Chapter 21: On the Pursuit of Euphoria
The wind whistled through the trees. Sakura tilted her head back, allowing the gust to whip the hair back from her face. The guttural protest of displaced branches did little to appease the primal rage burning in her chest.
Her face contorted in the dark.
This— She had let this happen. Barbed wire had wound around the pulsating, meaningless mass in her chest, and she had done laughably little to deter it, had decidedly enabled it. If she could have, if the mass had been vestigial, she would have torn it out herself. She raged at the bark beneath her fingers instead, wreaking pointless violence. She was determined to do so until dawn. The lone tree she had chosen as her resting place was perfect for this task, as far she could manage from the rest of the team.
This isn't satisfying, the Voice growled, if you're going to tear up our fists before they've even healed, at least do it on someone's face—
Sakura's head snapped to the side. She waited, though some part of her already knew what she would find. A few moments passed before the moon peaked through the canopy of gray-black clouds, casting light on the black feathers of a crow.
"Shisui."
"Human," it returned.
She watched it quietly, anger still smoldering in her chest, as it encroached on her space. She shifted seamlessly into a crouch, hand on the katana Yamato had returned to her only an hour ago.
It paused. "You dare?"
"Oh, I dare," she said. Her gaze was dark, intent upon the creature before her. "It just so happens that tonight, I don't actually happen to have the patience for your brand of purposeless cruelty."
"And once again, you've managed to get it all quite wrong," the crow said equally coldly, sharingan spinning with malevolence. "It doesn't matter what you think or feel. All that matters is what I demand of you, human, and you will give it."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because that, Sakura, is your payment."
She smiled humorlessly at it. "That's not going to work anymore, Shisui. I'm no longer scared of you."
She hadn't been for a while now. And she had killed and killed and killed until she had forgotten what it felt like to have clean hands—what was one more on her ledger? Her mouth firmed, and she began to pull out the blade. The soft, sibilant hiss, which had once disturbed her, was nothing more than static noise.
Shisui's gaze flashed. It extended its wings, and feathers seemed to sprout from the end, flying into the air in dizzying amounts.
"Listen, then," it cajoled. "For Itachi."
Those two words had a profound effect on Sakura that she could not have anticipated. A torrent of emotions, none of which were truly her own, overwhelmed her—terror, desperation, and rage. Uchiha Shisui's legacy, she recognized belatedly: the memories that had somehow become partially her own.
She loathed the creature in front of her for it.
Her hand released the handle of the katana without conscious permission. It slid back into its sheath with a high pitched ringing sound.
"Sasuke is chasing Itachi," the Crow continued calmly. "And the copy-nin is chasing Sasuke. Between them, Itachi will not survive."
Sakura straightened, voice hard. "He's managed to evade capture for almost a decade now."
"He's sick."
Her heart had no reason to drop at that, not a single legitimate reason. She didn't know Itachi, had never even truly met him.
Still, Sakura found herself stalking the length of the branch until she was in front of the crow, eyes pinched. "Sick?"
"Sick from an ordinary, human disease that he could have had treated but has refused to," it relayed stoically. "He won't survive an attack from the copy-nin, and he doesn't want to survive an attack from his brother. He will die unless you extract him."
"Extract him," she echoed blankly. She blinked, and then her gaze sharpened. "You want me to take him and—run?"
Shisui's head cocked to the side.
Sakura's mouth worked soundlessly. This wasn't— But he was— She let out a frustrated hiss.
"Fine." She regretted the word, mostly because she knew it meant the crow had gotten its way.
"Good," it said blandly. "Your plan?"
She arched a brow in warning. It didn't blink.
"I'll slip away at dawn," she muttered, picking at some of the bark she had decimated. "A new disguise…not Saori Mori. Black hair, maybe, this time; I've never used black hair—"
"No," Shisui snapped. "No disguise."
Sakura didn't know how to react to that but to laugh. The alternative was too ludicrous to consider.
"You want to make me a traitor?" she asked scathingly. "After all this time? That's your grand plan?"
"No, you fool," the crow said icily. "You've built credibility now as a shinobi of Konoha, if a well-meaning, inept one. Your mediocrity, your perceived simplicity, the fact that you are the hokage's protégé— Itachi has been alienated by Konoha for too long, but its doors will crack open, if at all, for you and not a stranger."
It stared at her with chilling ferocity. "Tomorrow, you will extract Itachi, and then you'll do everything you power and mine to bring him to Konoha to make him…safe."
A curious thing happened to creature's voice as it shaped that final word, but she didn't have the chance to examine it. Without warning, its wings snapped out. In seconds, it had dissipated in a burst of feathers, swept away by the breeze.
Leaving Sakura there alone, with nothing but her thoughts. She wondered if she imagined the taste of blood on her tongue, or if she had actually bitten it at some point and had not noticed.
(Shisui had alluded that saving Itachi would mean not only crossing Sasuke, but also crossing…)
She bared her teeth at squirrel staring at her. It scuttled off, alarmed by the jolt of killing intent she sent into the air. She settled back against the thick trunk of the tree. A bell could have rung from the heavens in that moment, and she would not have blinked twice. On the contrary, probably would have thought it fitting. Tomorrow was to be…doomsday after all—or something like it.
She contemplated that for a moment.
How disturbingly normal this night was.
Some wind, yes, perhaps stronger than normal. A neither too-clear nor too-obscured sky. A moon caught somewhere between waning and waxing. A taste of rain, possibly, but it was too slight to tell.
Sakura's mouth twisted as she shifted her weight, wondering how on earth she was going to pass the time until then. When a bird chirped, she contemplated whether or not she was, in fact, above throwing kunai at woodland creatures. There was going to be no sleep for her tonight. Every sense was on high-alert, preemptively activated for what would come once the sun rose.
She forced her fingers to relax, slid them down from the handle of her katana toward her lap. She paused midway, eyes widening infinitesimally. Tilted her head to the side, considering.
Something made her feel reckless. A careless curl manifested across her lips. Her fingers slipped beneath the band of her pants.
It was, some part of her recognized, the worst of times, the most terrible of times to do this. And she did it, nevertheless.
Her body moved, positioning itself unthinkingly into a better position, to a better angle, as she pressed fully into herself in one hungry, ruthless thrust. Her head hit the bark hard.
Fuck.
As it happened, that was the general idea. A flurry of sensations and scenes washed over her. Hands entwined in her hair, a sultry moan—moans, male, female—, fingers digging greedily into her skin, rough, gentle, soft, coarse, and…
What the fuck?
She could feel herself dripping in a steady stream around her fingers—that's how ready she was. She hadn't expected her body to be so ready; she had thought, laughably, that she was doing something unexpected, implulsive-not succumbing to a need whose sly hold had escaped her entirely.
It flashed through her mind, at that precise moment, painfully clear and vivid in detail. A mouth, hard and cruel, on the thinner side—and yet, with a persisting sensuousness, an unmistakable generosity. A slight curve, too: an ephemeral impression of arrogance and condescension, of irreverence. A subtle parting, and the flash of tongue. The visions changed, and suddenly it was him, and he was between her legs, his head resting indolently against the inside of her thigh like he was bored, his hands curled firmly against the tensing muscles of her thighs, steel against steel.
His mismatched eyes stared at her, there, until she could feel it throb in agony, and then—only then—would that gaze slide up, hot and challenging, until it found hers.
"Fuck you," she would whisper.
And that imperious, enigmatic face would finally lower, without shame, with feral, cunning intent. And fuck—it would finally be right.
Her lips parted silently, stifling furiously the noise she wanted to make with a fist to her mouth.
Because she knew how it would go. For hours, and then hours upon that. His head there firmly between her legs, driving her mad, like this task required it all—his legendary strength, his ruthlessness, his feared intelligence—this precise task.
And how could Sakura withstand that?
She came with sudden ferocity, her teeth biting into her fist until she drew blood.
When she woke up in the morning, she tried and failed to convince herself that it had never happened.
It didn't get much better from there.
Near-hysteria was Yamato's greeting once she joined them.
To be fair, it wasn't really his fault.
Admittedly, it was rare to observe (beyond the obvious fact of Sasuke leaving and Sai joining) the differences each Team Seven member had undergone in the last three or so years. No one knew Sai well enough from before to realize what he had been prior to Team Seven. Sakura herself was essentially a sleeper cell at the crow's behest.
And Naruto: well, there were days where you could hear him in pissing contests with just about any other hotheaded shinobi in the village, and on those days, one could easily imagine that no time had passed at all.
Of course, Sakura was forced to acknowledge now, time had passed.
Because the fact that Naruto had managed to sneak past all of them (granted, they had been separated: Yamato had gone to check the perimeter, Sai to find kindling, and Sakura had only recently opted to leave her isolated tree) would have been entirely beyond the scope of possibility three years ago.
"Kakashi-senpai entrusted me with keeping an eye on all of you. And given Naruto's condition, in particular—I alone possess the capability of containing him without harming him if he loses control." Yamato looked like he was going to have a panic attack.
"The dickless can't track for shit," Sai reasoned. "Even given the fact that he's miraculously managed to leave, I doubt he'll have any idea where to go to locate Kakashi—"
A massive explosion rocked the ground beneath them. A mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke could be seen kilometers in the distance, even above the trees—it was rapidly expanding.
"I correct myself: he might know where to go," the black-haired boy said with a blank smile.
"We have to go find him," said Sakura quickly.
"I'll go," Yamato declared curtly. "You two turn back and head toward Konoha."
Sakura nodded immediately. Sai's eyes drilled into her from the side with confusion. Ultimately, however, he remained silent. If Yamato had had the luxury of time, he might have interrogated them more rigorously. As it was, his face rapidly paled as more time passed and the noise of the far-away battle continued.
He gave them a sharp tilt of the head, before he was off.
Sakura's placating smile dropped. She exhaled, and the sound was somehow deafening in the silence between her and Sai.
He stared at her expressionlessly.
"You're still going, aren't you," Sai said finally. "And you're going to tell me to stay. Which, I don't believe you have the right to ask of me."
Sakura considered that. "Maybe not. But it would be better if you listened."
His mouth curved into a full smile, teeth bared. It looked painful. "That's not what being on this team has taught me."
"Do I have to say it outright?" she said softly.
He took a slow step forward. "You think that I'll try to stop you."
"You should," she said stoically. "You're on thin ice already because of Root."
"I'm not going to fight you," Sai said firmly.
She fought against the softening of her voice, kept it hard. "You can't help me."
His eyes flicked to her hands. Sakura read his actions immediately for what they were. She was willing to use genjutsu to subdue him, and he knew it.
Sai's face contorted. "Is that what it will take?"
"Yes," she answered unflinchingly. "Don't intervene—no matter what happens."
"Fine," he negotiated. "If you won't let me stand by you, you can't stop me from standing by Naruto."
Sakura's gaze softened. "Promise?"
Sai's dark eyes flashed. "Promise."
Sakura drew back, wiping her expression of all feeling. She couldn't afford to lose any more time. She launched herself into the trees.
As she passed through the tall evergreens, the air became thick with smoke and dust. Leaves, branches, and other debris hurtled through the air. She darted between them, maintaining her speed though finding footing became harder as the damage increased. She passed through the final remnants of some trees, stopping short when the ground ahead of her became abruptly barren.
This, she realized, was where the blast had begun; and it had destroyed almost everything living in its vicinity. This part of the forest was now lifeless—except for the tableau of figures that had survived the blast and still spanned the field.
She found Sasuke immediately.
Clothing as black as his hair—indeed, the garments of an executioner—covered him from head to toe, a jarring contrast to the extreme paleness of his skin. Even from her position hidden in the trees, she could identify stains of blood along his arms and open chest. His katana was stained with blood as well.
He flicked his blade, and droplets of blood rained from the metal onto the scalded stubs of grass below.
"I see you haven't learned from our last encounters, Naruto," her former teammate said lowly, sharingan spinning.
Her mouth thinned at the pained look on Naruto's face. No injuries, she concluded as she scanned his body. At least, no physical ones, she corrected. Yamato's hand rested on his shoulder, his own expression a mixture of stress and foreboding.
And then beside them, though she could only see the smallest sliver of his profile, was—
Sakura leaned a little further out from the branches, risking exposure for closer examination. Because there was a tension, a hawkish watchfulness, that she could read in an instant in that body, and it wasn't directed at Sasuke.
She craned her head further to complete the revolution she had started, and she found two more figures. A tall, muscular man with colorless eyes and grey skin, cloaked in the characteristic black and red cloak of the Akatsuki, and next to him, Itachi.
Almost indistinguishable from his cloak, perched on that shoulder, was the crow.
She felt Sai reach the field, his chakra a de facto siren to every figure already there. A small sound of shock emerged from his lips as he too took in the scene.
Kakashi's gaze darkened and snapped towards him as he broke through the trees and into the clearing, his killing intent suddenly exploding across the field.
"Tenzo," Kakashi snarled.
Yamato's confusion dissipated when he saw Sai; his face reddened, and he looked torn between murderous rage and sheer terror.
"Come. Here," Yamato strangled out. Sai flickered from his position to just beside Naruto. She watched as his hand rose—just slightly, discreetly—to grasp Naruto's arm, bolstering him. She ground her teeth, wishing she could do the same.
Yamato was stockier in build, but it was hard to remember that fact looking at the two ANBU now. Kakashi towered over the older man, his sharingan glowing an unholy red. The older man's head was bowed.
Yamato seemed to regress to old habits. "Taichou, I should have—"
"Not now," Kakashi growled, his gaze scanning the figures around them. "Sasuke will go after Itachi first, and I will help him. When Itachi is subdued, I will deal with Sasuke. You, Naruto, and Sai keep Kisame in check; make sure he does not interfere."
"But—" Naruto began to protest. One look at Kakashi's face silenced him. "Fine," he muttered sourly.
Without another word, Sai and Naruto veered toward Kisame. There was a mix of disappointment and resignation on Naruto's face, while trepidation had washed over Sai's features . But Yamato was right behind them—and that brought a measure of relief to Sakura.
She felt a small, almost unnoticeable genjutsu suddenly take hold over her. She didn't even blink, because she was so used to it by now.
"Pay attention," Shisui's voice instructed coolly in her mind.
She turned rigidly toward the fight she would inevitably join. She understood why the crow had intervened a second later. This fight had already begun.
Sasuke was a blur in the air, so fast that Sakura could only distinguish him by the black streak of his clothing and hair; he wielded his blade with a surety that spoke of hours of practice and many more hours of real use. And yet, despite the exponential growth he had visibly undergone under Orochimaru's tutelage, he was met unfailingly by Itachi again and again. For if Sasuke had gained mastery, Itachi had made his craft as natural to him as breathing. His eyes glowed and bled tears—Sakura winced sympathetically, as she now knew how that felt—and he fended Sasuke off effortlessly.
While Sasuke was made little progress, however, someone else was.
Kakashi watched with a savage kind of boredom as Sasuke attempted to each blow, then lunged with the feral calculation of a more experienced predator, wielding his sole sharingan with a terrible efficacy. When it was Kakashi who attacked, then—only then—Itachi gave ground, skidding several meters back.
Sakura couldn't help but stare, heart pounding.
Kakashi's reflexes were, admittedly, probably the kind that occurred in nature as often as lightning struck the same spot twice. Often, she knew, it was implied that the copy-nin was nothing but animal instinct when he fought: this was an accusation of both lack of self-control and incomprehensible physicality. But it was a prodigious intelligence that had made him a prodigy feared even in his own village—potentially beyond all the terrible dojutsus and missing-nin of their generation—and that was on overt display here.
Right now, Kakashi was far more than Sasuke's match; and he was easily more than the sick, weakened Itachi's too.
Sakura would be lying to herself now if she didn't acknowledge a lance of nervousness piercing her somewhere in her core. Even so, there was also an…undeniable, certain amoral thrill in knowing that she had never truly tested herself against Kakashi—not since that moment in another forest, and then, Kakashi had not been in his right mind—
And that she would now.
She generated small amounts of chakra to warm her muscles. Her shoulder blades shifted beneath the weight of the sheath on her back, which, generic, hid the unusual blade contained within.
"Faster," the crow snapped.
Sakura's features shifted to a glare as she skirted the surviving undergrowth along the edges of the field. Her glower strengthened as Kakashi made a long incision in Itachi's side, causing the latter to take a step back.
As he retreated, the older Uchiha coughed into his sleeve. Sakura had enough medical training to know what accompanied a cough that sounded like that, though it was disguised by the black of his Akatsuki cloak.
He was very sick, and he was coughing up blood. The crow had not lied.
"I don't need your help," Sasuke declared icily. "Your misplaced sense of obligation as my old captain is meaningless."
Her ex-teammate's dismissive tone, as well as his rather off-base assumption, took her aback. That was when she realized that the last time Sasuke had spoken to Kakashi, the copy-nin had convincingly been performing a benign, laid-back jounin captain.
Sasuke was decidedly ill-prepared, she reflected, for Kakashi's deadly gaze slowly to turn from Itachi to him, mismatched eyes glinting. As well as for the decidedly predatory way the katana rotated slowly in his hand, until the blade pointed in another direction.
"You," the copy-nin murmured, voice thick with mockery, "talk big for a whelp."
He covered the distance between them faster than it took for Sakura to blink. When he stilled, hair and clothes settling into place a second later, his blade was inches from Sasuke's eye, held back only by the latter's blade. Sasuke's katana had slotted into place just in time, catching the copy-nin's blade near its tip.
Sakura thought for a brief moment that Sasuke had managed it, until she spotted a second glint of metal. Kakashi's second hand loosely handled a kunai that just ever so slightly pressed into Sasuke's ribcage, exactly where it could be driven into his heart.
"Unlike Naruto, you know, I could have broken every bone in your body when you threatened to leave. I gave you the chance to choose then. You are here now, in front of me, because of that choice."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed.
"Your brother may be a more pressing threat to Konoha, but I haven't forgotten that you are a traitor too, Sasuke," Kakashi finished with dark amusement, "I serve my village whether I eliminate you or him—remember that."
A small, almost negligible movement caught her attention from the corner of her eye; her head twisted to its source. Itachi's expression was as implacable as ever, but she had seen it. In that fraction of a second, he had leaned forward at Kakashi's words—toward Sasuke. To intervene, even as the blood from his cough still stained his sleeve.
Sakura's frown deepened.
"Do it," Shisui whispered. She turned and found him by her shoulder. "The copy-nin will underestimate you today. You will never have this advantage again as long as you live. Today, every disguise you have worn, every deception I have made you enact, will bear its natural reward—it has all been for this advantage, at this critical moment."
She stared at it for what felt like an eternity. Finally, however, she exhaled and made the hand signs. Because, yes, even she wanted to save Itachi—even she knew that whatever ending he deserved, it was not this.
When she opened her eyes again, one of them had been replaced by the crow's sharingan. For the first time outside of a genjutsu, Sakura forced its transition to the mangekyou sharingan. She was not prepared for the pain that followed. Somehow, when she had practiced it in Shisui's genjutsu, it had been subdued, maintaining that odd dream-like quality even the most nightmarish illusions somehow possessed. Now, however, the pain was brutal and real. Her knees buckled slightly.
Sakura bared her teeth in response.
The crow's talons dug into her shoulder; a feathered wing grazed the nape of her neck.
"Perform, human," it hissed. "Not for me, but for yourself—because this is the conclusion you have hungered for."
This was, perhaps, the best motivational speech the crow could have given in that moment. Sakura's muscles tightened in acute anticipation.
Itachi was still watching the pair across from him intently—biding his time. Her eyes slid left. Sasuke was still suspended between the two blades, one which pressed into his ribs. And Kakashi—
Kakashi's head was cocked back. He had noticed Itachi's unusual behavior and watched now with a predatorial sort of curiosity, eyebrow arched. He hadn't put it together yet, Sakura guessed. Possibly, she acknowledged, because he hadn't been handed the missing pieces Shisui had provided her.
Sakura shook her head until a few strands of hair fell forward to hide the sharingan. She stepped onto the field, feet settling onto the ground between them.
Slowly—almost lazily—charcoal and red eyes shifted from their original subject to her. Sakura's jaw hardened in preparation.
"Why come out now," he said languidly, "when you were doing such a good job of hiding?"
Sakura's nostrils flared. Had he noticed her, even though she had been suppressing her chakra? Or was he merely theorizing based on his impression of her as a coward?
Stifling her temper, she turned to look at Itachi briefly. His face revealed nothing at her abrupt appearance. She glanced irately at the crow, which was now perched on the ground between them. Had Shisui not told Itachi why she was here?
Probably not, she considered glumly. It seemed from the crow's desperation that the older Uchiha had no wish to survive, and possibly would not welcome her help.
Kakashi's gaze was derisive now. "Go back to wherever you were cowering."
Sakura stared back, unmoving.
His features altered slightly, sharpening.
"Not a genjutsu—he wouldn't have chosen you," the copy-nin appraised her laconically. His voice lowered into a mocking rasp. "So perhaps you really are just that stupid."
Her eyelids slid to half-mast over her eyes. "No, taichou."
"Then what are you doing?" And this time, there was no mocking amusement in his words: only the usual, unmistakable disgust and possibly, beneath that, a thread of warning.
She could hardly look at him, so she stared around him, in the space between his hair and his shoulder, the gap between his arm and his side—
Do it, Shisui's voice echoed in her mind.
Sakura's head snapped up, eyes narrowed.
His eyes narrowed fractionally as well as she raised her head, displacing the hair that covered her eye. And then, suddenly, the upper half of his face was terrible to behold as it contorted, even more so because it somehow retained an ineffable, wrathful beauty.
And it felt—it felt.
Blissful, euphoric—like vindication—to see him hurt, this man who had been the captain of Team Seven, who had erased her from his view like she was nothing, who would have had her weak and at the mercy of the others for the rest of her life.
Sakura would have rejoiced whole-heartedly, might have even given in to the inclination to laugh…if only that were it.
Because there was more. There was that smaller, detestable part of her that survived, indifferent to the fact that she tried to repress it. That remembered that this man had fucked her harshly, gloriously, but kissed her with insufferable tenderness and gazed at her like—
"He's breaking it," the crow thundered.
Sakura's eyes widened. Her face paled abruptly as her gaze snapped to the man in question. Kakashi's body should have crumpled by now; he should have gradually lost control over his limbs as he increasingly succumbed to her genjutsu.
He remained firmly upright.
Worse, his sharingan, as though in instinctive response, had shifted and transformed into a similar pin-wheel design as her own. She hadn't known that he had— She looked at the crow with hot accusation.
"I did not know that he had the mangekyou," Shisui stated sourly, "A simulation of mere physical pain will not be enough for someone like him. Find something else."
Sakura's nails dug into her palms. How fucking strong was he?
"You've watched him for years, girl," it accused cuttingly.
Her fingers twitched futilely for her blade, wishing she could silence it. As it happened, her mind only relayed back desperation as she contemplated the problem.
If she wanted to guess at Kakashi's innermost thoughts…If she were to guess what would truly make him vulnerable… She had to remember the fractures in his mask, she concluded coldly. It arrived to her like a drop of water into an empty vessel, and it swelled like a tidal wave, gaining traction and fuel, the genjutsu she had to conjure.
Her stomach turned. Sakura looked down at it detached shock.
Her eyes flicked to Itachi—whose sleeve covered his mouth again, even though he was utterly silent.
And then Sakura's stolen sharingan spun violently as she conjured a new genjutsu, constructing her memories with flawless detail: the leaves that had fallen from those trees, the smell the grass and dirt had retained just hours after a fresh rain, the heat of the sun as it had beat down on them. The way Haku's face had crumpled in both agony and relief; the desperation that had painted every single feature on Kaido's face, even until his last moments. She drew on their deaths with abhorrent, irreverent clarity. She layered, detail upon detail, until she herself had difficulty removing herself from what she had created, as compelled by it as actual reality.
(She was sickened.)
She didn't have a chance to see for herself if it worked. In the instant she enforced the genjutsu, Sasuke broke free from Kakashi's hold and sailed through the air. His katana caught the sunlight, reflecting a painfully bright light, as it drove unerringly toward Itachi.
Which was also, she noted blankly, toward her. Because she stood between them, and the sight of her didn't see to deter him in the least.
He was going to mow right through her to Itachi.
And she didn't even care; not one ounce of her felt a single thing about it. Because after what she had done—
All that mattered was this: her limbs were loose and ready. And just as Sasuke's blade was about to sink into her breast, her hand lashed out with chakra-enhanced strength, diverting it. She saw the instability in his right leg as his arm recoiled upward from the blow. She unsheathed her own blade and struck with surgical precision into the meat of his thigh just above his knee, in one, uninterrupted motion.
Sasuke hissed and darted backward.
His face contorted into an ugly expression. "Who are you?"
Sakura felt soulless. She dodged his right hook and delivered a resounding smack to his face. His head whipped to the side.
"I'm sorry," she said silkily, "did that hurt Sasuke-kun?"
"You can't be Sakura," he responded coldly, as his hands rapidly weaved through a series of familiar hand signs. A second later, he roared, and it was fire that left his mouth, not breath.
She launched herself above the flame, and in the same motion, met fire with fire; the combined heat threatened to scald her eyebrows off.
"Really?" she smirked meanly. "Why not?"
Sasuke circled around her, his sharingans transparently scanning her for any sign of weakness. She rocked back onto her heels and then rushed forward in a burst of speed. He dodged her kunai, but that was alright, because she was already making hand signs for a more complex jutsu. Water pulled from the seemingly barren ground to create a writhing, water beast. It shot through the air toward Sasuke.
A gigantic, humanoid form appeared around the black-haired boy's body, protecting him from the blast. Water rained harmlessly down on him. His long black hair was plastered to his head as he looked up, mouth tight with rage.
"Sakura could never do this. Who are you?"
Sakura could have screamed or laughed with equal enthusiasm. She slowly straightened from the crouch she had landed in, her face obscured by her unruly hair. Annoyed, she swiped the hair back.
A tingling awareness of something behind her cut through her momentary annoyance. Sakura forced her shoulders to relax.
"I'm not going to hurt him," she informed the figure behind her stiffly. She revised a second later: "Not seriously."
Knowing how unconvincing she probably sounded, she didn't give Itachi time to debate the issue. She shunshined into Sasuke's personal space. He reacted instantly, the kunai in his hand already rotating to target her vital points. But Sakura was stronger than he was; she glanced his arm with her fingertips and she felt the bone beneath fracture. His strategy immediately switched from deflection to evasion.
A high-pitched noise pierced the air: chidori, one-handed at that, Sakura acknowledged with distant, reluctant admiration. His fist was a blur, and she twisted just in time. The electricity caught her hair instead of her head; singed stands fell to the ground.
But he hadn't retreated quickly enough. Sakura grabbed his wrist locking him in place.
"I've seen bigger," she sneered. She head-butted him, and he went down instantly. She followed him swiftly, catching him around the waist. She should have felt victorious. She felt empty.
When Sakura looked up, she saw—as she expected—Itachi directly in front of her.
"Haruno Sakura," he said slowly. He hadn't known her name the last time.
Up close, she could see the blood on his sleeve, the severity of the wound Kakashi had made in his side, and the way he was swaying lightly on his feet.
A breath of air brushed her arm, interrupting her examination. She looked down, disturbed, at the unconscious body in her hands. She wasn't quite sure why she had caught Sasuke at all. Sakura dropped him abruptly.
When she opened her mouth to respond to Itachi finally, a jolt of piercing pain entered her brain. Her temples throbbed with a vengeance.
"H-he's breaking it again," she hissed haltingly at Shisui. "I can feel it. I don't think—fuck—I can hold him much longer."
The crow shifted its weight crossly on the Uchiha's shoulder. Itachi's eyes widened.
Sakura laughed weakly. "Did you know Shisui had another human?" She didn't wait for him to respond. "Never mind. What matters is that Kakashi is going to hunt us down when he breaks that genjutsu, and we don't have much fucking time left."
The man swaying opposite her took in this information with remarkable calm, mouth tightening only fractionally. He was rapidly paling, however, so Sakura guessed he was not going to belong much longer to the world of consciousness anyway.
Maybe it was Shisui's memories—a persisting remembrance of that remarkable intelligence and that steadfastness and that gentle introspection—that made Sakura resist the very notion of forcing him. Even though it would be easy now, given his illness and his wounds.
"As you can see, Shisui has been concocting an objectively terrible plan," she said roughly. "And I might be an idiot for reasons you can't yet understand for going along with it, but I'd like to remind you that you're too weak to fight me right now."
He looked at her evenly. She wondered if he could even perceive her still, or if he was already seeing black from the amount of blood loss
Another lance of pain struck her. Panic drove her heartbeat to pound even faster, her pupils to dilate just a little more. She didn't know if Itachi would have given assent or not. He passed out first. Sakura let out a long, passionate curse as she swung him over shoulder, but was also selfishly grateful for it.
She hadn't technically forced him, she assured herself. She cast one final glance backward, and then she ran.
Chapter 22: Canto XV
In. Out. In. Out. Inoutinoutinout—
An elementary technique to pacify the body, alleviate a state of extreme stress or panic. It appeared to be failing.
He was starting to understand that he had effectively lost complete control of his own lungs—they kept seizing, almost as though he were about to cough, only then the cough never came, nor that final sense of relief, caught instead in an infinite state of suspension.
Admittedly, it was among his lesser concerns at the moment.
(Naruto and Yamato had been fully distracted by Kisame during their fight, but Sai had not. He had said he wouldn't interfere, but that hadn't meant he couldn't watch. He had possibly received more wounds on his body as a result, but the point had been—)
He didn't think he'd ever felt more caged (caged by a promise) than when Sakura had given him that final glance before she had run, Itachi slung over her back.
And he didn't think he'd ever felt more terror than when their captain had followed.
Sai swallowed.
Kakashi's face when the genjutsu's hold had broken at last—he would…never be able to describe it. All Sai knew was that he had never understood the exercise of comparing a human to a demon for the purpose of description until now. And that, perhaps, no words, not even Sai's own brush, could begin to conjure the instinctual fear that had overcome him at that sight.
The copy-nin had followed her tracks without hesitation, without a glance their way, and he hadn't bothered disguising his killing intent in those few seconds before disappearing; it had been unfathomably strong, stronger than anything Sai had ever felt. Everyone remaining on the field had frozen instantly.
A few seconds passed before any of them were able to move again.
Their own fight, Sai recalled, had not lasted must longer after that. Kisame had discovered his partner's disappearance belatedly and had taken off—to where, Sai had no idea.
Then Naruto had spotted Sasuke.
"What the—" Naruto muttered, crouched as he examined his former teammate. He stabbed his cheek with a finger, then brought his fists up defensively as though expecting retaliation. The traitor Uchiha didn't move.
"It doesn't appear as though Kakashi did this," Yamato observed. "Sasuke looks..." He gazed down meaningfully.
"More living than dead," Naruto acknowledged.
Sai was distantly aware of his mouth opening and relaying something—but the words seemed to plummet into some deep, unseen crevice in the ground, for all the reaction they gained. Maybe he had only imagined that he had said them.
Then Naruto's blue eyes narrowed and his head swung around.
"What." The singular utterance was short and dangerous.
Yamato huffed a small laugh. His smile dropped once he realized no one else was laughing. "You're…serious?"
Sai stared unblinkingly. "Yes."
The expression on Naruto's face was forbidding. He stalked toward Sai, shoulders—certainly broader than his own—high.
"No," he said simply, forcefully. "Sakura?"
Sai's eyebrow arched slightly. "Why not?" Did Naruto feel threatened, he wondered. Once Sasuke had left, everyone had regarded Naruto to be the strongest member of Team Seven (likely, Naruto himself as well). Sai had believed it initially too.
Several expressions flitted across Naruto's face, before he settled on something between hostility and vulnerability. "I'm her teammate. And if—if she was capable of that—I should have known. She should have told me. Showed me."
The raw emotion in Naruto's voice seemed…somewhat more intense than his words—until, belatedly, Sai remembered that the notion of teammate for Naruto was utterly synonymous to that of friend. Sai wasn't accustomed to the role of the comforter, but Naruto was his…friend too, and he was willing to try. He shifted forward, just about to bring up his hand—
"But you knew."
There was accusation in Naruto's voice.
"She never told me anything directly," Sai said slowly. "I pieced most of it together on my end, and I had an…educated intuition that something would happen today. I know you both had to cover my back just now; it was because I was perhaps paying more attention to their fight than ours."
Naruto didn't appear appeased. At this moment, Sai realized his accusation had been directed inwards. "You would think after losing one teammate that I'd be good at keeping the remaining ones I have," the blonde boy said, "But here we are again, and I'm…just as blindsided."
A firm hand landed on his shoulder. It wasn't Sai's.
"Often, it's easier for those who maintain secrets to identify others of their kind," Yamato said calmly. "We look more harshly at those around us; sometimes, I wonder, if because we're so revolted by the notion of being looked at ourselves."
Sai felt his eyes widen.
"So Sakura…knocked out Sasuke and took Itachi," Naruto summarized roughly, "And Kakashi is following them. And we don't know what he's planning to do, and we also don't know why any of this happened. In fact, we don't know anything else."
"That seems to be about right," Yamato allowed, stress lines more prominent on his face than usual.
He wondered if this would be a good time to mention that he was ninety nine point nine percent certain Sakura and their captain had had sex at some point.
"Run faster."
Another jolt of chakra the legs, a burst of speed—and the world became static noise.
Naruto ate his stew without tasting any of it.
"Seconds?" someone prompted.
He jolted to attention, stiffening. His gaze passed over the narrow tent which had been built to fit two bodies, not three—certainly not four—and found Sai sitting not far from him, expression seemingly as calm as ever.
He knew, of course, that this wasn't true. He had spent hours and hours with that initial, blank Sai: that had been true, implacable calm. Naruto knew that every blink, twitch, microcosmic shift now communicated something.
Sai felt just as unbalanced as he did; he just did a much better job of hiding it.
"No," Naruto said finally, rubbing his eyes. "No, I'm good—"
The previously unconscious figure between them tensed, then flipped into a sitting position.
Sai placed the vessel down with a dull thud.
"Get these off me," the figure demanded, lifting his chakra-binding shackles.
Naruto stared at him for a moment. Eventually, his gaze flicked back to Sai. "As I was saying, feel free to finish the rest."
"Naruto."
"I think I will," Sai said calmly. He ladled the rest of the stew into his wooden bowl and began eating. Naruto raised his own bowl and started eating again.
"If you take me to Konoha," Sasuke threatened, eyes slitted, "you won't be doing yourself any favors. I'll burn that village down if that's what it takes to break out."
And Naruto erupted. Before he knew it, he was standing, the bowl had gone flying into the side of the tent, and all he could see was red.
"Believe it or not, Sasuke—" was the red because of the kyuubi? He couldn't tell—"the world doesn't revolve around you."
Sasuke watched him, expression unchanging. And Naruto wanted to hit him as hard as he could right in that smug face. He might have, if the other boy hadn't been defenseless.
He stared at him, the sound of a war drum thudding in his ears.
And it all came out. "Ino, Shikamaru, Choji: they had dinner at each other's houses every night of the week. Hinata still makes ointments for Kiba and Shino before they head out on missions. We could have had that too, but you—you couldn't stand the thought of it. Why? You ruined that for us. And for what? This?"
Sai stood silently, edging not quite between them, but close.
"Don't presume to know how I feel," his former teammate said coldly. "You've never had what I had, what I lost—"
"You think I can't say the same thing?" Naruto hissed back. "You've never been ostracized or ridiculed or dismissed, you've never known what it was like to be looked at like a monster by everyone around you, you've— Should we keep comparing grievances, Sasuke? Should we argue about what was worse? Is there any point?"
Sai's hand wrapped around his upper arm, restraining him before he launched forward. Naruto's frame trembled.
"How do we keep making the same mistakes over and over again," he choked out, gaze averted to the ground, "and now, Sakura—"
"Where is she?" Sasuke demanded.
Sai smiled politely. "Sakura took Itachi and ran. None of us know where or why."
Every angle of Sasuke's features hardened. "That's not possible."
"Yet, it happened."
"It wasn't Sakura," Sasuke responded, face abruptly unreadable.
But there was a look in his eyes that Naruto recognized—a darkness that had been there on that roof when they had aimed the rasengan and the chidori at each other. And that was how Naruto realized, even despite the contrary words, that Sasuke knew he had fought Sakura.
"Can we knock him out again?" Sai asked.
"Split the kage bunshins."
"I've already made ten."
"I don't care. Every half hour, make each clone summon four more and then send them in the cardinal directions."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Feet or heart? It was impossible to tell.
"Are you kidding me? You want me to fractionalize my chakra stores exponentially-"
"Do it."
He stubbed his cigarette on the ground and was vaguely gratified that there was no one to see it. Sometimes, there would be months without a single one, and he'd think then that he had truly shaken the habit. Then—there would be a day like this one.
Civilian background, likely coddled, had been Yamato's first impression. A well-meaning girl, certainly, but hardly useful. A distant sort of pity had once followed, knowing how his senpai must have treated someone like that.
That pity had transformed into something sharper and decidedly more complex now. Traitors always brought the worst taste to the mouth, didn't they? That bittersweet mix of revulsion and denial.
He could hear the chatter of voices from inside the tent. Not calm, but better than it might have been. Yamato had been meticulous about keeping his expression as smooth as possible in front of them—or, as much as was believable given circumstances.
Out here, though, there was no need to hide. So his fingers trembled, and he swiftly lit another cigarette and brought it to his mouth.
He hadn't been prepared for this assignment, he reflected blandly. He had left his ANBU team wanting something less emotionally taxing (because someone had died in front of him one too many times, and he had wanted to know what it was like to not care as much, because, surely, hearing about a teammate's death was better than being there to witness it). It was a cruel joke that he ended up in the middle of this mess.
He had no justification for feeling anything at all, granted. Team Seven was, perhaps more so than any team he had been on, profoundly flawed. Sai made Yamato look like a social butterfly and reminded him of times he would rather forget. Naruto, determined and principled as he was, saw primarily in tunnel-vision and dangerously so. And Sakura—
He exhaled smoke, watched as it traced lazy spirals in the air.
In less than twenty four hours, Haruno Sakura would be dead.
Worse, he could picture…exactly how it would happen. A hole in the chest from chidori or raikiri—depending on how much of a fight she put up—her body still charged with electricity for hours afterwards. Strangling was possible as well; Yamato had seen it once.
Or, perhaps, beheading—
Yamato took another inhale and then stubbed the cigarette, before making his way into the tent.
—that was how he had heard Kino had been killed, after all.
"We need to stop."
And as much as Sakura would have liked to disagree with Shisui, she couldn't: she had been on foot for almost sixteen hours now, her chakra had been depleted by the small army of clones she had sent out to leave false trails, and then—well, then there was Itachi.
The sour-rust smell of blood still coated her collar, fresh as it had been hours ago. Itachi was still bleeding. Sakura had done her best given the time frame with Itachi's battle wounds—on any average shinobi, that might have been enough. But Itachi's condition wasn't anywhere near what a medical professional might consider an ideal state of health, and it was clear now that the duress of Sakura's running as fast as she could was undoing much of her healing.
Sakura didn't want to delay getting back to Konoha. On the other hand, what was the point of talking to Tsunade if all she brought back was a corpse?
"Closest covering?" Sakura muttered.
The crow's sharingan was locked straight ahead. "We hit the mountains in ten kilometers or so. Continue north."
It was impossible for her to see any mountains through the thick of the trees, but Sakura took Shisui at its word. She clenched her jaw and sent a jolt of chakra to her legs, boosting her speed. She made it to the cave in the mountain's side just as the first droplets began to fall from the sky in a gentle drizzle.
Debris—rubble, branches that had been blown in by the wind, and more—littered the ground. She swiftly cleared a space for Itachi to lie down. With some careful maneuvering, she shifted him from her back to the ground, gently placing his head down last.
"Thirty minutes," she said curtly. "That's all."
"Are all of your clones still intact?"
"Yes, none of them have returned yet."
She paused to look down at Itachi. His eyeballs were rolling beneath his eyelids, and his frame had started shivering violently. She shrugged her flak jacket off to cover him.
"He needs a fire," Shisui informed her. It had settled in the deepest parts of the cave, vigilant by its human's side.
Sakura glanced at the crow out of the side of her eyes, mouth curling. Again, she would have liked to disagree. Instead, she turned and stepped off the edge of the cave, plummeting to the forest floor once again—and quickly found that the rain had already drenched the ground near the base of the mountains.
Knowing she would have a better chance of finding dry kindling where there was denser foliage, she circled within a tight radius of the mountains. But it soon became clear that the fundamental task of scouring the ground for something as simple as dry kindling had somehow become infinitely hard; more than once, she realized belatedly that she had looked down and seen absolutely nothing.
She was…a mess, she reflected sourly—still as knotted and tensed and anxious just as she had been as she weaved that genjutsu; her mind couldn't focus now that the weight of Itachi's body had been removed from her back.
After a moment of consideration, she cupped some of the fallen water and rubbed it against the imprints of blood Itachi had left on her, hoping it would help.
It wasn't an immediate remedy, for sure. Slowly, still, she felt her body begin to respond. Fractionally, her shoulders started to loosen just a little, her breath came a little easier, and she no longer felt quite as much as though she were balancing on a kunai's edge.
She spotted a large maple tree a kilometer south, its trunk a lighter brown than its smaller neighbors,' and propelled herself toward it until she stood beneath its thick branches. She made a quick pass with her fingers over the mix of fallen leaves and branches below. She was gratified to find them mostly dry, having been shielded by the thick overcast of the tree's remaining foliage.
Unfortunately, the tree she had found was a large one, with correspondingly large branches. She began splitting the wood into quarters so that she could easily tuck them beneath her arm.
A crack sounded behind her.
She twisted around, teeth bared in warning, and—
All the blood drained from her face.
(It wasn't possible. How? How? Every single kage bunshin had split, and then those had split, and so on and so forth, just like the crow had said, and still.)
He was right there. Somehow, some way, in defiance of all probabilistic chance that he should be miles away with a kage bunshin in Suna or the Land of Tea or the middle of an ocean, he was right there, eyes dark and burning like he had been watching her for some time. As though, indeed, he had made that noise intentionally.
There was a choking noise coming from somewhere. Coincidentally, she couldn't find the air to inhale. Her hand scrabbled against the tree for purchase. She bent her head, forcing her exhales to slow down, to slow it all down, so that her fucking brain could think.
But it was too late, because now Kakashi's face was right above hers, and she couldn't deny it—every line, angle, and feature was drawn with barely constrained rage. His hand wrapped around her throat while the other yanked at her hair, forcing her head up.
There was no other explanation for the way that dark gaze lingered over the bridge of her nose, the cut of her jaw— every feature that was congruous with her ANBU double that he had never noticed before.
He knew. He knew.
Sakura shuddered for breath, and she felt his chest expand with hers—because they were so close, because his examination was so ruthlessly intent—and his breath, as it washed over her face, felt like it could scald her.
Her head whipped to the side, teeth cutting into the side of her mouth from the force of an unexpected fist. Sakura rocked on her feet as she spat out blood.
His eyelids were almost fully shut as he looked down at her.
That might have been slightly fair, she considered humorlessly. She peered up at him, swiping the remaining blood from her mouth slowly.
The waiting had been the torture, she decided. She had known she would have to confront him; she just hadn't known it would be so soon.
"Who taught you," he said, deep, arrogant voice almost soundless, as he forced her head to the side, "to betray?"
Her mouth flattened.
He had positioned her head away from him so that she couldn't see him, even as his gaze perused her freely, collected information she would know nothing about. Thankfully, she didn't need to see him to drive her elbow into his solar plexus or to duck when his hand swung out with a kunai.
"Still so afraid to give me credit?" she observed tonelessly.
Her feet shifted automatically, pivoting to sidestep his next attack. His left leg, hidden from her sight because of the way he held his body, whipped out with blinding speed, building force from the brutal power with which he twisted his own body. She brought her arms in tight to withstand the shock of his kick, skidding several meters back into the trunk of another tree.
She exhaled for a moment,
Then, she launched herself back in, careening through the air right again into hard muscle. They struggled for a moment, and maybe, she forgot herself for an instant—possibly, her heartrate stuttered when his fingers brushed her hair, maybe her face went a bit hot, and—
He shoved her back by the throat into a tree, and she felt the trunk crumble beneath her shoulders. Muscle memory kicked in. Sakura followed the motion backwards, breaking his hold and tossing him over.
Slowly, she brought her fists back up, shoulders tight.
Despite the violence in his face, he moved with a deadly calm. He took a step to his left, and she shifted incrementally. He took another, and she realized that he was circling her.
He hadn't used a single jutsu yet.
The discovery broke her cold calm for a moment.
Was it arrogance? the bitter, seething part of her prompted. Her face tightened further as she evaded the copy-nin's swipes. His fists flew with blinding speed, but she was attuned to the way his body moved now from hours and hours of observation, and she evaded until she saw opportunity.
A kunai sank into the muscle of her shoulder (like a kiss), and Sakura bore it with a snarl. She deflected his brutal upper cut, and her hand lashed out, just barely glancing cloth—just enough to rip the mask clean off his face.
The face that looked down at her was as she had never seen it before, terrible to behold, afflicted by an inhuman sort of wrathful beauty.
Sakura held the black cotton mask in her hand.
"It's not a bell," she announced, looking coolly down at it. "Is it enough for you to take me seriously, though?"
Her gaze flicked upward, her face contorting into a sneer.
And then she mouthed the fatal word.
(Sen-sei.)
Chapter 24: Heavy the Head that Bears the Crown
(Sen-sei.)
She could have dropped a bomb into a minefield, and it might have had less disastrous of an impact. It took just a fraction of a second; and then, his state of inexpression fractured completely. Red eye—insidious as blood—and black, both so dark the pupils were undiscernible, contorted like he might just kill her. Kakashi took a sudden, menacing step forward.
"You're going to kill me." The observation escaped her without her consent.
Fight, the Voice whispered, trembling.
His face was averted from hers. The words reached her ears slowly, through a thick, rushing sound.
"You don't have the chakra to fight me now."
She gritted her teeth.
"Not the best strategy to waste it on all those clones, was it."
The wind whistled through the trees, sending a scattering of leaves fluttering down between them.
"But then," he said darkly. "I suppose your sensei is to blame. And we can both agree that that wasn't me."
She flipped the kunai in her hand.
"So who was it?" he demanded, coldly. "That you would devote yourself so thoroughly to their cause?"
It took her a second to parse the meaning of his words. Sakura felt her own kunai dig into her own fingers.
"I suppose it's hard to deviate from such long-standing precedent. But as always, you're wrong about me." A flash of motion caught her eye.
He watched her, features drawn harsher by lividity. "Oh?" His voice was dangerous. "And what are you?"
STRONG, the Voice roared.
Two minutes, she calculated. That was as much of a head start as she needed. They were a stone's throw from the outskirts of the village.
"Capable of so much more than you've given me credit for," she said bitterly.
Shisui burst forward with a shower of feathers, cawing loudly in attack.
Sakura ran toward the cave.
Coward, the Voice spat. It didn't sound as upset as it usually did though. Apparently, even the bloodthirsty creature in her brain recognized a fight it wasn't likely to win.
She hurtled through the trees and, at an admittedly ambitious distance, launched herself into the mouth of the cave. She landed inelegantly, upsetting the gravel on the cave floor. Itachi grunted, shifting away from her.
She picked him up and settled him onto her back. She hit the ground sprinting. There was no time for doubling back or circuitous routes. It was straight to Konoha now.
"What," he asked weakly, voice almost soundless, "are you doing?"
"Running from certain death," she muttered, "We're not that far."
A thunderous explosion sounded a few kilometers behind them.
"Fuck," Sakura hissed. She pumped chakra into her legs and raced faster. They were so close.
So close.
"Pretend you're unconscious," she hissed. He bent his head marginally just as the first sentry peeked his head out. Maybe Itachi had some self-preservation instinct after all.
"Haruno Sakura," the guard instructed, recognizing her on sight and by chakra signature like he was trained to. He squinted at the person on her back. "Identify your passenger."
"Emergency," she called out, bending her knees in preparation, "He needs immediate medical attention."
"You know the rules," he responded indifferently.
"Sorry," Sakura called out as she barreled through him.
There were ANBU on her in less than five seconds.
"Cease and desist, Haruno Sakura, or we will be forced to engage."
"Maybe…next… time," she huffed, charging forward. In seconds, she was cut off by a new squad of ANBU stationed further inside the village.
As the squad attacked, she maneuvered her body, protecting Itachi from the cross fire. As one ANBU attacked her from above, Sakura brought her katana up. The full brunt of the strike rocked Itachi's body.
She smiled humorlessly. The man's eyes widened above her arms. She swarmed her muscles with a sliver of chakra and tossed him effortlessly backwards.
She twisted and caught another ANBU's wrist before she was speared through the stomach. She swung this ANBU into the air too, just in time to duck beneath some heavy-duty earth ninjutsu. She shoved the heel of her hand blindly into another person's throat, sending him backward, choking.
Every shinobi in her vicinity suddenly jolted. The electric, roiling killing intent had overwhelmed the air-far beyond any of their own.
She didn't have any time left.
Her glance darted backward at the veritable legion of ANBU gathering behind her. Having cleared a path through now unconscious bodies, she was somewhat ahead. And she was one building leap away from the hokage's office now.
She exhaled, and then sprinted off the roof. She careened through the air—and then through glass—into the office.
Sakura rolled onto her knees instantly, shaking glass off her and unconscious figure on her back. She lifted her head to find Tsunade leaning against her desk, arms crossed like she had been waiting for her the entire while. The hokage's amber eyes—cool and warning—belied her otherwise relaxed appearance.
"You've been causing quite the stir, Sakura," Tsunade said lightly, gaze flashing. "And with such a… choice guest."
"He's more valuable alive than dead—and he needs healing now. I can explain," Sakura said urgently.
Tsunade's gaze flicked down, narrowing.
"I'm not a traitor," Sakura said, staring hard into her mentor's eyes. After a moment, she dropped into seiza—slowly, though, because Itachi was still on her back.
"For the chance you gave me then, for the trust you believed I deserved then," she reminded, gaze still connected with the hokage's.
For the rest of her life, she would never know what made Tsunade's mind in that moment. In her position, Sakura knew she almost certainly would have turned an ostensible traitor, protége or not, away. But perhaps, there was a god above watching in that moment, and in one of its many whims, it had decided in that singular moment to move Tsunade's mind.
"Get off the damned ground, girl. Fuck, I don't get paid nearly enough for this," the hokage snapped, waving errantly at a wide-eyed Shizune. "Take him to the hospital. As she's said, at the very least, we'll have a living Akatsuki member we can interrogate."
The hokage's assistant obeyed without a second of hesitation, vanishing a second later with Itachi in her hands.
In the next instant, Tsunade's right hand snapped up to make a signal to the ANBU to stand back. Sakura's pinched face turned toward the window, watching as one by one, the black ops members blended back into the shadows of the village—that is, all except for two.
A broad-shouldered, menacing figure, whom Sakura recognized immediately as the commander of the ANBU, remained on the rooftop, arms crossed. Beside him, crouched low, was Kakashi, the muscles in his arms tensed in acute, savage restraint.
Sakura swallowed heavily.
The blonde-haired woman sent her a long, examining look.
"Start talking," she said at last, coldly. "And I should remind you that—while I'm a damn sight nicer than those two—I didn't become hokage because of all people I've graciously healed."
Sakura sat down in the chair across from the hokage.
"Let me just make sure I have all the facts straight."
The clock hit the hour, emitting a sharp, clicking noise.
"Four years ago, you broke into our archives, stole a summoning scroll, forged a contract, only to realize that your summon not only had its own agenda and but was also willing to abuse you and threaten you to accomplish it. Do I…have that all right?"
She hadn't reached for her sake for an entire hour. Sakura didn't think she had ever seen that before.
"And then we have your consequent series of offenses," Tsunade continued, without waiting for even a nod, "Identity fraud, credential fraud—believe it or not, it's against the rules for a genin to be on ANBU missions—and just recently, insubordination on an S-rank mission, in which you turned on your own team captain...Hm?"
"…Yes," Sakura muttered after a considering pause.
"And why should I let you keep your head?" Tsunade asked with a poisonous smile. A small, rush of air signified Shizune's return. Sakura exhaled sharply.
"Report," the hokage demanded.
"Uchiha Itachi is in stable condition," Shizune said lowly. "Because of his fragile constitution at the moment, T&I was only able to do a preliminary scan in terms of interrogation."
"What did they find?"
"From what they've seen," the black-haired woman said carefully, all emotion meticulously removed from her features, "it seems that Danzo secretly ordered Itachi to eliminate the Uchiha clan. After the massacre, Itachi infiltrated the Akatsuki to prevent them from moving against Konoha. As a public traitor, his true status was clearly never documented…consequently, the knowledge was never passed to you following the Sandaime's death."
Tsunade stared for what felt like an eternity, face reddening steadily. At last, she said, voice deadly, "And I see dear old Danzo never saw fit to inform me."
Shizune nodded slowly. "That appears to be the case."
"So what will happen now?" Sakura demanded. Her eyes switched rapidly between the two women.
But both were silent, staring silently at each other instead. Finally, the hokage's eyes narrowed. "Itachi will be safe—there's no doubt about that. Those old codgers have been slobbering all over themselves for a decade now to get the sharingan back."
"Well, that's a relief." She reached toward her aching shoulder, rubbing it distractedly.
"But you, Sakura, the council will happily sacrifice on the altar of bureaucracy."
Sakura stopped rubbing her shoulder.
"Identity fraud, credential fraud, insubordination on an S-rank mission," Shizune recited almost apologetically. "The council will almost certainly demand life-long imprisonment, regardless of your motives."
Ah. Sakura carefully smoothed her expression and took a small, soundless step back.
Tsunade caught the motion immediately. "It should go without saying," the woman said shortly, "that complying with the council's demands is almost categorically the bane of my existence. You're no traitor; fortunately for you, I don't condone punishing mere stupidity."
She turned to the windows and arched an imperious brow. Sakura, who had forgotten altogether about the figures outside the office who had been watching them this entire time, stiffened so quickly that she felt her back crack in protest.
"Commander," the hokage greeted in her usual no-nonsense way. Her amber eyes flicked to Kakashi next, who leaned silently against the edge of the window. Her lips pursed. "Hatake. I assumed you followed along our conversation."
The commander bowed his head immediately in confirmation. The man next to him remained upright, gaze cold. He did not look at Sakura.
"Saori Mori," the hokage said swiftly, "died on a solo assassination mission in the Land of Waves at noon today. She fought nobly and bravely in service of her village."
A dull ringing sound echoed in her ears. Sakura winced. "Tsunade—"
"That is the price you pay, unless you want to suffer the council's pettiness," the woman said warningly. Amber eyes examined her. "No goodbyes, no closure with former teammates. Saori Mori dies right here in this room."
She shut her mouth stiffly.
"In fact," Tsunade said bluntly, "don't ever mention her name again. Forget she even existed. That is an order to all three of you. Let her…fade into anonymity like so many ANBU do."
"As for Haruno Sakura," The hokage stood suddenly, gaze flashing as she crossed her arms. "Haruno Sakura was following my orders this entire time, to the very point where she led my ANBU on a merry chase through the village and then crashed through this window. I suspected there was a traitor in our midst. I strategically withheld my suspicions and my protégé's progress from the council, and she carried out my will when I deemed her prepared, as is my prerogative. And lo and behold, we have concrete evidence now of Danzo's treachery."
"Of course," Shizune hummed, "Sakura cannot be tried if she didn't break any laws."
"It's legal grey area," the commander said gruffly. "The hokage might have some leeway during times of war, but to go above the council during a professed state of peace is—"
"With Itachi back in the village and the younger one on his way as well, I don't think they'll press the issue," Tsunade said derisively.
Shizune's eyebrows arched high on her forehead. "The younger one?"
"Yes," Tsunade said, clearing her throat. "According to Sakura, the rest of Team Seven should be bringing young Uchiha Sasuke back now. An ungrateful brat, I recall, considering all the healing I did for him."
"Tsunade-sama," the assistant responded lightly, after a long pause, "the council might finally like you."
The hokage's expression shifted into one of disgust. "Well, this will at least silence their usual nagging for a little while. Now, until Sasuke comes..."
It took an hour and a half on the dot. And when Sasuke did arrive, it was with great tumult; he was dragged kicking and cursing into the hokage's office.
"You should tell him," Shizune prompted, looking slightly pityingly at the younger Uchiha as he twisted, face red.
Glaring, Tsunade finished off her cup of soju. After swallowing with gusto, and without a breath of pause, she delivered the truth ruthlessly. As generally unsympathetic as she was (and she was), even Sakura winced, wondering if her mentor might have handled the issue a little more delicately.
"You're lying," Sasuke hissed, face twisted in hatred.
"Apologies, Hokage-sama," Sai said with a bright smile. "We haven't quite managed to get him house-trained yet."
The hokage wasn't impressed. "To what end?"
"This man, Danzo," Sasuke accused nastily, "you must want him out of the picture. Pin a crime on him so that he stops angling for your seat—"
"That would be awfully crafty," Tsunade agreed, "if Danzo were remotely the type to angle for something like the hokage's seat. Unfortunately, a man like him never likes public attention or oversight; it rather hampers his generally unpalatable agendas."
Sasuke glared.
"Danzo acted without approval," the older woman said, a little more softly now. "Itachi never should have been placed in that situation. I wasn't in Konoha when it happened, but I do truly regret—
"Lies," Sasuke charged unblinkingly, the veins in his forehead straining.
"She isn't lying, Sasuke," Sakura interrupted at last. "Itachi—"
"You shut your fucking mouth."
Sakura turned slowly, eyebrows flying high in deadly warning.
"Sasuke," Naruto muttered urgently. His gaze darted to her, a little pleading. "Sakura."
"As it stands," Shizune interrupted swiftly, "although Sasuke defected, he has done very little in the way of endangering Konoha. There were no deaths as a result of his defection and no critical intelligence was leaked, correct?"
"Right," Tsunade confirmed, sending a warning look Sakura's way. Reluctantly, Sakura forced her gaze away from Sasuke. "The council will want keep him and weaponize him for Konoha. This will be a sham of a trial. Aren't you lucky?"
"Anyone else, and you would be executed, boy," the ANBU commander grunted.
"Exactly," the hokage said, eyes suddenly rapt at the copy-nin. She stared at him for a long time, unblinking. At last, she sighed. "You're still the one who's most qualified to keep the last Uchiha in line."
"No one is keeping me in line. Get these cuffs off me."
"You mean," Naruto stammered, "Sasuke, he'll be back on Team Seven?"
"He shouldn't be," Tsunade hissed irately.
Naruto crowed in joy. Sakura's mouth flattened. Really? How…ludicrously unfair. If Sakura had abandoned the village like Tsunade had originally suspected, she would have been greeted by a swift death upon return by the council.
"You. All of you. You're going to be on your best fucking behavior from now on," the hokage said dangerously. "Take the chunin exams; save a few kittens for the village. Not one fucking toe out of line."
Naruto nodded rapidly.
"And someone take Sasuke to see his brother when he's conscious," Tsunade snapped. "If no one else can convince him of the truth..."
Shizune nodded with some skepticism.
Tsunade released a frustrated gust of breath. "Dismissed," she spat out, waving a wild arm at the door. "Get out. All of you."
Kakashi disappeared instantly. She stared for a moment, heart in her throat, then left without a backward glance.
As she walked home, the dusk golds and reds faded into a rich black-blue, enfolding the houses and shops in shadow. It had been almost a month since she had traced this path home, she considered. After almost a month of limited airflow, the air in her room must have turned a little stale. After climbing the three staircases leading up to her place, she opened the door and made straight for the sole window to crack it open.
She paused there, examining the scene outside through the glass. It took her a few seconds to find her watchers. The ANBU blended with the cover of night, masks angled skillfully away from the moonlight which might otherwise have revealed them. Having been one of them, however, Sakura was well aware of the tricks of the trade.
She would have liked to have said goodbye, she reflected. To Snail especially, but also to Hyena—even to Bear.
But there was no use thinking about useless things. It wasn't as though there was anything she could change. She stalked to the bathroom and ran the hot water.
Her reflection looked…wan. Exactly like she'd had the bare minimum of sleep these last forty eight hours. Sighing, she pulled off her clothes and sank into the tub, skin prickling with brief pain before pleasure sank in.
And Kakashi—
No, some part of her asserted with near violence.
The water quickly turned brown. Sakura examined it with a sort of fascinated disgust, continuing to scrub her skin and hair with equal vigor. She froze when the door to her bathroom suddenly swung open.
Sakura blinked back at her intruder.
"What the fuck are you still doing here?" Ino hissed. "God, I came here just in case, but I didn't think—you can't actually be that stupid—"
...of anyone to come bursting into her bathroom uninvited right now (and part of her, yes, had been expecting someone), Ino was very nearly on the bottom of the list.
"Excuse me?" Sakura asked slowly.
Ino uttered a noise of outrage. "In less than an hour, there's going to be a warrant for your capture and interrogation. And I might crack open people's minds for a living, but I stomped over your sandcastles when we were four. It's not happening."
"I...haven't done anything wrong."
"As all guilty people say," Ino snapped, before her expression forcibly cleared. "Not that it matters. Now get the fuck up and leave."
Sakura stared. "Even if I did, I'd have ANBU on me in less than a second. They've got four squads lined up outside my window."
"I know!" Ino hissed, her fist snapping out to collide with mirror. Shards rained down from the point of impact. Sakura felt like her mind was moving through molasses.
What was Ino proposing, in the case that Sakura was actually guilty? That they would fight their way out of here? Together?
"We haven't," she started. She tried again. "We haven't been like that in...years. Why are you…"
"Been what?"
Sakura swept back the damp hair from her face. "We haven't even given each other the time of day. "
"And I would have called you bitch to your face if you'd asked for it," Ino sneered. "Probably."
Sakura's eyes narrowed as pulled a towel over her body. "You're not making sense, Ino. You're the one that decided that—"
"Oh fuck him," Ino exclaimed.
Sakura, startled, twisted to look at the other girl.
"You think Sasuke really had anything to do with it?" the other girl ranted, sweeping her hair back. "It was about you and me, foreheard, and the fact that you'd won, and that I'm too proud to tolerate it. It was never meant to be…"
Sakura exhaled. "I wasn't lying," she said, toweling her hair slowly. "Despite what it looks like, I was…acting on Tsunade's private orders."
Ino's eyes widened. "What?"
"I understand that's probably not what your colleagues have been saying, but it's the truth. I haven't committed any crimes."
"Oh," Ino said faintly.
After a pause, she straightened her clothes and brushed back hair, until once again she looked impeccable. "Fine." Her pointer finger raised to point to the back corner of Sakura's bedroom. "Now explain that."
Sakura followed her finger until she reached a particular damning article of clothing hanging still from her wardrobe. She held back a tortured groan. The crimson, busty piece of lingerie was offensively bright even in the dimly lit room.
She rubbed the space between her nose and her eyes. "It's mine," she tried.
Ino gave a shrill laugh. "Don't even try it, forehead. In your dreams."
Sakura's hand lowered. She stared blankly at the other girl. "Seriously? Now?"
Ino's mouth gaped incredulously. "I would never have guessed."
"Thanks," she returned shortly.
"It makes sense of course, now that I think about it," the blonde sniffed, sweeping the heavy curtain of her hair over one shoulder, "Growing up around me must have been formative."
Sakura rolled her eyes.
"Right," Ino said, looking pleased now. "Well, now that you're not actually about to die—I hope you rot in a ditch, bitch. Huh. That rhymed."
She turned on her heel and made for the door. Before it shut fully, though, pale, long-nailed fingers wrapped around the edge of the door, keeping it open by a sliver. "Dinner," the disembodied voice said a second later, "Friday."
The door shut.
Stalking forward, Sakura yanked the curtains shut. She slid into her bed and shut her eyes.
While Sakura may not have been dragged into a cell by T&I, she was subpoenaed to testify before the council the next day. (She honestly wasn't sure which one, given the choice, she would have preferred).
It was clear, by the time of her entrance into the circular room, that proceedings had long been underway. Sakura found a rather tired, if stoic, Itachi at the witness stand before the gathering of council elders, bandaged and sickly. A short distance behind him, in an area clearly designated for other witnesses to wait, was Sasuke.
Sasuke's dark gaze flicked from his brother to her.
Sakura paused to look at him. "You look calmer today."
His dark hair, which had grown longer in his time away from Konoha, hid his expression.
She shrugged to herself and then sat in the chair beside him, arms crossed.
"Obviously, Itachi will join our ANBU forces again," a silver-haired councilwoman with purple, beady eyes intoned to nods around her. "With his inside knowledge against the Akatsuki, we will be able to move openly against them with far more efficacy."
Tsunade cleared her throat with barely restrained annoyance. "As I've said repeatedly, Itachi cannot be cleared for active duty until he passes his physical readiness tests—and that will be some time yet."
"Surely within the month."
"I think that Uchiha-san's condition has perhaps been understated thus far," Shizune cut in politely, sending a warning glance at the hokage, "He has a rare lung disease that, while not incurable, has progressed for years without any treatment. It will take him at least a year to reach a state remotely resembling battle readiness."
The council did not look pleased to hear this news.
"But as for the younger one," an older man now spoke, voice a deep bass, "his health is in a far better state, and his sharingan will be invaluable. We might reconsider given these circumstances, hokage-sama, the terms you have set—"
Sakura started tuning them out, bending over to pick at a hangnail on her toe. She felt a burning sensation on the side of her face, as though someone were looking at her.
"How did you do it," Sasuke asked, almost soundlessly. She looked up, and he still faced the council—she wondered if she'd imagined the sensation of being surveyed. "You were the weakest one when I left."
Sakura sighed and leaned back on the uncomfortable bench.
"Then?" he pressed emotionlessly.
She pursed her lips, staring at him. "Why do you think people try to become strong?"
"Self-respect," he sneered out of the corner of his mouth.
"Survival, I think," she said curtly, unfazed.
"And what tragic event happened to you, Sakura," Sasuke said coldly, turning toward her at last, "that forced such a dramatic change in your priorities?"
Sakura's eyes narrowed. "I was almost raped and sold for parts by organ traffickers," she returned equally coldly.
She blinked a second later, surprised and a bit alarmed that Sasuke was the first living person she had revealed this to. And she couldn't even see his face.
"Kakashi?" he declared boredly, like he suspected she was lying.
Sakura's lips contorted into a snarl. "Evidently," she said with great difficulty, "not there."
They lapsed into silence again. The chatter of the council members filled the quiet: dull, static noise.
"But that wasn't the point," she said lowly.
Sasuke's dark eyes examined her coolly.
Sakura's lips tightened. "He never took me seriously the way he did the two of you, never paid attention to me and taught me like he did—"
"You were constantly falling over yourself to catch my attention."
"Believe it or not, being a stupid teenager isn't a crime. It's—"
"Normal? The shinobi life isn't for normal," Sasuke said cuttingly, "It isn't for frivolous, lovesick girls like you and the Yamanaka or for lazy dumbasses like the Nara. All of you were equally pathetic."
"There are different brands of ineptitude," Sakura sneered, "and he was more than willing to try with yours and Naruto's."
But her ears burned. She didn't want to acknowledge the potential truth in what Sasuke said—the possibility that Kakashi trying might have changed nothing. Because that meant that those organ traffickers had been necessary, that something terrible like that had needed to happen: that Yamato was right and that shinobi, the ones who were strong and survived the worst, could never also be happy, well-adjusted people. And how the fuck was that fair?
(She had been right, as a child, to never want to be good at this).
"Sakura," Tsunade beckoned shortly. She stood up immediately and stalked toward the witness stand. She didn't make eye contact with Sasuke again the entire trial.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Sakura jolted out of her bed, snarling like a wet cat.
"Sakuraaaa," she heard a familiar voice whine through the door. The sound of a key being turned in a lock reached her ears, and then the door was open, revealing Naruto—bright-eyed and beaming.
"Do you know how many hours of sleep I've had this week, Naruto?" she hissed. "Do you?" She could have cried—just burst into ugly, strangled sobs—because of how tired she was.
"But everything with Sasuke's finally smoothed over, and it's our first team practice together. Don't you want to head over together?" Naruto smiled fiercely. It looked painful.
"And?" Sakura grunted. "It's going to be a shitshow."
"It's not."
"It is."
"It's NOT," Naruto snapped, face reddening.
To be fair, she reminded herself as she considered murder, Naruto wasn't aware of even a half a dozen of the reasons her attendance of any Team Seven practice would be catastrophic.
A soft set of knocks on the open door turned both their heads.
"Naruto told me to be here at six in the morning sharp," Sai said with a bland smile. His eyes flicked over the both of them, and the smile slowly dissipated.
Naruto took a shuddering breath. He straightened to his full height. "Look, Sakura, there's a lot of shit I'm ignoring right now, and some of that is the—some of that is the stuff you never told me, even though I've always been honest with you, even though we made a pact to be honest. But like I said, I'm ignoring that. Because if I think about that, I could…"
He broke off, his expression strained. There was an edge to his features that Sakura wasn't accustomed to seeing.
"Just come to the fucking practice."
"Yeah," she found herself saying. "Okay."
Fuck.
Feeling resigned to her fate, and distinctly like she had been emotionally manipulated, Sakura dragged her weary body to the bathroom. After washing her face and brushing her teeth, she rustled around in the closet. She pulled out a top blindly and tugged it over her head. The material settled loosely around her frame, the sleeves reaching just short of her wrists. Still rubbing sleep out of her eyes, she pulled on a pair of standard issue black pants and stumbled out the door with them
"I think he got about as much sleep as you did last night," Sai noted as they walked.
"And you?" Sakura asked, eyes fixed straight ahead, barely open.
"Probably the same," he responded sedately. "Shikamaru and I were up until—"
"Not the same," she said shortly. "But seriously. Are you happy about this? Sasuke being back, the negligible punishment for what he's done?"
"It does seem unfair," Sai agreed. He blinked calmly at her. "But other than that, I don't have any other feelings on the matter. You, however, I think, have many feelings. Some of which don't overtly appear to be…entirely fair."
Sakura arched an eyebrow at him. They stared at each other for a moment, until she finally turned her head away.
Just as dawn broke, they stood in front of their assigned training ground. Sakura peered down at her watch—they were early.
Even so, the training ground itself was not deserted.
Sasuke leaned against a post at the edge of the grounds, expression stoic. Sakura's gaze flicked down. Metal bracelets inscribed with characters too small for her to read shackled his wrists. They were small enough to not impede his mobility, but they had almost undoubtedly been created to restrict his chakra use.
"Who's that?" Naruto asked loudly, pointing at the masked woman crouched on a tree above him.
"His guard, undoubtedly." Sakura gave her a cheery wave.
"You're somewhat of an asshole," Sai observed.
Feeling a sharp gaze on her, she turned her head slightly to meet it. Yamato, looking a great deal more recovered from the trials of the previous few, examined her with open incredulity.
"Dolphin."
Sakura's shoulders grew painfully tight.
The ANBU stepped off her branch, landing crouched with her head bowed. "Taichou," she greeted.
"Report," Kakashi commanded.
In any other situation, Sakura thought longingly, she might have been tempted to close her eyes and catch some sleep.
"In summary, since yesterday, he has used three jutsus, all low-level, made eye contact with ten people, and communicated directly with three," the woman finished, gaze travelling up at last to meet Kakashi's.
His gaze, however, was directed at Sasuke.
"It's my opinion that one in your position," Kakashi said silkily, head tilting lazily to the side, "should be fully informed about the kind of scrutiny you're under. It influences the kind of decisions you make, doesn't it?"
Dolphin's head raised slowly, shock passing quietly through her eyes, perhaps at his bluntness.
"As you can see, Dolphin will report every single one of your movements. Give me the slightest suspicion about your loyalties," Kakashi murmured, almost in a tone of challenge-like he was daring Sasuke-"and your throat will be slit before you even make it past the gate."
Sasuke's jaw visibly tightened.
"And in case it should need stating, there are many up to the task. Your own teammate has proven herself more than capable, hasn't she?"
Sakura's head twisted sharply to look at him. Her heart had dropped somewhere into her stomach. She hadn't expected him to acknowledge her. She hadn't expected him to even address her presence there.
"In fact, I think it's fair to say that Haruno is heads and shoulders above all of you," Kakashi continued coolly, his gaze still directed toward Sasuke.
Sakura stared after him, unsmiling.
Yamato cleared his throat. "And let that be motivation to make you all work harder. Naruto, Sai, pair up for a warm up spar. Sasuke, once you're finished here, spar with Sakura."
Naruto crowed, dragging Sai away. Face strained, Yamato followed them.
"Understood?" Kakashi asked leisurely.
After a long silence, Sasuke nodded . He shot a dark glance at Kakashi and then turned on his heel.
Sakura moved to follow him. Without her conscious consent, a fraction of a second later, her feet pivoted on the dirt ground, spinning back around.
Kakashi gave no reaction to her sudden movement other than to move his gaze, which had been fixed somewhere above her head, unconcernedly to her.
Sakura's lips twisted, as she tried to find the proper words. She stared past him too, mouth working.
She swallowed, ignoring the pain from the rough sensation against her dry throat. "Saori Mori—" she started, nostrils flared.
"Who?" he responded, voice emotionless.
Sakura's mouth snapped shut, strangling any other words that might have followed. Her gaze roamed rapidly over his features. True to his words, there was not one sign of recognition on his face. Not even the slightest muscle had twitched out of place.
Don't ever mention her name again. Forget she even existed. That is an order to all three of you.
It seemed, Sakura realized with an inappropriate sense of hilarity, that this would be the one command in recent memory that Kakashi would obey.
A trickle of sweat escaped her hairline and traced its way down her cheek. The sun beat down unforgivingly on her face.
If she followed his lead, she considered distantly, this would be it. They would both treat that as though it had never happened—exactly like the absurd anomaly it was. And there was so little to lose, she considered. Wasn't it better, in the end, to forget?
What could possibly be said that wasn't better left unsaid?
She thrust her hands into the pockets of her pants.
"Right." She forced her numb lips into a smile.
His dark gaze didn't change.
She turned around and walked towards Sasuke.
"You're going to kill me." The observation escaped her without her consent.
Fight, the Voice whispered, trembling.
.
- by the ridiculously talented izanamimami for this fic
Chapter 25: A Hero(ine)'s Complex
A boulder tore through the air in their direction. Unblinking, Sakura shunshined in front of the rest. Tensing her arm, she swarmed chakra in her fist obliterated it into thousands of pieces. A sixth sense made her drop to a crouch a second later. A hand landed roughly—impersonal and fleeting—between her shoulder blades. Gaze flicking up, she saw Kakashi hurtle over her.
He mowed through the right flank of the rogue-nin in seconds, brute muscle and taijutsu. Sakura stared blankly ahead as she took down the center, shoulders tight as she lashed out with fists and elbows into throats and eyes.
Not enough, the Voice roared, a starved beast.
A month had passed since she had careened through the glass into Tsunade's office with an S-Rank nin on her back, and in that time, this was all that they had managed to encounter. Even as part of Sakura might have trembled to do more, these rogue-nin, frankly, weren't shitty enough. Anything more would have been...gross overkill. She hadn't realized until now how much of an outlet ANBU missions had been, and now, without-
"So this is a chunin mission," Sai observed with something like polite disappointment.
It could be said that even their newly-won chunin designation was (decidedly) ill-fitting.
Her hair blew forward as Sasuke rushed by her and then curved toward the left flank, katana drawn in a tight angle against his body. Naruto and Sai followed suit—Naruto on the ground and Sai above, held aloft by a bird the latter had conjured.
"Should I—?!" the blonde slowed down, brows furrowed.
"Does this look like it's worth a nine tailed beast?" Sasuke snapped.
"Fine! Kage-bunshin then."
She rolled her eyes. Naruto quite literally alternated between three strategies in battle, and it was a wonder—in some ways—that he had made it this far. Then again, as she saw a hundred doubles of the blonde emerge and overwhelm the remaining shinobi, it wasn't that much of a wonder after all.
Sasuke wiped his blade on the trunk of a tree, a mildly irritated look on his face.
"There's a stream southwest of here," she muttered after a pause.
Naruto gave her an encouraging thumbs up. Sasuke gave no indication of having heard and turned to sheathe his katana.
Kakashi approached. He came to a standstill a meter in front of them, backlit by the sun.
"There are three types of choking," the copy-nin said with lazy derision. "The first, as we all know, the literal. The second kind, when you fail to perform because of fear, Naruto, you fortunately haven't repeated since that mission in the Land Of Waves. The third? That's when you lose precious seconds deciding what the fuck to do. Doesn't matter how much chakra you have; those few seconds are the difference between living and someone just quick enough or just lucky enough slitting your throat."
Naruto's expression grew grim. "I'm not—"
"You're a missile with no finesse," Kakashi said coldly. "You weren't built for close combat. You might fare well on an open field, one-on-one, with a similarly straightforward, honor-preoccupied opponent, but if I locked you in a room with any one of the other people on this team, let's just say I wouldn't bet on you."
The copy-nin's gaze snapped to Sai next with savage interest. "You're not nearly as aggressive as you should be, long-range."
Sai nodded, unperturbed. "Subterfuge and close-combat make the majority of my field experience. I will address the deficiency."
Kakashi's head cocked to the side then to survey Sasuke. "As for you—a little slow without the sharingan, aren't you," he said slowly, with something like private mocking amusement, "Haruno and I cleared through more than twice the bodies you did. Naruto might have done as much, if he hadn't wasted those seconds."
Haruno. She scoffed internally. Sasuke received this all without any expression.
Kakashi's gaze flicked over all of them. "Retrieve your weapons. We're heading out."
The Uchiha's head raised suddenly, eyes narrowed. "And what about her? Nothing?"
The copy-nin's eyebrow arched. Sakura had minimal difficulty keeping her expression placid as Kakashi's eyes coolly cut to her. She had had practice the entire month to adjust to abruptly not being ignored.
"Nothing," he said indifferently. "Unlike you, she didn't make any stupid mistakes." He launched himself into the trees.
"How did you know?" Sasuke asked coolly, head turning suddenly to examine her. "In that precise moment, to drop to the ground? He didn't say anything or make any signals."
Leaves crackled on the forest floor as Sai came to stand next to her. Sakura's stoic expression hid her perturbation.
"Never mind that Naruto and I were also there next to you. He calculated his jump with complete confidence that you would be prepared for it."
There was, of course, no good way to explain this. In the hours she had spent on Kakashi's ANBU squad, one learned quickly to adapt to the movements of the others as easily as breathing. More pointedly, Kakashi and she—both on the aggressive, confrontational end of the spectrum—usually led the first attack, just as they had now. She couldn't exactly say that.
"They discussed it while you were taking a piss earlier," Sai said blandly.
Naruto—who had not observed any such plan—fortunately did not say anything to contradict him. His lips tightened slightly, however, and his gaze locked with Sakura's. It promised a long conversation later.
Sai gave her a long look as well that she didn't feel like reading into.
They returned to the village just as the sun set. Sakura went straight home and stood under the scalding rain of her shower head for what felt like hours.
By the time she left her place, she had long resolved to blame her lateness on their team's delayed return (and not the long shower she had leisurely strolled home to take).
"Table for two…under the name Ino."
The host, looking oddly strained, led her inside. "Your dinner partner has arrived, ma'am—"
"You're dripping," the blonde said distastefully as she looked Sakura up and down. "At an establishment of this caliber, forehead, they might just make you pay for carpet damage."
That would explain the strained expression. Sakura gave Ino a bland look, before tying her hair up into a tight knot. Strands shorter than the rest fell out seconds later. She scowled.
"Did you cut your hair with garden shears?" Ino asked with interest. "I have a cousin who does that—too into flowers, we've always thought. No one knows how to tell him, though…It just makes for very awkward family gatherings."
Not for the first time, Sakura felt an abrupt sense of grief for the way in which she had been maneuvered into these weekly dinners. Still, as it turned out: almost anything was better than Ino banging on her door for hours on end because Sakura had 'forgotten.'
"It's lost pigment too," Ino said factually, sipping at her wine. "Too much time in the sun, I rather think. Never too late to go medic-nin, you know."
Sakura reached for her water. She started chugging it diligently.
"Not that you have the temperament for it anymore," Ino acknowledged after a pause, blue eyes assessing her.
That was the other problem with these dinners. It was the persisting examination—the fact that Ino had only grown sharper eyed and more cunning in the years they had been estranged. T&I had had no small part in cultivating those qualities, Sakura could imagine.
"What is this place?" Sakura asked blandly, flipping through the menu. "Never heard of it."
Ino gave a cough-laugh. "Never been wine-and-dined, have you, Sakura?"
Sakura's eyes lifted belatedly from the menu to survey the restaurant's clientele. Everywhere she looked, she found extremely well-dressed individuals—another explanation for the host's demeanor as he had escorted Sakura in—with immediately telling bashful looks on their faces.
The restaurant seemed to subsist primarily on amorous couples.
"And why did you decide to meet here?" Sakura asked dryly.
"Oh, just killing two birds with one stone," Ino said easily, closing her menu and signaling the waiter with a delicate flick of red nails. "One could even say I'm still technically on the clock."
The waiter eagerly rushed toward their table.
"You'd be surprised how helpful it is to know who's fucking who in the village," Ino said without an ounce as shame. The waiter reddened. "Comes in handy during interrogation. Nothing like threatening to reveal an affair to make a hardened shinobi—"
"I'll have the sukiyaki," Sakura cut in smoothly.
"Ah," Ino said, apparently noticing the waiter for the first time. She gave a beatific smile. "Sashimi, please. And I'll have ponzu on the side."
"Excellent. I will direct these orders towards the chef right away," he said, bowing low. He left with a slightly dazed smile.
Ino turned back to Sakura with raised eyebrows.
"So?" she demanded. "On a mission with the team, were you?"
Sakura nodded perfunctorily. "And your team," she asked swiftly. "Been on any missions with them recently?"
"Don't think I don't know what you're doing," Ino said with a small smile. She cupped her chin in her hand. "But—yes. We usually take on something once every week. The rest of the time, I devote to being old Morino's dearest dogsbody."
Sakura's lips quirked infinitesimally at the poisonous look on the blonde's face. A flash of familiar blonde crossed her peripheral.
Ino followed her gaze and gave a low whistle. "Would you look at that," she said, a jeer on her face.
Sakura rubbed tiredly at the bridge of her nose. Perfect. Of all the places for Naruto to choose for a date night with Hinata on this particular night, it had to be here.
"Have you ever seen him out of that atrocious jumpsuit before?" She cursed Ino's loud voice as the pair suddenly turned to them, wide-eyed. Hinata smiled shyly once the shock passed and gave a small wave.
Naruto's blue eyes seeming unusually bright. He turned to a waiter next to them and then pointed to Sakura and Ino's table.
Sakura stood. "No," she said a little too forcefully. She gentled her tone a second later. "No. We shouldn't interrupt the two of you—"
"Nonsense," Hinata said softly. She had made eye contact with Naruto and something passed silently between them. "We insist."
A pair of servers quickly and seamlessly assembled an extra table and joined it to theirs. Hinata took off her coat, revealing a gossamer-thin yukata as deep as the color of red wine. Sakura heard Naruto choke on his own saliva.
A server swiftly delivered a small plate of wagyu beef to the table, courtesy of the chef.
Naruto cleared his throat loudly. "You look…good," he said roughly, brushing at his closely shorn hair.
"You too," Hinata returned, cheeks pink.
Sakura sawed noisily through the meat. Ino smacked her across the arm.
"So," Naruto announced, turning his gaze to them. "I haven't seen the two of you like this in a long time."
"The gossip hasn't been scandalous enough until now," Ino said with a sniff.
"Don't listen to her," she sighed tiredly. She straightened a second later. "Really Ino and I shouldn't be ruining your night. It's not too late to—"
"I think I should probably be apologizing ahead of time for ruining your and Ino's night, actually," Naruto said with uncharacteristic gravity. He looked up from his folded napkin a second later, eyebrows raised.
Sakura let out an incredulous huff of air, then leaned back. "Really?" she asked curtly.
"Really," Naruto said with a firm smile.
"Now?" In front of them, she meant.
"Sai keeps covering for you," he explained simply, crossing his arms.
Sakura glowered at him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hinata attempt to draw Ino politely into their own side-conversation.
"So?"
Sakura averted her gaze.
"Did you think I would react badly?" he continued intently. "If I knew…that you weren't."
He stopped.
"Weak?" she finished for him, tone flat.
It was odd, to hear him admit it, even implicitly; in the near-decade she had known him, he had never alluded to anything like it, even though for most of that time, it had actually been true.
"It wasn't like that," she said lowly. "I didn't choose Sai as a confidante. I never really told him anything."
"He noticed it on his own," Naruto summarized, like he had heard this before. His gaze lowered. "I keep wondering about that: the fact that I didn't. Sai's asked me about it too, that maybe I was…seeing something that didn't exist, because some part of me wanted to keep seeing it."
"No," Sakura said bluntly, and she meant it. "How were you supposed to notice something that I was actively hiding? Sai probably doesn't even realize that he had an advantage. He had no preconceptions about me. Not to mention he's much more adept at uncovering secrets than you."
"And why were you actively hiding it?" Naruto pressed.
Her fingers tightened around her napkin. "That," she said forcefully, "I can't tell."
His eyes bore stubbornly into hers.
"Hokage's orders," Sakura said through unmoving lips, wary of anyone who might be watching. Naruto's eyes narrowed. "Maybe someday, when you're hokage, you can ask me."
He struggled, features shifting between frustration and resignation.
"So," Ino said slyly, "can I stop pretending now to not be eavesdropping?"
"Ino," Hinata cajoled gently.
The blonde girl rolled her eyes. "Don't pretend you weren't trying to listening too."
With remarkable timing, a waitress placed Sakura and Ino's food on the table with a flourish.
"But I want to hear the really juicy stuff now," Ino said with frightening intensity. She grabbed Sakura and Naruto's hands. "Tell me."
"About…what?"
"Sasuke, of course!" she cried out triumphantly.
"He's pretty much the same as ever," Naruto said dismissively. "Just as arrogant and lame. More so, really, now that he's back."
"I don't care about his personality," Ino sighed, examining her nails. "I haven't gotten to see him yet. How does he look?"
He squinted.
"Taller," Sakura said boredly.
"I, ah, crossed him in the hospital before he went in for his medical examinations to be cleared for active duty," Hinata said, looking very hard at the tablecloth. "He seems to be—very healthy."
Ino smiled knowingly. "A fine specimen for medical study, was he?"
Naruto was red-faced. "What's so good about that idiot? He has hair that looks like a duck's ass."
The conversation lapsed into silence. Sakura speared a cube of meat and brought it to her mouth.
"By the way," Hinata said abruptly, turning to face Ino, "I just wanted to congratulate you and Neji, personally, as well as relay our clan's gratitude as well. My father is very pleased."
At the very least, Sakura would reflect later, the dinner had been well worth it just to see the way Ino's face paled with mortification in that moment.
The next day found Sakura making a midday trip to the grocery store. All the non-perishables she had stocked up on before the 'Second Sasuke Retrieval Mission' had run out that morning. Well, that was almost true. More to the point, she was sick of living off tasteless noodles and nuts.
Her mouth watered as she stepped into the store. She could probably kill now for a piping, hot cup of mugicha tea. She went straight for the tea aisle. Crouching low, thrusting her hand blindly toward the back of the bottom shelf, she rustled around until she triumphantly pulled out what seemed to be the last bag—
"Haruno Sakura."
Sakura's smug gaze snapped from the tea leaves to the man standing in the middle of the aisle. She paused.
She had known she had had a lot of explaining to do to the people around her. All she had been doing this past month, for the most part, was explaining. But not at a grocery store at 7 am while she was starving. Not to this particular person.
She blinked, but he was still there. Lo and behold, not a cruel figment of her imagination.
The light lines on Itachi's face were all the more prominent under the fluorescent lighting of the grocery store. He looked very much like he had recently been retrieved forcibly from the brink of death. He also held a crate of tomatoes.
She stood up reluctantly.
"Should you be out right now?" She searched around for a nurse-caretaker in their vicinity.
He gave her a small, distant smile. "Apparently I've been recovering at an astonishing rate."
Sakura's mouth opened and then shut. (He didn't look it.)
What she was supposed to do then, of course, was to make discrete arrangements for a suitably private area and a mutually convenient time for them to meet. Because, clearly, they were long overdue a conversation.
"Do I need to be worried?" she muttered instead, in the narrow, otherwise deserted, aisle of a grocery store.
Itachi's face revealed, frustratingly, very little. Instead, he gave her that same, placid look. Sakura started to wish fervently that she could read his mind. It took her an instant to realize that it was a sentiment she had felt before and keenly. Not her, she corrected after a second. Shisui, the man.
"Most of the time," the man said calmly, unblinking, "I feel nothing."
Sakura paused, examining him through narrow eyes.
"Other times, however, there is" Itachi disclosed evenly, "anger."
Something about the way he said it—as though it were utterly foreign to him—made her a bit unnerved.
"Not that this is a conversation for a grocery store," she said genially. "But are you threatening me?"
"Am I?" he said finally, with something like clinical curiosity.
The smile left Sakura's face.
"I'm not pretending I was your savior," she said roughly. "I've not been expecting gratitude."
"You weren't that," Itachi agreed. His voice held an edge right now. "If you were looking for it, you likely would not find it."
Sakura turned her face away, shoulders tight. It was absurd. What was there to regret about survival? Without her and the crow's interference, Itachi had been slated for a cruel, untimely death. And yet, she acknowledged uncomfortably, maybe-to him-there was something undeniably cruel about what she had done. That she had intervened as she had and possibly robbed him of…the freedom to choose—to follow through with a plan he had set for himself, that he had lived for, for years.
"Sasuke," she said shortly, changing the subject abruptly. "He's living with you?"
Something shifted in his face, subtly. "Yes."
"The tomatoes are for him, I'm guessing."
"…yes," he repeated again, monotonously. His eyes followed her.
"Legacy of an unfortunate preoccupation when I was younger," Sakura explained shortly. "If I recall, he liked them sliced into even quarters."
His gaze flickered.
She scowled at nothing in particular, not sure why she had admitted to that.
"When I'm not around," the older Uchiha said indifferently, looking somewhere past her, gaze unreadable, "watch him."
She stared at him for a moment, mouth agape. "Me," she said, sounding a little strangled. She dropped the bag of tea leaves into her basket. God, she needed to leave before this conversation had any more surprising twists. "Right. Okay."
His words sank in a second later. She looked at him sharply. Something of that old Shisui surged in her, pained and panicked. When I'm not around—
She bared her teeth in a nasty smile. "But if you're ever out of the picture, for any reason, I might just forget that promise. Might just let my hand slip, if you catch my drift."
"You're not," Itachi observed after a pause, "an exceptionally good liar."
Sakura shrugged insouciantly. "I've managed so far. Makes one wonder, doesn't it?"
She gave a little wave and calmly completed the rest of her grocery list. When she exited the store, she spotted—as she had predicted—a small, stout man waiting on a bench in medic-nin robes. Sakura passed seamlessly through the crowd to the other side of the street.
She rested her bags on the bench and pulled out the bottle of milk she had just purchased, taking a quick sip. The older man looked up from her book, the thin moustache above his lips shivering slightly with a passing breeze.
"If he isn't already," Sakura said, smiling into the street and nodding politely at an old Academy teacher, "put him on suicide watch."
She dropped the bottle back in as she picked up her shopping bags and then made her way home.
She didn't sleep particularly well that night. In fact, she barely slept at all.
She found herself tossing and turning, eyes wide open the entire time. There wasn't one particular thought—it was all of them. She couldn't seem to quiet her mind. It had become possessed of something entirely out of her control.
A strange fear beckoned Sakura…but, perhaps, not unexpected. Maybe, even, a long time coming. She had more downtime than ever, without ANBU: more free time, more energy—more time to reflect.
It was corrosive.
How far away was she, some unsightly, shivering part of her whispered. How many bodies? How much blood? In ounces or in quarts?
For the first time in a very long time, she wished she were…closer. To her parents, maybe. To someone. She wished (in that irrational, unmitigated way that can only happen in the privacy of one's own thoughts) that there was someone who would come now, if she asked, and could lie to her, if she needed, and that she would believe them. Could believe them-that it was alright.
She leaned back in her bed and forced her eyes shut, even though sleep wouldn't come for hours, and even then, not for long.
This continued for the next few nights.
The universe, it seemed, had a knack of holding Sakura to her promises, with very little consideration or regard for her altogether.
It took less than a week.
"Be still, Sasuke," Sakura hissed, her fist landing with unbridled strength in the midsection of a tall woman with bright, white hair. She felt her ribcage compress beneath her knuckles, felt them cave in, and then shatter.
Not wasting a spare second, she shunshined through the swarm of sound shinobi in the narrow cave. Their team had been split as soon as they had been ambushed—she and Sasuke were only in one of many in a network of caves the sound shinobi now populated like bees in a hive.
Sakura bared her teeth in frustration as she brought a chakra lit hand to the wound on Sasuke's leg.
Watch him.
"Get off me—"
"Don't move," she snarled. She forced her fingers into the wound, past the exposed muscle and bone to the artery that had been all but shredded.
"They must've been tracking us for days," Sasuke exhaled, face contorted in rage, "Kabuto, that sniveling, worthless—he must have found out my chakra was sealed."
Despite whatever he was capable of at his peak, she acknowledged sourly, a chakra-bound Sasuke had been a more than achievable target in the middle of this small army of shinobi.
Just one lucky shinobi with enough medical knowledge to make a crude, surgical incision was all that had been necessary.
"Stop moving," she ordered. "This injury will kill you in the next minute unless I hold the frayed ends of your artery together exactly like this."
A heavyset man wielding a chakra-lit spear emerged at the forefront of the clamoring pack heading straight for them. Sakura watched him with careful anticipation, timing her crouch for the precise moment he was in arm's reach. She lashed her foot out with chakra-induced strength, sending the lower half of his leg snapping in the opposite direction of his femur.
She caught the sword of the next sound shinobi on the shoulder guard of her flak jacket. Her hand latched in the same motion onto the front of the woman's face. She squeezed, until she felt the consciousness leave beneath her hands, shoved her back a second later.
Her gaze flicked up in annoyance to survey the rest. They had been biding their time as their comrades attacked, would attack in the next few seconds. To keep her right hand still, she had to keep the entire right side of her body stationary; that meant no twisting or rotating. That left her with one hand and one leg, all on the left.
Which wasn't sustainable, Sakura realized with thin lips.
As the first woman moved, body beginning to blur in the telling signs of shunshin, Sakura made a split-second decision. Her left hand burrowed into the floor of the cave with thunderous strength. The resulting sound was deafening, like a clap of thunder.
And then the entire cavernous structure around them began collapsing.
The rock fell like rainfall: at first, slow and unpredictable. Then, suddenly, faster and blurring. She saw a boulder as big as a horse drop directly on the man mid-shunshin to them, crushing him to death.
Sakura gritted her teeth and raised her left forearm, muscle tensed in preparation as the rest came down on them, chakra-lit fingers still wrapped tightly around the artery in Sasuke's thigh.
The first boulder was nothing. Her arm didn't shift a millimeter. The second and the third, directly on top of that, were similarly insignificant. It was the fourth that made her left foot shift back slightly. Then the next few came, and her arm buckled toward her head a centimeter before she steeled herself, gritted her teeth, and forced her forearm back up.
Ten seconds—ten infinite, torturous seconds—passed until everything stilled. By then, it felt like she was holding up a mountain, her forearm just scarce millimeters above the crown of her head. Beneath her forearm, until the boulder right above her gave out, she and Sasuke were shielded from the rest.
Agony seared through her body. She panted, breathless.
"What did you do?" she heard Sasuke hiss in the utter darkness.
She could have let him die, some part of her realized dully. Could have just let him bleed to death as she took on the rest of the sound shinobi. It wouldn't have even been hard, she mourned. She was exceptionally good at the killing aspect of her job. This wouldn't have even required any extra effort on her part.
(She hadn't thought, when she had made that first choice—even the next—that she would be putting herself on the chopping block with him. And yet here she was, risking her life for Sasuke. Almost entirely unintentionally.)
Fuck.
She felt the artery finally finish knitting together at the exact time her left arm buckled. Sasuke gave a hoarse roar of pain as she wrenched her other hand out of his leg and brought it up to support the piles of rock above them.
He shifted immediately, brushing her leg. "Try…to…minimize movement," she strangled out to him.
"This was your plan to save us?"
Ungrateful bastard.
"You can't hold that forever."
She knew.
"A minute, if at all."
"Sasuke, even if we're both about to die now," Sakura whispered hoarsely, "you're well on your way to convincing me to strangle you in the fraction of a second I'd have before those rocks crush us."
Silence met her words.
Then, tonelessly: "Save your breath."
Alluding to their diminishing oxygen supplies issue, she understood glumly. Her legs bent against her will, her feet sinking well into what remained of the cave floor. She could feel the muscles in her forearms tearing, the skin there scraped raw.
She let out a coarse, ugly cry as her shoulders started to tremble violently.
"Sakura," was all Sasuke said. She didn't have the brain power to analyze the way he said it.
Her eyes stung with frustration, because she could feel it. It felt like fighting the ocean. There was no way she could win. There was only the time until she gave in.
(The muscle in her right forearm tore just as she heard it.)
A shrill, sing-song screech, like the chirping of the birds.
She blinked dazedly in the darkness, trying to understand. There was a low, guttural rumbling sound growing louder and closer, like something was coming straight toward them.
Until that split second the boulder above her shattered, she didn't even realize that her load had begun to lighten. It went from everything, abruptly, to nothing—too quick even for her to luxuriate in the change. Dust and debris from the decimate rock filled the air. Her panting breaths turned ragged.
Sakura looked up and encountered then—what seemed for one, irrational second—the face of divine rage itself. The face above her was luminous (a consequence of the raikiri, she would later rationalize), sharper and harder by the starkness of the darkness around them.
She inhaled, soundlessly—and then the oxygen rushed back into her brain.
"Sakura! Sasuke!" she heard Naruto cry. He careened down from somewhere higher, kicking off one boulder onto another until he reached them. His gaze flitted between her and Sasuke.
Sakura knew she looked far worse than Sasuke at the moment. She wasn't surprised when Naruto moved like a bullet straight toward her.
"Don't touch her." Kakashi caught him viciously by the collar and swung him a few meters away.
As Naruto stared in confusion, Sai touched ground beside him, silent and pale. His dark eyes seemed larger than usual.
"What's broken?" the man inches from her demanded, eyes roving over her body.
Sakura opened her mouth and tasted blood. Her nose had bled. She hadn't even noticed.
"His femoral artery," she wheezed, trying to sound firm. "I knitted it together, but the hold is tenuous at best—"
"Not him," the copy-nin snarled. She saw black spots and blinked slowly. A hand came into view, snapping harshly. "Look at me. Talk."
"My arms…the muscles. They're torn. My triceps too. I think I dislocated both shoulders"—she shifted experimentally, and held back a scream of pain—"my left knee too."
Blessed green chakra crossed the field of her vision, and then it was supplied directly to her body. A dopey smile crossed Sakura's face. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Sai helping lift Sasuke gingerly onto Naruto's back.
"Feels nice," Sakura commented, eyes barely open.
The muscle in her arms finished knitting together. Muscle was always easier than veins or arteries.
"Nice," she sighed again.
The skin on her forearms sealed.
"Should she be conscious for this?" she heard Sai murmur.
Hands grasped her thigh and her calf firmly, then moved quickly, aligning her knee back into place. Sakura swore viciously, forcibly ripped from the happy place she had been before.
Her eyes widened in horror. "Don't you dare," she managed to get out.
He slid her shoulders back into place in lightning quick succession.
"You absolute worthless piece of trash fucker," she choked out.
But he had already turned to face the rest of their team. "Full speed back to Konoha," he commanded abruptly, voice returned seamlessly to its usual indifference. Sakura wondered if she had imagined there being anything different before. "I'll take Sasuke. His current condition will require more finesse than you two are capable of giving."
Sai brushed her shoulder with his own. "So," he said almost soundlessly, "how does one go in less than a month from trying to kill Uchiha Sasuke to almost dying to save him?"
"Not that this is a conversation for a grocery store," she said genially. "But are you threatening me?"
Chapter 26: The Things They Carried
Sasuke had been dying because of his injuries; her primary concern had been an oncoming avalanche of rocks.
And yet, both Sasuke and she were held overnight for twenty four hour observation—because Kakashi apparently had never undergone any official medical ninjutsu training in his near two decades of being a combat shinobi. And that made his healing suspect.
Sakura spent the night glowering at the vase of daffodils an overexcited nurse had left at her bedside.
Twenty four hours later, she was generally unsurprised to find herself filling out a thick packet of the hospital's discharge paperwork. That Sasuke had been deemed to be in sufficient condition as well and was filling the same beside her was a bit surprising, but she took it all in stride—she had done a better job than she had though in those circumstances. Or (more likely) Hinata was an excellent healer.
As they waited for the nurse to check their documents over, Sakura rested her chin in her hand. She couldn't help the curl of distaste on her mouth.
"A thank you," she considered, "could be appreciated."
He leaned back into his chair across from her, dark eyes unreadable. "Your actions were unnecessary and unwanted."
It had occurred to her, sometime during the past half hour (and between contemptuous glances directed her way), that given…recent actions, he might still somehow think her still a devoted fan.
"I really don't know how it's escaped your notice, Sasuke," Sakura said, smile dropping, "but I don't actually like you very much."
The contempt didn't leave his expression.
Sakura arched an eyebrow. "You put a hole through Naruto's chest, and have tried in the time since to put a hole through mine. That's not very nice. Kind of makes me want to put one through yours too."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow back. "What an animus to overcome yesterday, then."
"You're back on Team Seven now," she retorted. Sakura rotated her shoulders to get some residual soreness out of them. "So, yes, I tried to save your life. Because that's what I owe you as a teammate. Same as what you owe me and every other person on this team too."
Sasuke's mouth thinned. "I pay my debts."
"Paperwork looks good," the nurse called out, giving them a nod. "You're all set to go."
"Amazing," Sakura announced, giving a wave to the nurse as she walked toward the exit.
She swung open the door to leave the medical ward with extra vigor, pausing when she realized that the recognized the two individuals on the other side.
Naruto and Sai stood side by side, locked deep in conversation. It took a few seconds for them to see her and Sasuke.
"They've let you out already?" Sai asked.
Sakura gave a grunt of assent.
"Right," the blonde beside him declared abruptly, "so we should have dinner together."
Sasuke scoffed. Sakura was polite enough to not do the same out loud. "We just got out of here, Naruto. This isn't the time for…whatever it is you think it's the time for."
"It's my idea," Sai interjected calmly.
That brought Sakura up short. "Yours?" she clarified.
"Yeah," Naruto affirmed. "I support it too, though. Obviously."
"And I rather think you owe me a dinner, Sakura," Sai said, smiling slightly.
Her mouth flattened. It was the least of what she owed him. Naruto's smile widened as he read the resignation on her face.
"And because you owe me and Sasuke owes you," Sai continued, equally assuredly, "I believe he might owe me a dinner too."
Sasuke's gaze narrowed.
"If I have to go, you're coming too," Sakura muttered. "You pay your debts, don't you?"
Naruto turned on his heel with business-like focus, making straight for the door. Sai tilted his head, a curve to his lips.
She was modestly surprised when he brought them into a crowded bar, dim lit with pulsing lights and music.
"Uh, Sai," Naruto said, hands in his pockets as he surveyed the establishment he had unsuspectingly entered. "I thought we said dinner?"
A pair of giggling chunin—a green-haired girl and a rail thin boy—brushed past them. Sakura's gaze tracked the pair with some interest, before a new figure appeared before them.
"Sai," the bartender greeted, a wide smile across her full lips. Her eyebrows raised a second later. "And…friends?"
"Mirai-san," Sai said, bowing his head in acknowledgement. "You have the table I requested?"
"Of course," she said, still sounding a little shocked. She cleared her throat, pointing above the bar counter to a point to their left. Sakura turned her head and located what looked to be the last free table in the establishment, a circular booth with plush red seating.
Sakura followed Sai and Naruto followed Sakura. Sasuke sat down on the very edge of the curved cushion with an air of extreme detestation.
A waitress passed by, depositing a tall bottle of shochu and three glasses. "Mirai-san said on the house."
"I know that you just left the hospital," Sai announced, unblinking, "However, you were both cleared for discharge, so I see no reason you cannot partake in this…team-building exercise."
"Team-building exercise," Sakura echoed with polite disbelief.
"Precisely," Sai confirmed, dark eyes glinting. His gaze shifted toward Sasuke. "Unless you just happen to have weak stomachs."
Sakura rolled her eyes.
"Ha," Naruto barked out a laugh. He jabbed a thumb in Sasuke's direction "One time, this bastard forgot to bring water on a mission, so he stole a water pouch off of one of our assignments. He started chugging it—only it wasn't water—and spewed his guts out for the next hour. I had to hold his duck ass hair back the entire—"
A glass clanked loudly against the ebony finish of the table. "Pour," Sasuke hissed.
"Of course," Sai said with a plastic smile. He tipped the heavy bottle over with elegant ease, filling all four cups to the brim.
"How on earth did you find this place?" Sakura sniffed at the cup.
"I had read that bar-hopping was a socializing activity commonly practiced by both civilian and shinobi. I conducted some research into locations preferred by shinobi in our rough age group, and this location was referenced most frequently."
Naruto grunted.
"I discovered 'pin pon pan' in a similar manner," Sai stated.
His words were met with blank stares.
"I, too, was unfamiliar with this exercise," Sai acknowledged, tipping his head, "It is, however—I have observed it to be—extremely popular among shinobi our age. We must sit in a circular formation, as we are now. Someone begins the game by saying 'pin,' and the person to their left has to follow with 'pon,' while the person to their left must follow with 'pan'. Once the 'pin, pon, pan' has been said, the person who said 'pan' must immediately point to a random member of the group who starts the cycle again. If you're caught unaware and lose the cycle, you lose and must drink."
"And what exactly is the point of this?" Sasuke asked, lips curling.
"Obviously, to test our comparative reflexes."
"Sounds good to me," Naruto agreed sagely.
"Then," Sai prompted, "shall we start?"
At minute ten, Naruto lost his patience and elbowed Sasuke in the gut. The advent of violence introduced new rules into the game.
Within one hour, three bottles were empty.
"Fuck," she said out loud, rubbing her eyes as the room spun.
Naruto smiled at nothing in particular. He frowned, rubbing at his ribcage. "You all have really jab—jab-by…fingers."
A choked noise—vaguely like laughter—emerged from the least likely of sources. Sasuke grimaced a second later, as though in pain.
"Leave," Sakura said suddenly, sitting bolt upright. "Time to leave."
"I can't," Naruto whined, head burrowed in Sai's lap.
Sakura pulled him up with one hand and then swung him onto her back. She rocked forward slightly but stabilized herself with concerted effort.
"Sakura," he whispered, a tone of horror to the words, "I think I might throw up."
"Don't," she hissed.
"Okay," Naruto hiccupped. He rested his head on her shoulder and shut his eyes.
Sakura shook him. "Don't go to sleep either," she muttered. Her gaze shot to Sai, then to Sasuke. "Can you get him?"
"Don't touch me," Sasuke snapped, batting the other boy's hand away. He stood—and then veered to the side.
He cast his arm about for some means of stabilization.
In the end—and determinedly not looking at him—Sasuke's arm ended up swung over Sai's neck, using the other boy's bodyweight to keep himself upright.
"They look alike," Naruto whispered confidentially to her.
"Huh?" Sakura demanded, squinting at them. She grew disturbed. "Whatever."
They stumbled out of the bar and onto the moonlit dirt road with more or less success, if not grace (more than one threat had been shouted at them because of an unintentionally upturned drink).
They paused once there, examining their respective passengers.
Sai blinked at Sasuke. "I have no idea where he lives."
He turned to her with a questioning look. She had nothing to offer him.
"I believe I can help with that," a new figure interjected smoothly, emerging from the shadows. Sakura turned (a little slower than usual). Sai stiffened.
Itachi stood before them, in a simple white shirt and black pants, expression revealing nothing.
"Ha," Sakura breathed out in delighted astonishment, straightening. "Were you waiting out there? Does Sasuke have a curfew? Did he break it?"
"Sakura," Sai muttered, seeming abruptly sober, "perhaps don't antagonize the person who went on a murderous killing spree for—"
"Nii-san?"
Itachi's mouth parted fractionally.
"What are you doing here?" Sasuke asked blearily. He seemed suddenly to realize Sai next to him and shoved him away. He stumbled for balance.
Itachi caught him, hands wrapping firmly around his brother's upper arms. His sharingan spun—and then Sasuke collapsed, unconscious. He handled Sasuke with infinite care, shifting him in his hold.
"About Naruto," Sai said lightly.
Sakura twisted to follow his gaze. Naruto's face was scrunched up and paler than usual, like he was trying valiantly to hold something back.
"If you don't mind," Sakura said with a bright smile, depositing the blonde next to Sasuke. Naruto swayed forward and then moaned piteously as he collapsed against Itachi.
The older Uchiha stared down at both his charges, gaze narrow.
"Feel free to do the same—" Sakura waved her hands, in vague reference to the sharingan trick Itachi had pulled—"to him too. Have a great night."
"How did you meet it?"
Sakura stilled.
"The crow," Itachi said slowly.
Her shoulders tightened. "By accident. Have you seen…it recently?"
She could feel Sai's curious eyes burning into both of them.
"No," Itachi returned softly. The older man's mouth curved without feeling. "Licking its wounds, no doubt."
Even though Shisui had won those wounds fending Kakashi off for her, she felt no pity for it.
"Good," she said shortly. She nodded her farewell to Sai and made her way home.
Seven hours later, Kakashi's dark gaze assessed them with transparent disgust. Denial was pointless, of course, when their captain could smell better than a dog in heat.
"Just a late night," Sai tried very calmly, gaze protected from the sun by a pale hand.
Sasuke winced at the noise. Naruto was still cowering from any and all sunlight. And Sakura fervently wished that she had just thrown her alarm clock into the wall like she had wanted to that morning and never left her bed.
"The hokage has received intel on the location of a sleeper cell of sound operatives close to the village," Kakashi stated coldly, crouching on the boulder.
"They're after Sasuke?" Naruto demanded, straightening.
Kakashi's expression didn't change. "Apparently. We're capturing them for interrogation before they can ever reach Konoha soil."
"Oh?" Sasuke questioned through gritted teeth. "And I hope that the hokage has decided in her infinite wisdom to take off these shackles this time, given our last mission."
The copy-nin's feet hit the grass soundlessly. "Don't worry, Uchiha," Kakashi rasped, eyes glinting with cruel amusement. "In her infinite wisdom, the hokage has assigned us assistance to compensate for your…current handicaps."
But there was something off about his demeanor, Sakura noted distantly.
She understood only when three figures made their presence known, emerging from the shifting shadows beneath the gently swaying trees. The blood rushed out of Sakura's face.
Hyena body-flickered to Kakashi's right, head lowered slightly in deference. Snail and Bear blurred into corporeality at Hyena's shoulders.
"ANBU," Naruto muttered, mouth agape. "A mission with real ANBU."
Sai turned a polite smile toward the newest occupants of the training ground. "You are Kakashi-taichou's ANBU team?"
Sakura fought hard to regain control of her expression, look fiercely at the ground.
"We are," Snail said, bowing lightly. "We look forward to working with you, Team Seven."
"I am Sai," Sai said pleasantly. "These are my teammates: Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke. We apologize ahead of time for how ungrateful Sasuke will undoubtedly be during this mission."
Sasuke's head rolled back to give the black-haired boy a dark, considering look. That disrupted Sakura momentarily from her stupor.
"Back off," she said tonelessly.
Sasuke's eyes flashed, like that made him consider it more.
An unexpected figure intervened. "Drop it, Sasuke," Naruto said lowly, face hard. He shifted his position slightly, so that the breadth of his shoulders blocked Sai from his line of sight.
Sai looked like he had been struck over the head. Sakura was also…mildly surprised. She didn't think she had ever heard Naruto take that tone with Sasuke.
"I'm sick of fucking brats," Bear growled, annoyance thick in his voice. "We just got the redhaired one off the squad, and now this."
"Bear," Hyena snapped.
"They can never handle themselves," the man continued, venomous, "just marching onto that field with a temper and no brain and a fucking expiration date—"
"Enough," Snail barked out, hair swinging forward. Something more than anger rang in her voice—something sharper, harder, grating like broken glass.
Sakura's lips thinned. She didn't know if the grief in Snail's was for her—it could have been for anything, given how frequently terrible things happened in ANBU—but it made her…wonder. What they had been told. If there had been a ceremony at the headquarters for her. If they had said anything.
Maybe it was better, she thought bitterly, not to know.
(She had…missed them.)
"Don't betray yourself," Kakashi commanded lowly. Sakura's head snapped up. He wasn't looking at her.
"It will be sunset when we infiltrate," the copy-nin informed them, expression unreadable. "Make sure your henges are flawless. Give no indication that you are shinobi."
"Our relationship with the hidden village in the Land of Steam is tenuous and cannot be compromised," Hyena explained.
Naruto shifted uncomfortably, scratching his head. "Ah, I've never been on this kind of a mission before…"
"Yeah?" Bear said irately. "We're here to keep you in check too."
Sakura inhaled the scent of the warm ocean deeply, yukata fluttering in the gentle breeze. Holding onto her arm, Snail stared silently at the reflection of the moon onto the crystal clear waves as they walked.
"What a handsome young couple," an old woman called out, emerging from her stall. Examples of her wares—light, gossamer scarves—dangled from her thin arms. "Just married?"
"We're good," Sakura said shortly, determined to follow the route Hyena had indicated on their map. The inn the sound-nin were purportedly occupying couldn't be far.
"Honeymooners," Snail responded with a sweet smile, making a show of eyeing one of the scarves. Sakura grimaced. She supposed one of the sound-nin could be in their vicinity.
"See?" the woman tsked, "The lady is interested. You'll learn quickly, young man, that the key to a good marriage is saying yes to your young lady. Always."
Sakura nodded impatiently.
Snail patted Sakura's face, pouting. "Don't look so glum, Yakiro. Indulge me for a few minutes, and then we'll head to the inn."
"Honeymooners indeed, I see," the old woman commented, grinning wickedly. The smirk persisted as she asked, "What colors do you like, miss? With rich, brown hair like that, this pink one would look stunning."
"You think?" Snail asked shyly, her henge's round face blushing lightly.
"He'll go wild when he sees you in it," the woman whispered confidentially—and not every quietly.
Sakura kept her expression blank with minimal effort.
After some back and forth, coins exchanged hands, and they walked away from the beaming shopkeeper at a leisurely pace.
Snail craned up to brush a kiss on her cheek. "Naruto and Bear ahead at 12 o'clock," she murmured by her ear.
They were all on schedule, then. Sakura smiled down at her and then subtly sped up their pace.
The inn—loudly proclaimed 'Secret Lovers' Paradise' on a bright flashing sign—was not in fact an inn at all, but a love hotel. Sakura could see how this was strategic. No one questioned or paid attention to the comings and goings of a love hotel's occupants, employees often being paid precisely not to.
"Ten thousand yen for a room," the squat man at the luridly colored front desk stated. "No negotiating."
"We're honeymooners," Snail cajoled, blinking prettily. "Can't we get a discount?"
"Ha," the man said, unsmiling. "Keep the fantasies to the bedroom."
As Sakura handed over the required amount of money, she surveyed the area discreetly to locate easy exits.
"First floor room, please," Sakura asked. When the squat man looked like he was about to protest, she said firmly, "I'm scared of heights. Deathly."
He released a beleaguered sigh and then bent down to rummage for a different key from the one he had been about to hand them. "Don't complain to me about the noise," the man said crassly. "The first floor has been bizarrely popular tonight, kami knows why. When you put a second mortgage on your house to pay for a first-class ocean view—"
"Have a great night!" Snail called out cheerily, tugging Sakura forward. They climbed the plush red staircase until they reached a hallway.
A door cracked open soundlessly just as their feet brushed the carpet, revealing a silver-haired woman with red, hawkish eyes. There was something instantly sensuous about how she carried herself, like she had been born beautiful, knew it, and had had years of practice at it.
She scoffed internally—what else would she expected of a female henge from the copy-nin? She slipped quickly behind the door, tugging Snail behind her.
A man was tied and gagged on the bed, unconscious.
"Are all of the targets in the hotel?" Snail asked, eyes scanning the unconscious sound-nin.
"According to him—" Kakashi's red eyes flicked disparagingly to the sound-nin as well—"two left around sunset to gather supplies. Hyena and Sasuke are after them."
"Where is Sai?" Sakura kept her voice as even as possible.
"Handling the woman on the floor above us," Kakashi said shortly, sliding kunai beneath the thin material of his dress. His-or the henge's-leg extended with the motion, long and toned. Sakura had a hard time removing her eyes from it. "There are seven in total. Six sound shinobi and an A-rank mercenary Kabuto hired to spearhead the infiltration."
"How are we getting the bodies out?" Snail started tying her henge's thick hair back from her face.
"Laundry chute. Naruto and Bear are stationed there to collect them. Haruno—take the twins in 612. Snail, 334 and 214. I'll handle the mercenary in 701."
"Taichou," Snail asked hesitantly, sending Sakura a strange look. "Wouldn't it be better for me to take 612? I might be better back up. In case the A-rank mercenary gets too noisy."
"She'll do," Kakashi said distantly. Snail bowed her head sharply and then slipped out the door.
She yanked her gaze away as Kakashi turned towards her again.
"Enter through the window," he ordered. He slid into the hallway as well a second later.
Sakura glowered for a moment. Then she shifted stiffly over to the window and pushed it open. Bracing her foot on the ledge, she swung herself on to the top of the window frame.
Nudging her toes and fingers into the grooves where the ocean wind had naturally eroded the building's façade, she pulled herself up the side of the building. It was dark, thankfully, or she would have been more concerned about being detected by civilians. The breeze was stronger the higher she climbed, and she became increasingly grateful for the male henge's short hair.
Five levels up and shifted five rooms to the right positioned her exactly where 612 would be. Sakura loosened a kunai from her sleeve. She used it to pick the lock and then rolled into the room.
The first occupant—who had been exiting the bathroom, door still swinging shut behind him—she caught in a genjutsu, dropping him to his knees. The second, seated on the bed, she struck with blunt fingers to the throat; this twin was quicker, managing to side-step the full force of the strike. Only two fingers landed, damaging his larynx enough to keep him from making noise, but not to killl him.
He flipped over to the other side of the bed, eyes slitted. He was rangy in build, but his features were delicate, even doll-like, beneath lime green hair.
Sakura leisurely strolled over to his brother and dropped a heavy fist on the top of his head. He crumpled like a sack of potatoes.
She raised her head again to the twin across the room, arching an eyebrow. "Come on."
As his form began to flicker with impressive speed, it occurred to her that she might have underestimated her opponent slightly. She had gotten the drop on his twin, but not this one.
Tubes emerged from beneath his sleeves, emitting a high pressure of air that she couldn't hear but caused piercing agony in her ears. Sakura scowled and flung a pair of kunai at him; as he evaded them, she slid over the bed and twisted, flinging her leg around with the momentum of her body.
The green-haired shinobi ducked her leg and shoved his palm into her midsection. Sakura's body was blasted back by a violent pulse of air. She managed to latch onto his wrist before she was fully blown back. Using this hold, she flung herself up, feet skating across the ceiling, until she landed on the carpeted floor behind him.
Before he could turn, she grabbed his throat from behind and squeezed until she felt his body relax into a state of unconsciousness. His body dropped with a heavy thud.
Thankfully, the noise was probably nothing out of the ordinary in the likes of a love hotel. She lifted the twin she had knocked out first onto her back and located the laundry chute at the end of the hallway. Wary of any opening doors, she shifted him from off her back and sat him onto the edge of the chute. She pushed him down.
A middle-aged man exited one of the rooms and passed by her with heavy, slightly clumsy footsteps, waving drunkenly. She waved back absentmindedly.
She hadn't heard any unusual sounds above her, she considered, head cocking to the side as she turned back toward the room. It seemed the A-rank mercenary upstairs was being handled without much difficulty. Once she got the second twin down the chute—and assuming everything else had gone generally to schedule—they could be out of the Land of Steam and back on their way to Konoha.
Opening the door and shutting it quickly beside her, Sakura approached the second twin, who lay prone along the bed. His eyes scrunched at the sound of her footsteps, a telling sign of impending consciousness.
Just as she was about to hit him over the head—just enough to knock him out but not enough to make him unusable for interrogators—a scratching noise reached her ears from the bathroom.
Sakura froze.
Twins, Kakashi had said. Two sound-nin.
Was there a third combatant in the bathroom, unaccounted for? She hadn't sensed any other chakra.
She shunshined to the bathroom door and nudged it open. Her nostrils flared, put off by the smell.
She found nothing out of the ordinary. Then, she looked down.
A girl, scantily clad and thin—so thin that she couldn't have seen a good meal in months, maybe even in years—was stretched along the pale pink tub. Her wrists, bony and scarred, were shackled to the faucets. Each breath she took sounded painful, outlining the painful definition in her ribs.
Round, blue eyes, framed by messy, smudge eyeliner like bruises, met hers, bleary and dilated from drugs.
Sakura took an unwitting step back, shoulder blades thudding with the door. The girl flinched at the noise, wrists tugging helplessly at her shackles in a futile motion to cover her head.
"No," Sakura said, "I'm not—"
It didn't matter what she said. At the sound of her voice, the girl in the tub began crying, the noise muffled because the gag in her mouth. Her body shifted, and suddenly Sakura was able to see the welts and purple bruises all along her legs.
She had ripped out the still-beating hearts from grown men and women. She had smelled the sweet-rotten incense of burning flesh. She had been party to the violence that had evoked the most agonized screams she had ever heard in her life.
But she had not been inured against this.
She bent over the toilet. Nothing came up as she panted through the nausea, eyes firmly shut.
"You've been more trouble than I anticipated."
Hands restraining her arms. Other hands on her legs. The sharp pain of hair being ripped from her scalp. She couldn't move, couldn't fight—
The man behind her bending down, sniffing her hair, grunting at what he smelled.
"What do you think?"
Thick, cloying liquid dribbling from her mouth.
"I think it's only fair compensation, given what she's done to our friend over there."
Hands on her legs, pulling—
Sakura's eyes snapped open, the phantom taste of blood and milk on her tongue.
The Voice nudged within her, insidious and hungry.
The girl continued to whimper in the tub. Sakura pivoted on her knees and grasped her head.
"Quiet," she instructed. The girl looked even more frightened. "I'm going to remove the gag. I'm going to untie you. But you can't scream."
Blue eyes watched her, wide, as she snapped the metal like it was a cracker. Giving her a warning look, Sakura slowly removed the gag.
"W-who are you?" the girl stammered, voice weak.
Sakura stood, expression dead. "Don't come out. Not until I say."
She exited the bathroom and shut the door behind her. The sound-nin on the bed had regained enough consciousness to roll onto his side. Purple eyes opened sluggishly, enraged.
You saw, the Voice coaxed. You saw what they did to her.
Sakura folded up the sleeves of her yukata.
It's exactly what those traffickers would have done to you, the Voice whispered in her head. That would have been YOU, if not for ME.
The sound-nin sat up, hands clawing at the bedsheets.
Sakura struck his face viciously, watched stoically as his head smacked against the headboard.
"I'll kill you for this," the man choked out, blood dripping into his eyes. "I'll slit you from groin to your throat—"
She used the back of the same hand to hit him again, harder. He cursed through the damaged remains of his vocal chords.
Sakura's shoulders rolled back, her fists braced loosely in front of her. The Voice started to laugh wildly in her head.
She heard nothing else.
Her fists were weightless, there was the feeling of something dripping into the grooves of her fingers, beneath her nails, into the lines in her palms, and discomfort too, because her mouth was stretched wide like she was grinning—
Grinning.
"Stop," a harsh voice ordered in her ear. Hands wrapped like manacles around her forearms.
The feeling of being restrained agreed as well with her as a hot poker down her throat.
She tensed her muscles and broke the hold, whipping around. The entire lighting of the room was done in a deep red, casting the lithe female body in front of her into a monochrome of crimson.
Sakura bared her teeth, fist clenched as she started to turn back to the sound-nin.
"You're scaring her," Kakashi said, almost soundless.
Her head snapped to the bathroom. The door was ajar. A gaunt, slight figure trembled in the doorway. Blue eyes were watching her with something like hard-won clarity, a sort of petrified focus cutting through the haze of drugs.
It wasn't the sound-nin she was watching with fear.
The air rushed out of her lungs. Sakura swiped the hair back from her face. Damp fingers intertwined with short, brown strands. Her henge's.
"I'm not," she said hoarsely. She took a small step toward her.
Something in the frail figure snapped. A desperate sort of violence seemed to come over her, compelling her forward with clawed hands. The girl-from-the-bathroom didn't scream—she didn't even have the energy for that; ragged pants filled Sakura's ears as she was attacked, nails scrabbling weakly at her face, palms hysterically shoving her into the bed.
Sakura let herself be pushed back, numb.
Pulling a bathrobe off from one of the hooks, the girl tied it clumsily around herself and sprinted out the door, shoving it shut behind her with all of her meager might. The final thud echoed thunderously in the room.
For a few, infinite moments, Sakura could hear only her heartbeat. Then she pulled herself off the bed, teetering onto her feet.
Kakashi watched her, silent.
"This is your fault," she whispered. She began to wipe the blood on her hands onto the bedsheets, slowly at first, and then in a frenzy of motion.
"Sakura," he said sharply.
She jolted at the sound of her name (not Haruno?). Then, she ripped her hands out of the bedsheets and lifted one hand, pointing a lone, quivering finger at him.
"This is your fault," she said lowly.
The copy-nin's gaze shifted to the unconscious figure on the bed. "You'll need to heal him on our way back or he'll be useless."
"Look at me," Sakura demanded, voice guttural.
After a long pause, red eyes flicked up to meet hers. Kakashi's jaw—softer, more delicate in his henge—tightened.
"This is your fault," she repeated into his face. She clenched her teeth until it hurt.
He stared at her, expressionless. But his gaze—it wasn't skeptical or disbelieving. It felt, instead, like he was merely been waiting—that, maybe, he had been all this while.
The air burned in Sakura's lungs.
"And mine," she garbled out, rocking on her feet. She shoved the meat of her palms into her eyes. "I was weak and stupid, and you let me be."
"I let you be," said Kakashi without pause or particular inflection.
"But they didn't," Sakura panted. "They didn't let that brainless, oblivious, moron of a girl be. They held my arms and my legs and they pulled my hair when I tried to scream—"
The body against her convulsed—every muscle abruptly, ferociously activated.
"And for what they tried," she said, as unflinching as rock, voice cold, "I killed them."
The ocean wind blew, rattling the not-quite shut window.
"And then," she said hoarsely, "I got into the habit of it."
She exhaled—and maybe she imagined it, that he exhaled with her. That it felt like—in that moment—they were the same entity, united by this singular thing, this affliction—or was it something else? She didn't know. She couldn't think.
How could she? She gritted her teeth in futile resistance, because the air burned in her lungs. Was her own breath poison to her? What had it been like to breathe without pain? Was this how it all ended? To be ruined from the inside out?
It was something like the desire to live that drove her forward—not lust or veneration. She surged against him, lips landing painfully on his—only they were different, fuller, not-his, until suddenly they were—
He forced her head away; her neck snapped to the side.
"Don't," he told her, voice brutal.
The henge had…dissipated. Sakura's eyes trailed over his restored features: the patrician nose, the thin lips, the pale, scarred skin, the mismatched eyes. Hers had not.
Her gaze roved over him, eyes narrow. "Don't?"
She shifted forward, testing him. She found herself flipped and shoved into the wall, cheek scraping against the rough wallpaper.
Sakura inhaled and exhaled, breath even. Then, she stepped away, cool.
His expression was tightly restrained—and forbidding.
She stared at him as she bent down to pick up the body of the sound-nin. She stared at him even as she lifted that body onto her back, bile rising in her throat. She didn't break his gaze until she left the room to send that final body down the laundry chute. He didn't look away either.
Chapter 27: Holy Palmers' Kiss
"Apologies for the wait."
Sakura nodded brusquely and tossed back the cup that had been slid in her direction. Mirai, Sakura vaguely remembered Sai calling her, raised her eyebrows.
"Have a lot to forget, do you?"
Sakura kept her tone unaffected with determined effort. "Maybe I'm just looking for a good time."
"Oh," the buxom woman sighed sagely. "Is that why you're downing shots away from your friends at the table?"
Sakura pushed away from the counter, scowling slightly.
Naruto remained just as she had left him, with an expression of mild disgust on his features. Sai nodded at her in greeting. She nodded back and began chewing on some of the food they had ordered.
"It's unnatural," Naruto said after a long silence.
Sai calmly sipped his glass of water. "On the contrary, it's rather normal."
"You didn't know him," the blonde retorted, biting into some chicken. "In the academy, he acted like girls were bacteria. He didn't let them within three feet of him—just ask Sakura!"
Sakura shot him a glare, none too pleased to be invoked in this context.
"I, too, had virtually no sexual interest until very recently," Sai countered with a smile.
"You're different," Naruto said carefully, brows furrowing. "Sasuke is…"
Sasuke was, in all likelihood, manifesting some sort of unnecessary crisis in response to the fact that he had all but gotten away with being a rogue-nin, rejoined a team far more adept than he had left it, learned the truth about his brother, now lived with said brother, and (consequently) had something resembling a family and a functional team for the first time in over ten years.
Sakura sighed, aware that she was probably…deliberately being ungenerous. She didn't care, though.
"The way I see it, Sasuke's starting to give Sakura a run for his money," Sai commented casually.
"What are you talking about?" Naruto scoffed. "She's never stepped out in the middle on us."
"What do you think that long bathroom break last time with the visiting Suna chunin was, dickless?" Sai rolled his eyes.
Sakura coughed into her fist.
Naruto turned red. "It was just a bathroom break, wasn't it? Because you guys weren't feeling too well—" he turned toward her—"Wasn't it?"
Sakura lifted her head, staring at him. "I'm not sure what you want me to say," she said finally.
Naruto's mouth turned down.
Her mood darkened. "I'm not a monk, Naruto."
He blinked back at her defensive tone, expression lightening. "Er— What?"
"You seem to constantly expect the best of me, and I have no idea why," Sakura continued, and it was the alcohol that smoothed the way for the words she would have normally left unvoiced. "I'm mean, rude, and, yes, I lie. A lot."
Naruto's expression grew grim. He straightened in his chair as Sai watched them both, dark eyes bright. "Sakura—"
But she was on a roll now. "And do you even remember how I used to treat you? I was selfish, and I treated you like dirt. Sasuke was better than me. And I don't think— I don't think I've ever apologized for that, somehow."
"You could now," Sai suggested.
Her glance cut to him. "I am sorry," she said curtly, not able to look at Naruto. "But the point is: I never set that bar high. So I'm not sure why you try to be—Why you try to make me be—"
She couldn't find the right words, so she gave up. She leaned back into her chair and tilted her head back.
"I was just surprised, is all," she heard Naruto say, voice calm.
Sakura stared at the ceiling.
"I miss things that happen around me. I can be…self-involved. We both know that, don't we?"
After a pause, Sakura rolled her head to look at him. "You've had to be," she said quietly. "How else were you supposed to survive when no one else was going to look after you. I remember."
"And what about you?" Naruto asked sharply.
She flinched, eyes narrowing.
The blonde sighed noisily. "That's not what I mean. Don't look at me like that," he stated evenly. "I'm not demanding answers anymore. What I mean is— I'm not holding you to any bar, Sakura, whatever that means. I'm not holding any of us to that. I just want…"
Sai placed his chopsticks down on his plate, solemn.
"I just want more," Naruto finished, eyes burning. "For all of us. Everything we don't have or we've lost—we can make it ourselves. I don't have a mom or a dad or siblings, but I've got a team, haven't I? Who said that couldn't be enough?"
Sakura's fingers gripped the edge of the table, creating small dents.
"Team Seven: a team by, for, and of the orphans," Sai considered.
"No," Naruto said distractedly, "Sakura has parents."
Sai's gaze paused on Sakura. "Really? You never talk about them."
Sakura shrugged stiffly. "I don't see them much, day-to-day. I see my mom every few weeks or so—she'll call me over for a meal."
"And your dad?" Naruto asked, brow furrowing.
"My father is the head of our family merchant business, so he spends most of the seasons of the year traveling," she answered easily.
Sai's mouth pursed. "You call your mother 'mom'," he said lightly, "and you call him father."
Sakura paused. "We're not particularly close." Of the facts pertaining to her personal life, this was among the least consequential to her. "I probably haven't seen him in years because of his business and then my timing with missions."
"Oh," Naruto said, expression looking a little lost.
Sasuke chose this moment to return to their table. Nothing about his person revealed what had transpired; even his hair was impeccable.
"Were her knees alright?" Sai asked politely. "I can't imagine twenty minutes on the tile in those back restrooms is particularly comfortable."
"Speaking of which," Naruto said wearily, "apparently, you and Sakura might want to start up a list. Or you might…double-pollinate or something."
"I don't pollinate, Naruto," Sakura said irately.
Sasuke's black eyes flicked to her. They shared a quiet moment of mutual disgust.
The next morning, Sakura woke to the sound of scratching against her window. Fully prepared to see the crow beckoning at her window, she flipped over in her bed with malice. Her glare dropped as she located an unfamiliar hawk. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she stumbled over to the window and crack it open. The bird hopped in with an indignant caw. Her fingers fumbled with the string for a long minute, until she was finally able to release the scroll from the hawk's body and open it.
Name: Haruno Sakura
Rank: Chunin
Team Designation: 7
Your name has been suggested for psychological review. Please book an appointment within the next two weeks at your convenience. We look forward to your visit.
Regards,
Chako Yo
Sakura crumpled the parchment in her fist. Blood rushed in her ears, and her tight control over killing intent slipped. She heard a muffled shriek from the room below her.
She tossed the scroll into the trash and stalked over to her wardrobe, blindly pulling on some clothes. She spared a minute to splash water on her face and clean her mouth before heading toward the door. After a moment of hesitation, she bent to retrieve the scroll and then left.
"Hey!" a man in standard issue uniform called out as she exited her building. "Keep it under control, will you?"
She didn't spare him a second glance, senses sharpening as she scanned around her. Sakura wasn't a chakra sensor, but Kakashi didn't exactly keep his head down on a daily basis; when he wasn't purposefully suppressing his chakra, there was always an edge of impending violence, of barely-there restraint about him, although she was beginning to doubt that the latter was actually true—nevertheless, it made him easily locatable.
Sakura's jaw tightened as she found him.
Uncaring of who saw her, she propelled herself through the village along the rooftops until she reached the hokage's tower.
The crowd parted before her as she walked in. Sakura scowled and at last tried to tamp down on the killing intent she had been leaking. She walked toward the start of the spiral staircase that wrapped around the inside of the whole building. Although Sakura had come here often while studying under Tsunade, there were parts of the tower she had never seen. She had never known the purpose of the third floor, for example—which she seemed to be heading directly towards.
She pushed open the double set of doors positioned by the landing and entered a hallway of more doors—each with a schedule posted above the knob. Sakura's eyes narrowed as she spotted 'Chunin-Team Captains' Mandatory Meeting.'
She made a bee-line towards this room and swung open the door.
The first man, closest to the door, she didn't recognize. Sakura scanned over the rest of those seated around the large, square-shaped table that filled the room.
She paused on a familiar face composed of sharp features and red eyes. Hinata's captain, Kurenai, she remembered. Her eyes shifted left next to find Ino, Shikamaru, and Chouji's captain, Asuma, tanned and gruff-faced beside her. And then, finally, on the other side of both of them was Kakashi. He was almost ten years younger than everyone else in the room. Rather than this fact keeping him at attention, however, he was sprawled over a chair that was positioned the wrong way, opposite the table—so that his feet could rest on the large window sill.
The familiar woman, Kurenai, evaluated her calmly. "Haruno Sakura, right?"
Sakura's fingers thrummed on the door in impatience. He had yet to turn, even though he certainly could sense her in the room—had probably known the moment she had entered the tower.
"As the sign says," another jounin captain said, head tilting to the side, "this is a meeting for captains of chunin teams."
"Good," Sakura returned shortly, arms crossing as she leaned against the door. "I'm on a chunin team, and I'm looking for my captain."
"Another time, perhaps," Kurenai said, voice lightly warning.
Sakura didn't move.
Asuma sighed loudly and stood up. He gave her a vaguely annoyed look as he moved to stand in front of her, the dense mass of his body blocking her sight of the room.
He raised his eyebrow as he looked down at her, a cigarette caught between his lips. "Do I have to move you or are you going to move yourself?"
"Taichou," she called out, stoic.
The older man grunted. "The former then."
He stretched out a wide, tanned hand—presumably for her shoulder—and Sakura's gaze tracked it until a body shunshined between them and a new face looked down at her.
A lone dark eye gazed at her, disinterested. The hitai-ate was lowered, covering his sharingan. "What," he drawled. Sakura's mouth tightened.
"This," she said through gritted teeth, holding up the scroll.
Kakashi stared at it dispassionately. Sakura flicked the loose knot she had tied, and the scroll rolled down, revealing its contents. His body blocked the others from being able to read it.
"Hatake," Kurenai said sharply. "We still have items on the agenda to discuss. Remove your student from the room—"
"—so we can end this meeting and get on with our lives," Asuma finished boredly.
Kakashi's face was equally bland. "Carry on without me."
Sakura turned on her heel and opened the door, ignoring the protests that arose behind her. She didn't turn until she heard the door shut will an echoing thud behind her.
He moved past her, the upper half of his face unreadable, to a door on the opposite of the room at the end of the hall. He opened it and entered. She followed.
Sakura closed it behind her, the muscles in arm tensed in acute restraint. The other hand, in which she held the scroll, she raised.
"What is this?" she asked, voice blank.
"Don't waste my time with stupid questions," Kakashi answered, voice distant. "Ask the ones you mean."
Her shoulders tightened.
"Alright then," she admitted, voice dark. "Why?"
"It is the duty of a jounin captain to report potential cause for trauma of any kind directly to the center of psychological services—"
It took her a moment to breathe through her rage.
"I don't resent your suggesting my name," she said tightly, looking down at her knuckles. "I resent that you've suggested it knowing that I won't pass a review—" her mouth twisted—"That no ANBU would."
Accordingly, as informal policy, no ANBU were ever asked.
"You're not ANBU," he said tonelessly.
Sakura's nostrils flared. "I'm not ANBU anymore. But the brand's still on my shoulder. And its other legacies, evidently, persist."
"So take the time off," Kakashi ordered, eyes directed somewhere past her.
Sakura's chest hurt. "I can't."
His gaze at last met hers, his brow dark.
"Don't take this away from me," she hissed.
It terrified her, that he could—and that now, with something like reasonable justification, Tsunade might let him. Sakura didn't know what she would do without ANBU and Team Seven. Probably go crazy.
"I'm good at what I do," she argued. "I have the most experience on Team Seven. When I was in ANBU, you trusted me as your back up. I might have lost control that…that one time, but I've never compromised a mission—"
Sakura's mouth snapped shut.
That singular, dark eye roved over her, a strange quality in it.
"Are you punishing me?" she demanded, voice strangled.
A moment of silence range between them—and then Kakashi leaned forward, seething. Air hissed through the gaps around the window as the breeze shook the trees just outside, scattering the light. Her nails dug into the wood of the table. She wasn't conscious of her body acting, but in the next instant, she had pinned his hand beneath hers, flat onto the same table. His body reacted instinctively, twisting to evade the restriction. Sakura pressed down with punishing strength.
His eyes flew to hers. Her fingers flexed.
"What do you do?" she said, mouth barely opening.
His gaze narrowed.
Slowly, unconsciously, the pads of her fingers began to travel. His eyes tightened imperceptibly.
"How do you sleep without waking up and pretending—"
She traced the grooves around knuckles, followed the ridges of scars—so many scars—pressed into callouses.
(She wanted to touch him—his throat. To see if it trembled.)
The sound of the doorknob turning reached their ears. He reacted without batting an eye, wrist twisting away. She saw the moment Kurenai felt the killing intent in the air, oozing insidiously through the room like oil contaminating water. The older woman's muscles tensed slightly.
"Hatake," Kurenai said carefully, red eyes passing fleetingly over her and settling on him. "Your presence is required."
Kakashi's head tilted back, eyes coolly surveying her. A minute might have passed, before he pushed off the table and exited the room without another word. After a long, complex look Sakura's way, Kurenai left as well.
She stared for a moment at the empty room until, disturbed, she too opened the door and exited. Sakura bowed her head and steered herself single-mindedly toward the exit.
She paused only when, perhaps inevitably, she bumped into someone. "Sorry," she muttered.
"Sakura?"
Sakura lifted her head. Iruka smiled at her, wide and unreserved. The words died in her throat as she made eye contact with the person right behind him.
"Itachi?" she blurted.
"I know I taught you better than that, Sakura," Iruka said sternly.
Sakura kept her expression neutral with concerted effort at the oddly nostalgic rebuke. "Itachi-san," she submitted stiffly, "…why are you here?"
"I am filing some paperwork under Iruka-san's guidance," Itachi said, expression placid.
Sakura's gaze burned into him.
Iruka at last took pity on her. "As per the hokage's command, Itachi-san will be joining the Academy as an assistant instructor until he is combat-ready."
Her mouth dropped. "Really? An S-rank nin?"
There was no way Tsunade had come up with that on her own. Someone had to have convinced her. Strenuously.
"Sakura," Iruka warned sharply, eyebrow arching. "Formerly S-rank, to be clear."
"Right," she said blankly.
Her baffled gaze settled on Itachi. He was looking at Iruka through the corner of his gaze, an odd expression on his face: a little wary, perhaps. Sakura's brow furrowed. Itachi, an instructor at the Academy? Surrounded by bratty, impatient children who cried and whined…
Maybe, actually, it was oddly fitting. Certainly more than being a massacring traitor had been.
"Survive the week, and I'll buy you dango," she tossed over back, still bemused, as she left. The words left her mouth without much thought.
It was only once she exited the building that she realized that the words had been familiar—and not her own.
ANBU?! Your balls haven't even descended yet, Itachi. Listen-you better survive the week or I won't be buying you anymore dango. Remember that, okay? Dango.
She ended up returning to the hokage tower within the hour, summoned along with the rest of Team Seven. She felt strange, still, from the encounter she and Kakashi had had less than an hour ago. She tried not to stare at him.
"This one," Tsunade admitted, "is complicated."
"Complicated how?" Naruto demanded.
"There will be some…politics to navigate and be wary of," the hokage responded, inclining her head. "The risk of potential conflict is extremely low, but secrecy is extremely important to the client—hence the mission rank."
"To be honest, I'm not exactly sure this is the appropriate team to send." Her amber eyes flickered between Sakura and Kakashi, before landing dubiously on Naruto. "But," she sighed, "you're the only ones at-hand on such short notice and with a high-profile enough name to appease this client."
Sakura's head fell to the side, surveying Kakashi out of the corner of her eyes. Damn it. She twisted her head the other way.
"Will the ANBU be joining us again?" Sai asked curiously.
"No," Tsunade said shortly, glancing absent-mindedly at Sasuke. "As I said, the risk of conflict is minimal."
She gave a huge sigh, rubbing at her forehead.
"The client is the daimyo," Shizune explained.
Slowly, Sakura turned back toward the hokage and her assistant.
"The daimyo, as we all know, is happily married," Tsunade said carefully. "So I needn't stress anymore how critical it is that this all be kept under the wraps."
Tsunade and Shizune shared a glance.
"A few months ago, the daimyo privately gifted a ruby necklace, a very recognizable family heirloom, to the lady Okomo Aimi as a token of his…fervent affections," Shizune said carefully. "Unfortunately, the relationship has now turned sour, and Okomo wants to out their affair. Recent reports have suggested that Okomo is planning to part with the heirloom publicly in an auction hosted by the court tonight, which both the daimyo and his family will be attending.."
"For obvious reasons," Tsunade grunted, "this cannot happen."
"So we have to retrieve the heirloom from her entourage before it has a chance to be put up for auction," Sai summarized.
"Precisely," the hokage said, eyes glinting. "Good luck."
It went perfectly.
That was, until Naruto fumbled the drop-off and deposited the necklace in the wrong man's pocket.
Sakura didn't know if it was worse or better that she hadn't been there to seen it. While the failed extraction had been occurring, she had been diverting Okomo's bodyguards using genjutsu from entering the auction hall.
"Moron," Sasuke hissed. "You had one job."
"I forgot what your henge looked like," Naruto groaned miserably. "I remembered the red hair, and there were only three people with red hair in the room. What were the chances…"
Sakura leaned back against the tapestry in the abandoned corridor they were currently occupying.
"And how were Okomo's guards?" Sai asked, conversational.
"Fine," Sakura said. "Not that it matters…anymore."
"With this idiot's luck, that merchant is already well on his way home," Sasuke grunted sourly.
Naruto punched him in the shoulder.
"How's your brother doing, Sasuke?" Sai asked offhandedly.
The Uchiha yanked his head away from Naruto to glare at him.
"Do you not talk?" Sai wondered.
This didn't get a response either. A discomfiting, burning sensation curled in her stomach, like indigestion.
"Really?" Naruto pressed, momentarily distracted from his own plight.
"So what?" Sasuke returned coolly.
"Have you been ignoring him?" Sai inquired. "Even given your shared living situation?"
Sasuke's features looked harder and crueler than she had seen them in sometime. He stepped toward Sai, muscles tight, like he was prepared for a fight. "I don't have to explain myself to you—"
"Quiet," Kakashi commanded indifferently from behind them. They all turned to find the copy-nin standing a few feet behind them.
Naruto yanked Sasuke back. Glowering, the black-haired boy allowed the motion.
"Any updates?" Naruto asked hopefully.
"The merchant hasn't left yet—he's spending the night down the hall and leaving tomorrow morning," Kakashi said shortly. "He's a Konoha citizen, so we have grounds to confiscate the necklace from him."
"So no fighting," the blonde clarified, looking relieved.
"Not unless he protests," Kakashi said, voice dark, like he wouldn't mind much if the merchant did.
He stalked down the hall, and they followed, sticking to the shadows as the moonlight peeked through the clouds outside. He stopped in front of a heavy, mahogany door with a peacock handle.
"Knock," the copy-nin ordered Naruto.
He shuffled forward, stretching forward a tentative hand. Blinking, he rapped lightly against the wood.
"Civilian," Sasuke snapped impatiently. "Remember?"
"Louder, dickless," Sai advised.
"Ah, right," he laughed sheepishly, scratching at his head.
With a bright smile, Naruto drove his fist into the door. A resounding thud echoed down the hall. Sakura winced.
Kakashi's head rolled to look down at him, eyes sharp and scathing.
There was a moment of silence, in which she began to doubt the merchant was even in the room— then footsteps sounded from behind the door, balanced and even, approaching.
The door opened, revealing a tall man in his early forties with hair the color of copper.
"An item from the auction was misplaced," Kakashi drawled without any introduction, "We'll need to search your possessions—"
"This is unexpected," the man in the door observed.
Sakura blinked, before bowing her head stiffly. "Father."
Chapter 28: Sides - Itachi
"It's so slippery," the girl with pink ribbons grunted. "Why is this so hard?"
Itachi stared straight ahead. "Polishing any skill necessitates time and concerted effort."
"…you use a lot of complicated words, Mr. Itachi."
At this moment, the boy with the tell-tale marks of the Inuzuka lost his temper and launched himself at the girl he had been squabbling with. Fifteen seconds. Even less time than Itachi had calculated.
"Wait!" the girl—Imori, he reminded himself—cried as he began to move. "I'm almost done! Just need to tie it and…"
Itachi stood.
"Hey!" Imori shouted, outraged. "What did you do that for?"
"One braid was your condition to stop antagonizing—" he couldn't remember the name, so he pointed at the girl currently glowering from the swings—"that one. The terms of our verbal contract were satisfied."
"Huh? I didn't do any ant-no-geez-ing," the girl sniffed. Her face turned up suspiciously a second later. "What's that mean?"
Round eyes the color of cement examined with him with brewing resentment—but, curiously, still absent of fear. He had slit grown men's throats at her age; his name had already been in the bingo book. And yet, this girl didn't seem to know him from the nidaime.
His name must have fallen out of conversation over the years. It seemed only the adults now remembered.
He walked over to the bickering pair and lifted the Inuzuka by the collar of his shirt. The boy, muddied and bleeding from the nose, didn't take well to the intervention, growling and swiping at him.
As Itachi calmly stretched his arm so the boy's fists were out of reach, a slight hissing sound reached his ears. He tilted his head to the side. A kunai flew past and landed with a loud thud in the tree five meters ahead.
Itachi turned his head slowly in the direction the kunai had originated from. A round-faced child with missing teeth gave him a sheepish grin.
"Ah, sorry about that Itachi-san. Just trying to get some extra practice in before Iruka-sensei tests us later today!"
"Weapons are not allowed during recess."
"Let go," Inuzuka yipped like a puppy, face twisting, "Did you hear me?!"
"Aw, see, I know that. And normally, I totally wouldn't have brought them outside. But, see, like I was saying, Iruka-sensei said there's a test and—"
"Weapons are not allowed during recess."
"I HATE YOU!" the boy in his hand roared, veins bulging in his neck with the effort.
Itachi dropped him.
"Ugh, finally," Inuzuka huffed, scowling. He stuck out his tongue and turned on his heel.
Itachi slowly retracted his hand, observing it in cool examination. He hadn't intended to let go.
"All right," a tenor voice called out from the building—it was a voice that had not been built for volume, Itachi reflected, but must have learned it over the years—"Let's pack it up. Break time is over!"
The children rushed by him in a cacophony of groans, tracking dirt into the Academy building.
"Thank you for watching them," Iruka said, smiling. The skin beneath his eyes wrinkled.
"It was the task that was assigned to me."
"Ah, yes. I suppose it was. Still," the Academy instructor insisted, voice warm.
Itachi stepped into the building and followed Iruka back into the classroom. Small bodies hastily arranged themselves back into their seats at the sight of their teacher.
"Did you give Itachi-san a hard time?" Iruka asked sternly, arms crossed.
"No," the class chorused. Muffled giggles emerged among the seats.
Iruka turned sharply to him, brown eyes unusually steely. "Do you have anything to say to that, Itachi-san?" he asked quietly.
Itachi's head cocked to the side.
Iruka waited.
"No," Itachi said shortly. "I had everything in hand. They were fine."
"I see."
Iruka stepped forward and moved onto another topic—a history lesson, Itachi catalogued in the back of his mind. And yet, those two short words, the manner in which they had been delivered, were stuck in his mind. Iruka had seemed disappointed, as though Itachi's feedback had been less than satisfactory.
Itachi's eyes narrowed as he gazed over the class. Had Iruka wanted him to struggle? Why convince the hokage, then, to give him this position in the first place? The academy instructor and he had met briefly in the hospital when he had been recovering; it could hardly have been called a conversation, more of an accidental encounter, what had transpired between them. He knew that Iruka had advocated for him to be here; he still had no understanding of why.
On paper, Itachi acknowledged, his skills and battle experience were top of the line. But that didn't excuse the unspeakable crimes he had committed, even if they had been in the name of Konoha. What parent would want an undisputed mass murderer teaching their child to handle a kunai?
"Break out into groups of three and discuss," Iruka commanded. "In the last ten minutes, we'll rejoin and one person from each group will summarize what you each discussed."
Brief bickering broke out as the class arranged itself into smaller groups. Iruka walked away from the chalkboard toward the back corner of the room where Itachi stood.
"Next time, I would suggest that corner instead," Iruka said lightly, pointing. "Hyuuga Ryoichi likes to sneak out when my back is turned."
Itachi's gaze moved to the black-haired boy who, even now, was darting evaluating looks back at them and then at the door.
"Noted," Itachi said tonelessly.
He felt Iruka's eyes burning into him from the side.
"Have you been enjoying your first day at the Academy?" the brown-skinned man asked. His voice was still warm, like they were friends. It was unwarranted.
"It's better than other roles I've been assigned in the past," Itachi said finally.
Instead of being discomfited, a low, surprised chuckle broke out from the figure beside him. "I wouldn't dare contest that," Iruka admitted easily.
"Do you enjoy your job here, Iruka-san?" Itachi asked disinterestedly.
Iruka's brow furrowed in consideration, as though he had never received this question before and it required careful forethought. Itachi imagined this was implausible.
"In full disclosure," Iruka said smiling. "Most days don't go without a moment where I want to strangle their scrawny little necks. Somehow, miraculously, I manage to hold myself back."
Itachi stared ahead.
"Really," Iruka insisted. "But, you know, every now and then, there's a redeeming moment. Inuzuka-kun, yesterday, remembering the name of the shodaime. Or when Nanami finally managed to land the kunai at the bull's eye mark last week. They pretend they don't listen—well, most of them time, they're really not listening. But…ah, I'm not explaining this well. It sounds cheesy when I mention it like that, doesn't it?"
Itachi didn't indicate either way. "And you believe it's all worth it," he asked clinically. "Whatever lessons you impart to them."
Iruka raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
Itachi surveyed him. "That Hyuuga will likely be cannon fodder for whatever clan dispute rises within the next five years—" he turned to scan the classroom—"That girl there, as another example, has skills that will only thrive in T&I, but her foreign background will hold her back from ever getting hired in the department. And that boy—given his fervent determination to be a combat shinobi, I would give him two years before he is crippled or killed in action."
"And what," Iruka said carefully, coldly, "would be your basis for that?"
He had angered the other man.
"His mentality," Itachi responded evenly.
"A lot can change between now and their graduation."
"Perhaps," Itachi acknowledged, inclining his head. "In my experience, desired change—especially when systemic—rarely occurs soon enough."
He waited for the explosion. Iruka, he had learned from eavesdropping on the children, had an infamously loud temper. Contrarily, however, the man across for him seemed to be immeasurably calm.
"How many years did you spend in the Academy, Itachi-san?" Iruka asked.
"Four months."
"So your experience comprises four months in the Academy," the instructor summarized, nodding. "And your teachers? Do you remember them?"
"Not in particular."
Iruka turned to look at him directly in the eyes, voice hard like iron. "Then they failed you."
Itachi's eyes narrowed.
The man next to him straightened, somehow seeming larger than before, although he was almost a hand's span shorter than Itachi and slighter. "You're right," he said. "I can't change decades of clan tradition. I can't change what does or doesn't happen at home. Sometimes, what I do in class is enough to shift their priorities; forgive my saying, but my experience is a little more considerable in this area. Then again, sometimes it isn't enough. I can't make every child want to practice, and I certainly can't force every child to learn anything they don't want to learn, no matter how much I might want them to. They pass the test, and I have to let them go. Those are the rules."
He turned toward the class, gaze grim.
"But," Iruka said softly. "I can care for them. I can nurture them—subject them to my attention until they're suffocating, begging me to leave this Academy. And in doing that, I can teach them that they matter," Iruka's voice, so soft, grew harsh, "because once they leave, they might never meet an adult who will give them that ever again. And maybe they shouldn't; the battlefield isn't a place to be treated like a child or coddled. But here, for at least while..."
He panted raggedly for a moment, the force of his passion for this subject apparently having taken some of his breath away.
"It's all I can give," Iruka revealed, voice calming into something like cynicism. It seemed at odds with him; Itachi was, possibly, unnerved. "And, many times, it isn't enough. Sometimes, they die. Or they leave, like your brother."
Itachi's body stiffened slightly at the mention of his brother. Somehow, Iruka seemed to catch it.
"And sometimes, they come back," he said, gently. He paused for a little, before saying in an obviously, deliberately conversational tone, "I had heard from Naruto that the team is now functioning reasonably well. I know this is private—forgive a teacher's overbearing nature—but how are things at home?"
"You're right," Itachi said, bowing his head expressionlessly. "You are overstepping."
Iruka immediately nodded, without malice. "Of course. Apologies."
Silence lapsed again between them. Itachi stared straight ahead, still, but now saw nothing.
"We don't talk," he found himself saying.
Iruka was quiet.
"It is to my taste," Itachi recovered, expression smoothing. "We coexist peacefully and without any unnecessary distractions."
One of the girls on the right side of the classroom began tugging at the ponytail of another. Iruka pulled an eraser from his pocket and tossed it through the air. It hit the girl right at the nape of her neck. Her hand rose a second later to cover the spot.
"Ow, sensei!" she scowled. "Got it, got it."
Iruka gave a pleased smile. He turned a second later to Itachi. He hummed for a moment, still smiling.
"You know, even when Sasuke didn't know the truth, even when you were the brother who had murdered his whole clan, part of him still worshipped you—" Iruka's eyes crinkled—"I'd go as far as to say that he loved you nearly as much as he hated you."
Itachi's mouth tightened.
"I think it will only be a matter of time," the academy instructor said sincerely.
He knew nothing, though, of what Itachi had done. Iruka saw a fellow man in front of him, when that couldn't have been further from the truth.
A dark churning sensation was born in his chest—but it wasn't unfamiliar, not these days, at least. He still didn't know how to shield himself against it. It overcame him and left him lost at sea.
"I tortured him," he found himself relaying, tone factual. He heard his voice as someone else's in his ears. "After seeing the dead bodies of our clan members and the dead bodies of our parents, I made Sasuke relive it for three days, helpless to do anything to stop me."
So that he would kill me for what I had done.
He barely finished the thought before he felt his breathing start to rise in his chest, faster, harsher. But Itachi managed his body meticulously, asserting his unbending will once more, making the loss of control imperceptible to the human eye.
His insides hurt, like there were nails scraping against the walls of his chest, but no one would know. It was a kind of pain he was used to. He had fought through worse.
"Has your impression of me changed, sensei?" Itachi asked coldly.
"I think," Iruka started softly.
Something like satisfaction, neither warm nor triumphant, settled in his chest.
"Despite your obvious talent, I think that if I had been your teacher…I would have pushed you to become anything but a combat shinobi."
The teacher's eyes paused on his hands, for some undiscernible reason. Itachi 's gaze flicked downwards as well.
"I think, Itachi-san," Iruka said, voice stronger now, eyes molten like bronze ore, "that you care far more than maybe anyone has ever given you credit for."
A chair screeched against the floor. Itachi did nothing for a moment. His mouth parted, but he paused before he spoke.
"Imagining me this way no doubt makes my actions more palatable," he said, unblinking. "Sometimes, however, there merely exists a shinobi and an order. And to have feelings about an order, when that order serves a higher purpose than any one individual, would be unproductive."
Iruka's mouth firmed in challenge. "Then why is Sasuke alive?"
And this was— It was. Nothing less than a blow, unanticipated and thus unmitigated.
This small, slight man in front of him—to the practiced eye weak, vulnerable. Something had whittled him over time it seemed, silently, secretly, and rendered him sharper and shrewder than he had any right to be-maybe his teaching, possibly his unprecedented proximity to more than one hokage. Or maybe, it was something entirely else, unknowable to him.
Whatever it was, Itachi watched now, warier.
Iruka smiled, unapologetic.
The bell rang, shrill and loud. Cheers rose from the class. Without pause, the teacher turned back toward his class.
"Ah, look at that. Sensei lost track of time, apologies," Iruka said, smiling at them. "We'll shift the discussion to tomorrow. Have a good day, everyone!"
The noise of chairs being scooted back and satchels being opened and closed filled the room. One pair of feet, in bright yellow sandals, stopped right in front of them.
"Yes, Imori-chan?" Iruka asked.
The girl who had negotiated with him earlier raised her hand and glared at Itachi. "You. Yeah, I'm talking to you. Next time," she warned, "I'll make two braids with red ribbons on each end. And I'll make you wear them for the rest of the day."
She turned on her heels and flounced away.
"Also, another observation, if I may," Iruka said, mouth curving. "That is what happens when you tell the kids 'they were fine.'"
Without another word, the smaller man moved past him to clean up the leftover scraps scattered along the rows of desks, humming as he went.
Itachi remained where he was, but his gaze followed...captive.
Chapter 29: Philomel
"This would be the one," Sakura's father said, handing over a dark green kimono.
Kakashi took ahold of the kimono and tossed it to Naruto. "Search it."
Naruto leaned forward precariously, barely catching it. He began rummaging studiously through the folds. Her father watched Naruto's brutish ransack from behind his desk. The red of his hair was softer in the room's lighting than in natural daylight—at least, from what she remembered.
Sakura's fingers plucked idly at the loose threads at her wrist.
The body next to her shifted, thoughtful. "Your father satisfies almost maximally the requirements of conventional attractiveness for his gender, and you do not," Sai muttered. "But you do look very alike. Interesting."
"Found it," Naruto grunted, raising his hand triumphantly. The object in his hand gave a metallic clink as it was jostled. The necklace gleamed, large ruby gems beset by diamond and gold, and at the center: the damning daimyo's crest.
"I see the reason for your urgency." Her father's eyes-pale like her own-evaluated the necklace closely.
It would have been helpful to know more about him now. Their more substantial interactions, if any had occurred, had been when she was too young to be particularly observant. From his expression, it seemed he had come to conclusions that weren't far from the truth. If there had been a thief—a thief who had yet to be caught—there certainly would not have been an auction in the palace in the very first place. Thus, the necklace must have been willingly parted with, only now to be urgently retrieved. Information like that could sell.
"We will require assurance, of course, as a citizen of Konoha, that you will not disclose either our presence here tonight nor the necklace's." Sakura forced her lips into a stiff smile.
Her father turned his head at last away from the necklace. His eyes paused on her, expression still warm.
Everyone else in the room seemed content to watch.
"That is," she continued, "as a citizen of Konoha, you must uphold the oath of protecting to the best of your abilities the confidentiality of our operations. Anything less and you risk treason."
"Sakura," Naruto said softly.
She looked between them. Had she been too blunt? "Sorry," she said slowly.
She settled back.
"Of course," her father said easily, "I would hardly want to cause trouble to my daughter's team."
Sakura paused at pulling at the loose thread. She was a bit bemused at the sound of those words together: "my daughter's team."
"I'm afraid I don't know all your names," he continued casually. "You must forgive me."
"My name is Sai," the dark-haired boy said. "I am a recent addition to Team Seven." He nodded to the others. "Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke are her original teammates. Our captain—"
"The copy-nin's reputation does actually precede him, even among hapless merchants," her father said, inclining his head in acknowledgment. Kakashi didn't look to care either way.
The smile on her father's face widened as he turned back toward all of them. "As I said, I am happy to comply. You'll present the necklace to the daimyo in the morning, I assume?"
Sasuke nodded shortly.
"Then let me arrange you rooms for the night."
"Really?" Naruto asked, eyes wide.
"Of course," her father said, voice sympathetic. "You are my daughter's teammates. I appreciate your taking care of her. Allow me to demonstrate that appreciation." He pulled on a velvet rope by the desk. A servant entered within the minute, cued by a bell they hadn't been able to hear.
"How may I assist you, Haruno-sama?" the stout man asked, bowing.
"My guests will need some rooms for the night."
That the servant nodded and didn't ask any more questions—in the daimyo's very own palace—gave Sakura pause. Over the years (and before she had been more or less kicked out of the house) her mom had always given her the sense that they lived more modestly than they strictly needed to. How much more modestly, she now began to question, if her father could comfortably order a daimyo's servants.
"Follow me, please." The servant bowed to them now.
"Sakura," her father called out as she shifted toward the door. "A few minutes of your time, if you are able."
Sakura's confused gaze met Sai's even one, before she turned around. "Sure."
She remained where she was even as the others moved past her. The heat of Kakashi's body caused the hairs on her arm to prickle as he passed by. The door shut with a small rush of air behind her.
Her father looked at her, the smile still on his face like an afterthought. He stared at her for a moment, before he gestured to the chair in front of the desk. "Have a seat."
Sakura stepped forward to the opposite side of the room. As she crossed the central area, she caught something she had missed before. Perfume. Her nostrils flared as she identified it. A woman's, probably, given the floral notes.
He seemed to read the discovery on her face easily and asked, unperturbed, "Does that upset you?"
She turned toward her father, hands loosely settled on the armrests of her chair as she lowered herself into it. She didn't respond. Given what she knew of her parents' marriage, it was entirely possible there was some arrangement between them that Sakura didn't know of.
Her father, Seiji Kizashi, had been nineteen years old when he had married her mother, a woman more than ten years his senior. Sakura had learned from a loose-tongued aunt some years ago that their marriage had been both rushed—because her grandfather had been on his deathbed—and controversial. Rather than choosing a distant cousin within the family or a second son from a comparable business, the old man had bestowed his daughter on an accountant who had worked for him for less than a year. Sakura's mother had been the eldest of three daughters, none of whom had apparently been interested in the business nor had any particular business acumen—so the oldest had been married off to a no-name accountant who could lead the business.
Her aunt's characterization of her mother hadn't surprised Sakura, unflattering though it was. Haruno Mebuki had never struck Sakura as particularly ambitious beyond desiring a means to live without having to do much. She had always seemed content to spend her days at home, inviting her friends over on occasion and maintaining her appearance with militant dedication. It was plausible that she had never wanted more.
"You've grown," her father observed. His chin rested on his interlocked hands.
Sakura's fingers absently traced the grains of the wood in her chair.
"Franky, I didn't expect you to still be a shinobi."
Sakura stared back in turn. As she waited for him to continue, a wave of fatigue seemed to overcome her, a quick rush that sank into her limbs and didn't leave. She was unsurprised. Now that the mission-high had passed, there was nothing staving off the consequences of poor sleep.
He leaned back in his chair.
"Your grandfather couldn't find his successor from within his own family," he said amusedly, voice low and compelling, apropos of nothing as far as Sakura could tell, "having been raised in the lap of luxury, they hardly knew how to work to achieve it. Unsurprising, as luxury has rarely built character. Or so I have found."
He smiled at her for a moment. Then, seamlessly, the genial smile that had been present all evening faded, and so too the most obvious marks of contrivance. His gaze shifted to peruse the room around them, pausing on the lavish chandelier suspended from the ceiling with something like vague distaste.
"I do not believe in garish displays of fortune such as these," he finished. "I did not grow up with them, and it would not have served me to. Our house is purposefully a modest one; there are no maids or servants, like there are here. You know this."
"Your house," Sakura corrected indifferently, bowing her head. She had been more or less kicked out.
Her father inclined his head in acknowledgement. His gaze seemed to grow even more intent. After a moment, his eyes averted from her to somewhere past her. He huffed a hearty, but nearly soundless, laugh.
"I will admit," he said, tone almost conversational, "that I have no interest in child-rearing. The limited time I have spent in your vicinity hasn't inspired anything of the sort either."
His gaze returned instantly to her, as though to survey her reaction to those words. Sakura didn't react.
"But you are here now," he said factually. "And you are, somehow, changed. I did not expect that."
Sakura blinked at her father, and wondered if he sensed the violence that sat across from him—if any iota of his consciousness was wary of it. If he noticed, he gave no impression of it. He stood and placidly roamed the room, examining the paintings that lined the walls with eyes that still communicated vague disgust.
"Success in my line of work is contingent upon taking calculated risks, playing the odds. Predicting the future, one could say. My predictions for you had not been flattering, when I bothered to contemplate them. You were a spoiled child," he said simply. "Coddled and catered to with no understanding of the world and of consequences. You demanded to go to the Academy with scarce comprehension of what it was, and your mother let you."
She twisted in her chair to keep him in sight, unthinking and automatic, because that was how she had been trained. His back faced her now, silhouetted by a large tapestry.
His voice emerged, still light. "When you failed your chunin exams it was further evident that your upbringing had not been to your benefit."
Sakura stood too, finally, and crossed her arms, leaning against the desk. It was more comfortable than twisting and craning to see him.
"And so you kicked me out," she summarized, tipping her head again.
Her father turned back to look at her, hair redder against the backdrop of the tapestry than it had before. "Until you were of age, it was my legal right to remove you from the shinobi track if I decided. But I've let you do what you want. For better or worse, I have always let you choose. I believe in giving people choice, you see-even children."
"But if you were to choose to continue to be a shinobi," he continued pleasantly, "it was going to be without the safety net of your family's wealth. It was going to be…an honest choice. Abandon your shinobi career or forsake our financial support."
Her mother had delivered these words for him, face pale.
"As I said, frankly, I expected you to return home, apologetic and beseeching."
Sakura's head tilted back. Eventually, she said, with some wryness, "Would it surprise you to know that being forced to fend for myself financially has had no considerable impact on me?" It had been among the smaller upheavals in her life.
Her father stepped away from the tapestry, turning to face her fully. "No," he said, lips curving. "On the contrary, it would make more sense. So?"
Was this latent parental interest?
Sakura pushed off the desk. "There was a freak accident," she said shortly.
Her father tracked her movement with raised eyebrows. "Is someone blackmailing you?" he asked after a moment.
She paused at the question. "If someone were," she asked, softer than she intended, suddenly tired again, "would you help me?"
She regretted voicing the question. It sounded weak.
She headed towards the door. Her feet were lethargic, dragging on the ground. She was going to sleep as soon as possible—as tired as she was, she thought she could manage it. A handful of hours in more than a week now were not going to sustain her much longer.
She opened the door. "I'm not being blackmailed," she said lowly. "Rather, I've gotten in too deep. I'm sure I don't have to explain what that means."
Sakura stepped into the hallway.
"Are you Haruno-sama's guest?" the servant asked. She looked like she had been waiting.
"Yes. Can you point me to my room?" Sakura tried to convince herself she wasn't swaying on her feet
"Yes! Munakata-san said…" The servant rubbed at her forehead. Her eyes widened triumphantly. "That's right! The seventh room—the one with the white peacock painted on the door."
The sounded a little too hopeful to pass as confidence. Sakura sighed privately. What was the worse that could happen, that she ended up in a room far grander than the one that had been intended for her? So be it.
Sakura bowed lightly and walked towards blearily to the door. The room she entered was pitch black, the curtains drawn tightly shut against even the slightest sliver of moonlight (an unexpected blessing)—even with the lighting from the hallway, diminishing as it was as the door shut behind her, she just barely made out the shape of a bed at the center. Her heart instantly throbbed with longing for it.
She was too tired to do more than remove the outer layer of her clothing and her boots, leaving them scattered along the floor. Stumbling toward the left side of the bed, she collapsed on her front. She fell asleep as soon as her face hit the pillow.
Sakura felt…warm—which was not a state her small, poorly heated apartment achieved these days. Toes ice-cold and approaching numbness, fingers stiff. That was more familiar.
Her body shifted with drowsy, honey-like contentment. She was just about to fall into sleep again, when something—not her—caused the bed to shift jarringly beneath her.
Sakura's eyes snapped open.
She glowered in the dark and snatched the kunai she had stashed beneath her pillow, crouching as she moved silently across the expanse of the mattress. Fuck, she still couldn't see anything. She pulsed chakra into her fingers. The green light illuminated the figure beside her.
She dropped the kunai, blinked twice for good measure. The absurd (impossible) creature she saw in front of her did not disappear.
Blood, the Voice moaned.
Pale, scarred hands clawed at their owner, staining the bedsheets Sakura had slept obliviously on just minutes before a deep vermillion. A nightmare, she processed with staggering stupidity. In sleep, astonishingly, his face was removed of all feigned arrogance or imperiousness, unguarded from voyeuristic eyes like hers.
The Voice pleasured in the sight, aroused by the blood. Sakura lunged forward without thought and latched onto his wrists. He surged up, limbs driving toward her center of mass with lethal power. She pressed clumsily forward, until her head knocked into his, and his eyes could look nowhere but into her own.
He looked back. Eventually, he saw her.
His face changed, then.
He shoved her away, breath ragged. Sakura let herself fall back, hands knotting in the disturbed sheets. Her hand, still lit by chakra, cast everything in the room into gradations of green. She saw him stand and stagger toward a basin of water at the corner of the room. He thrust his hands into the water and then onto his face with cruel efficiency.
Kakashi turned partially, just the profile of his face of his visible, sharingan blazing, to rasp, "Get out."
Sakura shifted into a standing position as well. She didn't have the words, yet, to explain the servant's mistake—that she hadn't meant to come here. She couldn't do anything more than gape at him.
He turned his face to her.
"I didn't-" she started, voice far too loud of the haunting silence of the room.
"Is this what you were hoping to find?" he asked, voice deadly soft. "No?"
She stared, struck dumb.
"You asked me how I slept. Take a long, good look at what I have to offer you." He stalked toward the blood staining the bedsheets, thick and cloying in the air. "Look," he snarled.
She turned stiffly and looked at it. Somehow, even in the green lighting, the blood looked redder than ever.
He angled his head, so that he looked down at her through the corner of his eyes. "Leave."
She stared into his blank face. She had seen him gasping for breath, desperate, just a few minutes ago.
"I just wanted to sleep," she found herself saying. Her mouth tasted like iron. She had seen something that she had not been given permission to. It felt like a violation. "The servant mixed up the rooms. I didn't notice when I came in, I wouldn't have—"
I have nightmares too, she almost said. They get worse too, and when I wake up...
He stared at her. Then, he turned, like he was about to leave instead of her.
"Stay," she started.
It doesn't mean anything. You're just a body. Any body would do.
His face was dark with warning.
"…I'll leave," she finished.
She picked up the haori she had discarded on the floor earlier and left without a backward glance. The hall was deserted, now. There was no servant waiting to assist her.
How had it happened? How had he slept through her entering the room?
She walked blindly.
Her senses couldn't have missed him, she knew; she hadn't survived in ANBU for nothing. No, some part of her mind must have known and permitted it. Some part of her mind must have known he was there and let her fall into that kind of sleep, without a second thought.
(But how had he not noticed?)
"The hokage assured me that this would be dealt with discreetly and quickly," the daimyo announced the next morning. "I am glad to see that her words were trustworthy. I must say, I wasn't certain in the beginning of this female kage—"
The advisor beside him, slim with fine, greying hair, interjected smoothly, "His majesty merely means that the rules of inheritance practiced by shinobi villages are dissimilar to ours and thus unfamiliar."
"As he says," the daimyo said, looking unbothered. "Still, despite this, you have done credit to both your village and to the Land of Fire. I am pleased."
Sakura bowed her stiffly along with the others. She saw a piece of straw flutter down from her hair to the ground. She frowned. She thought she had shaken them all out.
They straightened from their bows. Sakura spotted a dead leaf clinging to her to her shirt and brushed it to the ground as well. Excellent. More damning evidence that she had slept outdoors, like some exiled husband, victim to his spouse's temper.
"We're gratified to hear it," Kakashi said tonelessly, eyes surveying the courtroom with the irritability of one utterly disinterested in his current surroundings. "With your seal, we'll be on our way."
Unexpectedly, the daimyo turned towards his advisor, brows furrowed. They appeared to communicate silently.
The advisor bowed toward them. "There was one more agreement between the hokage and the daimyo. This too must be satisfied before the daimyo will grant his seal of approval."
Sakura's mouth turned down. She wanted to leave this godforsaken place. Now.
"Did I miss this?" Naruto muttered.
"No," Sai murmured back. "We weren't informed of a second objective."
Her gaze went to Kakashi.
"And this agreement is?" the copy-nin said blandly.
The advisor nodded to the guards behind them, and the curtained entrance was drawn back. A woman stood there, exquisitely dressed and tall.
"My third daughter," the daimyo announced. "The lady Himiko."
Rich brown hair curtained the woman's heart-shaped face, oiled so that the strands gleamed under the chandeliers. She looked to be Kakashi's age.
"The daimyo has been searching for some time for a suitable match for his dear Himiko, who has been sheltered and protected as a jewel of our court," the advisor said, voice carrying with ease in the hall. "The hokage, in her esteemed wisdom, has agreed to my lord's request that there be an introduction. The Hatakes are one of few shinobi clans that are also recognized among feudal nobility, as seven generations ago, the then-daimyo gave your clan a title."
Sasuke let out a harsh, disbelieving sound.
"You are an appropriate match for my daughter," the daimyo summarized shortly.
Kakashi stared at the feudal lord with moderate condescension—it was more self-control than he usually applied. "The circumstances of my father's death," he said coldly, "infamously cast my clan into disgrace."
The daimyo straightened, voice booming. "The shinobi villages and our royal court have different understandings of what disgraces a man. The title holds."
The woman passed by them soundlessly, the silken cloth of her kimono trailing her. Sakura's gaze caught the end of her skirt.
When the daimyo's daughter reached the front of the court, she turned to face them. Sakura watched as the woman analyzed the copy-nin, scanned the harsh beauty of the upper-half of his face, the lanky lines of his body—where lean muscle hinted at brutal strength—then the cut of his hips, lingering, below lowered lashes, like she was imagining how it might feel to lock her legs around them as he fucked into her.
Sheltered, was she?
"Show him the gardens, Himiko," the daimyo ordered, looking very pleased with himself. "And escort him to the banquet tonight. An introduction was promised, and I will have that introduction before I stamp my seal."
"I am honored to meet you, copy-nin," Himiko said, bowing. Her voice was soft, like the brush of a feather on skin. Kakashi's gaze snapped to her.
Sakura almost missed the advisor's attention shifting to her as he bent to whisper something in the daimyo's ear.
"The merchant Haruno's daughter?" the ruler muttered. He waved his hand. "Very well. The entire team may attend the banquet. I will have rooms prepared for them all to the stay the night."
"Kakashi-sama, if you will follow me." Himiko fluttered by them once more, giving the copy-nin a side-long glance as she did. Sakura stared at Kakashi's back. He wasn't the obedient sort. He wouldn't just follow, just like that—
His hooded gaze bore into the daimyo until the older man shifted uncomfortably. Sakura waited, breath paused, for the chaos that would arise from his dissent.
Kakashi turned with feline grace and followed, head cocking to the side as his cool gaze rested on Himiko's narrow shoulders—without much pause, the daimyo, his advisor, and his guards exited as well, their aim accomplished.
Silence filled the court, empty of all except for them.
Naruto brushed against her shoulder. "Kakashi's important? How come no one ever told me?!"
"Are you stupid, dickless?"
"For reasons other than being the shinobi who knows a thousand jutsus or whatever," Naruto growled.
Sakura watched absentmindedly as they bickered, straightening her haori.
"Do you have something against that woman?" Sasuke drawled to her, trying to look as disinterested in the question as possible.
She raised her eyebrows. "Of course not."
On the contrary, Sakura adored a woman who knew what she wanted.
"Well, your face looks like you could happily kick that vase of potted plants right over there into her face," the Uchiha said indifferently. "You might want to figure that out before we have to show up in front of the daimyo and the full court tonight."
They had nothing to do but waste their time, and they couldn't agree on how to spend it. They parted ways-Naruto to the central market, Sasuke to somewhere unknown, Sai to examine the local paints. Sakura went to the parapets.
The wind whistled through the air, scattering her hair and sending a jolt of pain into her already numb ears. How long had she been here, she wondered, when it felt like an eternity had passed. The sun began to set, and she soon found her answer.
Too long. Certainly for this kind of weather in the thick of winter. But the view was astonishing, and she had needed relative quiet to sharpen the katana, to hear the soft hiss of the blade carefully to make sure it was just right. It was peaceful here. So much so, that it was almost intolerable.
Time passed.
She returned to awareness when she heard the soft brush of feet landing on stone behind her.
"Well?" Sakura asked.
She slid the katana back into its sheathe and hopped off the parapet, settling soundlessly back on the dark stone.
"I have a theory."
Sakura couldn't help but smile incredulously at his forwardness. In a way, it was refreshing that Sai hid behind neither false bravado nor false insecurity—
"That you and Kakashi had s-"
She blinked and found Sai struggling for breath, face reddening as he was squashed against the parapets. She glanced down and dumbly found her hand at his throat.
She let go. He slid down, coughing.
"I'm sorry," she said, nails digging into her palm. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"
Sai regained his normal color. "That was odd," he said, voice unusually rough. "You didn't look like you were even aware of what you were doing."
Sakura paled at those words. Had the Voice taken control without her knowledge, without her even noticing? Or had it been her, entirely? She didn't know which was worse.
"You didn't do any permanent damage, but I'll accept your apology," Sai said calmly, "with the compensation of some measure of the truth."
Sakura's mouth tightened.
He stepped toward her. "Do you trust me?" he asked, curious.
"I do," Sakura said reluctantly.
He was silent for a moment, merely surveying her and then turning, to survey the view. "From your reaction, I can see that I was right. I guessed it a while ago."
She shifted her gaze toward the neat little rows of domes and roofs visible from their height.
"It's not what you think," she said eventually.
"As in?"
"He didn't know it was me."
"Ah. I thought he was just better at hiding it. So you used a jutsu to disguise your true features. But he has the sharingan, so he would have known. For him to not question it—" His forehead smoothed. "No one asks questions in ANBU."
Sakura followed the last sliver of sun as it melted out of sight.
"Then he found out the truth," Sai said, nodding. "His behavior toward you changed markedly after you brought Sasuke's brother back to Konoha."
The wind blew furiously. She shuffled tentatively closer to Sai so that they could both share their warmth.
"Forgive me, for my forwardness. Are you in love with him?"
"No."
She felt him turn to stare at her.
"What?"
"I'm surprised," Sai admitted. "That sounded believable."
Sakura brushed the hair out of her face.
"Have you been in love before?" he asked reasonably. "How would you know?"
"Why are you skeptical?" she asked.
Sai seemed to hesitate. "When we're at training," he started slowly, "your gaze doesn't leave him for more than seconds at a time. Even mid-spar, you follow him as though you've been ordered to have him under your suveillance. During missions, when he reacts, even if it's as slight as the minutest shifting of his body, you react too. And when you saw the way that daimyo's daughter looked at him—"
"You're right, that I can't look away," Sakura said. She turned to look at him. "The pertinent oddity here, though, is that I don't know if I want to hurt him or dissect him. Cut into him so he bleeds or so that he's in pieces and can hide nothing from me."
Sai glanced at her. "I see."
"Do you?" she requested, smiling without humor.
His head tilted to the side. "We should head to the banquet."
Sakura watched him turn without another word to climb down the staircase that had led them to the parapets. After a second, she made her way down the same staircase.
This palace may have been larger than the other palaces Sakura had seen, but they all seemed to have the same structure, more or less. The banquet hall, unlike the throne room, was never far from the main entrance. Possibly, though, it was the smell of freshly cooked delicacies—fragrant and heady—that helped them most on their way.
The guards gave them a cursory nod as they entered. Sakura caught sight of Sasuke and Naruto's contrasting hair within seconds of entering the banquet hall. Sasuke's eyes narrowed at the sight of them. Naruto waved with a grin.
"Try those," he ordered, nodding toward a platter of puff pastries.
Sai studied one of the pastries, then placed it thoughtfully in his mouth.
"Good, right?"
They sat down and began serving themselves food. Sasuke and Sai ate calmly, almost disinterestedly, but Sakura and Naruto consumed the items on their plate without any pretense. Her stomach was full only after a third serving—and even then, she wished that she had more room if only to taste more of the food.
"That was almost as good as Ichiraku's," Naruto allowed.
She couldn't help lowering her head and allowing her gaze to dart left, to the head of the table.
To where they sat.
Kakashi leaned back in his chair, long limbs sprawled. The food on his plate was untouched. The daimyo's daughter conversed diligently with the other high-ranking nobles at the head table, apparently unaware of his utter abandonment of propriety. But the weight of her body in her chair was shifted towards him, the curve of her breast emphasized for his perusal, the shoulder propped to create shadow in her delicate collar bone—a silent, educated seduction.
Sakura sipped coolly at the soup she had ladled into her bowl. A hip brushed into her shoulder. Her gaze flew up. A quick, unapologetic smile from a handsome face was directed down at her before the man continued on his way.
She followed his back with detached interest.
"It doesn't appear as though the daimyo was honest," Sasuke said coolly.
Sai nodded carefully, watching her. "I doubt he's going to let us leave until there's a more…binding agreement between them."
Sakura tipped the last of her soup down her throat, maintaining her blank expression.
"Whatever," Naruto dismissed easily. "As long as they feed us like this, I can stay here as long as the geezer likes."
Himiko stood as though to leave, swiftly but elegantly. She bowed to the other men and women seated at the table. Then she bent her long neck to whisper in Kakashi's ear, finally acknowledging him. Her lips curved as she spoke. The copy-nin's head rolled up a second later.
She saw his eyebrow arch, slow and lazy.
They left. The clamor of the banquet subsided just slightly at the sight they made. The daimyo watched them, a triumphant smile on his face.
A more binding agreement.
"Sakura," Sai said softly, warning.
She turned to look at him, head falling to the side. "Yes?"
"Have some bread," Naruto encouraged, passing a roll to her. She took it and bit into it; it could have been dust for all she noted of the taste.
The Voice crooned in the back of her head.
Something terrible was growing in her chest—dark and seething and, she noted, with an edge of self-loathing. It was jealousy.
She hadn't known it before, though as a preteen she had thought she had. This was what painted the silent, perpetual roar on every Hannya mask. This was what men and women held onto in their afterlives that transformed them into oni.
Sakura's nostrils flared with impotent rage. Jealousy? Over that man? If she could have could looked the sentiment in its face, she would have spat at it. What had he done to deserve her jealousy? Fucked her? Scores of women and men had done the same, and she hadn't given them a second thought.
She rested her chin in her hand, eyes narrow. He was as lost, hopeless, and fucked up as she was. What did he possess to make her jealous?
The banquet continued for two more hours. As time passed, the servants dimmed the lamps. Sakura's fingers danced over the flickering candle in front of her empty plate.
"I think I'm done," Naruto announced at last.
"Finally," Sasuke scowled. He stood and dragged Naruto up with him. Sai and Sakura stood as well.
"Where are you going?" Sasuke demanded.
Sakura blinked at him, body facing the opposite direction. "My...room's in the other wing of the palace."
"Oh," Naruto frowned. He shrugged a second later. "See you tomorrow!" He roped his arms around both Sasuke and Sai as he ambled away.
Sai's head turned back fractionally to make eye contact with her.
She took off in the opposite direction.
She arbitrarily took a left down one of the offshoot corridors and entered a part of the palace that was less lavishly decorated, though still impeccably clean. The tapestries were duller here, and the halls less well-lit. Likely, she was nearing the servants' quarters. She walked aimlessly for ten or so minutes, somehow not encountering another living soul, until she heard soft footsteps heading her way at a furious pace. Her brows furrowed. The steps were too soft to be those of an adult.
A small boy, barely more than five, nearly crashed into her—would have, if she hadn't stopped him with a finger to the forehead.
"Get out of my way!" he shouted, shrill voice echoing down the hall
Her hand fell when she saw his face. His nose had been bloodied, and his eye was swollen shut. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with the blood.
"Who did this to you?" She lifted his face up by the chin.
He smacked her hand away and struggled against her. "I need to get help! Get out of my way, lady!"
Sakura raised her eyebrows. "I'm usually the help."
"You?" he demanded, swollen eye straining to get a good look at her.
"Yep," she said. "Shinobi."
His battered face scrunched up. He thrust his hand into his worn pocket and pulled out five measly ryo. "I'll pay you this much," he said urgently, "to kill a man."
Sakura stared down at it. "Ha," she joked, folding his fingers back over the coins. "Save your money. It doesn't even take that much to get me going."
"Quickly, then! Follow me, shinobi-san!" He tugged her by the hand, running at the quickest speed his small, underdeveloped body could manage. He took her down a long, winding hall, where the doors started to become fewer and farther apart.
"Where are you taking me," Sakura asked wryly, "all the way to the Land of Snow—?"
Her mouth snapped shut. The boy stilled too.
Around the bend was a small, dust-covered window. Two hands grasped the frame, fingers bleeding and desperate, as a broad, finely dressed man—the same man who had bumped into her earlier—thrust violently into their owner.
"He's the one," the boy whispered, swollen eyes wide with murderous hatred. "Kill him."
Violence and sex, intertwined in this depraved form—it grew wherever it could find a nourishment. In abandoned parks. In love hotels. Even in palaces, it seemed.
Like maggots.
The Voice panted.
Sakura glanced down at the small boy.
He gave a war cry, shoulders high, and charged. The noble lifted his head from the servant's shoulder, gaze irritated, and backhanded him across the face. He resumed pumping his hips into the boy clutching the window. The broken figure against the window shouted.
"Don't, otouto," he begged. Blood ran down his temple from where he too had been beaten. "Don't look."
Face shadowed by her hair, Sakura kneeled to help the smaller boy back up.
"What's this?" the noble drawled, head tilting back. "The brat's brought help this time, has he?"
His gaze passed over her face. "Or were you meant to tempt me away from this one? Apologies, but I'll pass." He yanked the boy in his arms back by the hair. Miserable eyes locked onto hers, bright and purple. "Have a preference for those eyes, you see?"
Sakura pushed the boy behind her, and relayed her warning softly.
The noble paused, gaze narrowing. "What did you say to me?"
"I'll only say it once more."
Cold spread throughout her limbs.
"Get off him," she said tonelessly. "Or I'll cut it off."
The noble laughed loudly, sweat dripping from his face. His pupils were dilated with inebriation. "I could have your head for that. Do you know who I am?"
The small boy roared behind her. The Voice roared with it, beyond words, a senseless scream of rage in her head.
The man's mouth spread in that same, frank, unapologetic smile, and it was as superficially charming as before. "You can't do anything to me—"
Sakura stood between them and her wrist flicked down on his out-thrust, the kunai slicing through blood and tissue faster than a blink of an eye.
The mutilated organ hit the ground.
The noble screamed. The sound echoed like thunder down the maze of corridors. Sakura stared as he fell.
"Aniki! Aniki!"
"No, no, no," the older boy cried, even as the smaller boy barreled tearfully into his stomach. He gripped her arm weakly. "What have you done? That's Lord Botsudou's son. Benkei, his only son…"
Sakura turned toward him. She felt like her head was under water.
The man whose name was Benkei screamed still, his vocal chords straining—it didn't seem like he could stop any more than he could stop breathing. There would be guards soon, she processed slowly. The small boy still needed healing. His older brother too. Was there enough time—?
She tore absentmindedly at her top and rolled the scrap of cloth into a ball, bending to stuff it in his mouth. There were witnesses to the act-ones she couldn't kill. Her actions would be known and would offend the daimyo, which-if she survived-would undoubtedly put her in trouble with the council.
There was still time to run, she considered.
A shadow fell over her.
Fingers possessed her wrists and turned them over, exposing the blood on her hands.
She looked up. Kakashi's gaze met hers. He had located the source of the scream faster than anyone else in the castle.
Her mouth parted. "Where did you come from—"
Wordlessly, he pulled her forward. She shifted from her crouched position to a kneeling one, knees hitting the ground. He dragged her bloodied hands across his flak jacket. The stains transferred easily onto the harsh, olive-grey material.
"W-what are you doing?" one of the boys whispered.
"When they come, stay quiet," Kakashi instructed, voice level.
The clamoring of approaching guards registered in her sluggish mind. Sakura reacted instantly, muscles tensing to move back. But Kakashi held her fast. She tried to comprehend what he was doing. Her fingers felt scraped raw against the material of his flak jacket.
At the last instant, he pushed her away.
"Benkei-sama," one of the guards muttered as they were surrounded. The guard at the front, ostensibly their leader, signaled with right hand. One of the guards kneeled to slow the noble's bleeding.
The man who had signaled now stepped forward. The insignia on his breast caught the light.
"Who is responsible for this?" the captain demanded. Although he wore the uniform of the guard, his hair was drawn up tight in a topknot, as was the way of the samurai. A man of honor, then—or so they said.
Sakura's mouth tightened, eyes flashing. She didn't regret what she had done. "I—"
"I am," Kakashi said coldly.
Her head whipped around, face stricken.
"I see," the captain said, eyes settling on the blood on the copy-nin's clothing. "Arrest him."
Chapter 30: Kono Mijimena Jōtai
"Hatake," the daimyo sighed in front of the full court. "This is a regrettable turn of events."
Sakura struggled to the front, pushing through the masses of whispering nobles.
"I had wanted to call you a son," the daimyo said, the skin around his eyes taut with ire. "And this is how you repay my generosity: by castrating the only son of one of my dearest friends, not to mention one of the wealthiest nobles in this country. I understand shinobi ways are not our own, but even you must know that this is among the highest offenses in our land."
"Konoha's hound seems to be as wild as they say," the advisor lamented beside him. "We must only be grateful that this transpired before Himiko-sama was inextricably bound to him before the gods."
Sakura lost her patience and began to shove, causing men and women to fall over. She found her way at last to the front. The ruckus caught the daimyo's attention, as voices raised at her from behind.
"It wasn't him," Sakura said, glaring at Kakashi-currently propped up by two burly guards with all the impression of being bored-before she made eye contact with the daimyo. "It was me."
"Pardon?" The advisor's eyes widened.
The daimyo stood. "What is this?" he demanded. He turned toward Kakashi. "What does this girl say?"
"Oh, yes," Kakashi rasped, gaze dismissing her imperiously, "she did it."
His words rang with stunning insincerity.
Sakura bared her teeth. "He only arrived onto the scene after. This—this is some misguided attempt to – I have no fucking idea. But he didn't do it."
"Watch your words, girl," the daimyo instructed, voice thunderous. "My judgement is the rule of law and the divine, and these should not be treated so lightly."
She bowed deeply, hair settling messily around her. "Sorry," she said through gritted teeth. Just listen.
"Jinrai," the daimyo demanded, "describe the scene you encountered."
The captain stepped forward, kneeling. "Yes, daimyo-sama. When we arrived, there were two servants, this girl, and the copy-nin present. Benkei-sama was bleeding on the floor, and his blood was on the copy-nin. Given this evidence, as well as his immediate confession, I determined there were grounds to make an arrest."
"I see."
"There was blood on me too," Sakura shouted. "Look beneath my nails. It's still there—"
"Daimyo-sama, I believe we can settle this matter simply," Kakashi said, raising his head lazily. "Why not just ask the victim?"
Sakura's eyes narrowed. The daimyo nodded, brow furrowed. "Yes, yes, bring Benkei in."
The court dissolved into meaningless noise as they waited. A minute passed before the doors parted, and a man reclining gingerly among a careful arrangement of cushions was carried in. His face was paler than parchment-he looked, indeed, like he had recently had his cock cut off.
"Benkei-sama, we thank you for your presence in this trying time, but such is the course of pursuing justice. It waits for none," the advisor greeted gravely. "Now, we have a question. Our captain arrested the copy-nin, but the girl now says that she did it. Please settle the matter for the court. Which one did this to you?"
Benkei raised his head blearily, eyes opening a beat later.
"The copy-nin or the girl?" the daimyo urged impatiently.
Sakura saw the noble flinch as he looked at her, then turn slowly in the other direction, toward Kakashi. His gaze passed once more between them, lips thinning. He glanced at his peers, all watching him closely.
"The copy-nin," Benkei decided.
Sakura panted with rage and made to lunge for him. A hand caught her wrist and pulled her back. She turned, murderous.
"Don't," Sai said shortly. "If it's you, it will be worse." Sasuke grunted in agreement.
The daimyo's advisor leaned to whisper something in the old man's ear. The daimyo's brow furrowed. He whispered back. They went back and forth like this a few more times.
"The servants?" Sasuke grunted.
"Smuggled out," Sai said softly. "Where's Naruto?"
"I locked him in his room," Sasuke muttered back.
"…That was probably a smart choice."
The daimyo's head lifted.
"Hatake," the daimyo announced. "The punishment for castrating an only son is death. However, in recognition of the good your family did mine seven generations ago, I will not pass this sentence."
Sai sighed softly. Sakura waited.
"Instead, I sentence you to a thousand lashes."
Sakura stiffened.
Sai's nails dug into her shoulder. "If it had been you, you would have been executed, even if you are a rich merchant's child—because you're a rich merchant's daughter."
"This isn't a battle you can win," Sasuke hissed callously. "It's better this way."
She knew. That's why, for all her anger, she stayed where she was.
The daimyo snapped his fingers, and a large, hulking man stepped forward. A whip was coiled around his thick wrist. The two guards forced Kakashi onto his knees and stripped him of his flak jacket and black under shirt.
His muscles twisted and flexed as he was moved into position, rolling as effortlessly as intricate cogs in a incomprehensibly complex machine. Other than scars, there was only one marking on him: the ANBU tattoo, red like blood, on his left upper arm.
Without aplomb, the large man drew back his fist and released the whip. It struck flesh with a large, thunderous crack. Kakashi didn't flinch.
The skin rose, red and inflamed.
"One."
He released the whip again.
"Two."
Sakura watched, face strained.
"Three."
At fifty, blood began to drip steadily from the wound.
At two hundred, lines covered every section of his back.
At five hundred, she could no longer see—even with chakra sharpening her vision—a single millimeter of untouched flesh.
At seven hundred, the skin on his back no longer resembled anything belonging to a human's.
And all the while, Kakashi stared straight ahead, expression unchanging.
"Thousand," the man called out at last. He stepped back.
Sakura's gaze flew to the daimyo, hateful.
"As this court can attest, Hatake Kakashi has received his punishment of a thousand lashes. The matter is settled. This court is adjourned."
Noise rose from the nobles once more as they slowly filed their way out. As each paused to stare back at the sight they had witnessed, they whispered to each other, marveling, that they had seen a man as great as the copy-nin brought to his knees.
Sakura stepped onto the dais where Kakashi had been whipped.
"Hatake-san, if you will follow us," one of the palace healers said with well-hidden fear, "we will apply our ointments immediately."
"I'll take care of him," Sakura snapped.
The healer turned to her bemused. "Are you his medic-nin? I can apply our ointments before handing him over to you. They're made from the finest ingredients money can purchase, surely they'll be—"
"She'll take care of it," Kakashi said, cool.
The woman flinched subtly. She bowed her head a second later, gesturing her assistants away. "Understood. We will lead you to a healing room."
He walked at a moderate pace behind the cohort of healers as they nervously guided them to the infirmary. Sakura's gaze was stuck on the open wound on his back. Blood trailed him on the floor.
"Will this room do?" the healer asked, opening a door.
"Yes." She shut the door loudly behind her and Kakashi.
He faced the window, away from her.
Her fingers lit up with chakra. She kneaded them into the center of his back, where the damage was the worst. A sibilant hiss escaped his mouth. Sakura's face remained stoic. The healing part wasn't hard, though it needed to be done quickly. Whip lashes weren't complicated injuries; it was the bleeding that one needed to be concerned about. With a thousand lashes, it was the bleeding that could kill a shinobi.
Scabs formed over his back, red and brown, unsightly as she managed to stop the gushing blood.
"You shouldn't have done it," she said colorlessly.
She waited for him to turn around, waited for him to meet her words with his own. When he did not, her hands curled over his shoulders. Mouth tight, she forced him around.
His hair fell in disarray over his eyes, matted with sweat.
"Did you realize the wrong of your ways at long-last and think this would wipe the slate clean?"
She flicked the remaining blood on her hands off. It splattered against the white floor.
"Or did you think," she asked dispassionately, "with this, that you could be finished with me?"
Kakashi stared somewhere past her. She gripped his chin and yanked his gaze down to hers.
"Do you know what you've done?" she whispered. "The marks on your back might fade with time, but you're going to remember them forever. You'll remember that each and every one of those lashes made you mine."
His jaw flexed beneath her fingers. For a moment, his sharingan burned into her, intensely, unreservedly. Then, with ironclad control, his expression shifted. "My intervention was the best course of action for the situation," he said with perfect indifference.
She laughed, mocking. "You shouldn't have let me see you bend for someone else like that," she said. "I would have been able to walk away before. Easily, in comparison to this-you just fucked me, after all. But not now."
It wasn't about being indebted; it wasn't even about gratitude. No, because those, she easily could have dealt with and dismissed. This was something she could not wrestle with, something she could not strangle into submission.
It had Sakura—unwilling, spiteful—at its mercy.
She let go of him, stepped back. "Consider these your fair warnings," she warned lowly. "I'll kill the next one who tries to do anything like this to you, I don't care who they are."
Rage burned through her. She wouldn't be made to watch again.
"And if that daimyo's daughter, Himiko, fucked you," she added through thin lips, "make sure I never find out."
His head bent over hers, forced there by her.
"Or I'll fuck her too," she threatened.
The face that looked down at her was cold, but his eyes flashed. He couldn't hide everything.
Sakura went to the door. "Rest," she said.
She left.
Naruto, as expected, brooded as they returned to Konoha. Kakashi, also as expected, strove to create as much distance between them as he could. It didn't work for either of them as well as they might have hoped.
"Shirt off," Sakura ordered briskly.
Sat on a tree stump, Kakashi pulled off his shirt in one fluid motion, staring straight ahead like she wasn't there. Demeanor clinical, she applied chakra to where the scabbing had broken.
"You can't ignore us forever, dickless," Sai said calmly, crouched on a similar tree stump.
"I know I probably would have made things worse," Naruto acknowledged, face red. "But I'm still mad."
Sasuke unconcernedly cleaned dirt from beneath his nails using the edge of a kunai.
Sai turned to look at Sasuke, dark eyes narrow. He then darted a considering look Naruto's way. Naruto glanced between the two of them in turn, before sagging slightly.
"Done," Sakura told them, cracking her knuckles. "We should be able to continue the rest of the way back without any more stops—"
Kakashi was a blur as he took off into the trees.
"Something," Sasuke said slowly after a moment, "is off about him."
"Indeed," Sai said, eyes resting on her.
Sakura twisted the key into the lock guarding her apartment. As she pushed the door open, the motion sent a folded piece of parchment skidding forward. She eyed it briefly, but moved to the table to set down her mission pack.
As soon as they had crossed the village border, they had been surrounded by ANBU who had informed the copy-nin that he had been summoned by the council. He was probably already testifying in front of Tsunade for the mess their mission had become, Sakura reflected. Her expression blackened. She went into the bathroom.
A long bath allowed her to get the last of the blood—Kakashi's blood—off her hands. She soaked until her skin pruned.
When she exited the bathroom, the folded piece of parchment caught her gaze once more. Finally, she bent and opened it.
Dinner at 9. I look forward to seeing you.
It was her mother's handwriting.
Sakura's eyes went to the small clock. She sighed. She passed a brush quickly over her hair before stepping out.
Her former house was on the opposite side of the village in a much wealthier neighborhood than the one she currently lived in. It was the kind of neighborhood that didn't see much change in occupancy, where everyone knew each other. For years, now, she had gotten used to the sly side-glances every time she returned. She received the same glances now.
Sakura arched her eyebrows every now and again, just to see them turn hastily away. At last, she reached the three-story house that had been her childhood home. She knocked on the door.
The door opened. Her mom stood in the doorway in a pale yellow yukata, golden hair trailing over her shoulder.
"I said nine."
Sakura scratched her head. "I came over as soon as I could."
"And that's what you chose to wear?"
She debated arguing.
Her mother sighed. "I have spare yukatas upstairs. You will change before we eat."
She stifled another groan. "Is that really necessary? If we can just make the meal quick—"
"Sakura."
"Fine," she said sourly.
They both climbed the spiral staircase onto the second level. She was curtly directed into her mother's room and handed a soft, powder blue yukata. Sakura stared at it distastefully.
"Change," her mother ordered, "and then come down to the dining room." She shut the door behind her.
Sakura removed her pants and shirt and slipped on the yukata. It was short on her, as she had expected, because it was her mother's. She tugged it lower. The hem didn't budge.
Rolling her eyes, she eased the door open and followed the staircase down to the first level. When she entered the dining room, however, she was shocked into stillness.
"Sakura," her father greeted. He sat at the head of the table.
Sakura's eyes flew to her mother's, accusing.
Haruno Mebuki sipped calmly at her tea. She set the cup down. "Your father, as you can see, has returned from his trip."
Sakura's face turned back toward her father. The timing, she thought, was unerring.
"Sit down, Sakura," her mother ordered shortly.
She sat.
Her mother's features—as they focused on her from the opposite end of the dining table—were strained, but their beauty was highlighted by the passing rays of the setting sun through the window. Haruno Mebuki, as it happened, possessed the kind of allure that only grew more refined with age.
"A full family dinner," Sakura commented. "You might have included that in the note."
"Would you have done, then, something to that hair?"
"Is there something wrong with it?" her father asked disinterestedly.
She stared at them. Both her parents, here, together. It was the fulfillment of a wish she had pointedly never had. Apparently, this was how they were together—cool, detached. Their only commonality was probably her.
Her mother's mouth tightened, scandalized. "She already has that forehead and all those scars. Not to mention her coloring is so unusual. If she keeps butchering her hair like that, no one's going to look at her twice."
Sakura stretched her legs beneath the table, blowing hair lazily out of her face. To be clear, she had inherited neither of her parents' good looks so straightforwardly, but rather had received an unassuming combination of the two—which seemed to have the effect of being more off-putting than entrancing. It didn't seem to have affected her in that regard though. She wondered if that was appropriate to share.
"But," her mother said dangerously, long-nailed fingers resting gently against her forehead, "none of that compares to the rumors going around about you right at this moment."
That caught Sakura's attention. "Rumors?"
"That you were involved in that horrific accident that happened recently at the daimyo's court. My daughter. Castration!"
Sakura blinked. "Ah…yes. Actually, I did do that."
Her mother's beautiful, porcelain face reddened. "What?"
"That should be enough," her father said calmly.
Sakura's gaze snapped to him, unkind. "Yes, enough of that. Why exactly are you here?"
His head tipped forward. "There's malice in your voice," he observed. "There wasn't before. Why?"
"Because before you were a stranger I encountered on a mission. You weren't in this house pretending to be my father," she said curtly.
"He is your father, Sakura," her mother snapped.
"In his own words, he has little interest in child-rearing." Sakura rested her elbows on the table.
"You're quick," her father noted, unperturbed.
This remark, neither expected nor desired, left her momentarily at a loss. Her mother also seemed a bit bemused.
"I've thought over our conversation," he said, "and I've realized that you warrant more perusal. An option exists that I had not known before."
"Option," Sakura said blankly.
"Yes," he said simply, coolly. "For one, regarding the matter of succession."
Her mouth flattened.
"Unlike your grandfather, I do not intend to be similarly rushed into any decision-making on my deathbed," her father said conversationally. "Now, there are three possibilities. First, I hand over the business to someone almost certainly not within this family, and this family loses its ability to reap its rewards from this business. Second, you marry a partner that I select for you; that person will work under me until the time arrives for a change of leadership, and you remain free to do as you please. Third and finally, if you are willing, you abandon your current lifestyle to apprentice under me and, if you prove capable enough, take over the business following my departure."
Sakura's mother gaped. She shook her head, glaring at her husband. "What do you mean hand it over to someone not in our family? There are so many cousins, you have your pick—"
"I would have the pick of morons," he said indifferently.
Sakura lifted her head slowly from the table. "I think," she said carefully, "you took my words lightly, the last time we spoke."
He watched her, silent.
Her chest ached inexplicably. "I will not be turning back from this," she breathed harshly. "There is no turning back. Not anymore."
Her mother's voice was low. "As he has said, Sakura, there are other options to keep this business within the family."
"I might owe you for giving me a roof and for raising me," Sakura said slowly back to her. "But I do not owe you a marriage."
"Sakura." Her mother's shoulders shook. "Think about the rest of your family, you foolish girl—"
She didn't waver. "Why? They haven't done anything for me."
"Then think about me."
"I can provide for you for the rest of my life," Sakura said simply. "I can make enough money to sustain your current lifestyle. That is within my capabilities."
"Very well," her father said peaceably. "I see you have made your mind."
Sakura watched him, tired and wary. He seemed content now—but she sensed that this was the least of why he had returned.
He didn't speak again for the rest of the meal. As soon as there was no more food on her plate, Sakura bowed her head swiftly and left for her home.
It poured the next day. She woke up to the incessant pattering of rain droplets against her window. Finding it impossible to return to sleep, Sakura rolled out of bed.
She sipped her morning tea staring out the window. Clouds, dark and infinite, consumed the sky, and the dirt paths were muddy. It was an obnoxiously bleak picture.
She set the cup down.
Suddenly—no, she corrected, for a few minutes now—the apartment and its unforgiving silence had begun to make her feel alien in her skin.
She grabbed an umbrella and left.
The streets were mostly abandoned. It had been a day like this, she remembered, that the sandaime's funeral had been held. It had been the first time in her narrow existence that she had been forced to confront death beyond the quotidian—because the sandaime hadn't been just a man.
He had been a symbol for the village, of course. And both civilians and shinobi had been united in their mourning, though most of them had not known him at all. Perhaps, he had managed to mean so much precisely because they had not known him—because he was nothing to them and therefore could become everything.
She watched the droplets slide off the edges of her umbrella.
They said the God of Shinobi, women and men like him, became stars when they died, their lives recorded in the skies for even when feeble human minds failed.
As she looked up, all Sakura could see was the thick overcast of the clouds.
She walked on.
A child zipped past her, laughing maniacally; another followed her and splashed water onto her pants. A stout woman waved a decorative fan at her from beneath the covering of her stall. An instructor from the Academy hurried by, papers clutched in hand.
The smell of grass, even above that of mud, rose in her nose.
She walked aimlessly, circuitously, indirectly. She walked until she found herself at the outskirts of the village. Through training field after training field she walked, and then she reached the cemetery.
There, she found the few who had braved the weather to mourn the dead. A small family huddled beneath an umbrella placed a wreath of white flowers on top of a stone. A young couple hovered by another stone that seemed more recently erected. They were protected from the rain by a pair of matching umbrellas, their faces wet with tears.
Farther away, almost a speck in the distance, there was one other figure in the cemetery. He stood without an umbrella, doused by the downpour.
She paused, feet finally stilling.
He stood like he was stone himself. He didn't carry flowers, he didn't cry, and if he said anything, she couldn't hear it.
She waited for him to move. Once he left, she told herself, she would continue on.
Eventually, the family and the couple left. Other people came. Then they left too. All the while, he remained, in the same exact position.
Well after the sun had set, when there was no other living person in the cemetery except for the two of them, she watched his frame shake all of a sudden, like a bell had been rung. Only then, did he step back slowly. He turned and left, shoulders slouched, hands nestled deep within his pockets.
Sakura didn't realize that she had begun to follow him until she stood on a rooftop while he entered the tall apartment complex opposite her. He was soon out of her sight. Disturbed by her own behavior, she turned to leave.
She froze as she heard a door open and shut in one of the apartments, distinct even from her distance. The window for one particular apartment had been wide open, the rain pouring in, she recalled.
She turned and saw that it was Kakashi's apartment.
Even now, he didn't shut the window. Instead, he pulled off his flak jacket and shirt and sprawled flat on the bed. The rain, cold and biting, continued to pour onto him, but he could only have been numb to it now, after having stood in it for so long, his bed having been exposed to the same.
Sakura dropped the umbrella and launched herself across the open air between the two buildings. She settled silently on the window sill, crouching with her hands poised on the edges of the window frame.
Pale eyelids, one smooth and the other scarred, raised swiftly. The sharingan spun at her.
Rain pelted her back.
"I'm coming in," she said tonelessly. She stepped into the room and swung the double window shut behind her. The apartment she entered was cold, minimalistic and absent of any of the usual markers of an inhabited home. It could have been a show house. Other than the rain, it was pristine.
He stared at her, lashes dripping water.
She stared back at him, mouth hard.
He might have mocked her or snarled at her; but he seemed to be in a strange mood. He said nothing. His gaze went unfeelingly to the ceiling.
What had Tsunade done? What had the council said in response to their recent mission?
(None of it mattered. This was...something else.)
Sakura's breaths filled up the silence in the room.
Her shirt dripped water onto the floor, despite the umbrella she had used. She yanked it off. She shook off her boots, muddied and also damp. She wore, now, only her chest-binding and the standard issue shinobi pants.
She placed one knee on the ice-cold bed and then lay down flat, beside him. She watched the ceiling as well.
They lay there for what felt like an eternity.
There was a weight on her chest. It had been there ever since she had woken up, as incommensurable as the cave that had almost crushed her. Or maybe, it had been there for years-silently, slyly growing. She didn't know how to remove it. Nor did she know how to outmaneuver it, if it even could be outmaneuvered.
"My father has come back to Konoha," she found herself admitting. "And I don't know why."
Her ears burned after. She didn't know why she had said that. It was a lapse in judgment; she had been in the rain too long. She glared. That was all she would say.
Her hands tangled in the wet bed sheets. She said more.
"Then there's Danzo, who has yet to be apprehended. And the fact that the council seems to care more about the Uchihas being back than the massacre or what he did to those like Sai," her voice broke.
Her gaze narrowed at the ceiling.
She shivered in the cold. A thump sounded from the apartment above, paired with a sharp clang. A dropped pot or something like it.
She exhaled.
"Also," she said hoarsely, "I'm no longer in ANBU now. And I don't think I can take it much longer. I can't sleep at night. I think about all the things I've done. I think about all the things I want to do. I want to kill. I want to kill so badly that I don't even think about it consciously anymore. That man, in the palace, I should have killed him instead of castrated him, because what he did... to that servant, and his brother who had to—"
Her voice wavered as her head swam. She couldn't go on. She had held onto control, however tenuously, until now, because of the whirlwind of events that had required it—but no more.
Her eyes burned again, and she brought her forearm up, covering them. She pressed the flesh into her eyes, wanting the pain to disappear.
Her breath was ragged, ugly, like she was on the verge of hyperventilating. (She was.)
"I'll make it easy for you," she whispered. "Tomorrow, I'll act like this never happened. "
So let me stay.
She turned onto her side and shut her eyes. Slowly, almost unnoticeably, the cold bed sheets had begun to warm beneath her body. She waited for his cruelty, for his usual, casual weaponization of words; she waited, even, for his brutish strength, the mete and measure of his violence against hers—
He turned toward her. The heat of his body burned feverishly all along her back like a live torch. She froze, every muscle locked into place in painful attention. But he didn't do any of what she had anticipated. Instead, against her back, trembling-desperately, deliriously-he was like a man who had finally been given permission.
The confession was swift and terrible.
"I killed my best friend. And then I killed the woman he loved."
She didn't turn to look at him. She stared straight ahead. They shook together in the silence.
