The good thing about infiltrating her own village's archives—if there was anything good about this situation—was that Sakura knew exactly where to find what she was looking for. The worst thing, treachery notwithstanding, was that she had no idea what she was looking for. She wanted to find out what had happened to Kakashi but she didn't know what exactly she should focus on. Was there a single moment that changed everything about him or was it just various moments, piled on top of each other that had made him like this?
Her first stop was his personal file.
She knew most of the things there, had seen them on his hospital charts, but some things stood out. He graduated the Academy at six-years-old and was already a jounin by twelve. Dai-nana-han.
Their first mission with him leading, the same mission where the Yondaime proved his Legendary status by single handedly fighting a battle that ended the war. But they didn't manage to do so without any sacrifices. She'd known that his Sharingan had been a transplant but she could never have guessed it went down like that. His teammate's sacrifice. On field surgery. Behind enemy lines by themselves.
With shaking fingers, Sakura turned the page and tried to find what happened to his last teammate.
Team 7 had almost been dismantled after they came up short a member but Kakashi still used to take missions with his teammate, Nohara Rin, a medic nin. The last mission they took together, the one where next to her name were the red stamped letters K.I.A., all of it was redacted.
With a frown that barely conveyed how annoyed she was, Sakura skipped through the rest of his file. She confirmed he'd been put into ANBU by the Yondaime and later on taken out of it by the Sandaime to become a jounin sensei. Most of his mission reports were redacted. With a quiet sigh, she closed it.
The archives were fairly secure even if she managed to slip past the guards easily. There was, however, a place where the Hokage had always placed their most important files. Nothing in there was redacted and everything was meant to be for the Hokage's eyes only. Good thing Sakura had been trained by the Godaime herself not to take no for an answer.
She moved silently through the empty halls of the Hokage tower towards the secret passage that would lead her home. Before she had moved there with Tsunade, the Sarutobi clan had taken everything pertaining to the Sandaime but there was one room in the whole estate that no one but the Hokage could enter. A secret seal marked the entrance, only one door and no windows.
The Hokage's private archives were meant to be impossible to penetrate and only the Hokages knew how to go past the seal on the door. Of course, that meant that Sakura knew precisely how to get there.
Sakura had only seen Tsunade activate the seal once but that was enough for Inner to remember how to replicate it and soon enough, Sakura was inside.
There were tons of drawers labeled by years and the light was dim. The ninja in her raised its hackles at the thought of entering a place with only one exit but she ignored her instincts and moved towards the drawer she needed, the one marked with the Sandaime's name and the date of his second rule.
The report made her nauseous.
She took a deep breath to still herself and tried to count down from ten so she wouldn't cry or punch a hole through the wall.
Not only had the girl—Rin, she reminded herself—been a Jinchuriki but she had forced Kakashi's hand into killing her. Purposefully stepped right into the path of Hatake Kakashi's signature move, Chidori.
Friend Killer Kakashi, that ninja had said.
She had made him kill her to protect Konoha. How fucked up was that. How fucked up was Sakura to think she would have done the same thing? Maybe she'd have been stronger than the girl, maybe she'd have taken her own life instead of strapping her teammate with the guilt and the memories of his fist going through her chest. The outcome was the same. The girl had died for the village as they all would.
Sakura's hand immediately went to the tiny vertical scar on her eyebrow. The wound she got from her first chunin mission had healed on its own and it felt like a physical reminder of that time. Everytime she looked in the mirror or her fingers caught the edges of it throughout the day, she came back to that night. She wondered if Kakashi's scar held the same meaning as hers.
A lot of the things she knew about him suddenly fell into place. His difficulty in getting close to anyone, how he always seemed so aloof, so closed off. He lost everyone around him. He was put in a position where he could have been held accountable for someone else's well being while he was so young and he lost everything, time and time again. Sakura was surprised he was still a functioning human being, let alone one of the best shinobi in the village.
She placed the file back in the drawer with a newfound respect for him, her hands bracing her weight on it briefly. A part of her understood him better and whatever animosity and lingering hurt she had towards him faded away. She didn't fool herself into thinking she could change him or that they had the type of relationship where she could reach out to him. Not after she saw him break apart, not after he had basically kicked her out of his apartment.
Their relationship as a student who looked up to her teacher was long gone but she really wished someone, anyone, would reach out and help him. Sakura closed her eyes and silently added a new name to her nindo. She would make sure Naruto and Sasuke's name didn't end up in the memorial stone and that Kakashi stayed alive to see them return.
She was pushing away from the drawer to slide it closed when she heard a click.
Sarutobi Hiruzen had placed a hidden compartment in the drawer reserved for him. Curiosity made her reach for what was inside. This was a secret room that only those close to the Hokage knew of its existence and even fewer people were supposed to know how to enter it. Not even the council knew how to activate the seal outside the door. What did he have to hide?
The compartment was tiny and only held a single small black scroll.
What Sakura saw inside was a horror story she could never have prepared for. It was blood written in pretty if regretful words. The Sandaime expressed his remorse on a few key happenings that left Sakura reeling.
There were so many things wrong that she didn't even know where to start. With the Kyuubi Attack and how the Sandaime had simply followed Minato's wishes and let him kill himself for the village while he still had a young son to look after. How the promise he had made to look after Naruto had meant absolutely fucking nothing. Her best friend had still been raised in orphanages that mistreated him, had barely enough a month to scrape by. All by himself.
The problems started before that, even. Sarutobi Hiruzen had known of the existence of Root. He had stood by everything wrong that happened inside it even if what he had done was just turn a blind eye to it. They had almost continued the Third War because of Danzou's actions in Rain and he had done nothing.
There wasn't even a side note of regret of sending Kakashi's team to Kannabi Bridge. After he stepped down when he didn't ask for reparitions from Iwa—weak, he was just so fucking weak—he was supposed to have put Orochimaru, Minato and Uchiha Fugaku as options for Yondaime but he didn't. The Uchiha's hate towards the village had started there and what came next made bile rise in the back of her throat.
They had suspected the Uchiha for the Kyuubi attack. Kept the whole clan under observation. The Uchiha Compound, which she had always thought was a sign of their power and superiority was actually a segregation camp. They had been moved there to be better observed.
When tensions—obviously—rose, Danzo had—Shimura Danzo had ordered Uchiha Itachi to murder them all. He gave a fourteen-year-old kid the choice of seeing his whole clan dead because of a civil war or killing them himself in order to spare his little brother. The Sandaime, the Council, all of them old fools had stood by and let that happen.
I hadn't known about Danzou's orders until Uchiha Itachi reported back to me. It saddens me that such a burden had fallen on top of such a dedicated young shinobi's shoulders but there was nothing that could have been done at that point. The Council wouldn't back up the idea of putting Danzou under trial for treason and Konoha couldn't afford that kind of stain on it's history. The matter would have to be kept quiet. I would follow young Itachi's wishes to let the Uchiha clan hold their honour. I stripped Danzou of his position in the Council and terminated the Root program and promised Uchiha Itachi I would take care of his little brother.
Only he hadn't. Sasuke had been kept in the Uchiha Compound where all his kin had their blood spilt and Uchiha Itachi, the most loyal ninja Konoha had bred, was seen across all the nations as the biggest traitor.
All while Danzou had kept Root going on, let them experiment on children with Hashirama's cells and fuck. Fuck. Koharu, Homura, Hiruzen. They had all known. Their inaction had killed thousands.
Sakura didn't realise she was breathing so fast until her vision swam with the beginnings of hyperventilation. She thought she had been put under a genjutsu for a brief, panic-filled second and even tried dispelling it before coming back to herself.
She had to get to Tsunade. Had she known too? Sakura fled the room in a blur and only realised she had moved at all when she stood before her shishou.
The woman was working through a pile of paperwork on their coffee table and Sakura felt an odd sort of feeling in her stomach. What else could Konoha have hidden behind the facade of the good village?
Anger was hot on her veins, she could barely see straight. Inner was in a complete frenzy inside her head, images of blood and despair kept playing in a loop and she felt like she could explode. She slapped the diary on top of the paperwork covering the surface of the table.
"Did you know?" Her voice was low and dangerous and killing intent was leaking from her in waves. She felt the signatures of Tsunade's guards outside shift in response to it but it registered in the back of her mind, unimportant.
"What the hell, brat!" Tsunade stared wide eyed at her, her brush dropped and smudging a few of the papers strewn about.
"Read it," Sakura's voice was so low and so vicious it sounded more like a hiss. "Read it and then look me in the eye and tell me if you fucking knew, Shishou."
Tsunade had never been known to follow orders like that, specially from someone younger and less experienced than her but their relationship was far beyond rank. She could see that whatever was happening was serious.
"Sensei's handwriting…" She glanced from Sakura to the small scroll, her frown deepening. "I've never seen this before," she said in a confused mutter but didn't waste any time.
She read it all in less than two minutes and Sakura watched as she paled, her hands clenching and unclenching before smacking down on their table with enough force to break it.
Watching the surprise, the horror and shame on her shishou's face had been enough to confirm to Sakura what she suspected. She didn't know.
With that realisation, Sakura could finally begin to calm herself down. She forced Inner back, let her mold all that hatred and anger into her cloak and mask and took deep breaths. She realised she had closed her eyes when she heard Tsunade speak.
"I'm going to kill them."
Her voice was unrecognisable. Not in all the years Sakura had heard it reach different levels of anger had she sounded like that. In the blink of an eye, she was gone, the door left open in her wake.
It took Sakura two beats to understand what was going on. When her mind caught up, her shishou was nowhere to be seen. She blinked slowly and considered for a moment letting her go before common sense won. They couldn't play their hand so early into the game. With a controlled sigh, Sakura closed her eyes again and focused on her shishou's chakra signature.
It was moving fast across the training field, four signatures from her guards following her. If Sakura shunshined fast enough through the Hokage tower's passage she could intercept her just on the border of the training field—
She paused.
There were two chakra signatures following the five ninja. It was almost nothing really, just enough chakra that you would find in a rat, but it was moving abnormally fast and at a safe distance.
Sakura realised with a start that it was the same technique Shishou had showed her to fool the elite, make her chakra signature like that of a small animal and no ninja would suspect it for moving.
It wouldn't have raised any questions normally but everything about it felt off. Apart from just how fast the signatures were moving, Sakura estimated the distance they kept from her shishou's guards to be the recommended for following highly skilled ninja.
It was Root, without a shadow of a doubt.
Sakura had never moved so fast in her life. Her shoes barely touched the ground as she practically tore her way out of the compound, through the Hokage tower and finally reached the grounds just as her shishou broke through the tree line. The two women moved towards each other, Tsunade trying to side step her but Sakura was faster. She moved her arms around her shishou and squeezed.
When Tsunade started to pull away, she held on with chakra reinforced arms and brought her mouth to her ear.
"Don't be fucking stupid," she whispered and received a snarl in return. "You were being followed, shishou. They're watching us."
The hands Tsunade had on her ribs to force her to back away crushed bone but Sakura held on. They stood there for a few seconds, Sakura using her chakra to bring down her shishou's heart rate and noticing in a distant kind of way that she was now taller than her master. When had that happened?
Tsunade nodded and the girls parted before silently moving back home.
They protected the place with the strongest privacy seals, designed by the Yondaime himself, methodically brewed some tea and sat around their broken table. Sakura set about fixing her cracked ribs.
"They need to go." Tsunade's voice was calm but still held an undercurrent of danger that brought chills down Sakura's spine. Because they could. Between the both of them, they could kill them all and still make it look like an accident.
But that wasn't the issue was it? If they just murdered the old bastards, how different from them did that make them? No. They wouldn't be paralysed by fear like the Sandaime, but they had to do this the right way. Konoha had to stop that vile circle of hidden ruthlessness at some point. They had to be better.
Golden yellow met emerald green across the table, their tea's steam rising between them as they shared the heavy certainty that they both could strip down Konoha of its bloody past and set it on fire. And they would, Sakura vowed, but they would do it the right way where nothing would be able to stop them.
The only question was how. She could see in Tsunade's eyes how this news broke her heart. She had believed in her sensei wholeheartedly, had followed his lead even when that hurt her and seeing proof of his carelessness must be hard. Even though she tried to cover it up, she was old enough to remember the teachings of her grandfather and to share his grand views for Konoha when she was a child. How far had they strayed from that path.
"I'm sorry, Shishou," was all Sakura could say. And then, "What do we do?"
Tsunade took a deep breath, closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. When she looked back at Sakura, her eyes were focused, her mouth set into a serious line.
"Nothing, for now." She narrowed her eyes. "You'll tell me where you found that scroll, I'm going to put it back and you will tell no one about this, Sakura. Trust no one. I need a plan." She sighed. "I need to think."
They didn't do any sleeping that night.
In the morning, Sakura mechanically took a shower and put her uniform on. Tsunade was nowhere to be found and Sakura was kind of relieved. A big part of her wanted to help and solve this situation but a considerable part of her wanted to do shit all about it. She wanted to hide and let her shishou take care of this like she used to do when there was a cockroach at the house back when she used to live with her parents. She would wait on top of the nearest surface while her dad killed it.
Sakura wanted to find the nearest surface but all around her things were unstable. She felt like she would fall if she tried to get up.
It was in a haze that Sakura moved through her training routine. She added so many more sit ups, pushups and squats that her muscles were contracting painfully at the end of it. She barely felt it.
She didn't remember how she ended up at the memorial stone. She had no actual recollection of getting there or sitting down on the fluffy grass in front of it. The characters there were familiar but now her eyes caught on some of them.
Uchiha Obito. Nohara Rin. Namikaze Minato.
She blinked herself awake from her haze when a morbid thought crossed her mind. I wonder if Kakashi's name shouldn't be there too.
Because, fuck, wasn't that the truth. He was directly involved in the death of everyone in his team, and was held accountable for two of them. The man walked around the village like a ghost because maybe he was a ghost. He just hadn't been declared dead yet.
There were tears in her eyes that she refused to spill. Specially when she felt someone next to her.
"You said we'd meet in the morning."
Genma's voice was lazy as usual, like he didn't care which direction the conversation went. Sakura knew him well enough to see he was worried.
"It's still light out." She didn't turn to look at him yet, couldn't see his face without spewing everything she had learned.
"It's six o'clock, kid."
She did turn to look at him then. There was a tiny mark between his eyebrows that grew thicker when he saw the tears in her eyes that threatened to fall. She wouldn't let them, of course, not then, not in front of that stone. But still.
"What can I do?" Genma asked around his senbon, his voice low and worried now. He wouldn't waste time asking what was wrong. He knew she would say that if she could.
"Train with me?" Sakura's voice was weaker than she'd heard it in a long time but maybe it was that that made Genma agree so quickly.
"Anything."
When they reached their usual training grounds and Sakura dropped her weights, it looked like they would take the fight seriously but that's far from what happened. Sakura couldn't land a single hit and Genma stayed in the offensive the whole time, letting her tire herself out. It didn't take long.
He made her dinner that night. Actually, he bought her takeout after shoving her into the shower but still, it was the thought that counted. He sat with her and watched as she ate it all with careful, calculating eyes. She felt kinda ridiculous sitting in front of him in her cute fluffy PJ's but it made her chest warm to have him with her.
She wanted to tell him everything. Had he known of the things she read last night? Most of them, that's for sure. What did he think about it? Could they even do anything about it? Everything was just bubbling to the surface, like her throat couldn't contain all the ugly truths of her village and she just needed to spill.
"Genm—," she paused. She didn't know if she could do it. Paranoia had set in and she just couldn't—
"Sakura?" Tsunade called from the living room. Genma immediately stood up and turned to face the doorway when her shishou and Shizune walked through. The blonde narrowed her eyes at him while Shizune clasped her hands worriedly. "Leave, boy."
"Hokage-sama." Genma said respectfully enough but there was no bow where there usually would be. He spared Shizune a brief glance, almost like he couldn't bring himself not to and then his eyes were back on Sakura.
"It's okay. Thanks for today." She managed to give him a small smile. "I'll see you tomorrow at the bar."
He waited a beat longer, his eyes piercing hers for a few tense seconds before he nodded and turned to leave.
"You better remember it this time, kiddo." He waved a hand before opening the back door. "Ja."
The kitchen was so thick with silence, Sakura was scared she might drown.
"Did you tell him?" Shizune's voice was tense and accusing and Sakura felt betrayed that her senpai would think she'd spill like that, even if she had thought about it. The truth was, she wasn't sure she would have told him if they hadn't been interrupted.
"No."
"Of course she didn't." Tsunade sat down at the head of the table with a huff, Shizune sat at the chair opposite Sakura's. "I need a drink."
Sakura huffed a laugh at that and immediately got up to get them some sake. Shizune didn't even protest much against it and it was only after two shots that they spoke again.
"We need a way to undermine the Council's influence, little by little so they don't catch up to what we're doing." Tsunade breathed deeply and held it in for a beat before letting go harshly. Another shot for all of them. "We need to discredit them enough that they couldn't possibly oppose me without making it look like treason and that by the time we come at them for their crimes, they can't escape going to jail."
Sakura was finding it hard to breathe. The realisation of just how huge this was was finally catching up to her. The haze between her ears was gone and with it came the rush of adrenaline of pre-battle.
"We also need allies," Shizune said. Her voice was serious and her eyes narrowed. "But we have to be very careful of who we trust."
Sakura felt something forming, the beginnings of a plan that weren't anything concrete at all but it was enough for her to voice it.
"We could have a bigger council."
"Like Suna?" Shizune asked, her frown more evident. Tsunade only steepled her finger before her and focused her gaze on Sakura. That was enough to give her confidence.
"The problem right now is that they basically oppose everything you say, Shishou, and Danzou still holds enough power with them that it's like he's still in the council, right?" She took a deep breath and used her tongue to wet her lips. "If you get more people on the council, people you can trust to back you up, that will do what's right for the village, they won't have such a huge influence."
"Traditionally, we only have ex-Hokages and their teammates as part of the council, Sakura-chan," Shizune said softly. "They are supposed to represent the Will of Fire itself, teachings of the past, guiding the future."
"Fuck tradition." Sakura smacked her hand on the table hard enough to rattle their sake cups. "The only thing it brought us so far is treason and the complete annihilation of a founding clan. If it were for tradition, we wouldn't have a female Hokage, we wouldn't have the best medic nins in the continent and I wouldn't be Tsunade's apprentice."
Silence yet again fell upon them but this time Sakura's harsh breaths filled it. Shizune had her eyes widened but Tsunade, well. Tsunade was looking at her like she's never been prouder. And that's what gave her strength to keep going.
"We need good ninja in the council. Younger ones, ninja who still remember what it's like to fight and bleed for the village."
"We can't have members of the council being on the active roster," Shizune reminded her, "and we can't afford to pull any shinobi out of the field right now."
"That's true," Tsunade said, a fierce glint in her eyes. "There are some ninja who fit the job perfectly, though. For now, I need you to become the Hospital's director, Shizune."
There was a beat of silence where Sakura's eyes widened and Shizune's jaw dropped.
"Tsunade-sama!" Shizune exclaimed. "I couldn't possibly—"
"You'll have to," Tsunade replied harshly. "I can't afford to focus my efforts there while I take this on. I'll take care of any serious cases but, for now, I need you to handle everything else there." She gave her a sharp grin. "You can do this, Director."
"I—" Shizune seemed to be speechless but in the end she managed to get herself together. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."
"Enough of that." Tsunade rolled her eyes. "This will take a while, years maybe. From now on, the three of us will be constantly observing those around us to determine who we can trust. When we are completely sure, I'll decide if we bring them into the loop." She rubbed her temples and sighed irritably. "We'll need to take a closer look at Danzou and Root but that will have to wait for a while."
"We can do this." Sakura wasn't sure if she was saying this to the others or if she was simply assuring herself but it made her feel marginally better when Shizune-senpai nodded resolutely.
"I already know just who I'm going to add to the council first." Tsunade smirked, the same tiny smile that brought shivers down Sakura's spine and made her stand up straighter. It was a smile that was as dangerous as it was pretty and it made her have all the confidence in the world that they could pull this off.
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... yo
This chapter fought me to the death, you guys. I had it written for so long but it just seemed off, you know? I thought about not going there, you see, ignoring the Uchiha Massacre and letting it be a kind of homage to Itachi's wishes just like the anime. It wasn't sitting right with me bc I think that the whole thing was just so stupid (let's not even get into the shitshow of bad decisions that was Shisui's death) and in the end, one of my best friends convinced me that I could write the shit out of this plot. Thank god for good friends.
So, yep, we're going there. Do you remember that this was Bad Idea TM on my files? Well, you can now see why. This story just *needs* to be written. Desperately.
That being said, I'm super self-conscious about this and I need love and cuddles so please review?
Stay safe alright? If any of you wanna chat about what's going on on your side of the screen and vent or maybe not chat about that *at all*, I'm here.