AN: Another late chapter, I'm afraid. They're going to continue to be late, I suspect, until I get my thesis done. I am already working on the next chapter, however.

As always, thank you for the continued wonderful support and advice! It's extremely motivating!

It was Ino that let Sakura know she needed to be at the Hokage's tower in the wee hours of the morning. She'd detoured by Sakura's house on the way home from nightwatch duty and had passed the message through her window. Shikamaru had heard from another chunnin, who'd heard from someone else, that there'd been an incident at the Uchiha compound and that the lone survivor of the clan was being brought in for questioning – again. No one mentioned Harry-kun. Which only went to prove that while the gossip chain was in good health in Konoha, some secrets could still be kept quiet even in a village of shinobi. Sakura had made sure to carefully thank Ino – with the required insults to the other girl's appearance, skills and intelligence, a sentiment that Ino cheerfully if wearily returned – without mentioning Harry-kun. It wasn't her place to. Not yet. That was an honor reserved for Sasuke, even if he didn't see it that way. After all, it wasn't everyday that the head of a clan was able to welcome a new member into their family. And for one with such a tragic and somewhat tarnished history such as Sasuke-kun, the good will and general happiness of such an occasion should be savored.

Assuming disaster hadn't struck already.

Sakura rolled an acorn under one foot, back and forth, as she waited outside of the Hokage's tower. This late at night, the front desk was formally closed. A duty shinobi waited at the second check point, but they had strict rules about visitors staying out of the building at this hour unless one had an official summons from the Hokage. And despite her apprenticeship, Sakura didn't technically have one. And desk shinobi were very strict about such things. So she waited outside like a good chunnin. If Sasuke was bring summoned, then Kakashi-sensei would be the one sent to fetch him. Kakashi-sensei had enough authority to deem whether or not Sakura's presence was objectable or not. All she had to do was wait for him.

Wait, and try not to think about the hundred and one things that could have happened at the Uchiha compound that could be described as an "incident."

She was failing pretty miserably at it.

With a huff, she rolled her distraction to the back of her heel and with a twist, crushed it. Enough with this waiting. It shouldn't be too hard to find Sasuke and her sensei. If she met them halfway, maybe they could fill her in before they had to worry about nosy ears listening in. With a light step she moved out of the courtyard surrounding the Hokage's tower and was about to hop up onto the nearest building to start her search when she felt them moving towards her. They were on the street, moving slow, and coming from the direction Naruto's apartment was in. She should have guessed.

She hesitated only long enough to stretch her legs out with a few quick simple twists before jogging lightly down the road to meet them. She had been sleeping quite peaceable before this whole mess, and her body had quite liked the relaxed lassitude she'd had it in. If the others were moving that slowly then there wasn't any point in rushing. No one must be in danger of dying. Already dead, quite possibly, but not actively dying.

Four streets later she met up with the four of them trudging slowly towards the center of town. Kakashi-sensei absently waved one hand at her the moment she rounded the corner. It didn't take long after that for Naruto to perk up and wave his whole arm and half his body as he called out to her loudly. He'd had his head down and a scowl on his face the second before he realized she was there, but now he was all smiles and likely woke a few of the streets residents with his boisterous good mornings and how-are-you's.

Sakura smiled back gamily before flicking his ear. "It's still nighttime, Naruto! Keep your voice down." While he protested that it technically wasn't night any more, Sakura flicker her eyes up and over. Sasuke hadn't so much as shifted over to accommodate her arrival when she joined their merry little pack. He'd simply kept moving forward, head up, eyes focused on what was ahead, and ignored everything else. She unfortunately couldn't say it was unusual behavior for him and it didn't tell her a whole lot about whatever must had happened. And only a fool would dare to ask him at this point.

So Sakura turned her back to him and smiled brightly up at their teacher. "Do you mind if I come with you, Kakashi-sensei?" she asked, holding her hands behind her back and flicking her hair out of her eyes. The movement gave her a convenient reason to check out the rest of their little party since Harry-kun wasn't walking beside Sasuke. For some reason, he plodded along on the far side of Kakashi-sensei, looking very much like a civilian who'd been dragged out of bed before the sun was up. Skipping a quick step ahead brought him better into view for her. Then she nearly tripped over her own feet. Was that a cut on his face? And what in heaven's name had happen to his throat? It was already turning a sickeningly dark color that suggested tissue and possible muscle damage.

"What the hell-"

"Sakura-chan!" Kakashi-sensei interrupted, using his very best imitation of a scandalized tone, which was about as convincing as the rest of his lies. "Lovely little ladies shouldn't use such vulgar language." Which in Kakashi-speak meant shut-the-hell-up.

She snapped her mouth closed and settled for glaring at him while everyone else focused on the road ahead. She was a medic nin. It was her job to ask how people got hurt. Fix it. And then go kill the something that did it. If he thought for a second she was going to let this slide…

"Sorry, sensei," she managed to ground out through clenched teeth. "Of course I wouldn't do something like that," she temporized as she quickly tried to work out a different angle. If asking directly about it wasn't an option, then she'd have to pick her battles a little more carefully. "It's just that it's awful early, don't you think, sensei? I know it makes me tired. What about you, Harry-kun? I'm sure you're just as tired, ne?"

And here was the tricky part. Harry-kun was on the far side of Kakashi-sensei. If she was going to get at him, she'd have to step around her teacher. And if Kakashi-sensei seriously didn't want her anywhere near him, she wasn't going to get very far. But a little finesse and a lot of hair flicking went a long way sometimes. Especially with Kakashi-sensei. Oh, he wouldn't fall for it for a second, but he sometimes rewarded good work by letting it slide.

"I bet they didn't even stop for breakfast, did they?" she asked with a soft whine to her voice. "I think I've got some crackers with me, though. Here, want to share them with me, Harry-kun?" she asked. With a bounce in her step, she slipped around the front of Kakashi-sensei, and pulled a protein bar out of one of her packs. She didn't usually bother to carry them within the city, but luck was with her today and she had one left over in her pack. It made a handy excuse to move next to Harry-kun right now without drawing Sasuke's attention or annoying Kakashi-sensei.

It also helped that Harry-kun seemed to buy it at face value too. He looked up finally as she moved close enough to brush shoulders with him. He apparently hadn't been listening to her at all, she realized with a huff. He looked surprised when she handed him a torn off piece of fruit flavored, chemically enriched, pressed and processed grain mill. But he took it obediently and nibbled on a corner. It wasn't much, but maybe it'd put a little color on his face.

The cut there wasn't too bad, and it looked like someone had already tried to clean it. Something older then, but not before the last time she'd seen him only hours ago. The marks on his throat, however, were still very pink and swollen. They'd continue to darken as time went by, she was sure of it. Her fingers twitched to do something about it, but it would be a little hard to casually brush her hand across his neck. If it had been another boy, she probably could have gotten away with it by merely batting her eyelashes a few times then retreating before they knew what had hit them. But this was Sasuke's cousin. She couldn't use flirting on Sasuke's cousin. Not only would it be humiliatingly similar to embarrassing moments of their childhood, but she was pretty sure it would freak Sasuke out. With a sigh Sakura nibbled on her own piece of energy bar. For now she'd have to settle for passing a chunk of it to Harry-kun. He didn't seem to have any trouble eating, which suggested the damage was mostly superficial.

The walk to the Hokage's tower wasn't a long one, but forcing a couple of tense shinobi to go at the pace of a civilian made it feel like ages. She wasn't surprised when Naruto broke the silence. She half expected him to come over by her and Harry-kun and start begging for his own bit of breakfast, but he stayed loyally by Sasuke's side.

"Sakura!" he whined suddenly. "You won't believe what Sasuke-teme did! He broke my new kitchen table!"

Sakura took the bait gratefully. "The one Chouji gave you?" she asked in return.

"Yep!"

Sakura pressed her lips together and tried to hide the smile that threatened to spread across her face. "Didn't he break the last one too?"

Naruto grinned back at her before scowling deeply at the back of Sasuke's head. "Yeah, the bastard."

For a moment there was silence and Sakura struggled to find a way to get the conversation rolling again. Then Sasuke growled softly. "I did not," he snapped back.

"Did too!"

Sasuke glared over at the other boy. "I wasn't even there, dobe."

Naruto folded his arms over his chest. "It was still your fault."

"How can it be my fault if I wasn't even there?"

"Cause," Naruto floundered for a moment but then grinned confidently and with a nod of his head declared "You're a bastard. You pissed me off, and that's why the table got broken, so it's all your fault. Cause you're a bastard. Duh."

Sasuke relaxed enough to roll his shoulders as if physically shrugging off Naruto's accusations. "That's not an argument, moron."

And then Harry-kun scoffed very quietly.

He had his head turned away, but all four of the shinobi heard it as clearly as if he'd shouted it across the empty street. Sakura couldn't say exactly what the noise was supposed to mean, but it had a smothering affect on the group. Sasuke's eyes darted away from the rest of the group. He once more focused all of his attention on marching forward with the same kind of single-mindedness as if he were all alone on the road that night. Sakura started at the way his shoulders tightened and the clenched muscles running across his back and sighed. Maybe trying to lighten the mood by teasing Sasuke hadn't been the way to go. Obviously, whatever was going on involved him.

Part of her automatically wanted to defend Sasuke's side, but the guilty, nervous look on Naruto's face made it hard to do that. Naruto clearly knew what was going on, and while he seemed determined to stay no more than a step behind Sasuke, he wasn't arguing one way or the other. If he thought Sasuke was in the right, his sense of honor likely wouldn't let him say otherwise no matter how much he might want to sometimes. But if he wasn't stoutly sticking up for his teammate, why wasn't he ranting about whatever was really going on? Naruto rarely passed up a chance to take Sasuke down a peg or two. But there were some things even the two of them wouldn't tease each other about.

It wasn't until Harry-kun reached up absent-mindedly to rub at the marks across his neck that Sakura started to suspect the worse.

Accidents happened. Every shinobi knew that, and everyone who had a relative that was shinobi knew that. It was so easy to push a little too hard every now and then. And a shinobi's reflexes didn't decrease with fatigue – they just became more unpredictable. Everyone knew about it but no one much talked about it. There was nothing to talk about. If Sakura broke a plate by pushing too hard on it while washing the dishes, she simply cleaned up the pieces and tossed them out. If Naruto came up unexpectedly on Sasuke a little too quickly, he simply rolled with the punch directed his way and laughed. The lapse in control was a little embarrassing, but nothing more.

Of course, accidents also didn't tend to leave finger shaped bruises wrapped around a civilian's neck. You didn't accidently try to choke someone.

Sakura clenched her fist but resisted the urge to punch her stupid, thoughtless, moron of teammate. Somehow, giving him the beating he deserved probably wouldn't help reassure Harry-kun that they weren't all violent, uncivilized brutes.

Kakashi-sensei stopped her from doing anything more by letting out a long and weary sigh. "Hmm, I guess this would still count as willful destruction of personal property of a Konoha citizen," he announced while scratching the back of his head. His one visible eye darted over to stare at Sakura and Harry. "Seems to me like that probably deserves some good old fashion d-rank missions to make up for it. Wouldn't you think so, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura winced. Sasuke-kun had hated d-rank missions when they were 12. While the three of them had been held back for some time now, it had still been years since any of them had been subjected to clean-up duty. And somehow she suspected that Kakashi-sensei had some of the more – smelly – missions in mind.

"I suppose so, Kakashi-sensei," she agreed mildly. "Though maybe a new table for Naruto wouldn't be remiss either," she added with a faint smile. "That apartment's pathetic enough as it is."

"Hey! There's nothing wrong with my place!"

Almost as one, they all turned their heads and stared at Naruto. Even Harry-kun.

Naruto pouted and crossed his arms. "It's not that bad. At least it's clean."

"You call that clean?" Sasuke retorted.

"Hey, I totally meant to take that trash out. That doesn't count."

"Don't worry about it, Sasuke-kun," Kakashi-sensei announced. "You'll have plenty of time to demonstrate your cleaning skills later…"