A/N: Again, thanks to everyone who's taken a moment to share their thoughts with me.
Kill Your Heroes
-Chapter Forty-Five-
Acerophobia (Part I)
The sheer frustration that Itachi's pigheadedness had inspired was only slightly tempered by the schadenfreude of subjecting him to Soudai, so it was that the topic of Sasuke was in the forefront of her mind as she traveled back to Konoha.
Though it didn't make her entirely oblivious to the cat that had draped himself over her shoulders and was diligently preventing the crows from making a perch of her person, though that only seemed to encourage Michi to try to make conversation on the wing. Which was also dutifully intercepted. The older crow had soon stopped any pretense at talking to Sakura, instead "bonding"—if you could call it that—with her fellow companion animal. Sakura could count on one hand the number of words Yoko had contributed during their journey, always in a low, timid voice.
"Soudai, would you please get down?" Sakura asked. "You're making the back of my neck sweat."
"You'll thank me later," was Soudai's reply. "They probably have lice." He'd raised his voice slightly to be certain Michi had heard him, which sparked a debate on the relative merits of cats and birds.
She was left largely with thoughts of her once-teammate and unlike her early teenage years, none of them were pleasant. When he'd first defected from the village and she'd been talking about the possibility of his return with Naruto, her opinion of Sasuke hadn't yet had time to sour and she'd still been operating under the long-standing habit of putting the brightest face on his actions. Then had come those bitter middle years, which had then faded with the passage of time and more immediate concerns. By the time Naruto had returned from his training journey and they'd found time to talk during their retrieval mission, she'd been able to treat the subject with a gentleness that came from emotional distance.
Her time with Itachi, hearing his plans, considering the consequences—that had brought all the bitterness roaring back to life, without the rosy nostalgia Naruto seemed to so effortlessly inspire.
After taking abuse from civilians in place of the absent Uchiha and listening to the none-too-quiet whispers of the other shinobi, her initial generosity had ebbed. Any lingering warmth had been quashed as she rose through the ranks, becoming acutely aware of just what kind of potential military strength Sasuke had taken with him—and the potential that one day he would be wielded as a weapon against the village. It wasn't like he wouldn't have been aware of that when he'd gone to Orochimaru; the Sannin had just staged an invasion that had taken the lives of too many of their brothers and sisters in arms.
Anyone who would sell themselves to someone like that deserved far more than just the loss of her good opinion.
She'd become haunted by that mad, bright light in his eyes when he'd been given his first taste of the power the Sannin could offer, that seal crawling across his skin; she recognized the same kind of fear and distrust she'd experienced back when fire and the scent of burning flesh still made her quiver. Only this time there was no trust-building exercise, no Kakashi-senpai to coach them through their differences. Kakashi-senpai was mute on the subject; she had no desire to overcome it. She was not awfully bothered by Naruto's optimism about Sasuke. Naruto's ability to see only the best in people could be almost endearing except for her conviction that someday someone was going to disappoint him very badly, but she'd expected better of Uchiha Itachi.
One could learn to forgive someone a lot of personal failings. Kami-sama knew she surely had some of her own. But disloyalty was not one of failings they were brought up to take lightly. The Academy wasn't intent on simply producing capable shinobi; Konohagakure wanted its shinobi to serve not for the sake of money or fame, but for a breed of patriotism that would survive capture and torture, that ran deeper in their bones than love or lust.
One never forgave traitors.
Sakura thought she'd outgrown her spiteful phase, but as her feet impacted almost silently against the branches of the trees, she found she hoped that Sasuke regretted what he'd done.
Well, she thought to herself, I'll find out soon enough.
Partway to the village, she interrupted Soudai and Michi's conversation to send her two crows winging their way toward Jiraiya. He owed her a favor for not warning her about Itachi and if anyone had any idea which rock Orochimaru might be hiding under, he would. And, luckily, after having served with Itachi's crows, Michi and Yoko had a trick or two for locating the wandering Sage.
[Kill Your Heroes]
Sakura grimaced as she unknotted and unwound her sweaty shemagh, which stunk like cat. Glancing around to make certain no one was watching, though the streets were nearly empty as twilight drew her cloak over the sky, she stuffed it into a pouch and scratched at her nape with both hands.
"Good riddance," she muttered to in reference to her erstwhile animal, who'd abandoned her for the lure of the closing fish market.
All the windows of her house were dark as she alighted on her balcony and slipped inside, but Sakura tensed as she picked up the subtle cues of someone's presence. Her knives were in her hands almost before her conscious mind recognized the intrusion, but before she could investigate her bedside lamp came on with a sharp click.
The low wattage bulb provided enough light to see but not to blind; what she saw made her say, "Senpai, we need to have a talk about boundaries."
Kakashi-senpai was sprawled out on her bed, one arm tucked behind his head. The other waved off her objection.
Sakura sheathed her weapons absently and crept closer. "...is everything alright? You're not bleeding out on my bed or something because you're a stubborn ass, right?"
"I think that's a violation of the senpai/kouhai code, calling your beloved senior nasty names," Kakashi-senpai remarked, shifting to one side and partially drawing up his arm so that his head was pillowed on his hand.
"Oh? Beloved senior? I didn't know Genma or Raido were here," Sakura teased, tilting her head into one hand while the other came to cup her elbow. "Should I go say hello?"
"Is that any way to treat the man who's been sleeplessly waiting for your return?"
"You were napping in my bed." A memory of Soudai's complaint about "riffraff" scuttled across her brain. "Wait, senpai...you haven't been, y'know, staying here, have you?"
"Well, that doesn't mean I wasn't worried," Kakashi-senpai responded, ignoring her second question entirely. "From the stories Naruto was telling, Sasori had you spitted like a kabob."
Sakura grimaced, her hands falling to her sides at that particular bit of imagery. Pain, exhaustion, and medication had kept the worst of the night terrors away before she'd rendezvoused with Itachi; the S-class missing-nin in the next room had kept her sleeping lightly enough that they hadn't been an issue while they shared a house. A return to the comfort and safety of her own home, counter-intuitively, would change that.
"I need to shower," she announced abruptly, because she could feel the cold creeping up from low in her belly, drawing her muscles tight, making it hard to breathe beneath the pressing weight of the terror waiting to spill over her. The first shock of intrusion, which had come before the pain. The desperate please let the pain stop, it HURTS, one more breath, one more breath, HURTS, coupled with the knowledge that if the pain stopped, that was the end. Forcing herself to go slow as she pulled the cord out, to trade pain for survival.
Her stomach lurched and Sakura had to concentrate on her breathing as she walked toward her bathroom. Keeping her composure and keeping down her dinner was the first victory; pushing away the temptation to slip herself inside a warm, soothing genjutsu was the second. There were coping mechanisms—and no shinobi who made any kind of career out of a combat specialty made it any length of time without those—and then there were addictions. It would begin with an escape from night terrors, but it wouldn't end there. There would be excuses, reasons, until she didn't need either because there wasn't enough left of her outside the addiction to need to justify it any longer.
Instead she settled for a thorough scrub in steaming hot water, justifying the scented bar of soap that she used as aromatherapy. Its sharp, clean scent—chocolate mint—coupled with pounding water did eventually allow the tension to seep out of her muscles, though to overcome the terror she had to focus on the Sasuke issue. It was like a slow tidal shift; fear flowed out as irritation flowed in. By the time she was toweling her hair dry and pulled on a clean set of training things that had seen better days and had now been retired to sleepwear—she was so far past vanity with Kakashi-senpai, who'd seen her in mud and blood and worse things—she was almost grinding her teeth with the frustration of things she would have to keep to herself.
Her irritation was reserved in minor part for Itachi, who'd complicated an already tense situation, peeling away the scab on the nearly-healed wound that was Sasuke. Part of it belonged to the members of the Uchiha clan, who'd all but signed their own death warrants when so many of them had decided that violent action against the village was even something to be considered; perhaps a very slight part was attributed to whomever had made the fateful call that had seen all but two members of the clan dead by morning. A major part of her annoyance, however, belonged to Sasuke. Not that the rational, reasoning part of her mind couldn't point out that there were mitigating circumstances, just like with every other person on the list; it was that emotion-driven centers of her brain felt more betrayed by her former teammate than by people she hardly knew.
She didn't attempt to tamp down on those feelings as she left the bathroom. It would be good for Kakashi-senpai to think she was annoyed with him. If he'd been so worried for her safety as to haunt her home, the same Kakashi-senpai who'd held them all at such emotional distance she'd only heard him yell at them exactly once outside of battle—and that in a situation that must have brought up nasty memories of the mission that had finished his own team—she was certain the internal conflict was significant. His refusal to operate on any mode other than "sardonic" meant that he was never going to provide much in the way of touchy-feely mentor moments.
Understanding that didn't mean she thought he didn't deserve to sweat a little for being, well, himself.
He hadn't even had the ninken present to soften the blow.
As Sakura considered why that might be so, because Kakashi-senpai had a trend of allowing the dogs to do the emotional heavy lifting in their relatioship, she noted that he was at least sitting upright now instead of lazing on her bed. Glancing up at her, he bookmarked his page with what she hoped was a nonfunctional explosive tag.
She clutched her knife rig comfortingly to her chest, waiting for him to initiate conversation and was surprised when he patted the space beside him on the bed. Sakura obediently joined him, the firm mattress giving only a little beneath her weight. She caught herself stroking the sheathes of her knives like she might stroke Soudai when he was feeling generous, so she laced her fingers together as she tried to decide whether outwaiting Kakashi-senpai would be a fruitful exercise. Chances were that he'd either go back to his book or fall asleep or maybe even wander off, but he surprised her when he sighed.
"So," he said, tapping his book once against his leg before stowing it in a pouch. "I assume they told you at the gate you go in for your debriefing with Tsunade tomorrow, so I'll let her explain the particulars, but you should know that all our operatives from Konoha survived the mission. Unfortunately, Genma's personality also survived," he reported dryly, "so invitations have already gone out to celebrate your first S-rank kill. Congratulations. You're going to be infamous."
"They declassified the mission?" Sakura asked incredulously.
"The elders assessed that news of our cooperation in the retrieval of the Kazekage would help shore up any remaining fractures in the alliance between us and Suna. That," and his voice took a wry turn, "and I think they took a certain malicious glee in announcing the fact that a young jounin from our village killed one of the S-rank ninja that have been underbidding us for contracts."
Sakura bit down her lip so hard she tasted blood. While infamy had its uses, anonymity was a far more welcome thing to a proper village shinobi that didn't have to depend on their own name to garner missions. Though she doubted that they'd released much in the way of details, certain assumptions were going to be made about her skills. As Kakashi-senpai's partner, there had already been speculation, but she was still at the point where her skillset took opponents by surprise. If she lost that advantage...
Well, she'd have to learn to be quicker. Stronger. Fiercer. Whatever it took to survive.
Quitting was less of an option than ever, now that she finally understood what her parents and instructors had meant when they said that your squad was your family.
"So you were able to get to Gaara in time?"
"Yes. Chiyo-san suffered a stroke due to overuse of chakra while healing him, but aside from suffering from mild vertigo, she's made a full recovery according to the last missive out of Suna."
"I guess we really shouldn't have expected anything less," Sakura said with a wry laugh, which sparked an answering chuckle from Kakashi-senpai.
"There's something else," Kakashi-senpai said after the laughter had faded. "Chiyo-san ordered Naruto to search Sasori's body."
"I remember," Sakura said quietly.
"He found something. Something relevant to Konohagakure, rather than Suna. Ebizō-san was put in charge of decoding the papers Naruto had found in the hope of locating any remaining sleeper agents before they could be activated. Apparently Sasori never lost the habit of using a code Chiyo-san had developed and taught to him during his childhood, so the decoding went quickly."
"And...?" Sakura prompted.
"And it seems that Sasori had just received word from an agent requesting a meeting. After assessing the message, their intel team decided that it was highly likely that this particular spy worked with Orochimaru. That's when they sent the information on to us." Between his mask and his indifferent tone, Sakura was left to guess how he felt about the situation. If mention of Sasuke was inevitable whenever Naruto and she were together, Kakashi-senpai could go months without acknowledging he'd ever existed.
"...is the village going to act on it?" Sakura asked, making a bitter mental note to recall the crows from their task as soon as senpai left. They'd have already roosted for tonight, so she could take comfort in the fact that she didn't have to try and herd Kakashi-senpai out without him growing suspicious. All her as yet unformed plans about how she'd accomplish a difficult task—namely to talk to Sasuke both without her partner being any the wiser and without being slaughtered by Orochimaru or his minions—were discarded in the face of this strange, unhappy twist of luck
Though she could take some comfort in the fact that it was unlikely that a kill order would be issued.
"Probably," senpai said after a long pause, his head coming to rest against the wall with a gentle thump.
Sakura set her knife rig aside so that she could draw her legs tightly against her chest, wrapping her arms around them and resting her chin on her knees. "If Tsunade-sama hasn't issued orders yet...," she trailed off, unwilling to finish the sentence, which meant she was likely waiting on someone to return. Someone such as Sakura.
"...the Hokage isn't obligated to tell us even if she decides to act on it," senpai pointed out.
Sakura side-eyed him incredulously. "She already gave you a courtesy heads-up about the information. You think she's suddenly going to, what, change her mind and decide that telling you is a bad idea? It's not like she announced it in front of Naruto."
The silence that followed was very telling.
"Oh, kami," Sakura groaned, burying her face against her knees. "How long did it take him to demand to be included on the mission? And to insist vehemently that there was going to be a mission? Was he at least nice about it? What was Tsunade-sama thinking?"
"Let me put it this way," he said sardonically, "It was an instantaneous detonation and Shizune was still sweeping up the debris when I left. Naruto survived, but several pieces of decorative porcelain will never be the same again."
Sakura groaned again, feeling the hot flush of embarrassment even though she knew that Tsunade-sama would do more than just throw things if she was bothered by the chronic insubordination.
Kakashi-senpai reached over and patted her head, which made her glare at him over the barrier of her arm.
"If you want to make me feel better, you're going to have to resort to your 'here, look, a puppy!' tactic," Sakura told him as she stretched her legs and slid from the bed. "If you're staying, you can have the bed. I always feel like I'm in danger of imminent asphyxiation once everyone piles on top." While a valid reason—her twin bed had never been intended to hold one teenager and eight full-grown dogs—she fully intended to dry the walls and floor of the shower and sleep in its well-lit confines. While the dogs might think that it was strange, they were uncannily good at knowing when to provide wordless support.
And just occasionally, when she needed it most, Kaskashi-senpai displayed that same kind of sensitivity as he agreeably bit his thumb and summoned a much-needed dose of tail-wagging feel-good.
Not even the ninken would take away the nightmares, but if experience was any kind of teacher, she knew she only had to take the pain one moment at a time. She'd live through it—stronger, harder, perhaps more scarred, but she would live.
[Kill Your Heroes]
Sakura arrived at the Hokage's tower promptly, which is to say she'd been processed through security fifteen minutes before her debrief was scheduled to begin. For courage, she'd chosen a new shemagh from among the ones her father had bought her, this one designed more for fashion than for mission wear. Deep maroon with a pink grid pattern, it still smelled pleasantly of laundry detergent and home—which this morning came with an undertone of clean, recently washed dog.
Kakashi-senpai had taken her up on her semi-serious offer and spent the night. Whatever else he'd done while he'd been lurking about and waiting for her return, he hadn't done the grocery shopping. So, after she and ninken had gone on a proper morning walk and tested the limits of her body, the whole parade had shuffled off to the shops. Sakura thought she had gotten a proper glimpse of what it might be like to be a housewife with a whole passel of children, though at least they'd been willing to help carry bags. Kakashi-senpai had just regarded them all with an eye-crinkle and his hands stuffed deep in his pockets.
Soudai had been less than pleased with their company; she'd been awoken in the middle of the night by a suffocating sensation that had turned out to be her cat perched right atop her sternum, sharp little claws pricking out a code of annoyance. But breakfast had been a messy, loud, wonderful thing.
It had been like those rare days back before her grandmother died and her mother and father had been home at the same time. Certainly a little noisier than that, but the feeling—of wellness, of wholeness, of family—was exactly the same.
Sakura was offered congratulations and good-natured ribbing as she navigated the intentionally winding halls, none of the staircases connecting more than a single floor. Though shinobi could make a lot of conventional tactics against forced entry useless, it didn't mean they had to make it easy for anyone stupid enough to try. Some of the shinobi who spoke to her, particularly the jounin, she knew only by sight and not by name; before this, she'd been only been infamous by association and many jounin didn't warm to the fresh faces in their ranks until they'd survived long enough to be worth knowing.
She'd made it above the administrative offices to the floor that housed the Council chambers and the offices of the heads of clan and elders who sat on that Council when she encountered another group, some of whose names she did know. Sakura came to a halt and stepped to one side of the hall, ducking her head in recognition of Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura. They were accompanied by another man, this one whom she'd seen only in passing. She'd always assumed that he belonged on the Council or at least worked with them, though she had no idea what role he might fill.
He looked harder and more weathered than the Kage's advisors, his mouth deeply bracketed by lines that suggested he didn't smile well or often. His chin was scarred and she'd had enough scars of her own by now to know that they likely could have been removed; judging by the pattern, perhaps someone had tried to scissor their blades through his throat and he'd ducked his head in time to survive and decided to keep them as souvenirs.
Judging by the extent of the bandages swathing the rest of his body, he'd probably ended his field career on a mission that had almost killed him and had permanently crippled him. Which, Sakura supposed, was enough to make anyone sour.
She was and wasn't surprised when they paused beside her.
"Haruno-san," Mitokado-san said. "Congratulations are in order."
"Yes," Utatane-san agreed. "By all reports, you acquitted yourself very admirably in the mission. There aren't many kunoichi your age who could have stood toe-to-toe with an S-class ninja and survived it, let alone killed an opponent like Sasori of the Red Sands. And then to come out of the fight critically injured and have enough composure—and the skill!—to heal yourself well enough that your receiving medic-nin was astonished at what you'd accomplished under the circumstances."
"I was working with an excellent team, ma'am," Sakura replied, blushing at the praise, "and the desire to survive the provided me with the incentive to make use of my entire skillset." She was fully aware that if it hadn't been for Chiyo and Naruto, the fight would have revealed the real distance between her own skills and someone like Sasori's.
Quicker. Stronger. Fiercer. Those three things have not replaced shinitakunai as her mantra, but they are the things that will support that single, selfish goal. The existence of opponents like Sasori would assure that her skills were never allowed to plateau. She would work harder, would push her limits, would break her limits and remake herself if that was what was needed.
"It is an unusual skillset," the man whose name she didn't know observed. "Especially considering your records reveal no formal training as a medic-nin."
This time Sakura didn't blush, for there was a look in his eye that made her distinctly uncomfortable, though she tried to hide it. "I've been on missions where the medical support was extremely limited," she said, "and it seemed like a useful skill to pick up."
"Not many people have the chakra control required to just 'pick up' medical techniques," was his reply, his dark eyes watching her with an intensity that made the hair on the back of her neck prickle. "I expect other thanks are in order."
"Sir?" Sakura asked, slightly bemused and more than slightly wary.
"This is the first time Hatake Kakashi hasn't had to be hospitalized for chakra exhaustion despite having leaned quite heavily on the abilities of his Sharingan during his own battle. That has been a predictable outcome of missions of this type for years. The only significant change in his life has been you, who spent some time going quite thoroughly through the ophthalmology section according to your library records. Though I suspect that had rather more to do with your own shunshin-related eye problems, which you haven't required treatment for recently. Flushed with that success, I imagine you couldn't resist attempting to fix what you knew to be broken. Quite impressive."
From the expressions on the faces of the two elders, the man hadn't shared this line of deductive reasoning with them. And, apparently, Tsunade-sama hadn't seen fit to share the news. Astonishment was writ on both their faces, before it morphed to something else. "Meddling with a clan doujutsu—," Mitokado-san began pompously, before the scarred man raised a hand to ward off his objection.
"The Haruno have never been able to field enough shinobi to be classified as a clan," he said. "Therefore she is exempt from clan law."
There was some grumbling from Mitokado-san, but it subsided quickly and the scarred man's attention refocused on Sakura. "You are on your way to debrief with the Hokage, are you not?" he asked and Sakura nodded dumbly. "Then we shouldn't keep you. My name is Shimura Danzō; I expect we will have many opportunities to work together in the future."
Sakura ducked her head, both in habitual politeness and to hide her expression as she murmured in return, "Please take care of me."
