Sakura sat down on the foyer of the Senju house to put on her boots and blew a piece of her hair away from her face as it fell from its usual tight braid. It had been almost a year ago that Ino had first put it there before the ambush and every day since, Sakura had religiously put it back up when getting ready for the day.
It had become a ritual of sorts, almost like tracing the characters on the memorial stone with her eyes. Her hair would stay up in that braid and grow long until she had enough skills to back it up. Only then she would let it down.
With a last check to make sure she had all her weapons in place, she left the house through the side entrance that led into the Hokage Tower. The place was buzzling this time of day, with plenty of influx of ninja getting back from their missions before sundown but no one paid her any particular attention as she walked the hallways.
These walls had become like a second home for Sakura over the course of the last six months. The day after that training session where Tsunade had asked her opinion on the Medical Program, during breakfast, her shishou had implied that she would appreciate an extra hand at the office. At first Sakura was reluctantly compliant, following through Tsunade's barely veiled order only because she was her Hokage, but after a while, working at the office had proven to be a good way to keep her mind sharp.
After the disaster that working at the hospital had turned out to be, Tsunade hadn't really pressured Sakura on taking any kind of formal shifts at the office, only calling for her when necessary. Most of the time, it was Sakura who volunteered to be next to her shishou, be it to help sign paperwork, assign the fitting shinobi for a certain mission or just simply work on her own studies beside her.
It was always great to have her shishou by her side when she was testing out a particularly tricky genjutsu.
Sakura could say she spent a lot of her time inside those walls, even as she kept an intense training regime and took many missions outside the village. Just because she was working against the clock on improving herself, didn't mean the village wasn't still in a short supply of available ninja.
Gradually, over the weeks and months that Tsunade had taken up the Hokage mantle, their living room had become a second office of sorts, paperwork strewn across the coffee table and all sorts of scrolls pilled up around it. During the night, Sakura had taken the habit of sitting with her shishou around the low table to either study or help her finish her work while her clone went outside to see how far she could stretch her limits.
Sakura had found herself knowing more about her village and the intricacies of it than she ever hoped for. She'd already known a lot about the trades done in Konoha on the civilian side because of her training as a Haruno but working with Tsunade had shown her so much more. She'd learned about which treaties were made and dissolved and how to navigate around shinobi politics but perhaps the most important thing she'd learned so far was how Konoha's past wasn't as squeaky clean as she'd pegged it to be.
Having access to basically everything the Hokage did wasn't always a blessing and it was hard to come to terms with the fact that Konoha had some very shady shadows in its past, especially with how much of that shadiness had involved the elders in some way.
Sakura had come to hate Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu for a lot of reasons. At first, she was just mildly annoyed with them for all the disapproving glances they sent her way whenever Tsunade asked her to stay behind for a meeting with them but it was more than that. The Council claimed to be there to ensure the Hokage made the right decisions concerning the village but it was extremely counterproductive to have two people who hadn't known field work for over three decades to stand against the Hokage at every turn.
They seemed to hate Tsunade, often implying how young and inadequate she was for the role and contradicting her on almost everything. Once, Sakura had even seen them belittle her in front of some of the daimyo's correspondent. She had no idea why they had suggested her for the post if they wouldn't stand by her.
Perhaps the thing that made her the most apprehensive about Konoha and the Council, however, was Shimura Danzou. She knew the elder had gone behind the Sandaime's back and had been forcibly removed from the Council about a decade ago for his efforts, but the man always seemed to be just around the corner, giving his input to the Council who, to Sakura's disbelief, sometimes agreed with him. She thought that claiming he was an elder wasn't reason enough not to have put him in jail for going against the Hokage.
But even if they didn't always see eye to eye, all three of them seemed to agree that Sakura shouldn't be Tsunade's apprentice. They always had something to say about her. Sometimes it was that she was too young for Tsunade to share so much of her work with and that she should be taking more missions instead of learning the ropes of the Tower. Other times it was that she was too inexperienced and lacking to be groomed as the Senju heir. It didn't matter what she did, they were always complaining about her and she knew it was because she was civilian borne.
Sakura frowned a bit at herself for having let her mood deter because of her thoughts. There was absolutely nothing she could do about the elders but play her carefully crafted game of deafness and polite smiles that her political training had provided and Inner made possible. It was no use dwelling on them any longer, she had a date with Ino and she couldn't be late.
Sakura stopped on her tracks.
She knew it would happen before it did. Had felt the electric whiteness of his chakra the moment he entered the building. Still, it kind of felt like a punch to the gut to see Kakashi's white mop of hair over the top of the other ninja's heads. Just the sight of him, orange book held in front of his face and one hand buried deep into a pocket, was enough to send a torrent of emotions through her system.
Lately, it was safe to say that emotions weren't something Sakura had had any pleasure in dealing with. To push herself harder like she'd been doing, there had to be little space for any kind of feeling but determination and focus. The thing was, this wasn't how Sakura worked.
She'd always been very emotional and the frustration she'd been feeling over the past few months at herself had only kept growing every time she threw up after a particularly vicious mission or woke up in a fit of nightmares or even when she cried because of a sudden flashback during the night.
The same confusing mix of sadness, frustration and anger went through her when she saw Kakashi and she almost pretended not to have seen him and continued on her way, but… Next week would be the anniversary of Naruto leaving the village.
It didn't matter that she was angry at herself at feeling so nostalgic or sad. It didn't matter that she was supposed to have heeded the man's subtle tells and gotten rid of any sentimentality involving Hatake Kakashi. It didn't matter that she thought he was a fucking idiot to just walk around the village without ever acknowledging her. None of it mattered because Kakashi had been team 7 at the end of the day.
"Kakashi-san!" She turned around to call him when he passed her by before she could overthink it.
Sakura saw him hesitate in turning around. She was sure many wouldn't have noticed it, the tiniest of hesitation between one step and the other before he stopped and turned his head and torso slightly to look at her.
"Yo." His eyes closed in a smile hidden by his mask.
The sight of it rankled on Sakura's anger but she pushed it down and forced herself to step closer to him so that she could talk without attracting the attention of the other ninja. He still didn't turn to look at her.
"It's been almost a year since Naruto left Konoha." Sakura knew he was the type to play in subterfuge and double meaning words but she couldn't care less. During missions it had become easy to analyse the way a target worked and adapt her approach accordingly but for the life of her, Sakura couldn't bring that training to deal with him at that moment. For a second, he was Kakashi-sensei and she was twelve once again and for some reason, she couldn't remember how to be the calculating chunin she'd become in the past year.
"Ah, really?" Kakashi scratched at his covered cheek and turned towards her.
If one looked, they would think the two of them were having a friendly conversation now that he had turned to look at her, but Sakura knew better. He still had his book out and was hiding behind his smiles and carefree tone but his feet had spread just a hairsbreadth more than usual for a man his size, like he was strengthening his base to defend himself. Or to bolt.
"Yes, really," Sakura managed to say with the barest hint of sarcasm to her voice. "Do you want to meet up at Ichiraku sometime?"
"Maa." Kakashi's eyes strained more around the corners as he kept up the infuriating smile of his. "I'm on my way to a debriefing for a mission that doesn't really have an estimated length, unfortunately. Maybe when I get back?"
With that, he turned to walk away from her.
Sakura stared at his back feeling at once angry and sad. She couldn't contain the roll of emotion on her stomach so intense it made her sick. She hated him then. Truly loathed him and the last nostalgic image of Kakashi-sensei she had went up in flames by how hurt she felt.
"Ah, by the way." He turned his head back to look at her. "Congrats on your medical training. Ja." He raised a hand in goodbye but Sakura wasn't looking anymore.
With a determined tilt to her chin, she swallowed until her stomach settled, turned on one leg and left the tower without glancing back.
With a little help from Inner, she locked away all the hurt and sadness and anger into a tiny box she had on the back of her mind and continued on her way to meet Ino. The blonde had practically forced Sakura into agreeing to go out with her today, something about not seeing each other for the past month.
Sakura couldn't help it, though. Her training was taking up so much of her time that she barely had enough hours in the day to rest let alone have a social life. Her meetings with Lee and Tenten had also cooled down to practically twice a month now that they all had turned chunin and had missions outside of the village with Team Guy more often. Sakura had remained close to them both but she didn't have much space in her life for anything other than training partners. Training partners who happened to be her friends, sure, but their interactions had been restricted to the training grounds.
Ino appeared to be the exception.
She had forced her way into Sakura's life over and over again during the course of the year, making sure she didn't bury herself completely in her training. Ino dragged her off for lunch when Sakura had skipped it because of how concentrated she was on her chakra, prattling off about who was dating who and how scandalous it was because he was twenty years older than her.
She stopped by to paint Sakura's nails dark red like her shishou's and watch a corny chick flick when Sakura had planned to work in the Senju training grounds until she collapsed, or she declared Sakura's day off and forced her to head to the salon to get her double ends taken care of.
Once, after a particular mission that had taken Sakura a couple of weeks to complete, Ino had knocked on her door, entered without saying a word and proceeded to make her dinner. Ino had always been better at cooking than Sakura—it really wasn't that hard, to be honest—and she didn't have the heart to complain because Tsunade surely wouldn't be back from the office anytime soon and she needed something to keep her from spiralling down the darkness that had taken place inside of her.
Needless to say, that had been a hard mission. Sakura and another girl had been the only ones to make it back home.
Now, Ino sat waiting impatiently at the street tables of a new teahouse near the Yamanaka's flower shop. It was a little too close to the civilian market for Sakura's comfort, but it had been over a month since she'd seen her best friend and she had missed her. So Sakura powered through any fear of running into her parents and made her way towards the table.
"I thought you'd never get here." Ino crossed her arms petulantly and pouted at Sakura. "You're fifteen minutes late, you know?"
"I know, I'm sorry." Sakura shrugged. "I had a run in with someone on the way here."
Ino narrowed her eyes at her and Sakura fought a frown. Having a Yamanaka's pupilless eyes analysing you like that was unnerving, even after all the years Sakura had been Ino's friends.
"It was Kakashi-sensei, wasn't it?"
Sakura's eyes widened.
"How the fuck did you figure it out?" Sakura exhaled a small huff of amusement and shook her head.
"What did he do now?" Ino demanded, not answering her question. Sakura had no idea how she figured it out so fast, but didn't find it as surprising as she should. Ino always had a sixth sense for things like that and Sakura didn't question her on that anymore.
"Nothing," Sakura sighed. "He didn't do anything."
"Ah, I get it now." Sakura had no doubt that she did get the full scope of the situation with just those short words. "It's really no surprise, Sakura-chan. That man has some serious emotional issues. No one stays in Anbu as long as he did and comes out of it without some baggage."
"How long did he stay in Anbu?" Sakura asked after they ordered. "And just how do you know that?"
"About ten years," Ino said. Sakura merely raised an eyebrow at her and a sheepish look crossed her face. "I overheard Daddy talking to Shikaku-ojisan once."
Sakura nodded pensively. If Kakashi had stayed in Anbu for that long then a lot of things made much more sense. His habit of emotionally distancing himself from everyone around him, hiding like he did today behind cheery smiles and a bright book was suddenly clear to her.
Sakura had always wondered what happened to his team. Usually, the jounin in the village still kept in touch with their genin team but the closest things to a friend that she ever saw interacting with Kakashi had been Guy-sensei. Kurenai-sensei and Asuma-sensei had been present when she went to find him at the tea house one afternoon after waiting hours for him to show up to train them but even then, he had looked distant.
The only possible explanation for his team not being around was that they were… gone, and just the thought of that made her chest constrict painfully. The hours she spent thinking her best friend was dead were probably the worst in her life, she couldn't imagine what he was feeling.
The realisation that Kakashi had lost not one team but two made her want to cry. It was stupid to feel so compassionate about him when he barely took the time to notice she wasn't even in the Medical Program anymore but Sakura thought she understood him a little better now. When you had lost people like that, pushing others away seemed like a safe choice. She got that and couldn't really resent him for it.
A bit of the anger she'd felt for him was chipped away by the thought that maybe he was suffering just as much as her but, ultimately, it made no difference.
Sakura was done reaching out to someone who didn't want her company, be it Kakashi or Sasuke-kun. She had her own problems to deal with now and no space in her life for anyone else's bullshit. Even if they were justified.
"He's back in Anbu," Sakura murmured, the tiniest bit of worry lodging itself on her chest. "Or at least semi-reinstated. Most of his missions nowadays are solo S-Ranks but sometimes he gets assigned a few from Anbu or with a group of other jounin. To boost morale or something."
"I'm guessing having the famous Copy Nin on your team can make you feel invincible, right?" Ino shrugged. "He's famous around the village, it makes sense."
Sakura sighed and nodded. This train of thought left her feeling a bit depressed, the worry she felt for the man seemed somewhat unjustified in her head. They had absolutely nothing to do with one another anymore, she shouldn't feel worried about him because it wasn't any of her business anymore. And that was just fine with her.
She perked up a bit when their food arrived.
"This is really good," she moaned around her mochi, Ino echoing her sentiment. "I guess I can see now why you chose a place so close to the civvie market."
Ino paused, her tea halfway to her lips and looked at Sakura. Her big blue eyes poked a hole in Sakura's defences and she frowned.
"I thought you guys kept in contact through letters."
Sakura sighed. Throughout the six months since she'd left home, her parents had sent her exactly two letters. One to tell her how disappointed they were with her and making it clear she would have none of the perks she used to have from being a Haruno. It wasn't exactly a disownment, that would never happen because she was their only heir and if something happened to her otousan's cousin, she would be expected to take her dad's place when he died, but it was close.
The other letter had come after the annual meeting at the Haruno estate in Kumo. Apparently, Tachibana had been there and had asked for her. The letter ordered her to keep up appearances with the two brothers and for her to keep their 'disagreement' to herself if they ever contacted her.
It hurt that they hadn't made any effort to seek her out. Her chest ached just thinking of it but Sakura hadn't really dwelled on it much over the past months. She'd been so busy with her work and training that there just wasn't time for her to feel sad. Tsunade and Shizune had filled the void her parents had left better than they ever could, constantly challenging her in her shishou's case and encouraging in her senpai's.
She had a home to come back to thanks to Tsunade and all the support she never thought she needed before. Staying with people who encouraged her to be a better ninja everyday was doing wonders to her self-esteem and drive as a kunoichi.
Tsunade had upped the intensity of her training gradually over the last year and, looking back, Sakura took a moment to be amazed at how much she had managed to accomplish. The Hokage usually trained her late into the night after working at the Tower or at the crack of dawn before Shizune tracked her down to force her into the mountain of paperwork she always seemed to have.
She had managed to master her shishou's famous chakra enhanced strength after a lot of broken bones and collapses and was cultivating her seal like a mother would a child. Tsunade had taught her how to use the genjutsu she used on herself to keep her skin smooth and young and told her about how much easier it was to go undercover if she had it. She also had begun overseeing much of Sakura's experiments with genjutsu.
However, their training had gotten more specific towards mission procedures and skills that could be helpful on the field. When Tsunade realised that although she had all the skills of a medic-nin, Sakura wouldn't conform to her rules, the first thing she taught Sakura was how to mask her chakra.
"The trick isn't to put a cloak on it and try to snuff it out, Sakura," Shishou had said. "The trick is to feel your environment. If there are birds, bugs or any kind of animal nearby, have a feel of their chakra. See it in your mind's eye how much of it there is, the wavelength they operate. Then all you need to do is match yours to how theirs feel. Normal shinobi probably wouldn't notice you if you cloaked it like other people do." She smiled a fierce, dangerous smile that almost reminded Sakura of her nightmares. "But this is how you fool the elite."
Sakura's natural affinity with genjutsu had helped her a lot in those training sessions and now she made a habit of constantly having a great part of her chakra reserves cloaked.
She had been right in her assumptions that she had still been in the perfect age to make them grow. She had almost 27% more than she did before and even if they had stopped growing so much lately, it had still been more of an improvement than she could have ever hoped for. What a proteinic diet and constant exhaustion didn't do for chakra reserves.
"You're a slim girl and you have pink hair," Shizune-senpai had said. "People will always consider that to be a disadvantage for you. Use that to your favour, Sakura-chan. The less powerful they think you are, the better. The trick is to never let them see you coming."
Sakura had spent long afternoons with Shizune at the labs whenever her mind got bored of all the physical training she'd been doing. Shizune taught her about poisons and toxins and how everything works at a microscopical level. It was interesting to see how those rules applied to genjutsu and Sakura always kept a journal near her to take notes on those lessons.
Since her training had taken a more practical turn after she managed to master one of her shishou's signature moves, Sakura's mission influx had gone off the charts. She had a flawless rate of success to all her missions if only because she had found an inner fierceness in herself that was somewhat unexpected. She would sacrifice anything to finish a mission.
Anything other than her teammates' safety, that is but, so far, she'd mostly been sent on missions that she got to be a captain, so ordering her team to stay behind was easy when it came down to it.
The last year had been a busy one for her, that's for certain. She felt more tired than she'd ever been, but with every sore muscle and cracked bone, she felt stronger. Seeing all her efforts amount to something was more rewarding than she'd expected it to be.
Of course, the energy she had so far had waned the closer Naruto's departure anniversary got. She had been more and more tired the past few days and all she wanted to do was crawl beneath the covers of her fuuton and sleep for the three years that Naruto would take to come home.
"How did you know?" Sakura asked quietly when they were leaving the tea shop, the afternoon spent gossiping and laughing like she hadn't done in what felt like years. "How did you know it was Kakashi?"
Ino's eyebrow twitched when she noticed the lack of honorifics but she didn't comment on it as a terribly soft expression that made Sakura feel nauseous all over again took over her features. "No one in the world but someone from Team Seven can give you that look, Sakura-chan."
Yo! So sorry for the long wait for this one, you guys, you have no idea how hellish life has been. BUT fear not, my dear friends, I will keep on posting this fic until it. is. DONE. 'ttebayo.
This chapter is a bit transition-y and it may be a bit of a disappointed with the whole lot of nothing happening after quite a long wait, but I promise the next one will be a bit more exciting. I get to (FINALLY OH GAWD) introduce one of my favourite characters hihi BTW I'll write a prompt from whoever figures out who that character is, YAY.
About the previous raffle, oh-jeez didn't actually reply with a prompt soooo they have until the next chapter to send it and I'm gonna do the raffle again if they don't! So if you haven't followed all the restrictions for participating, go back to the next chapter and make sure you do because there's a chance I'll draw another name!
About this chapter. Well. I have a lot of things to say but not all of them are coming to mind so I'll just settle with: time skip. We finally get to see our poor socially awkward boio-kakashi and that will be the last time for a bit and also we see just how busy Sakura has been. Also, and perhaps more importantly, Sakura's weird/dangerous/worrisome change of personality that began to happen since chapter one is becoming clearer. Remember she is often an unreliable narrator and her views on the Hokage are justified even if we as outsiders who live in western 21st century know Konoha for what it truly is. Military Dictatorship with child soldiers.
Anyways! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter! See you all soon :)