Title: Seeking Rin
Chapter: 8 - Vivace
Author: Killaurey
Rating: T
Word Count: 3955
Summary: When Sakura, newly in a relationship with Kakashi, finds out about Rin, she makes a choice that's hard on them both. Even worse, there's a mysterious illness cropping up in Konoha that even Tsunade can't heal. And what does Ino have to do with it? Kakashi x Rin, KakaSaku.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. It's Kishimoto's and I just play with it. Part 8 of ? Unbeta'd.


Sakura looks up from reviewing the charts for the surgery she's been prepping for the last hour. "Can you repeat that?"

The nurse shifts uneasily and mutters what she'd thought he'd muttered.

"What do you mean cancelled?" she asks, flipping back through the charts. "Not postponed?"

"No," the nurse says, "his family's decided they can't afford the price."

She purses her lips tightly, sitting on the first five responses she comes up with. They're inappropriate for work. "This has been scheduled for months-have they had a sudden change in circumstances?"

"They looked red-eyed," the nurse says. "They're not happy."

"Are they here?"

"Yes, Haruno-san."

"Tell them the surgery is going forward if they want it to," she says, coming to a decision rapidly.

"The cost-"

"I'll handle it," Sakura says. "Tell them that. I won't let someone die just because they can't afford the surgery."

As the nurse leaves the room, she goes back to reading the charts.

It feels good to do good, she thinks, and smiles as she continues her prep.


Six hours later she's got a raging headache and an empty stomach but her mood is still good. The surgery went well, she doesn't think there will be complications-though, of course, she's having the patient monitored just in case there are-and she's just completed the paperwork that says she'll pay for it.

Sakura manages a smile for the family as they thank her effusively and the moment they're ushered in to see their relative, once she's sure they won't need her to answer any questions, she disappears down the staff hallways and makes for her office.

Her office is dim and blessedly quiet. She turns on her tiny coffeemaker with the flick of a button and while she waits for coffee she nibbles on some dried fruit and nuts. She'll need a proper meal, but the food will help take care of her headache which is what she needs right now.

Sakura stretches, lifting damp with sweat hair back from her neck and sits down in her comfy chair. She wishes idly for a footstool and wonders if she'd be able to get one from supply.

What a ridiculous thing to want, Sakura chides herself. Are you a pampered princess or what?

Rolling her eyes at her own silliness, she opens the drawer where she'd stashed her bag hours ago, and pulls out the journal she and Ino are sharing. It's her turn to write in it and Sakura flips it open.

Ino's writing is bold and spiky, like she is, Sakura thinks with a smile.

Forehead!, greets the writing. I've been thinking about that play some more and, you know what, I wonder if I can't find anything about the writer to see if he did have training. If he did, then we'll have to watch him to make sure he doesn't inadvertently give away village secrets with his work...

Sakura shakes her head, laughing just a little, as she keeps reading. Ino rambles on about the play and then a little more about the movie she's planning to drag Sakura to see that night, though Sakura notes, with amusement, Ino is careful to not give away what the movie is called.

There's a few paragraphs going on about the unfairness of everything and how she's pretty sure that she's going to be alone for life, except that she's got Sakura and so that's not so bad: they can be single forever together, right?

Despite the way that makes her heart ache, Sakura rolls her eyes and scribbles in the margins that she's got no intentions of being single for her whole life and if Ino were being honest, horror of horrors, she would admit that she had no plans for that either.

It's only near the end that Ino becomes really serious though.

Sakura, the writing goes on, I know you're confused about pretty much everything right now. I'm sorry for that. I just want to let you know that I'll always be on your side.

Love, Ino

Sakura lets out a sigh, her eyes a little damp, and blinks hard. She rereads the passage, trailing her fingers down the words, and tries to decide what to answer and how to answer. She can't answer the last bit flippantly-Ino lies all the time but Sakura knows she's sensitive underneath it all and is loathe to hurt her-but the rest of the entry almost demands that she be as ridiculous as possible in response.

Deciding to give it some though, Sakura gets up pours herself a cup of coffee. She's just sat back down when her office door opens and Shizune slips in, milky pale and eyes furtive. Shizune's clutching a file folder in her hands and goes still when she spots Sakura.

Sakura straightens up in her chair, alarmed at Shizune's appearance. "Shizune-san?"

"Shh," Shizune says, shutting and locking the door behind her. "There's been no one else in here, right?"

"It's my office," Sakura says, baffled, "why would there be?"

"I've got something for you," Shizune says, looking like she's going to be ill. "But you absolutely can't let anyone know that I've told you."

Sakura forces Shizune to sit down, alarmed at the other woman's colour, and once that's done, places her hands on her hips. "What's that supposed to mean?" she whispers, keeping one eye on the door. Her fingers twitch through the seals to activate her security jutsu. Their steady hum as they activate is comforting. "If you're not supposed to tell me then maybe you shouldn't!"

Normally, Sakura is pretty fond of gossip, but this-this makes her uneasy, the way Shizune is acting, and with Shizune's rank and standing in the eyes of the village, there's very few people that Shizune would be so concerned about getting in trouble, real trouble from.

A pit of dread curls in Sakura's stomach. Even knowing that, part of her thinks, Shizune's still come to see her. That means it's got to be important.

"I can't," Shizune says, looking even whiter. "I kept this as long as I could, but... are we safe here?"

"I designed the security here myself," Sakura says quietly. "It's as safe as we're going to get."

She can't promise total safety. There's no where in the village with that, but her words are enough for Shizune, who sighs in relief.

Sakura watches her. "Do you want a coffee?" she asks, at a loss as to how to start when she doesn't even know what this is about.

"Yes," Shizune says, "thank you."

Sakura nods, closing her journal and putting the cap back on her pen. While Shizune closes her eyes, Sakura puts the journal back in her drawer and gets up to pour the coffee.

Shizune takes it gratefully, sitting in the other chair, as Sakura takes her seat behind the desk. "I shouldn't be telling you any of this," Shizune says gravely. "But I think you need to know." She pushes the folder across the desk.

Sakura looks at it like it might bite her and then tentatively picks it up. "How much trouble are we going to be in?"

Shizune glances to the side. "That," she says, "probably depends on how it all falls out."

That makes Sakura frown and, with another glance at Shizune, who is whey-faced and sipping carefully at her coffee, like she doesn't trust it to stay down, Sakura flips open the folder.

The first thing she notices is the picture of Ino clipped to the top of what's clearly a medical report. Sakura glances up at Shizune, frowns at her, and then starts reading it. Date of infection... symptoms and the dates they've first become apparent... treatment...

With every line, her frown deepens until she's scowling at the page, and at the dates on it. Two months, she thinks, studying the dates. Nearly three.

All without her knowing anything about it.

And, Sakura realizes, Ino's been running missions while ill. She gropes for her coffee and swallows a large gulp of it, trying to force down the lump in her throat.

She can't-doesn't want to-imagine what it would feel like to lose Ino and yet, and yet looking at this, she sees that Ino's been doing things that have been putting her at serious risk of being lost for months.

And she shouldn't be able to, Sakura thinks, reading the symptoms and their treatments. She should be in bed.

Sakura tries to think if she's noticed anything off about Ino lately and comes up with nothing. Maybe looking a bit tired but she's been sleeping on a couch and so that makes sense.

The signature at the bottom of the report is dated two days ago. She stares at Tsunade-shishou's familiar signature for a long time before she flips to the next page.

The next three pages are of people she recognizes-a Jounin, a Chuunin, a Genin-but no one she's particularly close to. That's almost a relief. What isn't a relief is the steady march of symptoms that match Ino's and Tsunade-shishou's damning signature at the bottom of each page.

She can't remember seeing the other ninja around the village lately, now that she thinks about it. None of them have been sick for as long as Ino.

There's rumours, Naruto had told her, about people getting sick and the old lady not being able to cure them.

She'd asked Ino about it.

Ino had lied without even blinking. Sakura takes a deep breath and tells herself she's not allowed to be mad until she's read everything in the folder.

She turns back to Ino's page and checks the bottom of the report then frowns as she looks at the other three who are ill again. At the bottom of their pages there's a note about placing them in stasis.

Sakura purses her lips. They haven't put anyone in stasis since the war with Cloud, almost her entire lifetime ago.

Was that really the only solution? she asks. Of course, there's no answer.

The next three pages have three more shinobi, one to each page. Only, she realizes, these people are dead and their symptoms are different.

On all of them, the cause of death is left blank. That disturbs her more than she wants to admit. How could Tsunade-shishou not know? Even if a cure hasn't been found…

Sakura reads their medical reports, the names of the shinobi-all of them, she realizes, sound familiar though she's not sure why-and studies the pictures of their pale skins and the peculiar way they look like something has been sucked out of them. Each of them have an incisions on their right arm.

The signature at the bottom of these pages isn't Tsunade-shishou's.

It's Ino's.

Sakura lifts her eyes to the rest of the writing again and shakes her head. If the signature hadn't been pure Ino and as familiar to her as her own, she would never have known.

She's never seen Ino's writing look so compact and stripped down and business-like. It's tempting to reach for their journal to compare the words. She doesn't.

There's a note that the three bodies are being kept in containment.

Turning past the dead, she freezes at the next page.

Kakashi's face, still masked, though his hitae-ate is missing, stares up at her from a picture.

Sakura closes her eyes and then opens them, determined to face this horror all the way through to the end.

She just doesn't know how it all fits together yet. Ino and Kakashi and the three sick and the three dead...

How do they all connect together? What pieces of this puzzle are missing? Sakura tells herself to quit stalling and forces herself to read through the report on Kakashi.

The first page isn't so bad as it's just a summary of his last mission scroll.

Sakura lingers on the notation that he was a week late getting back from it-she hadn't known that, her rank didn't permit her to see how long missions were supposed to take unless they were hers.

The next page is in Tsunade-shishou's writing. She has to read it a second time because the first time through makes no sense. Physically, she learns, as of two days ago-when he'd gotten back to the village-he's fit except for a small incision on arm.

She doesn't remember seeing a cut like that on him and Tsunade-shishou's report doesn't mention healing it. Sakura studies the picture of it before carrying on.

The next page is in Ino's unfamiliar writing. The report is on Kakashi's mental state and is dated yesterday, 11:13 pm.

Sakura knows the time. She and Ino had been back at her place, lounging in front of the TV while Ino scribbled in the journal they shared and Sakura had been going through the fabric she'd bought to piece together her next quilt.

She doesn't see how Ino could have written a report dated at that time, but there's no denying that the in-depth discussion of Kakashi's mental state is all Ino. Ino has always been about the mind, she thinks, as she reads it and picks out turns of phrase that are pure Ino.

In Ino's opinion, Kakashi should be pulled off active duty immediately as he's been severely compromised by his captivity and subsequent torture at the hands of-the name is scribbled out and unreadable-and Sakura bites her lip so hard that it just about bleeds.

Ino talks rage and about another voice and murmurs that Kakashi hears that no one else can. This section is stressed as hypothetical and only guesswork. It's enough to leave Sakura nauseous.

Sakura reads the note that, as far as can be determined, Kakashi is the key.

The key to what? she wonders, but the page doesn't tell her. It feels like she's missing half a conversation somewhere that would explain it all. Instead, she thinks, it just reads like a nightmare.

The next page makes it worse.

Ino's writing ends and Tsunade-shishou's takes over once more. This time, it's a detailed timeline of events.

Kakashi's infection is the newest on the timeline, Ino's is the oldest. She likes neither of their positions and isn't sure what she can do about it.

She's about to turn the page when she realizes that Ino's name is on the timeline twice. Once, nearly three months ago, is her initial infection.

The second, a month and a half ago, simply states Ino's name and under that two words:

Project Rin.

There's a half-page of paper about Project Rin. It tells her little about what it is. Apparently it was used once, twenty years ago, and that it had failed.

There's nothing else in the folder. Not even a paragraph explaining what Project Rin is.

Sakura looks up at Shizune and struggles to find words that might make sense of what she's just read.

Shizune watches her wordlessly.

"What is this?" Sakura asks, pushing the folder away from her. She doesn't want it near her. She doesn't want to see it ever again.

She doesn't need to; she can remember enough on her own. Her memory isn't what Ino's is, but it's more than good enough for what was, really, a very small folder.

"What do you think?" Shizune asks, lifting her eyebrows and looking grave.

"Why didn't I know?" Sakura asks, her voice is quiet. "Ino didn't even hint-she only told me the latest symptom, the problems with her blood. I guess because she had to be pulled off duty for that."

"She's not off-duty," Shizune says, shattering Sakura just a little more. "She's working directly for Tsunade-shishou at this moment."

"I had no idea-"

"Tsunade-shishou has enacted a full blackout of information in this matter," Shizune tells her. "Ino would have been labeled a traitor to the village had she said anything."

Sakura looks away, unable to think past the growing horror in her gut and the feeling, sharp and bitter, of betrayal. She knows that's ridiculous-if Tsunade-shishou had told her to keep something a total secret, on her loyalty to the village, she'd have done the same thing and not even breathed a word.

And yet... all the same, she feels like, all of a sudden, she doesn't know Ino at all.

She sips her coffee even though she no longer wants it. "Why didn't-why wasn't I-"

"Why weren't you told?" Shizune's voice is almost too gentle for Sakura to want to hear right now. She wishes for someone sharper and then shakes her head at her folly-she wishes Ino had been the one to explain this. She could have yelled at Ino.

"I think," Shizune says, "that Tsunade-shishou wished to spare you this. You and Ino are very close and as you read, her illness is proving very difficult to treat. Tsunade-shishou is barely managing to manage it enough to keep her stable."

Keep her stable.

Sakura lowers her head and tries to keep her breathing steady. Is that going to happen to Kakashi too? How has he been severely compromised when Ino has not and they're both sick?

Why isn't Kakashi in for treatment?

Just how good of a liar is Ino?

"I could have helped," Sakura says quietly. "Everyone says that I'm good at what I do, what Tsunade-shishou does."

"That's true," Shizune admits. "Sakura, look at me."

Sakura lifts her head and pretends she's watching Shizune. In reality, she's replaying her and Ino's last few conversations which leads her to...

"Sakura," Shizune says, "no one is allowed to help in the research of their nearest and dearest's illnesses. It's against every code and regulation we have and those are for a good reason. You wouldn't be ration-"

"That pig," Sakura gasps with sudden realization. "I'm such an idiot! She just about- she did give me everything I needed to figure it out and I, I was all caught up in him not her-" She shoves her chair away from the desk, grabs her bag, and flings herself towards the doorway. The security jutsu tumble down around her like leaves in the fall.

"Sorry, Shizune-san!" she calls over her shoulder. "I've really really got to go."

She leaves the building and disappears up onto the rooftops. Once there, she dampens her chakra signature to make it a little more difficult for Shizune to follow her and then begins scanning for Ino's chakra.

Her heart tells her that she should check on Kakashi. She blinks away tears and tells herself no. Ino has been ill longer, has worse symptoms. She'll get the truth from Ino and then she'll get Kakashi and drag him into the hospital.

By his hair, if she's got to.

In the village, where there's so many people, it's not an easy task to locate one person but Sakura has been living with Ino these last few days and even before that, she's been friends with her for a long, long time.

She knows Ino's chakra signature inside and out.

There, she thinks, narrowing her eyes. Got her.

Sakura darts over the walkways. It's windy and the wind keeps blowing her hair in her eyes despite the way her hitae-ate is situated to prevent exactly that. It doesn't matter though, she thinks, as she makes a leap over three buildings-all of them too rickety to withstand someone standing on them-and lands on the fourth, then turns right and continues down that pathway.

Down below her, the residential section changes to the commercial sector and it gets more and more crowded. No one pays her any mind and that's alright. She's a normal sight for them, which is good, because what she's feeling isn't very normal at all.

She's so angry. She wants to burst into tears only that won't help anyone and she needs to help them.

She needs to know why Ino lied.

The rational part of her reminds her of the blackout Tsunade-shishou placed on this information and points out that if Ino had said anything, she'd have been labeled a traitor to the village.

But that doesn't change Sakura's feelings one bit and she smiles grimly as she picks up her pace. It hadn't changed Ino's either, she thinks, not when Ino has been dropping hints like candy. Telling her she's off duty, telling her about her blood work, Sakura wonders if Ino invented all the rumours about people getting sick and not being cured.

Sakura stifles a laugh, one that's broken and brittle and not at all amused, and keeps running.

She leaps, in a twisting somersault, and lands on the ground. From her ground, now, she can see Ino. Ino looks healthy, fine, like there's nothing wrong with her at all and how could anyone possibly think that there is?

Ino looks bemused, like she can't quite believe the company she's keeping. She's with Shikamaru and Temari. Sakura can't decide if she's grateful or not for their presence.

She knows, after all, that both of them are scathingly intelligent.

This might not be the conversation for that.

Not when Sakura just wants to shriek at Ino, then maybe cry, and then maybe force her to an examination room so that Sakura can confirm everything that was in that god-awful folder.

And then she'd do the same to Kakashi, who doesn't even know he's sick.

"Forehead!" Ino chirps, as Sakura comes striding over to the trio. "You got let out early?"

Shikamaru murmurs something and Temari smiles slightly in greeting but Sakura has no time for any of that. She slams her hand down on the table, barely noticing when it cracks and then collapses with the strength of her blow.

She's not surprised to find that, of the three who'd been sitting at the table, Ino looks the most fearless. Shikamaru brushes dust and wood shards off his pants, looking grumpy. Temari looks equally unimpressed as she kicks a bit of wood away from her.

Ino's got her hands held up, like she's still entirely confused and Sakura ignores the voice that points out that, really, she must look like she's totally deranged.

"Forehead?" Ino says, all wide-eyes and butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth innocence. "You okay?"

Temari mutters something a lot darker than that and Shikamaru winces but doesn't disagree. Sakura barely notices them.

All Sakura focuses on is the way that, now that she's paying attention, she can tell that Ino is too pale and that her eyes are a darker blue than they should be-almost purple-and that she's lost weight recently. And there's calculation in Ino's eyes that says Ino is trying, right now, to figure out what's going on.

"Why didn't you tell me you were sick?" Sakura demands, clinging to the anger because it's better than tears.

Ino blinks. "But I did," she says, "when you asked why I was off-duty for the moment. It's nothing big, Sakura-"

"Don't lie," she grates out. "You've been sick for months and still on duty."

Ino's smile is as cold as a winter's sky. It's got to be the first, Sakura thinks, real smile that she's seen in months from Ino.

That hurts too.

"What are you talking about?" Ino says, sounding confused but the icy smile doesn't match and Sakura can see now how Ino is lying.

"Don't lie to me," Sakura says. "You've been doing that for months. Isn't it about time you told me the truth?"

Something unreadable flashes in Ino's eyes. "Prove I've lied," she says and Sakura's heart sinks as betrayal smashes over her.

"Ino," Sakura says, "I know."


What did you all think? Let me know! Thanks for reading. :)