A/N: There's always a difficulty in writing a fanfiction that leans so heavily on pseudo-Japanese cultural assumptions when you don't speak the language; when what you call someone says so much, I want to convey that, but I also want to convey my apologies to all the Japanese speakers who cringe every time I misuse or misinterpret something. Thank you for your forbearance. I promise I do consult blogs that offer conflicting advice every time I attempt this.

Kill Your Heroes

-Chapter Sixty-One-

Hiraeth (Part II)

There was food waiting when she finally emerged from the bath; Itachi had apparently anticipated her desire to escape from her real-world problems for as long as possible and provided a meal that was still delicious at room temperature.

MREs provided the requisite calories, but that was about all that could be said for them. Of course, context played a part of one's enjoyment of food and despite their history, eating with Itachi was far, far better than eating in the ruins of her home.

The devastation of Konohagakure and Sasuke's continued idiocy—it seemed safe to assume that if that had changed, Itachi would have mentioned it—made casual conversation a minefield that Sakura wasn't eager to attempt to navigate, no matter what she'd told Kakashi-senpai. Even Itachi seemed reduced to patient silence, at least until Sakura had finished eating and was sipping at her tea in lieu of speaking to her companion.

"This brings back memories," he said. "Except I usually have less clothes on by this point."

Sakura choked on her tea, her blush instantaneous and scorching. "Please, please, do not say something like that anywhere near Kakashi-senpai. He'd never let me hear the end of it."

His subtle smile promised that he would absolutely do such a thing and Sakura groaned, setting her cup down in favor of scrubbing her hands through her hair. Her fingers tangled, of course, since maintaining a hair-care regimen hadn't been high on her list of priorities—or even high on the list of possibilities—and she'd rushed through combing it when she'd gotten out of the bath. Unlike Itachi, whose hair had been unfairly nice even as his body failed him or when he was inches from death, hers required careful tending. It was coarse and tended to be dry, like Kakashi-senpai's, which meant that it also tried to look like Kakashi-senpai's.

She thought for a moment that Itachi was going to do something ridiculous, like offer to brush her hair, because there was a strange, uncertain sort of look on his face and his hand had twitched upward when she'd stood to retrieve her comb. Which was odd, because Itachi had an enviable certainty even when it came to impossible things.

"Would you like to watch something? Or were you intending to sleep?" he asked.

Sakura peered at him narrowly. "I remember a distinct lack of televisions in all our accommodations—I thought besides the work-related smut, you probably only read edifying and improving literature and shunned the entertainment of the masses."

"…I can't tell if you're teasing me or not, though I'm glad, if you are. As flattering as it is that you've taken the time to consider my personal habits, I think you're giving me a little too much credit."

Sakura arched her eyebrows at him as she tugged the comb through her hair, drawing up her bare feet beneath her on the couch.

This made that subtle smile tug further at the edges of his lips, his eyes soft and almost laughing. "Though I do have standards," he allowed.

"I'd hope so," she replied. "Alright. Let's see if we can't find something to watch. Make it entertaining, Uchiha-san."

"Define entertaining," he replied. This time he was definitely laughing. Death had freed her; it seemed to have done the same for Itachi.

"It shouldn't make me think too hard and no one dies," Sakura said firmly. "Also, I don't have the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old boy. I don't find stupid funny."

"I don't think I found stupid funny even when I was twelve," Itachi commented as he began flicking through the channels. They found a drama that satisfied all of Sakura's requirements, though she was slightly appalled to privately think that the male lead would probably be more attractive if she was sharing the couch with someone else.

Though she relaxed somewhat into the conversation as they both took to gleefully pointing out flaws in the common sense of the characters—well, she was doing it gleefully and Itachi was doing it with slightly less vehemence but no less enjoyment—she didn't lose her awareness of him. It wasn't just that he was an attractive man with his feet bare and his hair loose, either. Some things bound you tighter than blood and maybe even sex, but she didn't know what to do with what they'd done.

She'd thought of Sasori as evil; then she'd become Sasori for no better reason than because one man couldn't admit that his little brother was out of control and needed to be stopped.

Sakura had coped with that last mission together by compartmentalizing, because she'd been incapable of rationalizing or justifying it to herself. If she tried rationalizing it, she had to accept that she had done and would do worse things with her genjutsu—she'd made Sasuke murder his mother—and she didn't need Sasori's jutsu or Itachi's directive or Tsunade-sama's orders to be a monster. If she tried justifying it, she had to accept that she found a life worth less than pacifying Itachi, because she didn't believe the stranger's death would bring Sasuke back into the fold. She was…comfortable was not the right word, but she wasn't morally conflicted about killing to defend her village, her client, or her person. She was not so ethically certain about her role in the Itachi gambit; Operation Headhunter had given her little time and less incentive to endlessly revisit what it felt like to make a man a meat-puppet.

It was hard not to think about that mission with him so close she'd only have to uncurl her legs to brush against him. The lure of trying to talk it out—to confront him again about why he believed in Sasuke—was powerful. She didn't, though, because she knew she would make it a confrontation and not a discussion and she had to work with him after this.

When the program ended, she suggested that she'd like to go to sleep. There were two beds and a pull-out cot in the couch, the latter of which Itachi would be taking.

Sakura had suggested that since they were respecting seniority—and it was strange, to have someone like Uchiha Itachi being deferential to "Hatake-senpai" when familiarity had eroded all her formality with Kakashi-senpai—that she be the one to take the cot, but when not in the field Itachi had manners that, while she wouldn't call them old-fashioned, involved a great deal of host courtesy even in rented rooms. And that meant she got the bed.

Now that he wasn't slowly suffocating, Itachi slept very quietly. She welcomed it after so long packed into makeshift accommodations and luxuriated in cool, clean sheets. She expected nightmares, but her own sleep was restful, broken only once when Kakashi-senpai returned. She'd half-dozed off again before the click of the bathroom door dragged her back into partial wakefulness, but she only murmured a second goodnight and hardly heard his reply.

She didn't quite feel like a new person come morning, but she felt immeasurably readier to deal with whatever the day confronted them with.

"So, Iron," Jiraiya-sama said as they sat down to breakfast. He'd only grinned when Kakashi-senpai had thanked him for the warning about their newest associate and Sakura had half-thought that senpai would retaliate by getting lost between the hotel and the restaurant. "Even without the summit, their borders are well-patrolled, despite the fact that it's frigid and no one in their right mind wants to spend any more time there than they absolutely have to. Its mines make its nobles wealthy; its weather and its standing military make it basically unassailable. Sounds like fun, doesn't it, kiddos?"

"With this team, I'm worried more about coping with the weather than the border crossing," was Kakashi-senpai's reply. "Even chakra circulation will only do so much."

"Which is why we're not going to be camping. Iron isn't a closed country. It depends too much on trade for that—their growing season is short and there aren't many crops they can withstand the conditions. They do herd thinks like yaks and reindeer and other massive furry animals and there's some fishing, but their population is too large to support with what they can produce domestically. So their samurai are severe, but their merchants are enthusiastic. Their mines might make their nobility wealthy, but everyone else needs to be able to buy rice. They've even gotten a little into tourism. Which is why we'll be there. Ever had a burning desire to go ice fishing?"

"Not so much, no," Kakashi-senpai replied dryly. "Itachi-san? Sakura?"

"Nope," Sakura volunteered. "I am happy to support local fisherman by buying them already out of the water."

They all turned expectantly to Itachi. "I concur with Sakura. Fish markets are more interesting than fishing."

"So that's a no on the ice fishing. Well, they have a well-developed reputation for jewelry. Konohagakure hasn't seen the trend emerge there yet, but you could pick up an Earth country tradition and be picking out rings for your bride," he said, eyes sliding from Itachi to Sakura.

"The bride is going to nix that one," Sakura said. "We don't know how long the conference is going to last and while I'm not opposed to jewelry or anything, I'm not spending any substantive amount of time fussing over finding the absolutely perfect ring. Aside from annoying even myself, I don't know enough about the trends to sell the disguise. It's too bad that they don't allow civilians access to their sword making industry—their blades are supposed to be excellent."

"I think time spent watching their native swordsmiths at work would be very interesting," Itachi agreed. "Despite their purpose, there is an undeniable beauty to a well-forged sword. Perhaps they have museums. As an important part of their culture, they might have well-known examples on display."

She caught Jiraiya-sama rolling his eyes. "You were the one who suggested ice fishing."

"When I do cultural tourism, my goal is to get closer to the people."

"So, festivals, bars, and women?" Kakashi-senpai jibed.

"Hey, don't knock it. People aren't their high culture. You can't find the real spirit of a nation in museums. It lives and breathes and grows. It isn't something you can cage behind glass and write a placard on."

"That is perhaps the most high-minded argument for talking women into bed that I've ever heard," Itachi murmured to Sakura, who snorted.

"I noticed you weren't surprised by your marriage to Itachi," Kakashi-senpai observed.

Despite what she'd said to Itachi last night, the lure proved too great to resist. "I knew I'd have to make an honest man of him eventually. He used to tell me he'd lie awake at night, breathless, thinking that he'd die if I didn't come back to him whenever I had to leave. When we were together, I couldn't keep my hands off of him."

"My mother always said that a wedding should be demanded in recompense for surrendering one's body," Itachi added blandly.

Kakashi-senpai blinked at them. "Aren't the two of you adorable. I take it I'm the ferociously doting elder brother who refuses to let the couple out of his sight?"

"And I'm this lovely little lady's grandfather, along for some family bonding. Though it was a shame her parents couldn't make it," Jiraiya-sama said and they fell into a more serious discussion about the roles they'd be taking on for the trip.

Her hair, as well as Jiraiya-sama's and Kakashi-senpai's would be dyed a glossy purple-black for the duration—though Jiraiya-sama's would have the grey of a man of his age—and dark-colored contacts would both heighten the family resemblance and, in her case, hopefully mute her tapetum lucidum's tendency to reflect light and hide the narrow vertical slash of her pupils.

Jiraiya-sama would be a retired merchant who'd specialized in the distribution of alcohol; his business had been taken over by his son and daughter-in-law and its robust nature had kept them from joining their children on this trip.

Sakura blinked dubiously at this cover. "I don't know anything about alcohol," she protested.

"Ignorance is a woman's virtue," Jiraiya-sama told her facetiously, then grinned when she scowled at him. "Not to worry. It wasn't your palette that attracted Itachi; it was your skill in accounting, your experience with customer service, and your manners. It'll all be useful when you're the okami."

Itachi's mother owned and managed a ryokan in the south of Hi no Kuni; unlike other assignments they wouldn't have much support for their covers and would have to take care to talk in generalities and avoid giving out information that could be followed up on.

As for appearance, Itachi himself would have eye-catching silver-white hair, because as Jiraiya-sama had pointed out, he was good-looking enough to be memorable. Rather than attempt to downplay that it would be easier to simply capitalize on people's imperfect memory and have them remember his hair or the color of his eyes rather than the shape of his face.

They dispersed after that to stylists and optometrists and clothing stores.

Sakura had to put off buying a civilian-style coat suitable for Iron's climate because she couldn't find one heavy enough. As civilians, they wouldn't be able use chakra manipulation to help regulate their body temperatures. Otherwise it didn't take her long to put together a wardrobe; Sakura generally thought of ryokan managers as well-dressed and well-mannered, but also practical and didn't know why their daughter-in-laws should be any different. She bought sturdy boots and nice clothes—not trendy; ryokan and their managers were about the furthest thing from trendy—that would layer and travel well and was done with it. Things that she could actually wear afterwards and would wear as well with her natural hair color as her current one. They had a budget, of sorts, but she wouldn't be turning these receipts in at the mission office.

"I ruined my comfortable field boots during the Crush," she said to Itachi conversationally as he fell in beside her, quicksilver hair gleaming like a waterfall down his back. She'd opted for modern clothing for ease of movement and because she was slightly dubious of kimono in the climate of Iron; whatever his reasons, Itachi had apparently decided that his wardrobe should marry modernity to tasteful wealth. She ignored the part of her brain that insisted that it wasn't going to be any hardship pretending to be married to that. The rest of her could not overlook that for all his manners and his consideration and his cooking, Uchiha Itachi was probably the most dangerous man she'd ever meet.

"They were at that point in their life where they fit perfectly, but hadn't started breaking down yet. I don't even know if the man who made them survived. I have a second pair, but they're not quite there yet. Destroyed my flak jacket, too, and I'm not eligible for uniform assistance for another eight months. If there's any money for it," she scoffed. "Non-standard body armor is worth the money, but it's still a lot of money. I'm looking forward to seeing your kit."

Itachi proved perfectly amendable to the non-controversial topic she'd offered, discussing design and materials and weight considerations.

Like this, Sakura could almost pretend that they could be friends.

[Kill Your Heroes]

Jounin didn't quite have specializations, not like chūnin, but they did have skillsets. Sakura's did not include undercover work much beyond changing her appearance so that a target didn't bolt if their orders were to bring them in alive. She was more of an ambush predator by preference and resistant to the loss of control of her environment and potential complications implicit in civilian dwellings or places of business, but Kakashi-senpai occasionally preferred waiting in a chair to waiting in a tree or on a rooftop.

She had no practice and no frame of reference for more elaborate deceptions, ones that followed her home, so to speak. Iron's vernacular architecture reflected their climate, with raised floors to allow for underfloor heating and beds that were essentially very small enclosed rooms to maximize the usefulness of body heat. Elaborately embroidered quilts were the traditional vehicle of feminine expression—several that qualified as artworks in their own right had been hung in the reception area of the lodge that would serve as their base until Tsunade-sama sent word through the tiny Katsuyu that their orders had changed. With the slug to act as a link to her summoner, Jiraiya-sama could set them down practically on top of Tsunade-sama within seconds.

Which was all well and good until she stepped into the—their—room with her husband and recognized that not only would she be regularly be spending time alone in a room with Itachi, she would be spending time alone with him in a large wooden box. It had been bad enough in the more traditional establishments they'd stayed in during the journey here, where they could lay out their futons with enough space between them that it wasn't much different than with any other teammate. She'd shared space with Tatsuo and she'd both liked and been attracted to him; the difference, she thought, was that she'd been much younger then—so much less sure of herself—and her relationship with Tatsuo was a very different one than what she had with Itachi.

Because it was alright to be attracted to Tatsuo, whom she'd liked and trusted; she resented her body's response to Itachi as he played the role of a husband that was unfailingly considerate and quick to sense when companionship would be welcome and when she wanted her own space. She thought darkly that it wasn't his appearance that was the real danger—that was just the lure, like an anglerfish in the darkness of the ocean—but that she would in an unguarded moment slip and think of this as a "real" relationship rather than something in service to their mission.

"Aikata," Itachi murmured with amusement, "I'm not quite certain what you're thinking, but I'm certain the bed is innocent."

Sakura moved further into the room, conducting a sweep under the guise of putting her things away, Itachi doing the same across the room. The time it had taken them to arrive in Iron—Tsunade-sama was traveling with a large delegation to the border and they therefore had no need to hurry and Jiraiya-sama apparently did not hurry when he did not have to—had given them plenty of opportunity to establish the public face of their marriage.

Unlike the somewhat florid personality he'd assumed for the purpose of writing her letters that needed to be long enough to easily conceal his messages, Itachi had chosen to interpret his role as her husband as one that didn't require a significant shift in his personality—or at least didn't significantly alter the face he'd been showing to her as his "true" one.

He'd surprised her when he'd chosen "aikata" as his most common address of choice when he didn't refer to her by her assumed name without honorifics. She usually only heard that term used by girls her own age—ones like Mariko—to refer to their boyfriends. Or comics to their partners. Not that Itachi was old, but it wasn't exactly common and usually expressed a dissatisfaction with the gender roles reinforced by the kanji that constructed the usual terms for husband or wife or boyfriend or girlfriend.

When introducing her to the receptionist downstairs, it had been "kami-san," which was appropriate within their roles, but when Kakashi-senpai had been needling him about souvenirs, he'd dryly responded that he'd have to ask "ōkura daijin," the Minister of Finance. Kakashi-senpai had laughed and asked her if they'd already negotiated his okozukai.

Sakura was calling him by his assumed name without honorifics as well and had gratefully taken his lead by not referring to him as "shujin." She'd decided to instead use "teishu" for the connotations of the master of an establishment rather than master of her person or "otto" which was legalistic, but with less implications of ownership.

She wasn't certain that this rather modern take was what Jiraiya-sama had in mind when he'd arranged their roles, but it was effective and unlike Itachi, who was sort of appallingly endearing on further acquaintance, she was developing rather substantial reservations about the personal habits of the Toad Sage. She'd muttered to Itachi that he was overplaying the lecherous old man stereotype and he'd grimaced and told her that if it was a role, it was one he had been playing for as long as Itachi had known him. He had at least made efforts to behave once they'd crossed the border, as he was just as famous for his lechery as Tsunade-sama was for her drinking and gambling.

"So, riding reindeers tomorrow. Better than ice-fishing, but what exactly does my grandfather have against museums or art galleries?" she asked Itachi as they gathered up their things to brave the weather again for dinner. Sakura asked this having been in civilian versions of neither of these, though they'd been required to go to the ones maintained by the village in the Academy. Her hobbies as a child had involved first Ino's friendship, then her pursuit of Sasuke; as an adult, she'd been busy with missions and training and research and her hobby turned to reading, which had the advantage of traveling with her.

She'd abandoned most of her pretenses when she'd given up on Sasuke; all her cultural lessons like tea ceremony and flower arranging and appreciation of poetry were fading memories that had never proved useful outside table manners, but she hadn't hated them.

Sakura wondered what Itachi actually liked to do, when he wasn't being Uchiha Itachi, S-class Missing-nin. One of the problems with Itachi's exquisite manners was that she had to actually pay attention to him to know when he was only being polite and it was annoying, not least because it was a work in progress.

It was also annoying because she was here, thinking about frivolous things like that while her village was trying to pick itself back up and her kage was about to negotiate an alliance that would determine the face of the war they were about to wage. She rationally understood that they wouldn't be in a much better position to come to Tsunade-sama's aid if they were huddled around a fire somewhere in the countryside, thinking grim thoughts and wearing full combat kit, but she still felt the guilt of sleeping in soft beds and taking hot showers.

"Your grandfather considers pornography to be literature," Itachi replied. "It also might be that the women who work in museums are usually smarter than his, ah, courtship technique allows for."

Kakashi-senpai was waiting in the lobby, lurking with his hands in his pockets and a paper mask over his face like he had a cold; between that and a scarf he'd managed to thus far avoid baring his face. Senpai had proved surprisingly amenable to animals and had suggested that they look into dog-sledding, though that was more common in the north in Yuki no Kuni.

"Where's Grandfather, oni-chan?" Sakura asked as she pulled on her parka.

"We're on our own for dinner tonight. I understand that we can look forward to lots of meat."

"Wear your scarf," Itachi scolded her when she would have swept out the door without it. "You'll chap your nose."

"Nag," she mouthed at Kakashi-senpai, even as she did as he asked and then interlaced her fingers with Itachi's. "So I don't have to wear gloves just to cross the street," she told him in reply to his lifted brows.

[Kill Your Heroes]

Itachi was settled on the couch, reading, while Sakura was laying belly-down on the bed, considering having that argument with Itachi as a way of dealing with the aggression that was the direct result of going from a very intense training regime to Operation Headhunter to civilian levels of activity.

When she was regularly subjecting herself to running painful distances with the ninken or any of the other training exercises, there were long stretches of it she did not enjoy but did anyway, because she did like feeling powerful in her own body and because she preferred the pain she chose to what weakness earned in battle. She hadn't really thought she'd miss it, but here she was, feeling like this room was a cage.

After a week and a half, she just wanted to hit something and feel it break, which wasn't an emotion she experienced often. Her mood was not improved by the fact that despite a streak of wearing them successfully, her cosmetic contacts had given her a blinding migraine by noon and she wasn't allowed to use chakra to heal it; she was under the same ban when it came to meditation—which, honestly, she thought an excellent excuse to not discover the full extent of what losing control of the natural chakra had done to her.

The seal on her back was strange now, different from the one that Sai had been creating, and it was etched deep and scarred black and bisected by a river of white scales flowing down her spine. Which could be worse—she remembered the dream-dragon shape had a mane that went from the crest of her head to the tip of her tail and would be tremendously awkward on her human body. She also had the scales wherever the bones pressed close under the skin at her wrists and ankles as well.

She must have made some noise of discontent, because Itachi looked up from his book and his expression gentled. "Is the light bothering you?" He had only the little light on the stand next to the couch on and Sakura could have dropped the hangings on the bed if that was the source of her irritation.

"It's not the migraine. That would go away if I could go to sleep, but who can sleep when we don't do anything? It's really the lack of strenuous physical activity and spending most of the day inside that's getting to me," she admitted. "Does your sunburn still sting?"

Itachi's fair skin had proved very susceptible to the sunlight gleaming off the snow. It wasn't to the point of blistering, but had looked very red and painful and slightly comic, as he'd only burned where he had exposed skin, above the line of his scarf and below the shelter of his hood. Almost like he was wearing a red mask. "Less now than it did. I suppose it makes me very convincing as a tourist."

"Almost as convincing as that very expensive quilt you bought from the gallery. Nothing says tourist like purchasing ethnic art. The natives certainly can't afford it. What are you even going to do with it?"

"Display it in our home, of course."

[Kill Your Heroes]

Itachi had been of two minds about the opportunity this assignment had given him.

He would be sharing a bed with the only young woman who had managed to interest him emotionally to the extent that she also interested him sexually, which caused a nervous anticipation such as he hadn't experienced for a very long time.

He would also be sharing a bed with the only young woman who interested him across the full scope of human attachment, which was nerve-wracking in ways he hadn't fully imagined could accompany a situation where no one was in danger of dying.

Itachi had been accustomed to having control over his body such as few people even dreamed of and this strange, almost animal response to Sakura had caused embarrassment to become an unwelcome companion of his nights. It was uncomfortable, but it was…welcome. Not that he wanted to become like the "normal" men of Jiraiya-sama's novels—aside from sounding very much exhausting, he hadn't felt as there was anything wrong with him as he was—who might have pushed for physical intimacy despite the fact that the trust between them had been frayed by that last mission.

When he had resigned himself to death and thought that he wanted nothing more than Sasuke's happiness, Itachi was discovering that perhaps—perhaps he wanted things for himself as well.

It seemed he'd only needed that last encounter for selfishness to carve out a little space, telling him that he'd been the perfect shinobi for his family and for his village, so surely he deserved to also be Itachi when it did not interfere with his service to either. And Itachi wanted a chance with Sakura, so for all the awkwardness of arousal, he was a little bit relieved that he would not have to ask that she also compromise any aspect of her own sexuality when he would already have to overcome her antipathy to Sasuke.

Sakura was not immune to his campaign of kindness—which he would have carried out regardless of attraction, because Sakura was a kunoichi he respected and hoped to continue working with in the future—which was greatly abetted by their constant proximity. Her body language became more open in private and she was quicker to laugh, quicker to tease. More honest in her aggression and less on her best company manners.

He thought that he could probably build a long and enduring friendship on the foundations he was repairing; the problem was that he lacked both the courage and the knowledge to built romance into the structure without risking sabotage of the whole thing.

If they had not had the conversation about his sexuality, he thought with any luck that Sakura might have made the whole thing moot by broaching it herself.

Though knowing that she had found him attractive once was not sufficient evidence that she wanted to find him so or that she would act on it; until Sakura, if it hadn't quite been active repulsion, the sex act had incurred only indifference or disdain for the way others were driven by it. So there was more than a little trepidation on his part about telling her that he wished to recant his claim of asexuality. Given how unnerving he found his attraction to Sakura, he could only be glad that his reaction seemed exclusively limited to her.

He told himself to be patient, to enjoy the days of companionship, but the coming war loomed large in the quiet spaces of their conversations. Both of them were field shinobi of considerable talent; that they would be placed anywhere but the frontlines was unlikely. The chances that one or both of them would die were quite high and Itachi knew that he would regret it if he did not say something and take this chance.

Just now she was flushed from her bath, her hair spilling forward over her breasts and he found himself making the offer that had almost escaped him that first night in the hotel, when she'd looked so worn and fierce and wary. "Would you like me to comb your hair?"

Sakura glanced over at him, searching his expression. "We've established they haven't bugged the room. The devoted husband can be left outside the door."

It took Itachi more courage to hold her gaze in this moment than was required for most battles, because for him it wasn't like he could be snared at a glance, swimming in a colorful ocean of innumerable chances. Attraction was like the sun acting on a seed, sinking its warmth deep and growing slow before he could stretch up and turn his face toward her. "Let me rephrase. I'd like to comb your hair. Will you allow me?"

"If you're teasing, you're supposed to let someone know by tonal shift," Sakura scolded him, then when his serious expression didn't shift. "…unless you're not teasing. Why?"

Swift, decisive, and coherent, he reminded himself as he replied, "Because it would not take a mission to make me play the devoted boyfriend."

Then, because that had been so decisive that he felt heat creeping across his cheeks, he said, "We can negotiate on the marriage once you decide whether or you'll let me touch your hair."

Sakura nearly fumbled her comb, then just stared at him for an uncomfortably silent minute. "You—you're not—I thought you weren't, um, attracted to, ah, anyone."

"We learn new things about ourselves all the time," Itachi offered and couldn't quite help the wryness of his tone. "It also took me by surprise."

Surprise or perhaps anxiety made the narrow slit of Sakura's jarring new eyes widen until they almost looked human. "This war, the village," she said in a very soft voice, "I just broke up with my last boyfriend because I needed to focus on them."

"I know what it means to serve our village," Itachi replied, "and I also know what it is to fight wars, which is why I am saying something now."

"I know," Sakura said faintly, "I know you do. You would never expect me to prioritize our relationship over my duty to Konohagakure and I would give you the same respect. But, Uchiha-san—Itachi—what do expect from this, if I say yes? Are you—is it you've never been attracted to someone and want to explore that or do you expect something serious and long-term?"

"I don't—I very much doubt that I could feel attraction without the desire to make something serious of it."

Sakura frowned at him in silence for an even longer interval than when she'd first understood what he meant, which was enough to make him even more nervous than he'd already been, then she confessed, "There's a part of me that wants to say that after the village, I want the person I'm with to choose me. Not all the time or exclusively, but when it really counts. Not immediately, of course, because that would be stupid, but someday. But I think that you'll always choose Sasuke. So I want to use him as my excuse, but then I think that I'll probably choose senpai, except senpai is a lot less likely to force that kind of choice. And I think that you'll understand that the way most men wouldn't.

"I'm assuming that you mean to return to the village, but how will people react to that? Whether it's good or bad, you're infamous and being with you means living my life under scrutiny, at least for the next several years. Maybe for the rest of your life. How will that make me feel? What kind of stress would that put any relationship under? If you're serious, I don't know if you'll want children and if I manage to have them, I don't know if I want my children to inherit your kekkei genkai. I don't even know if I even wantchildren, really. What are you smiling at?" she demanded.

"If this doesn't clearly illustrate that we're both genjutsu-types, I'm not certain what would. I'm fairly certain most people don't manage risk assessments quite so thorough when they begin a relationship."

"Who said we're beginning anything?" Sakura asked crabbily. "I didn't even make it through my full list."

"You enumerated many of the reasons why logically you shouldn't, but you never told me no."

"I could have been building up to it," she grumbled.

"Were you?"

"…no. But that doesn't make any of it less true," she said as she handed over the comb.

"No," he agreed softly. "It doesn't. But Sakura? Thank you."

[Kill Your Heroes]

The talks collapsed under the weight of the personalities in the room, though they'd managed to drag the death throes out for almost two weeks. This village insisted that appeasement would be effective; that village wasn't interested in dealing with the problem so much as they were focused on accusing all the other villages of creating it and sabotaging every attempt at compromise.

Tsunade couldn't say she was surprised. She gambled. Compulsively. She was infamousfor losing on any odds at all, let alone long ones. And these—these had been the longest.

Suna had been willing to follow her lead, but Gaara's age undermined his authority and all his good intentions didn't make him any more persuasive as a speaker. She'd bet that within his own village, people listened out of fear if nothing else given his history, but the men and women at this table had been waging war—mainly with each other—since before his father's time. They had grudges older than he was. When they'd been through dossiers in search of a field commander to recommend for their proposed coalition, she'd begun to think that they didn't have a single experienced jounin-commander who hadn't led a major offensive against one of the villages they were about to recommend them to.

They'd settled on a Nara that had been a junior-commander on several campaigns and prayed that none of the kage would recognize her name.

Now all that effort was wasted and she could really use a drink before she had to face the alternative to willing cooperation. Nara Kameyo protested separating the group while still in Iron, but Tsunade had testily pointed out that she had survived without supervision for years before returning to the village. This had not convinced the woman, who unfortunately happened to be friends with Shizune, so Tsunade had grudgingly agreed to relay a message through the Katsuyu with Jiraiya, instructing his team to rendezvous with her.

She might have fudged the time a little, so that she could have at least one drink without someone looking over her shoulder, but if she was in genuine distress she knew she could trust that particular squad to be on-site in less time than it generally took bartenders to pour her a drink.

Danzō had made no such protest; she trusted that if she did die in this godforsaken frozen country he would use it as political leverage. The summit might have failed because when the other kage looked at her they saw an aging alcoholic with a burned village rather than the leader of the most powerful of the five great villages, but he'd make her a martyr upon which to build a war. With her shinobi just waiting for an outlet for their rage and their frustration and Danzō feeding their fury, they'd become a fire that would scorch Amegakure to the ground.

Whether or not they survived Akatsuki, she knew that her shinobi would burn themselves up if that was what cost to bring their enemy low. That was what it meant to have a soul of fire.

Huddling deeper into her heavy coat, which made her relatively anonymous on the road to a village rumored to make excellent use of potatoes as well as warding off the cold that wanted to seep into her joints despite her chakra circulation, Tsunade contemplated what it meant to return to the wars of her youth without any of the conviction she'd had back then.

Old, she thought with a silent groan as she caught a flicker of chakra. It makes me feel old.

"Did you need something, Uchiha?" she called out, resolving to survive the encounter if only to spite Danzō. She was not particularly worried; having overcome her hemophobia she would take a fight before that stiff drink. She had grown up with the Uchiha and Orochimaru at the height of their strength, though not the latter's depravity, and wasn't particularly impressed with Uchiha Sasuke's record. He was certainly no Itachi.

She did wonder at the three shinobi clustered behind him as the boy stepped forward into the road. According to all the reports she'd had of Uchiha Sasuke, he wasn't much of a team player. That he found these three useful enough to bring them along said something about their abilities.

"Answers." His reply was laced with anger, his eyes already gleaming Sharingan red. He glanced back at his team and when he spoke, his tone didn't shift. "Find something to do."

The red-headed kunoichi looked as if she might protest, but he snapped, "Now."

"I'd say if you want answers, you'll have to ask nicely, but something tells me that's hoping for too much. Just what answers are you looking for?"

His head swung sharply back toward her, though she was too canny to meet his gaze. He waited until his team had passed beyond hearing range before he spoke, his voice as sharp as a kunai. "There was one truth in my life. It was…everything. My brother was a monster who had slaughtered my family and I was going to avenge them all by killing him, no matter what it cost me. Nothing else—not my team, not my village, nothing mattered but that."

"You'd managed it, from what I'd heard."

Tension pulled the muscles in his jaw tight. "…I did. I killed my brother. And then a man I've never met before in my life shows up and tells me this bullshit story. He says he's Uchiha-fucking-Madara—who should be dead and bones by now—and that my family didn't die because aniki wanted to test the limits of his powers. He tells me it's because his village ordered him to do it." He was almost shouting now, but with a visible act of will he tempered himself. "I want you to tell me what happened that night. And I want you to tell me the truth."

"The truth, huh? Tell me, your brother, this Madara—could you tell if they were lying? What did your Sharingan eyes tell you?"

"I'll know if you're lying and that's all that matters," he snarled.

"Can you?" she asked, considering pointing out that of all people, a medic-nin would have the most control over the processes like pulse rate and pupil dilation he was likely depending on to gauge the truthfulness of her story. Tsunade had never had the patience or the capacity to distance herself emotionally that made truly excellent interrogators; Uchiha Sasuke was all furious energy and frothing-at-the-mouth involved in what he was asking her. She didn't doubt that despite his eyes he'd been all but blind in his encounters with Itachi and the man calling himself Madara. But the truth—well, she could give him that.

"If I'm going to tell you that story, I'm going to need a drink."