This chapter is dedicated to little_bean who reviewed every single one of my chapters as she read them. Let me just say this, it is never ever EVER annoying when you guys do that, okay? When you guys get really excited about this story and start guessing things in the comments or when you leave a lot of words for me to read. I love every single one of them.
Little_bean won a prompt for her efforts hahaha so expect a short ks one-shot very soon 3
(P.S.: Go check out her ks fic! It's called "looking for the truth"!)
(P.S.2: This chapter was supposed to be named Loyalty In The Eyes of The People You Love but FFN hates me and didn't let me write it all.)
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Sakura got home that night when the sun was setting, Tsunade's shouts echoing in her head. The woman was not happy with the Commander going behind her back like that.
She confirmed, after quite a bit of cursing, that he probably wanted her skills in ANBU because it was rare to see a medic nin so skilled in combat like her. Tsunade had put a new crack in her office table but in the end she had barked a laugh when Sakura explained the bargain she made and there was pride in her eyes and maybe something more. Like she had more to say but was holding back for some reason.
Instead of actually saying what Sakura could clearly see she wanted to say, Tsunade had slapped her hands on top of her table making the abused wood creek threatenly, created a privacy seal and started laying out what she knew of the Commander.
Usui Toshio, forty-nine years old, widower, no children. He had a tragic backstory much like everyone else, parents died in combat before he graduated from the Academy. He fought in the Second Shinobi World War and during the third was already an ANBU captain. Apparently, he'd been the Commander for ANBU forces ever since just before the Kyuubi attack where he lost his wife.
"Do you think he's trustworthy?" Sakura had asked her because, in the end, this guy was a serious player in their game. In most meetings between the daimyo and the Hokage, the council was present but so was the ANBU Commander. He had a voice, politically speaking, and on top of that, maybe the most important part was that this guy was supposed to be the leader of the force that was created to act under the Hokage specifically, to protect Tsunade with their life if need be. If he wasn't safe, they would have to knock him down.
"I checked he's not in Danzou's pocket." Tsunade had looked far away at that point and Sakura wondered what memory she had gotten lost in. "I also knew his wife. He used to be one of the good ones. That being said, a lot of shit has happened since then and while I do trust him as a shinobi, I don't trust him with everything." She had looked back at Sakura with finality. "He's not Danzou's but I'm not bringing him into the loop anytime soon."
The message was clear. He could be trusted, Sakura could follow his leadership, but Tsunade wasn't about to spill all her secrets to the man.
It had alleviated some of Sakura's worries. She didn't like the fact that he'd gone behind Tsunade's back but in a way, knowing that he was committed to the village and not Danzou had made her appreciate the fact that he did.
It showed her that he was a man who wasn't above breaking the rules to do what was right by his shinobi. In the same way that Tsunade didn't completely trust him, he probably didn't completely trust her either. He was playing it safe. Getting a medic like her inside his ranks wasn't about anything else but keeping his shinobi safe in the end, and she respected that.
She respected that at the same time that she filled away that bit of information to be used later. Usui Toshio was a man who cared, even if it didn't look like it at first glance.
In the end, Tsunade had agreed that ANBU would be good for her but there had been promises of increasing her workload because of her little stunt. You want more, girl? I'll give you more.
Sakura shuddered thinking what was ahead of her.
She knew it had been the right decision, even if she did feel a bit like she'd signed her soul over to the devil. The kind of skill aprimoration ANBU provided was something she couldn't achieve as a simple Leaf Chunin, even with all her perks as Tsunade's apprentice. She also knew that being in the shadow corps might make some things easier when it came to taking Danzou and his Root operation out.
With a sigh, Sakura opened the front door to the Senju mansion, letting her shoulders drop when it closed behind her and she felt the privacy seals activate.
"Tadaima," she muttered, not expecting a reply.
"Okaeri, stranger."
Sakura paused in her next step, her whole body tensing. There was a beat where Sakura contemplated how tired she must have been to not have noticed another chakra signature from inside the house and in the next, a kunai was in her hands as she turned towards the living room.
Sitting on her sofa, were Tenten and Ino.
With a harsh expel of her next breath, Sakura holstered her weapon and crossed her arms at them. Both girls looked at her amusedly, Tenten raising her hands in mock surrender.
"I was this close to taking both your heads off." Sakura pinched her fingers together and stepped closer to them.
"Sorry, sorry," Tenten placated her before Ino could add tinder to the fire. "We would have let you know we were having a pajama party if we could actually find you anywhere in the village, you know."
Sakura fought the urge to freeze at the offhand comment. She had been admittedly gone from the social scene for a while there, her missions and unofficial training with Team Ro taking most of her time. It would take a while for her to settle into her new routine, she was sure.
Thankfully, they didn't press the matter, Ino just hugged her tightly before steering her towards the couch and forcibly pushing her to sit down. She pointed to a bunch of items on the coffee table.
"Cake, hot chocolate, sake and corny movies." Ino sat down on one side of her and Tenten on the other.
"Why are we having a breakup date night?" Sakura said, one eyebrow raised and her hands grabbing for the sake before any of the girls could get to it first.
"Ino's last beau broke up with her," Tenten snorted.
"I'll have you know, I was the one doing the breaking up, thank you very much" Ino sniffed primly and reached for the movie selection. "Which one?"
"This one." Sakura pointed to the pinkest of the titles. "You broke up with Yosuke?"
"Daisuke," Ino and Tenten said at the same time and the older girl continued, "Ino broke up with Yosuke about two weeks ago."
"Honestly, Sakura, do keep up." Ino shot her a fake glare before moving to put the movie on. Sakura snickered and raised her hands in defeat.
"Sorry, sorry," she laughed. "It's hard to keep track of so many."
Sakura dodged a hot chocolate soaked marshmallow and side hugged Ino when she sat back down.
"You would have been invited to that breakup date night if you were anywhere to be found." Ino looked at her pointedly, her pupiless eyes staring right into Sakura's soul.
Sakura fought the urge to gulp guiltily and forced herself to keep staring into her friend's eyes. Of course, Ino wouldn't let it go. She'd just let Sakura think she was safe from any further interrogations and wait until she could pounce. Sakura almost pouted.
"I was away on a mission," she said simply. The best lies always came from half truths, after all.
"Right," Tenten said slowly. "We thought you might be, so we checked the mission roster."
The two girls shared a look that Sakura immediately saw through. Shit. This had been an ambush from the beginning and Sakura had walked right into it.
Sakura took a deep breath but before she could even begin to formulate a plan to escape, Tenten was hugging her around her middle, pinning both her arms to her torso while Ino attacked her.
"Hey!" Sakura yelled as Ino stretched the collar of her shirt so far down it made its way all the way past her shoulder. Sakura froze when Ino gasped.
Shit, shit, shit.
Her first day as an official ANBU operative and she was already revealing herself to people.
"I knew it!" Ino pointed an accusing finger at Sakura and Tenten let her go. "I knew you were doing something shady! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!"
"Okay, okay, I get it." Sakura sighed. "This was supposed to be classified information, you nosy bitch."
Ino and Tenten looked at her and neither girls said anything for a few seconds. Sakura opened her mouth to explain things, to tell them the story behind her promotion but nothing came out. She wasn't sure where to begin.
Sakura trusted the girls implicitly. She knew that if it came down to it, both of them would support her in her fight against the Council and Danzou and that they would understand why she needed to go into ANBU.
But the truth was she didn't want to tell them.
Not yet, at least. The Rookies weren't inexperienced by any means but there was a certain kind of innocence to them that Sakura envied. She knew the world they lived in would eventually knock them down to the dirt and force them to grow up like it did her but if she could just for a little while protect that innocence, for as long as she could, she would.
"I got offered a place on a team there." Sakura shrugged and then laughed good naturedly. "Everything is confidential, though, so don't even try to get something out of me, you hear me?"
Ino looked at her like she was either really happy or really scared and for a second it looked like she might start crying, which made Sakura's eyes widen. Before she could even think of something to say to stop the waterworks, Tenten stepped in.
"Don't freak out, Ino-chan." She smiled reassuringly. "Oji-san says that ANBU is harsh but that they all become something like brothers and sisters in there, that they protect each other. Sakura-chan is not alone."
Sakura gaped at her. The owner of that weapons shop and the old man who adopted Tenten after her Academy graduation has been telling her about ANBU?
"How would Oji-san know that?" Sakura wondered out loud and Tenten laughed.
"He's a retired ANBU captain!" She said proudly. "A lot of those masked guys come around to buy things from him too, so… I kind of pestered him until he told me a few stories about his time there."
"Okay." Ino nodded slowly and took a deep breath before letting it out harshly. "Well, at least you opened up a whole new pool of hot guys to explore. This time you might actually manage to find yourself a boyfriend."
Sakura punched her on the shoulder and laughed along with Tenten.
"Shut up, Ino!"
The girl shrugged unapologetically and reached towards her hot chocolate. She poured an alarming amount of sake into it and turned to Sakura assessingly.
"You'll need new summer clothes to hide that tattoo." Ino nodded to herself and turned back to the movie. "We'll go out this weekend to do some shopping. Maybe Hinata will be able to join us this time."
"Oh, yeah," Sakura said, immensely glad they were past the subject of ANBU. "Why isn't she here today?"
"Something about feeling bad about showing up to your house without you inviting her." Ino waved her hand and scoffed.
"You mean that she actually has manners, unlike you two heathens." Sakura teased them but Ino just shrugged and Tenten laughed.
"Alright, let's make this night interesting!" She pumped her fist in the air much like Lee sometimes did. "Every time the main couple eye-fuck, we take a shot!"
The girls snickered and Sakura settled herself for a night of relaxing. She wouldn't fall asleep, the chance of her having one of her episodes was too high, but she would let herself wind down and enjoy her friends' presence.
That night, as she lay in her futon with both girls pressing against her sides, Sakura wished she could protect them from the ugly truths of the village. She knew it was unreasonable, that they were ninja just like her, but still she hoped. The only thing she could do, she concluded when the sun was already peeking through the horizon, was make sure she was strong enough to protect them.
Sakura got up slowly and, almost without thinking, put on her shishou's genjutsu to make the shadows beneath her eyes disappear. As she went around cooking the girls breakfast, she promised to herself that no matter what, she would keep getting stronger so they could retain a bit of their innocence.
Even if it meant signing a deal with the devil.
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Sakura opened her eyes to the first ray of sunlight coming through her window. She blinked blearily for a few moments, her thoughts lazy as she stretched on her futon. With a sigh, she forced herself to get up.
She had never been a morning person. Sure, she was used to getting up at the crack of dawn now and was beginning to acquire the ability to sleep wherever she was at any given time during her missions with Team Ro, but waking up never really came naturally to her when she was relatively safe inside the village.
On Sundays, she took special time off her routine to just wake up late. It was silly, but she quite enjoyed the feeling of waking up to lunch sometimes.
Sakura went about putting her futon away and jumped headfirst into a cold shower before she could convince herself that she didn't really need to do anything that day. When she got to the kitchen, sans her flak jacket but otherwise with her uniform complete and with her hair still drying around her shoulders, Tsunade was already there.
"Morning, Shishou," Sakura said before moving to the fridge to get them something to eat.
Tsunade just grunted in response while she nursed her cup of coffee because while Sakura wouldn't consider herself to be a morning person, Tsunade was another category in itself. She couldn't even put words together before she had at least some caffeine in her veins.
Her drinking habits also didn't help much. Since they'd taken on this mission, Sakura noticed that her shishou seemed to drink less, mainly because there was so much to do she just simply didn't have the time. Her sense of duty towards the village spoke louder than her vices most days.
However, that didn't mean Tsunade wasn't one to indulge. It was common to find the woman working on paperwork and drinking sake late at night and that made mornings a particularly hard battle to fight.
They ate in silence before each of them went on their way. Shizune came in right before Sakura left, a pile of paper on her hands and a frazzled smile on her face.
Sakura gave the women twin kisses on their cheeks and resisted the urge to sigh as she made her way to the training field while tying her hair in her usual braid. From the looks of it, today would be a busy day at the office.
This week had been particularly tiring and not because of her workload but because of stupid social obligations. Sakura scoffed. Last week had been her fifteenth birthday and she'd been away on a mission to the southeast coast of the Land of Fire with her team.
It was an easy assassination mission, but they had to stay and make sure the business transactions their target had going on were thoroughly canceled before going back home. Staying at the beach for her birthday was far from exhausting but when she got to Konoha, it seemed like all of her friends were seeking her out.
Sakura was tired from all the talking.
Today would—hopefully—be the last day of celebrations, this time with Team Ro themselves on their usual bar. The Rusty Kunai was far too busy for Sakura's liking but she didn't mind making that sacrifice for her team.
Sakura finished her training routine and went straight to the hospital to see if there were any cases she could take off Shizune's shoulders or any paperwork that she could bring to Tsunade for the day.
Shizune-senpai showed her latest research at the lab and scheduled a time of the week for Sakura to come back and work on her poison studies before handing her a stack of files and waving her goodbye.
When she got to Tsunade's office, the place was a mess with many shinobi inside talking at once, either to each other, to Tsunade, or to Shikaku-san. Sakura put the paperwork on top of Tsunade's desk and moved around the room to try and see what fire she could put out first.
She helped a few of the civilians clan elders she could identify from her time as a child. One or two seemed to recognize her and immediately attacked her with complaints and demands. Sakura politely said good morning to them, smiled prettily and kindly shut down any wayward line they were aiming for while making sure they felt validated.
She wrote down the reasonable requests that she thought they could meet and set a date that week for them to come back for tea with the Hokage. Her smile was sharper as she set the date, her eyes boring on the civilians to impact the importance of them following the schedule and stop showing up unannounced.
By the time they left, the office had cleared out considerably and it was easy to hear her shishou bark a laugh.
Sakura smiled sardonically at her and received a thumbs up in response as she went about forging Tsunade's signature on several official papers.
"See why I keep her around?" Tsunade laughed again and this time Shikaku huffed a laugh of his own.
"You do know that forging the Hokage's signature is a crime, don't you, Haruno?" Shikaku stood by the open window, his torso leaning outside as he smoked a cigarette.
"Put that thing out, brat," Tsunade barked but Sakura was pleased to see she refrained herself from throwing her paperweight at him. "Sakura does what she's ordered to do."
"I see." Shikaku rolled his eyes as he expelled the last bit of smoke from his lungs before putting his cigarette out. "Have you told her the good news yet?"
Sakura raised her eyes from her work and cocked her head to the side. Tsunade's eyes widened and she searched for something under a stack of files before letting out a little "Aha!" when she managed to find a small scroll that had fallen on top of an opened drawer.
"Here you go."
Sakura got up from her chair on the corner of Tsunade's table and broke the seal on the scroll to see what's inside. A tiny gasp escaped her.
"You're officially summoned to participate in this year's Jounin Exams," Tsunade said, a smile so big on her face that made Sakura wonder how long she's been wanting to tell her this. "That is your application file, you can see all the people that indicated you and the time you have to come back here with that signed for further information. Congratulations, brat."
She was really shocked. She obviously knew that's where she'd been heading but she never thought the Council would approve. She was fifteen and came from a civilian clan and they hated her. Sakura read the scroll and figured that they couldn't have had any choice on the matter, not with how her application form was written.
NINJA: Haruno Sakura
AGE: 15 yro
NINJA REGISTRATION NUMBER: 012601
RECOMMENDATIONS: Shiranui Genma, Yamashiro Aoba, Namiashi Raidou, Mitarashi Anko, Shiokawa Kaito, Uzuki Yuugao, Tenzou, Nara Shikaku
CLAN AFFILIATION: Senju
She had the support of both the Senju and the Nara clans. It felt surreal. Like everything that she had worked for was finally panning out. Sakura wanted to climb to the roof of the Hokage Tower and shout at the top of her lungs that she'd made it. She wanted to laugh with all her friends and to hunt Naruto down so she could hug the shit out of him. She wanted to meet with Team Ro and thank them for helping her grow. And even a tiny bit of her wanted to crawl into her futon and cry.
Sakura put the scroll inside her pouch and bowed.
"Thank you," her voice wasn't thick with emotion like she thought it would be and she felt grateful for that.
"You're a great shinobi, Haruno." Shikaku's praise settled warm on her chest and she smiled brightly at him, getting a nod in response.
"She knows that," Tsunade scoffed and waved her hand dismissively. Sakura turned her smile towards her shishou and let it get sharper as she saw the gleam in her eyes. They wouldn't celebrate things yet, she knew. They would celebrate when the exam passed and Sakura got promoted because they both knew she would. Then, they'd break out their best bottle of sake and get properly smashed.
"Don't forget to sign the consent form at the end," Shikaku reminded her with an amused smile. "In case you die, of course."
Sakura and Tsunade both rolled their eyes.
"Ninja are so dramatic," Sakura murmured, making her shishou laugh once again.
"Get out of here, brat. Go get us some lunch."
Sakura left the office with a smile. It felt like the weight on her shoulders had gotten lighter. Not because she had any less to worry about, but somehow, she felt stronger, more capable to carry anything the world threw at her.
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Sakura was steered against her will towards the back booth at the Rusty Kunai by Genma's strong hands.
"I don't see why we're doing this," she complained for the hundredth time that night. Genma scoffed for as many times.
"We, the dear jounin of your life, are celebrating your appointment to the upcoming Jounin Exams, Blossom." He squeezed her shoulders and prompted her to take a seat. "And properly celebrating your birthday."
It wasn't that she was unhappy to see them, most of her grumpiness was exaggerated and he probably knew it. But goddamnit the day had been long and she was tired.
She scooted all the way to the end of the booth so he could sit down next to her. Tenzou and Yuugao shouted happy greetings that were a bit too loud and too overly affectionate for them to be anything other than drunk.
"How the fuck do you even know about that, I didn't tell anyone!" Sakura squinted at them. "Were you spying on me?"
"No, you little paranoid pinky… ninja," Tenzou slurred, his finger pointing in her general direction as he all but yelled at her. Yuugao snickered. "There's a biiig jounin meeting the day before the Hokage gives away the summons and we all get the, uh, get the list of the candidates before the test."
Tenzou-taichou was a loud drunk.
"Why?" Sakura asked miserably and greedily grabbed for the rest of their sake, slapping away all the too-fast-for-normal-eyes-to-catch hands reaching for it. She didn't want anyone knowing she was going to participate in the exams in case she didn't pass. Not that she wouldn't, she reminded herself with a frown, she was more than capable of making it to jounin.
Unless another snake decides to crash in, she smiled internally at the morbid thought.
"That way we can sheenks, sheenks," Yuugao motioned her hands as if she was holding a katana and decapitating someone, "eliminate the candidates who look good on paper but are particularly nasty in real life."
Sakura chuckled at the woman and felt the tension she'd been carrying in her shoulders lessen. One couldn't stay in a bad mood whenever Yuugao got sheenks-sheenks drunk.
The woman was the epitome of a good kunoichi during missions. Always following orders and never shying away from her duties. Whenever she was training with them or lounging around at headquarters, she was funny and loved to tease. Sakura liked all versions of Yuugao, their personalities matched in a lot of aspects.
With all the many traces of her personality Sakura had been privy to, drunk Yuugao was perhaps the one that she liked the most. The woman was clumsy and exaggerated her movements in a tremendously funny way that always got Sakura to laugh.
Coupled with how Tenzou-taichou loved to complain and loudly exclaim whatever came to mind and the way Genma got exceedingly flirtier and clingy, it was safe to say that getting drunk with Team Ro was one of Sakura's favourites activities.
Sakura and Genma quickly caught up to their teammates and soon enough, she was undeniably, soundly drunk.
"Go get me some food, jiji." She pushed Genma with her foot until he sort of fell out of the booth. He quickly recovered and dragged himself to the bar where he waited until the bartender put a plate of tempura on his arms and came back to their table.
"Here you go, sweetheart." He dropped the plate more than put it down on the table but Sakura couldn't care less. She was starving.
"Very ladylike." Yuugao sent her thumbs up while Tenzou looked at her across the table with squinting eyes and a grimace. She was positively stuffing her face.
"Wha'?" Sakura shrugged. "I barely ate anything today." She turned to Genma when he took another shot and frowned at him. "I told you before, I'm not helping your drunk ass anymore."
"I'm fiiine, pft," Genma scoffed and waved her away. Sakura narrowed her eyes at him.
"I'm serious, Shiranui, I'm never cleaning your puke again."
Genma grinned at her—his most charming one, she noted—and put his arm around her shoulders.
"No puking, I promise."
Sakura scoffed, shrugged his arm off her and went back to her plate.
"How, just—" Tenzou took a deep breath. "Just how can you keep talking about puke and still have an appetite like that?"
Sakura burped, more to see his reaction than anything else, and grinned at him.
"I'm a growing girl." She laughed when Yuugao snorted and sake came out of her nose, gave the girl a napkin and then shrugged. "Had a lot of work today, I didn't have time to eat much."
There was a pause where her teammates looked at each other and Sakura felt dread pool at the base of her spine. Whatever that look was, it was heavy with something. Sakura could see it even in her state.
"We know there's something going on, Sakura." It was Tenzou who spoke up, his voice slurring but not nearly as much as before.
Ice froze her insides and her food turned into ash in her mouth. Sakura gulped it down and reached for the sake. Maybe if she pretended she didn't hear him, they'd go back to their night of drunken fun.
"Whatever it is you're doing for Tsunade-sa—" Tenzou continued but Sakura was quick to interrupt him.
"Not here," she hissed, her hand closing around the bottle so strongly it was a surprise it didn't break.
The mood around the table was completely changed, tension hanging around them like a thick fog. Sakura instinctively started metabolizing the alcohol in her system faster. She knew there wasn't a chance she was under attack but her body was quickly falling into fight or flight instincts.
Sakura started when Genma's hand closed around hers and only then she realised she had begun inching it towards her holster. Sakura stared at their hands almost in a trance. Why had she been reaching for her weapons?
"You're safe inside the village, Sakura-chan," Yuugao said, her voice soft even as she slurred her words. "You're safe with us."
Genma's fingers were warm. Sakura focused on that for a while, willing her heart to slow down. His fingers were warm and his large hand completely enveloped hers in his grip. She sighed.
Sakura looked at each of them.
She tried to tell them with her eyes that no, she wasn't safe, even inside the village. Maybe it made her a paranoid to think like that and her experience as a shinobi had really put too much darkness inside her heart but she knew. She knew she would be Danzou's first target if he got wind of what was going on.
They looked back at her, alarm and concern clear on their features. They were so earnest. Sakura wanted to tell them everything and let them take care of it while she hid beneath her covers.
"I want to tell you everything," she murmured. Genma pressed more of his body against hers and she relished the warmth it gave her.
"You can trust us," Tenzou said, his voice as low as hers. Sakura managed a small grin.
"I trust you guys with my life, taichou." She tried to reassure them the best she could. "You need to trust me for a little while, until I can tell you everything."
She knew she had already said too much, that their conversation was already suspicious to anyone listening but she didn't care at the moment. Team Ro was where Uchiha Itachi had been placed during his time in ANBU. She figured they would have bonded with him like they did with her and the toll it must have taken to find out he murdered his entire clan...
Sakura had read in an official report that Team Ro had been the first to the scene, Yuugao being the one who found Sasuke.
She wondered how painful it must have been for the team. Sakura knew that if they had been half as close as they were nowadays, they would have noticed Itachi's behaviour and probably be concerned for her because of that.
She smiled her biggest smile then and changed the subject to something lighter. She channeled her inner Naruto and started spouting off different guesses of how the jounin exams would be, trying to get a rise out of them.
Sakura turned the hand Genma still held in his and interlaced their fingers before squeezing. He looked at her with a small smile on his face, nodded and turned back to the others to ply them with more drinks.
Sakura's guesses became progressively more outrageous and with a little help from the sake, they were back to joking in no time.
The sun was almost rising when she helped a plastered Genma into his apartment. They had left Tenzou and Yuugao back at the bar when Sakura realised that the man could barely keep his eyes opened anymore. She scoffed when she had first realised that he lived in the same building as Kakashi and Shizune. He even lived in the same floor as the copy-nin.
"What, did you boys just go to the same realtor and begged for matching apartments?" Sakura joked as she helped him out of his boots before stepping out of hers.
Genma laughed as he tried to stay upright.
"This building got crushed during the Kyuubi attack," he sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. "This area was really cheap when everything got rebuilt and a lot of shinobi bought the premade plants." He pushed himself off the wall and waved his hands. "You got me home as promised, no puke involved! Now shoo, I can make it to bed."
Genma took one step forward and proceeded to trip. Sakura huffed a laugh as she grabbed him by the back of his jounin jacket and held him upright.
"Sure thing, jiji."
She guided him to his bedroom, using Kakashi's apartment layout as a guide. Belatedly, she realised she was giving too much away when Genma looked at her strangely. It wasn't exactly common for students to know where their teacher's bedroom was even if the conditions she had found that out were completely innocent.
Sakura waited with baited breath for Genma to say something, but the man just gratefully pitched forward on top of his bed with a groan. Sakura smiled fondly at him and tried to help him out of his flak jacket.
He grabbed her wrist before she could pull away.
"Sakura." His tone was more serious than she ever heard it. The fact that he was using her name alone proved how important what he was about to say was. "I'm a loyal shinobi."
"I know," Sakura murmured with a frown, not really sure where he was getting at.
"Shut up and let me say this, brat." He frowned back at her and continued to look into her eyes intensely. "I'm loyal to Konoha and I'm loyal to our Hokage but most of all I'm loyal to my friends."
Sakura stared at him, not sure how to proceed. He took a deep breath and raised his eyebrows at her, his face completely serious.
"I'm loyal to you, Sakura," he said like if he didn't correctly enunciate each word perfectly, she wouldn't get the meaning behind them. "I trust you. And I trust your loyalty."
Sakura stared at him with wide eyes for a few seconds. The amount of gratitude and love she felt for her friend suffocated her for a while before she realised what the clouding of her vision meant. She was about to cry.
With a wet laugh she pitched forward and hugged him, uncaring that her tears were now being absorbed by the fabric of his shirt.
"I trust you too, Genma," she whispered to his shoulder.
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Sorry for this very transition-y chapter!
I'd like to make it very clear that the Commander is NOT Kakashi lol his name is Usui Toshio. Usui bc I like Kaichou wa Maid-sama and Toshio bc according to the site one of its meanings can be outstanding person/man/husband. What I said earlier about him sitting in on meetings with the daimyo is anime canon, btw! You guys can look him up, although all we ever saw was his hair haha I guessed he was important bc he wasn't like standing guard on the meeting, you know? He was actually sitting down on the table with the fucking daimyo so, yeah.
I know you guys really want Kakashi (trust me, I am DESPERATE to have him here too) and I promise he'll be here soon, just hang on tight, I gotcha.
I'm sure y'all have guessed Sakura would get to jounin pretty soon in her career and honestly it just never made sense to me that Neji was the only one who made it after the time jump. The only way I can explain that is because jounin is basically a political job (yeah, I call bullshit on that thing about oooh you have to have two affinities, like? More on this rant next chapter, stay tuned) and then it got me thinking "Wait up. Sakura is *the Hokage's* apprentice. Wtf." So yeah, headcanon is that she didn't get promoted because the council was always road blocking Tsunade left and right. I say fuck that, let's show how hard our girl worked and give her what she deserves.
I wish ffn let me put links in here but it doesn't so go over to youtube and watch a video called "Drunk Yamato" and I'm sure you'll start loving drunk!Tenzou as much as I do (thank you Tumblr, for showing me things like this)
Also, I think I should address this at some point but like... Genma and Sakura are STRICTLY friends in this fic. I'm sorry, I know they have great chemistry and all but there won't be even a tiny, drunken mistake of a kiss between them. Please, try to understand that they have a very real and very beautiful friendship and that they do love each other at this point, but they have no interest in each other apart from that. Ship their BROTP with me, please?
I have REALLY exciting news! We officially have a Beta! ! ! Remember that friend that encouraged me to continue with my original plot and said that I could write the shit out of it? Well! She's here to stay and she's fucking amazing. Everyone, please say hi and thank you to Mands on your comments! She's awesome.
This fic is very complicated and long and before I started writing I thought I'd write it all before posting so I wouldn't stop in the middle of it and leave my possible readers hanging but like... I just couldn't. The thing about fanfiction for me is that it brings people together. I remember during my early fanfiction days back in 2009 that I used to read other comments for the fics I liked and talk to people in the comment section and it was just so fucking good to really feel like I'm a part of something, you know? I continue to write this fic because of your comments on it, because I get to have fun writing it and then watch you guys have fun reading it and I dunno what my point even was.
I guess, I just wanted to say thank you. To you all and to Mands and specially to those who review and are willing to take this journey with me.