Chapter 6: Return of the Prodigal Son

A YEAR LATER

Sakura was in desperate need of a shower.

"I've got blood all over me," the ANBU in front of her sighed.

"Same," the woman behind her muttered, "I don't know how I'm ever going to wash this out."

The leader of their squad, a short, stocky man, glanced back at Sakura. "I think Crow is going to have the most trouble tonight."

As the squad of ten ANBUs laughed around her, Sakura's gaze flicked down to survey her blood splattered form with forced stoicism. Almost there, she reminded herself. Three hours and they would be back in Konoha. Then, she could burn the clothes. And sleep. And get up for another session with the crow. And then probably be maneuvered into another soul-crushing ANBU mission.

She scowled beneath her mask.

"You've got to tell me what gets you so revved up," the ANBU with the rat mask said, swinging his arm over her shoulder. "Fucked up childhood? Abusive relationship?"

Sakura removed herself from the hold in her next leap through the thick cluster of trees.

"Well, you don't kill like that unless there's something," someone else said, voice low and knowing.

Sakura never thought she would have wished for the newcomer ANBUs from her first mission a month ago again, who were so indoctrinated with protocol that they scarcely said a word to each other the entire mission. Unfortunately, this squad consisted of mostly well-experienced ANBU. And apparently, experienced ANBU were obnoxious.

"Leave her alone," a softer, quieter voice interrupted. Sakura turned and saw blue eyes staring at her though a coyote mask.

"Yeah, yeah," rat mask scoffed. For a brief period of time, the conversation lapsed into blissful silence. But then his gaze shifted to the coyote ANBU—the shinobi who had stopped the previous discussion. "You're another newbie, aren't you?"

"Yes, senpai."

"How old are you?"

Coyote didn't answer immediately. After a moment: "I believe disclosing my age is against protocol."

"Seventeen, I'd guess," Snake cut in, a smug tone to her voice. "His voice's broken but not fully deepened yet. Look at him—what a bean pole."

"Looks like all the new recruits are," another ANBU observed. "Crow isn't much better."

"I thought she was a man at first," the rat ANBU snickered, "Not quite sure she doesn't actually have a dick, if I'm honest."

At any other time, Sakura would have simply sneered. But there was blood from more people than she could count on her clothes, she hadn't slept in over thirty hours, all she really wanted to do was go home and knock herself into unconsciousness, and this idiot wouldn't shut up about her.

"If I did, senpai, you can be sure it's bigger than yours."

The ANBU stiffened beside her abruptly. The rest of the ANBU paused in reaction, a well-oiled machine, positioned at various odd points among the trees.

But Sakura was beyond being concerned. Of course, it wasn't really Rat that was the source of the fury broiling inside her (she knew that). Rat was simply: the vent. One she would gladly use.

She straightened to her henge's full height—the same as her own height, but the henge had a slightly wirier build—a few centimeters above him. When Sakura saw the ANBU's eyes narrow, she began to move to her own chokuto slowly, warning.

"Calm down, Rat, Crow," their leader muttered. "We don't have time—"

He was cut off by a kunai to the throat.

The ANBU stared at each other for a fraction of a second, before shunshining to different positions just as a rain of shuriken landed in their former positions.

"Coyote, hang back!" Snake shouted, taking charge as second-in-command. She made hand signals that directed the rest of the team into strategic positions cloaked by foliage.

Sakura crouched behind Tiger in the lower branches of a giant maple. She couldn't sense any chakra in the vicinity—either of those on her squad or of enemy-nin. Clearly testing the waters, Snake leapt from her hidden position to another and then immediately shunshined again. The branch she had last placed her feet on was severed by something like a invisible ax an instant after she left.

"They're invisible?" Tiger whispered incredulously.

Rat and another ANBU leapt out, now, but they weren't as quick as Snake. The invisible shinobi—there was no telling how many of them—swiped at the two shinobi, their actions only observable through the blood leaking from the ANBUs and the rush of air as they maneuvered their weapons.

"Genjutsu," Sakura breathed with abrupt certainty. It had to be. They had cast a complex genjutsu that made them indistinguishable from their surroundings—hence why none of them were using ninjutsu or it would disrupt the flow of chakra maintaining the delicate illusion.

"The rest need to know," Tiger muttered. "But we can't use hand signs if they can't see us."

Sakura made a split-second decision, ignoring the way Tiger's eyes widened at her and seemed to scream 'don't.' She shunshined away from her position and landed in the middle of a clearing where she was certain everyone would be able to see her.

She barely had time to make the hand signals for 'genjutsu,' before she felt movement in the air beside her. Focusing all her attention on what she could hear, she moved instinctively to avoid the swipes of blades. A blade soon glanced her midsection, however, and she realized that evasion wouldn't be enough, not with more and more of them congregating around her.

She dug her fingers into the wound on her stomach, hoping it would be enough to jolt her out of the genjutsu. But her efforts did not amount to anything. Gritting her teeth, Sakura sent a surge of chakra to the pain receptors in her body instead. The result was a surge of the most mind-numbing pain she had ever felt in her life—just for a fraction of a second. Her head swam; by luck, she didn't pass out.

When she blearily opened her eyes again, she could see just barely the outlines—a sort of shimmery mirage—of figures racing silently through the trees, many with projections that looked like blades. The genjutsu must have been incredibly layered, that she hadn't broken through all of it even with that.

But it was enough.

Let me do it, the Voice whispered to her, words thick with excitement. Counting the number of figures and the brutality it would require, Sakura's lips tightened. She didn't allow the Voice out often, as a rule, but it did prove somewhat more manageable after being given some tightly-reined freedom. And Sakura could take it out for walks, like some domesticated beast, if that's what it took to keep it relatively compliant within its leash.

After brief consideration, and she wasn't entirely sure if it was hers or the Voice's, Sakura felt herself fade from the present—

—and was stunned when she returned to consciousness shortly later with enemy bodies strewn across the forest floor, but significantly more still alive around her.

Had the Voice given up?

Sakura exhaled sharply, hand tightening on her chokuto as her surroundings filtered in once more.

What had happened? She had thought she had—

A deafening, high-pitched noise pierced the air, and with a roar of enraged betrayal, the Voice felt itself being dragged back and back and back and back—

She knew that sound. Like birds, but louder. Crouching low on her branch, her eyes widened as she saw an ANBU not part of her squad blur toward them with unbelievable speed, a bolt of lightning crackling in his hand.

Just as he passed her, time seemed to lose any meaning, slowing to a sluggish pace. And Sakura's heart stopped in her chest, because she could have sworn that for an instant, the pair of black and red eyes met hers.

Then, he was a blur once more, his hand plunging through chest after chest. Sakura's breath froze; even the Voice was silent, carefully watching the massacre occurring before them. That was exactly what it was: a massacre. At the speed he was moving, the shinobi had no chance of surviving. They didn't even have a chance to react before the blood burst from them.

A minute later, the twisted pile of bodies the Voice had assembled was double in size. Silence rang around them.

He killed her— monster! For the first time in a long while, she heard Noriko's voice echo through her head, clear like a bell.

Sakura swallowed, the action producing a sharp pain in her dry throat.

Four more ANBU, two brown-haired men, a blonde woman, and a black-haired woman, flashed into existence beside the man's now lazily slouched form, flanking him.

The former second-in-command, now leader, of Sakura's squad stepped forward, shoulders stiff. He bowed sharply. "Taichou."

The other ANBU on her squad fell into line beside him. Belatedly, Sakura joined them at the very end. She postponed an incredulous consideration of her luck—of all the squads, after two years of no contact, now hers was the one to run into him?— to scan her teammates, noting some severe but largely manageable injuries. Coyote, the squad's designated medic-nin, would be able to handle them.

"We expected more fatalities," the dark-haired woman of the newly arrived squad spoke, voice a monotone.

"We were attacked approximately ten minutes ago—"

"Your mid-level squad accomplished this in ten minutes?" the brown-haired man wearing a bear mask pressed harshly.

It took a moment for Sakura to realize that all her teammates' gazes were now accusingly on her. Her face formed a snarl beneath her mask; they were going to shatter any hopes of anonymity she would have hoped to have maintained in front of this particular audience.

"Crow did it, taichou," Rat spoke up, his voice a nasally rasp from what was undoubtedly a mild chest injury. "She killed every single one of those shinobi before you arrived."

Fucking rat. Her muscles tightened as her former captain's gaze fell on her. She didn't know how she could have ever been blind to it before. How had she ever thought him a lackadaisical, unobservant shinobi? She could sense his presently obvious lethality on a cellular level. Aggression and killing intent radiated from him, saturating the air. Sakura's eyes widened before she forced herself to calm down instead of darting away and trying her luck with fleeing.

A second later, he was directly in front of her. She kept her head bowed, using the pretense of rank and formality to avoid his gaze.

"Remove your mask."

Sakura stiffened. "That's against protocol, taichou."

Without warning, she felt a gloved hand yank her head up until she was looking directly into his eyes. Daring her to resist, he raised his other hand and pulled her mask off, revealing the nondescript features of her henge: tanned skin, thin brown hair, and dark eyes.

"How did someone inconsequential like you kill so many?" Kakashi questioned with feral interest, the metallic scent of blood wafting off of him as he leaned closer. His hand was almost choking her.

Sakura's eyes almost bugged out at his demeanor. He was nothing like the Kakashi she had known, and yet, perhaps the compilation of every deviance in personality, every note or look that had ever struck her as suspicious, as too sharp, from before. Menacing and terrifying, his presence crackled through the immediate area like the electricity he had just produced. The peaceful atmosphere that always arose after a battle won—no matter how devastating the cost—fractured in the face of it, driving every shinobi around to be on-guard as though the bloodshed was still impending.

"I'm a genjutsu user," Sakura bit out against the painful, calloused hold. She ignored the way her heart raced in her chest, aware of what those hands had accomplished. He wore the ANBU uniform like a second skin, the pale span of his actual skin visible only at his muscled upper arms, which were exposed between his flak jacket and elbow length arm guards, and his hands—which were on her. "I wasn't able to dispel the genjutsu entirely, but…enough."

Kakashi's gaze passed over her form and the amount of blood splattered on her. "Had fun, did you?" he mocked.

Her body stiffened at the accusation. He felt it immediately. His body became flush with hers.

"Your name," he demanded, guttural, into her ear.

"Saori," she hissed when his hand tightened warningly. Her anger bled into her voice. "Saori Mori."

Like a hound scenting blood, Kakashi reacted to her hostility, pressing closer. "Do we have a problem, Saori Mori?"

Sakura wanted to laugh loudly in his face.

"You've made me break two of ANBU's first-level rules," she sneered. "And I want you to get off me."

Around her, her teammates looked at her like she had gone insane. Rat seemed to vibrate with excitement at her impending fortune. Fucker, she thought poisonously.

He stared at her for one, seemingly eternal moment, before he snapped his head away, suddenly the cool, dismissive captain he had been when he had first spoke. "Get back to Konoha and debrief."

Sakura spun and left without a second look, palms fisted and trembling at her sides.

"You have perfect chakra control—use it. If you maximize the efficiency of your chakra-use, you will be toe-to-toe with opponents of even the greatest chakra reserves."

Sakura ducked a fist encased in volatile chakra and flipped over a spinning kick from another opponent, trying her best to forget everything that had happened the previous day.

After two and a half years, after no contact, she had seen him—like that—

Blood on her clothes. Wash. Scrub. Rinse. Repeat.

"Didn't you say I was a genjutsu user?" she bit out, making fast hand signs to release a water dragon that collided through ten of the shinobi. "When are you going to teach me advanced genjutsu?"

"I have already taught you some genjutsu," the crow answered calmly, watching the battle below with unreadable eyes. "Anything beyond what you currently know will require you refining your precision in chakra consumption so that perfection is instinctive."

Sakura snarled and exhaled high pressure streams from her mouth, skewering the rest of the faceless shinobi remaining around her. "And then I'll be able to make genjutsus like yours?"

"That would require the sharingan," Shisui answered coolly. "You will need to summon me before you can place anyone under this level of genjutsu."

"Convenient," Sakura muttered. With the shinobi remaining, she unsheathed the chokuto and charged forward, lining the blade with her chakra. As the crow had promised, it had 'taught' her how to use the weapon—primarily by conjuring shinobi to pummel her until she learned to move correctly.

Learning the chokuto, though, had come in use in the missions Sakura had been assigned in the past year. Of course, that had been Shisui's influence as well. Ever since the crow had determined missions could also be used as lessons, it had continued to influence the assignments handed to her.

She didn't know how it was possible—the level of duplicity required, let alone the pervasiveness of genjutsu required. Yet, the crow had maneuvered her into harder and harder missions. Conveniently, Sakura was sixteen now and tall—even without a henge, she did not overtly appear unusual on these missions.

Though her official rank left her lacking; she had, incredibly enough, managed to miss the chunin exams twice more and so was still technically a genin.

She blinked, distracted from her thoughts, as the shinobi surrounding her suddenly vanished. Her gaze went to the crow, wary.

Shisui cocked its head to the side in visible annoyance. "Someone is approaching."

It turned its gaze to fix one, glowing red eye on her. The genjutsu released its hold on her and Sakura found herself standing alone on the rundown training ground she had made her own over the past two and a half years.

Footsteps, increasing in volume with considerable speed, sounded behind her and she turned to find three figures racing toward her. She slipped her kunai back into her flak jacket. It was the boy who had followed Naruto around all the time—he and his genin teammates.

"Oy," the boy shouted loudly, "He's back! Naruto-nichan is back!"

He turned and pointed upward. Sakura followed his finger to find a lone figure standing on top of a tall wooden pole, above the buildings surrounding him, a good distance away. The figure's back was facing her but she knew that it was Naruto.

Sakura bent her knees and sent chakra to her legs. When she opened her eyes again, she stood in front of the tall pole, her hair settling around her belatedly from the sudden burst of speed.

Her gaze flicked to her right. Jiraiya stood beside her.

"Naruto," the sannin bellowed, "Get down!"

"Yeah, yeah," the heard the familiar, abrasive voice bellow back, only slightly lower than it had been two years ago. But when Sakura examined his face, she found a solemner expression than she was used to, as her former teammate surveyed his village.

After one long look, Naruto took a casual step off the top of the pole. When he landed on the ground, his gaze found Sakura.

Neither of them said anything at first. Sakura took her time to survey the boy who had annoyed her so much in the Academy and later on Team Seven, and he did the same in turn. Like before, whatever thoughts arose from his perusal were visible on his face. Chagrin at her height—she was still taller than he was. Surprise—at her clothing, she guessed; Sakura's pants and loose shirt hid the slight but definite muscle definition she had gained. It hadn't occurred to her, but she supposed she did look very different from before he had left. She no longer wore the dress—and she had once loved that dress.

Naruto had abandoned his ridiculous—and impractical—neon orange and dark blue jumpsuit for something only slightly less ridiculous. He had also grown taller and broader in the shoulders. But the biggest change she could find was in his now pensive demeanor.

This impression subsided when his face cracked into a familiar crooked grin. "Sakura-chan!"

"Naruto."

His gaze shifted to behind her and his grin remained. "Konohamaru!"

That had been the boy's name. Sakura turned and found Konohamaru gasping for breath with his two teammates just behind him.

"Boss!" the younger boy panted. "Look! I perfected it!"

He made quick hand signs and a buxom brunette appeared before them, intimates barely covered by bits of mist. Jiraiya choked beside her.

Naruto scoffed loudly, the gesture exaggerated and overblown like a kabuki actor's. "I've moved beyond such low-level jutsu. Check this out!"

His hands met in rapid formations and multiple women popped into existence. Despite the unique features of each women, they all shared one thing in common—nudity.

Jiraiya's grin was wide and greedy until he seemed to remember Sakura was there. "Run, Naruto," he informed the other gravely. "If she's anything like her mentor, you won't be living much longer."

Naruto's gaze shot to her with trepidation. Sakura viewed the generous bosoms of the women with indifference and not a little medical skepticism.

"Boss," Konohamaru chirped, "the gang and I have to head back to meet up with Ebisu-sensei! But we'll catch up later!"

As Naruto waved them away, Jiraiya spoke up again. "And that's our cue to see Tsunade."

Sakura blinked slowly. She had purposefully left bottles of saké all around Tsunade's office the previous night so that she could sleep in before her training with the crow. "She drank heavily last night," she said after a pause. "She'll probably be passed out for another hour."

Jiraiya clearly knew the hokage well, because he didn't seem surprised and did not question her further about it. "Let's meet at her office at sundown, in that case."

Naruto straightened excitedly. "Want to eat at Ichiraku Ramen, ero-sennin? They have the best ramen in all of Konoha—no—in all the great five shinobi nations!"

"No way," Jiraiya scoffed loudly. "I'm heading to the bathhouse to sample some of Konoha's…fairer offerings. Catch you later."

He disappeared with a pop, leaving Naruto and Sakura alone. With a complex expression, Naruto reached at his side and pulled out his frog wallet. Sakura noticed that when he jostled it, it made no noise.

Naruto caught her looking at him and immediately beamed widely. "Ah, it's so great to be back. I can't even wait to see Tsunade-bachan and—"

"You know," Sakura interrupted, "I'm feeling a little hungry. Let's go."

His eyes bugged, before lowering. "Ahh, I can't. Gama-chan is empty, see?" He squished the wallet demonstratively.

"I'll cover it," Sakura said, already setting off in direction of the restaurant. But she didn't hear footsteps follow her, so she was forced to turn around again. Naruto gazed back at her in utter amazement.

"Hey, Sakura-chan," Naruto asked dazedly, "are you asking me out on a date—"

"No. We're—were—teammates, and we're grabbing a meal together."

"Okay," Naruto said easily. And strangely, his expression did not change—as though her offer of companionship was all he had really been after in the first place.

Sakura frowned as they made their way to the finest ramen establishment in Konoha. Ayame took their order and conveyed it to Teuchi, who prepared their meal behind her. Naruto settled into the stool beside her with a groan, inhaling the smell of the restaurant with great satisfaction.

"How've you been?" he asked after they had settled down. The blue eyes that looked at her were serious now. Sakura wasn't able to stare into them for very long, inevitably averting her gaze under such piercing examination.

"Fine. It's been fine," she said shortly. She quickly shifted the topic of conversation. "What did you learn while you were away?"

It was a fortunate thing that even three ANBU missions paid a mini-fortune or Sakura probably would have been eaten out of her house with the amount of ramen Naruto consumed in between enthusiastic retellings of his adventures.

She leaned forward and listened with determined intentness to Naruto's wild tales of narrow escapes and grueling training and rasengan developments and editing Icha Icha drafts. It was endless chatter, perhaps for the first time welcomed. A month ago, the crow had managed to place Sakura on her first ANBU mission, and even after two more, the memories of the dead and the dying undeniably had yet to lose their hold on her: kept her scrubbing her skin in the shower for longer than she realized, made her burn the clothes she had worn each time, made her fingers spasm each time she reached for her blade—

"And then, it EXPLODED!" Naruto wiped his mouth with a blissed-out groan. Sakura gazed outside and found a thin sliver of the sun resting above the horizon.

"We should head to the tower," she commented, placing down the money. Naruto nodded distractedly, rubbing his protruding stomach lazily.

Given Naruto's condition, they decided to walk there instead of employing chakra. Just as the thin sliver of gold disappeared, the two entered the building and made their way up the spiraling levels to the top level, where the hokage's office was situated.

They found Jiraiya already there, leering at the golden-haired woman sitting at her desk. Tsunade's attention moved instantly to the newcomers of her office. As she saw Naruto, her stern expression melted into a reluctantly fond smile.

"So, you're finally back. A little more grown up too, I hope?"

Naruto struck a pose, thumbs up. "Believe it!"

"Willing to bet on it?" the Godaime challenged, teeth bared. That golden gaze unexpectedly snapped to her.

Sakura shrugged. "Sure. I'll place money opposite whatever you gamble on."

Tsunade glared viciously. "Brat," she chewed out. She leaned back into her chair and surveyed them both over her intertwined hands.

"Do you think I would have come back, if I had not come back with results?" Jiraiya interjected into the silence silkily.

Tsunade met this proclamation with a sly smile on her own lips. "If that's the case: I want to see these 'results' as soon as possible."

Sakura watched as Naruto straightened beside her, a fierce expression on his face. He looked ready to battle any monster Tsunade might decide to summon before him.

"I'm placing you two back on a team," the Godaime barked commandingly.

"Really?" Naruto asked eagerly, almost vibrating with excitement.

"Really?" Sakura sighed.

"And not just you two. You see, despite his position and usefulness in ANBU, I've called him back to Konoha too." There was a mean grin on Tsunade's face.

"Who?" Naruto burst out, eyes wide.

"Come in!" Tsunade called out.

A figure blurred into existence in the room.

"Well," the figure that had caused Naruto to pale and pull out his kunai drawled. "Is that anyway to greet your old sensei?"

Sakura's palms broke into a cold sweat. Her mouth—conversely—dried almost painfully.

She should have suspected this, that Tsunade might call Team Seven back together now that Naruto was back. It was exactly the sentimental kind of thing she had learned her mentor was inclined to do. Rationalization, however, did not help temper her visceral reaction to Kakashi's presence in front of her for the second time in twenty four hours after two and a half years.

Sakura's teeth bit into the side of her cheek.

Haruno Sakura is unsuited to become a shinobi.

She exhaled sharply, the air searing her throat.

Monster, Noriko whispered, as though right behind her. At this point, Sakura didn't know who she was talking about.

Kakashi stepped forward, familiar gaze framed by silver-white hair and a black mask. He looked no different from before, and at the same time, worlds different—a sculpture now ostensibly molded by a knife instead of the human hands that had long been assumed. His hitai-ate was absent from his forehead, as ANBU procedure dictated.

He smiled, the resulting narrowing of his gaze harder and cruder than his former, fake eye-crinkling grins. Sakura exhaled. Even Naruto looked a bit bemused, edging slightly away.

"How long has he been away from civilian life?" Jiraiya muttered under his breath to Tsunade. Sakura noticed that Kakashi's attention snapped to him as soon as he opened his mouth, tracking his words with a chilling smile.

"Two and a half years," Tsunade returned. She pursed her lips, returning the ANBU captain's gaze unflinchingly. "He'll adjust."

Jiraiya's lips twisted ironically, his following words barely audible. Sakura caught them only because she was closest. "Do rabid dogs ever return quietly to the kennel?"

Sakura watched her mentor turn a hard gaze on Kakashi again, with the slightest tightness around her eyes.

She shifted her weight. Almost immediately, Kakashi's gaze landed on her. She was struck by how different this glance was from what she had faced hours earlier. Before, in another's features, she had been weighed and examined with relentless scrutiny.

Now, his gaze related an enormous nothingness, an indifference, toward her—toward Sakura—transparent in a way it had never quite been before.

Very much aware of the attention of Tsunade and Jiraiya on her, she forced a smile to her face after an awkward pause. "Hi…Kakashi-sensei."

The word sensei choked her on its way out.

"Wait, wait," Naruto said with wide eyes, "does that mean Team Seven is reinstated?"

The godaime nodded firmly.

Kakashi's gaze settled on uncaringly her, like a wolf discarding a piece of meat it found not to be up to par. "Her studies would better be pursued under your guidance."

"My decision is final," Tsunade barked, unwavering. "Team Seven is active once again."

Kakashi's eyes were shuttered.

Sakura kept her expression as unaffected as humanly possible through it all.

"Sakura," Naruto waved to her tiredly the next morning, five am sharp. His eyes widened when she neared. "Hey! You're wearing a dress again!"

She was, in fact, wearing a dress, red like the one from almost three years ago. The dress was silk and, paired with flashy high boots, even more grossly luxurious than her first. But fitting nevertheless, she felt. Despite its fragility—and here, exactly, was the irony—she wagered its continued well-being.

As she stood beside Naruto, she kept her gaze pointedly away from where she knew Kakashi was positioned in the tree to their left.

"Ah, why did I even show up this early? I forgot, he never shows up on time—AH!"

Naruto flinched back as Kakashi appeared in front of them, arms flying back wildly. Long, dangerous limbs were hidden once again under deceptively loose cloth; Sakura's nose twitched at the scent he carried beneath the standard jounin uniform.

Blood, the Voice clarified helpfully with unholy glee, It's all over him—

"Okay," Naruto puffed self-importantly, "Let's hurry up and start the training for a new knockout jutsu! I need more in my repertoire."

Sakura confirmed, if it hadn't already been so, that whatever thin veneer of harmlessness Kakashi had maintained two years earlier with a team of genin had clearly been just that: a veneer. It was blatant in the forest two days before and blatant in the way he looked at Naruto now.

"Why don't you show me first what you can do?" he proposed, eyes glinting.

Sakura stiffened, something foreign curling in her stomach. Naruto shivered, wariness flashing across his features. Then, he inhaled beside her and recovered with characteristic boldness: "Alright. Let's do this!"

Naruto made the hand signs for a kage bunshin. The bunshin began rotating its hands rapidly around the boy's open palm, producing a rotating sphere of highly volatile wind. Rasengan. She had seen it before, but never at this size.

"How'd you like that, sensei?" Naruto grinned arrogantly, looking down at his creation.

"Interesting," Kakashi murmured, straightening to his full height. And to Sakura, it really did look like he was interested: a cruel, voracious interest that communicated his own enormous capacity for violence and a consequent interest in others' capacities for it as well. He approached Naruto, his slow stalk forward more reminiscent of a wolf's gait than the hunting dogs he was known for.

He didn't look at her as he walked past.

"Do you know your chakra nature, boy?"

Boy? Sakura's eyebrow twitched.

Being entirely ignored, she took the time to consider leisurely: what could ANBU do to a person with time, but leave behind the rawest, hardest edges of a character if only to survive. And if so, what, in times of commanded complacency, could keep that cultivated cruelty in check...

"Cool!" Naruto roared. He thrust a split parchment up triumphantly. "Look, Sakura-chan, I have a wind nature!"

Honestly, any idiot could have guessed from the size of his rasengan.

Her forced, detached calm was utterly annihilated as the chirping of birds crackled through the air with sudden, deafening volume. Lightning sprung from Kakashi's hand.

Sakura's heart thumped wildly, her blood pulsed wildly, as she responded instinctively to it, eyes narrowing. The Voice jolted as well, remembering equally as well what that lightning was capable of.

"After chakra transformation," the man murmured in a voice that belied the savage intensity of his body language—

"Wait," Naruto paused, brow furrowing, "what about Sak—wow."

And whatever his initial, earnest misgivings, Naruto was immediately distracted, while Sakura remained on high-alert and struggled to keep her own killing intent and weapons out of sight.

When she walked back home three hours later, she didn't bother controlling the ugly smile on her face. As predicted, not one stitch had pulled on her red dress.

"Sakura," Naruto sighed, dragging out her name. He was collapsed against the counter of Ichiraku Ramen. "That man…that's not Kakashi-sensei."

Sakura paused in sipping the broth of her ramen.

"He's…" Naruto appeared to struggle for words. "Meaner. And not lazy! He never shows up late, and he makes me train until I can barely stand anymore. And—" he paused, before adding—"he pretends like you aren't there."

She looked at Naruto for a long moment. Blue, impassioned eyes gazed back, righteously indignant, clear of the blood and the muck and the guilt that Sakura had begun to bathe in.

"Well," she said after a pause, with remarkable pretense of indifference, "he didn't exactly ever think I was his most talented student."

Naruto skipped right past the obvious explosive hidden in that answer. "But now it's like he hates you!"

Sakura's gaze made another pass over the restaurant and paused on its newest occupant. Hinata Hyuuga had just stepped in, her cream-colored jacket still rippling from the light breeze. Her gaze alighted on Sakura with a polite smile; when she found Naruto, two bright spots of color flared in her cheeks.

"Hey Hinata!" Naruto cheered, "Come join us!"

"A-are you sure?" the dark-haired girl questioned. "I would hate to interrupt."

"Not at all," Sakura said. She watched as Hinata hesitated, before tentatively taking a seat to her right.

As the other girl placed her order—sending sly glances to her left where Naruto sat as she did so—Naruto resumed slurping his own ramen with gusto. Apparently, Sakura and his previous conversation had been placed on the back burner.

"How have you been?"

"Well," Hinata responded to her. "Just finished a six-hour surgery."

"You just got here from surgery?" Naruto demanded, eyes widening.

Hinata took one look at him, and the red flush returned. "Y-yes. Open heart surgery."

Naruto's expression twisted jokingly. "Your hands must have been covered all over in blood. Gross."

To Sakura's surprise, Hinata didn't giggle along or blush at with this statement. Instead, she suddenly stiffened.

"A-actually it isn't, Naruto-kun. It's no more blood than you've had on your own hands while protecting Konoha. O-only instead of h-hurting people, I'm saving them."

Hinata's features were almost…sharp. At first, Naruto gazed back, his jaw slack. Sakura glanced at him and Hinata, wondering with distant incredulity if she needed to intervene.

But then Naruto straightened abruptly, a strange look on his face. "You're…right, Hinata. I shouldn't have said that."

Hinata's expression softened again. "Thank you, Naruto-kun." The blush returned.

Ayame brought Hinata's order to the table and, with gentle grace, Hinata reached forward to accept the bowl. As she ate, Naruto's gaze remained on her, even though a full, untouched bowl of ramen had just been placed in front of him as well.

Sakura gazed down at her own bowl with a blank gaze, mind somewhere else.

The next morning was Saturday—which meant no Team Seven training, thankfully. At the crow's command, Sakura found herself at the ANBU locker rooms at six am, brown hair washed and dampening her shoulders.

"Crow," the captain with the panther mask called from behind her—it was the one who had given her her assignments for the previous ANBU missions.

Sakura turned as she finished pulling her arm guards up in sharp movements. "Yes?"

"A special request was placed for you for a mission today."

She felt her muscles lock, the tan skin around the dark eyes of her henge tightening. "What?"

"Relax," the slim woman said sardonically. "Clearly you're moving up the ranks and quickly too. I've never even been assigned on a mission with him, and I've been in this shithole a damn while longer than you have."

Sakura forced her shoulders to relax, but the painful set of her jaw—hidden by the mask—remained. Someone requesting her meant that she had stuck out too much. And that was...problematic.

"Who?" she demanded lowly.

The panther mask cocked to the side. "Hatake Kakashi."

It felt like the mask was laughing at her.

Daring her to resist, he raised his other hand and pulled her mask off, revealing the nondescript features of her henge: tanned skin, thin brown hair, and dark eyes.

"How did someone inconsequential like you kill so many?" Kakashi questioned with feral interest, the metallic scent of blood wafting off of him as he leaned closer.

Chapter 7: Oiran

The trees were thick, barren, and provided no coverage from the wind. Along with increased winds, snow had just begun to dust the tips of the leaves, signifying their movement north. Sakura knew that her bone-deep discomfort was easily visible in the tense line down her spine. Hopefully it would be chocked up to mission nerves.

A special request was placed for you for a mission today.

She cringed just remembering the words.

Now, two hours later, she raced through the trees with the same ANBU members who had been with Kakashi in the forest: two brown-haired men with bear and raccoon masks and two women, Snail and Hyena.

Retrieval mission, high-level, Hyena had curtly explained to her. Assets had been detained in a prison in the Land of Snow. Diplomatic efforts had failed.

The copy-nin had not said a word the entire time.

She was beginning to wonder if he even noticed she was there (a rather familiar thought, actually).

"Three hours," Bear called out. A burst of chilly wind shuffled through the trees again, prompting a violent shiver to wrack through her body.

Sakura kept a sly grip on her weapons.

True to Bear's words, they reached the prison just as the sun set. Sakura almost missed the prison entirely, so deeply entrenched it was into one of the mountains. The cavernous entrance glowed dimly, evidence of torches and habitation. If there were shinobi guarding the entrance, they were well hidden.

"Snail with Bear. Hyena and Raccoon with the new one," a guttural voice emerged from behind for the first time.

Her body instinctively stiffened at its sound. She relaxed immediately after, hoping to hide the reaction.

For a fleeting moment, Kakashi's eyes landed on her. Then, he vanished. Tortured screams echoed through the mountains a second later.

Raccoon gave a signal, and she and Panther entered the now sentry-less prison. The cave was poorly lit, but there was enough light to catch on the spilt blood coating the walls.

As they moved, her ears popped from the combination of their speed and the narrowness of the tunnels branching downward. They passed an opening into the level Snail and Bear had taken—a flash of evenly matched combat and piteous groans of inmates pleading to be released—before they arrived at the bottom.

Sakura ducked a scythe and grasped Raccoon's waist in the next instant, twisting to swing him behind her and into the enemy-nin attempting to sneak up on them. Close confines and the threat of collapsing the tunnels prohibited large ninjutsu use, but Hyena's hands immediately began flashing through signs for Earth-release jutsus, making ample use of the element surrounding them.

Sakura almost did the same, but stilled as she remembered her own lack of finesse with earth elemental justu. In the end, she pulled the chokuto from her back.

When they had cleared enough of a path, Hyena pushed forward to find the Konoha shinobi in their cells. Raccoon and Sakura both shifted to pick up the slack.

"I've got eyes on her," the man signaled.

Sakura signaled back the affirmative. She grimaced when her blade nicked a vein and blood sprayed all over the ground. Some landed on her pant leg.

Making a mess, the Voice whispered.

She inhaled sharply. The smell was never going to go away, and even if it did, she would always know it was there—

Raccoon made the hand sign to exit. Gritting her teeth to reestablish focus—everything was happening so quickly, too quickly—Sakura turned and saw Hyena with four injured Konoha shinobi. She shunshined to the other woman and grabbed two of the shinobi before continuing to the exit path they had opened up.

If Sakura had thought traveling through the tunnels before was a struggle, it was worse now with more people. She stopped only when she burst through to fresh air and stood on the opposite mountain. The woman in her left arm gave a loud grunt, coughing up blood; the man in her right was unconscious. A quick visual scan suggested that neither was in immediate critical danger, though bones would need to be reset.

"We need to find better cover," Hyena murmured. Her form vibrated then disappeared. Hefting the two bodies up again, Sakura crouched low into the snow and followed.

They traveled for half an hour before they reached a cave well-hidden and well-sheltered from the weather outside. Once they settled the prisoners down—wrapped their wounds and covered them with blankets for protection from the cold—they could do nothing but wait for the rest.

Half an hour passed by silently. Just as the snow finally seemed to slow, the Voice stirred and Sakura stilled in mid-motion along with the other ANBU.

Snail arrived first, an unconscious woman clutched in her arms. Then Bear, two men—both conscious and looking in comparatively healthy condition—propped on each shoulder.

When Sakura's gaze went to the mouth of the cave again, she found Kakashi standing there. His entrance had been soundless. He looked remarkably like the demons depicted in the tapestries all along the hokage's office: bathed in blood, monstrous not because of malice but because of seeming indifference.

One of the men whom Bear had carried in stood up. "We need to move. Now."

"We have to wait. Most of the other prisoners need bandaging and rest before we can move again." Hyena negated almost immediately.

"There's no point in bringing them," he declared, pointing demonstratively at the man Sakura had carried in. "Look at him! He's just dead-weight."

"Our mission is to—"

"Then the parameters have changed. I am a member of the council, and I outrank all of you here—"

The sound of a blade being unsheathed cut him off. The man stopped speaking abruptly, a soft, choked noise emitting from his mouth. He backed away from Kakashi.

"I'll take second watch, taichou," Snail voiced over the man, beginning to pull out bedrolls for the former prisoners to lay on.

"Rabid dog," the councilman hissed, face deathly pale.

The blade didn't move for a long moment, still pointed in the man's direction. After a moment, and without a word of acknowledgement, Kakashi disappeared from sight. Sakura's eyebrow twitched.

Sakura rolled onto her heels, using the momentum from the motion to stand up. One by one, she and the other ANBU rolled out the thin pallets.

She watched as Snail slid a kunai under the pallet they were sharing before lying down. Sakura padded her own stash of kunai, shifting them on her person so that the edges wouldn't cut her, and then joined her.

The next morning, they left by dawn. By evening, they reached Konoha and deposited the prisoners at the hospital.

Kakashi disappeared between one spring breeze and the next. As soon as he did, she began to breathe easier. When she turned, Bear caught her gaze. The other ANBU uniformly paused in their movements, suddenly all paying attention to her as well.

"Everyone scouted for the squad runs a test mission like this, quick, in-and-out —" Snail began bluntly—"The usual missions are…much messier.".

"Just a heads up," Raccoon added with private irony. "Kami knows I would have appreciated one."

Sakura's lips turned downward.

"You have no right to complain," Hyena scoffed. "There were complications with my first. I didn't even get a baby mission like you did."

"Don't bother getting your hopes up," Bear drawled to her, "It's too early to tell whether he wants you back."

Sakura cracked her neck, considering that with bubbling hope. Kakashi hadn't given even the slightest hint he was particularly aware of her presence, hadn't looked at her more times than she could count on one hand.

She didn't spare them another glance as she left ANBU headquarters. Once a suitable distance away, she entered an abandoned courtyard and removed the henge, changing into clothes she had sealed into a small scroll she kept on her person. The scrolls were intended for shinobi specializing in undercover missions, but had ultimately become an entirely quotidian convenience among all ninja. Only a few years ago, she had used them to pack for sleepovers with Ino. Funny, how times changed.

Dusting off her clothes when she finished putting them on, she shoved her hands into her pockets and reentered the bustling main street.

"—ah!" Sato moaned, back arching.

"Hey."

"Let me," the shorter man growled, dark eyes shadowed by hair. "Let me touch you."

"Sakura."

Sato found himself stilling at the other man's expression. Seichi wasn't the most expressive person he had ever met, quite the opposite, in fact, but—

"Sakura."

Today, Sakura thought to herself darkly, sucked. And her latest attempt at distraction—which had been heavily championed by the bookstore's newest employee—had failed utterly to distract her from that fact.

In many ways, though, it was a wonder today hadn't happened sooner. "A challenge," the copy-nin had said when Naruto arrogantly demanded one at training, tasting the word like it was a delicacy. "A taijutsu bout, then?"

Sakura had heard enough in the copy nin's voice to be immediately on-guard. Naruto had bull-dozed right past all signs of danger to enthusiastic reciprocation.

When their beloved jounin captain had left the training ground half an hour ago, he had left his student a broken mess at its center.

"You mind?" Naruto asked now roughly.

She reached out a hand coated in green chakra without responding.

Her face felt stiff. It was no coincidence that Naruto hadn't looked at her for the last half an hour; not even when she had first tried to approach him to heal him. He had recognized exactly the way Kakashi was looking at him by the end, the disregard Kakashi directed her way on the rare occasion he looked at her during these training sessions.…

"That's all I can do for now," Sakura said curtly, finishing up with the fractured rib. "Check in with Hinata tomorrow at the hospital."

"R-right," Naruto coughed out. "I guess it's home for me. See you tomorrow."

He turned, but ended up staggering to the side instead of forward. When he took another step and almost landed on his face in the dirt, Sakura rolled her eyes. Gripping his wrist, she threw his arm over her shoulder and took his body weight onto her frame.

"What—what are you doing?!"

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"But I'm getting blood and dirt all over you."

"I noticed."

"…You promise you won't hit me later?"

"Why would I hit you for that?"

"Who else would you hit?"

Sakura didn't answer, nudging Naruto to the side so that he avoided a protruding rock he undoubtedly would have tripped on. When the normally boisterous figure next to her continued to be uncharacteristically silent, she turned to examine him.

Blue eyes squinted back at her. "You know, you're really different now. You don't yell at me as much."

She didn't miss a beat. "Have you ever thought that maybe it's because you've become less of an idiot?"

"I'm not an idiot!" Naruto cried dramatically.

Her lips tightened. "You're right. You're not. You're just…really oblivious."

"Oblivious?" Naruto echoed, brows furrowing. "Hey, I know lots of things, okay? Like the book you're reading! I mean, I don't really see their great value, but I personally edited every scene of every book that the ero-sennin has published since I was thirteen—"

He came to a sudden stop, eyes widening in recognition as he looked around. "We're here."

She looked up at a tall, pale colored complex with rust brown roofing.

"You live right next to the civilian prison."

"Yep," he hummed unconcernedly, "it gets a little noisy whenever there's a riot, but otherwise it's great. Really keeps the mortgage rates down."

Her mouth twitched.

"…which apartment?"

He pointed.

Sakura eyed the long spiraling of stairs up to Naruto's floor and then lifted him in her arms. He was gaping by the time she put him down.

Naruto reached behind a conspicuous potted plant and pulled out a key. He wedged it into the lock and shoved the door open. The table she caught sight of was stacked almost to the ceiling with empty ramen cups.

"You'll be good from here?"

Naruto blinked back slowly. Then he smiled widely. "Don't worry about me! I can barely even feel anything anymore!"

Even if he hadn't winced near the end of his sentence, she probably would not have believed him.

"Go to the hospital tomorrow."

He scratched his head sheepishly and then nodded. Sakura gave him one last glance and then turned to jump over the railing and onto the street below. She landed with a thud, not bothering to disguise the sound.

A familiar, chilling caw sounded behind her.

In an instant, her shoulders tensed, hunching slightly. She felt the solid pressure of clawed feet curving around her shoulder. The caw sounded again, this time directly by her ear.

Sakura turn her head to the side to meet the crow's mismatched gaze. Clutched in its beak was a small cylinder—a scroll. When its gaze continued to burn into her, she reluctantly reached up a hand to retrieve it. She unrolled the parchment, reading it quickly as each line was revealed. It wasn't long.

"Are you the one making this happen?" Sakura demanded lowly. She hadn't asked it until now—but it was now too possible to ignore. "Do you think it's funny, putting me on ANBU missions with Kakashi?"

"I put you in ANBU, but this happened without my interference," Shisui returned, placidly, "As always, ensure that you are not found out or risk my…disappointment." He released a loud, shrill caw and took off from her shoulder.

Numb, she rolled the scroll back up and stuffed it into her pack. After finding an abandoned restroom, pulling out the scroll sealed with her uniform and applying the same henge, she made her way to the ANBU headquarters.

It hadn't even been two days. Two days.

Snail's back was the first to greet her. When the other woman heard the sound of the locker room opening, she turned, eyes widening in recognition. "So you're back after all."

Bear came to stand beside her, surveying her evenly. Behind the both of them, Raccoon offered a small nod.

"Right," Sakura muttered, stomach sinking the entire while, "what's this one about?"

"We don't know yet," Bear answered, sounding equally displeased about this turn of events.

Raccoon snapped his shin guards on, the metal on metal creating a clang. The door open swung open behind Sakura. Sakura turned, gaze falling first on long, pale limbs before the she made her way to the straight, long black hair and hyena mask.

"Details?" Raccoon prompted.

Hyena was silent for a moment. Then, in a blunt tone, she began.

"Messy," had been the first word out of Hyena's mouth. Later, Sakura knew exactly how much of an understatement that had been.

Messy. The word did a laughable job of describing what transpired.

Even 'horrific' scarcely did justice. But she would use it for now. It had been beyond anything Sakura could have ever imagined; she had already stopped three times in the three hours they had spent traveling back to stumble over to a bush and vomit.

(Fire, hot, suffocating, the sweet-sick smell of burning of flesh, the rhythmic cadence of their screams—)

The urge to burn the clothes she was wearing—even though she knew they were clean (they had all been forced to change with the sheer amount of blood on them)—persisted like a drumbeat, paired with each breath.

She jerked when she felt something bump against her hip. Looking down, she saw that Raccoon was offering his canteen to her. They were alone at the back, a good mile behind the nearest ANBU in the formation. In the dark, Sakura tried her best to meet the other man's gaze, but it was impossible, especially at the pace they were moving.

Her head threatened to split. She felt like any second the world might suddenly tilt to the side and leave her adrift, senseless in a void. She grabbed the canteen and lifted it to her mouth. She ended up choking on more of its contents than she swallowed, but it was enough to remove some of the awful taste.

Taking another swill, Sakura spat the water out and handed the canteen back. It reassured her that the hand that reached out to grasp the water wasn't entirely steady either. The growing nausea in her gut surged again. She scanned the forest for miles ahead, looking for the best location to make her next vomiting pit stop.

She managed the next few minutes until there by inhaling and exhaling deeply, eyes closed.

When the proper amount of time passed and her gaze darted to her chosen point again, she found that their squad had veered off-course. They were leaving the thick of the trees for a sparser stretch of forest. And sparse flora usually meant that—

Streams of lanterns glinted through the leaves. Civilization. For some reason, they were heading straight toward it.

A tall, brass gate soon emerged, proclaiming proudly: Tanzaku Quarters.

Her eyes narrowed. That was the infamous den Naruto had retrieved Tsunade from years ago, famous for gambling, drinking, and—

"Who wants to…gamble now?" she bit out.

Raccoon finally turned his head. When his voice emerged, slightly muffled from beneath his mask. "There's no point trying to be coy for courtesy's sake, Crow."

Sakura's face was torn between too many disparate reactions. "But—"

"For some of us, it's required to…maintain that subtle distinction between ANBU and more disturbing psychological disorders."

There was a darkly, knowing quality to his voice. Sakura's mouth pursed, torn between incredulity and something else.

Her progression from there—the outskirts of Tanzaku Quarters—to the foyer of its finest house of oiran was less of a willing descent into lechery and more a result of herding. But even she had to admit that the building they arrived at was resplendent: crimson and obscene even against the licentiousness of the nearby brothels and bars. The scent of alcohol was thick in the air throughout the entire district but only thickened, joined now by a scent of expensive, heady perfume, when they passed through the entrance.

Civilians flinched away as they entered. Sakura was almost apologetic—the aura of imminent violence about her team had become deadly accompaniment to the shamisen that greeted its other visitors.

A woman emerged from a curtained passage, slim and swan-necked. Her lips were painted blood-red and her hair was drawn back from her face. A few wisps escaped in delicate curls to brush her cheeks. She smiled, peering up at them through her lashes.

Oiran weren't exactly discussed in polite company, but Ino had been more than an ample resource to anyone around in her younger years. Sakura knew, though not much, at least that they were the highest ranked of their kind. According to popular gossip, there were daimyo who had gone without the touch of the oiran they lusted after, so sparing the elite were with their favor.

"My girls have always enjoyed visits of your kind," the woman continued, making suggestive eye contact with each member of the squad. Her gaze passed over Sakura, of course, but missed—

Sakura turned, eyes narrowed, to find that Kakashi was not there.

The woman approached Hyena, a distinctly lustful smile curving on her lips. Hyena returned this glance by tilting her head to the side, long hair falling over one shoulder as she did so.

"I assume you have no objection..." the woman murmured, already loosening her obi. The cloth parted to reveal a dangerously deepening path of skin. Sakura yanked her gaze to the side, observing the courtyard-like structure of the building. Every level looked out onto the open ground floor, she noted with great interest.

Hyena, the owner, and the rest were gone before Sakura's next blink. Which left just her and the owner's assistant behind.

A hesitant cough sounded. Sakura's gaze moved back to the left.

"The divans on each floor outside the rooms," she interrupted before he could speak, "I'll just take one of those. Just to rest."

He looked unsure. She wondered if she would have to pull the chokuto out to convince him. Because there was no way she was stumbling out now into the drunk and high masses to try to find somewhere else to sleep.

Perhaps it was her glare, but he relented. "O-of course. The divans on the top floor are… most comfortable."

Sakura gave a quick nod and launched herself upward. When her feet settled once again on lush carpeting, she found that the highest level was possibly the most extravagant of them all.

Sakura swung her chokuto off her back and uncaringly stabbed it upright into the floor. It would be easily accessible in her reclined position.

The divan she had chosen, at the end of the hall, was long but narrow. She shifted for a moment, trying to get comfortable. She wouldn't be able to sleep like this, exposed and so out in the open. But she would take what she could get.

She shifted onto her side and closed her eyes.

And opened them a second later.

Moans: distinctly female, breathy, and high with ecstasy. She could tune out the noises from the other rooms, but these—were louder than the rest.

Sakura growled and shifted onto her other side. As though at the behest of a sadistic conductor, the moans steadily rose in pitch and urgency. She shut her eyes determinedly.

A long, drawn-out wail pierced the air. It lasted longer than human lungs had any right to allow.

Sakura's eyes flicked open and glared violently at the ceiling. One of the golden doors on the floor swung open a scarce thirty seconds later. It was the precise door behind which those noises had emerged.

A figure stood in the open entryway, silhouetted by the dim lighting inside. The woman's pink lips were downturned in a light pout, ostensibly at her departure from the room. As she made her way down the hall, her kimono was untied, revealing firm breasts and full, curved hips. She seemed considerably unconcerned by this. Her movements were slow, and at each step forward, her eyelids fluttered tellingly, features drawn with echoes of pleasure.

Sakura remained in her reclining position, reluctant to hear the shrill scream that would result from startling her.

When the woman's eyes inevitably fell on her, however, the pout abruptly vanished from her lips and was replaced instead with a haughty smirk.

It was an arrogant expression and entirely self-satisfied. She passed by with a gentle brush of air, kimono and long, black hair fluttering behind her.

The smell of rich, jasmine perfume reached Sakura's nose—and then something else. Sakura's brows furrowed as she sniffed lightly in an attempt to identify it. It smelled…familiar: smoke, metal, pine, and—

She straightened urgently, eyes flying to door that had yet to close.

A pair of mismatched eyes, half-lidded, gazed back.

She stared soundlessly, her mouth tight behind her mask and face hot, then turned sharply away.

When she looked back, the open door revealed an empty room. The bed, some irreverent, unconscionable part of her brain noted, hadn't been used.

What had been the point? Due diligence? The poorly guised savagery in his eyes had not abated at all.

Chapter 8: Sai

The mission ended with a swift and altogether uneventful journey back. (And she tried—really tried—not to think about what she had seen. All of it.)

Sakura settled back at home, burned her uniform, and showered. She tried to sleep after, because she'd been running on a sleep deficit the past few days; but it was midday and her body clock wouldn't let her.

Eventually, she threw on some clothes and went to the grocery store across the village. She hadn't visited it in years, not ever since she'd purchased that unfortunate bottle of milk.

Sakura should have known by now to stay away from that store.

"Watch out!" an ink-covered Naruto bellowed. "He's the devil's spawn! Run—"

"That's not a very nice introduction, dickless," a cool, monotonous voice intoned, stepping off a giant, ink creature.

A wide, plastic smile stretched across the newcomer's face. His skin was as pale as parchment. eyes and hair as dark as possible in contrast. "I'm Sai."

"What he is," Naruto growled, trying to shake off the ink on him like a wet dog, "is the devil's spawn. There's no way I'm letting Tsunade baa-chan make him a part of Team Seven."

"Haruno Sakura," she returned, ignoring Naruto's betrayed look. What was there to feel betrayed for?

New members might have seemed like a curve ball to Naruto, but she had spent the past few years on make-shift teams for one-off missions—because Team Seven had disbanded and Tsunade hadn't been the type to abscond from Konoha with her protégé. Well, Tsunade might have been, before…but not as Hokage.

"Sakura," Naruto said softly, face deadly serious. "He's not part of this team. I'm not letting anyone replace Sasuke—"

"You mean the traitor?" Sai interjected, smiling kindly.

When Naruto gave a wordless scream of rage, air hissed through Sakura's teeth and she stepped forward to catch the back of his shirt, ignoring the clenching in her own chest at Sai's words. Sai's smile flickered slightly when Naruto was unable to pull free.

"Interesting," the black haired boy commented. "The reports I've read indicate that you lack talent as a shinobi, Haruno-san."

"It's Sakura. And when we get to the training grounds in a few minutes," Sakura smiled back humorlessly, "I'm sure our captain will readily assure you that's just the case. Come on."

It didn't take much effort to drag Naruto the rest of the way to the training ground. Sai followed behind them at a sedate pace, dark, unreadable eyes taking in everything from the street vendors to the stray dogs with equal interest.

Sakura kept a disinterested eye on him the entire way. Sai was somehow…both extraordinarily unusual and extraordinarily ordinary. She wasn't blind. He had much of the classical beauty that had made Sasuke a fan-favorite among her peers, herself once included. But his expression was so unrelentingly bland, that it rendered him somehow…forgettable at the same time.

Sai's gaze slid to hers, catching her mid-perusal. He returned the look frankly, without the self-consciousness most would have shown.

"Man, can't he forget once?" Naruto muttered as the field—and Kakashi—came into sight. He had stiffened somewhat, apparently remembering their last training session. "Or at least come to training late, like he used to."

"The legendary copy-nin…" Sai noted softly, attention shifting away from her.

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto scoffed, flapping his hand, "So what?"

"He looks like he has a big dick," he added after some consideration.

Naruto choked on the saliva in his mouth. Sakura, in turn, hastily let go of Naruto. (No. She had not heard that.)

She moved onto the field. The moment she escaped the shadowy comfort of the inner village's tall buildings for the open expanse, she began to feel the full brunt of the sun. She could almost see the pulsating wave of heat coating the earth.

"Taichou," Sai greeted, bowing sharply. "I am eager to prove my worth to this team."

Kakashi's head cocked to the side as he straightened to his full height, centimeters above all of them.

His hand flashed out of sight for a second. She felt more than saw Naruto flinch beside her on reflex. A second later, yards of cloth unfurled in the air—orange, gold, crimson—and then landed in her hands.

"Nice, uh, kimono," Naruto said blankly.

Sai reached for the scroll resting on the boulder beside them. "An escort mission," he filled in, dark eyes scanning the document. "For the daimyo's daughter. The royal family has been receiving threats in light of the oldest son's upcoming marriage, and they want shinobi on top of their full guard detail. They also want a body double for her travel to the wedding."

Both his and Naruto's gaze shot to her. Sakura looked down at the kimono in her hands.

Kakashi's eyes rested on Sai indifferently. "You'll run point."

"And what will you be doing?" Naruto demanded, squinting.

"Watching from afar," the Copy-nin said, spinning a kunai in his hand lazily. "Don't fuck it up."

From her experience under him in ANBU, Sakura wondered meanly if any action on his part could only end in mass-bloodshed, and that was why he was distancing himself—

That's a tad unfair, the Voice mocked. We're not much better, are we?

Sai smiled stiffly at her, and she went behind a tree to change.

Harasa Mihiko, she learned, was the daimyo's eldest child and only daughter. Sakura hadn't encountered many upper class women on her missions so far.

But the last had been the princess who had watched her kill Noriko.

Other than their shared social status, Mihiko and Mako shared nothing in common. Mako had been, if not meek, then mild-mannered—and understandably shell-shocked by the slaughter of her ladies-in-waiting. She had spent most of the mission afterwards crying softly into her handkerchief, uncaring of her audience. She had also been beautiful.

As Sakura surveyed her, she knew that Mihiko was not beautiful. She was too jarring for beauty: red hair, straight as straw, plummeted down her back to the backs of her knees; bark brown eyes beneath thin, arched eyebrows peered out at them, clinical. She wasn't beautiful, but there was something…compelling about her nevertheless.

If one could only look past her arrogance, of course. Sakura swore that one could sense Mihiko's extreme condescension from almost two kilometers back. It permeated those around her too. She felt the skeptical scrutiny of Mihiko's samurai guard keenly. She knew she didn't look exactly like Mihiko. But, per the mission specs, she had changed her hair to match hers, and the kimono hid any obvious differences in their figures.

The daimyo's daughter's face wasn't exactly one that was publicized; most royal women were heavily sheltered before marriage.

"My lady," Sai greeted calmly. He blinked for a second and then bowed slightly. Naruto coughed before he and Sakura followed suit.

Mihiko's brown eyes slowly passed over them sharply. "I was told the copy-nin would be here."

"He will be keeping perimeter," Sai responded. It wasn't strictly true—Kakashi had only said he would be watching from afar. It sounded better, though.

Mihiko's face tightened slightly. Without warning, the daimyo's daughter's attention moved to her.

"You," Mihiko said softly. "Follow."

She spun immediately after this declaration, red hair fanning out behind her. Two of her guards—tall, bulky men who tied their hair in the way of the samurai—bent to help her into the palanquin. It was the largest one Sakura had ever seen; most fit two to four individuals. This, however, had enough space for at least ten, which she guessed from the ten foot soldiers carrying it.

Sakura followed. The heavy curtain fell behind her with a loud swish, just brushing the back of her kimono.

The daimyo's daughter was already seated, lounging on cushions with feet bare on the tatami mat. Two ladies-in-waiting sat to her left in seiza. To the right, a woman wielded a brush over a large piece of parchment.

"The black-haired one would have looked better in a kimono," Mihiko remarked coolly.

Sakura blinked, not sure how to grace that with a response. Most probably prompted by the awkward silence, the painter's eyes left the painting, darting up from beneath a thick curtain of lashes to analyze the palanquin's newest occupant.

Sakura blinked.

The woman wielding the brush was not, in fact, a woman at all. Or at least, not a born one.

Sakura wasn't immediately sure what betrayed it. On the whole, the performance of femininity was startlingly convincing: long black hair, tied low at the base of the neck, paired with a narrow, angular face. As the painter shifted, the loosely tied kimono revealed planes of chest that were flatter than they should have been, affirming her intuition.

She? He? Until told otherwise, she settled for 'he' for now.

He continued to stare. The daimyo's daughter noticed.

"Do you like what you see?" Mihiko murmured. The painter averted his gaze back to his painting.

The silence that followed was charged.

"Do tell, Asahi," Mihiko said, voice artfully distant, "She captured your attention, after all, when you're supposed to be hard at work for me. I wonder what it could have been." Her posture indicated what would have seemed to be utter disinterest in the matter. "Her eyes are too pale to prompt poetry. Her features are too hard, too sharp to allude to what I have observed is a desired softness in women."

Until this point, the daimyo's daughter's face had undergone only the minutest shifts to communicate her displeasure. It was a surprise, therefore, when she suddenly stood up and stalked forward, wrapping a slim hand around Asahi's long throat.

"She distracted you," Mihiko said coldly. "So pay the girl her due compliment. Tell her what you liked."

A strand of hair of the painter's hair fell forward. The voice that emerged was not what she expected at all, a smooth, low tenor that did not attempt to disguise itself .

"I only thought that the shinobi's disguise did you no justice, Mihiko-sama," Asahi said, head raising slowly.

His gaze shocked Sakura, who had thought him timid until now.

Two spots of red appeared on Mihiko's cheeks. Her hand spasmed, before she dug her nails into the painter's skin.

"Don't think your poisonous words will have any effect on me," the daimyo's daughter said stiffly. "Try again."

His head rolled to the side, and he peered up at her through his lashes. In a swift movement, he shifted to his knees, putting his head a scant few inches below hers. Mihiko's companions gasped, sharing scandalized looks.

"I'm an artist," the painter breathed. "I saw a blank—untouched—canvas."

"Then paint it," Mihiko breathed back, nostrils flaring, "if you're so eager."

"You know it's not the canvas I want."

A loud slap echoed through the room. Asahi's head snapped to the side like a rag doll's.

"Don't overstep," Mihiko said stonily. A glitter of challenge flashed through her eyes. "Tattoo her, if you want so badly to 'paint her skin.' Then, finish the portrait. My dear brother's wedding approaches, and it would be regrettable to turn up empty handed."

Baffled by most of what had just transpired, Sakura's head snapped up at that. "With all due respect, tattoos are identifying markers in my line of work."

Mihiko looked at her like an errant fly had suddenly spoken. "Your black ops force wears them. Shall I ask your captain, the copy-nin, for permission?"

"My lady," one of the women sitting still in seiza interrupted to Sakura's immense gratitude. "You can't let him touch her!"

Another lady-in-waiting nudged her frantically, attempting to silence her. But the original woman did not back down, flicking a disgusted glance at Asahi.

"He was a kagema," the woman whispered. "He's held women and been held by men."

The third lady-in-waiting, apparently not in the know, gave a horrified gasp. The former kagema in question had returned to his painting dutifully, a smug tilt to his lips.

"And?" For all her ladies-in-waiting's horror, the daimyo's daughter looked unperturbed and even annoyed.

"And?" the third lady-in-waiting echoed incredulously, eyes as round as coins.

"It's not right!" the second woman finally exclaimed. "For a man like that to touch an honest woman. He shouldn't even be in here with us."

Mihiko's eyes narrowed. Then she laughed riotously, if a bit haughtily.

"What's 'not right,'" she announced, "is that he's like the rest of his kind. He may try to hide it with his pretty kimonos and his elaborate fans, but in the end, he too thinks his penis is godsend. Alas, he's the best painter in the Land of Fire. And brother dear does deserve the best for his wedding. His own blessed cock has granted him that unearned status."

Sakura shifted her weight slightly. Her ankle was a bit sore from her previous mission.

The red-haired woman caught onto the movement like a viper. Her voice was a hiss. "You disagree, shinobi? An idiot he unquestionably is, and yet, my soon-to-be-wed brother will be the one to succeed my father—a boy who believes his bodily desires are sooner grounds for war than poverty or draught. Do you think any other kind of man exists in this world?"

"Mihiko-sama," her companion gasped, "You shouldn't speak like that, especially—"

"Shouldn't I?" Mihiko continued ruthlessly.

She and Mihiko locked gazes, for a moment. But the moment passed—as quickly as though it had never even existed—when the palanquin lurched to a sudden stop and jerked as it hit the ground.

Sakura was immediately on guard. There had been no sounds of commotion outside, but this was not a planned to stop. Seconds before the curtains shielding the entrance opened, Sakura lunged forward and shoved Mihiko into a wardrobe. She acted not a moment too soon.

A large man with skin as rich as the earth entered through the curtain with a smaller, purple-haired woman. They were both armed and wore no hitai-ate.

"Who are you?" Sakura demanded imperiously, carrying herself just as Mihiko had done seconds before.

The ladies in waiting scattered from their neat line in belated reaction, clinging to each other in fear.

From the corner of her eyes, she saw Asahi shift his body slightly to cover the wardrobe.

"Our fine lady been asking for this, hasn't she?" the purple-haired woman giggled, eyes widening at Sakura. "Take a look at this room, Jirou."

"Shut up and grab her," the man responded gruffly. His gaze passed over the other occupants of the palanquin without interest.

Sakura shifted her weight, taut with tension as her mind worked rapidly. Should she fight and resist capture? But there had been no sounds of a fight outside, as though they had been allowed into the palanquin. Was that her new team member's—Sai's—aim? Was he an enemy who had infiltrated Konoha?

The woman stalked toward her. "I hope daddy pays up, sweetheart," she crooned, gripping her hands painfully and tying them together tightly with wire.

Sakura allowed it, letting a pained grunt spill from her lips as she was gagged and promptly tossed over the woman's shoulder. She couldn't see Sai or Naruto anywhere, but she did sense mostly-hidden chakra. Her eyes narrowed.

The two enemy shinobi didn't dilly-dally. Paying no mind to the samurai and foot soldiers they had knocked out to break in, they took off into the trees.

Just before her view of the palanquin disappeared, she saw a lone figure finally step out from the shadows of the trees. It was Sai.

He gave a wide, plastic smile as his hand to his lips in a silencing motion.

Sakura squinted at him before he disappeared. A second later, dozens of more shinobi from the surrounding trees abandoned branches to follow them.

The new shinobi punched the man's shoulder in celebration, jeered that "they hadn't even been needed as back up," why the hell had he made them all come?

One even let his hand pass roughly over Sakura's bottom.

And she abruptly understood what Sai had done.

As long as these shinobi thought they had the real deal, Mihiko and the rest of her entourage could travel safely to the wedding without delay. The samurai and the foot soldiers had only been knocked out. They had probably been told not to put up a fight.

The enemy shinobi's numbers vastly outranked theirs, and rather than engaging in an prolonged battle, Sai had clearly decided to readily offer Sakura to distract them.

Fucking Sai. Maybe Naruto had had the right idea after all.

They traveled for a little more than an hour until they reached a sprawling camp. The entire way, Sakura screamed and cried and clawed at her captors, playing her role aptly while biding her time.

Belatedly, she wondered how Sai had made Naruto agree to this. Granted, it wasn't like she was actually in much danger.

But the idea of Naruto being complicit in this plan…

She hastily distracted herself from her thoughts, welcoming the sharp pain in her knees as the enemy shinobi tossed her into a cage at the middle of the camp. When she looked up, she was surrounded by what looked to be the entire group, counting upwards of fifty.

"Why am I here? Who are you?" Sakura asked, her voice a hoarse rasp from the gag.

The man who had aided in her capture responded. "As long as your family provides payment before the deadline, no harm will come to you."

"And if they don't?" she demanded, straightening to her feet. "When's the deadline?"

How long until Mihiko and her entourage reached the wedding? About two days. Then, another four until she made her way back to the palace.

Sakura would have to keep this farce up for six days, minimum.

"Two days," the man responded, after a short pause. Too little time for a courier to reach the camp. They must have arranged a drop off location, Sakura guessed.

"Oh, tell her the truth, Jirou," the woman who had carried her cut in, a wide smile on her face. "That's just the soft deadline. After that, we start cutting off body parts. Sending them. Don't worry, Mihiko-sama, nothing vital, at first. But we'll keeping cutting until nothing's left. That's the hard deadline."

She let the panic show on her face, because it was a fitting response for a daimyo's daughter. Pointedly, though—there was no way she was going to be able to keep up this sham for as long as she needed to.

They left her, then, presumably to let her hysterically sob without imposing on them.

Sakura appreciated the space. It allowed her to consider her options.

If she stayed, she would either have to invent a jutsu to help her fake-sacrifice body parts (unlikely) or actually sacrifice them (which, no, she was not willing). Maybe Sai had kindly sent a hawk requesting an extraction team, but they wouldn't reach in time, not with the time it would take for the bird to travel and for most teams to actually come.

The only kind of team that could reach fast enough was an ANBU team. But they wouldn't send ANBU for Sakura Haruno. The only rare time ANBU performed extraction (not just to protect information or punish treason) was if it was one of their own. Which 'Sakura' was not. It was the harsh reality of there always being more demand for ANBU than there was supply.

Nonetheless, she could escape by herself—she was more than capable of it.

But…if Sakura broke free, even this group wouldn't be stupid enough to miss the skill of another shinobi; they would know they had been duped and descend on Mihiko and her entourage on her way back.

She supposed, with some generosity, that this had all happened because Sai did not know for sure what Kakashi was capable of. It was probably that uncertainty—the chance that the stories were tall tales, as many shinobi accounts admittedly did become—that had made the latest Team Seven member doubt whether their team would be enough to oppose the larger numbers.

If she was being generous: it wasn't a surprise Sai had assumed the worst. The infamous copy-nin had hardly shown that he was in the least bit inclined to intervene in any violent altercation. He didn't know that Kakashi was one of the most devastating forces anyone could encounter in a violent altercation and seemingly always willing to do so.

The point stood, that Sakura had been sacrificed quite pointlessly.

She scoffed, shifting herself until she was lying on her back and staring at the twilight sky. The sky was cloudless here, a fiery blend of smoky orange—so beautiful it burned—and a deep, resilient blue.

It was almost…nice, like this. Quiet.

And the infernal crow wasn't here. Sakura could always find it within herself to appreciate that.

There were guards positioned a short distance from her around the cage. One woman and three men. She cataloged the kunai on their bodies as she enjoyed the light breeze.

She closed her eyes.

When she opened them, it was dark.

Chapter 9: Deus Ex Machina

The camp was mostly silent. The shinobi had cooked meat and eaten around the fire hours ago. Sakura had been given some food as well, had been made to bow with her hands tied behind her back to eat it.

Now, she sat boredly inside her cage, counting stars to pass the time.

Outside her cage, the shinobi guarding her (a different set now) traded bawdy stories to keep themselves entertained. Only one held back. It was the purple-haired woman from the beginning of this debacle—Akane.

Akane had assumed her shift with a wide smile as soon as dinner had finished.

Sakura hadn't noticed it at first, too preoccupied with other things. But now she saw that there was definitely something off about the older woman. Akane had been staring at her intently for the last two hours—which was not in and of itself unusual, perhaps, because Sakura was her prisoner. But it was the content of her gaze.

"And once there was a lady who bathed in rose petals," one of the shinobi bellowed, having succumbed to the sake in his bottle, "and one day she put them in her genitals..."

Akane gave Sakura brief, hungry look before walking over to the man. She tossed a kunai into the air and caught it by the blade.

"Akane-san," the bigger man gulped, fearful at her sudden presence. "Was there something you wanted?"

"What I want," Akane murmured, a smile stretching now across her face now, "is for you and your friends to be gone."

Sakura's lips twitched, hiding a smirk. Akane wanted to be alone? Well, that would make escape considerably easier.

At first, the man blinked without comprehension. Then, he stammered. "B-but Jirou told us that four of us had to watch her at all times."

Akane arched a brow, tutting now. "Do you really think I can't handle one itty, bitty lady all by myself?"

Her kunai traced its way delicately down the line of his throat, down his chest and stomach, until it rested between his legs.

"I'm leaving," the man gave in immediately. The other men readily obeyed, abandoning the cage and heading towards the edges of the camp. After a moment, Akane withdrew her blade and the man followed, the stink of his sweat trailing behind him.

The purple haired rogue-nin turned back around slowly, black eyes gleaming. Sakura watched unflinchingly in the shadowed part of the cage.

"Finally." Akane gave a breathy sigh, taking a moment to palm herself. Then, she reached to her belt to pull out the key.

Sakura waited with what she believed to be admirable patience.

"Are you scared, darling?" Great. She wanted to talk.

"Terrified," Sakura said a little too forcefully. Akane paused, lips twisting.

She corrected herself hastily. "Please. Please don't do this to me. What do you want? I'll give you anything—money, weapons, whatever. Please don't hurt me."

The words tasted like blood in her mouth. That was because she bit into her tongue saying them.

Akane was panting now, fumbling to fit the key into the lock, jamming it in and wrenching it to the side in her impatience. And then the purple haired woman was in front of her. The door of the cage was open behind her.

But still, Sakura waited. She wanted to escape with as little disruption as possible. She hadn't watched the men as they left, but she had been listening. And she hadn't heard them enter their tents; she couldn't verify that they weren't still watching.

Sakura had heard their footsteps heading away, and now—nothing.

As she puzzled over this, Akane drew a fist back and punched her in the face. The motion sent Sakura into the side of the cage with a loud clang. Akane gave a delighted giggle.

Gut her, the Voice snarled.

Sakura glowered at the tree in front of her. The purple haired woman packed more of a punch than she'd thought.

A hand curled into her hair, stroking delicately. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mihiko-sama. Did I hurt you?"

The hand slipped down to cup her face as Akane looked down at her.

"You look so pretty, you know," the woman gasped, fingers digging greedily into her cheeks, "So, so pretty. I wish I could keep you forever. But climax is the little death, after all, and—god—you're going to bleed so good for me—"

She was stopped by a terrible coughing fit. After a moment, blood began to spill from her mouth.

Sakura looked down. A hand protruded from Akane's chest. Its counterpart didn't bother trying to cover the woman's mouth.

Rage— jealous and petty—burned through Sakura. She knew exactly whom that hand belonged to. Of course, he had shown up, just at this moment.

Akane gaped at her, black eyes panicked and suddenly childish. "What—" The woman collapsed limply.

The tall figure stood like a specter over Akane's collapsed form. His tanto was coated to the hilt in blood. Finally, she realized why she hadn't heard those men return to those tents.

(He had killed them all. There was no one else was alive in the camp. No one to follow them.)

She hadn't thought to do that.

"Get out," the figure said softly.

Sakura gazed back with remarkable stoicism, or so she thought. Glancing down at Akane's dead body, she gathered the ends of her kimono and stepped over the pool of blood steadily spreading. She didn't quite manage it. As her left foot landed, she felt the—

"I know your kind." Kakashi's eyes passed over the dried tracks of fake tears and blood on her face.

Our kind, the Voice whispered, something like trepidation in its own voice.

She shook her head minutely, brain processing his words through what seemed to be haze of noise.

"When you are dead," the copy-nin continued tonelessly, "your parents will be the only ones to remember your name. You'll waste your life here on something that was never meant for you-that you were never capable of handling. And that our esteemed hokage never mustered telling you this herself is a disservice to the combat shinobi who have died far more admirably than you will and are still just that, detritus for the worms, for all we remember them."

Sakura shuddered an exhale.

It was the most he had ever said to her.

It took only an hour for them to reach where the others had made camp. They traveled in silence, Sakura striving as much as she could to contain her anger and largely mutilating her hands in this endeavor.

As soon as Sakura broke into the clearing, she felt a heavy force drive into her solar plexus. It took her a few seconds to realize that she was not, in fact, being attacked.

She spat coarse, blonde hair out of her mouth. After a moment, the grip relented slightly. "That—that—" Naruto didn't seem to be able to find a word bad enough for Sai, "He made sure I wasn't here. When I found out what he had done…"

"Haruno-san," their newest team member greeted politely, expression untroubled.

"You," Naruto growled, hands contorted into claws, "Don't you dare—"

"Shut up, dickless," Sai said with a smile. He turned to Kakashi now, bowing. "Taichou."

Kakashi's gaze flicked up, pausing his wiping of the bloodstained tanto against the tree behind Sakura.

Sai bowed sharply. "As I was uncertain of how much you intended to intervene, I conducted the team in the most effective way to ensure success in our mission regardless. I trust that you have found my leadership satisfactory."

Naruto was almost incoherent in his rage. "You sacrificed a teammate!"

"If Haruno-san had been injured," Sai interrupted smoothly, "that would have been most unfortunate. But as it stands, the mission would have gone on unimpeded—"

Kakashi had suddenly appeared in front of him, inches from his face.

Sakura watched the altogether bizarre scene occurring before her with annoyance.

"Taichou?" Sai's smile had dropped.

"I know what you are," the copy-nin said. Interestingly, Sai's eyes darkened.

Kakashi leaned in, then, to convey to him something Sakura could not hear.

"I don't understand, taichou. I have always received positive…feedback."

The clouds had stretched to cover the moon, and she couldn't see Kakashi's face now either.

"I will correct myself," Sai said after a pregnant pause.

The copy-nin's gaze bore into him for one second longer, then he flickered and disappeared.

And Naruto shoved Sai back against a tree.

Sai's voice was as monotonous as ever, but he was clearly still distracted by what had transpired with Kakashi. "I do not understand your anger."

Naruto snarled. "What the hell's wrong with you?"

"The mission is my sole priority. It should be yours as well," the dark haired boy began calmly.

"Naruto," Sakura cut him off before he could respond to this charge. She took a step forward and pulled him off Sai. "I'd like to speak with him alone."

Naruto's hand tightened at his sides. He looked like he wanted to argue, but something on her face must have told him it would be futile. He left without another word. Sakura, despite herself, was shocked by his quick acceptance. She hadn't expected him to-hadn't given him enough credit. It made her wonder how unfair, in other ways, she may have been in the past.

No, that wasn't quite right.

What it really made her wonder was if she had been as bad as Kakashi. If they had—her teeth gritted—both played a part in making Team Seven as dysfunctional as it had been.

"And what is your complaint, Haruno-san?" Sai asked delicately. He had recovered slightly, returning to his normal color and begun smoothing his clothes.

Sakura's lips twisted wryly. Suddenly at ease, was he?

Her eyes scanned the thick forest surrounding them, checking for any hint of chakra. Her gaze caught something in the trees—but it wasn't a shinobi. After a brief pause, she clenched her fist and drove it toward Sai's midsection.

He blocked the blow, hands snapping from his sides to catch her fist. Her eyebrow arched; without pause, she twisted and brought her forearm against his throat, pinning him to the tree like he had been just a minute before.

Sai's face still revealed little, but his eyes had narrowed slightly.

"You're ANBU, aren't you?" Sakura demanded lowly. I know what you are, Kakashi had said. Not quite familiarity, but something like it.

His lips stretched in a thin, meaningless smile that Sakura was quickly beginning to get sick of. It reminded her of his smile, when he had—

"That would require me to violate protocol, Haruno-san, if it were true."

And now she was hearing her own words echoed back to her.

"As I said before," Sai said, "I do not understand your anger."

And that was…a good question, she thought to herself. She hadn't truly been placed in danger. How could what had happened in the last twelve hours compare to what she had faced on ANBU missions in the past?

But it persisted, nevertheless.

"I do not understand your displeasure," he repeated, eyes flickering over face, "or why the copy-nin considers me to be scum."

Is that what Kakashi had told him? Sakura scoffed. Then, her mind processed belatedly what he had said. Something in them…

Piercing hunger,

the taste of failure.

And—

those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum

Air hissed out through her teeth. That.

"Do you not believe that completion of the mission is the highest obligation of a shinobi, Haruno-san?" Sai asked calmly.

Sakura's eyes snapped to his, distracted. "No."

"Oh?" He looked puzzled now, an odd innocence about him. "Then what is?"

She stared at him expressionlessly for what could have been as long as a minute. She hadn't thought her refusal through, only knew it—instinctively—to be true. Now, she searched for an explanation. He waited patiently.

"Peace." She wanted to get back to punching Sai. It had popped out of her mouth as soon it had crossed her mind, and it had crossed her mind because it was Shisui's 'other human's' stance. The crow lamented about it constantly, she recalled with a scowl. Let Sai wrestle with it now.

Unfortunately, he wasn't finished.

"A shinobi maintains order precisely by completing his," he tilted his head to her, "or her mission. This is why the mission is of the utmost importance. Above any individual. Isn't that right?"

Sakura's eyebrow twitched. She wasn't interested in a philosophical debate now—why did he have so many questions? "Order…is different from peace."

"Then what is peace?"

Sakura searched the sky above her for an answer, wondering how she'd ended up here.

"It doesn't always mean completing the mission."

"Like when a teammate's safety is at stake," Sai pondered, "Is that why Naruto and Kakashi-taichou believe I am…'scum'?"

Sakura's face contorted almost on reflex to a sneer at the copy-nin's mention. But Sai was already speaking again, something like an epiphany dawning on him.

"Enforcing peace as a shinobi means…" the black-haired shinobi murmured, eyes widening slightly. "I see. If one values a teammate, then that teammate must not be sacrificed. Taichou and dickless will uphold this value while completing their missions—despite their missions. There are…certain values that cannot be sacrificed to maintain the peace, because those also contribute to the state of peace."

His words had Sakura's gaze fixated on a small ant crawling up the curves of the bark.

She turned her head and locked gazes with an unflinching, black pair of eyes. She backed away from him, letting her forearm slide from his throat. Somehow, abruptly, her anger had receded, leaving behind only a sense of confusion.

"Teammates," the other shinobi pressed, "are they something all shinobi must hold…precious?"

Sakura's arm paused, half way down from Sai's throat.

"Would you die for a teammate?" Sai pressed.

She grunted. "That's beside—"

"For dickless?"

"Yes."

Her mouth seemed to have taken free reign. Die? For Naruto?

Annoying, noisy, obnoxious, all-around miscreant Naruto. The bottom-last of their class, whose apartment to this day probably violated several health codes.

…who would also readily die for her and for any of his teammates to protect them. Maybe even Sai, if the circumstances were dire enough, because he possessed precisely that kind of sentimentality.

She laughed, a bit humorlessly—and a bit surprised—to herself.

This was an unexpected development, she knew, considering where she had begun. In the beginning, she had wanted to be a shinobi to be like Ino. Then, she had thrown herself into it—there was no point disguising it for anything it wasn't—for survival.

Sakura completed her own ANBU missions because she was forced to by the crow, not because of patriotism. She reconciled herself to the violence she committed because she had been coerced to do it; when she wasn't actively killing people, she used violence only to protect herself.

But…

But, she thought with a farce of a smile, she wasn't managing very well, was she? The mountains of burned uniforms, the chafed skin around her hands from hours of scrubbing, the nights of insomnia—they could attest to that fact.

"I see," Sai said for a second time, interrupting her thoughts. Then he bowed from the waist. "I am grateful for this conversation. I see that I have much to learn."

She surveyed him closely, even as he left. He had walked away with answers; Sakura felt like she had only been burdened by questions she didn't have the time to contemplate. A frustrating outcome for an interaction she had seen going in an altogether different direction.

She reached up hands to shove her hair behind her ears. "You can come out now."

Her words were met at first with silence. Then a soft rustle sounded behind her—silk brushing leaves—and a figure emerged.

Sakura leaned back against the tree, crossing her arms across her chest.

The painter from the palanquin (Asahi, she remembered) returned her gaze evenly. Amongst the tall pine trees and the endless expanse of the sky—the battleground of so many shinobi, of blood and steel—his lounging, silken clad presence seemed utterly at odds.

"Interesting conversation you were having there. One might have thought you were scholars and not shinobi," he commented lightly. "Did you both know I was here?"

Sakura inclined her head slightly. Yes. And a genin would been able to tell.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked. "It's late. As you saw, the woods are not always safe."

He didn't respond immediately, taking the time to remove a leaf that had fallen from the canopy above him onto his shoulder.

Then he looked up, blue eyes piercing. "I think you are like me, Haruno-san."

She was nonplussed at first. Then, understanding dawned.

"I don't mean that," Asahi laughed gently. "Well, not exactly that. You and I, Haruno-san—I have the sense that you too are not what you seem."

"Are you a woman?" Sakura asked bluntly.

But Asahi just ran a smooth hand down the length of his—her?—loose braid. It looked like a black snake curling its way down his shoulder.

"Woman, man," he considered them lazily, "Both suit. I also, incidentally, like to fuck both."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Why are you here?"

"Well, I owe you." The painter's voice was still playful, but delivered through suddenly tight lips.

"Do you?"

"Of course. You saved the only daughter of the royal house that is my benefactor." Vulgarity followed. "She has the most sinful ankles, you know. It would have been such a loss. She could make a killing with those in my old line of work."

Sakura paid no attention to the words. She arched a brow, waiting.

Eventually, Asahi reached pulled out a scroll. Sakura took it and opened it.

"What is this?" she asked after a moment.

"For your back, I would think," the painter said, blue eyes glinting. "Give it to an ANBU tattoo artist. They'll do it justice."

Sakura closed it and tucked it indifferently to her belt. "If that's all—good night."

"Good night, Haruno-san."

The painter turned in a swirl of silk and headed back toward the palanquin.

"I noticed," Sakura called out a few seconds later.

The delicate face turned back in question.

"You moved when they entered. In front of her."

Pink lips curled beneath warning, blue eyes. "Did I?"

"Don't be alarmed, Asahi-san," Sakura said wryly. "I'll keep your secret if you keep mine." The painter had seen her threaten Sai, after all. And it wouldn't do to have that kind of thing going around.

The former kagema's eyes fluttered. "Well, then. I hope you enjoy your gift."

Sakura wasn't actually surprised to find herself in Tsunade's office with the copy-nin less than two hours after returning from their mission.

The hokage looked up from the mountains of paper on her desk with a fierce glare, amber eyes flashing in warning at their entrance. Sakura's gaze drifted to the untouched sake settled on the window sill. Apparently, Tsunade had been too busy to drink herself today to her usual mellow buzz, which didn't exactly bode well for her current mood.

But if her jounin captain was concerned, he certainly didn't show it. He seemed impervious to Shizune's glower as he tracked mud onto the previously pristine floor, settling against the side of bookcase with feline grace.

Tsunade glanced at him and then to Sakura. She addressed her remarks to the latter. "Why are you here?"

Sakura kept the glare off her face with difficulty, striving for indifference. "I'm afraid you'll have to ask him, Tsunade-sama."

The older woman scoffed, wisps of blond hair flaring with the exhalation of breath. Then she turned to Kakashi and demanded: "Well?"

Kakashi's head rolled to meet hers lazily, but his eyes were steely. "I want her off."

Tsunade repeated the word soundlessly. "Off. Off? Off what, Hatake? The roster for the yearly Konoha fly fishing competition? You're going to need to be more specific."

The copy-nin's eyes crinkled. The look in them was not pleasant. "Team Seven."

The hokage's lips thinned into a tight line. "Not this again."

"I want her off," Kakashi continued uncaringly, voice cold. "Now."

Tsunade's hands tightened into vicious fists, like she wished she could strangle him. Sakura sorely wished the same.

"Why?" the woman snapped finally, temper tenuously held back.

He pushed away from the bookshelf, standing at his full, imposing height as he delivered his words. "She's a liability."

"She's my student," Tsunade said warningly.

"So make her a full medic-nin."

"I believe with time," the hokage said through gritted teeth, "she can be more than that."

Kakashi looked imperiously down at the leader of one of the most powerful shinobi villages in the world.

"There isn't enough time in a human's life span for her to achieve that."

Sakura saw the blow land. Tsunade wasn't quick enough to hide her flinch, or the flicker of doubt that passed through her features. Sakura's stomach clenched. She knew she hadn't been as available to meet with Tsunade for lessons in recent years, thanks to the Crow. But she had tried her best.

Only, now even the woman who had given her her first life line couldn't speak up for her.

"Tsunade-sama," she said lowly. Her mentor's attention went to her immediately.

"Yes," Tsunade said, blinking rapidly. "You. What do you have to say?"

"I'm staying," she said unflinchingly, back straight.

Leaving Team Seven wasn't going to remove her from active shinobi life. The crow would probably kill itself before it let that happen. Ironically, in fact, Team Seven offered a mostly benign distraction to the other parts of her life (despite Kakashi being their jounin captain). Sai was a piece of shit, possibly with potential redeeming qualities she had yet to find. And Naruto was—well, she owed a lot to Naruto.

The point was, she wasn't leaving Team Seven.

Funnily enough, her words were all it took.

"Alright," Tsunade breathed, reaching behind for her sake and taking a deep gulp. "That settles it. She stays."

The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.

"I would," Kakashi said stiltedly, eyes slitted, "advise you to revise that decision, hokage-sama."

The hokage looked up at him with a thunderous look on her face. "I would advise you to remember where you stand in this hierarchy, Hatake. You're not here yet; and if your current inability to curb your more insubordinate and frankly violent tendencies continues, you never will be."

The sound of a blade being unsheathed cut through the air in a brutal hiss. Tsunade was standing now; Shizune's hands were sheathed in blue chakra.

"I might as well kill her now then. Save us the trouble of having to transport the body back,," Kakashi said lazily. He tilted his head to the side, looking down at the hokage callously.

"Sakura, see yourself out." Tsunade bit out. "Your taichou and I have a few matters to discuss."

Sakura looked at her mentor in disbelief. Leave? That was the last thing she wanted to do right now. Did Kakashi really intend to use his blade against her? Execute Sakura to save their opponents the trouble?

Let him try, the Voice snarled, we'll tear into him before he knows which way's up.

She pretended she didn't hear the slight trepidation in the Voice's words.

"Get out, Sakura," Tsunade growled again, slamming both hands flat against the wood of her desk.

Sakura's eyes jerked back to her at the loud noise. At Tsunade's expression, Sakura grimaced and then gave in.

She spun on her heel and didn't look back.

Chapter 10: Traitors

Kakashi was a feral, out-of-control menace that threatened to do Konoha just as much if not more harm than he did good.

This was what Sakura had decided in the past week.

He needs to be put down, the Voice growled.

Sakura would like very much to be the one who put him down.

Unfortunately, this was an impossible task at the moment.

"Your genjutsu technique is improving," the crow commented, interrupting her thoughts. The words were delivered indifferently.

Sakura straightened, wiping sweat off her face. "You said before that I could use you to produce better genjutsus. How do I do that?"

Shisui's wings fluttered rapidly, propelling it into brief flight before it landed on the bench next to her. It cocked its head to the side; the spinning sharingan bored into her.

"I suppose you're nearly there," it settled with. Something like a garish smile crossed the crow's features—only it wasn't quite a smile, because it was not human.

"There are rituals," Shisui told her, "that allow a summon and its summoner to share certain abilities, as if they are one."

"Your eye," Sakura guessed, a sour feeling in her stomach.

"The sharingan is a tool of illusion. Born of hatred and despair, the self learns to deceive and to see deception. When Uchihas confront this phenomenon, their eyes learn to do the same. Your eyes will see through mine, will use mine, to do the same."

Sakura leaned back into the bench, keeping her voice deliberately light. "Your other…contractee. Did he give you that sharingan?"

It pecked punishingly at her, drawing blood. For Shisui, she knew, this was its literal manifestation of biting amusement.

"You've grown bolder."

Sakura listed off to the blue sky. "You have a sharingan. You've taught me fire techniques that only… they know." That she had only ever seen Sasuke use.

"This is true."

Her gaze flicked to it and then away. "So it is true."

Not Sasuke, she knew. That left…the other one. I-ta-chi. Weasel.

Sakura paused, a metallic taste in her mouth.

"If your other master and I were ever to fight each other, who would you protect?"

The crow smirked. Then, Shisui descended from her shoulder to her lap, digging claws into her skin through layers of cloth.

"Shall I tell you a secret?"

Sakura peered down at it dryly.

"I hold secrets very dearly, girl," the crow said in a deathly whisper. "I tell you this because, at that critical moment, you must remember this."

She was unimpressed. "Go on, then."

It looked up at her, eyes burning straight through her. "You will never stand on opposite sides."

Sakura blinked at it. "Right."

"It is true."

"Well, I don't believe it."

"You will come to," the crow said genially. The crow cawed loudly, a cruel laugh. When she blinked again, she was alone, sitting on a bench in the middle of an abandoned park. Shisui had broken the genjutsu and left.

It couldn't be true, she decided. God, the crow had been feeding her rot since the beginning. Peace—sure, only if Sasuke's brother had a truly twisted conception of it.

So she resolved to forget about Shisui's words entirely, and headed to the bookstore on the other side of the park.

"We need to talk," Naruto announced.

Sakura coughed under her breath. It was a stunning coincidence, after all, that she, Naruto, and Sai had ended up in the same exact bookstore at 5 o'clock that afternoon. So much so, that it could not be a coincidence at all.

She placed the book in her hand back onto its shelf.

Sakura hadn't seen either of them for days, because Team Seven's training had been called off indefinitely. She suspected it had to do with something like a strong-arming effort on Kakashi's part against Tsunade.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Naruto straightened sharply. "Nothing. Well—a lot, actually. We need to talk if this is going to work."

"Did you have such a discussion with the traitor Uchiha?" Sai asked innocently.

Naruto's features contorted in a snarl. "Don't call him that."

"Ok." Sakura said swiftly. "Let's talk. The park's right out there."

"This is fine with me as well," Sai said now, nodding seriously. "I read that communication is critical to the progression of any relationship—"

"Cool." Naruto said with forced calm.

"—certainly before any sexual activity," Sai added casually.

"No sexual activity," the blonde burst out, eyes wide in alarm.

"Of course. Not with that small dick."

"I'm going to kill you—"

Sakura grabbed them both by the collar and dragged them out of the bookstore to the park nearby. When she dumped them on the ground, Naruto rubbed the front of his neck ruefully.

But Sai had something to say. "You do that a lot, I've noticed. Are you into that kind of thing, Sakura-san?"

Sakura ignored him.

"Well?" she prompted Naruto.

He sighed, and his expression grew hard. "We don't abandon teammates, no matter what. We don't sacrifice teammates, no matter what. I won't watch anyone else do it. Okay?"

He looked only at Sai.

"I understand, now," Sai responded slowly. His brows were furrowed. "Mostly. I'm still working out the minutiae of the rationale, but—I will act accordingly."

Naruto looked skeptical, but he clenched his jaw and nodded sharply.

Sai nodded back solemnly.

"Ok, next." Naruto swallowed sharply. "Honesty."

She stiffened. Then, she saw Naruto himself blanche. That was unexpected.

He looked back at both of them. His face was full of fear.

"Naruto?" she asked quietly.

He told them the story of the nine-tailed beast.

She didn't know what she looked like by the end, but her insides ached with shock. Now that she knew, of course, she could see the signs.

"Do you think I'm a monster?" It was clearly a question that had been weighing on him some time.

Sakura glared. "No. What it did is not what you did." If only she could say the same about her and the Voice.

"Indeed," Sai said blankly.

"And what about you Sai?" Sakura said sharply. "Why don't you tell us who you actually are."

Sai smiled generously. "I can't say."

"You don't get to do that," Naruto growled.

"I can't say," Sai repeated.

"And I said that you don't get to do that—"

"Naruto," Sakura cut him off, "I think he literally can't. He must be sealed."

Naruto's mouth opened and closed. "What?"

"I know he's ANBU, though."

The blonde pivoted with incredible speed, face red. "He's ANBU? Gaara's already kazekage, Sai is in ANBU, and look at me—"

"Stay away from ANBU," Sakura cut him off sharply.

He recoiled, looking hurt. "You know, I am working hard."

She exhaled impatiently. "I don't mean that. I just mean that you would hate ANBU. From what I know of it."

"Oh. Really? I mean, I don't actually know what ANBU does, just heard someone mention it…." He looked pensive now. "Well, straight to hokage was the original plan anyway. Yeah, I can make that work."

"Sure, dickless," Sai scoffed.

"Shut up."

Sai's attention thankfully moved to her before the matter could escalate.

"I suppose I owe you an apology, Sakura-san. I would like to repay you," the boy said stoically.

"Don't worry about it."

"I insist," Sai said seriously. "I do not believe we can begin again as a team until I have repaid you. The book I'm reading says that no relationship can progress before all wrongs in the past have been properly addressed."

"That's right," Naruto said stubbornly.

Sakura looked tiredly at the both of them. "Fine," she sighed. "What's on the table?"

He pursed his lips. "I could kill someone for you," he considered.

We can do that ourselves, the Voice rumbled throatily.

"Hey!" Naruto shouted.

"Something else."

"Well. I am also…rather good at art."

Sakura laughed under her breath. Funny, that. She had never thought about it before (beyond the mandatory ANBU tattoo her false identity had been required to have). But then the painter—Asahi—had given her that scroll. And she had yet to remove it from her pack.

She never would have taken the initiative to search out a shinobi to do the job—this was true. But now such a shinobi had practically fallen into her lap. And he owed her a favor. And she just wanted that favor over with. (And, somehow, the idea of marking her body in a way that wasn't a scar or a burn wasn't entirely…unappealing).

"Have you ever done a tattoo?" Naruto gaped at her.

"I have…come across it," Sai answered.

"In that case." She pulled the scroll out and unrolled it. "This. I guess on my back. And then we call it quits."

"Wow," Naruto breathed.

It was impressive. Mihiko hadn't been lying when she suggested Asahi was talented; he was clearly the kind of artist rumored to sell their soul to be granted such talent.

"Ah," Sai said calmly.

Two figures met their gazes, drawn in a style intended to evoke the art of the temples. One figure's face was hidden—the woman's. Her left arm arched above her head before bending down, wielding a fan that covered most of her face and revealed only smiling lips, simply painted. Her dress was also tied simply, but from cloth in hues of such deep blues and reds that it looked bafflingly indulgent. Most curiously of all, her right hand thrust forward an amulet as her body curved toward her companion, as though she would just as easily dance with it as attack it into submission. For the woman faced a demon-the second central figure of the artpiece-in turn rendered in vicious reds and blacks. Its body was covered in ancient armor, a violent smile decorating its face, telling both of bloodthirst and of amusement. It, too, curved toward its opponent, caught indefinitely in a state of both attraction and repulsion.

And between the two figures were elements of smoke and other iconography common to the genre.

Those were Sai's words, not her own. He had picked up the painting and begun to explain its composition with something like passion in his voice.

The painting, he continued, was in the deep, rich colors of classic irezumi, but with such devastating elegance that it surpassed all that he had seen before—

"How long will it take?" she interrupted.

Sai paused. "Two hours because of the complexity. But it will be done by sunset."

She paused now. "Do I have to do anything to prevent infection?"

She didn't know much about tattoos. Shinobi wore them like scars. In the civilian world, only criminals had them.

"Not with this method," Sai said. "Now, then. Shirt off, please."

"Wait, wait, wait," Naruto said hastily. "You're doing it here?"

Sai looked at him without comprehension. "I prefer natural lighting. Also, this is an abandoned park. That means no one maintains it. Which means no one comes here."

"But we're here," Naruto argued with panic, gaze darting around as though he expected someone to jump out of the bushes. "People come here. We're people."

"We'll sense them," Sakura said. Then she remembered who she was talking to and corrected herself. "Sai or I will."

"But Sakura—"

She turned away from them and pulled off her flak jacket, then the shirt beneath. The ANBU tattoo on her arm was hidden by the jutsu she almost always used before she left the house.

"Do I need to remove this?" Sakura asked, referring to her bound chest.

Sai seemed paused to think about this. Finally, he said, "No. I can work around it. One hand makes the jutsus; the other needs to be in contact with the skin where they're being applied. I will have to reach under the bandage for those parts on your back, but I do not need to remove it."

"Good." She put her flak jacket down on the grass and then lay on her stomach on top of it. "Go on."

She heard Sai pull some more things out of his satchel, before a cool hand rested on her lower back. A second later, a painful, burning sensation made her skin throb violently. She gritted her teeth, but withstood it without flinching.

"I've been told it hurts more this way," Sai said conversationally. "About a thousand times more. Usually, only shinobi can stand this. And some civilian women who have been through labor. They've said that was worse, actually—"

"Why do you have so many scars?" Naruto burst out, sounding disturbed.

Sakura paused, nostrils flaring. "I'm a shinobi," she said lightly, after a moment. "Don't you have scars?"

"No," Naruto said. "I don't have any."

"That's probably because of the tailed-beast," Sai intoned helpfully.

"Right. The scars are normal," Sakura grunted.

"Oh," Naruto said, sounding calmer. "Huh. Who knew Kurama would be useful that way!"

The conversation elapsed into silence for a while. Until Naruto spoke up again, two hours later.

"So. Can I get one too? Like a dragon or something? You know—cool."

Three days later, her back felt just as it had every other day of her life.

A good thing—because three days later, she was called for another mission with the copy-nin's ANBU team.

She stumbled out of her bed that morning in a foul temper. She had fallen asleep later the previous night than she had wanted. Then, she had woken up late. As a result, she was forced to forgo breakfast, instead showering hastily and then hurriedly applying the jutsus to change her build and her features.

Although she had done it many times, watching her features morph into the olive-toned, inconspicuous ones of Saori Mori was still an unnerving experience. Avoiding her reflection, she tied the thin brown hair on her head up in a ponytail and set her mask in place.

She scanned herself one more time to make sure nothing would betray her; then she left her apartment and traveled the roofs of Konoha to ANBU headquarters.

Just as she passed through the doors, she realized that it hadn't even occurred to her to cover the newest addition to her back. She hesitated for a moment, debated sneaking into a stall to fix it. Her gaze fell on the clock. Ultimately, she continued inside. The only people who knew it existed on 'Haruno Sakura' were Sai and Naruto, after all.

"Meeting room 13A," Panther called out from behind her, sipping the last of her morning coffee beneath her mask.

"Thanks," Sakura muttered, sending her a distracted wave without turning back.

Stalking her way down the hall, she stopped at the worn, wooden door and gently pushed it open.

"Late," a low, rough voice said coldly.

Sakura scoffed below her breath. She realized only when Hyena stared at her with incredulous eyes that she hadn't done as good a job at hiding her animosity as she might have wanted. Moving away from the door, she sat down at the opposite end of the table without another sound. Bear straightened in his chair, sending Sakura a warning look.

"Right," Kakashi's second-in-command said. "Let's get started, then. Taichou?"

To Sakura's immense surprise, Kakashi stood up. The tilted chair he had effortlessly been balancing on—with both feet on the table—smacked to the ground with a dull thud.

"Scout teams have pinpointed Kino's location."

Sakura had never heard the name 'Kino' before, but it was clear the rest of Kakashi's team had. They all straightened in their chairs. Hyena picked up the scroll resting on the table.

"Finally," Bear growled.

Even Snail sounded cold. "Mouse died for that bastard."

"Where's he been?" Raccoon asked quietly.

"Deep undercover for the past six months," Hyena read from the scroll, eyes angry behind her mask. "Posing as a butcher just on the other side of the border."

"Smart," Raccoon said softly, shoulder tight. "We were looking for someone running—strangers passing through villages. And he went straight there and just settled down."

The amount of killing intent in the room was the most she had ever felt from Bear, Hyena, Snail, or Raccoon. And she had been on slaughter missions with them before.

"What's our play?" Snail asked.

"Kino was a genjutsu specialist," the copy-nin remarked coolly. "Crow and I will infiltrate. We will execute him."

Silence met his words.

"What about us?" Bear demanded, voice rough.

"You will dismantle his network of contacts, the ones who helped hide him," Kakashi answered. His tone brooked no argument.

Bear and Snail looked like they very much wanted to argue. The skin around their eyes was pinched. And yet, Sakura found, they voiced no protest. Whoever Kino was—he was obviously someone they wanted to face themselves. Possibly, for closure. But Kakashi seemed to run his team as tyrannically he did Team Seven.

Sakura scowled behind her mask. She wondered why she had been chosen to assist Kakashi.

"We leave in ten," he finished, departing from the room.

Hyena patted Bear's arm and Snail's shoulder and then followed.

Four hours later, Sakura and the copy-nin stood beneath a giant oak tree, a kilometer away from a modest shack at the edge of a modest village.

A gust of wind blew, rustling the matching black hair on her and Kakashi's head. They both stood almost a meter shorter than usual—just a brother and his sister, running a small errand.

Quietly, Sakura followed the copy-nin as he stalked to the door and knocked.

The wooden door swung open, revealing a large, grizzled man with red hair and a face with long, smile lines.

"Well, what d'you want?" the man asked, squinting down at them.

"Kaa-san wants cow meat," Kakashi said impetuously. "Let us in already, it's cold."

The man raised an eyebrow. After a moment, his gaze left him and turned to Sakura.

"Please, sir?" she asked. "He gets annoying when he nags."

"Does he?" Kino chuckled. "Well then, I guess I better get you two what you need, then."

He turned his back to them to go inside.

A second later, she ducked just as Kino's arm snapped back out, hurling a fuuma shuriken that would have decapitated her.

"Kaido!" the red-haired man bellowed. "Run!"

Sakura didn't know who Kaido was. At the moment, she didn't particularly care. Releasing the jutsu disguising her features, she felt herself grow to her usual height as she darted between exploding kunai.

Which—honestly—was rather juvenile for an ex-ANBU. She knew sometimes simple could be best. But, for god's sake, Kino knew he was facing the copy-nin now. Kunai were hardly going to kill him.

Speaking of which, Kakashi merely stood placidly beside her at his full height, black mask beneath tell-tale steely grey and sharingan red eyes. The fuuma shuriken was held aloft almost lazily in his hand.

"Switching to new toys now?" the copy-nin asked tonelessly.

Kino made rapid hand signals. Sakura felt the brief, jarring moment when the genjutsu slipped over her. The world vibrated for a moment, a buzz sounded in her ears. And then she found herself in the middle of a battlefield.

A mountain of bodies towered over her. Faces she knew peered at her from out of the pile, features twisted in agony. Every face she knew was there: Naruto, Sasuke, Ino, the rest of her year, her parents, her primary school teacher, even Sai…

Calloused hands grabbed her from behind, cutting off the circulation in her shoulders.

"You're just like me," it whispered, voice inhuman. "A monster."

"Kai," Sakura said coldly, clapping her hands together.

The world melted way, dark colors running like viscous oil as they withdrew. She saw that Kakashi had broken the genjutsu before she had, probably because of the sharingan. He spun the fuuma shuriken—a weapon she had never seen him use before—with deadly skill.

Sakura squinted at him, wondering why he hadn't attacked yet.

Kino barked out a loud laugh. "Alas, I'm no match for Konoha's rabid dog, am I?"

Kakashi's voice was arctic. "You should have thought of that before you betrayed Konoha."

The large man shrugged. "I'm a simple man, you know? They offered me a cushier deal. Of course, I do appreciate the irony of how it all turned out, seeing where I am now."

"Mouse died because of you," Sakura said stiffly, feeling duty-bound to relay Snail's words in her absence.

Kino grimaced at her. "Do I know you? Don't remember. Mouse—yes, that was regrettable. Liked her, you know."

He looked up at the sky for a moment, something eerily nostalgic on his face. "Mouse," he muttered. "Funny woman."

His head dropped to Kakashi abruptly. "You going to kill me now?"

But Sakura's gaze narrowed, now, remembering something she had previously ignored. "Why don't you tell us who Kaido is?"

At those words, Kino's entire demeanor changed. Something terrifying possessed the man's face, twisting it into something unbelievably angry. "You piece of shit. You'd go so low?"

Sakura's jaw slackened, shocked by his sudden vitriol. His large frame trembled and then suddenly he was in front of her, on the offensive as though he hadn't seemed ready to accept death seconds earlier.

He was a physically imposing man. She was stronger. Each contact shattered bones beneath his skin. He noticed quickly, making hand signals in a shift to ninjutsu instead.

Halfway through the second sign, his head suddenly jerked to the left. Instinctively, Sakura's head followed. A pale hand flashed over his shoulder through where his head had been, cased in crackling electricity.

His fingers speared the space millimeters from where her own head formerly was.

Scowling, Sakura's hands snapped forward and grabbed the copy-nin's wrist (below the still crackling chakra). Propping her foot on Kino's thigh, she hefted upward and flipped Kakashi over the taller man's shoulder.

He twisted midair—a terrifying blur—his other hand already lunging out to finish the job. This time, the blow landed, gliding through bone, flesh, and blood like they were little more than butter.

Kino gave a terrible groan, crumpling to his knees. Kakashi pulled his hand out, towering over him like a vengeful demon.

Sakura hung back, wiping her blade clear of blood on the grass.

"You going to make it a slow one, taichou?" Kino hissed. "Gonna let me bleed slowly?"

Kakashi was silent for a moment. For a long time, they simply stared at each other.

"I see. You're a man now, aren't you," the man laughed humorlessly. "No longer the boy-captain who commanded ANBU hand spans taller than he was."

Kakashi was silent still. But a second later, his hand lit up again, the deafening sound of a thousand birds filling the forest.

Kino grinned like a shark.

But as his hand arced downwards, a form blurred into existence in front of Kino's. Kino roared, a sudden wordless vocalization of terror.

And Kakashi's hand froze.

In a terribly unfunny repetition of events, another boy glared up at the copy-nin, protecting the man behind him from chidori.

"Kaido," Kino hissed. "I told you to run."

"Move, boy," Kakashi commanded, face unreadable.

"NO!" Kaido screamed, arms flung out in front of the large man. He had red hair too. "Can't you leave him alone? Can't you all just leave him alone!"

"Is he your father?" Sakura asked with difficulty.

"He's all I have left," the boy spat at her. "I don't care what he did. I—He's all I have left. Please."

"I can't," Kakashi answered callously, gazing straight ahead of him.

Her body tensed at his words, wondering why the copy-nin hadn't lied. Why he hadn't said something else just to get the boy away.

"Then," Kaido panted, chest heaving, "then you're forcing me to do this."

He opened his palm, revealing an explosive that—with one small hand sign—would blast them all straight to hell.

Fuck, the Voice grumbled.

"Hey, look at me," Sakura said softly. Even though she was farther away, she crouched low so that she was near the boy's height. "He's already dying. Don't risk your life now. Mourn him. Then avenge him, if you have to."

The boy's trembling shoulders stilled abruptly. "A-already dying?" he asked woodenly.

"Move, boy," Kakashi repeated, voice dark and uncharacteristically urgent now.

"Run, Kaido!" Kino shouted, face puce. "For god's sake, you stupid boy—"

"I can't," Kaido wept, "I can't leave you. I'd rather...you know I'd rather."

"Move."

Sakura froze at this softer imperative, piercing even through Kino's wordless bellowing. It had been almost soundless, a harsh whisper. She had only just heard it.

It was unmistakable.

(The sound of the terrible copy-nin, killer of thousands—had she imagined it?—begging.)

But the boy had already chosen. His fingers twitched infinitesimally, rotating in just the right directions—and Kakashi's tanto swung out, swift and ruthless, decapitating him.

And Kino screamed.

The sound was terrible, as though his own heart had been scooped out of his chest. Sakura flinched. She had heard men and women burn alive—and even then, they hadn't sounded like that.

The terrible noise stopped only when Kakashi cut off his head too.

Kakashi held the dripping tanto in his hand, staring at the two fallen heads like he had never seen anything like them before.

She stood silently behind him. Her ears were…ringing. She wondered if there had been an explosion, only she hadn't noticed.

The wind blew again, rattling the rickety shutter doors of the shack. Goosebumps sprouted all along her arms.

Between that breeze and the next, the rest of the ANBU team appeared.

"The targets were dealt with, taichou," Hyena murmured.

Bear leaned forward with interest, pupils dilated. Considering his personal animus against Kino, Sakura supposed, she shouldn't have been surprised.

"God, I wish I'd been here for this," the ANBU said, voice low and mean. "Who the fuck's next to him? Did you give them hell, taich—"

Kakashi's crackling fist landed in the tree right to the left of his head. Singed chunks of hair fell in clumps onto Bear's uniform. But it didn't stop there. The lightning in the copy-nin's hands only seemed to grow brighter, bigger. Black spots flashed across her vision. And the noise was painful now, like knives stabbing her ear drums—

Dazedly, Sakura felt a hand fasten around her upper arm. They were shunshining, she realized belatedly, she and the person holding her.

When the ground beneath her feet settled again, she found herself kilometers away from where she had been seconds ago.

In the distance, great bolts of electricity lit the sky, brightening the dark clouds above for seconds at a time. It seemed as though the heavens had released lightning, but without rain or thunder as nature normally dictated.

"Fuck," she heard Bear curse behind her. She turned and saw them all: Bear, Hyena, Snail, and Raccoon.

"I thought you were dead meat," Snail said shakily.

"He almost was," Hyena said coldly.

Bear's shoulders tightened. Sakura watched them all like they were bizarre puppets she had seen move of their own volition.

"Well," she asked impatiently. "Shouldn't we go back?"

All eyes snapped to her, incredulous.

"No," Raccoon said quiet, reasonable. "We wait here."

Her lips twisted. "How long?"

"Until it passes," Hyena answered gravely.

"But he's going to alert every enemy-nin in a fifty kilometer radius that we're here."

The team shrugged like it was used to this. "He takes care of it."

Sakura exhaled. "You can't be serious."

"Crow," Snail said with forced calm. "I know you haven't been on this team for long. But trying to intervene in that is a fool's errand. You'll end up dead, trust me."

She should, Sakura thought, stepping away. She should trust them, their expert opinion on how to handle this. They'd probably been on this team for ages, knew Kakashi like the back of their hands.

She should, honestly, trust them and do exactly as they say.

Only, the sound of Kakashi whispering Move was echoing like a broken track record in her mind, over and over again, an alien, disturbing thing that had her teeth on edge.

And beneath that—

those who abandon their comrades are worse than scum

God, Sakura thought, tilting her head up to the sky. She really, really wanted to kill him.

Before she had consciously decided it, her body flickered and then disappeared.

Naturally, he did try to kill her.

He was quick too—too quick. She couldn't even see his face. In a blur, he was zig-zagging toward her, and she moved forward, flesh, bone, and muscle all burning, to meet him.

The weather had also changed for the worse in the seconds it had taken her to arrive there. As though called by the false-lightning, rain poured from the heavens, masking both their scents and making it exceptionally hard to see.

As it happened, however, Sakura didn't need her other senses. Soon, his body was so close that it didn't matter.

She defended with her shoulders hunched, frame tight and aggressive like a brawler's, before feinting to the side and then twisting over him—heat burning through her clothes at the contact.

Without pause, Sakura gathered chakra into her fist and drove it at his midsection. He shifted with blinding speed. The blow didn't make contact, her arm merely brushing along his ribcage. Unfortunately, the momentum of the punch carried her forward, and he took the opportunity to her cage her in.

A second later, she yanked her head to the side, the side of his hand just glancing her hair. The rush of air sent the rest of the strands flying back. His fist went into the tree.

Sakura twisted and her own fist finally landed. A swift, brutal uppercut that he avoided the full force of with lightning quickness, but still skimmed his cheekbone.

He snarled, a guttural, animalistic sound, sharingan spinning madly in his eye.

"Stop," Sakura growled.

Pushing off against the tree, she snapped her neck back and then forward, drilling her forehead into his. He grunted.

And then punishing arms wrapped around her midsection and tossed her into a boulder.

Sakura's back hit the rock with a thunderous crack—like lightning—shattering it. She landed on the ground on top of the rubble, cursing furiously.

"Calm the fuck down," she snapped.

A bit ironic, isn't that, the Voice whispered, sounding riveted by ongoing events. If Sakura had had the time, she might have rolled her eyes.

She dropped down a millisecond later. A ball of fire scalded the air above her.

"Seriously?" she hissed, heart rate pulsing at the look of unholy rage in the other's eyes.

She sidestepped his kunai and slipped into space between his arms. She reached up to grab wet, white-silver hair, fingers knotting in the long locks with one hand. With the other, she punched him in the face.

She didn't use her full strength, obviously. But she put enough force that it had to hurt.

His mask was in tatters around his neck. She noticed only when she saw his teeth. Because Kakashi was baring his teeth at her, like he wanted very much to tear out her throat.

Only, then, inexplicably, incomprehensibly—

His mouth was on hers.

It burned. Burned like a brand, like fire on metal.

(It didn't actually seem…amorous.)

Kakashi's lips were hot. And he kissed her like he was trying to use her mouth to breathe. As though he couldn't figure out how to breathe himself.

That was the only reason Sakura didn't shove him away.

He was holding her, she noticed, calloused hands cutting off the circulation in her upper arms just like they had in Kino's genjutsu. Still, Sakura didn't pull away.

His lips moved savagely against hers, ragged breath fueled greedily by hers, and she didn't pull away.

Only when his hands moved mechanically down to her waist, maneuvering to slip under her flak jacket—soullessly, mechanically—did she react.

She grabbed his wrists with deadly strength. When mismatched eyes shifted down to her, she looked up at him neutrally. His whole face was exposed to her now, unmasked. His hair hung low, brushing high cheekbones, wetted by the rain.

Sakura was paralyzed by a curious mixture of shock and horror, at what she saw on his face,

He left immediately. And when he left—as brutally and silently as his mouth had landed on hers—she did not follow.