"…Oh, wow, look at that Sakura!...Hey, Sasuke-teme, come check this out!...Um, Kakashi-sensei? I think I just broke it…"
Sasuke ignored the noise coming from his teammate and focused on reading the map posted to the wall. Hours spent stuck with Naruto in the tiny transport called an airplane, confined to a seat and completely unable to do anything productive had numbed him to the annoyance. Sakura or Kakashi could handle him. Right now, Sasuke was busy making sense of the many strange symbols used. The map itself, of course, was very helpful. With the sharingan he would be able to memorize all of the streets of this large city within moments. Kakashi would need to look at this as well, and maybe even Sakura. She was very good at these kinds of things.
They had no idea where this Godric Hollow was and nothing he had found so far had been helpful. It must be either a very small village or one that did not wish to be found. Their only other clue was the adoption paper itself, which must have been issued by some form of organization. Nothing that elaborate could have come from anything else except a bureaucracy. As shinobi, they had seen enough paperwork in their lives to recognize it anywhere.
"Most of the government buildings seem to be focus in this location," Sasuke announced quietly. In a moment, Sakura was by his side, peering over his shoulder. He traced the section with one finger. They appeared to be large buildings, which might work in their favor. Easier to slip through a crowded location. They had no idea what kind of security these people would use. Nothing so far had indicated that any of these people knew anything of shinobi or chakra, but that did not necessarily mean that they did not. It did suggest that they must have found other ways to compensate for such a lack. They had already encountered some of such techniques, and while they were fairly easy for four highly trained shinobi to get around, it did suggest that they could face unexpected and potentially difficult resistance.
Sakura studied the map for a moment, then nodded. She had committed at least some of it to memory. They both stepped away to let Kakashi have a quick look. Naruto stared at the poster from behind Kakashi, his face screwed up painfully before he too nodded – much sooner than Sakura had. He could not have possibly memorized any of it in that short of an amount of time.
Sasuke glanced away from watching the crowd to stare at him. Then again, Naruto had a way of surprising people. Naruto managed to know things when one least expected him to, and Sasuke was trying to make it a point not to underestimate Naruto any more. At times like this, however, watching him wander off to screw around on the conveyor belt made it difficult to remember that.
"Let's go," Kakashi said, his left eye once more covered.
The four of them were becoming quickly accustomed to all of the different forms of transportation available, and the rules and expectations associated with them. Not to say that there were no mistakes. Each of them managed at some point to do something that drew attention, but they were each learning how to defuse such problems. Sasuke, for example, had learned that behaving in a manner rather similar to that of Hyuuga Neji allowed him to brush by anyone who would object. Sakura and Naruto had developed a rather complex dance of bumbling buffoon and extremely apologetic friend. Kakashi just feigned pretend ignorance. It was annoying how well it worked for him.
After a couple more hours and the four of them stood outside of a very tall building which appeared to be constructed entirely out of glass and metal.
"This," Kakashi commented quietly, "is not going to be easy."
"We gotta check every floor?" Naruto whined.
He was being annoying, but Sasuke found that he agreed with the sentiment, at least. Judging by the number of windows, there had to be at least a dozen floors. And to think this building was one of the more modest on this street. "Why do they need buildings so large?" he muttered.
Sakura had been staring at the front doors and had not said anything up until that point. "I wonder," she murmured.
Kakashi turned to look at her. "Yes, Sakura-chan?" he asked slowly.
Sakura flushed slightly and glared at him. There was something about the way Kakashi added "chan" to her name that made her hackles rise, probably in the same way Sasuke wanted to hurt the other man when he called him "Sasuke-kun".
She crossed her arms and pointedly looked away from her teacher. "We could try just asking."
"Sakura!" Naruto gasped. "We can't just do that! What about all that stuff you were just telling me about how we're shinobi and that means being sneaky and not being seen and we can't just waltz in there an ask!"
Sasuke stared at her for a moment, turning the idea over in this head. Then he glanced at the large glass doors. He could, from this distance, just barely make out the shape of a large desk just beyond the doors, and a man behind it seemingly giving directions to the couple standing in front of it. Just asking would most likely not have been something he would have though of, but the idea did seem to have some merit.
Sasuke glanced over at Kakashi and saw that he seemed to be thinking the same thing. The other man tilted his head slightly to catch Sasuke's gaze and grinned back at him.
"It is not stupid!" Sakura was shouting at Naruto. "Look, it's the last thing somebody up to no good would do. Besides, they don't even know what shinobi are. They're certainly not going to be on guard against us. No one else has thought anything suspicious of us, there's no reason for these people to."
"Sakura should be the one to go," Sasuke interrupted. Knowing Kakashi, he would have let the two of them continue to argue.
They both stopped and glanced over at him. "I should?" Sakura asked.
Sasuke nodded sharply. "You are the one most familiar with bureaucracy. These people seem to be able to sense that. Beside which, none of the rest of us have the kind of people skills you do. Naruto annoys people-"
"Hey!"
"- people annoy me, and Kakashi is not even worth thinking about."
Kakashi continued to grin.
Naruto frowned. "I don't know. I don't really like Sakura going in there by herself. I mean, we don't know anything about this place."
"You think I can't take care of myself?" Sakura growled, looking more than just angry. Looking almost hurt under all that anger.
"Of course not," both Sasuke and Naruto replied immediately.
Sasuke glanced away. Their quick response seemed to have dissipated whatever had just almost happened. It was no secret in all of Konoha that Sasuke and Naruto were in a stiff competition against each other to prove who was stronger. It had been like that for so long that no one seemed to remember a time when things had not been as such. But ever since whatever had happened while Sasuke had been – gone – there had been yet another tension in their small little group. And for once, it was not because of Sasuke or Naruto.
They had not discussed it yet, but they were going to have to. Soon. But not now. Not during a mission.
"Look," Naruto said. "It's not that we don't think you can. Heck no. It's just – what if something goes wrong, ya know? You won't have any back up. And I don't just mean the big kind of something going wrong, but the little kind too. Like, you need someone to cover for you or make a distraction or something. You won't have that in there if you're all by yourself and we might only have on shot at this and we don't have much time for a back-up plan."
Sasuke winced. No, not much time at all. It may already have been too late to find anything other than mutilated bodies and blood and nothing more.
"Naruto's right," Kakashi announced. He turned to look at Sakura. "Sasuke will go with you."
"Sasuke!" Naruto yelped. "Why the ice bastard and not me?"
"Because he is an ice bastard," Kakashi replied without bothering to hide his amusement. "It'll contrast nicely with Sakura's sweet disposition and keep anyone they encounter unbalanced enough to give them an edge. Besides which, that wonderful personality our Sasuke-kun has been practicing on perfecting since childhood ought to make anyone who has to deal with him eager to do whatever it takes to get him to leave quickly."
Sasuke growled at the "Sasuke-kun" comment, but refrained from snapping back. He wanted to be part of the team that went in. It was his family. He needed to be there every step of the way. Even if Sakura was one of the very few people he would trust to do this right.
"Also," Sakura piped up. "Sasuke-kun's cuter," she added.
Sasuke cringed, jerking his head around to glare at her. She had not started any of that nonsense ever since she and Naruto had brought him back to the village. It had been bad enough as children, but if she started it up again, he was going to have to ask not to be teamed up with her. He could not put up with that any more. But despite a slight flush to her cheeks, Sakura was smirking. And it was not a flirtatious kind of smile.
She was teasing him. Both him and Naruto actually. And it was kind of funny, really. Sasuke just snorted and turned away. Naruto could not pass up a challenge like that and started arguing with her about how he had to be much cuter than Sasuke.
"Come on, we have work to do," Sasuke told her as he started walking away.
She jogged to catch up with him. "Whatever you say, Sasuke-kun," she replied in an overly-sweet tone and with a far too evil glint in her eyes and Sasuke finally realized that he was in a lot more trouble than having to avoid a rabid fan-girl – Sakura was out for a little revenge of her own.
Sasuke could live with that.
AN: This chapter comes with a blooper! My blooper! I accidentally got confused when I started working on this story again and wrote an extra chapter meant to go after this one. Then I realized it was really not needed. And it sort of throws off the tone. But I worked on it, darnit, so I figured I'd tack it on at the end for anyone interested enough.
Sakura plastered on her best guileless smile as she and Sasuke made their way towards the building. Not taking Naruto was definitely the best plan. He'd already gotten them into trouble more than once a they tried to maneuver their way through airports and taxi cabs and fast food restaurants. He just couldn't control himself sometimes. Every time something new and amazing happened, he had to gush over it, yelling and pointing and carrying on. Any other time it might be kind of cute. His fascination with carbonated drinks was certainly entertaining. His wonder at the latrine on the plane was not as much. Despite all of that, they'd managed well enough getting to England, but now it was time for the mission to really start.
And Naruto and covert missions just did not mix.
Sakura glanced over at Sasuke out of the corner of her eye. Predictably, he was focused on their target. It had been a struggle for him to resist activating the sharingan. It was so natural to him now to regularly have it in use, but he had to limit himself while in this foreign country. They couldn't risk someone seeing his red eyes. But there was so many things to try to keep track of here! Sakura felt like she needed a sharingan to keep up herself. She couldn't imagine how frustrating it must be to have the ability to memorize everything but not being allowed to use it.
But Kakashi-sensei trusted them with this part of the mission, despite any handicaps. They needed this information if they were going to find Sasuke's cousin. Sasuke needed this. That was all Sakura needed to know.
She turned her head enough to flash Sasuke a bright smile. She needed to make sure she was in character. Bright and bubbly was going to get them in the door.
The two of them crossed the odd, pointless looking empty courtyard then stopped before the building. Maybe getting through the door would be a little harder than they thought.
Sakura stared at the glass contraption. "Why is it a cylinder?" she whispered carefully just loud enough for her teammate to hear her.
"I don't know, but I don't like it," he replied. "It looks like a trap."
"Surely a trap wouldn't be that obvious," Sakura replied.
Sasuke glared at her for a moment before very pointedly glancing back towards their other teammates.
"Alright, point taken. How are going to get through?"
Sasuke turned back around to glared at the front of the building. Sakura could imagine where his thoughts were going. How easy it would be to take the direct approach. But they couldn't do that here. A jutsu - any kind of jutsu - would draw far more attention than they could afford.
A old man had walked up behind them. They both noticed him, but dismissed him immediately. His chakra was none existent and there was no way he would be able to attack either of them fast enough to slip passed their defenses. He apparently still wanted through, however.
"Excuse me!" he said sharply and both of them turned to face him. He was taller than both of them, but his frail frame didn't intimidate either of them. With a slow look at each other they both stepped aside to let him through.
"Stupid teenagers. No respect. Ought to get a job or something," the man muttered as he shuffled through between them. He made his way up to the intimidating cylindrical door and lazily leaned on one of the panels. Slowly, and with a drawn out hiss, the panel moved, rotating about within the cylinder until the man reached the other side. He stumbled out the other side and continued on.
"Apparently, it's not too complicated," Sakura commented.
Sasuke snorted. "It's still a trap."
"We don't have much choice if we want to get in," Sakura replied before sighing. "I'll go first," she offered.
"No," Sasuke immediately replied. Sakura opened her mouth to object but he cut her off. "Medic's never go first, you know that."
It was a lame excuse coming from him but perfectly justifiable. If it was anyone else she'd have felt pleased at their foreword thinking and the value they placed in her. Sasuke wasn't the type to ever assume he'd need a medic, however, and it was simply Sasuke being Sasuke. "Fine," she snapped. Let him do whatever he wanted. She was the one who was fairly certain it was harmless. He was the paranoid bastard. If he wanted to go first, he could.
He glared at her for a moment before stalking forward. He didn't hesitate. He pushed on the next door panel exactly as they'd seen and it immediately moved quickly under his touch. Nothing more happened, and he stepped lightly out of it on the other side.
Sakura resisted the urge to stick her tonnage out at him. It would be a very Naruto thing to do. She also ignored how cute Sasuke looked glaring at the spinning door. He really didn't like it, she thought with a small smile. Having demonstrated to her that it was not trap laced, Sakura felt fine stepping into the disturbingly enclosed space and shuffling through to the other side.
"I just don't get the point of it," Sasuke announced almost at once. "It slower than a traditional door, more difficult to use and less versatile. Why would they install such a thing? Why would they create such a thing?"
Sakura stared at it a moment herself before shrugging. "Who knows. I suspect there's a lot of things about this country that we'll just never understand." She just hoped Sasuke's cousin wasn't too foreign to them. It would make things more difficult for everyone. "Come on," she said, tugging lightly on his sleeve before letting go and moving further into the building.
Like most official buildings, there was a formal reception area. Unlike everything Sakura had ever encountered up until that point, it was positioned in the middle of an expansive empty room. "What a waste of space," she uttered to herself. She could see Sasuke nod ever so slightly out of the corner of her eye. The majority of his attention, however, was in examining the room. Which left Sakura to do all of the talking.
Once they were close enough, she smiled brightly at the young woman behind the desk. Something about their appearance seemed to surprise the receptionist, but she quickly smiled back in response to Sakura's own. "Good afternoon," Sakura said politely but with a warm friendly lit to it. "We're a little early today, but we're supposed to be meeting someone here about adoptions. Maybe you could help us by telling us which floor we would need to go for that."
Sakura kept smiling and the lady kept smiling back. Her eyes darted over to Sasuke only once before focusing entirely on Sakura. "Adoptions?" she said, sounding a little surprised. "Do you know who you're supposed to be meeting with?"
Sakura sighed dramatically. "No, I'm afraid not. I had it written down and everything, but I accidentally left the paper all the way back home. We had a hard time just figuring out where this building was. But I know they're expecting us, I'm sure if you could just tell us which floor, we'll be fine." It was a gamble, but one she hoped would pay off. Anything else would just sound too suspicious. She didn't have any other information to work with.
"Well," the woman replied. "Everything of that nature is on the fourth floor. I could call someone up there for help, if you'd like," she offered, her hand already moving for the phone.
Damn. "No, no, no! That's alright!" Sakura insisted, smiling even brighter. Sasuke had apparently located the stairs and was already heading for them. If she got held up then at least he'd be able to sneak away. "I'm sure we'll be fine. I don't want to pester them, after all, we're real early." The secret to this kind of work was not merely acting as if you knew what you were doing, but also constantly keeping in motion. The faster you went, the less time they had to really think about anything you said. "Besides," Sakura continued, backing up slowly herself. "It would be better for us to ask in person, you know. But thank you for the help. We really appreciate it. Don't worry about us, we'll be fine. See you later. Bye." With that she turned and darted into the stairwell through the waiting opened door.
Sasuke closed it softly behind her, grunted quietly and started up the stairs. They walked up at a carefully moderated pace. It had been decided early on into this mission that everything, no matter how mundane had to be done like a civilian, just on the off chance someone caught a glimpse at them. It was unlikely, but with as many people as there were everywhere and as surprised as they'd be if they saw something, it was a risk none of them could take. A ninja back home could be easily explained, no matter where they were. A ninja here would probably terrify the locals.
Still, it didn't take them long to reach the door to the forth floor. They both paused. "Alright," Sakura whispered. "I'll try to keep them distracted. See if I can get something useful out of them."
"A low level genjitsu ought to be enough to let me through unnoticed," Sasuke added. "But I'll need to know where to go to find it. And if it's in one of those computers."
Sakura bit her lip. That would be a problem. "Well, if they're anything like back home, there ought to be several copies of the same file. All we have to do is find one of them. I'll keep them talking as long as I can. If that falls through, I can always fall-back, use a henge and try again."
Sasuke nodded, and reach out to open the door for her. Smile once more firmly in place, Sakura strode forward. The hallway was brightly lit compared to the stairwell. Rough sea green carpet ran in both directions and a shapeless painting of something red and purple hung on the wall directly in front or her. To its right was a small teal sign with offices listed on it.
Sakura stared at it for a moment in surprise then grinned slowly. No one back home would post such information like that. It was a severe security breach, even for the mundane offices. But apparently no one had warned the outer countries about that. This was going to make their job so much easier. The Ministry of Family Affairs - Adoption Division was to the right.
Sakura grinned over her shoulder at Sasuke still hidden in the stairwell, then with a jaunty little spin, headed off in the right direction. At the end of that hallway there was another ever so helpful little sign, directing her left. Sakura felt like humming.
One left and another right later, she was standing outside another set of glass doors. The department's name was printed boldly across it in large black letters, letters Sakura could now read easily from XX training. Sasuke was just a few steps behind her, silently, invisibly watching her back. A girl couldn't ask for better backup.
With a real, pleased smile Sakura pulled open the glass door, held it open long enough to pretend to check her purse, before letting it drift close after a genjitsu cloaked Sasuke had passed. Sakura then moved on, through the small sitting area up to the waiting receptionist's desk. A very young woman sat there, likely hardly older than Sakura was herself. She was playing with one of those small cellphones they saw everywhere but looked up quickly when Sakura walked up. She blinked, then smiled cheerfully.
"Hi!" she chirped. "What can I do for you?" she asked in a way that made it obvious it was a well rehearsed question but with just enough real enthusiasm behind it to make it sound at least a little welcoming.
Sasuke really was using a low level genjitsu. She could tell exactly were he was even if she couldn't really see him without trying. She could feel him drift over to study the papers on the girl's desk, looking for anything remotely useful.
"Is this the office for adoptions?" Sakura asked polietly keeping the girl's attention on herself just in case.
The girl blinked then leaned forward just enough to sutbly glance Sakura over. "Ah, if you're looking for information on how to give a baby up for adoption, you're in the wrong place. We only handle records here."
Sakura's whole body tensed and one small muscle just over her left eye twicthed. Did this little twit just suggest what Sakura thought she did?
Sasuke had stilled as well. She could feel it. Just like she could feel him smirking at her. Naruto was right. He really was a bastard.
Smile, Sakura, smile. Must not yell. Did she look pregnant?! Sakura' hand curled into a fist and she stretched her lips into a poor mimic of a smile. "No," she replied. "No, no, no. I'm working with the office down the hall. As an assistant. They need a record."
"Oh!" The other girl turned a satisfying shade of red. "I'm sorry! I don't know what I was thinking!" She laughed weakly. "Um, yes, a file. Ah, the file room is just, ah, around that corner there, um, on the left. Yes, right there. Um, you won't need any help will you?" The bright shade of red didn't fade at all as the other girl rambled franticly.
Sakura forced herself to smile at her once more as she moved towards the hallway. "No, thank you," she bit out before turning around and stalking off. "Shut up, just shut up," she whispered once they were far enough away that they wouldn't be heard.
"I didn't say anything," Sasuke whispered back. She could hear the damn smirk.