Another chapter for you guys, with a little bit of plot thrown in. Naruto still doesn't belong to me. I can't believe some of the things I'm reading in the manga. Poor Guy. I totally cried when he opened the eighth gate. He's not in this chapter, but it's dedicated to his courage, strength and sacrifice. You rock, Gai-sensei! May your flames of youth still burn on in Lee and the rest of Konoha.
"In what was becoming an emotional defense mechanism, I retreated. I had suffered a few emotional blows in a short period of time. I no longer knew if Ino was my friend, for she had completely messed with my feelings for Sasuke.
"And I had only just sorted out how I feel for him. I wasn't ready for a relationship with anyone at the moment."
Sakura paused in telling her story momentarily; remembering how conflicted Naruto's kiss had made her feel. She had never shown any interest in the cheerful boy as a young girl. She hadn't really taken notice of him until he returned from his three year training journey with Jiraiya.
The pinkette continued, seeing the anxious faces on the students' faces. They were eager now, but soon her story would take a dark turn, and they wouldn't be so excited for her to keep speaking.
"Surprisingly enough, it was Sai that made me realize that there hadn't been any romantic overtures behind Naruto's action.
"But that's not important. What is important is what happened the next day."
Sakura was unsurprised when the Fifth Hokage sent a summons for her the next day.
Her shishou warned her to be more discrete in her bending of the Uchiha's regulations. She personally didn't give a damn what her apprentice did so long as she kept the brat out of trouble, but there were members on the council that would nail Sakura to the wall if she was caught breaking the sanction Tsunade had placed upon him.
With that out of the way, the blonde moved onto the real reason why she had called for Sakura.
"I've got a mission for you. Don't worry about your housemates. I've already blackmailed Kakashi into taking over for the mission's duration."
"What's the mission?"
"It's a quick one," Tsunade said. "You shouldn't be more than a week. I just need you to run the Land of Valleys. A man named Nanafushi stolen some of our secrets. I don't know which ones," she went on tersely, cutting off Sakura before the girl could ask how he had done it and what he had made away with, "but the Land of Valleys has offered to return them in exchange for a sum and lower rates on any missions the request in the next five years."
Sakura flinched. That was an expensive trade. Even without the flat sum, if Konoha received C-rank pay for future missions from the Land of Valleys, the village would lose a lot of revenue. Especially since the Land of Valleys would take advantage of their agreement and exclusively contract with just Konoha for five years.
But it was a price they had to pay to protect village secrets.
"They stipulated that I had to send one of my apprentices." The slug sannin poured herself a cup of sake and knocked it back. "I would have done so anyway, there's very few of my shinobi that I would trust with a task this delicate and you're the most diplomatic of them; the best and only choice really, but it's odd that they would demand that."
She skipped over the cup in favor of drinking directly from the bottle, the column of her throat constricting as she gulped the alcohol like it was water. "So be on your guard, Sakura."
"I will, shishou."
The pinkette returned to her house on the outskirts of the village. She packed the provisions she would need, her standard weapons and medic's pouch, other staples like food with a shelf life of a week and two canteens for water, her travel documents and the letter the Hokage had given her detailing that Sakura was the expected ambassador sent to retrieve the stolen documents.
She wasn't required to set out until morning, so Sakura used the afternoon to make meals the boys could reheat.
Not that they needed her to, of course. They were all capable of looking after themselves, but it made Sakura happy to take care of them. And the five of them certainly deserved to have someone that put their needs, wellbeing, and happiness as their first priority.
Sakura didn't mind being that person. She felt it was the least she could do for them.
She set out early the next morning. It was a short trip to the Land of Valleys, just two days, and she worried what condition she would find the house in if she was gone an extended period of time.
"What did they do to the house while you were gone?"
"Did they burn it to the ground trying to cook?" Sakura laughed at that suggestion. Given Sai's skills in the kitchen, she could actually see that happening.
"No, the house was fine. Its occupants were worse for wear, though."
"How come?" a girl asked.
"That mission was nothing but trouble," she surmised. Sometimes that mission made appearances in her nightmares. She shook her head several times to rid herself of the memories.
"The whole basis of it was a lie. There was no shinobi named Nanfushi. The Land of Valleys didn't have any sensitive documents in their possession. They wanted Konoha to believe that so they would send a high ranking shinobi to them."
"But why would they want that? The Land of Valleys is small and there ninja don't amount to much."
"They don't have to have famous ninjas to be skilled," Sakura lectured. "In fact, the Land of Valley's ninja may have been more like true shinobi because they did not flaunt their skills and whip out their best moves every battle like they were party favors."
The class was silent as the thought about what she had just told them. "They only need a few really skilled ninja to keep one captive."