danzō and his aggressive warhawks, the eternally tetchy Uchiha, she'd been too heartsick to want to have anything to do with any of them.
So she'd left everything behind only to discover that it was impossible to outrun yourself. She returned and found she was left to deal with the sins of dead men and the inscrutable plans of Uchiha Itachi.
"So he wants a medic-nin to help him?"
"That's the word," Jiraiya replied quietly as they both admired the results of his training of Naruto. If he could only learn patience and with a little more experience, he'd be just as formidable as his father had been. But for now, for all the talent he'd shown just now and back when he'd mastered Rasengan, he was still very raw in the technical skill department. It was a tradeoff of sorts—he had a lot of life experience unrelated to the grinding cycle of missions that Sakura didn't, had probably acquired people skills and knowledge that most of his agemates might never get, but her combat skills had been tempered by a career that had seen several unlucky missions that had obviously convinced her that the path to survival lay in neutralizing her enemy swiftly.
"So, ideas? You know your medics better than I do. Anyone willing to cooperate with a man who massacred his entire family?" he said wryly. "Even if you did read them in on why he'd done it, they might have a few things to say about the whole thing. Most of them probably wouldn't believe the Sandaime would authorize something like that, even retroactively."
Tsunade silently agreed. Most of the last generation and the current one had only ever known their kindly, grandfatherly 'Professor', but they hardly ever paused to think what it took to survive as many wars as Sarutobi Hiruzen. A man so dedicated to serving the welfare of his village he'd alienated his own son; a man who'd served with, raised, and buried four generations of ninja. It rankled, a little, that it was only after his death that she'd been included in his secrets, even if she had left the village. Even upon her return they'd only been handed over grudgingly from the Elders. She'd had to follow a trail of clues the Sandaime had left for his successor to discover the rest, written in his own hand and bearing his own thoughts.
He'd been a canny old ninja; he hadn't trusted that the past would safely stay there and hadn't wanted whomever had followed in his footsteps to be unprepared.
He'd regretted the massacre, true, but he'd admitted that it had provided a solution to a very thorny situation. So he'd allowed Shimura Danzō to become the festering abscess that was currently Tsunade's problem and allowed Uchiha Itachi to leave the village with a promise that he'd watch over Sasuke. Jiraiya had already found that being a spymaster suited him better than any day-in day-out position in the village, so the Sandaime had handed the young man over to him and for the many years that followed, Jiraiya had fed him coded reports about Sasuke's welfare in exchange for information.
Tsunade fervently wished she'd thought to bring enough alcohol to replace her current headache with one medical chakra could fix, but instead she was silent a moment more, admiring the display that had followed Naruto's charge.
Genin could "go all out" on each other, as could some chūnin, but a sparring match between jounin was all about control. She was seeing it in spades between Kakashi and his pink-haired opponent, who'd closed on each other and engaged in a lightning quick dance that allowed no retreat, almost like they were bound within a six-foot circle. Neither pulled a blade or resorted to ninjutsu, just kept to this highly impressive show of hand-to-hand skill.
If she'd been making bets, she would have laid her money on Kakashi and won. He was controlling the pace of the fight; he was quicker than his former student and had been on the battlefield when she was still in the cradle. But that wasn't giving Sakura enough credit—it was the step between an S-class nin and an A-class one. Against most enemies, in a battle to the death rather than possession of a bell, the girl would clearly be deadly. She wasn't hitting with the strength that could shatter bones, but she was making it difficult for him to hit her, flowing around his strikes like dust motes around an outstretched hand.
Possibly it was by virtue of a familiarity with Kakashi's style; there were certainly similarities between their movements.
"She's right there," she said in response to Jiraiya's question.
"Sakura? She trained as a medic-nin? That didn't really seem like where her training was going when I left with Naruto."
"Not exactly," Tsunade said, her tone mirroring Jiraiya's former wryness. "She's not formally trained, but she's impressive."
"Your tone of voice doesn't say that's a good thing."
"It's not a bad thing," Tsunade hedged. "Thanks to her, Kakashi has a fully functional Sharingan."
That tore his attention away from the match, which Naruto had rejoined. "Fully functional?" he asked her sharply.
"Yes. And when I say 'fully functional', I mean that she integrated it so perfectly that it has a fucking Mangekyō phase now."
"What?!" Jiraiya demanded, not even pretending to pay attention to the match any longer.
Tsunade turned away as well. "Well, she did it unsupervised—again—so I only have hearsay to go on. Apparently, as she was completing the surgery, it evolved on her. Scared her half to death. It upset Kakashi, once he'd figured out what had happened and had convinced Sakura that she hadn't done something wrong, but he's...working through it."
"Mangekyō," Jiraiya muttered distastefully, then shook his head. "But if he has a functional Sharingan, that means...?"
Tsunade's lips curled up into a tight, slightly feral smile. "Yes. That means that Konoha's Copy-nin no longer suffers from chronic chakra exhaustion."
Jiraiya chuckled. "Well, somebody is in for a nasty surprise." Then he grew pensive. "So, she has the skills, but will she work with Itachi?" After a moment's careful thought, he brightened. "I could just fail to tell her exactly who she'll be working with."
Tsunade eyed him. "Well, we'll see how that works out."
[kill your heroes]
Even now, the morning after their match with Kakashi-senpai, Naruto was still snickering over his victory. Threatening to destroy an advance copy of Icha Icha Tactics had brought their sparring to an abrupt halt, Kakashi-senpai conceding the bells for a chance to read what was sure to be another terrible, smutty novel months ahead of anyone else.
"Did you see the look on his face?" Naruto cackled, "That had to be almost as good as when—well, no, never mind, you really had to be there to appreciate that one."
"I hope you're not talking about anything that involved me," the Toad Sage said repressively as he joined them at the table. Sakura wasn't about to subject Naruto to her cat this early in the morning, so she'd left boiled fish for Soudai and snuck out to enjoy her plate of fluffy, self-indulgent waffles that would leave her hungry again before noon.
"What are you doing here? What are you even doing awake?" Naruto asked. "I thought you and baa-chan would get roaring drunk together, y'know, like the last time, and you'd still be sleeping off a hangover."
"Your opinion of me never fails to impress," Jiraiya told him dryly and his answer was a sloppy salute as Naruto returned his attentions to polishing off his own breakfast.
"Good morning, Jiraiya-san," Sakura said as he waved one of the waitresses over.
"Breakfast with a pretty young lady always makes for a good morning," Jiraiya said with a smile. "As for you," he turned back to Naruto, "you've got paperwork you have to fill out, if you want to apply for a temporary team to try and take the exams."
Naruto scowled. "One thing I didn't miss was filling out forms."
"Paperwork makes the world go 'round, kid," Jiraiya said.
"Since it's super not-cool for the future Hokage to be the only genin in his graduating class, I guess I'll just have to suck it up," Naruto told Sakura, though his scowl hadn't abated. "Sorry to leave you with the pervy-sage, but no way am I gonna wait until there are lines to go with all the paper pushing. If he tries to touch you, break his face."
And with that he was gone and Sakura side-eyed the member of the Sannin she'd been left with. Who rolled his eyes in exasperation. "I have no idea where Naruto gets all these ideas."
"Um, maybe he read your books?" Sakura ventured timidly, prepared to offer a retraction and an apology if he took the over-familiarity badly.
But instead he laughed. "Don't tell me you've read them?"
"Not as such. Kakashi-senpai reads a chapter aloud whenever I don't meet a training goal, though, so I know what happens." Mostly acrobatics that stretched credulity even for a trained kunoichi.
"Well, don't tread softly on an old man's ego," the Sannin said with continued good humor. "But I'm not here to promote my books."
Sakura stilled, sensing something in his tone, before scooping up a forkful of strawberries, whipped cream, and warm waffle. She took a bite, chewed slowly, and then said, "Oh?"
"Mostly I'm here to return Naruto, but there's something else I needed to take care of while I was here. I need a favor."
It took all her training to continue to eat her breakfast, her waffles suddenly tasteless in her mouth. She considered for a moment the possibility that he would propose something sleazy but harmless in a 'needing inspiration for my novel' way, but she knew he was more than that. Naruto might never have been overawed by him, but Sakura was both better-informed and more respectful of her elders.
"What kind of favor?"
"One of my informants needs some assistance from a medic-nin. He's been in deep cover for a long time, which means that most of the usual tricks to extract himself aren't going to cut it. He needs to be dead, but he'd like it to be a little less than permanent. And if you want that done right, you need a medic-nin. Tsunade said you'd be the best for the job."
Sakura tried not to let the compliment sway her, but some part of her would always be a child hungry for acknowledgement. "He couldn't stage a fire?"
Jiraiya chuckled. "That would probably be the least believable thing he could do. He's not some well-placed paperpusher and the people around him aren't going to accept a charred corpse at face value."
Sakura bit her lip thoughtfully. "So this will be dangerous?"
"Isn't everything?" was his reply.
"How will I contact him?" Sakura asked and tensed further when Jiraiya sighed in relief.
"I was hoping you'd ask that. I'll get in touch with him. He'll know who you are and he'll find a way to get in touch with you. He'll explain what he has in mind. You just need to remember that the word is "camellia"."
"Camellia," Sakura repeated softly. "Perishing with grace."
