.
.
.
thread that pulls and pools, it's an itch in suffocation
-o-
Back in Konoha and inside their secured entrance, Ken directed Tatsu and Sai, the latter at least mostly able to support himself, to their ANBU medical center, and then he pulled Sakura after him to another destination.
It was well after nightfall and the moon highlighted the city in a pale, bright light.
"We're not going to report in first?" Sakura asked. She hadn't even found out if they would debrief the Hokage like a normal squad's mission would require, or if there were other stipulations for ANBU cells.
"First we're going to Himeko," Ken replied. "She'll take the bodies. Then we'll report."
She had never before brought a body of an enemy nin into the village, but Sakura knew there were procedures in place for such an occurrence. Bringing the body to Himeko's lab, or anything like that, was not what she had expected to be part of it, and she realized there was still so much more to the black ops then she had previously considered.
Unless this action was related more specifically to her mission spying on Ken, Sakura thought. Maybe taking the bodies to Himeko was an extension of the will and power of the person behind Ken scouting her.
Sakura was silent for a long moment as they travelled rooftops, piecing together in her mind the potentials for a network around her. Their mission hadn't even come from the Fifth, as far as Sakura knew. Ken had proposed it to her and then had done the debriefing before they headed out. An official seal had been on the mission scroll, but other than that, there hadn't been anything at all linking their actions to the office of the Hokage.
Another recurring thought came back to her.
"Was I in the wrong when I killed that mercenary?" She asked, voicing a worry that had been a shadow haunting her for days. In certain cases, there was an order of precautions that had to be taken before engaging an enemy combatant, especially one of unknown origin. Killing an unidentified subject was not always a safe action, even if she had thought at the time it were warranted.
Ken didn't respond immediately, and when he did, all he said was, "I won't be the one to decide that ultimately."
He didn't specify that it would be their Hokage, and her suspicion told her it would be someone else.
"How will you describe it, then, in your report?" She couldn't stop some worry from entering her tone. Sakura and Kakashi and her mission had so much at stake if she were to mess up now. Her first real test as a solo operative failed.
Her company stopped short and Sakura mirrored the abrupt halt.
She thought he was going to snap at her for asking too many questions. He didn't.
"You're scared," he said to her, looking down at her for confirmation. Sakura inclined her chin and at the movement her brought his hands to either side of her mask. Not to remove it, as she assumed, but he rested his hands at her temple, fingers long and reaching the hairs escaping her tied hair at her nape.
"There's something you need to know," Ken said, and she heard an indiscernible difference in his intonation. More intensity than she were used to, perhaps. "When you put on this mask, what happens while you're wearing it stays within our ranks. That is not a suggestion and I want you to know that now."
Sakura frowned and he caught her silent question of 'how is this related?'
"It was your first kill, wasn't it?" He asked and she nodded again. "You won't be able to talk it out with anyone. If there are...things for you to process, then you can talk to me about it. Understood?"
"Yes," she said, and thought she sort of did.
"Good." He took a beat, brushed at loose strands of her hair. "And all I will do is recite the facts of the mission. That's all you'll do in your report, too. Our duty is to maintain the transparency and integrity of our village operations. Nothing less."
Not quite as reassuring an answer as she would have liked, but she had been "reciting facts" for the better of the past year, only then it was about him.
"You know," Ken said and he was still very close to her, hands caught up in her still, and she felt she were picking up the warmth coming from him, "I want you with me on my next mission."
The warmth from him seemed to find itself on her cheeks, seeping down her chest to her swelling heart. She replayed his words as they resumed their traveling.
-o-
The woman in Lab 04 was of an indeterminate age, wore her make-up to look exceptionally pale, kept her hair long and black, and had to Sakura an eerily familiar look and mannerism about her.
Himeko cooed in a put upon silky voice when Ken opened the door.
"My favorite little tom," she said of him. Noticing Sakura, "and he's brought the little pup as well."
Immediately altering his attitude, Ken laughed a mild, charming sound. "How's the science going, doctor?"
Sakura refrained from rolling her eyes. The two had a weird relationship and nothing about it seemed sincere, and they oddly both seemed to know as much.
"It's going and I'm very busy," Himeko replied, and that much appeared to be accurate. She had charts and scrolls laid out in front of her, brushes and different bowls of ink, reference books, anatomical studies, chakra maps. Instruments were spinning and whirring around them, something ticked a quick rhythm, smoke lingered at the ceiling and there was a hum of machines in the air. A kunoichi's lab in full operation. Eying the shinobi in front of her, "but I'll make time for you, of course."
"Isn't that sweet." Ken was smiling at Himeko when he pushed back his mask, and then he turned to Sakura and asked for the scrolls holding the preserved bodies. "But these are the boys that I think really need your attention."
Himeko was out of her seat and hovering over the medical tables the moment the scrolls dropped. She opened them and the smile on her face was wide and predatory. To the corpse that had come to her in separate parts, "oho, he's a real head turner."
"Will you be able to track these two before..."
"Don't doubt me now." She waved Ken away from her side as she moved around the body, pushing and pulling at different points. Glancing to Sakura, she surmised, "this is your doing? I would recognize that technique anywhere... Not just physical strength, but an application of chakra to take the tissue asunder."
Ken gave Sakura a calculated look as well, likely thinking he had made the right move to take the body.
"After all, you are the student of the very same Tsunade he so admired..." The woman was murmuring to herself then, continuing with her examination as if she were alone in the room. It was a dismissal of sorts.
As Ken started back to the door, "when you're finished, Himeko, let me know what you find."
Taking a new stock of Nocturne for himself and his team, they were off.
-o-
Sakura didn't get to keep her new ANBU uniform or mask and was in her regular old image when she next had to report for a meeting with Kakashi.
In the staff washroom of the One Eleventh Street Clinic, Sakura pulled from the pocket of her medic's apron a small, lavender colored pill. She rolled it with her tongue in her mouth, considered the bitterness of its coating, and pulled back her hair as she tipped her head to a faucet for water. She wiped her lips and fixed her presentation before leaving, stuffing her red hands into the pockets of her pristine white coat as she walked.
Kakashi noticed the unusual mannerism immediately. He raised an eyebrow and said in greeting, "you look shifty. Got something to hide?"
She'd killed someone, Sakura thought. But Kakashi was being a little facetious about their situation. She made a face and pointed out, very fairly, "you always keep your hands like this."
"Well, then I'd know."
"Would you like my report or not?"
"Hit me." Kakashi shrugged, then gave her an exaggerated frown when she tossed her mission scroll a little too eagerly at him.
"Well, you said..."
"I was expecting an oral report to begin with," he trailed off, and he focused on tearing into the scroll. "There's another report here for Tsunade-sama?"
"Yes."
"This is a little vague."
Another, "yes."
She'd killed someone, but Sakura hadn't written as much in her report. She wondered if Sasuke had killed someone yet. She doubted very much that Naruto had. In a way, she was a step closer to their former teacher's level than either of her former teammates.
...Sakura wondered why she'd had that thought and if the comparison even mattered to her.
Kakashi's eye was on her again, scrutinizing her from over the edge of her scroll. "Are you feeling alright?"
"Yes," she said, and internally, she thought so.
"Mm.. 'Yes, yes, yes,'" he mimicked her, returning to his reading. When he'd finished he let out a long breath. The report had been simple enough with no direct statements, but he had glossed something from her reading. "You're joining the cell?"
Ken had confirmed as much to her within their first morning after the mission-end. Sakura lifted a shoulder. "He said I work well with the team."
"He would," Kakashi murmured a little darkly. Seeming to catch himself, he added, "most everyone would. You're talented."
Sakura didn't say anything, her response derailed on a collision of a 'thank you' and an, 'obviously.'
Kakashi took a moment to mull over his next question. Finally, and with obvious hesitance, "did you ever learn more about the mission inception?"
He had eased any emotion from his face once more, but there was a quiet thoughtfulness in how he watched her, waiting for an answer.
"Nothing's changed," she said. Except for the fact he had just cemented her thoughts about the truth of their mission. She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't and the frustration swelling in her lungs was hard to cull. It left her in a sharp breath out her nose. Bored, she asked, "are we done?"
"Unless you've anything else to add?"
Sakura was already eyeing her escape route, thinking about the patients she had on her roster, and Kakashi's apparent concern surprised her.
He saw as much from her and added, "you seem tense."
She wasn't tense. She was just...different. "I'm not."
"Right."
'I killed someone,' she almost said, and the imagined words were a hot bulb in her throat and she didn't speak. "It was a long time to be away. I'm readjusting."
"And your team treated you well out there?"
"I'm fine," she insisted. She wasn't going to crack. Was he expecting that from her? Sakura said, "Ken's very... respectful."
Kakashi sucked his teeth. Suggesting otherwise, "I'm sure."
"He's more forthcoming than you," Sakura slipped out, wanting to argue his dismissive attitude. She felt a little bit of their old relationship try and rouse itself in her blunt assessment, but she snapped her mouth shut and looked away from her former teacher. She amended, "but I understand why that is, anyway."
"Like him, I have my orders as well." Kakashi stored away her mission scroll, didn't acknowledge her glare at his insinuation. "He's playing you."
"I've gathered, thanks," Sakura said, a bare resentment in her tone. Ken wanted her falling for his honesty and support and belief in her abilities. "At least he has some decency while he does it."
"Some of us are better actors than others." Kakashi didn't bat an eye at her barb. He tossed her another scroll. "Your instructions; carry on as you were."
Sakura fixed her frown on the new scroll, focused on breathing away her agitation.
"You wanted to go, didn't you?"
"Sir," she said, dropping her chin in a curt farewell.
He didn't know. He didn't really ask, did he? He'd accused her of being shifty and tense, but he had no appreciation for what she had done and what she was doing. That was the only sense Sakura took away with her as she left the room.
Did the ones giving Kakashi orders tell him to act this way or was Kakashi's obtuse nature too much for his mission? ...It was Kakashi, so most likely the latter.
For the first time, she wondered why Kakashi had been chosen as her handler for her mission, but she couldn't think of any good reason.
.
-ii-
there is company in shadows
-o-
Inside the official quarters designated for the Hokage there was a courtyard, outfitted to completion with a garden, pond, and a small pavilion, and that was where Kakashi found himself summoned for a meeting with the Fifth.
It was a cloudless and unusually warm winter night, and so they sat across from one another inside the open-air pavilion, comfortable from an oil heater and basking in the glow of candle lanterns. On a table between them there was a spread of documents laid out for Kakashi's reading. The information related to a particular operative.
"Do you think it would be a good fit for Naruto?" Tsunade asked.
"If you're trying in terms of creating a substitute for what he might have had in Team Seven? ...Then, no, I wouldn't say so."
The man in question was too positive and too patient, Kakashi thought, to provide anything like the atmosphere of the boy's former team.
"Tenzou will be a better fit," he said in resolution. "And there's always the benefit of his genetics, too."
Tsunade hummed in agreement. "As unfortunate as it is for me to say, but that's certainly a major component for the placement."
"So then the Fourth's seals really are weakening?" Kakashi mused, keeping his tone flat.
"Weakening isn't the word," Tsunade answered. She leaned forward in her seat to push around photos on the tabletop. "I'll keep you updated, but there isn't much that's very pressing about Naruto at the moment. I wanted to talk to you about our other lovely student."
"Ah, of course." Kakashi had guessed as much. He switched to their predetermined code words to discuss Sakura. "She has that new trial for the procedure she's been working on, right?"
'About her recent ANBU assignment...'
Even within the walls of her home, Tsunade was not one to risk speaking freely, but in so many words, she told Kakashi that she had learned of Sakura's new cell and their mission in its official capacity. Against the official record, she had been able to refer between reports submitted both by 'Ken' and then, covertly, Sakura as well. There was a discrepancy.
"I've given her the go-ahead for the next phase of preliminary testing," Tsunade told him. There would be another mission to the Carbon Man's territory; a retrieval of account numbers and transactions. She suspected there would be another ulterior motive on behalf of ROOT and would approve Sakura rejoining the team.
Danzo wanted Sakura to have more exposure to his people and his ideologies, and in an environment that offered more opportunity to test her combat capabilities. Putting her in an ANBU cell was most definitely a riskier and longer con than other options, but it showed a keener interest in Sakura's development. It was one of the routes Nara Shikaku had foreseen happening – very different from the quiet girl passing secrets overheard from her chores in the Hokage's office, as Kakashi had envisioned.
"She would appreciate hearing from you, you know." Tsunade reclined back in her seat, done with her perusing. The smile she wore looked calm but there was a sharpness in her eyes that Kakashi didn't miss. "This is an important process for her, if you can understand, and I'm sure she would welcome your support."
In so many words, he had better be there for her in more than just a nominal fashion. While Tsunade was blind to the idea of a lower level shinobi like Sakura, those who had been raised by the indoctrination of their village, and who had never had the luxury to leave or live of her own volition as Tsunade had, would ever lose their loyalty because of duty and obligation – she did understand the mental support and emotional needs present in a shinobi lifestyle. She didn't want Sakura to actually fracture beyond repair. Kakashi had to be there for her.
Tsunade continued, "maybe after these Wind conferences are concluded, I'll be able to resume more of my mentor responsibilities again. I would have liked to be right there with her in the lab for this."
"I don't think I'll manage as much as that... but if I happen to see her." He didn't want to be that person for Sakura. Kakashi couldn't fathom himself as capable enough for that task. He wasn't right for it – he knew that.
And yet, he didn't have a choice.
Tsunade breathed out a laugh and said in a drawl, "you're such a quick commitment, Hatake."
But she meant it – she wanted him to start participating as they moved forward to the next phase of their mission.
-o-
Ken hadn't told her about the type of training he wanted to do with Sakura while Sai was still out of commission recovering from his poisoning. He had told her to meet him at training grounds Seventy-Three and she obliged.
Arriving at the training grounds, Sakura looked over the practice dummy Ken had brought with him. There were stripes of colored tape running up and down and across the body, inked-in Xes dotting the tape at different places. There was also a new person standing next to Ken, and when Sakura was close enough, she could see the telltale white eyes of a Hyuuga clan member staring out at her from behind a porcelain mask.
Sakura then had a better idea of the dummy's purpose.
"You understand this will only be an approximation; chakra pathways are not perfectly standard and each body has a unique system." The Hyuuga clan member, a younger woman Sakura didn't know, sounded a bit reluctant and skeptical as she spoke with Ken.
"She's got her own way of working around that," Ken assured, apparently speaking about Sakura as he winked at her. He went on, "medic-nin are fairly familiar with chakra coils."
The woman scoffed. "The more talented ones, maybe. Even so, it's nothing like what my eyes can understand."
Sakura straightened her shoulders and resisted insisting that her mentors were literally the best medic-nin in the nations and that she herself was a pretty solid student. But, of course, she was just an anonymous Mask at the moment and refrained from sharing anything incriminating about her identity...
"Let's see what you got, Haruno," the woman said.
"You know who I am?" Sakura asked, bewildered.
"Yeah, that's not going to be a secret in the ops, apprentice. You're a little hard to overlook." He gestured to her hair.
Sighing, Sakura nodded her head and, despite everything, felt somewhat guilty for not being more inconspicuous. About the training exercise, "what's this all about, anyway?"
"This is prep for your next assignment tracking Carbon Man," supplied Hyuuga.
"You'll need to have subtler submission methods than you've been, ah, deploying so far." No more decapitation attacks, Ken meant.
"And you'll need a greater arsenal than you've shown so far. As much of an accomplishment its execution can be, there's not so much a need for smashing up the earth in this mission." Hyuuga was very obviously sizing up Sakura, looking and sounding unimpressed. To Ken, and not very unkindly, "this is his choice then? I'm not sure she's the best option..."
"She is," Ken said, tone not allowing for any more argument.
They spoke around her and Sakura told herself not to be offended, though she felt uninformed. When she could, she asked, "why is this mission different from the other?"
Ken answered her. "You'll be working undercover as a civilian, so you'll be limited by what you can do without garnering too much attention. We'll need every action you take to be both as slight and efficient as possible."
"Undercover," she repeated. And suddenly she thought maybe Hyuuga was right; there were only so many layers of subterfuge and espionage she could handle. Probably. But refusal wasn't an option. Curious, Sakura asked, "as who?"
Retrieving a scroll, Ken summoned a dossier on their mark. He handed a photo to Sakura and she recognized the man from the convoy massacre in the forest. "Remember him? Well, since the Carbon Man's attack on his convoy and family, he's been in the market for a new spouse. We've intercepted his messages and we'll be swapping you in for the woman his father's sent him. Miyabe doesn't intend to leave the area, but maintaining his lifestyle means he's in the Carbon Man's pocket. We've picked up an increase in correspondence and meetings between the two and suspect they're now 'working' more closely together..."
Sakura listened as Ken continued explaining the situation, the new mission objectives, more about her role, and she heard him – she did – but it was muffled by a dull white noise of worry.
"...and so when you're close enough, disabling certain chakra points with your hands will be most effective. It won't involve a physical struggle that could be damaging, and there won't be a time delay for hand seals..."
There was a pause and Sakura took the moment to speak. Very smartly, she said, "I'm sorry, but you mentioned 'spouse.' I'll be posing as this man's, Miyabe's, new – ?"
"Bride to be?" Was Ken's suggestion, while at the same time Hyuuga chirped, "pussy."
Without waiting for a response from Sakura, Ken continued to the other woman, "she'll need to have practice on multiple bodies. After the dummy training today, can you come back tomorrow when my student and Tatsu are here as well? I'd like to see how she manages different builds."
"The more bodies the better."
Sakura let her gaze settle on empty space as the discussion continued without her direct involvement. Maybe she should have been beyond such trivial things, she was a medic and a proven soldier, but her stomach had dropped at Hyuuga's word choice. Pussy.
Ninja were not the only disposable people in the world, Sakura thought and it sobered her in an unpleasant way.
"She's looking a little green. Has she been on this type of op before?" Hyuuga was saying, again concerning Sakura, who glanced up at the change in topic.
Ken gave Sakura a quiet stare from behind his mask and she couldn't discern his expression. Finally, he said, "no."
His tone was almost sympathetic. Or maybe worse than that – pitiful.
In her typical manner, Sakura took pity as a challenge. She tilted her chin up, and with misplaced bravado, declared, "it's fine. I can handle it."
She would do the mission with Ken. Greater things were at stake if she didn't. She had to perform her duties no matter their nature. On her last mission, she had killed someone, hadn't she? In her mind, the snap of tissue under her hands and the splitting of bone still echoed. She had taken that life and that metaphorical plunge. As a kunoichi, she had signed away her life to her leadership. Was there any greater price to pay as a soldier and servant to her village than that?
Whatever they asked, by wearing the Leaf insignia, she had long ago acknowledged that she was fully and wholly their investment and weapon.
She had agreed to that status again and again.
"She'll be ready," Ken said to Hyuuga, not taking his eyes from Sakura. There was conviction in his voice and that he had understood her soothed Sakura's reservations.
And his confidence in her ability to precisely locate chakra points had proven true. Sakura's expertise in the mystical palm technique had sharpened her sensitivity to chakra pathways and how they flowed; she memorized the general map as laid out by Hyuuga and was able to quickly apply the information to sensing chakra in her own body.
Chakra in a pathway versus chakra at a point felt different, moved differently, acted and responded differently. It almost became more tangible.
At the end of the training, Sakura was already hypothesizing techniques using medical ninjutsu with this new understanding she had gained. It could be more than what the Gentle Palm style provided for the Hyuuga clan; there were so many more avenues to explore.
"She seems sore," Sakura said about the Hyuuga clan member after she had left. She was resting against the dummy, stretching out her limbs and trying not to yawn. It was early morning and despite the lack of physical exertion, she was tired.
Ken eased from his katas and joined her, swiping her canteen for himself. He pushed back his mask, let out a breathy laugh before taking a swig of water. "You're starting to trample her Hyuuga pride, picking up on the pathway like that. Knew you were smart, apprentice, but that kind of speed and complete memorization is unfair."
Kind of like clan techniques and bloodlines, Sakura wanted to point out, but didn't. Instead, "everyone's gotta have a strength in something. I guess that's mine."
"You have other strengths too," Ken said. He shared Sakura's small smile, and then doused the hopefulness she had when he added, "and weaknesses."
"You mean about going undercover for this mission." Sakura chewed at her lip, reasoned her way around his doubts. "It's not like we know for a fact the woman I'm filling in for is some sort of perfectly suitable and experience and willing – "
"Sakura," Ken interrupted her, "this isn't about appearing well practiced or not. It's about your stability. If you're not used to intimacy, if you're not prepared for the actions and violence that a situation like this can present, it can derail the mission and your status as a nin. Your health."
"I know human anatomy and I know violence," Sakura reminded him.
But he had a point to make, and gave her a mild grimace. "This can affect some people pretty severely. I'm not going to send out anyone who isn't at least prepared in the most basic sense for what could happen. Things that you'll need to let happen to you and then let go of without hesitation and second thought."
"I'm okay with that. That is a risk and expectation in every mission and as a kunoichi – "
Ken found her continued insistence less than reassuring. "As your CO, I'm asking you to stand still, alright?"
Sakura frowned, stopped mid-sentence.
He was standing close to her and so Ken reached out and grabbed her chest, one hand cupping and tightening around her breast.
Her mind had two thoughts – embarrassment and anger – and deep in her chest, fear, too. She yanked back, maddened when he followed her and struggled around her trying to writhe away from him. He tightened his hold, tossed away her canteen to grab at her hair with his other hand and pull himself around her.
Reeling, Sakura stomped the ground and broke his grip with her strength. She backed away, gasping and humming with a rush of adrenaline.
When Ken still appeared calm and undisturbed, she realized he had been testing her. He quirked his mouth as a way of saying, "see?"
"How sexually active are you?" He asked.
She didn't immediately say anything or react further, and Sakura dropped her shoulders, accepting his perspective. He was right. She wasn't adequately prepared for this type of mission.
"So not even a little, huh," he said to himself. "I'm sorry about that. Are you alright?"
She nodded, rubbed her offended breast as gracefully as she could.
Ken waved her over and she returned to him. He petted at her hair and then nudged her into an embrace that she found somehow much more comforting and tolerable. She even relaxed into him.
It had been a long time since someone had last held her and she closed her eyes at the sensation.
"That's okay," Ken told her. She had her ear pressed against the rumble of his chest as he talked. "We have a way of dealing with that in our end of ANBU."
Sakura heard 'our end of ANBU' and tried to focus on that more than the ill dread and reluctant acceptance in her center.
.
-iii-
barefoot race on a moonless night
-o-
Leaf nin did not have menstrual cycles, they did not unexpectedly become pregnant, and they did not accidentally impregnate others.
The first time Sakura bled was also the last. She had been twelve and from that moment on, she had been altering her body with medical-ninjutsu and other medications in order to keep her body out of such a vulnerable state. Typical practice for her profession; the ranks were much more effective this way, and the scarcity of unplanned pregnancies kept the village healthier.
So she didn't need to worry about contraception any more than normal when she entered the safe house in the outskirt barracks neighborhood of Konoha. Sakura worried about other things, though.
For one thing, despite having stretched earlier, her body was tense and uncooperative. Her knees trembled and her pulse was too fast. She felt both too warm and too cold, and there was perspiration coating her skin. Every little noise seemed very loud, both her breathing and her heartbeat too offending to her ears.
The studio apartment was bare except for a table, a single wooden chair, and a double bed low to the ground. She sat primly on the edge of the chair and kept her hands in her lap. The only source of light was from the streetlamps outside, and the slats of the window covers made a pattern across the bedsheets. The bedding looked a soft orange in the glow.
She looked at the bed, thought how she didn't want it to hurt. And then scolded herself – 'hurt' was part of the deal. And 'it' was sex, she might as well admit the word.
The door opened and Sakura looked up to see someone enter.
Sakura felt sick but told her body not to show as much.
"You're only barely pulling it off," the boy said. Removing his mask to get a better look, he guessed, "telling yourself this is no big deal, right? You've almost got it."
He was a stranger and entirely unfamiliar, but Sakura's first impression was that he was much better looking than she had imagined. And younger, too; he could have been her age, maybe a year or so older.
Seeing that she had taken the only seat, or maybe just to skip pretenses, the boy crossed the room to sit on the bed. He mumbled something as he sat down, pulling his high ponytail free to loosen his shoulder length hair. Black and straight and it framed his face nicely. He took a moment to rub at his neck and shoulders, making little sounds of relief and pain. He had a long, trim body that hadn't quite outgrown the gangly limbs of a teen, but he had the certain impression of control over his body of a seasoned shinobi. The same sort of stiffness from the day's end of a demanding profession.
She would have been fine to remain watching him, but as he unstrapped his shin guards, Sakura bounced to her feet and followed his lead, stripping off her shirt.
"Oh, whoa, hey..."
Sakura pulled her head free from the fabric and dropped the shirt still taut in her arms across her chest. She had hair in her face, but she mostly ignored it. At his hesitation, she asked, "what? Did I do it wrong?"
"No, you're good. But, we don't have to jump in cold. ...I'm here to sort of specifically avoid that."
"I thought you were just here to …you know," Sakura said, sounding very sure of herself.
"Bone you?" The boy prompted and she nodded. He snorted, amused. "If that's how it was, I wouldn't have a job. No, I'm going to do a little more than that."
Her knees were still shaking and her pulse still fast, but Sakura felt her face grow warm, too, to complete her presentation of entirely embarrassed. In her mind, she wondered what he meant by his 'job?' And what else was there to their having sex than just the obvious?
"It's important you have a good experience," he went on. "You'll feel good, you'll understand those feelings, and then you'll learn how to 'act.' How to move and react. Playing a part, sort of. And you'll learn a whole shit-ton of other stuff, too. Human body, our brains, you know, they have some weird quirks. And tricks to get you turned on, prepared. Stuff like that."
"Oh," she replied, very astute.
"Yeah, I've been where you are. I know it's a lot."
"Yeah," she parroted.
The boy stared at her, watched as Sakura nervously blew a bit of hair from her lips, and considered her half undressed state.
"Alright, firstly, let's build some chemistry and trust..." He stripped his shirt off as well, to even out their circumstance it seemed, and then leaned back in his seat. "We can talk and...is there anything else I can do to help you relax?"
Sakura finished removing her shirt and forced her arms to remain at her side as she tried to open herself up to the situation. It was happening. No retreating. She ran things through her mind, trying to come up with something to help her relax that wasn't in the nature of reading or performing tasks in the lab.
Something simple and soothing.
"Could we... can I just start with sitting next to you?" Sakura asked.
Patting at the bed, he said, "sure."
"And can you talk a little about yourself or something? Nothing incriminating, of course."
"Of course."
Sakura joined him on the mattress, sat near enough so that her fingers could brush against his leg if she really wanted. "And maybe I'd like a name, too, to call you by."
"Tsuru," he told her. "It's my code name."
"It's nice."
"Sakura," he said softly, because everyone knew her name. "This is about you – what we're doing – but it's also about your body. Your body belongs to the village. All of our bodies do, really. Even for those of us unlucky enough to be born outside of clan or without a bloodline limit. That's just our reality."
"I know," she insisted. "I know that."
"No, yeah. No, I know you do," Tsuru insisted right back. "I'm just... sometimes it's easier if you can see your body in a different way. Do you know what I mean? Think of your body as a weapon... or a vessel. Something..."
Listening, Sakura remembered the moment she had cut into her leg for Sai.
"Think of my body as something separate from myself," she said, understanding him.
"Yeah," Tsuru agreed. "Like that."
Sakura could do that. That was easy.
Easy, easy, easy. One simple slice –
She took a deep breath, let her shoulders fall a little with her exhalation. She could play as many roles as she wanted. Changing her position some, she eased herself down and across the bed, letting her head come to rest on Tsuru's thigh.
"Would you comb your hands through my hair?" She asked, and used their proximity to soak in the warmth of the body around her, to smell him, to watch the way his cheek pulled higher on one side to create a lopsided smile.
"That's a perfect place to start."
-o-
Kakashi knew why Danzo was sending Sakura away on another extended mission outside of the village; it gave his men more time to assess her and to indoctrinate her. Before Sakura would ever report on the Fifth, she would have to believe doing so was honorable and worthwhile. Until then, she was an expensive and delicate investment.
But, at the moment, standing as they were in their secret room of the One-Eleventh Street Clinic, he didn't want to talk to Sakura the Double-Agent. Or even Sakura the kunoichi. He just wanted to talk with her. Maybe let her talk to him? He didn't know what to say...
Sakura seemed to have a similar dilemma. She let her gaze wander the room as their greetings transitioned into an awkward, prolonged silence.
"Should I...go?" She asked him. "If there's nothing for me to report and since you don't have anything to say..."
"Are you well?" Kakashi asked, managing to sound devoid of emotion as usual, but actual it had been a bit of blundering on his part. He recovered by following up with, "eating well, I mean? Feeling well..."
"I'm well." Sakura had a very minute, suspicious line in her brow as she spoke. Tentatively, "and you?"
"I'm fine," he said too quickly. Another quiet moment passed.
He tapped his fingers on the desk he was leaned up against and Sakura's eyes flicked down to the movement.
"You seem nervous," she said, nodding to his hand. "Is there something else you have to tell me?"
"I don't have anything else to tell you."
"Oh."
Shit.
"You expect your team will treat you well...again?" He tried.
"I don't expect any trouble," Sakura assured him. She looked worried as she considered him, clearly put off by his inept attempt to reach out to her and offer support.
Everyone Kakashi loved was dead and he had forgotten how to talk sincerely outside of one way conversations with the memorial stone. It showed.
He resorted to his old fashion of comforting Sakura, stepped towards her and reached out to place a hand on the crown of her head.
When she didn't immediately jerk away, like he thought she might, he felt relieved. The emotion was brief. Sakura stared up at him, blank in expression, and didn't react at the gesture. She didn't blush and smile shyly like she might have when she were younger, and she didn't glare indignantly as she might have in meetings before.
"Are you alright?" She asked him, polite and somewhat distant.
Her lack of intonation made Kakashi retract his hand. He felt sour. "Am I alright? It's you who I'm worried about."
Right. Well, he'd said that.
"Why?" She asked, apparently not at all offended. She was maybe a bit confused, and said, "I've come this far, what's there to worry about now?"
"I've been worried from the beginning," he told her. The admission must have been heavy because he felt a lightness in his chest as the words left him, waited in the air between them. He had been worried. He didn't know how to tell her, or how to help her, how to get her through the mission –
"Oh." Sakura huffed small sigh. "I know that. I know how you must feel."
Kakashi kept his mouth shut, unsure of what she meant, but happy to let her keep talking.
"You don't have to worry anymore. I'm different now." She nodded her chin, affirmation to him or maybe herself.
"What – ?"
"I'm not like that person from before." Sakura shook a little in her next breath, and he saw a tightness in her eyes as she looked at him. "I have secrets. Things I can't tell you, but I've... I'm handling things. I can handle things now."
"Secrets?" Kakashi asked, maybe focusing on the wrong thing.
"Yes. I'm sure you knew I'd have them eventually. I'm starting to understand my position on this mission. But you don't have to worry. I was chosen for a reason, right? I'm trustworthy."
She was chosen for other reasons as well, he added internally.
"Excuse me for speaking freely, but I wish you would see that, too," Sakura said.
Kakashi frowned. Without much thought, he finally found that ever elusive honesty. "I trust you."
She didn't immediately process what he had said and was starting another point when she stopped. Mirroring his own uncertainty and vexation, she repeated, "you trust me?"
"Yes." The person he didn't trust was himself. He was the incompetent one. He wasn't enough. But he couldn't let that truth leave him. He just reiterated, "I trust you. But that doesn't mean I can't worry. I don't want... I don't want another student of mine to get hurt."
"Everyone keeps saying that," mumbled to herself, and then, to him, "I'm a kunoichi, that's unavoidable."
Kakashi felt something inside him wither at her determination thinly veiling something else she didn't want him to see. He understood her, though. He said, "I know."
"Good."
He thought maybe their meeting and him 'supporting Sakura' hadn't gone the way Tsunade would have preferred. She probably wouldn't have liked the way her student left him with barely restrained tears.
Kakashi wasn't helping her; he might have been the problem.
He didn't really want to be that way any longer.
.
-iv-
white face black eyes red smile all the wile
-o-
Reina did not carry herself like a typical teenager; she stood with a straight spine and gentle shoulders, assuring a confidence of never hearing 'no' and never knowing the banality of making requests. She spoke deliberately and without excitement, moved her body in much the same way. Every stride was an entrance, and her presence could quiet a crowd.
The sight of her took the words from her betrothed's mouth –the man stared mutely at her as she stepped forward from her procession to meet him for the first time.
But then his eyes darted back to the dowry exchange and he found his voice again in the demands he made of his servants. An obvious show of dominance that didn't quite convince anyone in either party with the exception of the man himself. He was one for loudness and an extravagant presentation, but he was a young, lonely, and insecure man.
She could read his actions and learn how he would move.
As their gazes met again, Reina smiled at him with the smallest change in her facade –something only for him to spot in her eyes– and he again halted mid-sentence to consider her. Although he recovered, she knew any power he thought he had in that moment, in their relationship, was an illusion.
-o-
Something had happened years before Reina ever appeared in the territory of her new home. There were scars across the landscape, old and marring the buildings, hidden away in the people. She didn't know what had happened, thought maybe it had been from the decades old conflict between Fire and Stone countries, but she could feel a sense of muffled dread lingering still in the atmosphere.
Miyabe Shoma, her intended, wanted to talk as they traveled. Shoma was asking after her family's history in the ceramic industry, if she had been trained in the art, if there were any prospects for growing their interests elsewhere. What he was really asking, although he managed some amount of tact in not outright asking, was –why was this heiress coming to his home?
Reina had no intention of answering any of his questions that peppered in his babbling. She stared out the window of their carriage, pulled by six horses for show, and kept to herself. He would learn more about her intentions with time and when they were in a more secured place.
"You're so beautiful," Shoma said. Finally, he was taking a different approach in trying to get her to speak. He reached across the small compartment to gently run his finger down the fringe of hair framing her face. "I've never seen hair like yours before. Like the spring blossoms."
She kept her profile to him, but glanced his way. She smiled. "What a sad ending you see for me with such a comparison."
It took a beat for him to see her teasing for what it was and his abashed gaping smoothed into a grin. "I don't mean to be morbid."
It was okay, she thought, he had just lost his first wife. He could be morbid and she could handle that.
-o-
They lived in separate wings of his estate and met for meals in the common rooms bridging the sections, opened that afternoon to let in the bright winter sun. The sat around a low table warmed from an under-burning stone hearth.
The estate was a modern piece of architecture, but maintained traditional materials and elements of wealth. Every piece of moulding, every bit of décor, was purposefully and carefully arranged in an image of aged glory. She could still spot the tells of new construction and again felt the presence of past trouble. Something more than his private losses, something bigger.
"Are you comfortable?" Shoma asked her. They were sharing tea and he had brought out a set she supposed might have impressed her were she actually invested in porcelain. "Your finding the transition easy, I hope."
"It's tolerable," Reina said. The past week had been a fine meeting of luxury and performance.
"It's never easy, I suppose."
Shoma had a full waiting staff and a personal attendant who seemed to balance business and intimate matters. As they spoke, the attendant was within reach.
It was only prudent than Reina would expect a counterpart.
"I'm lonely," she told him and very pointedly let her eyes dart to the attendant.
In his typical fashion, she watched Shoma draw the conclusion as he followed her eyes and thought over her insinuation. "Oh. Right. We can – I'll be right on that."
"And I'm bored," Reina said, then took a delicate sip. She would be the one to make the interviews.
"Of course. Anything for you, my beloved."
He was half right.
-o-
Shoma was surprised by the woman she chose. He looked the woman up and down with visible confusion, stuttered out, "she's old." Tacked on, "Older, than I expected. Is she...properly trained?"
Or –why is this common townsperson now in my fine house?
"Yuzuho won't keep me worried," Reina said, not allowing for argument. It could have been taken as a statement about wandering eyes and hands, about potential pregnancy and lapse in employment, any manner of things. "She's a quick study."
Reina liked that most about Yuzuho; she was a quick study because the woman listened. Not for duties and expectations of an attendant, but more than tat. What happened in this territory was the woman's business, and Yuzuho made sure of it without ever calling attention to herself. Reina appreciated that about her.
"How did you come to have her in your employment?" Shoma asked, still obvious in his appraisal.
She had no reason to tell him she had found Yuzuho in a shit situation, had given her a sure way out, had earned the woman's gratitude and trust with a show of power and confidence.
"Why, dear, I asked her, of course."
-o-
The estate was large and if she really wanted, she could lose herself somewhere for a few days. Between the guest house by the pond, the stables, the green houses, the boat house, and the storage cellars, she had plenty of spots to chose from. Reina picked the library out of necessity.
Being in the library meant she was within Shoma's wandering range and eventually he found her.
It wasn't his office or his private collections, so she didn't hide any of her reading materials when he appeared. His eyes went over the assortment of lodgers and maps, different accounts and records. All local business. Some his, some not.
The schematics of the iron and steel mill dominated the table where she was set up.
"Not the direction I had imagined you would be growing in," he said, then took his time reading down her body.
Reina didn't shift very much from her position, didn't immediately look away from her current text. Slowly, she moved one leg out, tracing an arc in the floor with her toes. She knew he was watching. Her foot found his and inched upwards.
"I imagine," she drawled, "that first you imagined you would be growing here..."
Her foot rested in a very wanting place.
"And then I," she said, and while one hand flipped a page the other went to her middle, "would be growing here?"
"I want you," he told her, because Shoma was never a subtle person. He leaned a movement against her foot, insisting but it was more like begging.
She moved her foot over the top of his thigh, put some weight into her toes in a hint for him. Obediently, when he understood, Shoma let his knees bend. "If what you want can overlap with what I want, then I do not see what is stopping you."
Because while he was not subtle person, Reina was. And she was subtle, subtle, subtle.
-o-
They came in the night, Yuzuho told her when Reina asked about the old trauma hidden in the town.
Reina liked the woman and they spent the evenings alone in her quarters trading words and alcohol. Yuzuho was like another woman in that way. She was rougher, smaller, more vulnerable than that other woman, but she was the most informed person Reina had found and Yuzuho was strong for that.
They didn't target the civilians, she told Reina, they only wanted the members of the dying shinobi clans. Young girls and boys disappeared from the shadows, deeper into the darkness without a noise. None were ever seen again.
But Reina was in the territory for other reasons and she couldn't mind the old scars on the landscape and on the people.
There were fresher wounds to which she had to attend.
"Surely they were not swept into working for that mill?" She asked and poured another cup for Yuzuho. She knew the answer was 'no,' but the transition was an understandable excuse to an outsider.
"No. The mill," said with a slur like a curse, "that's a whole other bit of salt..."
Reina nodded and listened.
-o-
Had Sakura been a civilian plant, then her role in the mission might have had a much longer timeline; being that she was a kunoichi and had access to a vast array of sleuthing skills and techniques, her infiltration into the Carbon Man's operation was a relatively quick task.
The team responsible for assembling and drafting her new identity had been working since the culmination of her first mission into the Carbon Man's territory. She had to be a convincing and attractive candidate for marriage, with a believable incentive for when she had to start infiltrating the operation from within her new home. There had been plenty of preparation for acquiring all of the appropriate information –cultural habits, style, mannerisms, and etcetera concerning her new persona– but the team was absolute in their research and Sakura had always been one for memorization. While working on the painstaking chore of altering her appearance, speech, body language, and attitude until all came naturally to her, Sakura kept the end goal of her mission at the forefront of her focus.
Her village understood that the Akatsuki used the Carbon Man to organize bounties, but the question remained of what the Carbon Man received in return. It was so far undetermined if there were an agreement of protection, of later financial reward, or perhaps of assured political sovereignty at some future point if ever Akatsuki organized into a state. Maybe some other form of reward. Whatever the conditions, it was Sakura's priority to figure out the relationship, and, at the same time, find the weakness between the Carbon Man and his subordinates. If a weakness did not exist, then she would have to manufacture a reason for dissent to grow. With dissent would come incentive for mutiny, and it was her ultimate prerogative to remove the Carbon Man from power and replace his leadership with one aligned with Konoha's interests.
The result of her efforts wouldn't include stopping the bounty operation, but it would make transactions between parties more transparent to and potentially malleable for Konoha. It would keep the Akatsuki organization from seeking another source of income. It would create opportunities to learn more about their cloaked members.
These interests would of course be obfuscated and the Konoha's involvement completely undisclosed. It was Sakura's duty to manipulate everything from the shadows without revealing herself as an operative to anyone save her "husband." Even then, she would only admit to her faux 'family' being behind her interests with the Carbon Man's territory. Flipping and securing her spouse's allegiance was top priority, but he would never know her status as a kunoichi.
She would only ever be Reina to him.
As Sakura had been reminded many times over the last year, holding and controlling information was a powerful, valuable asset in the shinobi world.
.
.
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-o-
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