so here we are! as always, thank you so much for the amazing support for the last chapter and the entire story so far - i really appreciate every one of your comments and they always make my day.

in case anyone is interested, i've included a small summary of the events so far in month order at the end - should help with the general cohesion and understanding how far away from shippuden arc we are at the moment.

also!

this chapter contains a bit of fairly graphic description of injury and goes into detail about a not-exactly-stable mental state and paranoia, so you have been warned.

without further ado, enjoy!

"Chōjūrō-kun!"

Chōjūrō's gasp when she barrelled into his chest no doubt meant that she winded him, but Sakura couldn't quite bring herself to care – she merely wrapped her arms tighter around his chest and squeezed.

"S-Sakura-san-!" the teen choked out, his own arms wrapping shyly around her waist before Sakura finally released him and beamed up at him instead.

"What are you doing here? Not that it's not great to see you – it is, trust me – but this is a long trek!" Sakura demanded, unable to fight the grin from her face. Then, she almost jumped when she realised the other Mist shinobi was still beside them. "Ao-san, didn't think I'd say this last time we saw each other, but it is really great to see you." She greeted enthusiastically and bowed politely, trying to preserve at least some dignity in the jounin's eyes.

Judging by the brusque nod she received, she failed. "Mizukage-sama said you may require some assistance with the Sunagakure Elders. We are here to provide said assistance."

Sakura managed to get over her elation at seeing her pen pal in the flesh again to briefly narrow her eyes at the ex-hunter-nin. "What's the catch?" she demanded, and maybe it was a trick of light but she thought she saw an amused glint in the jounin's eyes.

Nevertheless, he answered. "Mizukage-sama also wishes we, on Kirigakure's behalf, extend the same treaty as you are attempting to. She believes it will be beneficial." The look on his face clearly said he disagreed, but Sakura didn't bother psychoanalysing Ao when she had Chōjūrō beside her in the flesh to tease and chatter away with.

So she grabbed Chōjūrō's arm and beckoned to Ao and started leading them towards the Gates into the Village proper. "Right, follow me, I can show you around and take you to the Kazekage – we've finished deliberating for the day and let me tell you, they're exhausting to deal with, Shikamaru and I nearly cried a couple of times, but you'll clearly see they tend to recycle arguments against the treaty so it's not too bad, now-!"

"Oi, Haruno!" Temari's shout cut her off and she looked around, surprised to see the blonde and Shikamaru side by side and staring at her with a mix of disbelief and anger and amusement respectively. "What do you think you're doing? I need to check their papers!"

Sakura scowled, weaving her arm through Chōjūrō's and stepping closer to the bluenette. "But you know who they are. Look," she pointed at the Konohagakure headband wrapped around Chōjūrō's thigh. "Kirigakure Ambassadors to Konoha."

Temari matched her scowl with one of her own. "That may be so, but I need more than a word of a foreigner before I let them into the Village." She snapped, and Sakura recoiled slightly, and by her side, Chōjūrō tensed.

"How about the word of an ally?" Shikamaru shot back, a frown making its way onto his face as he assessed Temari. "I thought you were for the treaty?"

This time, Sakura didn't miss the way the blonde's eyes flickered to the guards. Guards who had reacted positively when she called Sakura a foreigner and were shamelessly eavesdropping to see where the conversation would go. For the first time, she felt sympathy for Temari – as the late Kazekage's eldest, the people of Suna obviously looked to her and judged her almost constantly. She had to be seen as the personification of the views of the villagers lest the pressure on her increases even more.

Squeezing Chōjūrō's arm slightly tighter, she forced a smile on her face and turned to Shikamaru. "We're not allies until the treaty is signed, Shikamaru. She was within her right to say that."

Sakura studiously ignored the way Temari startled and turned to her, the expression on her face torn between confused and grateful.

Eventually, Ao and Chōjūrō's papers got approved and Temari led them to the Kazekage's office. Before they were forced to separate, Sakura grabbed a blank seal tag from her pouch and scribbled down her and Shikamaru's address.

"Come over once you're freed and we'll show you around!"

Once the duo was led inside, Sakura's smile dropped and she turned to Shikamaru with a frown.

"Oh, thank God." Shikamaru sighed, pulling at his scarf. "I thought I was getting paranoid but your face tells me this is actually as dodgy as it seems."

Sakura snorted, rubbing the bridge of her nose in frustration. "I mean, I really want to think that Mei-sama genuinely sent them to help us. I really do. And even with the clarification that she also wants a treaty with Suna…"

"The timing is too convenient." Shikamaru finished her thought process, and the rosette nodded. "So question is, did Tsunade-sama tell the Mizukage she'd be sending us here?"

Sakura sighed, "She had to have done." And then, she paled. "Oh, no." she gasped, hand going up to cover her mouth, eyes wide as they met Shikamaru's. "Right before we left, I wrote Chōjūrō a letter and asked Genma to send it. I told him where I'd be, what we'd be doing. Do you thing…?"

Shikamaru froze for a second, then relaxed. "A Mizukage wouldn't send them over based on a friendly correspondence of a chunin. Tsunade-sama had to have told her she'd be sending us beforehand."

Even with what the Nara was saying, Sakura still wasn't reassured. The fact that all her letters to Chōjūrō could've been screened before being handed to the bluenette hadn't struck her until just then, and she gulped. It wasn't like her letters contained Village secrets, they were just friendly banter and innocuous detail about her day or her friends, but she wondered what someone looking through them with an eye peeled for exploitable details could've found. Her stomach roiled.

And then, Shikamaru grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away from her mouth. "Sakura, relax. I'm sure the Hokage has been in touch with the Mizukage and that's how she knew to send Ao and Chōjūrō over here. I know you and you wouldn't have included anything even vaguely incriminating, you're smarter than that. So just breathe, woman."

With that calm reassurance, it was impossible to continue freaking out, so Sakura smiled and nodded instead, regulating her breathing and feeling her heart slow down. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right."

Over the next week, deliberations with the Elders moved much more smoothly than they had during the fortnight Sakura and Shikamaru had been trying to put their point across. It turned out that Ao was very much of the opinion that steamrolling over any and all opposition was the best way to go, tact and political manoeuvring be damned, and Chōjūrō provided statistics and quiet input of the benefits that came with a treaty with the most powerful shinobi Village. All Sakura and Shikamaru really needed to add were their own statistics, validation of Ao's arguments, and the terms requested by Tsunade.

Within six days of the Mist diplomats' arrival, they had two treaties hammered out and all that was left was mailing them to their respective Kages for the final seal of approval.

A week after Chōjūrō's arrival, Sakura finally had the time to drag the other team to a training ground and demand a spar.

Chōjūrō had laughed when she barged into his and Ao's shared flat, but gracefully agreed, pointing out that he wouldn't mind a chance to let loose after the week spent in the Council rooms.

Shikamaru tagged along too, claiming that he was bored out of his mind and the piles of paperwork he'd amassed for his original jutsu were only stressing him out.

That was precisely how Sakura, Chōjūrō and Shikamaru found themselves on one of the most secluded training grounds, the Nara perching comfortably in the shade provided by the Village wall along the edge of the grounds while Sakura and the swordsman faced off in the middle.

"All out?" Sakura asked curiously, unable to fight off a grin. "Or controlled sparring?"

Chōjūrō shrugged, a small smile pulling at the corner of his lips as well, "C-controlled might be good. It wouldn't do if either of us got injured."

Sakura acquiesced easily and sealed up her naginata, pulling out a wooden bo instead and watching Chōjūrō do the same. "Go up to ten? And each hit counts as one?"

When Chōjūrō nodded and settled into a stance, Sakura grinned and mirrored him, holding up a Seal of Confrontation and waiting until the bluenette did the same.

Then, she sprung.

"So she refuses to spar with me but doesn't mind flirting with the Mist brat via swordplay?"

Shikamaru almost jumped, having fallen into a light doze with the regular sounds of clashing wood and the warmth of the afternoon air around him like a blanket. He straightened from where he'd slumped against the wall and craned his neck up to look at Temari.

"I'm pretty sure he's older than you." He pointed out, ignoring the rest of her sentence – it was pretty clear to him that the two sparring were fighting, not flirting. "And now that the treaty is officially signed, I'm sure Sakura would happily spar with you if you just asked."

Temari glared down at the lazy brunet, "I'm sixteen," she snapped, "and I did ask."

"So's he," Shikamaru replied, absently amused at the two completely different conversations they were having, "and you didn't really ask, you demanded."

The blonde narrowed her eyes at him and Shikamaru was almost certain she was going to hit him, but then there was a peal of laughter and their eyes were drawn back to the sparring duo.

Sakura managed to twirl out of the way of a downwards strike that would've easily broken her shoulder had it hit, and swung to deliver a retaliatory hit to Chōjūrō's side, which he blocked with his own bo. They clashed again, weapons clutched tight and raised above their heads, arms shaking with the effort needed to keep the other at bay. Temari absently noticed that for such a slight figure, the rosette's arms were packed with strong, sinewy muscles and she briefly wondered how much her style had to have changed to require such added physical exertion.

But then, Sakura let go and ducked out of the way, Chōjūrō stumbling slightly when the opposing force suddenly gave way, and before he could regain his footing, Sakura bent down and scooped some dirt up before flinging it in his face. Using his distraction, she darted closer and lightly hit him either side of the ribs before flipping away, a grin on her face even as she settled back in a defensive position.

When Chōjūrō managed to wipe the dirt away, the air around them had changed.

"Eight all!" Sakura called out teasingly, then they clashed again.

"That was underhanded." Temari commented, her eyes wide as she tracked the sparring teens.

"Practical." Shikamaru countered, stretching his legs. "Sakura's a firm believer that an honourable death is still a death. That's why I don't usually spar with her – she can be quite vicious."

Temari turned away from the snoozing teen to the slip of a girl who had beaten her in the Chunin Exams. Just what the hell had to have happened for the rosette to develop such a mentality?

"I thought Konoha was meant to be the 'nice' Village." She murmured under her breath and watched as the spar ground to a halt – the swordsman stood with his bo pressed by Sakura's liver while her own was resting on his thigh.

"Liver blow or a cut to the femoral artery. Either way, we're both dead within minutes." Sakura summarised cheerfully, and Chōjūrō nodded, though he looked slightly uncomfortable.

"S-Score?" he asked quietly, stepping back – from what Temari only just noticed was very close proximity – and forming the Seal of Reconciliation.

"I believe that's 10-9 to you. Well done, Chōjūrō-kun! Well fought!" the rosette cheered, grinning when her sparring partner blushed.

"T-to you too, Sakura-san."

As one, they turned towards Shikamaru and froze, only just noticing Temari.

Sakura recovered first, "Temari-san!" she greeted, her smile not faltering despite the slightly more cautious glint in her eyes. "Do you need anything?"

And Temari spared a glance at the dozing Nara, taking his words into consideration, before she squared her shoulders and met the rosette's gaze with her own. "That spar you promised me would be nice."

The other girl blinked, momentarily stumped, before she caught on and laughed. "Sure, Temari-san! Just let me grab a quick drink and I'll be with you!"

Shikamaru woke up when a kick was delivered to his ribs. "You could've warned me you'd sold me to the wolves, you lazyass."

When he looked up, he found his mission partner glaring at him, a sullen look on her face as she held her water bottle by her lips.

Laughing quietly, Shikamaru stretched, nodding to Chōjūrō who'd settled beside him. "Better you than me, Sakura. Her chatter kept me from my nap."

He rolled away from the second kick and only snorted when the rosette dropped her empty water bottle by his head. "I hate you so much." And then she was turning on her heel and strutting to the middle of the training ground where Temari was already waiting.

With a final stretch, Shikamaru forced himself into a sitting position, startling Chōjūrō. "I-I thought y-you were going to s-sleep." The older teen murmured, and Shikamaru shrugged.

"I would've, but I have a feeling this is going to be interesting. Plus, she'd nag at me if I slept through her fight."

Nodding as if that was a perfectly reasonable explanation, Chōjūrō settled with his back against the Village wall, his own water bottle in his lap, and prepared to watch.

Meanwhile, Sakura squared off against Temari, shaking the lactic acid out of her muscles as she smiled. "Rules?" she asked lightly, to which the blonde smirked.

"No life-threatening injuries. Anything else is fair game." And then, not even a second after they both formed the Seal of Confrontation, they were fighting.

Immediately when she saw Temari tense, Sakura flashed through the seals for the first three genjutsu that popped into her mind, then dodged with barely enough time to avoid the folded fan Temari swung at her head. Spinning round and aiming a side-kick at the blonde's unprotected side, Sakura saw the moment the genjutsu took and was promptly dismissed, which only resulted in Temari tripping head-first into the second layer. Refusing to be idle while the blonde worked out her genjutsu, Sakura dropped explosive tags around her feet, formed a hasty Earth Clone, then disappeared underground, moving to the very edge of the training grounds right when she felt the last layer of her illusion break.

"You learnt your lesson after our previous match." Her clone commented idly. "That's good."

But Temari's eyes were fixed on the smattering of explosive notes around their feet. "Are you insane?! If you detonate that, we'll both-!"

Sakura's clone merely grinned. "Boom."

Then, the tags lit up.

The following explosion caused a massive cloud of dust to erupt, and Sakura waited to see where Temari moved off to to escape it before she followed, hand rising up and grabbing her calve in a teasing mimicry of their Chunin Exam match. But it seemed Temari now knew better too, as she hastily flash-stepped away, to the other side of the clearing, and Sakura flashed through some more seals then emerged from the ground, unaffected.

She hadn't really expected that to work the second time, but seeing the expression on the blonde's face was incredibly satisfying. What was not quite so satisfying was seeing Temari grin and go through unfamiliar handsigns.

"Wind Release: Great Task of the Dragon!"

Sakura waited, confused, but when nothing happened she pulled out a handful of shuriken and launched them at the blonde, then followed through with the Hazy genjutsu and waited.

However, the sun was suddenly obscured by giant storm clouds, and Sakura felt an enormous wind pick up around them.

"I know how much you like hiding!" Temari called from the other side of the clearing, Sakura's illusion already broken. "Let's see if you're quick enough!"

And then, a tornado descended upon the rosette, trapping her within.

Shikamaru sat up, the rosette's name dying on his lips as the tornado closed around his partner.

By his side, Chōjūrō was squeezing his arms till they were almost white, his eyes trained on the fight. This wasn't 'no life-threating attacks' at all. The technique Temari used had to have at least been a B-Rank.

The blonde in question looked smug, one of her hands propped on her hip while the other held her fan as she waited for the tornado to dissipate.

But when it did, there was nothing there.

Before she could react, the ground under Temari's feet turned to mud and she sank till only her chin was above ground, before the earth solidified again. Sakura emerged moments later, ending up in a kneeling position right by Temari's head, her arms shaking with fatigue but a grin on her face.

"You learnt to dispel my genjutsu, but it seems you still have to learn the consequences of overconfidence." She commented idly before she rose to her feet, brushing off the dust that had collected on her clothes while Temari gaped, uncomprehending.

"B-But, you-! In that tornado, you were there!" she cried, and Sakura smiled.

"You yourself said I love hiding, and that's true. With the path I want to take, if a mission ends with open combat, it means that I'd most likely failed it. So I like to bide my time, or fight by proxy. You saw me use an Earth Clone before and yeah, maybe it was obvious and it didn't actually harm you at all, but what made you think I wouldn't use it again?" she explained, and when Temari still looked shocked, she sighed. "What do you want to know?"

The blonde blinked, considering. "When did you switch? I take it you were never in the tornado to start with."

Sakura grinned. "You're right, I wasn't." she agreed easily, then set about freeing Temari from the ground while she explained. "In my experience, anything that has delayed start-up time is usually quite deadly. So, when I threw the shuriken and caught you in that genjutsu, I also created an Earth Clone which appeared behind me, and then hid underground. By the time you broke my genjutsu and the tornado came down, you were already dealing with a clone."

She offered the blonde a hand to pull her up, and when she took it, they formed the Seal of Reconciliation and smiled.

"I still think hiding during a fight is cowardly." Temari began, an odd look on her face, "But I will admit its effectiveness. Well fought."

Unwilling to show how much that comment surprised her, Sakura shot the blonde a cocky grin she'd copied from Anko. "Well, I still think yelling out your techniques for everyone to know what to expect is foolish and an invitation to get hit," she shot back, "But I will admit that being able to pull off A-Rank techniques like that is impressive. I heard you have a summon too?"

And Shikamaru watched the two walk off, chatting like old friends despite the air of hostility that surrounded them bare minutes previous, and exchanged a baffled look with Chōjūrō.

"Women," The Nara summarised at last. "and assassins, are terrifying."

It took a moment, but when the bluenette realised what Shikamaru was getting at, he froze.

Delighting in the feeling of schadenfreude he was experiencing, Shikamaru smirked. "Yup; small, pink-haired, deceptively innocent Sakura is an assassin. How d'you feel about that?"

But it seemed he'd broken the bluenette, as he was staring unblinkingly at the rosette's retreating back, still frozen.

Shikamaru settled comfortably on his back and deemed his work to be done.

All four of the diplomats plus Temari were summoned to the Kazekage's office two weeks after the Mist duo's arrival.

"The treaty has been approved by both of your Kages. From this day onwards, Sunagakure is once again allies with the Leaf, and, for the first time in history, Mist and Suna are too. Thank you for your service, your work here is done." Ebizo announced, and Sakura noted that he was more careful in controlling the amount of disdain that dripped from his words when Ao was around.

Huh.

"Temari shall be the official Ambassador to the Leaf, and we are still working on who will be Mist's, though the position will likely go to her brother, Kankuro. But now, you are all formally dismissed – rest, then pack, and you are free to set out for your respective Villages in the morning."

As one, Sakura, Shikamaru, Ao and Chōjūrō bowed, murmured various thanks and pleasantries, and filed out of the office.

When they were safely out of earshot, Shikamaru sighed and stretched, rubbing at his headscarf. "Man, I can't wait to be rid of this thing." He grumbled, pulling at the material as they walked, Ao and Chōjūrō trailing behind them.

"Really?" Sakura teased, a grin on her face. "I think you look rather fetching." She jumped over the foot Shikamaru stuck out to trip her and laughed at the dirty glare he shot her way. "Oh, come on, lighten up, we're going home tomorrow!"

Then, when the corner of the Nara's mouth quirked up at the thought, Sakura turned to the Mist duo. "Will you be setting off towards Kiri then? Or can you spare a few days to come to Konoha?"

Chōjūrō smiled at her, but it was Ao who answered, "The Mizukage wishes for us to present a report of Kirigakure's socio-economic growth since the signing of the treaty to your Hokage. As such, we shall travel with you, since our business in Suna is also resolved."

Sakura nodded and fell silent, taking in Suna for the last time before what she predicted to be a fairly long separation. Although at first she had been angry, and that had somewhat affected her perception of the Village, now, she didn't mind so much. The slight tan she managed to work up was also improving her mood considerably.

After agreeing to depart at seven the next morning, Sakura and Shikamaru split off from the Mist-nin and prepared for their last night in Suna.

They left the next morning at the agreed time, bags heavy and spirits high, and the further they got from the desert and unforgiving sun, the more Shikamaru relaxed and cheered up, falling back into easy camaraderie with Sakura once they officially crossed the border into the Land of Rivers a day later.

It was in the morning of the second day travelling, half-way through the Land of Rivers that everything went wrong.

Everything seemed normal – Sakura and Ao led the group of four, Shikamaru and Chōjūrō bringing up the rear, they had a steady speed going and it looked like they were going to reach Konoha in a little under a day.

And then, just as they were deciding where to take a break, Chōjūrō spied a clearing in between the trees and directed them towards it.

But just as Sakura's feet reached a branch on the edge of the clearing, Ao landing a few metres to her right, she came face-to-face with a masked shinobi holding a ball of tags in his hands.

Tags which, after a second's more inspection, were high-energy, long-distance explosive tags. Tags which already had chakra running through the sigils and were smoking slowly on the edges.

Shit-!

Turning around, Sakura waited till his feet touched the branch she was on then grabbed Shikamaru's arm. She took advantage of his confusion to overpower his forward momentum and launch him sideways and towards Ao, who, luckily, seemed to be on the same page as her and, the second his hold on the Nara was secure, disappeared from sight.

All the action happened within the space of less than three seconds.

Then, Sakura had just enough time to grab Chōjūrō's arm and flash through the signs for a shunshinbefore the ball of exploding tags went off and the resulting explosion made it difficult to tell up from down and left from right.

When she next came to, the back of Sakura's left calve and thigh were burning, clear indications that she had not been able to escape the blast unscathed. A groan beneath her alerted her to the fact that the reason her landing had been so soft was because she'd accidentally used Chōjūrō as a cushion, but at least the teen had survived as well. Upon further inspection, however, she noticed that there was a wicked-looking burn all along his right arm, side and thigh.

Not good for a sword wielder.

Blinking rapidly, Sakura got to her feet, hissing when her leg and side gave an angry throb, and extended a hand to Chōjūrō, which he ignored. Frowning, Sakura looked around and realised that there were gaps in the trees that had not been there before – the clearing which they had arrived at before the makeshift bomb had gone off had at least quadrupled in size, the trees surrounding it charred, levelled or completely incinerated. Suddenly, Sakura noticed movement in her peripheral vision, and when she squinted, she saw at least ten black blurs moving rapidly in their direction. The fact that they were at least a kilometre away was little comfort.

"Chōjūrō, get up." She ordered hoarsely, coughing to get rid of the taste of ash in her mouth. "We've got incoming." She snapped, when the swordsman remained prone on the ground. That at least was enough to make him attempt to rise to his knees. Gritting her teeth, Sakura grabbed his arm and pulled, feeling guilty when a pained hiss left the blunette but pushing that guilt to the back of her mind in the face of the incoming danger. "I'm sorry but we have to move. I'll heal you as soon as we lose our tail." And so saying, she set off, pumping chakra into her legs for longer, faster leaps, running faster than she'd ever ran before, Chōjūrō by her side though he winced with every landing. Sakura pushed on in the same manner for about ten minutes, until she was sure their pursuers were out of sight.

"Okay-!" she slowed down, turning around to face her temporary partner, and suddenly felt a hot, sharp pain on the side of her neck. Staggering away, Sakura gasped and created distance between her and the masked shinobi she only just noticed. The masked shinobi who held an oversized, wickedly sharp kunai in his hand, and Sakura knew that it would've easily slit her throat had she not chosen that precise moment to turn around. Mind whirring in panic because she had not sensed him how was that possible this wasn't good and where is Chōjūrō-! she pumped chakra into her right hand, ducked the nin's next swipe at her head, and slammed her palm against the left side of his chest. Then, she expelled her chakra.

He dropped dead within seconds, his heart no longer beating.

Panting, Sakura looked around, locating Chōjūrō a few dozen feet to the left, holstering his Hiramekarei and pushing the shinobi beside him away, barely flinching when the man fell down in two parts, his torso cleanly separated from his legs.

Mind made up, Sakura squashed her chakra down and made the familiar handsigns for the Double False Surroundings technique. Then, she flashed over to the Chōjūrō and grabbed his hand, pulling him down to the ground beneath the branches they were standing on.

"Don't move." She snapped, hands glowing green merely seconds before she pressed them to the swordsman's arm and side. "And hide your chakra. I hid us with a genjutsu but if they were able to sneak up on us, I don't think it'll keep them for long."

Almost immediately, she felt Chōjūrō's chakra shrink until it was comparable to that of a deer or rabbit. Sending him a small smile, the most she could manage at the moment, she made sure his burns were healed enough so as not to impede his mobility before she dismissed the chakra surrounding her hands.

"You should h-heal yourself too." Chōjūrō murmured, his voice quietly concerned, but Sakura shook her head.

"I don't trust my genjutsu to hold them long enough." She denied and turned around, intent on continuing to run, but Chōjūrō grabbed her uninjured arm before she could get away.

"Please, Sakura. I-I'll keep watch." And the serious, albeit worried look in his eyes made something in the rosette cave. Giving him a jerky nod, she watched the teen jump back up into the foliage, chakra still carefully subdued, before she summoned the familiar green chakra to one hand and laid it on her neck, sealing up the still-bleeding cut.

But then, she heard a rustle and glanced up into the branches, paling when she noticed a masked kunoichi sneak up behind Chōjūrō, whose attention was focused in the opposite direction. Sakura watched, feeling dread pool in her stomach, as the unknown kunoichi flashed through awfully familiar handsigns that ended in the Ram seal.

Sakura was moving almost before she registered what she was doing.

She recognised those handsigns, had practised them even, and she knew that they would be as good as dead if Chōjūrō got hit by that jutsu. Hands running through the seals for the Replacement technique, Sakura felt the tell-tale tug at her chakra before the disorientation that came from switching places in the space of milliseconds hit her.

Sakura had just enough time to meet the startled black eyes of the masked kunoichi as she completed the jutsu before a claw of earth rose up and clamped around her leg.

Then, it squeezed.

The sickening sound of bone crunching as it broke filled the air and Sakura screamed, her vision going white with pain.

She passed out.

Sakura didn't know how much time had passed by the time she next came to, but she forced her eyes open anyway, slightly bemused to find herself on her back.

Still alive though, she thought grimly. The pain radiating up her leg was making her nauseous and she whimpered, feeling tears roll down her cheeks when she tried to move. Gasping for breath, Sakura raised her head slowly, long enough to glance down her body, then immediately dropped it back down with a dull thud, feeling bile rise up in her throat. Unfortunately – or fortunately – her right leg was still surrounded by the hard shell of the kunoichi's jutsu, making it impossible to gauge just how bad it was.

But Sakura expected the worst.

Resigned, she glanced to the left, and was surprised to see the masked kunoichi's head laying by her arm, the rest of her body slumped a few meters away, bloodied and torn.

"-kura? Sakura! Sakura, can you hear me?"

Only then did Sakura tune in, realising too late that Chōjūrō was leaning over her, his face concerned and dotted with specks of blood.

"'jūrō?" the rosette murmured, her voice hoarse from screaming. "Wha'ppened?" she slurred, trying to sit up, hissing when the movement jostled her broken leg.

"You switched places with me." Chōjūrō replied, the concern in his eyes joined by what looked like bewilderment. "She crushed your leg. I... I lost control. I didn't know the Hiramekarei could do that." The last part was added almost as an afterthough, the blunette sounding more than a little shell-shocked as he gazed at the dead kunoichi's dismembered body.

"Right." Sakura took a deep breath and forced herself into a sitting position, then carefully touched the earthly cast around her leg. "I need your help to get this off."

A few seconds and a small water jutsu later, Sakura's leg was freed from the earth shell, and they could finally get a proper assessment of the damage.

Almost immediately after the last of the mud cleared, Sakura gagged and felt fresh tears spring to her eyes. The way Chōjūrō's face went an interesting mix of white and green did nothing to calm her either. To say her leg looked 'bad' would probably be the understatement of the century; it was more than broken – it was crushed. Her pants' leg was ripped and shredded, and the skin of her shin that peaked through the torn cloth was completely gone in some places, pierced by the shattered bone shards which left patches of raw, bleeding tissue and bone fragments peeking out. Higher up her leg, her femur was clearly fractured, if not completely broken. At least her knee seemed to have been spared, although it was already bruising.

Sakura took a deep breath through her nose, a terrifying realisation settling deep in her bones and sending a chill down her spine.

She didn't know how to heal this.

"Chōjūrō," she choked out at last, "you have to go. I don't- I can't heal this. You need to get away, I'll delay them as long as I can."

She didn't know what to do.

She had initially seen around a dozen shinobi chase after them. With three down, that left around ten, maybe fewer. Stationary as she was, she could maybe take care of five, six at most. Still, she could delay them. If only Chōjūrō would listen and start running-!

"What do you mean, you can't heal this?!" Chōjūrō's voice had risen in his panic, and Sakura was too far gone to notice that he hadn't stuttered once. "Y-You healed my burns just fine!"

Sakura gritted her teeth and fought the tears that threatened to fall as she glared at the bluenette. "This is different! I quit the medic programme before we learnt how to heal bones! I don't know what to do!" the tears spilled regardless.

She felt helpless.

Chōjūrō's hands fluttered uselessly over her calve and thigh, then he made a sound akin to a sob and fell back on his bum, burying his face in his hands.

"You need to leave me and start running." Sakura ground out, moving green-glowing hands to the worst of the flesh wounds, but staying well away from the bone. "Go!"

Then, Chōjūrō looked up, and the light in his eyes had changed. "No."

Before Sakura could scream at him, he took his sword off his back and pulled out a scroll, sealing Hiramekarei within the paper. "Heal w-what you can. I'll carry you."

Sakura blinked, momentarily stupefied enough to ignore the pain or the urgency of the situation. Then- "Are you insane?! We'll both die!"

But she could see that the bluenette's mind was set. And then, as if their situation wasn't already dire enough, she sensed a rapidly-approaching chakra signature about a mile out.

Cursing, Sakura healed as much as she could of her leg, then swiped a blue-glowing hand over the very top of her thigh, numbing the nerves. The pain receded, but the jutsu did nothing to soften the grotesque way in which her leg hung from her hip when she stood.

Sakura clutched Chōjūrō's hand, moving one of her own to his shoulder to keep her balance on her good leg. She tried to protest again, tried to get away and convince him to leave her, but the bluenette beat her to it, wrapping his hand around the top of her left thigh and the other arm around her waist before he hoisted her up. He pulled her up much like one would a toddler, her chest to his shoulder and his forearm supporting the backs of her thighs, his hand wrapping around her hip. Instinctively, Sakura's left leg went to wrap around his back while her arms wound around Chōjūrō's neck; her right leg hung limply, occasionally brushing the outside of the bluenette's left thigh.

"H-hold on." And then Chōjūrō jumped, the moment his feet impacted the next branch jarring Sakura to the core, but she saw the efficiency of the position: Chōjūrō could run undisturbed while she had eyes on the situation behind them and could, at a stretch, go through handsigns and throw weapons at their pursuers.

Nevertheless, their survival depended on how long Chōjūrō could keep up this pace without tiring.

And then, all such thoughts were forced out of Sakura's mind because the first shinobi had caught up to them.

"Dodge left!" Sakura barked and felt Chōjūrō obey and move them out of the way moments before a barrage of kunai impacted the branch they had been standing on. Ripping her own pouch off her thigh, Sakura dug out three kunai with explosive tags wrapped around the handles and launched them at their pursuer. He dodged the knives, but the resulting explosion was enough to force him to look away from them and gave Sakura enough time to call up the Hell Viewing technique followed by the Chameleon jutsu. She saw the exact moment the illusion took hold and the shinobi slowed down, and she took full advantage of that window to drop another explosive kunai on the branch Chōjūrō pushed off of. Then, she waited until their pursuer shook off the genjutsu and sped up again, his leap taking him right over the branch she'd dropped the exploding tag on.

A trickle of chakra later and the masked nin was swallowed up by the explosion.

Sakura sighed, slumping over Chōjūrō's shoulder. Four down.

Suddenly, Sakura felt water trickle down her back, and looked up, startled. It seemed that while she'd been dealing with their pursuer, Chōjūrō had crossed the border between Land of Rivers and Amegakure, and the permanent rain that was the trademark of the small country made Sakura shiver.

"I-I thought it c-could hide our scents." Chōjūrō murmured, though his breath was ragged. "Though I d-don't know where to go n-next."

Sakura felt the desire to cry come back full-force, but she tamped it down; tears wouldn't help. Instead, she called up her mental map of the shinobi nations and tried to give a considered answer. "They'll probably expect us to try to cross into the Land of Fire as soon as possible. Going east might give us the element of surprise, though it's further from Konoha or Kiri. I think Ao and Shikamaru went west. Splitting them up even further might be worth a try."

"But w-what if… something happens?"

The rosette knew what he meant to say; what if we get stuck? What if your leg gets worse? What if one of us gets killed? What if they catch up?

She didn't know.

But in the deepest, most childishly innocent corner of her mind, a small voice whispered; Genma will come.

They ran along the border, waiting till the scenery changed from the rainy barren wasteland to the mountains and caves typical of Hidden Stone. Finally, over a day after they split off from Ao and Shikamaru, Sakura convinced Chōjūrō to take a rest in one of the caves along the border between Ame and Hidden Stone. The barren wasteland along the border had given way to a forest and a mountain range which separated the two nations, and Sakura intended to take full advantage of the shelter provided by the natural caves.

Once Chōjūrō had scaled the six metres necessary to get into the cave, Sakura slid off of him and caught herself using the rock wall, watching as the swordsman staggered deeper into the cave and promptly collapsed, curling in on himself and falling asleep almost immediately.

The guilt at using Chōjūrō as her transport came back tenfold, but Sakura fought it off along with the bone-deep weariness that came from spending a day in a state of high-alert. Absently, she wondered how long it had been since she'd last slept – 30 hours? 36? She didn't know.

But instead of dwelling on the sheer hopelessness of their situation, she leant her back against the cave's wall and set about weaving a Double False Surroundings genjutsu, opting for subtle misdirection instead of any drastic changes. Then, just because paranoia was a shinobi's best friend, she layered a Camouflage illusion over the entry to the cave and promptly created two Earth Clones, sending them out to scout the forest for food and their pursuers.

Finally, Sakura dug through her pack and pulled out a blanket and a rations bar. Using the wall as her crutch, she hopped deeper into the cave and stopped by Chōjūrō's still form, draping the blanket over him and dropping the rations bar by his head. Then, she retraced her way back to the mouth of the cave and slumped onto one of the flatter rocks, settling into as comfortable a position as she could manage and prepared to keep watch.

Sakura could feel the steady drain on her chakra from the two illusions and the clones she sent out into the forest, but she owed Chōjūrō the break. She hadn't even been the one running and she felt exhausted – truly, it was a wonder the bluenette had held out as long as he had before collapsing. Eventually, when her heartbeat settled and the rain lulled her into a deeper calm than she'd felt in the last twenty-four hours, Sakura chanced another look at her leg. She didn't bother connecting up the nerves – judging by the bruising, the redness around the wounds, and the pus slowly leaking out of and staining the remnants of her pant leg an ugly yellowish-white, the pain she'd feel upon reconnecting the nerves would no doubt knock her out. Still, there were some things she coulddo.

And so Sakura spent over an hour knitting up the tissue, fighting off the infection, swallowing down antibiotics, smearing what she couldn't heal with antibiotic ointment and wrapping it in whatever bandages she could find in her pouch. When she was done, Sakura felt so emotionally and physically drained she would've given anything to switch places with Chōjūrō and take a quick nap. But she couldn't, not yet, especially not considering-

Considering that someone just dispelled her clone.

Dread pooling in her stomach, Sakura grabbed a kunai and triple-checked her illusions were still in place. She held her breath and stifled her chakra when the feedback from her dispelled clone showed a group of five of the masked shinobi about three miles west from the cave they were hidden in. If her initial assessment had been correct, that still left about two to four shinobi unaccounted for, unless some of those who had initially pursued her and Chōjūrō turned back to go after Ao and Shikamaru.

She waited with baited breath until she was able to sense their chakra, and sure enough, about ten minutes later, four shinobi shot out of the forest in front of the cave. But they barreled on, the illusion she'd placed on their hiding spot holding firm. Just as Sakura was about to crumble with relief, the fifth figure came out, considerably slower. He was still a fair distance away from her, a good seventy odd metres, but Sakura saw the moment he stiffened, and his eerily masked face turned right in her direction. Frantically checking her genjutsu and coming up with the same result – it was still there, still sapping at her chakra – Sakura came to the startling realisation that while her chakra was smothered and her breathing was intentionally quiet, Chōjūrō's chakra was buzzing steadily in his sleep, free from its restriction.

The urge to cry in frustration nearly won out this time. But instead, Sakura was forced to watch as the masked-nin came closer and closer to the cave, his head tilted like a dog might. Sakura's mind was a frantic disarray of possibilities, hastily crafted and immediately discarded plans, all the while watching with baited breath as the nin got closer to their hiding place.

Then, mind made up, Sakura dismissed her second clone, revelling in the rush of chakra, small as it might have been, before she sent her chakra underground. She got the idea from watching Shikamaru's shadow move across the ground, and now she finally had the chance to try it. Her chakra moved through the ground uninhibited, and even though the drain on her coils was enough to make Sakura worry, she barrelled on. When the masked-nin was about twenty metres away from where she sat and her chakra was carefully pooled underneath his feet, Sakura flashed through the two seals for the highest-ranked elemental ninjutsu she knew and prayed.

Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld!

Before her eyes, the chakra pool she'd formed under the nin's feet turned into chakra-infused mud and she watched as the shinobi flailed for a moment before he sank, the mud ensnaring his arms and legs and not stopping until only his head was sticking out. Cancelling the jutsu, Sakura let the mud harden back into rock and slowly got to her feet. Approaching the edge of the cave, Sakura let herself drop the twenty feet to the ground, reinforcing her left leg with chakra but still feeling the way the impact jarred her knee and hip, small shockwaves of pain radiating up her spine. She hopped over to the incapacitated shinobi, dignity the last thing of her mind as she felt his surprise at her appearance.

He won't live long enough to report it anyhow.

"I don't know why you're after us." She rasped when she was less than a metre away. "I also doubt you'd willingly tell me. That is the only reason you're still alive." And then calling up the last vestiges of her chakra, Sakura bent down and pressed the palm of her hand to the man's head.

Immediately, her mindscape was assaulted with images: a room, deep underground judging by the lack of natural lighting, with cement walls and dozens of black-clothed figures, with a blurred out man speaking unintelligible words over them. A drab room that looked more like a prison cell than a bedroom, with four bunk-beds each. A group in the forest, none of the members wearing a mask Sakura recognised, all masks porcelain with black-painted animal features but lacking the Konoha standard colourful additions denoting the animal. Twenty four people waiting in a clearing. Sakura's own face as she came face to face with the suicide bomber. The others hiding underground before splitting the platoon into four squads, two following Ao's shunshin and two going after her and Chōjūrō in the wake of the explosion. Four trackers, two from each of the squads, splitting off from the rest and racing ahead, never coming back. Their bodies that were left behind with barely a second-glance when the rest of the group passed by them. Three others staying behind, running slower but covering their backs in case the two they were chasing doubled back. The same blurred out man, a whip in his hand-!

Sakura was forced out of the enemy's mind with a gasp, then promptly shoved a senbon through his mask and into his eye, not stopping until all six inches of the needle disappeared in the nin's skull and he slumped over, dead.

Something had blocked her. Had kicked her out when she got onto the last memory.

But that was a worry for another time – they needed to move, and fast.

Sakura shunshined back into the cave, opting for speed rather than chakra conservation, and paused. Chōjūrō had had three hours' sleep. She'd had none. Forty hours awake wasn't doing her any favours in regards to alertness, but she had little choice in the matter; they could either stay in the cave and take their chances with the incoming three, or push on now and try to get further into Hidden Stone where the ANBU would hopefully not look for them and hide there. The decision was taken out of her hands when Chōjūrō stirred, a single dark eye sliding open and gazing at her in confusion.

"S-Sakura? Is everything alright?" debating whether to drop the news on the teen or not, Sakura sighed and sat down.

"We have a problem."

Chōjūrō stiffened, snapping to attention and sitting up, casting a slightly surprised glance at the blanket that slid off his shoulders and picking up the ration bar that Sakura had dropped by his head hours previous. Sakura told him what had transpired while he'd slept, pointed at the still buried ANBU outside, and explained what had caused her dilemma. When she was done, Chōjūrō strolled over to her and helped her up.

"You should sleep. I-I'll keep watch this time." He sent a glance at the sky, his lips quirking up ever so slightly when he gazed at the red-tinted sunset. "W-We can move again once the s-sun rises."

Sakura tried to protest, would'veprotested, but quicker than she could react, Chōjūrō struck out and hit the back of her neck. The rosette managed one last, surprised gasp before everything went black and she slumped into the bluenette's waiting arms, unconscious.

Shikamaru cursed.

Ugly and vicious and everything that his mother would've nagged at him for and his dad would've slapped him upside the head had he heard.

But it was justified.

He'd just stabbed the last of the ANBU on their tail, the Konohagakure Gates in sight, but it wouldn't, couldn't be as simple as just going back home, having a shower and forgetting about the past forty hours, of course not, because it turned out that Ao had the fucking Byakugan.

And the gate guards, who had so helpfullyleft their post to help him and the Mist-nin fight off the last two of the attackers, had gotten a perfect view of the bulging veins and clearly transplanted kekkei genkai, and were now saying Ao was under arrest. Shikamaru was not fond of the man by any stretch of the imagination, but he had saved his life. The moment the first wave of six masked shinobi descended upon them – and Shikamaru knew the jounin had sensed them, because two went down before they even managed to land properly – the veins were clear and tell-tale, and Shikamaru had a gut feeling as to what lay beneath they eyepatch even before it was ripped off by one of the ANBU on their tail who had somehow gotten close enough to do so.

Kekkei genkai theft was bad, that was undeniable.

The treaty with Kumogakure back when Shikamaru had still been a toddler had almost fallen through because of an attempted bloodline theft.

Still, Ao had saved his life, and it seemed like the gate guards had forgotten about that.

"You, Nara, go report to the Hokage about what happened. We'll take him to T&I." one of the guards barked, and Shikamaru made the most spontaneous decision of his life.

"No." he denied, and that, at least, was enough to get them to stop, and the Mist jounin they had promptly stuck a paralysing seal on and were currently holding up raised his eyes and glared up at him suspiciously. "The Nara Clan will represent him."

It was clear both of the guards knew what that meant – Ao wouldn't be tried as a missing-nin or the way most shinobi charged with dojutsu theft would be, but as a member of a Clan who had committed a crime. One of the guards scowled at him.

"You'll be smearing your Clan's name when you lose." He spat, but made no move to take Ao away.

And Shikamaru knew it. He knew it would create controversy. He knew it would divide the Village. But if the Nara Clan represented Ao, then the Yamanaka and Akimichi Clans would follow suit. The Inuzuka might be swayed, and if they are, the Aburame might be too. The only real opponent would be the Hyuuga Clan. Once upon a time, Shikamaru wouldn't have even attempted to prevent a death sentence – if the united force of the Uchiha and Hyuuga had called for it, nothing short of a swift death and immediate destruction of the Konoha-Kiri treaty would have sufficed.

But now, with none of the Uchiha Clan left in the Village, and the Hyuuga finally hearing some backlash about their antiquated ways after Neji's speech at the Chunin Exams, the political scene was different.

So Shikamaru squared his shoulders, ignored the worry in his gut at Sakura's whereabouts, ignored the bone-deep exhaustion he felt at not having slept in over forty hours, and stood as tall as his 153 centimetres allowed him. "The Nara Clan will represent him."

The surprised look in Ao's eyes was almost worth the hell that followed.

Sakura came to when the sun was just peeking over the horizon, and she quickly became aware of two truths: A) Chōjūrō looked adorable where he was dozing by the mouth of the cave, curled up and looking like a little lost boy instead of the gangly jounin he was. And B) the first layer of her genjutsu had just been broken.

She snapped awake when that realisation settled in and sat up, launching a senbon at the bluenette to wake him. She pointed at the forest outside when the teen shot up and threw her a confused glare, and saw the moment Chōjūrō registered why she'd woken him; two masked shinobi were circling outside the cave while a third knelt by his buried comrade, and Sakura realised she had forgottento tell Chōjūrō to get rid of the body.

Goddamnit.

She exchanged a look with the swordsman – they had two options: stay in the cave and hope they won't be discovered, or go out there and fight. Or rather, send Chōjūrō out to fight as Sakura would only get in the way with her injury.

Sakura saw the light in Chōjūrō's eyes change, saw him reach into a pocket to pull out a familiar-looking scroll, and just like that, she knew what decision he'd arrived at.

Fight.

She hobbled over and stuffed five seal tags into the teen's hand. "Knock-out tags." She mouthed, then demonstrated the use by sticking one to Chōjūrō's forehead. "You stick, I activate."

Chōjūrō nodded, unsealed Hiramekarei, squared his shoulders and jumped out of the cave. After that, it was a melee.

A massive chakra construct surrounded Chōjūrō's sword, giving it an appearance more like a longsword than its usual shape and more than tripling its reach. One of the ANBU was decapitated almost immediately, his head falling to the ground with a dull thud, his body following suit. But then, as the chakra construct cancelled and Chōjūrō went back to normal kenjutsu, weird black-and-white creatures suddenly surrounded him and Sakura tensed.

They weren't summons – their shape was cartoonish and their movements too jerky to be natural. What then–?

Oh, no.

Sakura had forgotten about the ANBU that knelt by his buried comrade's head, and now she was facing the consequences as she watched him paint expertly on a scroll and two more creatures burst from the paper.

A technique that animated drawings into offensive tools, then? Sakura hadn't ever heard of such a thing, but it was the only viable explanation. It soon became clear that the creatures could be dispelled easily, but they could also hurt – Chōjūrō's bleeding arm where one of the beasts had sunk its teeth before being struck with a kunai was proof enough. Plus, the beasts detracted from the focus Chōjūrō should've been paying the katana-wielding ninja, and it cost him a long gash down his ribs.

Sakura became aware of one, undeniable truth: the artist had to go.

Palming a tag she'd created back in Suna but hadn't yet had the chance to test, Sakura called up three illusions and layered them hastily over the painter. The first layer, Hazy genjutsu, was dispelled right as Sakura finished going through the seals for a shunshin. The second, Descending Hell technique was also quickly brushed off, but Sakura was already close enough to reach over and slap a makeshift chakra draining seal on the ANBU's chest, and activated it right as the nin tripped into the third layer, the Hell Viewing technique.

She could tell almost immediately that it hadn't worked as planned – the chakra hadn't been transferred into Sakura, but it was stored in the tag itself. It also hadn't killed him – there was a slight, barely-there trickle of chakra left in his coils, but it was enough to keep him alive. Unconscious and trapped in a genjutsu he couldn't get out of, but alive nonetheless. Sakura turned around, ready to help, and was caught by Chōjūrō when she accidentally put her broken leg down and staggered. Wincing, but sending the bluenette a grateful smile, she glanced at his downed opponent – her knock-out tag stuck out like a brand on his unmasked forehead, but what struck Sakura more was the fact that his torso lay a good five metres away from his lower body, the blood forming a macabre mini-lake around him.

Sakura scoffed, amused despite herself, and deep down she reckoned something was very wrong if the sight of gore made her laugh instead of vomit. "What is it with you and dismemberment? I thought we were going for subtle."

Chōjūrō gawked. "D-Did you just-! Sakura, y-you can't joke i-in this kind of situation!" and his absolutely aghast tone was enough to make Sakura let out a snort.

"Honestly, Chōjūrō? It's either I laugh, or I cry. The choice is yours." The bluenette looked appropriately chastised, and mumbled an apology, but Sakura just patted his arm. "It's alright. But I think we should keep moving."

He didn't try to protest this time, and Sakura easily resumed her position in Chōjūrō's arms. Then, they set off over the mountain range and into Hidden Stone, both aching, stressed and exhausted beyond belief despite the ten hours break.

But unlike the bodies they were leaving behind, they were alive, and Sakura clung to that thought with all her strength.

The positive attitude lasted until they realised it had been over eighty hours since they'd last eaten a proper meal, and almost equally as much since they'd drank more than a mouthful of water at a time. But Hidden Stone provided no such comforts as a lake or a forest to hunt food in, and soon enough, their condition began deteriorating. By the time the fourth day on their own rolled around, Sakura's stomach was rumbling almost constantly and Chōjūrō's skin had turned even paler than usual, the bags under his eyes a painful black, and he was staggering with every other step, clearly dehydrated.

Until Sakura had enough.

"We've passed by civilian villages. We need to go into one. Find something – food, water, bandages, whatever – we can't keep going like this." She announced at last, sliding down Chōjūrō's chest so she could stand on her own and pin him with a glare.

But the bluenette raised a valid point then; what would happen to her?

Sakura feared the same, but she couldn't in good faith make Chōjūrō continue running like they had been. So she reinforced her voice with bravado she didn't feel and crossed her arms over her chest. "I have my genjutsu. My chakra is much more restored than yours – I can do maybe three elemental techniques if need be. You, however, will keel over if you don't eat or drink something, and soon. Go!"

And so Chōjūrō went, the closest civilian village ten miles away from the cave he left her in, this one a good fifty metres above ground, made of what she tentatively labelled as shale and schist as opposed to the other's rouge argillite. As Sakura settled down, the genjutsu she had woven to protect their location holding steady, she wondered how Ao and Shikamaru were doing. Had they reached Konoha? Did they manage to handle their pursuers? Were they safe, were they hurt?

Not knowing pained her.

When Chōjūrō returned five hours later, his bag filled with food that wasn't a rations bar, twelve bottles of water and fresh bandages, Sakura almost wept with joy. Safe in the knowledge that it was very unlikely anyone would find them here, fed and no longer dehydrated, they chatted the evening away till they both drifted off, curling into each other under the blanket to wade off the chill of the night.

Spirits restored, even if only temporarily, sleep claimed them quickly.

The news spread around the Village like wildfire.

"What is that boy doing, defending bloodline thieves?"

"He saved his life!"

"They're our allies!"

"So was Suna, and look how that turned out with the Invasion!"

"The Hokage is involved, and the Mizukage sent some of her people over to help with the situation – they're cooperative."

"For now!"

"The Hyuuga are willing to take the death penalty off the table if the eye is returned-!"

"That'll never happen and you know it. Kiri-nin are thieves!"

"It was during a war!"

But to Genma, it was background noise. The problem, for him, and what had ended in him being put on the equivalent of house-arrest, was the slightly less common news;

"Unknown assailants… an entire platoon… two squads after two teenagers… no search party."

"Diplomats, aren't they?"

"One of ours and one of Kiri."

"The Kiri kid is the last one of the Seven who's loyal to the Village as well."

"Why is there no search party?"

"Forces are still stretched thin. Not to mention that their chances of survival are slim at best."

"A chunin and recently promoted jounin against a dozen foreign ANBU? Yeah, no wonder."

He found out by way of the Twins, who had both come barging into his house with the words – "Sakura-chan's MIA!"

Genma had ran to T&I like the devil himself was on his heels, and Anko's grim face was the last nail in the coffin. When Tsunade came out of the interrogation room in which Ao was being kept, Shikamaru standing firm by his side, Genma had outright demanded to be on the search party.

The cheek in which he'd been slapped still stung when he thought about it. As did the words that followed; "You think I wouldn't have sent a retrieval party if I could? How many shinobi do you think I can sacrifice to go on a jolly around the Nations? The trackers we have are all scattered and even Nara doesn't know where she is!"

And before Genma could protest that he didn't need a team, he just needed his goddamn partner back, Tsunade added, "And don't even think about leaving by yourself. All that'll do is lower their chances even more."

Not like Genma was going to listen. Tsunade may be Hokage, but he had a chunin to find. He'd spent the following three days checking if any of the trackers he knew by name were available, and grit his teeth with every one that came back negative. He grudgingly settled back to wait, bag already packed and ready to leave at any moment.

But that was before he saw Shikamaru.

It seemed like the teen was permanently fluttering between Ao's cell in T&I and the Hokage's Office. Genma knew by way of Shikaku, who hadn't been his usual self since the younger Nara got back to the Village, worried and unable to see his son for longer than five minutes at a time. Some said the kid hadn't even had a chance to properly go home.

So when Genma saw him, he nearly didn't recognise him – the teen was pale, his usual tan replaced with sallow skin, his face was drawn, his eyes red and adorned with prominent bags, and grim frown lines set in the corners of his eyes. He looked like he'd aged a decade. Or like he hadn't slept in a week, which Genma reckoned was precisely what happened.

But when the Nara spotted him, some light returned to his eyes ad he hurried over to the tokujo's side. "You need to go after Sakura." Were the words he opened with, more lively and urgent than Genma ever recalled the kid sounding before. "They're keeping me here or else I'd go myself, but if I leave, they'll give Ao over to the Hyuuga and you know what they'll do, protocol be damned."

Genma did know. He heard the whispers, the rumours of what it had to have taken to successfully implant a functioning Byakugan; murder a Main House member or transplant the eye of a Branch member while the latter was still alive.

"The Hokage won't give me a tracker, and I'm not good enough by myself to track her for such a distance." Genma replied, and tried not to think of how much it pained him to say it (it burnt like acid, and he recalled how Sakura hadn't needed a tracker when she went after him, hadn't needed the Hokage's approval, hadn't even asked for it and he felt like a coward-!). For the first time, he truly entertained the thought of mastering the Hiraishin for the sole purpose of planting a seal on Sakura, like Minato had done on Kushina, just to avoid similar situations in the future.

But then, Shikamaru, in a sentence that cemented his status as a genius even amongst the Nara, pointed out; "Didn't her old sensei have ninken?"

Genma was running before the teen had even finished speaking.

"Hatake!" he pounded on the door, seriously considering smacking himself for his absolute stupidity.

Of course Hatake has ninken. Of course. How could I have-!

The door opened, and he caught himself moments before his fist connected with the Copy-Nin's face. "Shiranui? How do you know where I live?" came the suspicious question, and Genma nearly throttledthe man. Now is not the time!

"Gai." He snapped, and the minute widening of Kakashi's eye told him that was explanation enough. "But that's not the point. Sakura's MIA and I need your tracking skills." The words came out in one barely intelligible breath, but he knew the other understood judging by the fact that the visible part of Kakashi's face visible paled considerably.

"Since when?" the jounin forced out, and Genma was surprised to hear the same fear in his voice he was sure was in his own.

"Nara says they split up a week ago, but he doesn't know their exact location. They had a dozen foreign ANBU after each pair." He related, keeping his voice carefully blank and pointedly ignoring the way his hand shook when he finally lowered it from beside Kakashi's face.

This wasn't meant to happen.

Kakashi just nodded, looking a mix of determined and resigned. "Scent?"

At that, Genma produced the horrendous pink dinosaur he'd snagged from Sakura's bed, knowing that it was the only item that had the slightest chance of still retaining the rosette's scent even after a month of absence. He quietly looked away when Kakashi tugged down his mask and sniffed the stuffed toy. The tokujo nearly jumped when the taller man slapped his hand against the wall of his apartment and three dogs appeared from a cloud of smoke.

"Guruko, Pakkun, Uhei; here," he tossed the toy to the dogs, his mask already back up when Genma turned around to watch the odd scene.

"And no greeting, Kakashi?" the smallest of the summons, a gruff-voiced pug, complained. "I thought we've had a talk or twenty about manners over the years. What's this for, though?"

Despite how he usually would've reacted at the great Copy Ninja Kakashi getting scolded by his own summon a tenthof his size, Genma couldn't even bring himself to smile at the absurd situation. He was too stressed, too worried, so he just started tapping out an erratic rhythm with his fingernails on the doorframe while he waited for Hatake to sort out his summons.

"My old student is missing." Was Hatake's gruff reply, and immediately, the summons quietened. "Pakkun, you have the best nose, but we don't know her exact location, hence Uhei and Guruko come too." He turned to Genma, "Anything to add?"

Surprised at being addressed, Genma took a moment to gather himself before he added, "If I know the kid at all, she'll have gone the opposite way from the others, so north-west. But that could be anywhere between Land of Wind and Ame, Kusa, or Land of Stone. To be honest, I didn't think you'd even agree to this, so right now I'm just hoping your summons'll manage to pick up a trail along the way."

He got two barks from the others and an indignant glower from the tiny pug for his explanation.

"Pup," the pug began self-righteously, "we are Kakashi's ninken. We will pick up a trail."

And so they set off.

Tsunade sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose in frustration as she cancelled the jutsu on Hiruzen-sensei's old crystal ball, Shiranui and Hatake's backs fading into the purple nothingness of the glass.

"Fox," she ordered tiredly, not even bothering to open her eyes when a figure appeared before her desk. "go after them. I'm too tired to even be mad, just make sure my best jounin and assassin don't kill themselves with this."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." And with those words, the kunoichi was gone, and Tsunade inwardly cursed Shiranui for worsening her headache.

Then again, she'd known Haruno and Shiranui would rip the world apart for each other if given the chance, so why was she even surprised?

Two days passed since they set out from Konoha. Just outside the borders, they were joined by Fox, but the kunoichi stayed silent and took rareguard, a fact Kakashi was grateful for because he doubted Shiranui even considered their own safety, stuck as he was on getting to Sakura.

Still, Kakashi had ordered a small break on the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Rivers to take a quick nap and eat, knowing the tokujo wouldn't have bothered to stop even if he was falling over with exhaustion. Two hours break, then they were running again.

Although they ran at a breakneck pace, Kakashi, try as he might, couldn't stop himself from glancing over at the tokujo who'd roped him into this impromptu mission in the first place, inwardly wondering when the other would ease up.

But Genma didn't look like he planned to slow down anytime soon and, more importantly – and, perhaps, worryingly – he didn't look like his usual self either, or what Kakashi had come to expect of the man. Instead, he was pale, drawn, and his eyes kept flickering from tree to tree, regardless of the fact that Kakashi's ninken said the trail was far from dead, even if it had gone cold when they stepped into Ame.

(a fact which Pakkun had commended, clearly not reading the atmosphere at all – "Your pup's got her head on right; if she was trying to lose pursuers, Ame is the place to go.").

The tokujo also had yet to speak since the brusque report he gave him when he almost broke into his apartment to drag him on this mad goose-chase two days ago.

Then, perhaps most worryingly of all, there were the corpses. Even when they were still in the Land of Rivers, they came across two bodies. Later, a decapitated kunoichi. Then, a few miles on, an area that looked like it had been treated to a serious explosion with an absolutely incinerated body left behind. And then, in Ame, a curious scene in a forest, three bodies, one decapitated, one dismembered, one buried from the neck down with a senbon sticking out of his eye (Kakashi didn't miss the slight upwards twitch of Genma's lip when he saw the small needle and his stomach did a weird twist at the fondness in the brunet's gaze, even with the current situation). And a last body, a weird tag on the shinobi's chest and his chakra weirdly stifled.

That was when Genma smirked, vicious and victorious, and cheerfully told him and Fox that the tagged nin was still very much alive, and, if the way his remaining chakra was fluctuating, he was currently under a genjutsu which he couldn't get out of.

(Kakashi hadn't even noticed the kid still had chakra. It took a moment after it had been pointed out to notice, and even longer to realise that it really was fluctuating and what it entailed. He cast a subtle glance at the tokujo, who was arguing with Fox over the pros and cons of taking the masked nin back into the Village now or powering onwards to find Sakura and the Mist-nin, and, not for the first time, wondered.)

Eventually, they decided to send Fox back to the Village with the tagged-nin, while Kakashi and Genma continued on – chance for interrogation, after all, was too dear to pass up, but with every moment they delayed, the chance of finding Sakura alive lowered.

Once they split up, Kakashi let a few hours pass before he spoke up again.

"We ran past seven bodies already. Are you not worried that we may be too late?" he asked bluntly, though he was inwardly quite curious. Genma seemed to relax after they sent Fox back with the body, and Kakashi had no idea why – after all, Sakura and over a week in the wilderness evading pursuit did not seem like a favourable scenario in his opinion.

But Genma, despite never slowing his pace nor ceasing the flickering of his eyes from left to right, actually snorted. "The tag on the kid we sent Yugao back with? That was the first seal Sakura and I ever talked about. A chakra-draining seal. The fact that your summons say those bodies were about five days old only assures me of the fact that she's alive. They're both alive."

The Copy-Nin did a double-take at that. That wasn't blind optimism, or the tone of a man clinging to the last dregs of hope. It was the voice of someone confident in what he was saying, and Kakashi briefly wondered how the tokujo could have had such conviction in his voice but still such a tremor in his hands, such worry in his gaze. How he could have such faith in a girl less than half his age.

"If you say so." He settled on at last, instead of voicing his thoughts.

"I do."

And that was that.

Ten days.

Ten days of using Chōjūrō as her personal carriage. Ten days of a constant state of vigilance, a painful sort of alertness that ended in exhaustion and paranoia.

(Sakura was considerably more trigger-happy the more time passed, and a deer, a rabbit, and a Hidden Stone shinobi had already payed for startling her. Permanently so.)

But more than that, despite the fact that they were still alive, Sakura only grew more worried with every day that passed. They started having to ration food even with everything Chōjūrō managed to bring from the civilian Village, and their chakra was replenishing at a much slower rate. Sleep escaped them, both too wound up to ever truly relax. Sakura had long since ran out of antibiotics, and all her acetaminophen went to bringing down Chōjūrō's fever, so she had none for herself when the infection in her leg started making her feverish.

The only upside Sakura could see was that they weren't hallucinating yet.

They tried talking to each other, but headaches and delirium proved too much to keep a conversation going for longer than a few minutes at a time. All Sakura knew was that Chōjūrō was hers and everyone else was enemy. That was the one distinction her brain refused to let go off.

Her and Chōjūrō were currently in the most west part of Hidden Stone, right by the border that separated the country from the unexplored wastelands where crops refused to grow and even ninja avoided running across. The cave they were in (and Sakura had lost count of how many they had been in – she couldn't find a comfortable position, couldn't sleep, couldn't relax. All the rock provided was shelter from the unforgiving sun) was protected by the most vicious genjutsu the rosette could come up with, her mind too high-strung and her paranoia a little too close to the surface to contend with a simple False Surroundings genjutsu anymore.

Then, on the eleventh day, right when Sakura was limping around and packing up and Chōjūrō was snuffing the fire, she heard voices.

"-told you she was aiming for genjutsu mistress, what the fuck were you expecting?"

"Not that."

And then, two people climbed into the cave, the taller of whom saw Sakura and rushed forward, right at her.

The rosette exchanged one look with Chōjūrō, knowing the moment they had been dreading had finally come, and noted the same viciousness on the bluenette's face she was feeling.

Then, they sprung.

After four days of chasing Kakashi's summons across the Shinobi Nations, the two jounin finally came to a stop by the very edge of Stone's territory, and sent matching confused looks at Pakkun.

The nin-dog raised an eyebrow and pointed a paw up at the rock face, "The trail ends here."

Kakashi's first thought when he looked up was a discomfiting, the Wastelands are on the other side of this mountain range. His second, there's nothing here.

By his side, Genma frowned and closed his eyes. When he opened them, there was satisfaction in his gaze, and more than a little determination. "They're there. Sakura and the kid. Let's go."

Although he was tempted to, Kakashi didn't ask how the tokujo knew that. He kept his mouth shut and followed. At least until he tripped head-first into an illusion so vicious and gory and intricate he had to push up his hitai-ate and use his Sharingan to make sure he had successfully broken all the layers.

(he hadn't.)

When he met Genma's eyes, both of them sticking to the side of the mountain with chakra in their feet, the tokujo looked perturbed, but somehow, despite how very out-of-place it looked, proud. Wordlessly, the brunet pointed up, and Kakashi followed his gaze.

A cave that most certainly wasn't there before was now visible in the rock face, as well as a distantly familiar chakra signature and the same scent as the stuffed toy.

"That illusion- Sakura?" Kakashi managed to say, hating how his voice halted half way through.

Genma nodded with a scowl. "I told you she was aiming for genjutsu mistress, what the fuck were you expecting?"

With a shake of his head, Kakashi just murmured a quiet, but vicious "Not that."

And then, they were climbing into the cave.

The two kids they found in the cave were simultaneously so far from what they had expected, and exactly what they had been dreading. The taller of the two, who Kakashi immediately identified as the swordsman, was clutching a sword almost twice his size and using it like a mimicry of a crutch. His skin was pale, his eyes were bruised, his lips were chapped with dehydration, and his body was littered with small cuts, bruises and grazes, and his outfit was flecked with blood.

His pupils were also dilated with delirium, and a further inspection revealed rosy cheeks on a sickly-pale face and shivers raking his frame. Fever.

After the two seconds it took Kakashi to take the bluenette in, his attention shifted onto the kunoichi.

Sakura.

Her pink hair was matted with grime and blood, her face pale and sallow like the swordsman's, her eyes too were wide and fever-bright, and her hands were shaking. But worst of all was her leg, her calve swathed in bandages that were soaked through with blood and sweat and pus, and her thigh visibly bent at an odd angle even under the cover of her pants' leg, and Kakashi knew without a doubt that it was broken.

Badly.

Perhaps irreparably.

(he wondered how she was still standing – the pain had to have been agonising)

Still, the need to get them back to Konoha was as dire as ever, and without thinking, he moved towards Sakura, spreading his arms to pick her up and carry her back if need be.

But then, he suddenly tripped, his balance upset when he felt like something had struck the side of his head, and he barely managed to jump out of the way of the massive sword he'd noticed before that struck heavily in the place he'd been standing in mere seconds previous.

It seemed as if delirium had only made the two teens more dangerous, and when Kakashi met Sakura's green eyes, they were vicious and cold, the edge of fever still present but her gaze was focused on eliminating the threat.

And he was the threat.

But then, Genma stepped in, grabbed the back of Kakashi's shirt and hauled him to his feet and behind him, batting the swordsman away with a well-placed strike to the temple and meeting Sakura's eyes with a calm Kakashi himself did not feel.

"Sakura."

And Kakashi did a doubletake, then almost rolled his eyes at his partner's idiocy. The little swordsman hauled himself to his feet, raising his sword to strike again, but then, moments before Kakashi started going through the first sign for chidori, Sakura grabbed the bluenette's arm.

Her eyes never left Genma's.

"Who are you?"

Genma's heart ached.

He let Kakashi go on ahead, take in the situation and whatever he might want to do while Genma hung back, his eyes trained on his charge, his partner.

Sakura.

A week of knowing she was out there, somewhere, with a dozen of enemies far more skilled and dangerous after her. Three days of utter helplessness, of relying on gossip and heresay. Four days of running through the Shinobi Nations on the hunch of a Nara and the nose of another jounin's ninken as his only guides. Four days of seeing bodies crop up, of seeing Hatake's face grow more and more sceptical.

For this.

The girl that stood before him was so far from the teen he had hugged goodbye over a month and a half ago that he almost didn't recognise her. He knew, even without needing to look, that her leg was broken – her posture was different. He knew, even from where he stood, that she was burning up and feverish – the flush to her cheeks was not the one that came from happy laughter, nor from the makeup kit she'd once shown him (and promptly smeared ¾ of on his face). And he knew that right then, she didn't recognise them.

So when Sakura started going through the handsigns for the Vertigo genjutsu, Genma wasn't surprised. When the swordsman jumped up and almost decapitated Hatake, the tokujo bided his time and waited for the opportune moment. And when it came, he stepped in.

Sakura's question of "Who are you?" felt like a knife to the heart, but he knew it wouldn't be easy.

So he smiled and barrelled on. "My name is Shiranui Genma. Genma." He paused, waited for a spark of recognition. When none came, he carried on. "You've been living with me in Konoha for over a year. Your last mission was to Suna, but it went tits up and you've had to evade pursuit over the last ten days. But now I'm here, and you can go home. You're safe. Now c'mon, kid, let's go home."

There was a moment of silence, of a suspicious frown and a hand trained intently over the flap of her kunai pouch. Seconds ticked by. The swordsman lowered his sword, but did not relax.

Slowly, a light that had nothing to do with fever appeared in Sakura's eyes. "Home?" she murmured, her tone slightly confused. Like she was trying to recall, but was finding it difficult.

Genma smiled. "Yeah, kid, home. Burnt pancakes, food fights, fuinjutsu study dates on the sofa. Any of that ring a bell?"

He waited, patiently, as another minute passed. Then, the fog cleared, and – "Genma!" a smile lit up Sakura's face and suddenly she was in his arms, a shunshin so quick the tokujo didn't even see her make the handsigns and, judging by the way he tensed, neither did Kakashi.

The swordsman made a wounded sort of sound in the background and immediately, Sakura was by his side (Genma felt the muscles in her arms flex where they were pressed against his side so he knew she must've made the handsigns, she must've).

"Chōjūrō, Chōjūrō, it's alright, I know him, he's Genma, my guardian, the one I told you about, remember? He's safe, we can trust him. He's home."

And with every word that left the rosette's mouth, the bluenette relaxed, and Genma marvelled at the faith the teen had in Sakura. Finally, Chōjūrō sealed his sword away, but did not step away from his partner.

"She can't run." He pointed out, voice hoarse and dry from disuse.

Slowly, so as not to startle, Genma stepped forward, his hands held up. "I can carry her. You need to rest. If you let him, my partner will carry you."

And then, Kakashi was holding a limp swordsman in his arms and Sakura hissed, a sound so primal and territorial the Copy Nin barely hid a wince. "He was barely conscious. You want him to rest, don't you?"

Genma waited for the pinkette to nod before he stepped closer, and when she turned to him, he gently scooped her up.

He and Kakashi set off, not once looking back.

In the last moments of consciousness, her temple resting against his clavicle, Sakura murmured something that made his heart swell; "I knew you'd come. I wished for you, and here you are."

Then, she passed out, and Genma ignored the way Kakashi looked away when his eyes watered and the few tears he'd been holding back finally spilled.

They were safe.

so here we are! this chapter was a bit of a nightmare to format and write, but it is done and i hope you enjoy! as always, i hope you enjoyed and feel free to tell me what you thought!

A/N - as university enterance exams are upon us, my updating schedule might become even more erratic, but i will try my best to pop out a chapter by mid-May.

here's the timeline so far:

July: Graduation, month of D-Ranks with Team 7
August: Wave Mission
September: library research, getting to know Genma and working with him. The last week of September is the written exam of the Chunin Exams and the Forest of Death
October: month of preparation for third stage of Chunin Exams
November: ~coma time~ post-Invasion + handful of missions and training with Team 7 while Kakashi is off gallivanting by his lonesome
December: Kirigakure diplomatic mission
January: fetching Genma after the Sound Four mess him up, month of punishment D-Ranks, going to Tsunade at the end of the month for medic training
February: medic training
March: medic training, Sakura's birthday, starting the apprenticeship at T&I at the end of the month
April&May: medic training and T&I
June: Iwa mission where Tamaki dies and Sakura's injured. End of medical training, start of training with Genma to be his partner
July: ~training~
August: Sakura's first official successful interrogation, assassination mission with Fox and Boar
September: Sakura and Shikamaru leave for the Suna diplomatic mission
Mid-September to mid-October: Suna mission
Mid October: cross-country run with Chojuro while evading foreign ANBU, meanwhile the whole Ao-has-the-Byakugan-wtf is happening in Konoha
November: Genma brings her home with Kakashi, hospital stay