hello again!
i apologise for the considerably more sporadic updates as of recently, but placement year is hectic by nature, and i am currently studying at university in FRANCE, so that's been a crazy adventure.
WE'RE IN THE ENDGAME NOW! this is where the shit hits the industrial grade fan, and things are really happenin'!
realistically, i predict we've only got another three to four chapters of this story left before the end - the big fight, the clean-up, and the epilogue, and probably something in-between to tie it all together. i aim (though we all know how good i am with keeping to deadlines) to have everything finished on the fourth anniversary of this fic, which will be in May! whether that will be possible considering my schedule and RL, we have yet to see :)
as always, thank you for supporting this story of mine! i hope you enjoy this chapter, and let me know what you think!
Jiraiya stared out of the window of Orochimaru's 'office', reflecting on the journey that had led them to Oto.
Most would probably think that travelling with two jinchuuriki, two Sannin, the last Uchiha and three jounin-level shinobi would be easy and dignified. Unfortunately, the presence of his godson and the Uchiha's rivalry, the Hozuki, and the Raikage's rather eccentric brother made it more along the lines of a travelling circus than anything deserving being called 'dignified'.
Naruto had nattered on almost endlessly, as always unperturbed by the presence of strangers, and had jumped from topic to topic quicker than Jiraiya had used to jump from girl to girl back in his youth.
Orochimaru had been a silent shadow at the front of their ragtag group, occasionally conversing with the summon he sent to patrol ahead or answering the redhead's questions about the scrolls she'd received with surprising patience. The Hozuki was pestering Killer B and his guard about kenjutsu tips and asking for spars whenever they stopped for a rest, while the Uchiha just watched, quieter than even Orochimaru himself, and that didn't sit well with Jiraiya.
He didn't want to interrupt his godson, not when he had no idea when they would next be coming back to the Village and aware that he was probably ripping the boy away from any modicum of stability and familiarity he may have left, what with the brutal dissolution of his genin team, but then he heard one name come up at least a dozen times in the span of ten minutes, and he was curious.
"Kid, who is this Tenten you can't stop talking about?" he asked slyly, raising an eyebrow. "Finally found yourself a girlfriend?"
"I- what? No!" Naruto denied, flushing across the bridge of his nose, then stuck out his tongue. "Get your mind out of the gutter, Pervy Sage! Tenten-chan's a friend! She's helping me with the petition I wanna present to baa-chan as soon as we get back."
That had piqued Jiraiya's interest.
"Petition?"
"Yeah, about the treatment of non-Clan orphans! We don't think that it's fair that the only choice they have if they want to get out of the system is going to the Academy or becoming akasenko, especially not if we're in peace times. So eventually, we kinda wanna follow up what Shikamaru was trying to set up in the Academy and increase the graduation age altogether, but at the moment, we're focusing on making sure that non-Clan orphans are aware that they have other options."
Jiraiya had blinked, more than a little stupefied. The Uchiha, if he was reading the lines of his shoulders right, was fighting every instinct to not turn around and likely gawk, like the Hozuki was doing.
"And, uh, how did that interest come about?" Jiraiya had asked at last, brain whirring to catch up. He was sure it'd only been a couple of months since Tsunade had dressed Naruto down and told him to get his act together or wave any rank above genin good-bye, but he didn't think her words would be so effective.
"Well, after what baa-chan said," Naruto explained, proving Jiraiya's musings wrong, "I thought about how I could go about getting a promotion to chunin, then I ended up talking to Kiba and bushy-brows and they both said that Neji was further in getting to Hokage than I was, even if I did get a promotion? So I asked around and found out that there's this whole chain of people who would get the position after baa-chan steps down, including you and Kaka-sensei! And some Nara guy, and then Neji! But apparently, neither you nor Kakashi want it, and the Nara guy is the Jounin Commander, so it would fall to Neji! So I found Neji and we talked a lot and he told me what Hokage is all about – cause he got to shadow the Nara guy and Kaka-sensei when they were acting kages when baa-chan went to that Summit – and from what he said, I…don't think I wanna be Hokage anymore."
He'd said it so casually, so blasé, adding in a half-hearted shrug for good measure, but his usual grin wasn't quite as bright as it normally was, and Jiraiya could tell that even though Naruto must've already come to terms with the decision, it still hurt, deep down.
"How come?" Jiraiya had pressed, throat dry, not able to chase away the shadows of Minato and Kushina that were superimposed over his godson no matter how hard he blinked.
"Uh, cause Neji said that it's largely paperwork, and that the Hokage delegates for the most part, and isn't actually involved in a lot of the Village life, and as a result, a lot of things just…slip through? Like that Danzo guy!"
Naruto either didn't notice or didn't care that Orochimaru, the Uchiha, and Jiraiya himself all tensed at the mention of the late Elder, and merely continued talking.
"So he said that after he fixes the Hyuuga, he's gonna try and implement a proper welfare system in the Village, and he's already got some ideas for things to fix. Then he asked me if there was anything I thought could do with changing. I couldn't think of anything right away but then I went to talk with one of the Madames in the Flower District and she said that she always got the most new girls around spring!"
"You just…went and talked with a Madame?" Darui asked sharply, eyebrows raised in disbelief, and Naruto frowned, clearly not seeing the issue.
"Yeah? I basically grew up in the Akasen? The girls would let me sleep in the lounges or offer me their leftovers if I took out the trash or wiped the counters." He explained with a frown, then turned back to Jiraiya excitedly, missing the way Darui and Killer B's eyes widened.
"Anyway, I asked her why, and she said that the girls living in the orphanage who fail out of the Academy or don't pass their genin test or just don't want to be a shinobi also don't want to keep living at the orphanage, and since they don't really have many other options, they go to her."
"So that's what your petition is for? Giving orphans 'options'?"
"Well, among other things, but yeah. Tenten-chan actually moved out of the orphanage before she graduated the Academy because she got an apprenticeship with the smithy, but she wasn't able to afford her own place until her genin team started taking C-Ranks. Not everyone…not everyone gets that happy ending."
"So that's what I wanna do. I think Neji will be a good Hokage cause he suits the whole 'stuffy office-worker' side of it, but I wanna be with the people. So Tenten suggested an official liaison for the civilian populations to make sure their needs were heard and treated with equal importance as those of shinobi, and I think I like it. And it wouldn't require as much training and political manoeuvring as actual Hokage and I would still get to take missions and stuff!"
It had been an…eye-opener, certainly, for Jiraiya.
It seemed that, while he hadn't been looking, his godson had grown up, even if only a little.
Now, as he gazed out of Orochimaru's office window at the quiet, every-day bustle of the citizens of Otogakure taking place before him – so different from Konoha's, yet calming in a way he never would've expected something created by Orochimaru to be – he wondered whether his profession hadn't led him to becoming out of touch with those that mattered.
The Spymaster, out of touch.
He snorted at the irony.
Then, the door to the office burst open, slamming against the wall so hard that the handle left an imprint on the wall, and when Jiraiya startled, turning to face the intruder with a kunai already in his hand, he stilled at the sight of Orochimaru.
His old teammate looked frazzled.
A small brown snake was curled around his shoulders, a note in his hand, golden eyes wild.
"Obito's coming." He bit out, wrenching the door from the wall and slamming it behind him, brandishing a note at Jiraiya. "The brat wants my Edo Tensei so he can bring back Madara." Orochimaru hissed, his KI spiking. "As if I would give him my jutsu."
Before the Toad Sage could so much as comment, Orochimaru whirled on him. "When he comes, your priority is your godson and the Hachibi. Do not let them near Obito. And get the toads to evacuate my people. I'll send Sasuke to coordinate the evacuation."
Orochimaru hissed something then, and Jiraiya didn't need to understand what to know it wasn't complimentary. Using the Snake Sannin's moment of inattention, his hand darted out and grabbed the paper from the raven's loose hold, and his breath caught.
'Uchiha Obito confirmed leader of Akatsuki. Coming to Konoha for Zetsu then to you for Edo Tensei to raise real Madara. Have told senpai to kill Zetsu.
Itachi is coming to Oto for Sasuke. I trust you to protect the jinchuuriki.
Don't die.
-H.S.'
All in all, it was a fairly stark, informative message, but Jiraiya ignored the urgency of its contents for a minute, his eyes tracing over two particular phrases:
'I trust you to protect the jinchuuriki'
'Don't die'
It was not fond. It was far too impersonal for that, but… it was sent to Orochimaru.
People didn't trust Orochimaru. And they certainly weren't bothered by whether he lived or died. So despite the impersonal tone, Jiraiya couldn't help but feel like it was, in fact…personal.
When Orochimaru hissed again and snatched the paper from his grasp, folding it and tucking it…somewhere among the folds of his kimono, Jiraiya's suspicions that there was more than met the eye in the message were proven.
"Do you trust your source?" Jiraiya asked instead, when it seemed clear Orochimaru would rather hiss than converse. At that, the raven pinned him with a sharp glare and snarled;
"Of course."
And that, that was new.
And Jiraiya realised that, although he had been the most insistent on getting Danzo's seal off of his old teammate, he had continued to view Orochimaru through the lens of the atrocities he committed while under its influence. He never once sought to reconcile his idea of the man with the reality and now, well. Now might be his last chance to-
"Listen, Orochimaru. I'm- I'm sor-!"
"-I don't care for your words, fool!" Orochimaru snarled, and Jiraiya almost flinched. "I want your actions! Protect my people from Obito, and I will hold your debt repaid."
And he swept out of the office with the same force of a hurricane he'd burst in with.
And Jiraiya-
Jiraiya felt the first stirrings of hope.
Maybe the canyon that had formed between them could be mended yet.
Standing before Tsunade's desk, Sakura had to admit they made for a very bizarre group:
The last Senju, glaring at each of them in turn, even though majority of her ire is visibly focused on Sakura herself, the heir to the Nara Clan, one of the Swordsmen of the Mist, an S-Ranked kunoichi who'd co-led the Crush not a year ago, the Uchiha-genius-turned-S-Ranked-mass-murderer-turned-martyr, and her, a civilian-raised A-Ranked assassin.
All in all, Tsunade's anger upon their news was probably justified.
"Right." The woman in question finally spoke, rising from her seat, hands planted shoulder-width apart on her desk as she leant forward and pinned them all with a glare that made Sakura swallow. "Uchiha. You will go to Sound and make yourself useful there. While you're there, let Jiraiya know that as soon as he's done, he's got an appointment with my fists, and then the Council of Clans for withholding critical information. In that order."
Taking the dismissal for what it is, Itachi flickered out of the office and Tsunade's eyes shifted to Konan.
"Kunoichi. This alliance thanks you for your information, but know that if you're found to be deceitful, there will be nothing that anyone will be able to say or do to protect you from me. Are we understood?" at Konan's nod, she softened marginally. "I will have someone show you to the strategists responsible for the Ame front so your suggestions can be implemented. Lizard!" a Lizard-masked ANBU melted from the shadows of the office, taking a moment to kneel before Tsunade's desk before straightening, "You will receive temporary lodging and a guard. Don't exploit my kindness. Dismissed."
As one, the ANBU and Konan flickered away.
Tsunade's gaze finally fell on Sakura, Shikamaru, and Chojuro, and Sakura realised that it was effective in pinning her in place as Shikamaru's shadows.
"Why is it," Tsunade asked, her voice deceptively mild, "that whenever something happens, it's always you three?"
Sakura wracked her brain for an answer, but came up with nothing that wouldn't worsen their situation even more, so she stayed silent.
It seemed that Tsunade wasn't expecting an answer, though. "Haruno. When all this mess is over, we'll have a talk about your chronic disregard of authority and who the actual decision makers in the Village and this alliance are. I've let your behaviour, same as I have with Hatake's tardiness, slide for too long. That will change. But for now, there are more pressing matters at hand."
Tsunade took a deep breath, and when her eyes next met Sakura's, some of that steel had melted away, replaced instead with an undercurrent of sympathy.
"Obito attacked T&I."
Sakura froze.
"He was too late to get to Zetsu, but Anko's in the hospital, and Ibiki-!"
But Sakura was no longer there.
Back in the office, Tsunade scowled at Haruno's hasty exit, even as she regarded the remaining two members of the girl's menagerie.
"Nara." She called, and the teen snapped to attention, gaze leaving the window his girlfriend had just flung herself from. "Half your Clan is in the Strategy Division, the other on the Ame border. You, however, are going to get the rest of your genin team, Yuuhi's team, and Maito's team, and you're going to pursue Obito. We got his scent from- from Ibiki."
She saw the moment he understood what she meant, and the expression he wore became hesitant. Cautious.
"I…may I ask something, Tsunade-sama?" he inquired, far more polite than his partner tended to be, the Swordsman a quiet shadow at his side.
Tsunade waved him on.
"More than half of the proposed team will be composed of future Clan Heads. Are you sure it's…wise?"
Tsunade sighed. "I am aware." She replied matter-of-factly, raising a green-glowing hand to rub at her forming headache. "Which is why I hadn't sent them out with the initial deployment to Ame. But there's little between here and Oto that could slow Obito, and I don't think I need to stress to you how disastrous it would be if he succeeded in taking Naruto and Killer B. I need trackers and a containment squad, and it just so happens that you're it."
"You want us to delay him." Shikamaru concluded, voice sans inflection even as the Swordsman reached out and grabbed his hand in a show of silent support.
"Eliminating him would be ideal, but I'll take what I can get." Tsunade confessed, watching as Mei's kid mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like 'cannon fodder', squeezing the Nara's hand when the comment made his lip curl down in distaste.
"You have three hours to rest and gather your team." She instructed, getting a nod in return. "Oh, and Nara?"
Shikamaru paused, turning around to look at her, expression carefully neutral, and Tsunade allowed her earlier ire to melt away. Some of her heartbreak at the Jiraiya situation must've also shown on her face, because the teen's mask of apathy melted into sympathy and understanding.
"Good luck."
Sakura had darted out of the open window, aware that she hadn't received the proper dismissal yet but uncaring at that point, and made a beeline for the hospital, senses on high alert for Anko's signature.
What she found was…not reassuring.
She couldn't locate Anko's signature in her first two sweeps of the hospital and when she did, she gasped.
It was so…small. Diminished. Not like she was intentionally keeping it constrained but like it had been depleted and was still recovering.
She scaled the building and crawled into Anko's room through the window, and what she saw made her freeze.
Every inch of Anko's skin was covered in thick bandages, the visible parts of her face – mouth, nose, eyes – showed viciously-pink wounds, sloughing skin and scattered pus-filled blisters consistent with second-degree burns.
"Senpai…" Sakura whispered brokenly, and Anko's eyes slowly slid open, though it was clear the action wasn't easy.
"K…kid?" Anko mumbled as Sakura made her way into the room on stiff legs, eyes intent on the clipboard at the end of Anko's bed.
75% of body covered in second and third-degree burns
Chakra depletion
Crushed metacarpals of right hand; shattered phalanges
Damaged chakra network 3rd through to 7th Gate
"Senpai," Sakura half-sobbed, throat clogging with unshed tears as she stumbled over to Anko's bedside, falling into the chair beside her and shifting so she remained in the woman's eye-line, "senpai, what happened?"
"Obito…happened." Anko rasped, and Sakura quickly reached for the water on the bedside table and brought a glass to Anko's lips. "I got your…message. Killed Zetsu. Uchiha…wasn't happy."
Sakura gave in to the tears that threatened to fall, only half paying attention to Inner's quiet pledges of vengeance.
"I'm sorry." She breathed, resting her forehead against the mattress of Anko's hospital bed. "I'm so, so sorry."
"They say I…probably won't be a s-shinobi again." Anko mumbled, eyes sliding closed, expression pinched despite the pain the action undoubtedly caused her as it pulled at the tender skin of her burned face. "But I s-still got the…the better d-deal."
Sakura was startled when tears began to leak out from Anko's closed eyes, and her senpai's next inhale caught on a sob.
"Anko?!" she asked, alarmed, sitting up and blinking through her tears.
Anko's eye cracked open, and when their eyes met, Sakura's heart stopped at the sheer grief she found in the other woman's gaze.
"Ibiki, he…"
No.
"He d-didn't-!" another hitched breath, more tears.
No, no, no.
"He didn't make it."
Sakura's vision swam, her ears were ringing, and she lost the battle against the tears.
Once she came back to herself, it took her a while to realise that the desperate, heaving breaths she could hear were coming from her.
Inner was momentarily quiet.
And then she raged.
Their mental voices overlapped; NO!
When Sakura next became aware of her surroundings, she'd curled up along Anko's side of the bed, carefully not touching the other kunoichi beyond their clasped hands, and her head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton, her eyes red and puffy.
She didn't know how much time she had lost. The bandages on Anko's face were still damp with tears, though the kunoichi seemed to be asleep.
Anko would likely never be a ninja again.
Anko would never be a ninja again, but Ibiki was dead.
No more proud smirks, no more double-teaming on Anko, no more gruffly-amused scoldings, no more silent shows of support or piggy-back rides after spars while Anko complained of favouritism.
Ibiki along with Anko had shaped her career down in T&I. They were uniquely responsible for her being able to pursue the assassin's path and stick with it when even the notion of being able to keep Genma safe wasn't enough to keep her going.
T&I had been her safe-haven, as ironic as that sounded.
Ibiki and Anko were some of the few unshakeable pillars supporting her in this life.
And now, one of those pillars had crumbled to dust.
Sakura shuffled closer, pressed her face into the space between Anko's shoulder and neck, and cried herself to sleep.
When Sakura next awoke, she felt wrung out and in dire need of a shower, but more rested than she'd been in days.
Anko would never be a ninja again. Ibiki is dead. Anko. Ibiki. Deaddeaddead-!
Inner took hold of the mantra and pushed it aside, then soothed her frayed nerves and pressed only one thought into her mind:
Genma.
Find Genma.
She would not give Obito the satisfaction of taking another of her precious people away from her.
Whatever conflict she thought justified staying away, whatever grudge she thought she still harboured – Inner made them all inconsequential in light of her resolve. She was Genma's tailor-made partner. She'd trained for so many years to be able to fight alongside him, to keep him safe.
So that's what she would do.
Sakura was freshly showered, fed, and half-way through packing, sealing and resealing supplies, clothes, rations, and spare weapons, when the front door to her house opened and Shikamaru and Chojuro came through.
"Sakura?" Chojuro called curiously, and she poked her head out of her bedroom to where they were standing in the living room, meeting confused grey eyes as he and Shikamaru took in the mess in her house. "What's happening?"
"I'm leaving." Sakura replied curtly as she finished sealing a spare tent into her hammerspace seal and stepped out into the living room, only to be comforted with Shikamaru's incredulous expression.
"What do you mean you're leaving?" he asked in disbelief, and Inner swiftly wiped away the flash of guilt that hit her upon hearing the betrayal in his tone.
"I'm going to Genma." She explained, passing by the boys to grab her navy jinbaori from where she'd tossed it onto the sofa. "I need to be with him."
"Why?" Shikamaru demanded, and this time, the disbelief was joined by more than a fair share of hurt.
Sakura blinked, Inner refusing to be swayed even in the face of her boyfriend's obvious confusion.
"What do you mean why?" she shot back, finally turning to look Shikamaru and Chojuro in the eye.
"A fortnight ago you could barely look at him. Now you're throwing away everything to chase after him? I thought that was Naruto's gig not yours."
Sakura reeled back as if he'd slapped her, Inner's control over their emotions wavering in the face of her shock, and Sakura felt the tears she'd been holing back spring to her eyes.
Then, Inner recovered and roiled beneath her words when she next spoke.
"I just lost a mentor." She hissed, even as the tears that had gathered in her eyes spilled over. "This is the second time Anko is in the hospital because of an Uchiha. I'm not letting Obito get three out of three and take out my partner too!"
"So you're scared." Shikamaru summed up flatly, and Sakura wondered what had prompted this sharpness. "You saw the pre-emptive attack and you're running instead of regrouping and coming up with a new plan of attack."
"I am regrouping!" she snapped back, wiping angrily at her tears. "I'm going to my partner, the person I fight best with because, kami above, Shikamaru, we're going to war. I'm an assassin, you're capture and interrogation and Chojuro is frontal assault. You're the strategist - does this unit make sense?!"
"This unit committed treason with you, and that didn't make sense either, but-!"
"I never asked you to!" her outburst seemed to have caught Shikamaru and Chojuro off-guard, and she sniffed, wiping away the tears that refused to stop now that Inner wasn't holding her emotions in check anymore and was instead oddly quiet in the back of her mind.
"Ibiki is-was my Asuma, Shikamaru." She confided quietly. "He was supposed to be untouchable."
Something like shock and guilt flashed through Shikamaru's eyes before it was hastily wiped away. "You never said."
"Because you never asked. I'm not one to boast of what I do in T&I. But Ibiki had a comparable hand in shaping the shinobi I am today to Genma or Anko. This is not a- a loss I can push aside or compartmentalise. I need someone to catch me, and I need time, and that's in shortest supply right now."
"So you're running away?" Shikamaru asked, and Sakura bit back a sob as she shook her head.
"I'm running to what I know." She denied. "And right now, all I know is how to be Genma's partner. I'm... I'm sorry. And…please be careful."
And then, with tears streaming down her cheeks and Inner conspicuously absent, Sakura reached for the trace of chakra she was never without, wrapped her own around it, and pulled.
Back at the house, Shikamaru swore tiredly before falling onto the sofa, hands coming up to scrub at his face.
"I think you may have been more convincing than you'd intended." Chojuro murmured as he settled beside him, hand going to the nape of his neck and rubbing at the tense muscles there.
"Probably." Shikamaru mumbled, dropping his hands and leaning back into the gentle touch. "When this is over, I'll explain everything. Now though, I couldn't risk her staying in the Village, or going by the Main Gates."
"Because of your assignment?" Chojuro asked, understanding and sympathy in his voice, and Shikamaru turned his head and offered the teen a small smile.
"Yeah. Imagine what Sakura would do if she found out I'm part of the Obito pursuit squad and she's not on the team." He replied, grabbing Chojuro's other hand and pulling it into his lap, absently playing with his bandaged fingers.
"She'd put herself on the team." Chojuro shot back, a hint of humour in the curl of his lip despite the tense atmosphere left behind by the confrontation.
"Exactly." Shikamaru agreed with an explosive sigh, giving up on the massage and shuffling so he could curl into Chojuro's side, the latter shifting to accommodate the change in position. "And Tsunade knows that, and for all Sakura's been lucky the last few battles she's been in, she's not a combat-nin. She's an assassin, used to picking the place and time of her attack, but most of all, she's a genjutsu mistress. Sending her against a Sharingan user would be a waste of time and resources, but with Shiranui, she'll be formidable."
"What did she call herself once?" Chojuro mused absently, arms coming to wrap around the teen more or less in his lap. "His 'tailor-made partner'?"
"Mmhm." Shikamaru hummed, eyes slipping shut as he finally allowed himself to relax. "And it took me seeing them fight together exactly once to understand just how correct that assessment was. So I'll take her being mad at me if it maximises her chances of survival, even though I feel like an absolute dick for taking advantage of her grief like that."
"You knew she'd go to Shiranui?"
"With Ibiki…gone, and Anko in the hospital, it was obvious she'd get scared for him. And it's not like she's ever cared about orders before. I just had to make sure she wouldn't stop and question that immediate reaction to go to him, or think to ask us what we're going to do. It…won't be pretty to explain, but that's all I've got." He shrugged, the movement odd considering that he was all but cuddled into Chojuro, back to the swordsman's chest, but Chojuro just tightened his arms and hummed, contemplative.
"How are you feeling, though?"
"Do you want the honest answer or the more palatable one?" Shikamaru asked rhetorically, but Chojuro raised a hand and flicked his ear, ignoring his indignant 'hey!'.
"Honest, always."
"I hate this." Shikamaru sighed, turning to bury his face in the bluenette's neck, shifting only slightly to make sure that his mouth wasn't covered when he continued. "I hate the war, I hate how rushed everything feels, how poorly thought out. There's no decisive leader of the Alliance, and though the common goal just about manages to make the kage tolerate each other, it's not enough to unite the disparate ideologies. We're all just pawns being shuffled about until we're caught or new information comes in."
Chojuro hums again, the vibrations tickling Shikamaru's nose, and, reading between the lines, asked;
"You think the kage summit was called too soon?"
"I don't know." Shikamaru confessed. "But I think it was called with the wrong focus. For all that I was glad to go and see you, and learn first-hand what was being planned, I don't think Tsunade-sama should've taken me and Sakura as her guards, even if it was more for posturing than anything else."
Showing just how attuned they'd become to each other's thought processes, Chojuro guessed; "You're worried about the jinchuuriki situation." And Shikamaru could do little but nod.
"Of course I am. It's like Konan said, isn't it? If Obito gets to Naruto before we get to him, or if Orochimaru decides he values survival over public opinion, if the Ame front proves too demanding, if any of the kage decide that, actually, they'd rather play it solo, or if whatever tricks Naruto learnt under Jiraiya aren't enough to keep him out of trouble…well. This will be one of the quickest wars in our history."
The hand that had had flicked his ear falls to his hair, pulling out the hair tie and carding through the strands in a soothing motion.
"You can't shoulder all that worry, Shikamaru."
Shikamaru snorted, but Chojuro wasn't done.
"No, genuinely. Use this genius brain of yours and think. You're on the Obito pursuit squad. Your genin team is uniquely suited to capture and interrogation, and you're going with, to my understanding, the best tracking team imaginable. Itachi-san is going to Oto to protect his brother from their clansman, Konan-san is helping adjust the Ame-front to best weather the attacks, and Sakura and Shiranui-san are basically a wet-works squad, despite being a partnership of two. What more would you do? What more is there to do?"
"So you're calling me an idiot for worrying?" Shikamaru teased, but when he had it laid out like Chojuro had just done, he couldn't help but think the teen may have been onto something.
"I'm calling you an idiot for fretting about things out of your control." Chojuro corrected gently. "Prepare for your mission, execute it to the best of your ability, but other than that, there will be little more for you to do. Don't let yourself become distracted by stressing about things you can't influence. I'd like you to come back to me in one piece, you know. I'm sure Sakura shares that sentiment, despite the manner of your parting."
"Mmhm. When did you get so wise?" Shikamaru asked, only half-joking.
"Someone had to be the responsible one in this relationship." Chojuro teased back, then unwound his arms from around the brunet and patted his back. "Now, come on. I'll walk you to the Gates."
Shikamaru twisted in his hold and snuck in a last, languid kiss, then obligingly rose to his feet.
"Thanks, Cho."
"Always."
Sakura landed in the middle of pandemonium.
Blinking through the tears still clouding her vision, her eyes sought out the Kiri, Suna, Kumo and Konoha headbands, and flickered through the identities of the enemy; from the looks of those already fallen, they were either Ame shinobi, missing-nin, or hired mercenaries.
Her eyes found Genma only seconds after her chakra had located him, and she smiled, even as her vision blurred with tears again.
Still, emotionally wrung-out, grieving, and exhausted or no, she was still a jounin-level kunoichi. She blocked a stray kunai headed for her almost mechanically and smashed an elbow into the skull of an enemy-nin fighting a vaguely familiar Kiri shinobi hard enough that she felt it crack under her elbow.
The Kiri-nin nodded at her, then nimble fingers reached for a small dagger in his belt and sent it flying, straight into the eye of another enemy-nin that would've taken out Sakura's liver with his katana in another three seconds. She barely had time to nod and crunch a soldier pill before they were both swept away from each other and to new enemies, and Sakura could ignore the despair weighing down on her as she fell into a rhythm.
Catch opponent in an illusion. Take advantage of inattention. Stab. Repeat.
Illusion-stab-repeat.
Illusion-stab-repeat.
Routine. Mindless. Comforting, in a macabre way.
When she zoned back in – and when had she zoned out? – her daito was stained to the hilt with blood, her clothing and face were splattered with arterial spray, and she could honestly not say how many had fallen on her blade.
All she knew was that the wave of Ame shinobi had been reduced to under two dozen, while of Genma's batallion, a little over fifteen remained.
Under two dozen was well within her ability, however, and she flared her chakra, catching how Genma's head snapped to her out of the corner of her eye, and then she was snaring the remaining Ame-nin in the modified Bringer-of-Darkness technique.
As one, they fell still, looking around, disoriented, and she wasn't the only one to flash between their ranks and start decimating; Genma and Kakashi were there too.
In a matter of seconds, no Ame-nin nor associated mercenaries were left standing.
It was only then that Sakura allowed the blankness of battle-calm to fall away. She sought out Genma, met his wide eyes with her own teary ones, and between one breath and the next, she was being swept into the brunet's arms and burying her face in his flak jacket, not caring for the blood that stained it.
There, she let go.
Kakashi had not expected find Sakura on the battlefield, but even he could not contest the effectiveness of a genjutsu mistress on their side.
Some other members of the Alliance apparently weren't quite so open-minded, however.
"What the hell," an unknown shinobi from Kumo demanded, voice rough, eyes flickering over the twenty-odd shinobi three of them had slain in a manner of seconds, "was that?!"
"That was the product of a genjutsu master." A Kiri-nin explained, shooting a glance at where Sakura is still clinging desperately to Genma, face hidden in his jacket. "Or mistress, in this case."
"The pink kid?" the Kumo-nin asked, eyebrows shooting up as he took in the white-knuckled grip Sakura still had on Genma's flak-jacket. "And she couldn't have done that from the start?"
Sakura seemed to shake herself off at that, though she hadn't made a single indication that she could hear the discussion up until that point, and she turned in Genma's loose embrace and inclined her head in an apologetic bow.
"My apologies," she murmured, voice wet with tears, face pink and splotchy, "I didn't know everyone's chakra, so I didn't want to try something and risk accidentally catching friendlies."
The Kumo-nin seemed placated by that and subsided, turning to Kakashi with a huff. "Orders, Commander Hatake?"
"Ask the Iwa-nin or anyone with Doton ability to bury them." He indicated the fallen with a tilt of his head. "Then set up camp around the new frontlines. We have gained some ground. Make use of it."
When the Kumo-nin nodded and moved to obey while the rest set about setting up camp or separating the dead from the wounded, Kakashi moved closer to Sakura and Genma, eyebrow raised in question when the brunet met his gaze.
"Sakura?" he asked carefully, unused to his only female student's teats. "What happened?"
The rosette looked up at him through blood-shot eyes and sighed, sympathy appearing momentarily on her face before the grief took over again.
"Obito attacked T&I." She told him, voice wet with tears. "Senpai is in the hospital, and Ibiki-" a sob cut her off, her breath shuddering on the inhale, "-Ibiki's dead."
Kakashi winced.
While he hadn't had that many dealings with the Head of T&I, the man had always been larger than life, had survived things most others would've crumbled under and come out on top. Not to mention that, with Ibiki gone and Anko indisposed, Sakura's presence on the Ame front made a lot more sense all of a sudden.
"I'm sorry, Sakura." He offered, and she nodded, wiping away the tears. Then, because he couldn't not ask, he added, "Did you get orders to come out here?"
Sakura snorted wetly.
"No. But I had to make sure Genma was alright. And, well." she shot him a weak attempt at a wry smile, but at least she'd stopped crying. "You were the one who said I'd land on a wet-works squad with the skills I was cultivating. And what better place to put those skills to use than on the frontlines, with my partner?"
There was something fundamentally wrong with her thought-process, but all Kakashi could do was nod in acquiesce.
"In that case, glad to have you."
She shot him her truest smile in five years for his efforts.
They followed the trail Kiba had picked up from a scrap of fabric they'd recovered from Ibiki all the way to the Valley of the End, and the irony wasn't lost on Shikamaru.
But what they found there was not Obito, oh no. They found someone somehow worse.
Hoshigaki Kisame awaited them on the river than ran between the statues of Uchiha Madara and honourable Hashirama-sama, and he seemed very determined to not them past.
"Sorry, kiddos." He'd greeted them, filed teeth sharp when he grinned, Akatsuki cloak nowhere in sight even as he brandished Samehada in a clear 'come no closer'. "But you'll go no further."
Shikamaru was determinedly not looking at where Chouji lay crumpled at the banks of the river, when they'd tried to test Hoshigaki's commitment to his words. For someone of his stature, he could sure move fast, and the hit he'd delivered to Chouji when the teen had been performing the Human Bullet technique had been enough to knock the Akimichi out cold.
Or, at the very least, Shikamaru hoped Chouji was only knocked out.
Glaring at Hoshigaki's smirk that refused to fade, he sighed.
What a drag…
Sakura had been on the frontlines for barely a day, had fought three waves of increasingly more desperate Ame-nin and assorted hired muscle, but those twenty four hours had been enough to convince the non-Konoha contingent of the Alliance why a combat-specialising genjutsu master was so rare.
Some of the Iwa-nin still refused to meet her eyes.
But that was fine. The blood on her hands had long since stopped fazing her. Nobody was keeping track of their body-count, so it wasn't like her numbers in the Bingo Books would increase.
By being on the frontlines, she could keep Genma safe, could make sure Kakashi wasn't exhausting himself with his Sharingan, and she was doing what she had trained years to be able to do.
She was useful.
She was a trusted teammate.
She was making a difference.
And then, in the brief period of downtime after the third assault-wave, she felt an odd tingling in her chakra, then a sleek purple snake she didn't recognise appeared from a cloud of smoke and stopped before her.
Its jaw dropped open, but the voice that came from its throat was distinctly Orochimaru's.
Jiraiya has fallen. Sasuke is dead. Otogakure calls for aid. Come.
She was reaching for her hiraishin before the message was even finished, her heart in her throat.
She landed in chaos.
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