hello wonderful people! the plus of being horrifyingly ill is the fact that i can churn out a 15k chapter in three days! whoop whoop!
as always, thank you for all your lovely feedback and for sticking with this story~ i promise there's a lot of excitement in this one, and i wonder what you'll think of the twist at the end ;)
enjoy!
Sakura let Anko escort her to T&I, then marvelled as she was led far deeper into the building's bowels than she'd previously been allowed to go. She sent a curious glance at her senpai, which the woman caught and promptly snorted at. "There are over ten more levels below the one we're heading to, brat, so don't look so awed already." She remarked, and Sakura promptly gawked, then sighed internally – she wished Anko wouldn't be so… well, Anko sometimes and let her have her delusions. But she shook her head and smiled instead, grateful that the woman was willing to put up with her at all.
"I wouldn't be awed if you'd let me come here before." She grouched teasingly, as their relationship wasn't theirs without some banter. Anko made to elbow her, but Sakura, already used to sudden elbows or legs aiming to trip her up merely dodged and grinned, stepping out of the tokujo's reach and sticking her tongue out teasingly.
"Cheeky shit." Anko swore and lunged playfully, making Sakura yelp and stumble as she tried and failed to dodge and got a noogie for her troubles. "Now listen here brat, I bullied Ibiki into letting you take a shot at the Iwa-nin before we off him, so when you're there, remember that my reputation hangs in the balance. You screw up and you'll be doing dodge training with my snakes instead of sleeping for a week." Her senpai threatened and Sakura paled. Anko had made her do 'dodge training' before, and the rosette reckoned that there were few things she hated and simultaneously feared more than a repeat of that. Not only were the snakes slimy and disgusting, they were also deceptively fast and agile, and Sakura had ended up with more bruises and tiny puncture wounds all over her body than she could count, and with the rules Anko had set before she sicced her snakes on her, each 'hit' was ten sit-ups.
Sakura had not been able to move from her bed the next day.
Finally, after what felt like hours of wandering the dim corridors of T&I, Anko opened a door and gestured her in, following after and sealing the door once it closed behind them. Glancing around the room, Sakura noted Morino-san standing by the one-way window and a man she didn't know and then, once she actually took the time to peer through the window, she saw a bare cell, the walls a drab, gray concrete and a metal table with a chair on either side. One of the chairs was occupied by the prisoner – he was pale and drawn, his red hair hanging limply by his shoulders, his cheekbones far more pronounced than Sakura reasoned was healthy, his skin was sallow and of a sickly yellowish colour that spoke of weeks without going outside. There were manacles around his wrists and ankles, heavy and clearly too tight, and Sakura realised with a start that though she could see him, she couldn't sense him.
Chakra suppressants. She realised belatedly.
For a moment, Sakura felt sick. She'd seen how prisoners were held before, true, but they had mostly been low-level thugs which meant that they weren't kept for too long as they tended to break and spill any valuable information much sooner. This however… she chanced a glance at Anko, briefly entertaining the thought that her senpai had intentionally kept her away from seeing the darker side of their job because she knew it wouldn't sit right with her. Then she promptly dismissed it. Anko and concern for other people's feelings? If it hadn't been for that short time in the hospital, just after they got back from that dreaded mission where Tamaki- Sakura's thought process stalled for a minute, but she grit her teeth and barrelled through the instinctive stab of grief and guilt that came at the mere thought of the blond- where Tamaki died, she'd have thought that Anko simply didn't do emotions.
But she knew better.
Then, her gaze fell to the figure on the opposite side of the metal table and she smiled against her will. "Tonbo-san!" she breathed quietly, but loudly enough to alert Morino-san to her presence.
The Head of Interrogation scrutinised her, the man by his side merely glancing over at her then turning back to the interrogation taking place in clear dismissal, but Ibiki's eyes rested on her.
"Did Mitarashi tell you what she roped you into?" he asked calmly, his voice cold but not unkindly so.
So Sakura swallowed down her initial apprehension and nodded curtly. "Yes, Morino-san. Senpai mentioned a prisoner whom you've already been interrogating for a while." She admitted carefully, suddenly realising that Anko hadn't really told her much else.
Ibiki seemed to be thinking along the same lines as his eyebrow climbed up his forehead and he scowled, turning to her senpai. "There's such a thing as undersharing, Mitarashi. Or were you intentionally trying to send the kid in there blind?" he demanded, and his tone was far harsher than it had been with the rosette, but Anko just waved him off.
"Why should I have bothered if I knew you'd fill her in anyhow? You're far too predictable Ibiki." She remarked, smirking evilly even as Ibiki's scowl deepened and his chakra spiked. Then, he offered Sakura a scroll.
"Everything we've extracted so far." He bit out, and Sakura took the proffered scroll wordlessly, pulling it open with a flick of a finger and scanning its contents. The prisoner was from Iwagakure, he was in his late twenties, a little-known jounin but a jounin nonetheless. The team that had brought him in caught him trying to steal from a small Village by the border between Fire and Earth Country that Konoha was allied with, but due to the fact that what he'd attempted to steal was a heavily-guarded and a well-kept secret, his mere presence in the vault where the object had been kept had raised the issue of an internal leak. Yet in all of the notes that the various interrogators had made, one thing remained largely unknown – why, exactly, had an Iwagakure jounin been in the vault he had no business even knowing about?
Just then, Tonbo stepped through the door, closing it securely behind him before he turned and grinned at the rosette. "Pinky! Long time no see! What brings you here?" and his cheerful demeanour managed to put a smile on the rosette's face, and she greeted him back, albeit only half as enthusiastically.
"Tonbo-san!" she called, waving cheerily, a greeting which felt painfully inappropriate for where they were. "I've been around. You know how it is – errand here, errand there." She waved her hand dismissively. "Then senpai tried to break into my house and dragged me here." She added teasingly, getting a squawk from Anko and dodging the kunai that sailed for her head, letting it thunk into the concrete wall instead. She was getting better at dodging, however unorthodox her teachers' methods were.
Tonbo chuckled and ruffled her hair, messing up her ponytail in the process and making Sakura scowl fiercely at him from under her bangs. "I take it you're going in after me? Good luck. Remember what you told me all those months ago and you'll be fine."
And suddenly, just like that, the atmosphere changed, and Sakura grew serious. She knew exactly what Tonbo was referring to, and just like that, she knew exactly what to do.
"I'm a genjutsu specialist, Tonbo-san. I can alter reality itself. I ask you to answer this: how would you feel if, after days of the isolation you spoke of, days of starvation, of chakra suppression, you'd start to feel the walls closing in on you? Or if you saw the chains restraining you turn into snakes, or grow heavier, shorter, hotter? Or if every man who came to interrogate you was faceless, or seven foot tall? If you can't access your chakra, you can't break the illusion. What do you think would happen after weeks of this? You'd stop trusting your own mind. And who can you trust, when you're in the middle of enemy territory and at the mercy of your captors, if you can't even trust your own mind?"
She glanced at Anko one last time, got an encouraging nod in return, then flashed through a few seals, took a deep breath and stepped through the door.
What Issei saw wasn't her, Sakura made sure of that with a basic Chameleon genjutsu layered under the 'main attraction' while she kept her chakra carefully masked as she slipped into the room through the open door, shutting it carefully behind her as she focused on the illusion she had created.
What Issei saw was a man, slender and over six feet tall, dressed much like Ibiki but without the bandana, and without a face. His head was bald, his skin pale, and where his facial features would've been, there was a smooth surface.
She saw his eyes widen as she made the illusion sit down opposite him, pulling out the chair and pushing it in in tandem with the genjutsu, while she herself leant against the wall, half-way between the prisoner and the interrogator's chair, dropping the camouflage when she was sure the prisoner was fully ensnared in her technique.
Sakura took a deep, silent breath, then carefully didn't say anything, nor did she make her creation speak. After a few seconds, Issei settled back in his seat, though far more tense than before, his eyes flickering nervously from side-to-side.
That was the thing with genjutsu – if you didn't have access to your chakra, you couldn't break it even if you knew it was there. Sometimes, you couldn't even sensei it.
And Sakura planned to take full advantage of that.
But she had patience.
After about three minutes passed, she carefully worked through the seals for the second layer of her illusion, making sure she could still access the first if she needed. She had already created an upsetting visual stimulus, now it was time to work on the physical.
Carefully, so as not to make the change too noticeable, she worked on his somatosensory cortex, particularly on the thermoreceptors around his wrists. Sakura could hear her own words in her head, like a mantra – what if you saw the chains restraining you turn into snakes, or grow heavier, shorter, hotter?
She intended to make the manacles around his wrists hot. Unbearably so. But not immediately. After all, a frog dumped into hot water would jump out immediately, but if it had been placed in cold water which was gradually heated… well. Everyone knew the answer to that particular scenario.
It took about five minutes of utter silence, but eventually, Sakura saw the prisoner frown, then scratch his wrist. A few seconds later and a slight twist of chakra on her part saw him try to pull them down, then, when that didn't work, he tried to force a finger between the manacle and the skin of his wrist.
But there was no give.
Just a little bit more…
Another pulse of chakra, and now Issei's expression turned from confusion and discomfort to pain. She saw his eyes dart from his cuffed wrists to the still faceless, still silent mirage of the interrogator.
And there was clear unease in his gaze.
Sakura took it a step further, carefully monitoring her chakra levels. Normally, genjutsu weren't all too chakra-taxing, as with normal area-effect illusions, she could just create it and forget about it till someone stumbled into it and dispelled it. But this time, as she created the third layer, she had to keep the other two accessible layers accessible. Then, despite her best intentions, she felt her concentration slip and the control she had over her chakra wavered. It was just a second, but her first layer flickered out of existence before it reappeared. She was lucky, insanely so, that the prisoner had been looking down at his wrists, his agitation becoming more and more pronounced as she stimulated the thermoreceptors in the sensitive skin and he didn't notice his 'interrogator' disappear.
Quickly, but carefully so as not to lose her hold over her illusions any more than she already had, she finished the third layer. A few seconds later, she saw his eyes snap from his wrists to the walls.
They were moving closer.
Of course, the actual walls were still exactly as they had been since this cell had been built, or so Sakura assumed. But her illusion carefully suggested otherwise, and it didn't seem like her victim had clocked on to the fact that she was there and it wasn't really his mind that was lying to him – in fact, it was easier for her if he believed precisely that. Weeks of solitary confinement in a cell no bigger than four by two metres, with no windows nor contact with the outside world apart from enemy shinobi who came to interrogate him didn't exactly provide Sakura with a stable mind to work on.
And, for once, that was exactly what she was counting on.
Sakura always had an idea of what went on in her illusions – that's not to say she knew what people saw in the Hell Viewing technique when she cast it on them, but anything which was an area-effect or a elicited a response from a particular individual, she roughly knew what they were seeing.
Here, in a controlled environment and with only one subject to work on, she knew exactly what Issei was seeing.
The walls were still moving closer. The manacles were still burning his wrists. The interrogator sitting opposite him was still faceless, like a puppet, and silent like a grave.
She also knew what he wasn't seeing – her.
And then, seeing the slight tremor of fear that shook his hand, a tremor which she wouldn't have spotted if she hadn't been looking for the slightest of reactions that what she was doing was working, Sakura moved onto the most experimental part of what she had planned.
A trial run, so to speak, for the technique she'd spent the last few weeks designing and the last few months mulling over.
There was a jutsu that Anko had shown her when she decided to stay at T&I, something she said every Interrogator knew how to use, but few ever achieved a mastery of it; Psycho Mind Transmission.
But from what Sakura had worked out, she didn't need a mastery.
In one of her sessions with Inoichi, she'd asked, making sure to keep her tone light, her question seemingly innocuous, whether the Yamanaka could see or differentiate between the memories of their subjects when they possessed them. Inoichi had looked surprised at the question and Sakura hastily apologised for infringing on Clan secrets, but the blond had waved her off, saying that it was hardly a secret, just an unusual question.
He then proceeded to explain that the memories weren't easily viewable like a film or a projection, but the memories with the strongest emotional attachment to them – whether the attachment was positive or negative was of little importance – were always the easiest to locate and view. When Sakura had asked why, he'd said that the body's subconscious response is to protect, and the best way to protect our insides is through chakra. Which is why we unconsciously coat our organs with chakra, and though memories aren't solid, tactile things, the same process takes place in our brains.
Which is why Sakura was certain she wouldn't need complete mastery of the Mind Transmission jutsu – she just needed to find the brightest clump of chakra and bring that to the surface, hoping that it was what she needed.
So she did just that.
It seemed as if Issei had retreated into himself, his eyes no longer flickering nervously from side to side, his fingers no longer trying to pry off the manacles, but still. His eyes were also glazed over, like he wasn't quite there. Carefully, Sakura cancelled the third layer, almost sighing in relief as her control stabilised and her attention didn't feel like it was stretched thin anymore. Then, she got behind the prisoner, and flashed through the seals.
At the stage where she currently was with the Psycho Mind Transmission, it was less like flicking through an album, which was what Anko had described it as, and more of an endless corridor of locked doors, and she only had the keys to some of them. Luckily, she didn't need his every memory – she was sure Ibiki had already been through all that was accessible. What she needed was –
A-ha!
Sakura grasped the chakra, the memory, and brought it forth. It didn't play like a film, nor was it like a storybook, but more like… snapshots. The colour, the smell of jasmine perfume, the feeling of warm skin pressed against hers, a whisper, a curtain of dark hair falling around her, quiet footsteps, a giggle, a soft weight pressed against her legs, two names, two faces…
She drew back, her heart aching.
A wife and a son.
The rosette closed her eyes, for the first time since she started working in T&I, she understood why it was called the least desirable Division.
She felt like a monster.
And she hadn't even done anything yet.
With nary a thought, Sakura cancelled the technique, then the second layer of genjutsu while she was at it.
Issei didn't even look like he noticed.
Then, she cancelled the genjutsu altogether, and pressed her hands together, gathering chakra and bringing forth the image that seemed seared into her retinas. The henge made her into a tall brunette, dark, mahogany locks framing her face and reaching down past her waist, her skin a dark olive instead of porcelain, her shinobi attire replaced with a long red dress, the sleeves billowing around her wrists, the neckline modest, but telling. Civilian. Harmless. Yuuko. A seamstress. Issei's wife.
Slowly, Sakura straightened, then walked around to the chair to sit down opposite him. There was no reaction. Although all of the genjutsu was gone, Issei hadn't seemed to notice.
Sakura sighed. Reached out so her hand gently covered his on the table.
She was out of ideas after this.
It was time for the final deception.
"Hello, Issei." She murmured, removing her hand.
The reaction was instantaneous.
"Do you think it's wise?" Tonbo asked the second the door shut behind Sakura, his face turned towards Anko. "This isn't exactly an easy job to start her off as an interrogator on."
Anko shrugged, though there was a slightly worried downward twist to her usual smirk. "The kid's good. I need to see how she'll handle herself after- after Iwa."
Tonbo was about to retort, but Ibiki twitched and turned accusing eyes to Anko. "Where is she?" he demanded, and both Tonbo and Anko turned to stare out the window and point out that 'she's right here, she just walked through those doors', only that –
She wasn't.
It took a moment, but then Anko sighed, and the corner of her lips that had been previously turned downwards now twitched upwards. "Genjutsu." She identified easily, "Area-effect. As well as something else that she must've started it even before she walked in."
Tonbo frowned and cast out his senses. "I can just about sense her, but barely. She's leaning on-" he cut off, because just then, Sakura reappeared, leaning casually on the wall, one of her legs bent and propping her up, while her hands were folded in a Rat seal, her forehead marred with a frown.
All three of them turned to look at the prisoner. He looked… spooked. Uneasy. Worst of all, he wasn't even looking at Sakura.
"That's not what I was expecting." Anko admitted quietly. Her and Sakura had worked through interrogation tactics, she'd even quizzed the girl multiple times afterwards, made her watch interrogations and identify the different methods used. But this… it depended what the rosette was showing in her illusion, but so far, this was very much not standard procedure.
Especially since Sakura had yet to ask anything.
The minutes dragged on, then Anko frowned. "Is there something wrong with his restraints?"
He was rubbing them, frowning at the metal, and with every minute that ticked by, he looked more and more uneasy.
Then, Tonbo laughed.
It was more like a chuckle, really – short, quiet and more startled than anything, but there was a smirk on his face. "I know what she's doing." He breathed, and there was an edge of… surprise? To it. Maybe even pride. "She's breaking his mind."
After another ten minutes, it became clear how, and Ibiki's breath hissed through his teeth as he understood. "Psychological torture." He murmured, then turned to Anko, more curious than accusatory this time. "Did you really-?"
"I mentioned it." The kunoichi replied, rubbing her shoulder absently. "But never like this."
They watched, only able to guess what was happening as the illusion was very much invisible to them, and all they had to gauge by was the steadily more panicked and worsening by the minute state of the prisoner, as well as the growing frown of concentration that pulled on Sakura's brow.
Then, there was a slight shift in the chakra in the air, and Sakura moved for the first time in about half an hour. But what followed wasn't any more reassuring.
"You-!" Tonbo began, recognising the chakra shift required for one of his signature techniques. "Can she use it?"
Anko looked baffled. "She hasn't mastered it. She knows she hasn't mastered it. Why is she-?" but not a minute later, they had their answer, as Sakura seemed to have found what she was looking for.
And then, it wasn't Sakura who stood on the other side of the glass.
Or, it was, but not by appearance.
The henge'd brunette sat down, leaning over, touching Issei, and within seconds of her quiet greeting, the man snapped back to life.
He gripped her wrist, eyes flickering over her face, filling with tears. His grip tightened.
(Inwardly, Anko congratulated Sakura on managing to hold onto the henge – the grip looked bruising.)
"Yuuko." He croaked, coughed, and tried again. "My love. W-why are you here? How… Where's Takahiro?"
Sakura, still holding onto the henge, gently extracted her hand, then stroked his own briefly before taking back her hands and putting them on her lap. Under the table.
(Hidden from view, Anko noted, but didn't comment.)
"They caught me." Sakura admitted quietly, softly, voice full of remorse. "They sent ninja to our home. They brought me here, but Takahiro, he- he-!"
"No…" Issei paled, his eyes widening. "Please, no. Tell me that he didn't- that he wasn't-!"
Sakura just nodded, raising a hand to swipe at her eyes, eyes which Anko could see were glistening with unshed tears.
(Anko had never known the rosette could act. Or so well. Or just how good she was at this job. Because she hadn't actually revealed anything. Hadn't said anything clearer. It was 'they' and 'home' and 'here' – nothing concrete, nothing that would give away that she was making things up on the spot, that she didn't know. And Issei was buying it.)
And then, Sakura's hand fell under the table, and Anko could see her flashing through more seals, but her gaze remained on the prisoner, her face full of grief. Anko noticed, not for the first time, that the rosette never called out her techniques. And, for the first time, realised just how much control she really must have. She beat her student in their spars almost every time – the girl was good, but Anko was simply better; more experienced, with bigger chakra coils and nastier jutsu. But there were still things that made even her wary, and being able to twist reality to the point of fooling an Iwagakure jounin into believing he was talking with his presumed dead wife without even calling out a single one of her techniques was something which made Anko just the slightest bit wary. Because Sakura was nowhere near a master illusionist. But if she ever did become one…
Anko shook off the train of thought when Issei's eyes widened and he reached out towards where Sakura was still sitting, but his eyes were trained over her right shoulder, by the door.
"No-!" he choked out, and the three behind the glass realised that there must be another genjutsu at work. "No, please, don't take her away, I will tell you everything, please, just spare me my wife, I will give you all the information you want, just please-!"
And Ibiki moved.
The door banged open, and Sakura jumped but the chakra in the air that signified the genjutsu persisted. Then she disappeared once again, just as the illusion broke and Issei slumped in his seat, tears drying on his cheeks.
Ibiki sat across from him. "Your wife will not come to harm." He rumbled, then fixed the prisoner with his coldest stare. "Now, about that information…"
The door closed, gently, and there was a shift in chakra as the technique dispelled and a second later Sakura appeared, henge-free, staggering slightly before Tonbo caught her.
Anko stared at her for a few seconds, temporarily speechless, before she extended a hand and lightly ruffled her student's hair. "You have sixty seconds," she murmured, inwardly delighting in Sakura's wary snap to attention as she continued. "to explain what you did… before I start yelling and sic my snakes on you."
Sakura paled comically fast while behind her, Tonbo, predictably, started laughing. Anko felt her lips twitch into a grin.
Maybe a student wasn't so bad…
Sakura was glad that Anko seemed to be joking, but more than that, she was glad Tonbo was still holding her up. Her knees felt weak not just from using up a considerable chunk of her chakra, but also from the realisation of what she just did.
She didn't want to talk about what exactly she'd made Issei see. Particularly that last illusion. She had made him think that his wife was being taken away, that she would be executed if he didn't confess, and that her death would be on his hands.
It left a bittersweet taste in her mouth.
On one hand, she had managed what she set out to do; she found a weakness, not a physical one or something he could've prepared for, guarded against, but something natural, human. And then, she exploited it. Twisted it to suit her needs. Made his love for his wife and child into his downfall. He must've resisted giving away more than the barest minimum for weeks. And then, in about an hour, she broke it. Yes, she was proud of that, but more than that, she felt…
She felt disgusted with herself.
Because she had inadvertedly proved Orochimaru right. Love was stronger than fear. A greater motivator, a bigger downfall. And that, more than anything, made her skin crawl with disgust.
But, a small voice in her head piped up hopefully, if I can master it… if I can learn to use it in the field… if I can protect people with it… if I can protect Genma… then this will have been worth it.
She briefly wondered what Inoichi would say to that rationalisation, and made herself snort.
And then, before she had to meet Anko's inquiring gaze or start explaining exactly what she did, there was a knock on the door.
Anko opened it, bemused, to find a harried-looking, panting Genin Corps messenger. "I-I'm sorry." He rasped, trying to stabilise his breathing. "But Tsunade-sama has requested Haruno Sakura in her office immediately."
Sakura exchanged a stunned glance with Anko, spared a quick glance at Issei through the window, wagged her fingers at Tonbo, and then, she was running.
When the ANBU agents suddenly materialised in front of her desk, Tsunade didn't even raise her eyes from the paperwork she was filling out. Instead, she let the duo wait till she was done, then she put the papers away and steepled her fingers under her chin, her gaze landing on the two still-crouching shinobi in front of her.
"Relax." She ordered, waving her hand dismissively as she stood from the desk. Boar and Fox obediently stood, but their posture was far from relaxed, though Tsunade knew better than to be surprised – both were two of the longest-serving agents currently serving in the corps, and she knew that they wouldn't have survived even half as long without constant, near obsessive vigilance. Instead, she dug through her drawers and pulled out a bottle of sake, for once grateful for the oath of silence all ANBU were sworn to when it came to their dealings with the Hokage, even if her drinking was more of an open secret nowadays. "I don't have a mission for you as such – it's more like advice. A favour, even, maybe." She assured them, leisurely pouring the sake into a small cup.
"Godaime-sama?" Fox asked, a note of confusion in the otherwise monotone voice. Still, Tsunade counted that as a win – she knew this particular agent (the purple hair was quite noticeable) – and even that small amount of emotion was a success in her books. Boar, on the other hand, remained impassive, merely waiting for his Hokage to continue. Which was just so boring in Tsunade's eyes. She liked screwing with her operatives.
"I'll be asking the two of you to shadow a potential recruit." She announced at last, growing serious and not missing how the two shinobi stiffened in response. "There's no hiding the fact that our ranks took a serious hit during Orochimaru's invasion. While I wouldn't mind taking advantage of the peacetime to gradually build it back up, especially since Seduction and Tracking Divisions are still functioning fairly normally, but Sabotage was practically decimated. I have my eyes on a few Chunin Corps members who could be recruited and trained up, as well as a handful of recently promoted jounin once they run a few legitimate missions, but there's a wannabe assassin fluttering around the chunin ranks and T&I who we might be able to pull into ANBU before her jounin promotion. You two have spent almost three quarters of your lives in the shadow ranks; I need your honest opinion whether you think she'd be suited to your line of work or whether it'd be like sending sheep to the slaughter."
There was a slight twitch from Fox once the pronoun was revealed, but Boar just gave a brusque nod and caught the file once Tsunade flung it at him. Fox peered over her captain's shoulder and there was another slight twitch, then her mask raised ever so slightly and Tsunade thought those brown eyes were boring into her in accusation. She wondered if Fox was thinking of the last thirteen year old they'd allowed into ANBU and how that had turned out.
The kid's record wasn't doing her many favours in regards to dissuading that comparison – 80 D-Ranks, 13 C-Ranks and 3 A-Ranks for a kunoichi only a year out of the Academy, as well as a completed apprenticeship in Torture and Interrogation of all places was not a record that spoke of a peacetime mentality, but of the child soldiers that were churned out like cannon-fodder and forced to adapt or die (she adamantly did not think of the tales she heard of a pint-sized Uchiha mastering a D-Rank technique to the point of being able to take out whole legions of enemies, or of a boy with scarecrow hair whose first claim to fame was inventing an assassination technique at an age when he still should have been in the Academy, she was not going to do this to herself, she was going to make sure this never happened again-!)
She supposed Fox had some reason to be wary.
"Even if you decide she could do it, she'll only be pulled in when there's an assassination that we're understaffed for. She's determined to partner up with one of our tokubetsu jounin and take the less 'under the table' missions, though she's still sticking by her decision to specialise in assassination."
Tsunade cast an assessing glance at Boar. Kami only knew the man had lived through hell and come out vicious and twisted but a hell of a good shinobi – she genuinely wondered what he thought of this idea.
"Boar?" she asked instead, waiting till he shut the file and raised his masked face to show he was listening. "What do you think?"
There was a moment's pause, and then a gruff voice that would put Ibiki to shame filled the air. "Shadow, but do not help. Analyse and assess, but don't engage or interact with?" he summarised, and Tsunade thought that summary through, inwardly marveling at how cold it seemed, then she realised that it was exactly what she wanted them to do.
"Exactly." She confirmed, and got another one of those mildly alarmed twitches from Fox.
"And if she screws up?" the kunoichi asked, a hint of the trademark steel settling back in her voice and posture.
Tsunade pondered over that, then frowned. "Chigiri Protocols." She announced at last, noting that this time both shinobi stiffened, even if almost imperceptibly.
Bloody Mist Protocols – you screw up, you get left behind.
But all she got verbally were two steely 'Hai, Tsunade-sama', followed by a quiet "When do we leave?"
"As soon as the kid is briefed, which should be right about-" they all felt a muted chakra signature stop outside the door, before a quiet knock sounded, and the knob turned, the door opening and the kunoichi in question stepping through, "-now."
When Sakura stepped through the door, she almost froze on the spot. Two masked ANBU members, both kitted out to the max and exuding a 'do not approach' aura stood in front of Tsunade's desk, while the Godaime herself looked very self-satisfied.
"Sakura, finally. I was worried Mitarashi had you down in the dungeons again." The Godaime greeted her, and the rosette almost keeled over from the familiar, teasing greeting in front of the two ANBU operatives. She almost stumbled as she walked in, shutting the door behind her and bowing to the Hokage.
"Apologies, Tsunade-sama. Senpai decided to 'let me loose' on an Iwagakure prisoner." She replied, wondering how much cheek she could get away with. "The messenger had a hard time finding me."
"I'll need to give Mitarashi restrictions on how much she can just show up and take you from active duty." Tsunade sighed, then chucked a scroll at her. "I have a mission for you, if you're still determined to go down the assassination path."
Sakura nodded to show that yes, she was still very much up for going down the jounin-track with the specialisation in assassination, and unfurled the scroll.
She promptly blanched, a reaction she was sure did not escape the two ANBU agents in the room with her. On the page were five names, names and about three to four lines of intel on each. And a month to neutralise them all.
"Fox and Boar will shadow you, but they will not help you. They will assess you, but they won't clear up your messes. You have a month, and if you succeed, it'll be your first B-Rank and I'll bring up your potential jounin promotion at the next Clan Heads meeting."
Sakura grew even paler at the notion of an ANBU escort, but then the promise of speeding up her promotion process made her relax. This was what she wanted. So she smiled and sealed up the scroll, turned to the two senior agents and bowed.
"I am Haruno Sakura. I promise to try not to cause you trouble over the next month." She introduced herself, then straightened up, eyes flickering from the white to the black cloaks, before she bowed again. "I'll be in your care, Boar-taicho."
This time, even Sakura didn't miss the slight start the Fox masked agent did at her address, and she mentally thanked Genma for the stories he told her of his time in ANBU, including the hierarchy and forms of address.
"So you accept?" Tsunade asked, and Sakura nodded, stuffing the scroll into her pouch.
"When do we leave?"
"Immediately." Boar-taicho replied, stiff and gruff as his mask implied. "Meet at the northern Gates in fifteen minutes."
Sakura nodded, bowed to the Godaime and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
Tsunade glanced at the two operatives, noting the air of curiosity that now surrounded the duo. "Well?"
It was Boar who answered, sounding, for once, a mix between intrigue and concern. "She knows our protocols." He observed, pulling at his arm guard. "How?"
This time, Tsunade smirked. Oh, how she loved messing with her shinobi. "Her jounin partner?" she waited a moment to draw out the suspense, then grinned. "Is Genma Shiranui."
The resulting cough and stumble were enough blackmail for months.
Hey Genma!
Sorry for disappearing like this - got called out for a mission. It's supposed to last a month, so I'm bummed I couldn't say bye properly; I could do with some advice there're leftovers in the fridge and Namiashi-san's wife has her ultrasound in a week, so you might want to go to that. Don't do anything stupid while I'm away!
Love,
Sakura
Genma groaned at the post-it he found on the fridge, whacking his head against it once to banish the leftover alcohol coursing through his system while Aoba stumbled closer to read over his shoulder.
"Wait, so, riddle me this," he hiccoughed, laughing while pointing at the pink slip of paper, "is this kid your charge, your partner, your mom or your girlfriend?" he demanded, attempting to duck the swipe at his head but failing and faceplanting the fridgedoor instead. That didn't seem to be enough to deter him, cause he just reached up and plucked the paper off; "Oh, Genma, I'm sorry I didn't say goodbye~!" he read out in a really theatrical, exaggerated high-pitched voice. "Oh, don't forget to eat! Remember that your best-friend's girlfriend, the best friend who you've known longer than I've been alive, is having a kid soon! And the last one is just, like, okay, maybe justified, you do tend to get into a lot of stupid shit." Aoba snorted at the end, passing the note off to Iwashi who just sighed and passed it back to Genma.
"I didn't know she knew that about Eri." Raidou, who was the last to walk into the kitchen, admitted, looking a mix between surprised and pleased.
Genma waved him off, getting a glass of water to stave off the bitch of a hangover he could already feel incoming. "Kid is like a calendar. Or an archive. Once something's there, it's there forever."
Aoba nodded then faked snoring. "I don't know about y'all but I came out to get blackout drunk and I'm still coherent." He flailed then slid further down on the floor, foot snapping out to kick Genma's ankle. "Where's your booze, my man?"
The brunet snorted but obligingly moved over to the sake and vodka cabinet, nudging Iwashi along the way. "How much you wanna bet he'll start snoring in the next ten minutes?" he murmured, getting a grin in response.
"No bet." The chunin replied, smirking at his friend's affronted expression.
No sooner had Genma turned around with the sake and vodka in each hand did the sound of soft snoring reach their ears.
Smirking, the tokujo winked at Iwashi. "Called it."
Running through the forests with two ANBU beside her made Sakura aware of another thing she had been neglecting in her training – stamina. Stamina and general conditioning were her weak points, and barely two hours since they'd started running, it was already showing. It took every ounce of her chakra control to calculate the exact amount she could use to augment her muscles without permanent strain, but after an hour she felt her calve go tight, the muscle pulling and straining with every jarring landing on the tree branch. Her body was simply not used to travelling at the speed the ANBU agents had set for an extended period of time, but she didn't want to ask them to slow down because they had only been going for two hours.
During one particular landing she managed to stick quite solidly, she made the executive decision to cut off her nerves with chakra, swiping her blue-glowing hand just under her knee and completely numbing her leg from knee down.
The next landing didn't hurt, but she saw her ankle roll as she took off.
It didn't hurt.
She kept going.
It wasn't until two hours later, four in total since they'd left the Village, when they were nearing the Valley of the End that Boar-taicho dropped behind her. A few minutes later, he landed on the same branch as her and gripped her shoulder, pulling her to a stop on the ground, Fox landing silently beside them.
"Undo whatever you did." Boar ordered gruffly, still holding her shoulder in a bruising grip.
Fox stiffened, but Sakura just eyed her captain unsurely, her vision swimming slightly and her breathing laboured from the exertion, but she gathered up enough energy to frown.
"I don't care if you go slower," Boar ground out. "but if you intentionally damage yourself just to keep up with us, I will have you demoted."
Feeling her blood run cold, Sakura nodded jerkily and sat down on the ground, straightening out her leg and reconnecting the nerves. Immediately, a wave of pain so immense it made her head spin and tears spring to her eyes washed over her, and she forced down the bile that threatened to climb up her throat at the nausea that took over her. Her ankle, calve and knee were screaming at her, so the moment she managed to blink away the tears and could see clearly once again, she set to undoing the damage she caused, ignoring the signed conversation going on beside her.
Genma had explained to her ANBU signs, but he said it would be against regulation to teach them to her, so she knew of them, but could not recognise nor use Konoha's silent language.
It took her half an hour to fix up her leg enough to put weight on it, and the moment she could, she walked over to Boar-taicho with her head hanging low and dropped into a 90 degree bow, absently watching how droplets of sweat trickled off her nose and hit the ground, darkening the dirt.
"I'm sorry for inconveniencing you, Boar-taicho, and for slowing down the mission." She apologised stiffly, not straightening till her captain scoffed.
"I did not expect you to keep up this pace. You were supposed to know your limitations and realise that you could not maintain this speed and speak to me, not try to force your body into obeying you. What you did was stupid and pointless, and it also showed you do not trust your team leader." Boar told her, and the bland monotone was even more cutting than had he shouted.
Sakura jumped to defend herself, then wilted and gritted her teeth. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then craned her head up to look into the mask's eye-slits. "It won't happen again, taicho."
With a brusque nod, Boar jumped back up the trees and they set off. The first target came into view just fifteen minutes later – a civilian merchant who'd been selling information to Kumogakure spies in exchange for safe passage through their lands and supplies. He was pushing a cart of goods along the path leading to the safe non-ninja way down the cliffs of honourable Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha and back towards Konoha. Sakura pulled out her scroll, triple-checked that it was really him who was her first target, then, leaving Fox and Boar in the trees where the merchant was going to pass, she backtracked to the edge of the cliffs, all the while her brain was working in overtime to try and figure out how to kill the merchant without getting too 'up-close and personal'. She noted that the forest path took a sharp left just before the cliff edge and led to a well-camouflaged staircase that wound all the way down the cliff and ended by the river below. She peered over the cliff again, noting the rocky surface beneath, all the while sticking to the ground with chakra in her feet – she wasn't about to test whether a ninja could survive a four hundred meter fall.
And then, she knew what she was going to do.
She backtracked to where Fox and Boar-taicho had moved off to, the merchant now less than a hundred meters away from the edge of the cliff, and she began working. She flashed through the handsigns for the False Surroundings technique, making sure the change was small, subtle, hardly noticeable, before she started layering another simple illusion, replicating the sounds and smells and trying to mute the sound of the waterfall, give the false sense of distance.
She could feel Fox looking at her curiously, but she wasn't about to reveal herself to the target or leave her spot in the trees, no, she had a much better idea to test out.
Twenty meters. Fifteen. Ten. Five. Three. One-!
It was the strong grip that the merchant had on the cart that brought him to his demise – once the front wheel no longer touched flat ground but was instead dangling in the air, the rest of the cart followed, and with it, the merchant. Fox let out a surprised sound, but Sakura merely slunk over to the edge and peered over it at the mangled form that lay some four hundred metres below, broken on the rocks.
"I'd say he's dead," she began when neither of her escorts moved to either speak or descend the cliff. "but I can go and check if you want me to. Taicho?"
There was a rapid exchange of hand signals between the two ANBU agents, then Fox dashed off the cliff and Sakura was left alone with Boar. The man turned to her and demanded an explanation with one small wag of his left pointer finger from side to side. Even Sakura knew that was the universal signal for 'what' and she clued in to what he wanted.
"Genjutsu." She explained simply. She was tired. Close combat or long explanations were not high in her books of things she wanted to do today. "I made him think the turn was further away than it actually was."
There was a thoughtful pause, and then a nod. After that, they were left to wait for Fox to return, while Sakura mentally congratulated herself on getting 20% of her mission over and done with without any need for blood to be spilled. Or, spilled on her at the very least.
When Fox popped back up, a journal and Kumo headband in her hands, they set off again, veering off north-east towards the Hidden Hot Water Village, where their next target was last reported.
They made camp at midnight, just before the border of Fire Country, setting out bedrolls on the ground and establishing watch hours. Sakura had last watch so she simply crawled under the blanket she'd brought and tried to ignore the fact that although she was directly responsible for the death of another person, she didn't feel guilty.
She thought back to her sessions with Inoichi, to what the blond had told her about compartmentalising and rationalisation – she knew, rationally, that she wanted to do jobs like these, because they would help her be with Genma and keep him from harm. Was it really all that surprising then, that she subconsciously convinced herself that murder was just another step towards protecting her precious people? Or that, not even a full twelve hours after, she could hardly bring herself to feel guilty for what she'd done to Issei?
Sleep took over her before she could think any more about just how her Academy self would've reacted to that realisation.
Sakura woke when it was still dark, absently noting that Fox was on watch now so at least two hours must've passed since she'd fallen asleep as Boar was already laying on his bedroll and not on the branch where she last saw him. Wincing at the pull in her muscles, the rosette sat up and pulled out a rations bar, her canteen and a scroll, then, wrapping her travelling cloak tighter around her shoulders, she stood up and made her way to where Fox was sitting.
"Good morning." She mouthed to the kunoichi, getting a nod in return. Sakura gestured over to the branch beside Fox, then pointed at herself – a silent inquiry as to whether the woman would mind her company. She got a shrug for her efforts.
Settling down with her back leaning against the tree trunk and her scroll spread out over her pulled up knees, she settled in for a few hours of silence. At some point, Fox nodded to her and went off onto her own bedroll, and Sakura was left alone. In the quiet of the night, the pinkette let her mind wander, wondering how different she could've been had she never gone to the library after the mission to Wave, how her life would've differed. Would she ever willingly decide to be an assassin? Would she have found her knack for illusions, or would she have festered and tried to make do with what she had learned at the Academy? Would she have ever sought out Tsunade and asked to learn to heal?
She didn't know, and frankly, thinking of the what-ifs was giving her a headache. With a quiet sigh, she got back to her fuinjutsu scroll and waited. Dawn came just as she could feel herself nodding off, and with the first ray of sunshine came a hand on her shoulder. Body moving faster than her mind could process, high-strung from a night of little rest and a constant feeling of being on-edge, Sakura dropped her scroll and pulled out a senbon from her hair, turning her body and freezing just before the tip of her weapon could pierce the skin and hit a fatal pressure point.
"Careless." A voice called out from behind Sakura's attacker, and her mind finally caught up with her body. Dropping her senbon as if burned, she stared at the mask of her teammate, and at the wide brown eyes hidden behind it, visible only through the small slits. "You wouldn't do this to your fellow Black Ops, so what gave you the idea that startling a chunin was any less dangerous?" Boar-taicho chastised, and it took the rosette a moment to realise he was talking to Fox, who remained motionless. "If Haruno had been any less aware, you'd be dead."
Sakura gawked at the blunt observation, then hastened to apologise. "I-I'm sorry I didn't realise-!"
"Stop." Boar's voice cut her off, and she quietened. "That was precisely the reaction you should've had. Now hurry up, we're leaving."
Feeling slightly dazed, Sakura picked up her forgotten scroll and moved to pack away her bedroll, ignoring the silent conversation going on behind her. The thought that she'd very nearly killed her teammate was driving her mad, as was the realisation that her situational awareness needed serious work. But that was something she'd worry about later, as they were setting off, aiming to cross the border into Hot Water before the sun fully rose. They made good time, and by around nine in the morning on the fourth day since they'd set out, they arrived to the small village where Sakura's next target was rumoured to be staying.
"You'll need to do reconnaissance." Boar announced gruffly once they stopped, the village gates in sight. "The intel we have is scarce, and there are far too many people around here to just rush in."
Sakura nodded, though the idea of 'reconnaissance' made her wary. "Shall I henge? My hair is a bit distinctive."
There was a moment when she could swear Boar was rolling his eyes at her, but all he said was, "Can you maintain it for a whole day?"
The pinkette scowled, affronted, then promptly realised that getting angry at an ANBU Captain would be a really stupid idea on her part, so she just sighed and nodded sharply. Not waiting for the go-ahead, she unstrapped her pack and weapons, then flashed through the basic seals each Academy student was expected to know. A moment later, an aged-up Ino stood before her ANBU teammates, only with black hair and deep brown eyes instead of the characteristic pupil-less Yamanaka blue, clad in a simple but elegant crimson kimono.
"A geisha?" Fox asked, surprised but thoughtful. "It might just work."
"If she can maintain it for the whole day." Boar shot her down gruffly, then faced Sakura, his countenance stern. "Rendezvous at the inn, ask for Nishinoya Ichirou. Whether or not this succeeds depends solely on you."
Sakura was about to nod, but Fox beat her to it. "We're letting her in there alone? What about back-up?" she demanded, and the rosette wondered whether she was imagining the worry in the kunoichi's voice.
Boar-taicho shook his head, "You remember what Tsunade-sama said: Chigiri protocols."
Fox tensed, but didn't reply, so Sakura took that as her dismissal. Taking one last look at the small file they had on her target and trying to commit his picture to memory, she set off towards the gates, muting her chakra to civilian levels and trying to remember all the lessons in kunoichi classes on infiltration missions. She gulped, took a deep breath, then shot her best smile at the gate guard – it was time to embrace the other side to being a kunoichi.
Meanwhile, in the trees, Fox and Boar watched the young chunin leave, a mix of trepidation and hope in their hearts as they watched the girl easily walk past the already-enamoured guards, then head to what they knew to be the nearest bar.
"This might just work." Boar echoed his subordinate's earlier sentiment.
Hours passed, and Sakura truly felt sorry for any woman who earned her living through being a geisha. There had been times in the first few hours when she forgot she looked considerably older and better looking, so when civilian men easily the age of her dad had sidled up to her and started trying to flirt, her reactions had been far from positive. Then, as time went on and she made a point to keep an ear out for any gossip, she managed to quell her initial reactions and act her 'role' instead – she gave a smile instead of a startled jump, a laugh instead of a wince, a wink instead of a slap, all the while trying to ignore the bile that kept rising up her throat. Out of a morbid sense of curiosity, she ordered one cup of sake, a smile and a fluttering of eyelashes seemingly enough to keep the barman from asking her for any sort of identification.
The alcohol was vile. Sakura had no real point of comparison, but it was dry and seemed to suck up all the moisture from her mouth, and the aftertaste made her cough. The barman had laughed, joked that 'it's not a lady's drink, so she was not to worry' and obligingly slid over a glass of water which Sakura had to restrain herself from gulping down and instead drank in small dainty sips. It didn't help that the only information she'd managed to collect so far had been only a slight expansion of what she'd already known – the target was a young nobleman, handsome, travelling around Hot Water in a pilgrimage right before he took over for his father. The women she had overheard had all been placing bets on which of them would end up in his bed, as the man was allegedly rather promiscuous.
Just then, a hand settled on Sakura's waist, and it took every inch of her self-control not to jump. "What's a fair maiden like you doing in a place like this?" a rich voice murmured in her ear, and she couldn't help but turn to face the speaker.
"M-maiden?" she squeaked, as the question was far more polite than what she'd endured most of the day. And then, her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets – this was her target! Standing right in front of her, his hand on her back, a smile on his face. He really is handsome. She thought distractedly.
"Not only beautiful, but modest too!" the man crowed, an alluring smile pulling at his lips, his eyes hooded. "But you haven't answered me – what could drive a woman such as yourself to spend her time in a seedy bar like this?"
Sakura closed her eyes for a split second, thinking back to all the romantic comedies she'd watched with Ino, all the fairytales she'd been read as a child – what was the most common explanation? Ah, right –
"Heartache, my dear sir." She sighed dramatically, tilting her head to the side and looking up at the man through her eyelashes. "It can drive even the fairest of women to less than honourable deeds."
She stifled a laugh at what Genma would say if he heard her talking like that, then focused on her target, the thought of Genma making her more than a little homesick.
"I would banish whoever caused you such grief to the very ends of the earth!" the brunet promised, his smile never falling, even as he bent down again to murmur in her ear. "However, if you forgive me for being crass, how would you like to commit some of those… 'less than honourable deeds' that you speak of… with me?"
This time, Sakura didn't have to fake her gasp, and she instinctively moved away from the man, her hand coming up to cover her mouth while her mind was working in overtime. The Academy didn't cover this!
"I-I can't stay here much longer!" she hastened to reply, waving her hands in front of herself. Then, noting that the noble was still far more amused than discouraged, she made herself calm down and add, "Although… later tonight, or perhaps tomorrow, if you're still willing?" she suggested, smiling shyly.
The hand on her waist trailed up her back and settled up her shoulders, and Sakura didn't quite manage to squash the shiver that the action caused. "I would be honoured. I'm staying in the inn, room 301. I'll be waiting." And with that, he turned on his heel and melted back into the crowd, sending her one last, secretive wink, and then he was gone.
Sakura sat on the barstool for a few seconds longer, unable to fully believe what had just transpired. After a few minutes so as not to seem suspicious, she got up on shaky legs and left the bar, heading to the inn. The clerk seemed terrified when she mentioned Nishinoya Ichirou and hastily directed her to room 502, and she had just enough presence of mind left to thank him before she made her way up the stairs.
When she walked in the door, she did a slight double-take – the room had three beds, two of which were occupied, but it was the people who were occupying them that made the rosette freeze. It was only the chakra signatures she had memorised over the last week that convinced her she was in the right room.
"Done already?" Fox – she reckoned it had to be Fox – asked, peering at her over the pages of a fantasy novel. The kunoichi was gorgeous, there was no other way to say it – her hair was a bright purple and now cascaded down her back and over her torso all the way to her waist, and her face was like a porcelain doll's. Taicho, on the other hand, could have very easily given Ibiki a run for his money in the 'terrifying' department – broad-shouldered, tanned and with every inch of his face and head covered in scar tissue, Sakura reasoned his voice matched his appearance very well.
"I-yeah." She replied at last, barely registering Fox's question.
"You don't sound convinced. Didn't learn much?" Boar shot back, not looking up from where he was sharpening his kunai.
"No, no, I did." She wandered over to the last free bed, finally dropping the henge she'd kept up all day, feeling her body immediately relax when she saw pink reflected back at her in the window. "I know where he's staying. He's expecting me tonight." She added as an afterthought, not noticing how the room fell silent at her words.
"Not this me!" she hastened to reassure them when she saw their eyes fixed on her, in equal parts worried, furious and demanding. "He propositioned me in the bar! He's expecting a harmless civilian bed partner, not a Leaf chunin sent to kill him!"
There was a moment's silence, and then Boar, in the most human action she'd seen from him thus far, snorted. "It actually worked. This is almost better than when Hound used to go undercover."
Fox's eyes widened. "You worked with Hound-senpai, taicho?" she asked, a touch of what Sakura carefully pegged as hero-worship in her voice.
"I trained him up when he joined. The Fourth's death hit him hard, he was fragile but malleable – it didn't take long for him to rise to Captain. I think the only one who beat him was Weasel, and even that was by a pathetic margin." Boar divulged, and Sakura thought that that had to be the most she'd heard the man speak since they'd left Konoha.
The conversation stalled almost immediately after taicho's confession, and Sakura inwardly wondered what had caused it. She made a mental note to ask Genma about 'Hound' and 'Weasel' when she got back – he'd been in the Corps a while, he had to know.
"Right, Haruno – you know what you're doing?" Sakura jumped at the sudden address, then nodded. "Good. Then get some shut-eye now, 'cause we're leaving as soon as you're done."
Killing the noble was a lot easier than all the information gathering she had to do beforehand and, frankly, she felt quite silly for even having bothered in hindsight. All she needed was a Chameleon genjutsu and she slipped through the open window in the middle of the night, kunai drawn. Her target was asleep, and his face looked even more youthful in the moonlight. He twitched when her foot touched the ground and she froze, absently wondering if the rumour of him having had some shinobi training had any weight to it, but when he didn't wake, she merely gripped her kunai tighter and stepped closer. Closing her eyes for a moment and sending a quick prayer for forgiveness to whoever was listening, Sakura grabbed a handful of brown hair with her right hand, and with her left slashed her kunai across the man's throat. She didn't quite manage to dodge the arterial spray, and only stopped cutting when her knife met the hard bone of his spine.
The whole execution only lasted a few seconds, and his eyes didn't open even once.
Swallowing down bile, Sakura wiped her bloodied kunai on the bedsheets and shoved it back in her pouch, then slipped back out through the open window. She ran blindly till she was well past the village gates, then, once securely in the forests and away from the carnage she'd left behind, she fell to her knees and vomited. The taste of bile made her eyes tear up.
That was how her teammates found her, sitting a few meters away from the contents of her stomach, her back propped up against a tree, her head between her knees.
"We were meant to meet up in the room." Boar reproached her, and Sakura sighed, raising her head to look at him.
"Hai, taicho." she murmured. "It won't happen again."
Wordlessly, Fox tossed her her pack, and Sakura shed her bloodied turtleneck, swapping it out for a long-sleeved navy tshirt which she slipped on, followed by her chunin vest and travelling cloak.
Then they were off.
The third target was a breeze – he was travelling with a group, but he split off from them when Sakura's genjutsu made him see a shape in the trees that had been 'following' him. The moment he was far enough away from the others from his group, she threw her senbon, aiming for the same spots as Zabuza's apprentice had used and Genma later drilled into her, and, when the man was down, she jumped down and stabbed her kunai through his heart, just to be sure.
She let Fox frisk the body while she wondered why her stomach wasn't protesting this time. Was it just the blood that made her puke? Was it the adrenaline? Was it simply the gore that came from slitting a throat that made her stomach roil? She didn't know and left that for later to puzzle over – their mission had led them all the way from Hot Water to the outskirts of the Hidden Frost Village, and now all that was left was one at the border of Kumo and one in the ruins of Kagero Village.
They didn't reach their destination – they passed by a group walking down one of the main roads leading away from Kumo, the one frequented by civilian merchants and shinobi assigned guard missions, and it was Fox who spotted their target in the front row. Sakura stayed in the trees, Boar and Fox like silent shadows behind her, and she tried to figure out how to best approach this. She wondered whether the same trick she had used last time would work, then she noticed that some of the people in the procession were carrying weapons, and others bore the Kumogakure headband.
Damn it.
Just a 'diversion' wouldn't work then. She had to come up with a proper plan. Trusting Boar and Fox not to follow, she ran in the direction the group was travelling, checking the road as she went. About a mile along, the road diverged into two paths, and Sakura knew that this would be where she would spring her ambush. She hurried back, then settled at a distance where she had a perfect view of everyone in the procession, even if she had to shift every few minutes to catch up with the group.
Time to live up to my title as a self-proclaimed 'paper ninja'. She thought wryly, then concentrated on each of the people in the procession, committing everything to memory; their appearance, clothing, height, gait, stride length, hair colour – everything she could, she memorised. She was lucky that they travelled in silence; trying to replicate the voices of eleven people in an illusion would've been far too difficult.
Then, she set to work, knowing that she only had about five minutes left till they reached the place where the path split. Sakura set about creating her genjutsu, first targeting the ten people her target was travelling with, as it was far easier; her aim was to make the big group believe her target was still travelling with them as they took the path leading right, while the man Sakura was ordered to kill – Watanabe Daichi – took the left path. The idea was that he would still be convinced that the other ten people were with him, and that was why Sakura had so meticulously tried to memorise each and every one of his companions; the chances of him turning around before she got to him were slim, but they were still something she had to account for.
Fox settled beside her, head tilted curiously while Sakura worked, watching the seals the pinkette worked through thoughtfully, but as usual, she didn't say anything. Two weeks since they left Konohagakure, and Sakura was pretty certain that when Genma told her 'hardly anyone speaks on these missions anyway' he wasn't exaggerating.
And then, she was done, and all that was left was waiting to see whether her trick would work.
"Are you done biding your time?" Boar's gruff voice called out from behind them, but Sakura just raised her hand, not even glancing back, and pointed at the road – her target had reached the intersection. The three of them watched with baited breath – or at least, Sakura did – as the group approached the diverging paths and then, like clockwork, Daichi went down the left one, while the other ten went down the right one, and nobody seemed to be the wiser.
"Well, I'll be damned." Boar murmured, then sighed. "Off you go, Haruno."
And she did. Somehow, the fourth time around, she didn't even hesitate, just snuck up on the man while he was still under the effects of the illusion and slit his throat, grateful she was behind him and managed to avoid the arterial spray. When she was done, she once again left the less than pleasant part of frisking the corpse for information and personal effects to Fox, while she herself stepped back to where Boar-taicho was waiting.
After a few seconds, her Captain broke the silence. "What did you do?"
So Sakura explained, and when she was done, she got a nod and a quietly impressed; "Impressive comprehension speed. Good job." Which made her whip her head up to stare at Boar in disbelief, ignoring the way her neck ached at the action.
He… praised me? That seemed almost as impossible as Genma cutting his hair, or Anko swearing off dango.
It was towards the end of the third week of the mission, while she was about to deal with the last target that things went south. Sakura had never been so far north, and she was not enjoying the freezing temperatures and near-constant sleet and rain. Her cloak was permanently soaked through, and even with the frequent breaks and chakra-assisted fires Boar allowed, she was shivering the whole time while they travelled. It didn't help that the last target was a Konoha missing-nin, so she really had to be careful this time.
It was a combination of the weather, stress, and lack of sleep that made her slip on the mud just as she was getting ready to jump on the nin and slit his throat.
But her muttered curse and sudden jerk to keep her balance were enough for her target to figure out the genjutsu and break it, turning around immediately afterwards and slashing a long, burning line down her left cheek, narrowly missing her eye. Sakura swore and jumped away to create distance, but he didn't let her get too far and bore down on her with his kunai, forcing her to dodge and wrestle her daito out of its sheath. Their weapons slid against each other, the constant rain preventing friction, and Sakura was grateful for her blade's longer reach and she managed to force him on the defensive this time, insofar as to make him jump away as she had done a few seconds previous.
She should've known letting him create distance wouldn't end well.
A giant fireball was soon directed her way, and the sleet on the ground resulted in her losing traction in the most important moment – she didn't manage to fully escape the roaring ball of flame, her right pants' leg and the bandages around her ankle catching on fire.
Sakura hissed and shoved her leg into the nearest puddle, leaning against a nearby trunk and gritting her teeth as the freezing water soothed the burnt skin of her ankle and calve, then faced her opponent. He was flashing through more seals, and it was only the fact that the last seal she saw him make was a Tiger seal that clued her in to get the hell out of dodge. Not two seconds later, a dozen or so fire projectiles impacted the tree she'd been leaning against, obliterating it.
But there was one good thing that came out of her assailant using Fire Release in a cold and wet environment – everywhere she looked, there was steam and mist.
And Sakura knew exactly what to do with mist.
Flicking through the three seals with practiced ease, she spread her chakra among the water particles in the air, then increased its concentration, masking her own chakra in the process. The mist in the air turned from translucent to nearly opaque, the air a milky white that masked shadows and made it difficult to see her own fingers when she stretched her hand out.
But Sakura knew what to do. Mindful of the amount of chakra she had left, she disappeared underground, shivering when the earth surrounding her was far colder and harder than she was used to, then extended her senses. She found her opponent a mere few feet away from where she left him, his chakra buzzing uncertainly. It seemed like he wasn't quite certain what to do now that he couldn't see nor sense her. But Sakura had no such inhibitions. She moved so she was directly under her target, then, in one swift move with chakra surrounding both of her hands, she forced her hands through the hard earth, latched onto her opponent's ankles and yanked.
She clambered out when it was just his head that stuck out, then, not wasting a moment, pulled back her chakra from the mist, found her discarded daito on the ground, and made one decisive swipe at the man's neck with her blade, unconsciously circulating chakra through her arm in her panic.
Her weapon cut through his neck like butter, not hesitating even when it met his spine.
A second later, his head lolled to the side exposing muscles and bone and a slowly-gushing artery which was turning the ground around them scarlet.
Sakura reeled off to the side and propped herself up on a tree, her stomach heaving, but all she managed to throw up was bile. She suddenly realised she hadn't eaten since the morning of the day before.
"Kid, easy." A hand landed on her shoulder and Sakura looked up into the familiar mask of Boar, distantly realising that it was the first time he had addressed her as anything other than 'Haruno'. She tried for a wobbly smile, and gratefully accepted the protein bar when it was offered. "You're done. We can stop for the night in a nearby inn, then leave first thing in the morning for Konoha."
Sakura had never heard a better proposition.
When they arrived in Konoha five days later, Sakura thanked her guards, handed in the mission report to Boar, then, after double-checking that she definitely could, made a beeline for her house.
She was in need of a bath and about a week of lying in bed doing nothing to recover from this mission. But when she walked into the hallway and glanced into the living room, she found Genma and another… person – all she could see was a mane of black hair and their back, hardly features which she could use to tell the gender – whose face was buried in the tokujo's neck.
Sakura felt herself blush, her skin feeling hot, especially when Genma noticed her standing in the doorway and paled considerably, glancing warily between her and his… partner?
But Sakura just grinned and waved, pushing her embarrassment to the back of her mind as she shook her head and signed 'talk later' in the standard ANBU code, or what little of it she had picked up over the last month, then turned on her heel to leave the room.
She promptly froze when she heard Genma gasp and felt the temperature in the room drop by a good few degrees. There was a scuffle in the living room as Genma pushed – what she now knew to be a man – off of him.
Fuck. She thought bleakly when she heard the brunet mutter a very angry 'out. We'll talk later', seemingly not caring much for his partner if he didn't mind the other glaring at him and flipping him off before he stormed out of the house.
Fuck. I wasn't supposed to know that. Fuck. I didn't know the code when I left. FUCK!
But Genma was calm. Scarily so. He stood up from the sofa, let his hair down from the ponytail it was in to cover his neck, signature bandana missing, and smiled.
Smiled a smile faker than Kakashi's at his worst.
"Do you want to tell me about this latest mission of yours?" he asked quietly, his voice soft and misleadingly polite. "Or shall I make a trip to ANBU HQ and start asking around till someone explains to me how you learnt the sign language I most definitely didn't teach you?"
Sakura gulped. She'd known Genma could be scary. She just never had it directed her way before and, frankly, it was starting to scare her.
"D-Do you promise y-you won't get mad?" she asked, stuttering slightly.
Then, Genma did a doubletake, and the room suddenly grew a lot warmer, the tense atmosphere gone. Genma sighed and ran a hand through his hair, then smiled ruefully. "I'm not mad, just worried. Sorry for freaking you out, it's just- there was a reason why I never taught you that code. I assumed the worst when you used it. So," he hedged, smiling more openly now and gesturing to the sofa. "if you feel up to it, would you mind telling me about the last month?"
Sakura briefly entertained the idea of running away, then thought better of it and smiled, dropping her mission pack on the floor and letting her cloak pool at her feet while she threw her flak jacket in the corner by the door. "Sure. If you don't mind the fact that I haven't showered in three days." She added teasingly.
Genma merely laughed and fell on the sofa in a graceless heap, but obligingly wrapped his arm around the rosette's shoulders and let her lean against him when she nudged him.
Relaxing for the first time in a month, Sakura began her tale.
(and if Genma hugged her extra tight before she finally got up to shower and go to sleep, well. Neither of them commented on it.)
"So… she passed?"
"She did."
"With flying colours?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Damn." Tsunade sighed, eyes trailing over the mission report she'd been handed. "That's… not what I expected." She said at last. "Seems like every mission I throw at her expecting her to fail, she completes. It's the seemingly easy ones that prove problematic. Anyway, what about her mental state?"
"Appears stable." Yugao offered, her mask pinned to her belt. "Though she has a weak stomach when it comes to blood. Vomited twice."
Tsunade waved her off. "Yamanaka can help her work through that. What about technique?"
"Rudimentary, but effective." Jirou reported, his Boar mask sticking out of the pocket of his Captain's cloak. "Seems to mimic the Kirigakure Silent Kill technique."
The Godaime frowned, reading through the report again. "Advanced genjutsu, basic Earth Release, basic bukijutsu, and a Water Release exclusive to Kirigakure shinobi all in one mission? She has enough for Tokubetsu Jounin even now, all she needs is to complete her mission requirement."
"She's a good strategist." Yugao added after a moment, thinking back to what she'd observed. "She prefers staying out of sight until the last moment, and plans accordingly. It's… surprisingly effective."
Tsunade snorted. "Yes, I had both Nara and Yamanaka grouch to me that she's being wasted in T&I and would do better in Tactical, but what can I do?" then, she sobered. "What I want to know is whether you would recommend her as a part-time ANBU assassin?"
Yugao nodded slowly, but Jirou thought it over. "When she gets over her reaction to gore, yes. She listens to orders, seems to know the hierarchy, and we haven't had to 'take it easy' with her like with some of the other candidates. It'll be… taxing, to adjust to ANBU, both physically and mentally, but I have faith."
Yugao grinned lopsidedly. "That has got to be the nicest thing I've heard you say all year, taicho." she joked, getting a half-hearted glare.
"Her generation's lily-livered, the lot of them. She's got grit and skill. I want to exploit that." He shrugged, as if speaking of a thirteen year old girl like a tool and simultaneously insulting most Clan heirs was a normal expression.
Tsunade sighed and sealed the report, putting it aside. "We'll see."
Four days after Sakura got back from her mission, she made her way over to the cemetery, a bouquet of flowers in hand and a slightly melancholy expression on her face. She found her parents and sighed, squatting down to sit on her haunches and laying the flowers down between their graves, then promptly flopped down on her butt, wrapping her arms around her knees.
"Morning, hahaue, chichiue." She murmured, smiling wryly. "Inoichi-san said talking might help me sort some things out, so… here I am." Sakura picked at the grass by her feet, glancing up at the sky. "Somehow, I didn't really notice until Genma pointed it out to me, but a year passed since I graduated. I wonder… Genma joked that it's a bit masochistic of me, but I wonder whether you might've grown to be proud of me… had you, y'know, not-" she paused, clearing her throat. "had Orochimaru not happened."
Sakura snorted and hung her head. "God, why am I doing this again?" she mumbled to herself. "It's not like you can hear." But she picked her head up and fixed her gaze on the flowers. "I'm happy with what I'm doing, would you believe that? I actually know what I want out of life, I know what I want to achieve, I'm not just pursuing being a kunoichi because of Ino or because I wanted to impress Sasuke, but because I can actually do something now. I'm happy." Slowly, she felt a smile grow on her face. "It's surreal. I know that you tried everything in your power to discourage me from becoming a shinobi, but I'm really, really glad I stuck by it. I've met some amazing people thanks to it and I've achieved things I didn't think I ever could."
Then, she paused, considering – it wasn't as if all that she'd struggled with after Tamaki was suddenly gone or that she magically forgot she'd spent the past month running around the countries and killing people, but she felt… lighter.
"Huh," she mused, glancing at the graves of her parents with a small smile. "maybe Inoichi-san was onto something."
And then, she felt a familiar signature drawing near and twisted her head to peer over her shoulder.
Genma sauntered over, a small smile on his face even as the look in his eyes was worried when he looked at her. "Everything alright?" he asked, stretching out a hand to help her up.
Sakura smiled back, sending one last look at her parents' graves and accepted the hand, letting Genma pull her to her feet. "Never better."
The brunet sent her a curious look, but eventually shook his head and his smile turned into a grin as he wrapped his arm around Sakura's shoulders and pulled her into his side. "Feel up to getting dango with me?"
Her reaction must've been as eager as she felt as Genma laughed and ruffled her hair, ignoring her indignant squawk. Looking up, Sakura decided she didn't even mind: she was happy.
A week after she nearly made Genma go bankrupt buying her dessert, Sakura got called into the Godaime's office, surprised to see Shikamaru already there. Upon seeing her, the Nara sent her a small wave and the corner of his lips twisted upwards, then they both turned their attention back to the Hokage.
"Everything alright, Hokage-sama?" Sakura asked worriedly, "Has the situation in Kiri worsened? Has Mei-sama been impeached? Were they attacked? Were we attacked?" she shot off question after question, her mind working through thousand different scenarios why her and Shikamaru could've been called in, together.
"Breathe, Haruno." Tsunade ordered, though she was smiling. "I'm glad you care so much, but I assure you, the situation in Kiri is just fine, and Mei is still reigning strong. Besides, if something was wrong, I'm sure your swordboy would've told you." Then she winked, winked of all things, and Sakura heard Shikamaru snort even as her cheeks grew red.
"…Oh." She choked out at last, prompting another snort from the Hokage.
"However," Tsunade continued, and Sakura felt unease twisting in her gut again. "I do have a mission for the two of you." The blonde picked up a letter that had previously laid on her desk, waving it around. Sakura thought she saw an hourglass in the corner of the page, but that must've been her eyes playing tricks on her – after all, Suna wouldn't-!
"I see that big brain of yours working, Sakura, and I'm pretty sure you know what I'm going to say. This," she waved the letter around again, ignoring the microtear she was creating in the paper, "is a formal letter from Sunagakure's interim Kazekage, requesting an audience with Konoha's best diplomats in order to hash out a treaty and bridge the gap between our nations."
The office was quiet enough Sakura was pretty sure she could've heard a pin drop.
Shikamaru was the first to break the silence. "They're kidding, right? It has been, what, half a year? Since they conspired with Orochimaru?"
"Eight months." Sakura corrected absently, getting a half-hearted glare in return.
"My point is," Shikamaru continued, "that Mist was problematic because a treaty with them had never been attempted before. And they had never helped out in the Wars. But Suna had been an ally, and then chose to turn on us when the treaty wasn't being enforced anymore. That won't go down well with the public, Tsunade-sama."
Sakura glanced at Shikamaru, surprised to see him talk so heatedly about something, but she nodded to show she agreed with what he was saying.
Tsunade sighed. "I know that. I also know that we don't really need their allegiance, or at least they need ours more than we need theirs, but they are the best producers of poisons in all the shinobi nations, and our medics are suffering from not having enough to practise on. Not to mention Suna is a lot more convenient for our merchants than Kiri." She rubbed the bridge of her nose, suddenly weary. "Listen, I don't need you to work miracles and I don't expect you to put up with anti-Konoha bullshit that some of the Elders may spring on you. I just want you to see whether you could maybe do that magic trick that you pulled off in Kiri again and get us a treaty that is mutually beneficial? If you feel that it's a hopeless cause, you have my full permission to turn on your heels and come back, maybe even spit on an Elder or two. What do you think?"
Sakura exchanged a curious glance with Shikamaru – on one hand, the idea of a treaty with a nation which had betrayed them made her uncomfortable, and she could see the same sentiment reflected in the brunet's eyes. On the other… allies were good. And she'd never been to Suna before, so…
She sighed, "I'm up for it if you are." She told Shikamaru, shrugging. "At least the weather might be nicer." She teased.
Shikamaru snorted and slouched even further, if at all possible. "Impossible woman." He grumbled, but shrugged. "Eh, might as well. We accept, Tsunade-sama."
Tsunade sat up and clapped her hands together, a very Machiavellian grin appearing on her face. "Great! You leave tomorrow!"
Sakura shot another look at her mission partner, this time wary. Tsunade looked far too happy.
Shikamaru grinned wryly. 'We're so screwed.' He mouthed, and Sakura couldn't help but agree.
Well, Suna, here we come!
there we are!
as always, do tell me what you think, i love hearing your opinions and suggestions. any ideas who the interim kazekage might be? ;)
till next time~