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life void zip naught null, bare and wide grin on every skull
-o-
Sakura felt energetic, vigorous, clear-headed, and new.
Organized, punctual, presentable -she was once again a shining example of work ethic. Her thoughts were quick, her actions were efficient. She didn't feel the lag of unidentifiable weight pulling at her shoulders. It was as if she had been scrubbed of the lingering months of malaise and uncertainty and she was re-emerging as a kuniochi.
She was on her seventieth straight hour of having Nocturne in her system and no one around her knew as much.
Sakura smiled at her assistants in the operating room as she finished her first unassisted procedure. The regenerative jutsu was a complete success and a record breaker for time to completion. Some of it was her natural ability with medical ninjutsu, but, really, she knew it was the control offered by the stimulant that made her so exceptional.
Nocturne, Nox as Sai referred to it, was a key to a lock she hadn't known had been holding her back. Sakura was open, functional, and pure in a way she didn't remember; as if her chakra coils had been reinvigorated, re-sprung, in a new manner.
The effects of Nox had made her want adventure again. Sakura thought about the Land of Waves and how it could have gone differently if only she had been more active, more capable. She wondered if she might have been a different kunoichi for Kakashi to train, if she might have been a better combatant in the exams, or against Gaara in the Invasion. She could have been different – she might have been worthwhile.
Even in her covert mission with Kakashi she was seeing the threads she had missed days before in her anxious questioning. She saw the importance of Naruto and Sasuke's positions beyond how it related to her (and her obliviousness). The village was a tangle of threads; the woven mess of bloodlines, leadership, and ideological purpose, and she was pulling at its heartstring.
There was certainly more to her mission than Kakashi was telling her.
After the procedure and on her own again, one meagre pawn in the busy scene around her, Sakura was considering her particular role in the village.
"You doing alright, apprentice?"
Sakura lowered the pile of medical scrolls in her arms to see an ANBU in the hallway in front of her. Ken was without a genjutsu or henge to disguise himself, standing in his uniform and mask and speaking to her openly while inside the service hospital.
Both audacious and ignorant of him, Sakura thought. She smiled up to him and didn't lie. "I'm wonderful, thank you."
He saw something in her expression that made him press further, "wonderful and …?"
"Curious," Sakura said. "I've looked into Nocturne. I can't find anything on it based on its name nor its components that I can identify."
From under his porcelain mask, she could almost hear Ken return her smile. "I am never disappointed with you, apprentice."
Despite herself and all her new deductions, the flattery kindled a pink warmth to her cheeks.
"If you want to learn more about it, there's someone I can have you meet," Ken offered. He was skilled enough to make it sound like the introduction was a candid thought.
Sai had said his teacher was 'not so great with people,' but Ken had no trouble when it came to talking to her.
Sakura tilted her head, and was genuinely interested. "Who is it?"
"We all call her Himeko. She's a bit... Well, you'll like her."
"When will I meet her?"
"I'll find you." Another smile on his voice. "See you around, apprentice."
When Ken left, he touched her face and there was no excuse of speaking low to her for his closeness, no secretive note to give her. Just a touch for the sake of a touch.
Sakura felt warm down through her middle.
A touch for the sake of a mission, she thought.
For something more.
-o-
They had crossed paths in the second floor hallway of the hospital's east wing – reserved for serious injuries and cases and busy at all times. The two were a small number in a crowded space, very close to each other and not obvious to most beyond the thought of a couple chatting. A courteous, intimate moment lost in the sea of medic-nin, patients, staff, and visitors moving about.
Kakashi only saw the last second as Sakura and Ken parted. He saw the lowering of a hand and the quick burying of a hot face behind a stack of scrolls.
A burning, sick feeling stirred in his stomach as he watched Sakura dart away.
"You came to watch the procedure too, eh?"
Kakashi didn't turn to acknowledge Nara Shikaku. The man had an unlit cigarette dancing on his fingertips and his tone was bleak. He was wary, but not nearly enough at the moment.
"And you came to keep me from congratulating my old student on an impressive accomplishment."
"I thought you might be tempted to approach her. Hell, I wanted to say something."
Kakashi had been tempted, but he was also a shinobi with two decades of experience. He had outranked Shikaku when he was a tween. Blandly, "I wouldn't dare. Simply offering my silent support."
"Of course. And now you're heading out, I imagine."
"Something to as much effect."
Shikaku raised an eyebrow. The answer was not, 'I'm going to chase down my former student and current subordinate to break mission protocol,' and so he was confused but content. "Right. Have...fun with that."
"Doubtless I will," Kakashi murmured and excused himself.
He went to the hospital basement, and more specifically to the security room where he knew he could find surveillance footage.
The two genin inside stumbled to their feet when he entered, one even stammered out something about clearance before hushing themselves at Kakashi's pointed, unimpressed glance.
An awkward beat before, "how do I get the feeds from the east wing?"
With the genin standing behind him, fidgeting very loudly, Kakashi found the moment he was looking for from a somewhat decent angle. He glared at the small screen with its unfocused and distorted image, watched the minutes-old footage of Ken and Sakura in the hallway. Their their conversation was indiscernible.
But he could read their body language.
He rewound and replayed the man reaching for her face and running his hands along her jawline.
-o-
The village was over a hundred years old, and over that time, some of its buildings had been added to and expanded and had grown out from their original structures like new sprouts from a vine. There were spaces under the Hokage Tower that even the Fifth, legacy and leader that she was, didn't know about.
Sakura was even further removed from knowing the extent of Konoha's various networks, but she was starting to understand more.
The woman called Himeko occupied one of those unquantified, mysterious village spaces.
Ken had taken Sakura into a department building off to the side of the Hokage Tower, led her through hallways and passages, down staircases and elevators. Twisting directions into themselves until Sakura's spatial awareness was in knots and she had to rely on her chakra sensitivity to orientate herself versus where she knew her shishou's signature to be in her office many stories above them.
"These are medical research laboratories," Sakura said, peering into rooms as Ken walked her down a long corridor that had the occasional viewing window in the walls. The equipment inside was a mixture of new and old, typical and bizarre. "Who works down here? I've never heard of this section..."
"Not too many people have. The Third was the one to sanction the labs, but for awhile they didn't see much use." Ken's response was evasive, which meant to Sakura he thought she might not find the whole truth exactly palatable. "Anyway, ANBU R&D has set up down here for the time being."
Obviously not the same ANBU R&D Sakura knew about from Shizune, where they dealt with poisons, venoms, and toxins.
They had arrived at a door marked 'Zero Four' and Sakura held back a pace before Ken could open it.
"Are you scouting me?" She asked, knowing it was sudden. Sakura had been wondering for awhile if it were the case and she was finally confident that the time had arrived to bring it to the forefront of whatever relationship she had with the man in front of her. If Ken really thought very much of her then she figured the question wouldn't surprise him.
It didn't.
Ken pushed back his mask. He had tanned skin, sun born freckles, brown eyes and dark hair. His lips pulled into a lazy sort of smile that complemented the downturned shape of his eyes. He said, "might be."
Everything about him was soft and welcoming and looking a little like he'd just finished rough housing. An inoffensive sort of catalogue fashioned tousled. A cover and an act he wore too well.
Sakura hedged a moment, reworded her question. "Am I being scouted?"
"Yes."
"So this isn't just your own action right now?" Sakura pressed.
"Are all of our actions always our own?" The smile widened and his eyes caught a pretty light. He reached out to run a finger down the hair she hadn't tucked behind an ear. He said, "let's not keep her waiting. She's expecting us."
For the moment, Sakura had to be satisfied with the answer he had given her.
-o-
In the tiny room again with a chasm between them and Kakashi was unable to stay seated. He was leaning on the table's edge, arms crossed, and listening to his subordinate go over a week's worth of interactions and observations, looking for guidance from her handler as was now allowed in their mission.
Nothing Sakura said interested him because he had a suspicion she was leaving out critical information.
She looked pretty. Not that she hadn't always been so – some people just have that look – but Sakura was more polished than she had been in over a year. She was styling her hair, her clothing fit properly and nicely, she had a charmed glow to her skin, and there was a faint dusting of make-up around her eyes. Definitely more in line with the conventional image of pretty as opposed to the stressed, hectic appearance she had been favoring in months passed.
Kakashi narrowed his eyes and his mouth twisted at one corner.
He had seen this type of development before in other people and he did not like seeing it now in Sakura.
He was sure Ken was courting her and he was sure Sakura was responding to the man's flirtations and advances. And not in the way the mission parameters would necessarily call for – but that didn't make it unexpected. It just made the whole thing complicated and Kakashi didn't like it.
He might have hated it if his emotions were capable of such a strong reaction. He was pretty sure they weren't anymore.
"Ken has access to a medical research and development division that I didn't even know about until he brought me there," Sakura was saying. "It was after my unassisted procedure the other day, so it is possible he might have been waiting to approach me about it. Vetting me, maybe. I wrote as much as I could remember about its location in my report, but it was very well concealed. The woman I met inside – very strange woman –" and here Sakura actually shuddered very minutely, "she goes by a codename and I don't expect she leaves the lab very often... She's doing work on alternative soldier pills but Ken didn't allow me to stay very long..."
'Fuck Ken,' was Kakashi's immediate thought. The man shouldn't have anything to do with what Sakura was and was not 'allowed' to pursue.
Aloud, he said, "this is part of his network, then. Were you able to memorize the layout of the lab, its equipment, supplies? Do you think you might go back?"
"I included a list and diagram, but I don't know if Ken will bring me back."
Ken. Ken. He tasted something foul in his mouth with the name.
"I know what he's doing," Sakura said after a silent moment, making Kakashi bring his gaze back to her instead of glaring at a spot on the ground.
Kakashi said nothing.
"He's trying to lure me into a sub-division, isn't he?"
For a moment he thought Sakura might have said something else.
"Is he illicitly recruiting operatives?" She asked, overstepping her bounds and quickly retracting the question. "Excuse me, I didn't mean to speculate. I won't be subjective."
Kakashi wondered if that were really possible in such a position like hers. She was going to have to bend and improvise and do more and more terrible things. It was going to be painful and he didn't think she would keep herself above it all. For all the emotions he lacked, she had them in spades.
And she was going to suffer for it.
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-o-