.
.
.
golden rot the devil said he'd take the lot
-o-
After taking place under Tsunade's tutelage, after all the preparations she had endured to become a skilled medic-nin, Sakura thought she should have beaten Sai easily in their spars.
She hadn't. Couldn't. Not at the ratio she wanted. As clever as she was, as capable of dodging as she was, as powerful as her hits were – Sai was more efficient and brutal in his approach to training. He didn't have the same instincts of reservation that she did.
Sakura was beginning to think she wasn't more of an opponent for him in spars because of the distractions from her worries and emotions.
For one thing, and it was silly of her, Sakura thought, but she still checked her mailbox every day to see if Ino or Naruto had sent her any letters. Naruto would have been unlikely, considering his attention span, but that Ino hadn't written was strange. Before they had split apart as friends, they had made a tradition of penpaling and now that they were renewed friends but unable to meet, she thought the old system might have been revived. None of the letters Sakura had sent had been answered.
It was upsetting.
"You're too old for that sort of thing," Sai told her after Sakura shared her lamentations.
They were hydrating after a round of chasing each other in a mid-range styled bout. Early in the morning but the training area was alight and she and Sai were sitting on the stacked benches under the reach of the high beams. While she talked, Sakura was watching the progress of a spider with seven legs trying to crawl between her and Sai. So far it was struggling to stay upright let alone move any. More than once it fell to its back and curled into a ball. She poked it to spur it on again.
"Relationships are not just for the young, you know? Trust and common bonds in life and death situations are important. Teammates are important."
She had learned as much in the academy and thought she still appreciated the concept – if somewhat abstractly given the state of her own team.
Sai was watching her prodding at the spider, trying to keep it moving.
"Yeah, but she has her own teammates," he said. "You just need to accept things. Move on."
He put his thumb over the spider and pressed down until Sakura heard a little pop.
-o-
One good thing to come out of the mission was the new community outreach clinic, set up as a front for his clandestine meetings with Sakura, but otherwise a functional facility.
Tsunade had been systematically opening similar care centers throughout the village since taking office as Hokage, ones that served civilians and retirees, only this particular location had a hand picked medic-nin staff and carefully installed security features, hidden entrances, shadow rooms. A limited number of people knew of its secondary purpose as a 'safe house.' Three people would ever know its purpose in relation to Sakura's mission.
To Sakura, attending clinic hours was merely another task given to her by her mentor, an opportunity to learn more about public health and hygiene, to practice preventive medicines and measures.
If the jounin ANBU Root had never approached Sakura, that clinic facade might have been the reality for her.
But, as it was, the ANBU had approached her in the last week and she had finally – unfortunately – garnered attention from Danzo's Root team.
Mission Start and it was Kakashi's lovely task to break the news to its recipient. He waited for Sakura in the subterranean level room of the One-Eleventh Street Clinic, ready to open the passage for her once she had unsealed a particular scroll from the Hokage and followed its instructions. The scroll had come with Sakura from her meeting with the Hokage that morning and inside, as Kakashi understood, there was a plain message detailing a private meeting at a specified time and location to take place in the clinic.
So many buffered, furtive steps before Kakashi and Sakura could even talk, but he was patient.
Kakashi thought, 'no more good things from here on out,' and waited.
Sakura was as prompt and professional as she had been as a genin in Team Seven, and so when she got to the part of her orders to wait for her contact's appearance by the corner of the empty specimens' room, she stood quietly and issued the slightest 'eep!' of surprise when Kakashi pulled her through a hidden sliding panel.
He recreated the genjutsu on the outside of the panel and then clicked on the lights in the room before he faced his former student.
The fluorescent lighting was unforgiving, draining the color from Sakura's face, exaggerating her shadows of sleeplessness, the sharpness of exertion, and the fraying of stress at her edges. Her eyes were wide and tired, confused as she took him in, but then she was exploring the room they were in with calculated, curious glances. Taking stock of her surroundings in a very astute manner.
Kakashi remembered he had no idea how to talk to this Sakura as she waited for him to say something. A year of training under Tsunade and already she had been without Kakashi for twice the length she had been with him. She was older, she was more knowledgeable, more independent, more valuable an asset than he knew how to handle. He didn't think she would faint any more at the sight of a severely beaten and chewed up teammate. She'd probably seen much worse by now.
Mercy, how she was changing.
(And how was she to change?)
Her greeting was short, too polite, and wary. She didn't appear overly pleased to see Kakashi in the room with her.
Replying coolly, he said, "yo."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "I should have known I was meeting you. I was in that room for half and hour waiting for your signal."
Right. Kakashi had let that happen; he had let his reluctance slow his actions.
He wanted to preserve Sakura's last innocent image of her village and its forces – he hadn't wanted to shatter that glass yet.
Or something.
Kakashi stuffed his hands into his pant pockets, let his eyes find an innocuous spot in the room. In explanation, "got caught up in a good chapter."
"Of course." Sakura was unamused. With a huff, she reopened the scroll in her hands. She said in a murmur, "this is by far the strangest way I've received a message from Shishou and she's sent me notes tied to a pig."
Her comment and wry delivery almost made Kakashi smile, but he quelled the expression.
"This is a mission briefing, actually," he said, correcting her. About the scroll, "lay that out on the ground."
Through his mask, Kakashi bit into his thumb, drew blood there, and motioned for Sakura to do the same. Eying his tactic with some hesitance, she forewent a canine in favor of pricking her digit with a chakra scalpel. The scroll glowed a warm gold as they both simultaneously unsealed it. Stored inside were files and a description of their mission requirements as authorized by the Fifth.
The directive at the moment was for Sakura to record rhetoric delivered by the ANBU operative, 'Ken.'
No mention of Danzo, Root, or possible insubordination. Simple in-explicit surveillance.
Sakura frowned, hiding a more damning crestfallen expression as she read over the assembled papers and history on the jounin in question. If she were more like Naruto, she would have voiced, 'but why?' or shared her discomfort with the mission. Instead she nodded and clarified points on her means of keeping and sharing the material she might collect. When she did take time to ask him a question that was technically out of line it was quiet and hesitant. More obfuscation of sadness.
"Is this man connected to Orochimaru?" She asked, not bold enough to meet Kakashi's gaze as they huddled over a spread of photographs, mission logs, income and living records. Sakura looked so hopeless in the unpleasant lighting.
Months ago he would have put a hand on her head and smiled, would have said, 'you don't have to worry about that.'
He was condescending in a different manner in his response, though he didn't intend for it to sound as much. "If he is or is not, you should treat this mission seriously, Sakura."
It sounded harsh to his own ears and he was unsurprised when Sakura gave a wounded flinch at the reprimand.
What had been his goal with that statement? To tell her to focus on the current situation and not distract herself over Sasuke?
Had he meant to be consoling?
Because if so, then he was getting even more abysmal in his attempts to comfort her than his previous tendency to downplay any troubling developments.
He felt the impulse to reach out to her and amend his reassurance, but he didn't act fast enough and Sakura leaned back out of reach and made to end the meeting. Her demeanor shifted, a coolness touching her features.
"I understand my directions," she said.
Kakashi stared at her, tried to find an opening in her body language to again try for an apologetic gesture, but she was closed off to him. He dismissed her and they didn't talk again for weeks.
He wasn't very pleased with himself, either.
-o-
Sakura's new mission was a bit thrilling and a bit frustrating. She was eager for the opportunity to carry out her orders and impatient with the amount of time it took to actually get started. Her target was an elusive fellow that seemed impervious to her attempts to track him any time he might happen by after her spars with Sai. He was very adept at disappearing and she was equally as inept in espionage.
So she was surprised when the man approached her one evening when she was once again dragging out her walk home, trying to get herself lost in memories of a happier time as she meandered her way down a busy commercial street.
"Sakura," someone said, making her spin around.
The person who said her name was at first unfamiliar. He looked different than she had expected without his mask, but then she recognized Ken. He could have almost passed for a civilian in his plain clothes, but there was to her the unmistakable air of a shinobi about him. Eyes too old for his face, shoulders a little too straight, muscles set to spring just in case.
In a crowded space and yet that same feeling of vulnerability from her first encounter with the man returned to her. And now she was meant to be spying on him.
"Walk with me to the fountain?" Ken asked her, an arm extended in invitation. "It would be a waste to spend a beautiful evening alone."
A blush warmed her cheeks because her first - flighty and foolish - thought was that it was a charming, flirtatious gesture from a decent looking man.
It was actually a pretense to talk privately in a conveniently white noise-washed setting. The running water of the square's decorative garden was disruptive to prying ears and the appearance of the two lingering in such a place was unassuming.
Sakura stopped fussing over her hair and indecent appearance as she took a tentative seat on the fountain's edge. Sai's sensei was smiling and admiring the star dotted sky from his seat next to her. He was at ease and relaxed when he spoke to her.
"It's impressive how you're training under the Fifth. Your growth as a kunoichi has truly opened up in an unexpected way."
Her thanks was awkward and she hoped she didn't sound quite as insulted as she felt.
"But do you know why it's impressive?" Ken was still looking upwards, his profile to her.
Sakura traced the lines of his face, he was young and sun warmed and his hair framed his jawline nicely. She shook her head.
"Because, truthfully," and here his smile was sardonic, "you were chosen to be the third teammate to Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto specifically for the fact you were plain, nonthreatening, and a tempered ointment to an otherwise contentious balance of forces."
Sakura's silence was evidence enough of her confusion and she was happy for the water's noise covering the jump of her heart's beating.
"But of course that must be hard for you to follow when you still understand so little of your situation. I'm surprised your mentor is keeps you so secluded in the dark. Keeping from you the full story of the last member of our village's Uchiha clan and of our very own Demon Fox container... "
"What are you talking about?" Sakura could feel her hand shaking as the man flashed her a teasing grin.
"I'm so happy you asked, Sakura, because there's a lot you deserve to hear."
.
.
.
-o-
Thank you for reading!
Please consider reviewing with your thoughts or sharing support