3D

by FicReader21

To me

Chapter 1: a gathering of those who missed the first meal of the day

Won't you come see about me?

I'll be alone, dancing, you know it, baby

Tell me your troubles and doubts

Give them everything, inside and out

They were the leftovers.

Sakura unrolled the scroll in her hands, taking a peek at the names inked inside just to confirm again, as if a different result would happen if she looked one more time. Sai. No clan name. Recently rehabilitated ROOT member who needed a soft start in his reintegration back into society. Actually, 'reintegration' was inaccurate, since he was never integrated in the first place. She barely knew Sai, but what she did know was that he had never lived a life outside of ROOT, an illegal organization that had stolen children at a young age and indoctrinated them into a creed set down by Danzou.

Then there was Hatake Kakashi, son of the fallen legend. Only remaining member of the infamous Team Minato. The details of what had happened were still kept under wraps.

And finally, her. The weak link of Team Jiraiya. The one who left behind while Neji went off on some kind of soul-searching quest with their captain and Sasuke…Sasuke disappeared.

To put it bluntly once more, the leftovers.

Sakura couldn't even begin to fathom what Tsunade intended by putting together this team—and then placing Sakura in charge as its leader. Sakura had been more than happy researching increasingly obscure medical techniques and spending her days in the hospital. She hadn't forgotten her skills as a shinobi either. She went on missions like the rest of the med nin, supporting the war cause and dedicating time in the field on the front lines. She was placed into a different team for every mission, but that didn't matter. It prevented close ties from forming.

She needed that distance from her comrades. None of those missions lasted longer than a week. This one was scheduled to go on for months. A year even, if things went right.

Sai arrived at the meeting spot first after her. The mission scroll had informed them all that they would be meeting outside of the southern village gates.

He nodded to Sakura in greeting, his expression entirely blank as he asked, "Good morning, Haruno-san. Did you sleep badly?"

It was such a bizarre thing to say that it caught Sakura off guard. She intuited that he seemed to be asking how she had slept the night before, a common enough piece of small talk, but he had twisted up a variation that sounded offensive, something that implied she appeared haggard rather than a bland invitation to fill the time with an exchange. Was it meant as a joke—some kind of awkward icebreaker? She just didn't know him well enough to judge how she should react.

"I slept okay," Sakura responded tersely.

"Perhaps you need a different kind of mattress." Sai seated himself beneath the tree where he had a good view of the village gates at the end of the road.

Her eye twitched. That follow-up dug the initial barb further. There was no way that he didn't realize that he was insulting her. She dearly hoped that their remaining team member, the now officially tardy Hatake Kakashi, would have more tact, because otherwise, she'd be charged with bloody murder before the day was done.

Thirty minutes passed. Sakura was beginning to think that Kakashi had somehow been ambushed along the way. It was the only explanation for why a jounin would blow the meet-up time. Frankly, any other reason short of a medical emergency was an unprofessional discourtesy. Sai didn't seem as nearly as irritated, calmly flipping through the pages of a book entitled, 'Social Groups and You.' Oh boy. She hoped it was helping.

More time passed.

Finally, she'd had enough.

"Where is he?" Sakura demanded to nobody in particular, jumping to her feet. There was a reason that she had determined their early departure time. Damn it, she had skipped breakfast for this.

"Who?" Sai asked.

"Hatake. He was supposed to meet us here!" She held up the scroll and shook it in her clenched fist.

"Oh. Him. Yes, he informed me that he was engaged in other matters and that we should start ahead without him."

She flared her nostrils. "I'm sorry, you couldn't tell me this earlier because…?"

"I surmised that if you wished to begin the mission, you would announce our departure." Sai folded his hands neatly in his lap like a good student waiting for praise.

Sakura was confused. Did he…want her to praise him? Never mind. She had bigger fish to fry.

"I'm going to kill him," she spat out through gritted teeth.

"Haruno-san, I respect you as a fellow human-being and the leader of this formation, but I must advise you against murder." Sai shut his book, widening his eyes in a pointed look that implied she really should know better.

"Did he say where he was going?"

"He did not."

She exhaled in frustration, starting back toward Hokage Tower with the intent of writing Hatake Kakashi up in a scathing report.

Sai called after her, adding, "But I know that he's at the Memorial."

Her rage waned. Many shinobi lingered around the Memorial as a way to cope with their grief. Equally as many avoided it for reasons rooted in similar ground.

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"Everyone knows that about Hatake-san." He marked the page with a bookmark and tucked the book into his pack.

Well, she didn't.

Sai trailed after her like a duckling after their mother, almost endearing except this duckling intermittently made irritating observations that a decent person would know to keep to themselves. She ground her teeth in silence and hoped that he would get the message. Alas, Sai took it as an opportunity to pontificate further.

As for Hatake, any pity she might have had for him vanished when she found him propped up against the Memorial, raunchy porn book in hand. She recognized it as one of Jiraiya's titles and knew immediately the kind of debauchery within its pages.

"Hatake-san. Did you get lost?" She held out the mission scroll into the air like a torch in the night.

Dark eyes beneath deeply hooded lids shifted to her. Though she had never quite spoken to him before, it wasn't difficult to tell who he was. Spiky silver hair, a little too shaggy for her taste, gathered into a stubby ponytail at the base of his neck. Dumb mask that he wore constantly, in any weather, at any event.

Oh yea, she knew who this guy was and she was not impressed. Yondaime be damned. She was the student of two Sages and the captain of this mission. It would be humiliating to lose control this early in the game.

Kakashi hummed, pretending to be in thought. "Aren't you that girl that Uchiha dumped?"

Hell. No.

#

"You know that this mission is pointless, right?" Kakashi asked.

At the head of the group, Sakura tensed. She didn't turn around, taking deep breaths to calm herself. She had been teetering on murdering this particular teammate for the past few hours. Somehow, Sai, with his weirdly veiled insults, had become her favorite. Only the presence of Sai as a witness prevented her from choosing violence like she wanted to. She ignored Kakashi and opened the map again, wondering just how long it was going to take them to reach their objective.

She sighed. At their current pace, it was going to take them more than a week. Maybe if they ran for part of the day, then it could speed things up, but she didn't want her team to use up more chakra than necessary as they were headed into less certain territory. They would be staying within the borders of Fire Country, anywhere beyond the reaches of Konoha proper were not as secure. The roads would be safe for now to travel on, at least, although that could change if the war took a turn for the worse.

"Did you hear me?" Kakashi spoke again, standing next to her this time.

She shot him a glare out of the corner of her eye. "Stop complaining and do the mission that you've been assigned."

"I'm not complaining. I'm stating facts. They're wasting all of our talents by sending us. Is it really necessary to have three people to hold down an espionage front in an unimportant town?"

"If that's what they're telling us to do, we need to do it." She put her hands on her hips.

"But I could be out there actually making a difference. What am I doing here? There's a war on." Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose.

She'd asked the very same question herself. Though they had never been put together on a team before, she knew that each of them was probably too capable to spare from the battlefield for long. And yet, here they were, being banished to an outer village that no one had ever heard of for goodness knows how long.

"I believe the point is to gather intel to assist in the war effort," Sai reminded Kakashi.

Sakura gestured at Sai gratefully. "Thank you. He remembers how to follow a mission order, unlike a certain someone." She sniffed. "Let's keep going. We're losing daylight."

This was why Sai was her favorite now.

Kakashi scowled, but he didn't say anything more.

#

Sai was not her favorite now.

On the second day of their journey, since Kakashi had become suspiciously quiet, Sai decided that it was his chance to try out conversation starters. Namely, all of them.

He asked her where she was born, what her first memory was, what her biggest fear was, if she would eat shoe leather if she were forced to by starvation, and on and on.

It got worse when they decided to set up camp for the night. She tried to answer politely at first, but then it began to grate on her. Sai didn't seem to notice, looking down at his book and rapid firing his questions as quickly as he could read them, sometimes not stopping for breath in between.

"Sai—enough." Kakashi sounded irritated, but there was amusement at her expense in his dark eye.

Sakura was going to kill both of them, and then she would change her name, her hair, and…and start herding sheep. That was something people did when they changed their identities, she was sure. She picked up a stick on the ground and rolled it between her fingers, darkly contemplating her new life.

"Have I done something wrong?" Sai asked, his face innocent.

Sakura softened. He doesn't know any better, she reminded herself.

She plastered a smile on. "No, it's all right. Kakashi was the one being rude."

"Lying to him isn't going to help." Kakashi crossed his arms.

"He's just being enthusiastic. We have to encourage him." Sakura remembered what her shishou had said before they left, that Sai had grown up without much social interaction at all. She just hadn't expected him to be so rough around the edges.

"We're ninjas, not life coaches."

"I would like to improve." Sai lowered his gaze to the ground.

Sakura felt a twinge of guilt. "You are. You're getting so much better, really." She knocked her shoulder into Kakashi, who was sitting next to her on the log. "Isn't he?"

"No," Kakashi replied flatly.

"Ah." Sai's shoulders hunched. "Excuse me, I think I'll go look for some wood. The fire is getting low."

"Oh," Sakura trailed, standing up as he left and debating whether or not to follow him. She glanced at the generous pile of sticks that they had yet to burn through and sat bac down slowly. He probably wanted to be alone for a few moments. When Sai had disappeared among the trees, she turned her displeasure on her remaining companion. "Why were you so mean to him?"

"Are you the team mother now?" Kakashi asked. "He's a big boy. You don't need to coddle him."

"I'm not coddling him." Her cheeks went hot. She threw the stick into the fire. "What is your problem?"

"My problem?" Kakashi jumped to his feet. "My problem is this bullshit mission in the middle of a war. My problem is you."

She got up too and pushed his chest. "I'm just trying to make the best of this. I don't know why they sent us out here either, but you know what, maybe there was a good reason to send you. You're impossible to work with, so who in their right mind would?"

She heard him take a ragged breath.

"Fuck you." It was difficult to read his expression with his mask, but his shoulders trembled from suppressed rage and he clenched his fists.

"Fuck you back." She was breathing hard and, stupidly, on the verge of tears that she didn't want this asshole to see. Turning away, she climbed into her sleeping bag and pulled it over her head.

This was why she hated long term missions. People were just too much to deal with. She wished that she were back in Konoha, her books piled high around her like a fortress, where she would never have to feel like she was coming apart because some idiot enraged her like this.

She hated him.

Chapter 2: the difficulty in trying to anticipate the future

A part of Kakashi wanted to abandon this mission all together, and he would have, if not for the small problem of his village branding him as a missing nin and then having to spend the rest of his life on the run because he couldn't deal with one annoying girl with obnoxious pink hair.

He seethed while they packed up their little camp the next morning. His father had always said that anger tended to fade after sleeping, but he woke up just as mad as before. Sakura thought that he was impossible to work with? Him?! She should take a good long look in the mirror before accusing anyone of that.

"Watch it," Kakashi growled at Sakura when she brushed shoulders with him while climbing up the sloping incline back to the main road.

"You watch it," she shot back.

This time, she knocked into him on purpose, but he stepped aside nimbly and she stumbled to the ground.

"How did you ever pass as a chunin?" He sneered down her.

Sakura's cheeks went red. Sai bent and offered her a hand, which she accepted, glaring at Kakashi all the while.

"You want to go, Hatake?" Sakura dropped her pack and it landed in a thud behind her. Her green eyes glinted dangerously.

"Yea, let's do this." He let his own pack fall before adding, "Winner gets to be captain for the rest of the mission."

Kakashi should have been named captain in the first place, even if this was a bullshit mission. Sakura was no leader. She would plunge them straight into disaster at the first opportunity.

Sakura gritted her teeth. "Deal."

"Is it wise to fight right now?" Sai asked.

"Yes," Kakashi and Sakura said at the same time.

They raced down the slope to the open field where their camp had been. Sai sat down with resignation on a large boulder a short distance away. He dug through his pack for a small sketchbook to amuse himself while he waited.

Kakashi and Sakura circled each other; the air crackled with their mutual contempt. Everything about her irked him, from the top of her pink head down to her toes.

"Taijutsu only," Sakura said, adjusting her black fingerless gloves.

He cracked his knuckles. "Fine by me."

With that, Sakura came flying at him, her fist drawn. He jumped back, avoiding getting hit in the jaw, and went low for a leg sweep. Too obvious. She somersaulted into the air, using his shoulders as a launching pad, and landed behind him.

He whirled in time to block a series of quick jabs to his torso. This was different than when he sparred with Obito, Rin, or even Minato-sensei. He didn't just want to win. He wanted to show her that she wasn't better than him.

He drove his knee into her gut. She grunted. For that, she hooked her leg behind his knee and yanked him off his balance. He threw his arms over his head and arched backward into a flip, tearing out clumps of the grass as he righted himself in a low crouch. His temper flared at the sight of her smirking at him.

Sakura had no right to be so arrogant when she was just a lucky idiot who happened to be at the right place at the right time when the Godaime needed to push off her busy work to focus on leading the village. If not for that connection, she would have faded into obscurity among the countless other mediocre nin.

Kakashi darted across the field at top speed and Sakura did the same, two enormous forces of violence headed for collision.

Suddenly, a sharp pain behind his left eye erupted in his head.

He cried out, stumbling as his vision went black. His skull felt like it would crack open. He fell to his knees hard, gasping for breath. Nausea turned the contents of his stomach.

"Hatake?" Sakura raised her voice in alarm as she skidded to a stop in front of him.

He barely managed to groan a wordless reply, clawing at the forehead protector over the left side of his face.

"Lie down," she ordered, but didn't wait for him to comply, grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him flat onto his back.

Sai came up, asking what was wrong. In a daze, Sakura and Sai's voices sounded muffled and strange to Kakashi's ears, accompanied by a high pitched ringing in the background. He tried to stop Sakura as she peeled back the forehead protector, but all he could do was weakly bat at her hand.

When they saw what was underneath, they froze in shock.

The burning red of the sharingan, the prized bloodline feature of the Uchiha, stared back at them. Blood seeped out from the corner. Sakura's lips moved, but her words were incomprehensible. The last thing that Kakashi saw before he lost consciousness was the green glow of her chakra.

And then he was gone.

#

"Take it, Kakashi. I want you to use it to save yourself and Rin."

Kakashi jolted, his friend's name on his lips. For a moment, he was reliving that nightmare again, where Obito was crushed beneath that boulder, the life fading in the remaining eye that he was offering. Cold sweat coated Kakashi's forehead.

He pulled his knees into his chest, hiding his face as he tried to stop shaking.

I'm sorry, he thought. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

A hand touched his shoulder and he flinched, realizing that he wasn't alone.

"Just me. Have some water." Sakura knelt next to him, offering him a canteen.

"Thanks." Kakashi accepted the drink. The inside of his mouth felt dry, his throat too tight.

He turned his head in the other direction, drawing his mask down and taking a sip. The water was tepid after sitting inside its container, but Kakashi decided that it tasted delicious.

By the position of the sun, he estimated that it was nearly midday. His last recollection was that it had been dawn, so he must have been out for hours. Sai and Sakura had dragged him under the shade of a beech tree. Sunlight filtered through the branches in golden flecks, dancing with the passing breeze.

Sai looked up from his sketch of the surrounding landscape. "Glad to see that you're awake, Hatake-san."

"Thanks," Kakashi grunted. The way Sakura stared at him was unnerving. He shifted uncomfortably. "What?"

He expected her to ask how he had gotten his hands on the sharingan without being an Uchiha. Instead, she said, "Your chakra pathways are rejecting the transplantation."

Kakashi frowned. "Does that mean I'm going to lose the eye?"

"Potentially. There's always a risk of that happening with a transplant, but more so with an enhanced organ like the sharingan. Have you been undergoing chakra therapy?"

"Er…no. I didn't know that I was supposed to," he lied and looked away.

Sakura crossed her arms. "I find that hard to believe."

"Maybe they did mention it at the hospital." Kakashi adjusted the forehead protector, retying the knot.

"And how long ago did you receive the surgery?"

The term 'surgery' recalled a sterile room and clean instruments, staff dressed in scrubs with their hair covered by caps. The way that he had received the sharingan had been the furthest thing from that definition, in the mud and rain, with the enemy closing in on them and one inexperienced medic doing her best with the limited tools in her field kit.

Kakashi was tempted to brush Sakura off, but for once the expression on her face made him think better of it. "About a year ago," he confessed.

The other day had been the anniversary of Obito's death. The disquiet in Kakashi simmered up again and he shut his eyes before he lost it again.

"Hatake," the tenderness in Sakura's voice took him by surprise. "It will take some work, but we can save the eye. Would that be all right?"

Kakashi opened his eyes. His hands lay limp in his lap. "Why would you do that?"

"No one else is around to do it, is there?"

He considered it, but there was really not much to think about. It was his own fault that he hadn't taken care of Obito's final legacy, the one piece of his friend that he had left. A part of him had known that he was putting off something crucial, but he had ignored it anyway.

"Do what you want with your time," Kakashi muttered, getting back onto his feet. "But I still don't like you."

"Trust me, the feeling is mutual." Sakura snorted. She dusted herself off and picked up her pack.

#

The fortune teller's sign towered above them, painted in garish colors, announcing that 'The Great Seer' was only a short distance away to read their futures.

"What an…interesting place," Sakura commented, referring to the structure down the path that led off of the road, which shared the same colors of red, blue, and green paint as the sign on its walls and tiled roof.

Bronze animals with hideous grinning faces perched along path, patched with blue oxidation like mold taking over fruit left out too long. A huge maple tree shaded the house, ribbons trailing from the twisting branches, the ragged ends fluttering in the breeze.

"I read about this fortune teller in a travel guide for the area." Sai brought out the small notebook that he kept scribbling in. "It is supposedly extremely accurate in her readings. Many people come from far and wide to seek her out."

Kakashi scoffed. "What gullible idiots. Come on, we're wasting daylight."

"Suddenly in a rush to get back to the mission?" Sakura raised her brow, adjusting the straps of her pack. "I thought you wanted nothing to do with it."

Kakashi and Sakura had moved from hostility to a form of reluctant tolerance. At least things seemed to have become a little easier between them, their argument from the night before fading. They traded barbs still, but with less actual animosity.

"The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can get back to actual work." Kakashi rolled his eyes.

"What could it hurt to stop in? We need the break." Sakura shrugged.

They had been traveling nonstop since leaving their last camp, trying to make up for lost time.

"It would seem like a good opportunity to partake in some local culture," Sai pointed out.

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "All fortune tellers are scam artists. They just tell you what you want to hear."

"I'd be interested to know what this one believes that I want to hear." Sai seemed thoughtful.

"Let's do it." Sakura clapped her hands once.

Kakashi was aghast. "Not you too."

"Get that stick out of your ass, Hatake. It won't take long," she replied sweetly, batting her lashes.

Kakashi told himself that he didn't find her antics cute. The others went ahead, while he reluctantly followed, muttering about how stupid this all was under his breath.

The door opened on its own as they approached, revealing a shadowy interior.

"Bad," Kakashi said.

"We're ninjas." Sakura stepped inside without any hesitation.

Kakashi dawdled at the threshold, scanning his surroundings for energy signatures and found none except for an odd source within the structure.

"Is that the fortuneteller?" Kakashi followed a few steps behind as they moved down a long hallway.

"Must be. But it's strange." Sakura closed her eyes. "I don't think I've ever felt anyone like this before."

Every creature put off an energy signature, even plants, to a lesser degree. Animals tended to have more simple forms while humans varied with their emotions or what stage of life they were in. It was the reason why shinobi could train themselves to suppress their signature as needed.

This one, however, felt like a deep well, rooted to an even greater source that Kakashi couldn't trace.

"Bad," he repeated.

"Hush," Sakura replied.

They stepped past a set of dark velvet curtains embroidered with silver constellations, entering a perfectly circular room. Dripping candles burned in the sconces on the wall.

A wood and glass booth had been placed at the center. Inside, a mechanical doll sat, its face covered by a porcelain mask painted like a fox. Its head was lowered, as if it were asleep in the shadows of the booth. 'The Great Seer' had been painted on the lower half of the booth in the same manner as the sign outside. There was a small coin slot to the right, indicating that it would cost them one ryo for their fortune.

"Oh, come on. It's just a machine that spits out random things." Kakashi threw up his hands into the air. "How can it tell the future?" He turned to leave, but there was no longer any door. He drew a kunai. "Uh, Haruno?"

Sakura ignored him, making a beeline for the booth and slipping in a coin. "Me first!"

He didn't know what kind of genjutsu this was, but it was obvious that they'd waltzed right into a trap. Neither Sakura nor Sai seemed to have noticed.

Lavender toned lights came to life inside the glass. A clicking sound came from within and the Seer jerked up, moving its arms up and down.

"I am the great and powerful Seer and I know all," the Seer crooned. "Place your hand inside to discover your future."

Sakura did as she was told, throwing an amused glance over her shoulder at her companions. Kakashi waited for the worst—maybe a tiny guillotine hidden in the compartment.

Lights flared in the eyeholes of the doll's mask as a tinny melody played. Then, a piece of paper came out of the bottom.

"Your future is told," the Seer announced before slouching forward, the booth going dark again.

Sakura eagerly read the paper, holding it up and squinting a little. "'Only shooting stars break the mold.'" She made a face. "What the hell does that mean?"

"I told you this is a scam," Kakashi said, smug. He twirled the kunai between his fingers when she scowled at him.

"I'd like to give it a try," Sai said, coming up to the booth as Sakura stepped back to give him room.

"Disappointed?" Kakashi whispered to Sakura.

"Shut up," Sakura growled.

They watched the mechanical doll in the booth go through its spiel again.

Sai's 'fortune' was no less enigmatic. "'The years stop coming and they don't stop coming,'" he read, puzzled. "Wouldn't that always be true?"

"All right, that's enough of that." Sakura sighed.

To Kakashi's relief, the door was there again, though it had been missing up until a few minutes ago. He tried to point this anomaly out to his companions, but they didn't believe him. They left through the same way they had come in.

Kakashi laced his hands behind his head, gloating loudly. "I can't believe you two fell for that."

"Okay, smartie pants. It was just for fun anyway," Sakura replied.

"Bested by a dumb robot," he crowed, savoring her disappointment.

Just as the door closed behind them, an icy feeling touched the back of Kakashi's neck, making every hair on his body rise. He froze as he heard the Seer's mechanical voice in his ear, "Sakura will be the key."

He whirled, but found no one there.

"Did anyone else hear that?" Kakashi demanded.

"No," Sai replied. He lifted his head, checking for what it could have been. "We're the only ones here at the moment."

Kakashi also scanned his surroundings to be certain, however, this time, he sensed nothing. Not even the strange source that he'd noticed earlier. Neither of his teammates seemed bothered. As silly as he'd judged them to be, he was fairly certain that they had enough training to notice any obvious dangers.

Maybe he was being a bit paranoid.

"That was nice little break, as stupid as it was." Sakura stretched her arms as they stepped back into the sunlight onto the path.

"Were you hoping for any answers in particular, Haruno-san?" Sai asked.

Sakura shook her head. "It doesn't really matter. I think I already knew that he wasn't coming back."

The wistful expression on her face bothered Kakashi for some reason. Kakashi could guess exactly who she was referring to: Uchiha Sasuke.

It was interesting how much time people spent openly gossiping. Kakashi unwillingly absorbed the details even when he preferred to mind his own business.

Many of the details varied wildly, but generally, he knew that Sakura and Sasuke had once been on the same team together. Perhaps romantically involved. News spread quickly of Sasuke's defection to the Akatsuki and he'd been branded as a traitor and a rogue nin. The reasons for his defection were more unclear and the rest of the Uchiha clan were famously tight lipped.

Some thought that Sasuke had experimented with corrupted sources of power and was hungry for more. Perhaps, like Orochimaru before him, he had merely gone insane. Others speculated that he desired revenge after his father had been executed when it came to light that he had conspired against the village in a ploy to seize the role of the hokage. The truth, however, remained elusive.

Kakashi recalled the constant whispers that trailed after Sakura in those early months as she walked at a clipped pace with her shoulders tight. Eventually, the interest in her faded as something else caught the public's interest, but Kakashi remembered from personal experience the constant stress of living under that kind of scrutiny, knowing that everywhere they went, some entitled stranger was dissecting their lives as if they had any right.

"Hatake, what are you staring at?" Sakura asked, interrupting Kakashi's thoughts.

"I thought I saw a shooting star."

"Shut up."

Chapter 3: life changing discoveries tend to happen by the ocean

The town of Maki almost resembled Konoha, except it was by the sea. Weather worn buildings were packed together, the long rows sharing slanted roofs of tile and wood, some held down by chunks of stone. Blue awnings shaded shop fronts and eateries where the townspeople milled about. Winding dirt streets led into tight alleys hidden from view.

Sakura breathed in the smell of salt water that drifted along a fresh breeze. "This is so nice. I can't remember the last time that I went to the beach."

Sai quietly admired the gentle blue waters sparkling just beyond the town. "I've never seen it before. Only read about it."

"The ocean?" Sakura asked.

"Yes," he replied, still staring. "I do not think any of the books did it justice."

She grinned at him, knocking into his shoulder playfully. "When we're settled, we can visit the shore."

Sai turned to her. The smile on his face was different than all the rest that he'd allowed her to see before. Real this time, not a careful mask. "That would be nice," he mumured, pleased.

They continued on. Sakura asked a local for directions to the cafe identified on the mission directive and led her team there. On the way, they passed a woman on her roof, carefully laying down round rice cakes on a straw mat to dry in the sun. The lower level of the building had an open window, selling the grilled rice cakes to order, basted with a golden sauce.

As they walked through the town, Sakura stole a few glances at Hatake, who had retreated back into his glowering silence before their arrival. A few days had passed since their fight at the campsite. Every morning and evening, she checked the sharingan transplant and its chakra pathways. The damage didn't seem to be getting any worse, but that wasn't the same thing as improvement.

Hatake never offered up an explanation for how he'd come into possession of a feared Uchiha bloodline technique. Because of that, she'd never felt quite right about asking, though not for a lack in curiosity. She knew what it was like to have speculation surrounding you, strangers trying to figure you out without knowing anything at all. She recalled that Uchiha Obito had been part of Hatake's original team and the recognition of that connection alone was enough to shut her up.

The cafe they were looking for was tucked away from the larger main road on a peaceful side street, nestled between a bookstore and an antique shop. A painted sign that read, 'The Fox's Cup,' hung above the door. Bright red geraniums grew in neat boxes hanging below the wide windows. A dark haired woman in a green apron, presumably the proprietor, was on the little patio in the front, chatting with a customer sitting at a cast iron table beneath a canvas umbrella. She glanced up as their group approached, her blue eyes widening.

"Kakashi?" the woman said, raising her hand to cover her mouth.

Hatake stopped in place.

"You're…alive?" he breathed out.

The woman took a few dazed steps toward them. Sakura tensed as she felt a strange pulse of energy through the earth, then the woman's eyes rolled to the back of her head as she collapsed. Hatake reacted quickly, disappearing from the spot that he was standing in and reappearing to catch her before she hit the ground.

The customer that the woman had been talking to stood up, anxiously saying, "Mirai, are you all right?" The customer didn't even seem to notice Hatake's vanishing act.

Sakura was at the unconscious woman's side in the next moment, taking a pocketlight out of her waistpack and peeling back the woman's eyelids to check her pupils. Normal dilation. Good.

"Hiruma-san, there's something wrong with your wife," the customer said through the door of the cafe.

A brown haired man rushed outside. His attention went first to his wife before shifting to Hatake.

"Kakashi?" the man said, staring.

Hatake stared at him too, the visible part of his face paling.

"Inside," the man said.

"Should I call a doctor?" the customer asked.

"I'm a medic," Sakura said.

"We'll take care of things here, Fumiko-san," the man assured the customer, who finally departed after.

The man waved them aside as he gathered the woman protectively into his arms and picked her up. He ushered their group into the cafe then up a stairway behind a door marked with a childishly painted 'Private' sign that led to a living area above.

The man laid the woman out in the main room so that Sakura could do a full diagnostic check.

The directive had stated that they would be meeting with some established operatives at this cafe, who had been on a long term undercover mission here. Hatake sat there, his hands on his knees, his back stiff, glaring in the direction of the man with enough intensity to cause a fire.

"Tell me what is going on," Sakura demanded in a whisper. "Who are these people?"

"This woman is Uzumaki Kushina," Hatake spoke, his tone cold. He nodded toward the man. "Want to introduce yourself, sensei?"

Sensei…?

"My name is Namikaze Minato," the man said, inclining his head.

If Sakura had been eating something, she would have choked on it. "Namikaze Minato. As in the Yellow Flash? That Namikaze Minato?"

The man was a legendary shinobi and formerly Hatake's teacher and captain. He'd died in an attack on the village a few years ago. Sakura had not yet been out of the Academy then, but she remembered getting orders to help civilians evacuate. Their home had nearly been annihilated by a creature out of a nightmare. Konoha was still trying to recover from the damage.

"The very same." The muscle in Hatake's jaw tensed.

"I thought he was dead," Sai said. "Are you certain?"

"It's their chakra signatures. There's no doubt about it," Hatake said through gritted teeth.

Uncertain, Sakura looked between Hatake and Minato. Hatake continued to glare at his teacher. The latter didn't even seem to notice, his attention wholly focused on Kushina.

Sakura had seen Minato before, but always from a distance. His blond hair, the only feature that she knew him for, was gone, replaced by a subdued brown shade. If he had passed her on the street, she wouldn't even have known that she had a passing encounter with the legendary shinobi.

We've stepped into some shit, Sakura thought. Thanks for the heads up, Shishou.

Tsunade probably had her reasons to keep the details under wrap, but this was a bit much. Not one, but two supposedly dead people, clearly in hiding. To make matters worse, it was Namikaze Minato, a man who had been a frontrunner as Hokage before his supposed death.

Sakura decided to put it out of her mind while she treated the patient in front of her. She placed her palms over Kushina's heart and stomach.

"Her chakra is unstable," Sakura assessed, easing her own chakra into Kushina and trying to slow the overproduction of energy from her organs. It was then that she sense another source, the barest flicker, separate from Kushina's, but still a part of her. "She's pregnant," Sakura murmured to herself. Next to her, Hatake stiffened when he heard. An odd reaction.

"Is the baby okay?" Minato asked, holding Kushina's hand.

"I'm not finding any major issues." It was fairly common for pregnant shinobi to have problems due to the shared chakra flow between the mother and the baby, who would develop their own independent chakra as time went on.

Sakura thought that would be the last surprise, after a day of some major surprises, but she was wrong. As Kushina's chakra stabilized, Sakura came upon a third source of energy behind a powerful seal, one unlike anything she'd ever encountered.

Strange chakra pulsed behind layers and layers of highly advanced fuinjutsu, straining against the binding seal, some of it leaking through. Raw anger bled like a sharp poison through the connection Sakura had placed between herself and Kushina. A deep instinct within Sakura knew to fear it, whatever it was.

She withdrew her hands with a gasp. "What is that inside her?"

Sakura suspected that it had to do with the reason why the couple had chosen to fake their deaths and turn their backs on the village. It was also probably the reason why they were here, but she couldn't decide yet if they were meant to help Kushina and Minato or to eliminate the threat. Perhaps Tsunade was leaving that choice to Sakura.

Minato shut his eyes. "Kakashi, do you remember what happened to Rin?"

"The Three Tails." Anguish crept into Hatake's voice.

Both Sakura and Sai straightened, exchanging a look. Neither of them had known that the attack on the village had been connected to Hatake's former teammate.

"She was kidnapped and turned into a jinchuriki," Minato explained for the benefit of Sakura and Sai, since Hatake already had lived through it. "It's a life threatening technique in the first place, but even more difficult if the subject's soul is established. Not that success was their aim—they wanted the Three Tails to escape and cause destruction. A bomb set to go off, hidden in one of our own."

"Which is what happened," Sakura said.

"What does any of that have to do with why we're here?" Hatake asked coldly.

Kushina began to wake then. Minato helped her sit up, supporting her back. He pressed his forehead to hers, closing his eyes and murmuring something to her that only she could hear. Sakura edged away from their intimate moment, feeling like an intruder.

Kushina turned to Hatake and gave him a half-hearted smile. "It's been a while."

"Hard to stay in touch with a dead woman," Hatake returned without missing a beat.

Despite the heavy tension in the room, Kushina looked like she was trying not to laugh. "You haven't changed at all." She looked to Minato. "How did they find us?"

Minato drew in a breath. "I contacted Tsunade through a secure communication."

Kushina frowned. "We didn't talk about that."

"I panicked after the first time you fainted." He winced in embarassment. It was oddly endearing to Sakura to witness the great shinobi having to explain his actions like a boy being chided. "Not my most well thought out moment."

"Oh, you big idiot. You're lucky you're so handsome." Kushina touched his cheek affectionately. When she lifted her gaze to Sakura and the others, her tender expression went stony. "Konoha knows we're here now. Are you here to take us back or to kill us?"

Sai and Hatake watched Sakura for their cue; she was their captain, for what it was worth.

"This was highly classified," Sakura began hesitantly, in the process of forming her thoughts as she spoke. The pieces were slowly starting to come together in her own understanding. "It was given to me directly by Tsunade-shisou." She paused. "We didn't have many details on our directive, except that we were supposed to assist you secure your operation."

"Our operation?" Puzzled, Kushina lifted her brows.

"It must have to do with what is sealed within Kushina," Sakura concluded.

Kushina pressed a hand to her stomach, a bitter smile on her lips. "Doesn't it always?"

Hatake put it together. "You're a jinchuriki," he said flatly.

Kushina was silent for a while before nodding. "After Rin and the attack by the Three Tails, Minato and I could see our future. There was no way that the council would let me stay alive after they witnessed firsthand what could happen." She blinked quickly, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "We disappeared because it was the only choice for us. I wish that we could have said goodbye to you, Kakashi."

Sakura sat there in stunned silence. Namikaze Minato, the most brilliant shinobi of his generation, the man that would have been the next Hokage by all accounts, had given it all up so that he could be with the woman that he loved.

"There was no reply to my original communication to Tsunade, so I thought my message was ignored. It was over two months ago when we—when we found out that the baby was on their way," Minato said. He turned to Hatake. "It's good to see you again."

Hatake crossed his arms. "You should have told me."

"The only person who knew was Tsunade and that was only because we needed her help to cover our tracks. She forged the autopsy records and made sure that there was no doubt," Minato said. "Kakashi, I'm sorry. I really am. I hope that you'll be able to understand."

"Fuck this," Hatake muttered.

He formed the handseals and then he was gone.

#

This was.

So much.

While Sakura appreciated the show of trust from the mentor that she both revered and admired, maybe Tsunade shouldn't have had such complete belief in her student. Sakura was not ready for this kind of responsibility. Her mind was like a panicked hamster running in a squeaking wheel.

Sakura collapsed backward onto the warm sand, staring up at the sky. Even the sound of the waves lapping against the shore failed to sooth her. She didn't know what she was supposed to do. Minato's original communication had been out of concern for Kushina's well-being. Considering Kushina's status as a jinchuriki, it would have made sense for a skilled medic to be sent to the area to assist and monitor the pregnancy.

But they were also rogue nin. Perfectly nice people, but according to the laws of Konoha, they were traitors. Any Leaf shinobi who encountered them would be obligated to hunt them down or capture them.

"Haruno-san, what are your orders?" Sai asked, sitting cross legged next to her.

"I don't know." She threw up her hands and let them fall, limp at her sides. "Why don't we have an actual mission directive? We're supposed to have one!"

"Should we look for Hatake-san?" Sai asked.

Sakura gave him the stink eye. "Because he'd be a better captain than me?"

"That is not what I meant."

"Hatake wants to be alone. Let him."

Sai was quiet for a moment before asking, "Why did Hatake-san react like that?"

Hatake hadn't returned after his disappearance hours earlier. Sakura honestly didn't blame him. "I think it's to be expected. Minato and Kushina said that they were like family to him after his father's death." Hatake's father was the White Fang, a reknown shinobi in his own right. That was about as much as Sakura knew about him. He must have passed away on a mission when Hatake was young. "Can you imagine if you thought that someone you loved had died, only to find out that they didn't and had hidden from you?"

"But the important thing is that they're still alive." Sai began to pile up the smooth pebbles within his reach. "He should be happy."

"He probably is." Sakura blew a strand of pink hair out of her face then added. "And pissed off like hell."

"How can he be both?" Sai looked puzzled.

"It's just how it is sometimes."

He pondered Sakura's words as he resumed arranging the pebbles. "Do you not consider his state a distraction from our mission?"

Sakura snort. "Of course."

"Yet you seem to be accepting of his reaction. You are even allowing him time to gather himself."

"Because it's what he needs." Not to mention what Sakura herself needed, trying to figure out the next move despite this mess.

Sai's dark eyes were trained on her now, his tone careful as he asked, "Do you consider him lesser because of this?"

"Of course not." Sakura frowned. "Maybe for the other shit he pulls, but definitely not this."

"I see."

Sai didn't say more, his expression growing thoughtful as he returned his gaze back to the ocean. Sakura sat up and shook the sand out of her hair the best that she could. They watched the sky fade into rosey hues as the sun descended below the horizon line. Some time later, as the light washed their surroundings in pale gold, the knot of tension in Sakura's chest finally begin to ease.

"You said this was your first time seeing the ocean. What do you think?" Sakura asked, almost sorry to interrupt the comfortable silence they had fallen into.

"I feel small while looking at it." Sai breathed in as the wind ruffled the strands of his dark hair. He had loosened his forehead protector, letting it dangle around his neck. "But also free. It is not logical."

"It doesn't have to be."

He smiled at her, once again true. "Yes, I believe that you're right."