hello friends! this summer was genuinely so busy that from the beginning of june to mid-august i was only home for about 8 days altogether before gallivanting off again hence this chapter only arrives now.
i travelled A Lot, went to Australia to see my best friend, worked at my dream job for three weeks and generally just had a swell time 3
i wrote this chapter in chunks, on planes and during layovers and any time i had to actually Create Something, which is probably why, when i actually went to put it together, it wasn't bringing me joy so i marie kondoed the heck out of it and cut bits and pieces until it did bring joy. alas, the marie kondoing is why its currently almost the end of august that i finally have it out and ready for consumption, but hey ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
couple of announcements:
1. a LOT of things were cut from this chap, but it still ended up being a BEHEMOTH, so hopefully it'll make up for 3+ months absence
2. it was intended as a tie-up-the-loose-ends kinda chapter, before moving onto the final Arc which is Shit-Hits-the-Fan with Obito taking the lead role as the Big Bad, so lemme know how that went
3. chapter notes will be at the END, as i didnt wanna spoil too much
When Sakura finally became aware of more than just the weird sense of 'here but not really' she'd lived in while Inner had been sorting through the mess that had once been her mind, her first thought was ow.
Her head felt fuzzy, her arms and legs tingled with pins and needles, and her chakra sense felt oddly...muted. And that was without even beginning to address the fact that she could feel Inner's presence in her mind, as solid and real as if she were sitting beside her.
But most importantly, her mouth tasted like something had died in it.
"Blegh." She managed hoarsely, opening her eyes, then freezing once she'd blinked through the initial blindness that came with the bright hospital lights.
It would've been hard to say who was more surprised when Sakura raised her head and met Genma's eyes, but she was going to claim it was her if anybody asked.
"Genma." She asked, or tried to, because not only did her throat felt like sandpaper and clearing it only brought tears to her eyes and no relief, but the word lacked even the barest modicum of inflection needed to label it a question.
"Ssh, don't speak." Genma shushed her, dropping his gaze. "Tsunade said you damaged your vocal cords during your fight with the Uchiha." He explained, offering her a glass of water which Sakura took gratefully, if warily, though the wariness was distant, not…hers.
'What are you doing here?' she signed with her free hand while she worked at taking small sips of the offered water.
She didn't miss the flash of mixed hurt and...annoyance? that passed through Genma's eyes.
"Really?" he huffed, the corner of his lip curling up in a familiar wry half-smile, but Sakura didn't feel the same comfort she normally did from the expression. She didn't feel much of anything, if she was being honest. "What do you think? You've been unconscious for three days and they couldn't find a way to wake you. I worried."
"What a non-answer." Inner mumbled, sounding tired and far away, but Sakura still startled at how clear her voice sounded, though outwardly, she just frowned.
'How did I get here?'
Genma looked a step away from rolling his eyes though he raised his hand to offer her a mock-wave.
"That'd be me. Orochimaru brought you home, and when you wouldn't stop screaming and I couldn't rouse you after twelve hours, I brought you here."
'O-r-o-c-h-i-m-a-r-u brought me back?' Sakura signed in disbelief, trying to wrap her head around the idea.
She had a vague memory of being caught by cold hands, but to think…huh. She absently wondered whether the Sannin would appreciate gratitude, or whether it would have the opposite effect than the one desired. Inner just snorted.
"-tried to lecture me as well."
Sakura tuned back in to what Genma was saying, belatedly realising that the brunet hadn't noticed she'd tuned out in the first place. She adamantly ignored the stab of…something that accompanied the realisation.
"-said you'd had an 'adverse reaction to the Sharingan', and, honestly, Sakura, what were you thinking?"
Inwardly, Sakura bristled, though how much of the reaction was hers and how much was Inner's, she couldn't be sure. Outwardly, she just set the now-empty glass down and tried to call on healing chakra to fix her throat, because if she was going to be lectured first thing after waking up, she had some things to say too, damn it.
But the moment she reached for her chakra, she recoiled. Her chakra reserves, good for a chunin but below average for jounin, as they had been for years now, had almost doubled in size. A quick probe with her senses proved that, yes, they were now comparable to Genma's if not larger. Some of the shock she was feeling must've shown on her face, because Genma sighed.
"What was the first thing I told you, back when you first started working on genjutsu?" he asked rhetorically. "Never try something new without supervision. I understand wanting to get out of the Uchiha's technique – and he's already catching heat for it from Tsunade and Orochimaru – but you were so eager to break it that you ended up inverting it on yourself."
And that- just no. Sakura had a fervent denial on the tip of her tongue, but she froze at the very last second, her body turning against her, the words dying on her tongue, her mind – aided by Inner – playing her very own devil's advocate.
She could tell the truth, she mused – that Sasuke had invaded her mind and torn down her mindscape, and that she'd spent the last three days having it put back together by her id/psychosis – or… she could accept the ready-made explanation and move on.
Sasuke, if Genma was to be believed, was already catching fire for the non-consensual mind-walk, her reserves had increased dramatically, and with minimal input from her, and she was awake.
Did the truth really matter enough to risk a mental evaluation by somebody not as thoroughly on her side as Inoichi?
No, she decided, a decision which was shared by Inner, if the pulse of satisfaction that shot through her was anything to go by.
No, it didn't.
Genma, it seemed, was once again unaware of her inner turmoil, because he was still speaking.
"You ended up needing a chakra transfusion, kid." He said flatly, the expression in his eyes telling her he was viewing the scene through his memory's lens. "I'd never seen it done before but your body was using up chakra at a faster rate than it was replenishing it, so the nurses decided it was the safest way to keep you alive."
Sakura held up a hand to stop Genma there, and with the other, reached for her chakra again and healed her throat, properly, this time.
"Wait," she croaked out, and Genma reached for her discarded glass and moved to refill it, "chakra transfusion? I've got somebody else's chakra in me? Whose?"
"I offered. So did Shikamaru. But they needed chakra and they needed it stat and a lot of it." Genma tried to explain, and it was through that hesitance alone that Sakura understood exactly whose chakra she had running through her system, and she almost laughed.
"Orochimaru." She stated, and Genma's head jerked up to face her, but whether at her having pieced it together or her lack of reaction at the discovery, she wasn't sure.
"Yeah." He acknowledged, then studied her for a few seconds. "How do you feel about that?"
Sakura raised an eyebrow, feeling a slightly incredulous, if flat, smile tug at her lips.
"How do I feel? Are you playing Inoichi now, Genma?" she asked, though what was intended to sound light and joking came off biting instead.
(her apparent issues with inflection as a side-effect to a complete mental breakdown were... interesting)
"I'm glad he saved my life." She told Genma frankly, after realising he was still waiting for a response. Then, she flexed her fingers and, almost idly, brought a small flame of chakra to each fingertip, watching it flicker with a merriment she did not share.
"Beyond that? Tired."
Genma's face told her everything and nothing about what he thought of her reaction or lack thereof, but after another minute of silent staring, he crumpled with a sigh, falling back in the chair.
"Okay, I can't deal with this anymore, so I reckon now's as good a time to have a talk as any." He announced, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his bent knees and levelling Sakura with a sharp, but patiently kind expression. "What's been going on with you the last few weeks, kid?"
Truth be told, the last thing Genma wanted at that point was to have The Talk.
But he had to do something or he'd have lost it.
The last few months, particularly after Pein's invasion, hadn't been kind to them. Or rather – individually, they had been; relationship and personal development-wise especially – but it felt like their partnership had also been buried under the debris Pein had rained down upon the Village, and neither he nor the kid had made too much of an effort to dig it back up.
As a result, here he was. Struggling to reconcile Sakura: his kid, his partner, charge and friend, with the husk of a woman in front of him: empty and cold, with a flat gaze and even flatter words.
Something must've happened during Sakura's fight with the Uchiha brat, something big, because even Orochimaru seemed…contemplative when he calmly sat through all eighteen hours of the transfusion.
If he'd been anyone else, Genma might've even called the expression on the Sannin's face worried.
"A talk?" Sakura parroted, her forehead twitching in what could've been an aborted attempt at a raised eyebrow, but Genma was beginning to suspect that it was simply the new extent of his kid's capacity to emote.
Immediately after, the tiniest of furrows formed between her brows.
"What's been- I've been busy." She hedged, looking away, her lip curling down defensively. "Besides, it's not like you don't know how to find me."
"No, I get that, I know you have. I don't know what you've been doing, but I know you've been elbow-deep in the preparations for this war that's brewing." Genma assured her, trying to behave like the adult he was and not react to the defensive accusations. And, inwardly, he marvelled at the way Sakura visibly bit her tongue in surprise, eyes growing ever so slightly wider with her surprise at his easy acknowledgement.
Oh boy…
"What I mean is," Genma rephrased, trying his best to sound patient and unassuming, and not teetering on the edge of pulling his hair out by the fistfuls in frustration and worry as he was, "it's been a fortnight since you got back from Iron with the Kumo delegation, and you haven't been home once. Is everything alright? Did I do something?"
Sakura blinked.
Then again.
Genma watched avidly as she parsed through his words, eyes narrowing and pinning him with such a weighted look he couldn't have moved if he'd tried, as she searched his face for a hint of lie.
She wouldn't find any, of that he was sure.
"You mean you don't know?" she asked eventually, the words almost sounding as if they'd been torn out of her, and there was the incredulity Genma had been waiting for, only the wording, try as he might to ignore it, made him bristle.
But before he could defend himself, Sakura held up a hand in the universal 'stop' sign, her other going to her temple as her expression screwed up in pain.
"Wait, I actually want to fix this!" she hissed, though Genma wasn't certain it was intended for him.
"Kid?" he tried hesitantly, reaching out a hand to Sakura's head, changing trajectory at the last moment and landing on her elbow instead. "You okay?"
Sakura took a deep, shuddering breath, then let it out through clenched teeth, and when she removed her hand from her temple and blinked down at him, Genma saw a shadow of his kid buried in the viridian sea.
"No." she admitted honestly. "But I will be."
And the surety of her words took Genma aback.
"You weren't entirely correct and I didn't bother to correct you before." She continued, and dropped the eye-contact, making Genma wonder just how incorrect he had been. "I didn't end up inverting Sasuke's jutsu on myself. I didn't even have to break it. Everything worked perfectly."
Genma swallowed. Sometimes, he hated being right.
"'Perfectly', meaning…?"
"Sasuke didn't just enter my mindscape. He destroyed it. He directed all the unpredictable viciousness of the Sharingan at my mind and made it unravel. That's why I was unconscious for three days."
Genma felt cold, then hot all over, then a chill so profound he felt himself shaking, only belatedly realising that no, he wasn't shivering, but trembling with an all-encompassing rage.
"And he's still alive because…?" he forced himself to ask, not even trying to calculate how many unspoken rules of combat and foreign-relations dogmas the Uchiha had broken.
He didn't care.
He wanted the brat's head on a pike and he wanted it yesterday.
"Because he had the good sense to pull out of my mind before it came crashing down around him." Sakura informed him, a tinge of humour in the bitter curl of her smile. "And I'm still alive because Inner managed to take the supernova of chaos the Uchiha had left in his wake and turn it into a neutron star instead of the black hole it was shaping up to be."
Genma tensed. "Inner?"
"Ah." And here, even with that monosyllabic answer, Sakura definitely looked amused. "I guess I owe you a story, hm?"
So Genma listened.
And the more he listened, the more impossible what he heard became.
It appeared that the presumed-dormant childhood personality disorder was not, in fact, as dormant as Sakura had assumed. Or that the mind-walk Inoichi conducted had somehow brought 'Inner' closer to the surface. And, if Sakura was to be believed, then the reason his kid was still of a relatively-sound mind was thanks to the very personality disorder, who somehow had enough essence to bring order out of the chaos Sasuke had wreaked.
Every word he heard would register as 'mildly alarming' on Genma's personal Scale of Weird Shit, but hearing Sakura say that surviving her very 'self' come crashing down around her like a house of cards had somehow made the personality disorder more prominent was enough to have Genma reaching for the remote to call the nurse.
He would've, too, if not for the chakra-string that snatched it away.
"I'm not sure I can explain it – it definitely feels like my mind is lighter; like the nightmare fuel that had always lurked just around the corner is now in the mental equivalent of the deepest cell in T&I, out of sight and – literally – out of mind." Sakura went on. "But Inner feels stronger, too. An actual presence now, always there, not just occasionally like when I was younger."
"So," Genma sighed, trying to make this nonsense make sense, "we swapped the PTSD and night-terrors for BPD, is that what you're saying?"
Sakura shrugged. "Seems like it."
A beat of silence passed between them, and then Genma huffed an exhausted laugh and yanked his bandana off, throwing it behind him in favour of running his hand through his hair.
"People are going to ask questions, you know." Genma said after a beat, realising after the words left his mouth that he shouldn't have sounded as blasé about the fact, but Sakura hardly looked like she minded.
In fact, his kid looked thoughtful.
"I…may have something for that." She hazarded, frowning, and Genma raised an eyebrow, expectant.
"Well, I just mean, people don't tend to ask questions about kekkei genkai, do they? Especially not first-gen." Sakura shrugged. "I could probably spin something – prolonged exposure to the Yamanaka techniques, or practising mental fortification since before my psyche was fully developed in T&I – I started too young, even I can admit it now – it doesn't even have to be all that convincing, but a kekkei genkai will raise fewer eyebrows than a sentient psychosis, I think."
Genma stilled, throwing the idea around for a few seconds, then snorted. "Yeah. That might work." He agreed, an incredulous laugh threatening to bubble past his lips. Might, being the imperative word, and even then, if anyone dug even a little beyond surface-level, they'd have more than just an undiagnosed personality disorder to worry about.
"Damn it, kid, why can't you ever have problems I can actually do something about? Or stab? Or do something that'd make me feel better?"
Sakura didn't laugh.
In fact, she seemed even more withdrawn than she did before she opened up about her potentially-antagonistic psychosis.
Alarm bells went off in Genma's mind.
"Okaaaay, I don't like that silence. At all. Talk to me, c'mon." he urged, feeling oddly desperate.
"You wanted to know why I hadn't been home…" Sakura trailed off, sounding – and it really rubbed Genma the wrong way to realise – timid and unsure.
Scared.
"Part of the reason is to do with me, isn't it?" he asked rhetorically, then leaned forward and laid a gentle hand on Sakura's knee. "Don't answer that, I know it is. So, go on, kid, tell me what I can do about it."
"I died for you and you weren't there!"
Genma blinked.
But before he could try a 'run that by me again' or parse through what, exactly, Sakura was trying to say, the teen shook her head and growled, frustrated.
"What I mean is," she forced out, eyes squeezed shut, and Genma had an inkling he was going to learn really quickly how to tell when 'Inner' was behind the wheel.
The complete lack of tact or filter seemed to be a major clue.
"There was an unfortunately-timed series of events which prevented us from actually talking about things, and I was at such a point in my mental health that I really needed things spelled out for me, and we just didn't get the time-!"
"That time in Kiri." Genma breathed with the certainty of an enlightened man, and the grim look on Sakura's face told him everything he needed to know about that particular realisation.
"Yes." She confirmed. "It…jarred me to realise that we were on different levels of commitment to each other, or perhaps still in denial about it." Sakura acknowledged, placid in a way that nagged at Genma as not right.
"At that point, I thought of you as my everything." She confessed quietly, and the casual way she said the words most lovers didn't voice made Genma's chest clench. "I realised, thanks to that metaphorical slap in the face in Kiri and because hindsight's a bitch, that it wasn't the most healthy outlook, but for a while there, I was angry at you."
"And then I used your trust to fulfil an order." Genma filled in, thinking back to the vicious 'don't touch me!' in the cell where Orochimaru had been held.
"Yeah." Sakura nodded, a hint of a wry smile playing around her lips. "That you did. And then I didn't have much time to process that or try to rationalise, because Pein attacked."
"And then-!" Genma cut himself off, eyes widening, thinking back to what had come out of Sakura's mouth not five minutes prior. "And then you died for me, and I wasn't there." He repeated, and this time, Sakura looked embarrassed.
But Genma was in the middle of what could only be described as an epiphany, and he wasn't about to stop in consideration of that, and instead stared at Sakura in horrified understanding.
"After all that, even when you felt like I'd betrayed you, you still sacrificed yourself for me with no guarantee that you'd survive, and I wasn't there when you woke up."
Sakura shrugged, clearly uncomfortable now, and adamantly refused to meet Genma's gaze.
"I had time to get over you 'fulfilling orders', especially after I actually spent time with Orochimaru, but I didn't realise how much waking up alone after being brought back to the land of the living had hurt me until Inoichi went digging around in my head." She explained reluctantly, not quite stumbling over her words but seemingly struggling to actually voice them, though she barrelled through.
"And then I spent two weeks in Iron with Shika and Cho and I realised how comfortable I felt, and… and despite that short talk we had on the battlefield after Pein, and that moment before I left for Iron…the idea of coming back home felt…"
"Not as comfortable?" Genma offered, ignoring the stab of hurt at the idea.
Sakura winced, but nodded slowly, eyes carefully averted. "I didn't want to feel like I was walking on eggshells at home when everything around me already felt so unsure. So I just…didn't go home."
"I'm not going to pretend like that doesn't sting a bit." Genma confessed, rolling with the spirit of honesty they had going on, and he watched as Sakura inclined her head in acknowledgement, though she didn't bother masking the pained grimace at his admission. "But I understand why you did what you did, I think."
Sakura snorted, loud and unabashed and seemingly as surprised by her reaction as Genma himself was.
"I didn't understand why I was so mad until I had my mind turned upside-down repeatedly and a mini-coma to come to terms with everything." She scoffed. "It's okay to not be okay immediately."
Genma raised a dubious eyebrow. "Inoichi taught you that?"
"Anko did, actually." Sakura corrected, almost teasing now, though her face soon fell back to that eerie blankness that set Genma on edge.
"I'm sensing a 'but' is coming." He said, only half-joking, and Sakura sighed, suddenly looking so much older than seventeen.
"Because there is." She agreed, scrubbing a hand over her face and looking like she was mentally steeling herself for something, before she continued.
"Being stuck in your own mind for seventy-two hours and going through every memory of your life that you can recall like it's the world's longest flipbook offers a unique way to…revaluate one's perspective." She began carefully, absently rubbing at the scar on her throat.
She took a deep breath.
"What Inner did…saying that it blurred the lines between good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable – calling that an understatement would be an understatement in and of itself. It didn't just obliterate the lines, it made me question the reason why they exist in the first place."
Genma stilled. This was dangerous territory.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that I'm done playing by the rules. Whatever I do, someone has a problem with it. So, we don't care anymore." Genma wondered whether she noticed the pronoun change. "I will do anything and everything if it means me and those I care about survive this coming war. And that's something I need you to be okay with far more than I need you to understand why I stayed away."
Because that wasn't asking much of him at all. Genma had a feeling that he was going to regret asking, but he did anyway: "Why?"
This time, Sakura met his gaze head-on, her expression serious. "Because we are the best jounin partnership in the Village. Because you were right; I have been elbow-deep in the preparations and I know what we're up against. Because I am your tailor-made partner, and what's coming will need us to exploit that fact as much as we can."
"So you're saying that you're done playing by the rules, done with catering to expectations, but you're happy to stick with the Hokage's 'best-jounin-partnership' shtick and 'do your duty'?" Genma asked, a tad disbelieving, trying to wrap his head around what he was hearing.
A small, sharp, mischievous smile spread on Sakura's face, but instead of reassuring Genma, it only made him more uncomfortable.
"You misunderstand." She informed him, not unkindly, though her expression was every bit predatory. "I don't want you by my side because it'll benefit the Village. I want you by my side because I need you there. Because it's the best way to make sure we both live through this. Because…" and here, Sakura hesitated, the confidence she'd radiated up until that moment fizzling out.
"Because now that I have you back, now that we're on the same page, I don't think I could stay away again. I can't do the avoidance thing again, I just can't. I need you with me, Gen, just as much as I need Shika, or Cho, or Anko to survive. So, having said that… I need to know where you stand."
Genma stayed silent for a few seconds, taking it all in.
It was clear that whatever had happened to Sakura's psyche had made emotions difficult for his kid. And yes, it was obvious that she'd need help with that. For once though, he was hesitant as to whether he wanted to be the one to help. What Sakura was talking about – it sounded like the next step Anko had always refused to take: ostracized as she was, her loyalty to the idea of Konohagakure kept her from taking the 'fuck everything, it's going to be my way or high-way' route that Sakura had just described.
But then, Genma looked at Sakura, really looked, and, swaddled with blankets as she was, against the glaring white of the bleached hospital sheets, she still looked so small. So young. And the more he looked, the more her earlier bluster and pretend self-sufficiency melted into a vulnerable sort of hesitance the longer Genma took to answer.
She truly did need him, and not just on the battlefield.
In the end, Genma knew that he was hesitating only for hesitance's sake. For all his conflicting feelings and doubts, he knew his answer even before Sakura bothered to ask.
"I stand with you, kid. Now and always."
And finally, after almost half a year, something between them clicked back into place.
After her talk with Genma, Sakura slept straight through the rest of the afternoon and woke up the next morning, feeling surprisingly rested considering the draining talk the previous day.
Unfortunately, Inner was equally rested, and Sakura learned the full implications of that while she sat still as a nurse took her vitals. She was informed that she'd have to stay one more night for observations, then startled as another brought in the Konoha-standard uniform and told her that her presence has been requested in the Godaime's office.
Once her check-up was over, Sakura pulled the long-sleeved navy shirt over her head and let the pants hang free at her ankles, slipping her feet into the hospital geta that had been provided and letting her hair hang down over her back, not bothering with tying it up. Then, she set off towards Tsunade's office, a million questions on her mind but none of the anxiety she expected to feel at the news.
Upon stepping into the office, Sakura's anxiety revaluated and decided to rear its ugly head, for in front of her, apart from Tsuande, was Shikaku, Orochimaru, and Sasuke.
Sakura's attention was drawn to the Uchiha almost against her will, and, once she actually let herself look, she realised, with no small amount of glee, that Sasuke looked like shit.
He was even paler than usual, his skin still bearing evidence of electrocution, his untameable black mane hung limply around his drawn face, and he was dressed in a hospital gown two sizes too large to allow room for the rib brace and the assorted wires and tubes from the portable respirator beside him.
"Sakura, glad you could make it." Tsunade greeted her, unusually friendly, and Sakura turned to face the Godaime with what she hoped was a neutral expression.
"Tsunade-sama?" she asked, more than a little unnerved when she glimpsed Shikaku's sympathetic expression from behind the Hokage, especially when she compared it with Tsuande's grim frown.
A quick glance at Orochimaru showed that even the Snake Sannin looked on edge.
"I'll cut right to it, then." Tsunade sighed, obviously reading the 'what the fuck is going on?' that Sakura refused to voice but knew must've been radiating from her every pore.
"Uchiha here violated every rule known to man about friendly sparring and withheld important information from Konohagakure while still being her shinobi. Needless to say, that will not go unpunished. Now, as someone who suffered at his hands multiple times in the past, and suffered directly in this case, I decided to consider any suggestions you may have for how we proceed with said punishment." She explained, and Sakura blanked.
"Punishment?" she echoed, almost unwilling to believe Tsunade meant what it sounded like she meant.
"There are only so many free passes I'm willing to give, and only so many times I'm willing to turn a blind eye. Naruto found out about this the hard way. So, it seems, will the Uchiha." For just a moment, Tsunade truly looked her age; tired and drawn and so full of regrets. Then she shook it off and pinned Sakura with an expectant stare. "What will it be, Haruno? What sanction or punishment would you feel is just?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Sakura saw Orochimaru sigh, his shoulders dropping from the regal confidence to something almost resigned. It seemed that he'd almost been hoping against hope that Tsunade wouldn't go down this path, for his expression showed the most emotions Sakura had seen on the man up till that point, and none of them were good.
Sakura considered the situation for a second. The vicious satisfaction she would no doubt feel at finally being able to make Sasuke truly pay was tempting. But Sakura had long since learned to resist the lure of instant gratification, and with Inner's help, she could consider other options with relative objectivity.
One in particular sprung to mind, and in the back of her conscious, Inner crooned.
"The Village will prosecute him no matter what?" Sakura double-checked, and Tsunade nodded, curious.
"Withholding the fact that Uchiha Itachi was still alive, as well as a non-consensual mind-walk is not something we're just going to allow to be ignored." She confirmed.
And Sakura – Sakura saw an opportunity.
She could make Sasuke pay, Inner assured her, but later. Privately. Without an audience. In such a way that he would know that it was her, but would have no way of proving it. She was capable of it, of that there was no doubt. But here, here she could go after much bigger fish.
"Truth be told," she began, her lack of inflection a blessing for the first time since she woke up, "I couldn't care less about Uchiha Sasuke."
She was certain she now had the attention of all four people present in the room.
"He became no more than a wild dog to put be down the moment he put my senpai in a coma." She admitted, and saw Shikaku's eyes narrow.
"What I am interested in is acknowledgement from the leader of Otogakure," she briefly inclined her head in Orochimaru's direction, "that by choosing not to press charges against Uchiha Sasuke, I'm acting to his benefit."
Tsunade was looking at her like she'd grown a second head.
"You would forfeit a unique chance to have the Uchiha face any justice you see fit for- for an IOU?" she asked disbelievingly, though her disbelief was not shared by the Nara Head standing behind her.
In fact, Shikaku looked almost wary.
"Yes." Sakura acknowledged simply, because that was what she was proposing.
"That's-!" Tsunade began, only to be cut off by Orochimaru.
"-Acceptable." He murmured, speaking for the first time since Sakura walked into the office, his gaze focused on her. "I would be willing to provide such an acknowledgement, with the current audience as witness."
In her mind's eye, Sakura saw Inner smile.
On her way back from the Hokage's Office, Sakura stopped by the hospital reception and, with the help of a quick genjutsu on the receptionist, checked the records for the room Sasuke was being held in.
That night, with the confidence granted by her earlier success, Sakura struck.
Sasuke's room was only two floors above hers, only guarded by a chunin outside the door. The window, therefore, was free game, and when Sakura masked her chakra, she knew she'd be discovered only on the off chance the chunin was a Hyuuga.
Sasuke, whether due to how doped up he was on morphine or simple exhaustion, was fast asleep and showed no sign of waking when she snuck in through the window.
Good.
In the end, it seemed that all her encounters with the Uchiha would heretofore be summed up as anticlimactic.
Unconscious as he was, he offered no resistance to the chakra-restricting seal Sakura placed on him.
She'd gotten the idea when Inner was sorting through the mess of her mind and came across her vague memories of Awaku-kun, Codename Sai, and realised that the teen had spent days trapped in the Hell-Viewing technique before the makeshift chakra-draining tag she'd placed on him ran out.
Here, well.
Here, Sakura's chakra-draining tag was no longer makeshift. It was a copy of the one Genma had been commissioned to make for high-risk prisoners, only tailored to suit her current needs. Its durability was not of importance; instead, what Sakura needed was for it to fizz out within a narrow time-window – she gave it six hours, after which, Sasuke's chakra would be returned to him, and the mark of the seal would disappear without a trace.
Then, she quietly went through the seals for her first – and only – original genjutsu. The one she'd had the scaffolding for but none of the finesse she now possessed back during her first interrogation, the Iwa jounin whose name had once plagued her nightmares, but now faded into oblivion. Terrorising a man with the memory of his beloved wife and implying his child had been killed was but a blip on the long rap-sheet of morally-dubious atrocities Sakura had committed in the name of her Village.
She didn't need the Psycho Mind Transmission technique this time; she'd woven its function into the very fabric of her genjutsu, so when she finally cast her illusion, chakra and intent would do majority of the legwork for her.
And Sasuke would be plunged into six hours of reliving his worst nightmares with no way out.
She would take the last of his humanity and she would crush it under her boot, just like his errant lashing out with his Sharingan had done to her.
Only in Sakura's case, the destruction of Sasuke's mind was the desired end-product. 100% intentional.
And unlike him, she would not be punished.
With a final, vicious, vindictively satisfied smile, Sakura turned on her heel and got ready to head back to the window, when something caught her eye. A necklace, silver, with three red glass spheres nestled in the delicate metalwork, and with her improved sensitivity, it wasn't difficult to realise the glass baubles housed blood, and therefore chakra. With a tilt of her head, Sakura grabbed the necklace and slid it into her pocket, casting one, final look at Sasuke's slumbering form, a frown already forming between his brows, before she stepped out onto the windowsill and walked calmly down, slipping into her room and her hospital bed with none the wiser that she had ever left.
Revenge, she decided, was truly the sweetest treat of them all.
The next afternoon, freshly discharged, Sakura stepped out of the hospital reception and into the sunny mid-Autumn afternoon, planning on wandering through the farmer's market set up along the main street before ultimately heading home for a much-needed bath and a quiet evening.
Instead, she registered a familiar chakra signature to her left, and when she turned her head, she saw none other than Orochimarustanding in the shade of one of the great Hashirama trees, strategically out of sight of the general populace, but not making a single effort to hide from her. In fact, when she glanced over, she saw the Sannin already looking at her, a challenge writ clear in that reptilian gaze.
This time, Sakura didn't hesitate. With a thought and the barest flex of chakra, her hair turned brown and her eyes a duller green, her face slimmer and more forgettable, assuming the appearance of a noblewoman she'd killed back when her only concern was how many missions she still had to run to be eligible for a jounin promotion.
Then, with her new face, she changed trajectory and headed straight to Orochimaru's side.
When she came within an arm's length away, she saw that the corner of his lips was curled up in amusement, and the Sannin's eyes were slightly wider than usual, a maelstrom of thoughts swimming in the eerie gold.
Yet, he didn't voice any of them and just turned with a soundless swish of his ornamental kimono, setting off towards the treeline of the Nara forest.
Once they were so deep in the forest that Sakura could not sense a single chakra signature in a half-mile radius, she dropped her henge and stopped. Orochimaru, who had been half a step in front of her the whole time, followed suit, turning around with an eyebrow raised in clear question.
Sakura took a deep breath, then let the barest of smiles show.
"I believe a thank you is owed." She murmured, keeping her eyes on the Sannin even as she inclined her head. "Thank you for saving my life."
Orochimaru looked the most alarmed she'd ever seen him and Sakura couldn't help but wonder how long it had been since the man had last been accused of saving a life instead of taking it.
"I wish…" Orochimaru hummed, contemplative and, perhaps, hesitant, then seemed to deem whatever he'd planned to say appropriate and continued. "To express my regret at Sasuke's…failings." He finished diplomatically, though his lip curled in a sneer before it smoothed out and he added; "Although I do not believe that it has gone unpunished."
Sakura felt her heart skip a beat before she called on Inner for calm.
"Indeed. Tsunade-sama made it quite clear she's reached the end of her patience, and with your unique position on the political scene ensured that your hands were tied in terms of how she would proceed." She agreed blandly, carefully not addressing what Sasuke's punishment would entail.
Orochimaru, it seemed, wasn't in the mood for subtle.
"I was not referring to Tsunade's game of politics." He denied, vicious and vehement, and though there was an undeniable sneer on his face now, there was also a hint of amusement in his eyes. "And I think you knew that."
(in the back of her mind, in the special place that was dedicated to all the thoughts she could not voice, Sakura was freaking out over how easily she could read Orochimaru now. Though the man was far from an open book, her brain had latched on to his micro-expressions and made a catalogue.)
"I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint." she replied coolly, trying hard not to let it show just how much Orochimaru knowing or suspecting about her trip to Sasuke's room unsettled her. "I don't know what you're referring to."
Orochimaru studied her for a moment, thoughtful, then nodded.
"Perhaps I should reconsider making accusations I cannot prove, considering my audience." He mused, then seemed to do an almost one-eighty mood-wise. "If I ask a question, will you answer?" he asked curiously, tilting his head in a way Sakura fought hard not to label cat-like.
"That depends on the nature of your question." She told the Sannin honestly, though her hackles were already rising, her fight-or-flight itching under her skin.
"Sasuke sustained multiple physical injuries during your spar." Orochimaru informed her idly, though his sharp gaze was anything but. "And while I witnessed the stab wound and the electrocution, he also suffered a crushed ribcage and a punctured and collapsed lung respectively. Logic dictates the latter could've only happened when he foolishly possessed your mind. What I want to know is how."
Sakura panicked for all of two seconds, before Inner wrenched the wheel from her and took over the conversation, reducing Sakura to a spectator in her own body.
"I refuse to believe you didn't get Sasuke's account before asking me." She shot back with Inner's signature blandness, eyebrow raised sceptically, but Orochimaru remained unperturbed.
"Be that as it may, but if I were to go by Sasuke's account for everything, then you should be dead."
"Ask." Inner pushed, feeling bold, and Orochimaru's eyes narrowed but a wicked smirk twisted his lips.
"Sasuke says a psychosis pushed him out. A being that lives in your mind, a guardian if you will. He said it taunted him, and that it was the psychosis that crushed his ribs. So fill in the blank for me – how close was Sasuke's account to the truth and how did you get to where you are without getting a one-way ticket to the psychiatric wing?"
"That's two questions." Sakura pushed Inner down long enough to point out, and though Orochimaru looked chagrined at the remark, he nodded sharply, and Sakura allowed Inner's vicious smile to appear on her face without a fight. "I will answer, but I want a trade. Question for a question."
Orochimaru scowled, but nodded again, as if he'd expected as much. Taking a deep breath, Sakura surrendered the reins and let Inner spin her tale.
"As usual, Sasuke spoke without all the facts." She opened, offering the Sannin a wry smile and an exasperated eye-roll. "It isn't a psychosis. I have been seeing a Yamanaka therapist for four years now – if it was a psychosis, he'd have found it. What it is, is a first-generation kekkei genkai, which has been awakened and subsequently strengthened by my involvement in T&I. I am almost invulnerable to mental possession by means of other kekkei genkai – I forced Sasuke to leave and before that, I once forced Yamanaka Inoichi out of my mind."
Orochimaru looked fascinated while in the part of her mind that was her own, Sakura was concerned.
I need to speak to Inoichi. And fast.
"Now, having answered that, I believe you owe me two questions." Inner continued, deaf to Sakura's inner turmoil.
The Sannin waved her on, the look in his eyes far-away, but Sakura, even from her spectator position, knew he was listening. And if he wasn't, Inner was going to make him.
"Why do you keep helping me?" Sakura demanded, fighting Inner's control again, her earlier bland tone giving way to the desperation of the deep-seated confusion she hadn't been able to shake since she realised that that was precisely what the Sannin was doing. "And no nonsense about playing the game either!"
The immediate disinterest that appeared on Orochimaru's face after her first question had melted into a blank mask, the cold fire of fury dancing in his eyes.
"Oh?" he drawled, and Sakura felt a shiver of fear go down her spine, remembering, for the first time in a while, that she was the prey in this dynamic. "I find it curious how some months ago you couldn't even look at me, but now you feel bold enough to give me orders."
The utter stillness to Orochimaru's body despite the threat in his voice made it clear why the man was so often likened to a snake, for he looked just as coiled and ready to strike at the slightest provocation as the reptile, and every instinct in Sakura's body and mind was telling her to seek out her closest Hiraishin tag and disappear, but Inner tamped down on any panic and made Sakura stand her ground.
"Remember, just because I haven't killed you yet, little kunoichi, doesn't mean that I won't." Orochimaru hissed, eyes narrowing, and Sakura felt like a puppet in her own body as Inner took over motor control to plant Sakura's feet more squarely, lifted her arms and spread them wide, then raised her eyes and met Orochimaru's icy glare.
"Then do it." She challenged. "We're five miles away from any witnesses. Nobody saw me leave with you and it'll be at least twelve hours before anyone even thinks to look for me." She met the Sannin's eyes, noted that the fury was dampened by flickers of surprise, and continued. "Either answer my question or follow through on your threat."
No, no, stop, what the hell are you doing! Sakura wanted to scream, but Inner held firm until the fury on Orochimaru's face faded fully into amusement.
"Because of this." He answered suddenly, and Sakura felt as if she'd finally broken the surface of water she'd been held under and taken her first free breath as Inner relinquished control and faded into the back of her mind, suddenly quiet.
Orochimaru, it seemed, didn't notice her moment of complete bewilderment, carrying on as he elaborated; "You have power, connections, and no real allegiance. You're a useful piece to have on the board."
'Shinobi are but tools waiting to be put to use by the highest bidder." Sakura remembered Zabuza saying, back on her very first mission outside the Village, the one that changed it all. She wondered briefly, if he could see her now, what the man would think of her having this conversation with Orochimaru.
No sooner had that thought struck her, did Sakura realise exactly what she needed to do next.
"In that case," she broke the silence that had descended on them, drawing Orochimaru's gaze back to her, "I want the IOU I was promised."
The man tensed slightly, but inclined his head, expectant.
"I want the snake summoning contract."
A few minutes later, Sakura was walking down the main street, admiring the sluggishly-bleeding wound in the pad of her thumb where she'd cut it with a kunai with no small degree of awe.
She had a summoning contract now.
(Orochimaru's incredulous face at her announcement, complete with widened eyes and gaping mouth, would forever be etched into her memory)
Inner still seemed subdued, quieter than Sakura had grown to expect since waking up, as if taking control for so long during her exchange with Orochimaru had tired her out, and Sakura welcomed the temporary reprieve.
And then, she was pulling out a kunai and twirling around, on guard, and she'd have lodged the knife in Anko's armpit and severed her axillary artery if her senpai hadn't twisted out of the way at the last second.
"Someone's tense!" Anko teased in greeting, grinning widely, though Sakura could see the barely-concealed worry in her eyes.
"Senpai." Sakura breathed, relieved beyond measure, and gave into the desire to throw her arms around Anko's waist in rib-bruising a hug.
Anko, surprised by the action if the momentary tensing of her body was anything to go by, quickly got with the programme and wrapped an arm around Sakura's shoulders, using the other to gleefully mess up her hair.
"Everything alright, kiddo?" she asked, perceptive as always, once the line of Sakura's shoulders relaxed under her arm.
"Better now." Sakura replied, pulling away with a small smile, only then realising how desperately she'd needed the contact. "How about you? And what are you doing here?"
Anko grinned with too many teeth. "My bullshit radar was telling me you did something really stupid again, so I decided to investigate."
Sakura snorted, surprising herself at the action. "I wouldn't say really stupid. Just…average."
Anko sighed, dramatically rolling her eyes. "You know, for once I'd like you to say 'no, senpai, you're wrong, I was smart and responsible today'." She grouched, though Sakura knew it was for show, but the banter helped ground her, making her feel the most human she'd felt since waking up and something told her Anko knew that.
"I mean… I could say that," she hedged, an answering grin blooming on her face, "but you said you don't like it when I lie to you, so..."
Anko's eyes narrowed, and Sakura was a millisecond too slow to duck the swipe at her head. "I want you to know that if anyone asks, you're the exact reason why I'm never having kids."
"Because none of your brats would ever measure up to me?" Sakura teased, if only to see Anko's mask of patent long-suffering slip in the face of her sniggers.
"With how you refuse to stop growing, that's not unlikely." Anko shot back, giving Sakura a look-over and stopping meaningfully at the top of her head which was less than an inch shorter than Anko's. "Now, fancy telling me how you got your hands on the snake summoning contract?"
Sakura tensed, thrown by the non-sequitur, then shrugged because, hey, it's Anko.
"Orochimaru owed me a favour. I collected." She summarised, succinct in the way she knew the woman hated, and got a grudging grin for her efforts.
"You're batshit insane." Anko replied, before she grew uncharacteristically serious. "I hope you know what you're doing, kid."
Sakura's smile became more genuine, if wry.
"So do I." she admitted honestly, and held the eye-contact until Anko broke it.
"Brat." She grunted, though it was still undeniably fond. "The Terror sends his regards, by the way."
Sakura very nearly face-planted.
"Yuki?! Wait, actually, how do you know?" she demanded incredulously, sure that if Yuki had spontaneously decided to ignore things like Village borders and national security – again – he'd have sought her out already.
Anko waved a letter at her mockingly, and from the quick look Sakura got at the writing, she saw the same looping scrawl she remembered from the various Hiding in Water techniques the assassin had gifted her during her first visit to Kiri.
"You write letters?" Sakura blinked, her brain stalling. "You write letters? You write letters to Yuki?"
No matter how she said the words or where the emphasis fell, the idea was still too ridiculous to even consider, especially when Anko actually puffed up and seemed defensive when she next spoke.
"I'd tone down the sass if you don't wanna get slapped, brat." She glared, then folded the letter in half and thwacked Sakura over the head anyway. "And yes, since he helped me out with that nurse back during the Shimura affair."
Sakura gawked, she couldn't help it.
"But…it's been, like, months." She managed, unable to quite gleam the exact length of time that had passed since that day, staring at Anko with no small degree of confusion. "Do you see it…going somewhere?" she added hesitantly, unsure how to navigate this particular terrain with Anko.
Her senpai rolled her eyes at the question, though there was fondness underneath the exasperation. "Beyond keeping each other appraised of random bullshit, your nonsense, and new and inventive ways of killing people? No."
She pinned Sakura with a weighted look, but one the rosette couldn't even begin to decipher before it was wiped away and Anko sighed.
"Just because he's a man and I'm a woman and we can be said to get along does not mean that I want to sleep with him." She explained slowly, as if to a child, and it was Sakura's turn to roll her eyes, but Anko wasn't done. "I'm much more interested in getting into men's beds to slit their throats than to get it on. One's a steady pay-check, the other one's just…gross."
Sakura couldn't help herself – she snorted.
"Thanks, senpai, for that mental image. I really could've done without it." She grouched, then an idea struck her. "Is that at all related with you not wanting kids?"
Anko shrugged, the line of her shoulders tense with discomfort. "Dunno. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not big on the 'know thyself' self-reflection shtick." She grinned then, looking more like herself in a matter of seconds. "Besides, I've done a decent job raising you, and now I'm now getting a crash-course in childrearing with Kurenai's brat. And trust me, that's more than enough for me."
Sakura raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure whether it was the case of you raising me or me surviving you, but sure, senpai, whatever makes you feel better." She teased, managing to dodge Anko's senbon this time as she'd been expecting it.
"Ungrateful brat." Anko scowled, then wrapped an arm around Sakura's neck and pulled her in for a noogie. "But if you die on me in this war, I'll Edo Tensei your ass and kill you myself."
"Right back at you." Sakura wheezed, then bit Anko's forearm just hard enough for the woman to let go. "So, when the god of death inevitably comes knocking because neither of us has ever learnt any self-preservation, what do we say?"
Anko smirked, wide and just that bit unhinged, and when she reached out to mess up Sakura's hair, the teen didn't bother to duck away.
"Not today."
After she split off from Anko, Sakura headed off to do what she'd planned on before her senpai had tracked her down, which involved a bath, a bed, and no interruptions for at least twelve hours.
When she got home, she found the house empty, and allowed herself to luxuriate in the bath for over an hour, feeling the last traces of the four days she'd spent in the hospital wash off her, and the tension she'd carried since she woke up melt away. Once done, Sakura relished in the first opportunity she'd had in weeks for some T&C, and when she collapsed in bed an hour later, it was cleansed, moisturised, and smelling vaguely of coconut.
The next morning, she awoke to a weird, prickling feeling in her coils which soon morphed into an unbearable itch. When she concentrated, focusing on that feeling of wrongness and forced it out, a snake appeared before her, and Sakura had to bite her cheek till it bled to keep in her instinctive shriek of surprise.
On her carpet lay a tiny horned viper, no longer than two feet in length, a small scroll lodged between its inch-long horns.
"Greetingsss, Summoner." It hissed quietly, rising up on its belly to bring the scroll closer to where her hand was resting, "Orochimaru wanted to passss on a message."
Sakura reached out hesitantly, hand trembling slightly, and carefully plucked the scroll from between the snake's horns, unsure how to proceed.
"…Thank you." She managed at last, deciding that manners couldn't hurt. "Is this the usual way of…communication?"
"Not after you make firssst contact." The messenger replied cryptically, and Sakura near-on rolled her eyes. "But as no boundaries nor payments have been agreed, this way is within our rightsss."
"Right." Sakura sighed, picking anxiously at the wax seal on the scroll with her nail as she contemplated the summon. "Okay. What do I call you? And will you accept, uh, food as, um, 'payment'?"
If snakes could emote, Sakura was pretty certain this one would've raised an eyebrow at her. "…Chairo." It replied, settling back down on the carpet. "Mice will be appresssiated."
"Okay. Thanks for this." She indicated the scroll. "I'll have some, um, mice, next time."
The snake appeared nod, then it was gone, and Sakura sagged against the wall by her bed, already exhausted from the brief interaction.
Of course she had to request a contract with the most capricious summons out there, she lamented inwardly. What other creatures would've survived decades with Orochimaru as their summoner without being absolute assholes themselves?
The scroll unfurled in her lap and Sakura glanced down, paling at what she read.
'Punishment complete.
Leaving at noon.
No plans for Itachi.'
Sakura cursed colourfully and glanced at the clock on her bedside table; 11:27am blinked back at her.
She didn't particularly want to see Sasuke or Naruto; Jiraiya made her more uneasy than Orochimaru himself, and she could care less for the Kumo jinchuuriki and his guard. But…
"The Hozuki could be useful. And the redhead is an Uzumaki. She could be interesting." Inner mused, and Sakura got the sensation as if she was stretching in her mind, having recovered from the previous day.
"I don't have anything to sway them to my side." Sakura mumbled in turn, setting Orochimaru's message aflame with a thought and a spark of chakra. "I don't even have a side."
"Don't be naïve." Inner chastised, bringing Karin and Suigetsu's faces to the forefront of her mind. "You have what they want. Uzumaki: her past. Hozuki: his future."
And just like that, Sakura knew what Inner meant. Without her input, her body moved off the bed and towards her bookcase, pulling out 'Basic Fuinjutsu', 'Uzushiogakure: History and Culture' and a scroll titled 'Fuinjutsu in the World Wars'.
"I don't want to give up Kubikiribocho." Sakura denied, shaking her head at the errant thought that was decidedly not her own, even as her arms reached for the handles to her wardrobe.
"It's not our style and you know it. We weren't meant for open combat. Besides, if he survives, you'll have leverage to send him to Mei, and favour with the Kage is always useful." Inner schemed, and Sakura frowned even as she went through the motions to get dressed, wrapping a waist-length purple hanten over the Konoha navy and pulling her hair into a high ponytail.
"Fine." She sighed, and as if that was all Inner required, Sakura was back in full control of her body and the clock told her she still had fifteen minutes to catch the leaving party.
She pulled Kubikiribocho out of her hammerspace and strapped it to her back, then grabbed the books she'd selected for the Uzumaki and sealed them in.
"Let's do this."
"Oi! Hozuki!" Sakura called ten minutes later, uncaring that her shout halted the entire entourage heading to Otogakure; her eyes were on the swordsman and the swordsman only, adamantly ignoring the way Sasuke froze at hearing her voice and Naruto shuffled guiltily.
Suigetsu stopped upon hearing his name, and when his gaze landed on her he frowned, visibly baffled. When she got to within arms' length of him, she noted the curious look the man that could only be the Hachibi jinchuuriki was giving her, but she ignored him too and focused on Suigetsu and Karin.
She grinned at the swordsman and moved to undo the harness holding up Kubikiribocho.
"I wanted to give you this before you left." She explained, holding the sword out for the teen to take and valiantly not acknowledging the multiple wide-eyed gazes she could feel on her person.
"But…I lost the spar." Hozuki pointed out, his bafflement morphing into wary wonder as he contemplated the sword, and if he'd had any less self-restraint, Sakura was willing to bet he would've been salivating.
"So?" she scoffed, shaking the sword she was holding until he finally took it, handling it with the same care one would give an infant. "I told you I wasn't going to give it to you as a trophy even if you had won. I do, however, want to give it to you as a gift."
"That's some gift." The Uzumaki pointed out, a mirror of their first meeting.
"Maybe." Sakura acknowledged easily, then unsealed the books she'd gathered and offered them to the girl. "Here. I think you might find these interesting."
"But why?" Suigetsu demanded, still staring at the sword in his hands with barely masked awe, before carefully, reverently strapping the harness around his chest and sheathing the giant blade.
Sakura shrugged, making the decision seem like a spur-of-the-moment act rather than the careful plotting of an undiagnosed personality disorder that it was.
"Because I want to. Because I enjoyed our spar and would like it if you survived long enough to fight me again. Because I can." She grinned, wide and toothy and just as unhinged as Anko, as Yuki, as Suigetsu himself.
"Truth is, my style is simply not suited to the type of combat this sword requires." Sakura admitted, something she realised back during her fight with Kurotsuchi. "And you've inadvertently become a part of the most important mission of this war effort, so you should be well-equipped."
She shot the Kumo-nin hulking behind Hozuki a meaningful glance before meeting the wide magenta again.
"Not to mention that you've got a master swordsman and a veteran of the Third War on this entourage. I'm sure that if you ask nicelyinstead of threaten, they'd be open to the honour of throwing the last Hozuki around." She pointed out, seeing the exact moment Suigetsu understood.
Then, before Sakura had much of an opportunity to react, the teen thrust out his forearm in a familiar move, and the grin that curved his lips made a sharpened tooth poke out in a way that reminded Sakura, unbidden, of Chojuro.
Her smile was genuine when she brought her own hand to clasp Suigetsu's forearm, just before the elbow, and felt his cold hand grip her arm in the traditional Kiri greeting.
"I'll come find you for that spar." He promised, unusually solemn, and squeezed once before meaningfully turning away.
Sakura turned to face the Uzumaki who was looking at the books in her arms with unabashed wonder.
"What do you gain from this?" she whispered, as if she'd been warring with the question since Sakura had announced her 'gifts'. She raised her eyes from the books, and in that moment of eye-contact, Sakura saw her younger self reflected in that searching gaze. "We've barely spoken."
Sakura shrugged again, offering the redhead a wry smile. "I know the value of information in our world." She demurred, nodding to the books. "And this way, nobody can hold your identity over you."
The teen studied her for a few seconds, then shuffled the books to one arm and extended a hand.
"I'm Karin." She introduced herself, and Sakura was glad to be able to put a name to the face.
"Shiranui Sakura." She replied with a smile and returned the handshake, absently noting the Hachibi twitch when she said her surname. "I look forward to seeing what you make of yourself."
The smile she got in return was sunshine-bright, though sly. "You've gotta survive what's coming for that."
Sakura bared her teeth, giving up the pretence of smiling, letting Karin see just how far she was willing to go to do just that. "Rest assured, I plan to."
As if pacified, the redhead nodded with a final half-smile and let go, turning absently to follow Suigetsu, her eyes back on the books in her arms.
Sakura sighed, relieved. She ignored Naruto, spared not a thought to Sasuke or the Toad Sage she could feel still staring at her, content after having said her piece. Turning away from Karin, she offered a half-hearted wave to Darui before meeting Orochimaru's gaze.
He seemed intrigued and amused, and Sakura allowed herself to relax further. She inclined her head in recognition and allowed her lip to quirk in a sly 'I-told-you-so' smirk, watching the amusement in the Sannin's eyes grow. Then, with a final glance at the ragtag group, Sakura called on her Hiraishin and disappeared.
A few hours later, after she'd gotten home from an impromptu training session she'd put herself through, there was a rather persistent knocking on the front door. Curious and more than a little confused, she got up to open it and promptly gasped.
"Shika? Cho?" She demanded, momentarily blindsided, though her shock soon gave to a pleased smile. "What are you guys doing here?" she couldn't help but ask, even as she stepped aside to let them in.
"Wow, I feel so loved." Shikamaru grouched, though there was no heat behind the comment, and followed her in.
"Don't be so dramatic." Chojuro chastised regardless, pushing past Shikamaru to step further into the house and give Sakura a hug and a kiss that, albeit chaste, felt like coming home. "It's a valid question."
"Yeah, yeah." Shikamaru muttered, rolling his eyes, before he too pulled her into an embrace, right there in the corridor, and squeezed tight. "I spoke with dad. He told me what the Uchiha did and what he revealed. I reckoned you were going to do something stupid so I fetched Chojuro and decided to run an intervention."
"And you're intervening in what, exactly?" Sakura inquired, eyebrow raised sceptically, even as she led the boys to the living room.
"You gallivanting off on your own after Uchiha Itachi, obviously." Shikamaru informed her blandly, smirking when she startled so badly she almost tripped.
Sakura turned around, indignant, ready to demand just who the Nara had been talking to, then paused, her index finger pointed threateningly at Shikamaru's chest and her mouth half-open, no accusations coming.
Because she hadn't told anyone of where she was going, and she'd only had the barest outline of an idea to go after Itachi when she read Orochimaru's missive earlier that morning. She hadn't really had time to tell anyone; not Tsunade, not Genma, not even Anko. And she doubted Shikamaru would've sought out Orochimaru and pieced her haphazard idea together from chit-chat with the Snake Sannin.
"Sorry, Sakura-chan," Chojuro soothed, laying a hand on her wrist and gently pushing her arm down and back to her side, "but you arerather predictable to those who know you well."
"I…am going to ignore that." Sakura replied, sitting heavily on the sofa and squinting up at the duo with narrowed eyes. "And, not that I'm not glad to see you because I am, but how did you get here, Cho?"
At that, Chojuro grinned, the signature adorably-snaggly tooth making an appearance.
"Our resident genius picked me up." Chojuro announced cheerfully, as if self-explanatory, but when Sakura's confusion didn't abate, his grin softened and he tugged down the collar of his shirt to reveal a tattoo over his left breastbone.
No, not a tattoo, Sakura corrected inwardly. A seal. A very familiar seal.
There was only one explanation that made sense, though even that was so far-fetched Sakura couldn't stop her disbelief from bleeding into her voice when she next spoke.
"When did you become an expert in space-time ninjutsu?" she asked Shikamaru with no small degree of hysteria, and Shika, the bastard, had the gall to smirk.
"Last night." He replied, cocky and confident and amused beyond measure, only to scowl when Chojuro thwacked him over the head.
"Ignore him." The swordsman advised, stepping closer to the sofa and tugging Shikamaru along. "He's had the seal drafted since you read him your book on fuinjutsu back in Iron. He's just smug to have snuck it under your nose."
Sakura turned wide eyes to Shikamaru, though she cuddled into Chojuro's side almost on autopilot when the teen opened his arms.
"You asked me to read you that book to put you to sleep." She accused, remembering the exact moment Chojuro was referring to. "Not so you could sneakily piece together the Hiraishin in less than a month."
"Echoic memory." Shikamaru dismissed, waving a hand even as he shuffled around to lean against the arm of the sofa and drape his legs over Chojuro's lap. "And I have it on good authority that I'm a genius." He added with a lazy smile, nudging Sakura's thigh with his toes.
For a moment, all Sakura could do was stare, then:
"I hate you. So much."
Chojuro snorted and Shikamaru's smile grew, showing her just how much they believed her words, and all three lapsed into silence, content for the moment to just be.
Then, after what could've been five minutes or twenty, Chojuro sighed, breaking the sleepy atmosphere that had settled around them.
"So, Uchiha Itachi, hm?" he asked quietly, the pad of his thumb rubbing idle circles into Sakura's shoulder, lulling her into a lazy doze.
She echoed his sigh and stretched, trying to get her brain to snap back to business. Inner, to her surprise, was quiet, content to float in the back of her mind, not trying to take over or interrupt.
"Yeah." Sakura acknowledged at last, mirroring Shikamaru's position, much to Chojuro's amusement. "I don't know how much you're aware of, but it seems like the actual leader of the Akatsuki is Uchiha Obito, Kakashi's presumed-KIA genin teammate. His dojutsu allows him to manipulate space-matter, and he can appear to teleport or become intangible by folding himself into that pocket dimension." She explained wearily, regretful when the earlier relaxed atmosphere became charged and focused.
"Dad did say it was an Uchiha with an advanced stage of the Sharingan." Shikamaru mused, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow. "But he said Tsunade couldn't spare a tracking squad."
"I don't think it's a matter of 'spare' that's the issue here." Chojuro hazarded, wincing when both Sakura and Shikamaru turned to him with questioning looks. "Think about it – if it was just Konoha forces, then it'd make sense. It'd be natural of Tsunade-sama to want every able-bodied shinobi at the front-lines. But it's not. There's an international alliance for a reason. And it's not as if Konoha's the only one with tracking squads, either. I know Kumo's kept training their Kinkaku Force, and Kiri is half as famous for its Swordsmen as it is for its hunter-nin squads."
"You think there's another reason why Tsunade-sama isn't sending any squads." Shikamaru breathed, making the connection a split-second before Sakura reached the same conclusion. His frown deepened. "Do you know if Mei's been made aware of Itachi's survival?"
"I…" Chojuro hesitated, looking as if he wasn't sure he wanted to answer that particular question. "…I don't think so." He looked relieved when, after a few seconds, Sakura and Shikamaru only looked thoughtful. "It makes me wonder whether… whether there weren't any, um, conditions to Uchiha-san's testimony against your Elder."
"Conditions, such as 'don't ask questions' or 'you leave me alone and I do the same to you'?" Shikamaru asked dryly, looking like he'd bitten into a lemon. "God, what a mess."
Sakura sympathised with that statement and nudged her foot against the Nara's in solidarity, offering him a wry smile when he met her eyes.
"Plausible deniability, Shika." She reminded him gently, then turned to Chojuro. "It's one thing to plan to disobey direct orders and go on an unauthorised mission in search of an ex-mass murderer to play twenty questions. It's another entirely to imply a kage is colluding and covering for said S-Ranked ex-mass murderer."
"That's rich, coming from you." Shikamaru snorted, and though his words were biting, his tone was anything but. "Don't think I didn't notice that you didn't deny the accusation that you were planning to run off in search of the Uchiha."
Sakura grinned, sharp and bitter. "Why would I deny the truth?" she asked rhetorically, then shrugged. "Besides, I've already been accused of being a traitor so many times for merely following orders, I might as well finally do something to deserve those accusations, hm?"
As if on cue, Shikamaru dissolved into helpless, hysterical laughter, while Chojuro snickered.
"You're crazy." Shikamaru observed once he calmed down enough to form coherent sentences, wiping a tear from his eye. "And we must be equally crazy because, hell, that explanation almost made sense."
Chojuro grinned. "There was no 'almost' for me." He denied cheerfully, looking like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, and Sakura took a moment to send a quick prayer of thanks to whoever was up there and listening for just being able to have this. For these boys being hers.
"God, we're really doing this, aren't we?" Shikamaru asked absently, running a hand over his face even as a few more incredulous chuckles escaped him. "I've never been more thankful for these." He admitted, tugging at the Kiri and Suna headbands around his neck.
"You kids need better hobbies, I swear."
Sakura froze.
It spoke to just how comfortable the three of them were when together that she didn't even hear the front door open or Genma come in. She didn't even have a rough estimate for how long he'd been standing there, watching and undoubtedly listening to their conversation.
To her credit, Shikamaru and Chojuro looked equally startled, so she didn't feel too guilty about having missed Genma's presence until he decided to announce it.
"You don't need to look so terrified." Her partner chuckled, dropping his bandana on the kitchen island and affecting an air of unruffled calm so fake Sakura winced. "I know trust takes a while to rebuild and I plan to take that time, but I'm not going to rat you out, kid."
Sakura breathed a sigh of relief and allowed herself to relax a little, slowly shifting from her lounging position and patting the spot on the sofa on her unoccupied side.
Genma smiled, pleased and equally relieved, and carefully made his way over, doing his level best to appear as non-threatening as possible to the other two, though Sakura knew that, at least for now, no amount of posturing was going to help.
Instead, she smiled, and, when Genma bumped his shoulder against hers when he finally settled down, she leaned into the touch for the briefest of moments.
"I know." She mumbled, turning so the words were just about audible to Genma but hopefully too quiet for the other two to hear. Then, louder, she added, "But I can't just bring you into this and expect you to be okay with it."
Genma sighed, fond and exasperated, and the sound was so familiar that the last of the tension she had been holding onto melted from Sakura's frame.
"I told you, kid. I'm with you. Now and always." He met her eyes, willing her to see the truth in his words, before adding, "What do you need?"
Sakura wracked her brain for ideas, suddenly at a loss, but Shikamaru had her back.
"Dad mentioned a secret Uchiha shrine where all their records on the Sharingan were stored." He began flatly, eyes narrowed on Genma without a single effort being made to appear less distrusting. "You wouldn't happen to know where Tsunade keeps the Sharingan set she removed from Sasuke, or somebody who'd be willing to get a new set of eyeballs?"
Sakura's brain stalled.
"The Sharingan she what?!" she demanded shrilly, unable to feel guilty even when both, Genma and Chojuro flinched at her volume.
Shikamaru smirked, sharp and vindictive. "The Uchiha's punishment. The biggest pain in the ass and the only thing that made him initially valuable is safely in the Village's possession. And I still think Tsunade was being too kind by giving the bastard replacement eyes."
Sakura tried in vain to process that particular bombshell, but Genma just rolled with the question, seemingly unruffled.
"I can't say I have anyone willing to do that." he admitted easily, and the glint of victory in Shikamaru's eyes shouldn't have been as touching as it was, damn it. "But I have something better. You see, my boyfriend happens to be an Uchiha." he announced cheerfully, and oh, Genma was very aware of Shikamaru's play and he was enjoying it. "Half-Uchiha, to be fair, but he does have his very own functioning set of the crazy-eyes, no theft necessary."
Sakura had never regretted not having a camera on hand more than she did in that moment, because Shikamaru's face would've been at home in an art gallery, he was so stumped.
"So, get Aoba, find the records, see if there's anything that could help us beat zombie-Obito." Genma summed up, turning to Sakura with a smile so warm and familiar she struggled to remember how she stayed away from it for so long. "That sound about right, kid?"
She managed a nod, then gave in and wrapped her arms around Genma's neck in a first real hug they'd shared since waking up after Pein, and for a moment, everything was perfect.
"Yeah." she agreed, and if her voice sounded wetter than it did a second ago, nobody commented on it. "That sounds about right for our level of crazy."
Genma reached up to ruffle her hair, at the same time as Chojuro's hand sought out her own and tangled their fingers, and Sakura lost the battle with the tears that had been threatening to fall, yet she couldn't fight off the blissful, grateful smile that pulled at her lips.
She'd never felt more loved than in that moment.
The next morning, the roles seemed to reverse, and Sakura was propping herself up against a tree outside the Village walls, shaking from laughter, her pack sliding off her back with the force of it, while Shikamaru and Chojuro looked torn between turning tail and bolting and fainting then and there.
Between them, standing at a good twenty feet and at least a fifth of that wide, with scales the colour of still lakes dipped in midnight skies and slitted, intelligent eyes, was Kiyohime, Aoda's daughter and Sakura's personal tracking summon, Sasuke's necklace dangling from a too-sharp canine.
"What..." Chojuro wheezed, paler than usual and appearing about two seconds away from a heart-attack.
"-the fuck, Sakura?!"
HOKAY!
so!
you all survived that absolute monster of a chapter, congrats!
firstly, let me say that if there are any inconsistencies/WTFmoments/stylistic errors, dont hesitate to lemme know!
secondly, i'm so proud to announce that there's a spin-off off my spin-off! for those who read the first chapter of 'wish fulfillment', there's now a story by Lolibat called 'Reforge to Glass' and it is FANTASTIC! go read it as soon as you recover from this and tell them what a great job they did!
thirdly: INNER SAKURA! i have see of fics which treat her as this kind of Casper-the-Friendly-Ghost IF they even address her existence at all, and lemme tell you, as someone whose two close friends have voices in their heads on the daily, that' good.
SO Inner in this will be treated as a manifestation of the Dissociative Identity Disorder (the old MPD) and it will not be nice and potentially a bit scary, and if u wanna hmu and rave about psychology and trying to science anime, pls do, i'm always down for that.
also, PSA - that bit where Genma's like "swapped night-terrors for BPD" is INCORRECT because BPD is not the same as DID and should not be confused, but it's there because he's only heard an abridged version of Sakura's Problem(TM) and has no bg in psychology and therefore wouldnt know the difference. TL;DR - the author is aware that BPD and DID are two very distinct disorders and doesnt mean to imply that they're interchangeable 3 (thanks Siseja for the gentle callout ;) )
FINALLY, i'm moving to madrid in a week! torn between excited and terrified so i wanted to get this out before the terrified wins over completely.
if any of yall are nearby feel free to holla yo girl cause imma need frens 3
my best to u all!