Hakujitsumu III
Shikamaru sat leaning against a tree whilst his mind mulled over the options for how they would handle the Mother, doubtlessly, if she hadn't already been alerted that her Tsukikomi had been partially undone, she would be very soon. Apparently, all of those who were wrapped by the branches of the tree were ultimately turned into white Zetsu bodies… but there was no way of knowing how long that process would take, or at what point it would become reversible. Was Sakura aware of this information? Perhaps she could begin to look at countering the transformation, maybe some of the small animals who'd been captured were already beginning to be adapted? He sighed at the quiet world around him, although he appreciated a quiet day cloud-gazing, but this silence was utterly unnatural, disturbingly so and it interfered with his inner calm.
His eyes moved from the sky back to the overhanding branch above; its gnarled bark seeming to become more and more organised until it… blinked? Shikamaru sat up a little, his eyes beginning to discern a mouth and the outline of a head; the Nara rubbed his eyes quickly, wondering if his brain had just concocted something ridiculous to alleviate the monotony of his post-apocalyptic world, but it was still there when he looked again.
"Heya, how's it going?" The tree said,
"Wh-what the hell?" Shikamaru snapped back as the head leaned forward and the bark began to smooth, as if of its own accord, whilst the bark began to loose its colour,
"Why so glum, buddy?"
"Ze… Zetsu?" Shikamaru was on his feet in a flash, "What in the hell are you doing here?"
"Oh, just to check up on you guys, I've been off keeping and eye on her since Sasuke awoke Kakashi and she is not happy, but the good news is that she doesn't know how many of you have been revived,"
"That… is good news… we need to find Kakashi—"
"No problem, I was already talking to him, too, buuutttt he's on his way here, now," The white Zetsu grinned just as he sensed the presence of Kakashi,
"Shikarmaru!"
"I know, I've just spoke to him," The Nara looked over to find him,
"Zetsu, how long has the Mother been aware of my awakening?"
"Uh… not for very long, though she wasn't overly concerned at first since there are so many people and animals under her control that she didn't seem very bothered, I guess it's due to how thinly her chakra is spread,"
"What do you mean?" Kakashi pressed,
"Well, the tree owns the chakra, and it absorbed it from her and redistributes it to everyone who's taken the chakra from it… I guess there's a bit of a time lag from when the chakra is disconnected to when she notices," Zetsu explained with a shrug, though both Shikamaru and Kakashi took the moment to analyse the information provided — if there was a time lag between Otsutsuki realising someone was free from the tree, then there was the distinct possibility of an advantage. Well, aside from the advantage they were already enjoying,
"Where is the mother now? What is she currently doing?" Kakashi asked,
"She's at the highest place on this continent, in the mountains of Cloud, most of her chakra and attention is going to keeping the tree alive and the jutsu aimed at the moon,"
"Why does she still need to do that? If everyone is already under the genjutsu - as far as she knows,"
"Hgn… I don't really understand how it all works, but I think she needs to keep the jutsu working as a means of keeping herself in possession of some charka — I think it's kinda some way to fool the plant into not absorbing all of her charka, so that she can still keep a percentage of the chakra," Zetsu explained with the manner of a child repeating what a parent had told it without really understanding the underlying concept. Kakashi and Shikamaru shared a look, a tacit moment of understanding passing between them - like anything else in the physical realm, there was a clear and obvious target for attack.
Ino sighed heavily as she sat on the low roof, the day was sunny and hot yet her mood had risen little above the height of a lethargic ground-fog; she watched the people milling around nearby, their voices coming through clearly though of such little interest to her they were almost bothersome. Until a familiar voice reached her ears and she turned her head slightly,
"What about tempura?"
"Kakashi!" Sakura's voice cut through the hum of others' conversations, with playful offence, "It's your turn to cook tonight and I'm not going to ask you to make something you hate,"
"I could just make something else as well,"
"That's not fair," Sakura offered amiably; they finally came into Ino's view as they ambled down the street, close by each other, though not quite touching. Kakashi held a shopping bag in one hand, whilst Sakura held another, "What about barbecue? We have some beef and I have a small electric grill, if we go back to mine,"
"Ah, barbecue sounds good… do you have the sauces?"
"Yes! I was planning to make it for you next week, but we might as well eat it tonight," They were beginning to get out of Ino's view, though she jumped up and down to the ground, subtly following them, weaving through the crowds.
"Hmm, I'm sorry to miss that," His voice dropped a little, "But I guess we can advance next week's fun to this week,"
"Who says it was scheduled only for next week? It's not like it has to be rationed," Ino could hear to smirk in Sakura's voice and didn't miss how Kakashi momentarily moved slightly closer to her, his nearest hand to her rising slightly to rub his fingers over her inner wrist. It went no further though, for Kakashi seemed to remember they were in public and dropped his hand again.
They meandered on down a few more streets, Ino watching from atop another roof as a sudden movement caught her eye, she leaned over to get a better look at another Kakashi hovering from behind a chimney stack. He held still, observing the pair until they stepped around the corner of a high tented-stall. The kage-bunshin then whipped a camera from nowhere and brought it up to his eye to snap shot. Missions might have been at an all time low for Konoha, but Ino had to admit, this seemed like a ridiculous waste of charka… for the sake of a few photographs. Though the kuniochi vaguely recalled Sakura telling her about the extraordinary lengths he'd gone to in the past — usually surrounding the old trio's attempts to get a peek beneath Kakashi's mysterious mask — to divert and entertain them with his foils. No doubt Sakura was well aware of what he has hiding under there now, I wonder how many in Konoha know what he looks like? The kage-bunshin leapt over several more rooftops, crouching again to focus his camera and take another photograph, Ino saw as he looked at the screen of the camera and smiled, his eye creasing happily at the moment in time he captured. Ino would never have guessed Kakashi to even own a camera, let alone go to such clandestine lengths to get a picture of his girlfriend. They might be a normally private couple, but Kami-sama this was a new level entirely.
The couple slowed to a halt to along a small parade of shops as Kakashi nodded his head towards a supermarket, "Wait here for a moment, will you?"
"Sure," She reached out her hand to take the bag he was carrying, gratefully he handed it off and disappeared inside, Sakura turned around to look at the shop windows in the street opposite, where various shinobi attire was offered, one of which was an extended belt with additional attachments for pouches - good choice for a medic, Ino thought. Sakura was still distracted when Kakashi emerged from the shop, he saw the object of her gaze and looked around for his kage bunshin, who'd taken up temporary residence in a nearby tree as the real Kakashi wandered over and dropped a hand to Sakura's shoulder before they lazily continued on their wander. Ino saw that the kage bunshin reappeared and took itself into the shop, happily chatting with the clerk and pointing at the belt in the window.
The Yamanaka sighed again and left the couple to themselves, not feeling any better; she was in a relationship herself but what Kakashi and Sakura had between them - the playfulness and ease with which they settled their disagreement was lost on Sai. He was a good man and had eventually learned a passable grade of manners, but the concept of devilish or light-hearted interaction was lost on him. Ino had never been shy or felt ashamed of her desire to forge romantic relationships, yet now that the opportune moment seemed to be upon her, her love life was rather lacklustre. She jumped another rooftop and almost landed squarely on Shikamaru, who was lazing on a roof much as she was earlier,
"Oi, Ino, watch where you're going!" He grumbled, barely cracking open an eyelid,
"How are you, Shikamaru? I haven't seen you for a while,"
"Eh," He returned eliciting an irritated eye-roll from her, "…What are you up to?" He asked at length,
"Nothing really,"
"What's bothering you?" Her tone of voice said it all, apparently, "You're listless,"
"I just saw Kakashi and Sakura, I can't believe that old scarecrow is a better lover than anyone our age,"
"You don't know that, or maybe he's just had better practice,"
"Ugh," Ino muttered, still choosing to stubbornly believe that the older generation had no sex drive - it was far too much of a disturbing thought for her.
"Just sit back and watch the clouds for a while, it does wonders for your troubles," He issued before settling his head back again his folded arms once more. The Yamanaka now turned her head to the boy next to her, his words weren't entirely foreign, but they didn't sound right either - Shikamaru never suggested to anybody that they should watch clouds, he only ever mentioned that he watched clouds. Weird. Everything had been weird lately, like something was just not quite right. But there was just so much Ino could attribute to being the cause that it could just as easily be her own mind conjuring problems for itself.
Sakura sat at the small desk opposite to Shizune, waiting for further analysis of the plant stem, whilst her eyes skimmed over the information they'd already gathered. Something was gnawingly familiar about all of the information so far present, but something was just not connecting right for her yet.
"Sakura, you said you thought that the charka was being transported in the phloem tubules, right?"
"Hai,"
"It doesn't look to be that way, actually, the chakra travels through the cell wall, crossing the through the plasmodesmata* to reach every cell,"
"Whoa," Sakura blinked, sitting up a little, "So very similarly to how the chakra flows to every cell in a human body?"
"Yes,"
"So does the chakra travel through the cell wall or through the cytoplasm?"
"Through the cytoplasm, potentially also helping to transfer the proteins and amino acids between cells a lot faster than conventional plants, which may explain how this plant is able to grow and recover so quickly," Shizune explained, taking her eye away from the microscope; whenever they had taken a sample of the plant or removed someone from its bindings, the tree had almost instantly healed itself - perhaps this was why they hadn't been attacked or discovered yet? If the tree healed almost instantaneously, it was possible that the Mother was unaware of the damage being done? It seemed like too much of an opening for them.
"So how could we possibly sever the chakra connections, in that case? Not only would it alert the mother if we managed to cut off one limb, but the tree would recover so quickly it would be meaningless,"
"I'll keep looking and testing, if only we had access to Hashirama's research notes on his wood-element—"
"Yamato-Taicho! Where is he?" Sakura suddenly cut across as she sprung to her feet remembering him, "Hadn't be seen captured? Is it because of him that they were able to grow this tree?"
Shizune stared intensely at Sakura for a moment, her own mind spinning through the available information, "Yes! I think we need to find him as a top priority, go and find Kakashi and tell him what we know so that we can being to organise a means to finding and rescuing Yamato,"
"R-right," Sakura replied, great, just what I needed! She exited the tent and leapt into the trees; the hardest thing she'd faced since waking up had been figuring out how to face Kakashi in the real world. They'd be close, so close in her dream but everything that had happened between them had seemed to take place over years so that it became utterly natural that they been so close. The way he'd looked at her as soon as Sasuke had woken her up as well - as if he knew: he knew what she dreamt of because he'd seen the same things.
That he too had dreamt of just how deeply they'd become involved with each other.
But… it couldn't have been true, could it? Nothing about that Tsukikomi was real and even if, by some miracle he had dreamt of their relationship in the same way, it hadn't really been Kakashi. She'd dreamed only of her projection of him, her imagination created the Kakashi that she wanted, not the real-life man himself. Sakura bit her lip as the thought settled itself morosely in the forefront her mind as she dropped down from the trees and entered the small tent that the offensive ninja were using as a base. Naruto and Shikamaru were stood with their backs to her, initially though as her former teammate noticed and stepped aside to welcome her, she saw what the attraction was.
"You!" She snapped viciously, jabbing a finger towards the white Zetsu,
"Gyah! Don't hurt me, monster-woman!" Zetsu immediately curled into a ball in terror as he, too, recognised Sakura (her previous attack on him had apparently left quite an impression, Sakura thought somewhat smugly, serves him damn well right!),
"Calm down, she won't hurt you," Kakashi cut across, eyeing passively the shaking form of white Zetsu and Sakura's venomous expression,
"Eh? Sakura, what did you do to him?"
"I caught him trying to infiltrate the medial corps tents during the war,"
"Way to go Sakura!" Naruto cheered, "This guy's really good at hiding,"
"But not very clever,"
"How was I supposed to know it was a stupid pig?" Zetsu grumbled, unfurling himself, apparently now confident he was in no immediate danger,
"Shut up… in fact, no," Sakura changed tack, her surprise at seeing her old opponent having momentarily derailed her initial intent, "I'd rather you told me where Yamato is,"
"Yamato?" Kakashi spoke, the surprise obvious on his face as it was everyone else's - apparently they'd forgotten about him, too, "He wasn't released?"
"I'm not sure, but I think Zetsu is in the best position to give us that information,"
"Ya-Yamato?" The tentative ally narrowed his eyes in confusion,
"The Konoha shinobi grown from the cells of Hashirama,"
"Oh! That guy! I guess he's still at the centre of the battlefield, where I dropped him… not that far from here really,"
"That's quite a distance," Kakashi interjected, "Otsutsuki's location is well out of the way so that shouldn't be a problem for now; Shikamaru find out who is physically able to move over a long distance and organise a team to go there and rescue Yamato; Sakura, should be among them."
"Hai, Kakashi-san," The Nara nodded and left the tent, Kakashi turned to Naruto as Sakura returned her attention to Zetsu, trying to ignore her hyper awareness of her dream-lover stood right behind her, along with her simultaneous desire to be very far away from him. "Zetsu, in the meantime I would really like to take a sample of your tissue, since you were grown from Yamato's cells and analyse it in comparison to the cells we have taken from the chakra tree," She explained gently, eyeing as he bared his teeth and took upon a highly suspicious look upon his face, "It won't hurt you,"
"Hmm…"
"Zetsu, your cooperation in this matter would help us greatly, please do as Sakura asks," Kakashi deep voice wafted over her shoulder, almost making her jump in surprise,
"Ugh… all right, what do I need to do?"
"Come with me to the medic tents, though no funny stuff this time!"
"Yea, yea," Zetsu grumbled.
"Shizune! Shizune, I've got white Zetsu with me, he was grown from Yamato's cells," Sakura hurried as she pulled aside the flap over the tent entryway,
"Of course! Bring him over here," Shizune span on her chair, reaching over to the makeshift shelves behind her, "Come and sit over here, Zetsu," He did as he was told, though effectively telegraphed his displeasure through his over-exaggerated slouch, he flopped into the seat, "The theatrics are enough, please hold out your arm," Shizune continued as she took hold of the sterilised razor blade,
"Wh-hey! You said it wouldn't hurt!" He clung to his arm as if his life depended on it,
"Don't be stupid, firstly you can simply regrow limbs and I this won't hurt, Shizune will simply take a scraping from the surface of your skin, it will just feel like scratching an itch," Sakura cut across,
"But I've… never had an itch…"
"Baka,"
"Just hold out your arm, please," Shizune interrupted, prompting Zetsu to comply; she took hold of his wrist and gently scraped the sharp edge of the blade perpendicular to his inner forearm, she lifted the blade carefully and tipped the small residue of skin cells onto a microscope slide. "That's it, you can take your arm back, now,"
"O-oh… well I still don't know what an itch feels like, but that definitely didn't hurt,"
"Okay, Zetsu, the next objective is Yamato, can you lead us to where he is being held? Or was being held last?"
"Yes, though I really hate being a dogsbody for all of you lot," He grumbled,
"I'm sure, but weren't you lonely with only Chatty over there to keep you company in this big wide world?" Sakura offered as she walked over to Sasuke,
"Hmm… well… sorta, it was boring," Zetsu conceded.
Sakura dropped her hand, glowing green with her medicinal chakra, to Sasuke's forehead, "He's not getting any better,"
"No, I'm not sure what we'll be able to do for him, realistically, I'm sorry, Sakura,"
"Hmm, well, it's not like he would have bothered to come for treatment, even if the village was still fully fit," She cooly responded, removing her hand.
"Hey… weren't you in love with that guy, or something?"
"Used to be," Sakura replied, curling her lip slightly at the memory that brought now only a sour taste to her mouth,
"What happened? Did you fall in love with someone else?"
"Yes—no, I just realised what a jerk-off he was… is," At her almost slip, Shizune raised an eyebrow, though let it slide as Sakura quickly changed the topic of conversation, "Shizune, did you find anything in his cells?"
"Oh, right," She turned quickly to her microscope and examined the sample, whilst Sakura made herself busy collecting up extra kunai, kibakufuda and medical supplies ready for the mission.
"Okay, Shikamaru, what do you have for me?" Kakashi began as he settled his stance, weighted on one foot with a hand on his hip,
"Honestly, I think a single five-man team will be best here, the orignal battlefield spans the entire area across approximately a six kilometre radius and that leaves the potential for a lot of searching. We don't know exactly where the Mother is right now nor what state of awareness she's in. We need to move as quietly as possible; Zetsu, hopefully, will be able to give us a better estimate as we get close."
"Agreed. Team recommendations?"
"You, Naruto, Shino, Sakura and Hinata." Shikamaru said, "I and a handful of others will keep on searching for useful allies, I'd like to find the Hachibi and as many Kages as we can, in particular."
"Yes, I agree with that, I'll see if Zetsu has any clones he can spare to help you, maybe if Sasuke is awake you can ask him if he remembers. I'll get the team ready and briefed, we'll leave at dawn tomorrow."
Everyday was getting longer and longer in this reality.
A/n - This chat has been updated since it's first release!
FYI — Kakashi does NOT have a sharingan at this point.