*Obligatory 'I don't own Naruto so please don't sue me' header*
Transformation Arc:
Chapter 15 - Repercussions
Tsunade was having a bad day.
Granted, if one was to look outside of her office at the stunning view before her, they would be none the wiser – but Tsunade knew that something was amiss almost immediately after she sent the Naruto Retrieval Squad on their way, yesterday afternoon.
It all started with yet another tremor – this time, much more jarring. Shizune had been hard pressed to run around frantically, trying to prevent the more fragile things in Tsunade's office (at least, what was left after her… violent display of power), and elsewhere, from bounding off of their perches onto the dangerously solid wooden floor below.
The Hokage shook her head and ran her fingers through her slowly greying blond hair. At least, she felt like it was greying. In all actuality, the beautification henge she sported on a nearly constant basis was more than powerful enough to prevent the physical manifestations of her stress from surfacing, but sometimes, she still felt like she was walking around without it.
Today was one of those days.
It all started with the council, only hours later. Once word got out from her impromptu office "meeting" that Naruto was behind the destruction of the Hidden Cloud (although she never explicitly said such a thing), the civilian councilmembers and even some of the shinobi clan leaders approached her like a bear approaches a bee hive – aware of the imminent danger, but also aware of the necessity to do such a thing.
And so, much to her abhorrence, a meeting had been called for that evening in order to discuss recent events, and, if necessary, act upon them.
Tsunade grimaced, and slammed her fist into the desk again. The poor thing was on its last legs, and Shizune had begged and pleaded with her to be more careful, because a new one couldn't be procured for another few days. But she didn't care – the situation was just that frustrating.
She knew exactly what it was that the council was going to do once word finally got out that Naruto was not only alive, but an S-class criminal. She was only there for show – and for boasting rights. The Leaf council loved to call out the small gaps in the Hokage's power – something that she knew damned well forced her sensei to age several more decades than he actually was supposed to. Ironically enough, most of those incidents under the Third's rule also revolved around Naruto; not that the boy had any idea of it at the time. She had read the declassified information once she took the hat – Naruto was fighting an uphill battle just to live in what little squalor he could, while he was growing up.
It was a personal project of hers, once she became the Fifth, to try and figure out (and fix) the reasons behind Naruto's piss-poor treatment by the village as a whole. It didn't take her long to figure out just how much the Third had been fighting for the boy back when she was on her "sabbatical". He countlessly tried to adopt the boy himself, or allow another respectable family to adopt him in his stead. It was well known among the higher-ups in the Leaf village, primarily the clan heads, that Naruto was, in fact, the son of the Fourth – meaning that the old Sarutobi could trust them to see Naruto as who he was, and for the legacy he carried, not what he was burdened with.
Of course, that was until the proposition was brought before the council.
Tsunade balled up her fist, still wedged between several fragments of her shattered desk, as she thought about it some more. Why, exactly, was his life constantly in the groping hands of the council? What authority did they have over the way he lived, or the life he would lead? He may have been a Jinchuuriki, but that was still not enough justification to treat the child like he was the offspring of trash.
A pent-up sigh escaped her lips, as she slumped back into her chair. She did that a lot these days. Not that she noticed – or cared.
With a frown, and through narrowed eyes, she stared off into space.
Trepidation and worry began to leak into her heart as she continued to think about the situation at hand. No doubt, the councilmembers would try to wring her head for not immediately declaring the boy an S-class missing-nin… and she could honestly see why that was such a bad thing. As it stood, any actions that Naruto took while outside the city walls could be considered sanctioned by the Leaf itself. It was as if their blessing still hovered over his head as he went about, doing whatever it was he did.
Granted, she knew she could probably dispel any sort of political nightmare that could come about from the last week's events simply by stating – truthfully – that the Leaf thought him dead until only just recently.
But regardless, she should have immediately signed the missing-nin paperwork the first chance she got. The window of innocence the Leaf was casually hovering in the middle of was rapidly closing, and it was only a matter of time before something walked through that door that would shatter the Leaf's political standing in one fell swoop.
And so, that was why she was now currently positioned at her (barely standing) desk, in the middle of her dilapidated office, holding her writing hand apprehensively above an official document that was hanging rather precariously over the edge.
But she just couldn't do it.
It had been hard when she was forced to do it for Sasuke Uchiha, nearly three full years before.
But Naruto…
"Why not? Damn it, why not!" she growled to herself, shaking her head angrily, as her pen-wielding hand began to tremble above the page.
She knew exactly why not.
Tsunade just didn't want to admit it to herself.
Admit that she had failed him, his father, her sensei, her grandfather…
…her brother and lover.
Like some sort of sick joke, she could visualize the specters of her two most important people scowling at her from behind the other side of the desk, arms crossed, eyes seething with rage.
'You failed him… You failed us.'
With a choked sob, she launched out of her chair and walked towards one of the still-broken windows that looked out over the village. To her dismay, the first one she came to, the first one that she could see properly out of, was the one that faced directly towards the Hokage Monument.
Again, the faces seemed to exude self-doubt, and Tsunade watched in silent consternation as they seemed to shrink away from her, like they were darting away from the village as quickly as they could muster.
She shook her head this time, already expecting the outcome. With a resigned sigh, and a silent tear, she turned slowly back to the desk, ready to do what she had to do, for the sake of the village.
To her surprise, and horror, the imaginary figures of Dan and Nawaki were now joined by four others – no, five. No, six…
Hashirama stood behind the two potential Kage, sporting a rather disapproving scowl. His red-iron battle armor, indicative of his Senju lineage, hung over his body just like she remembered it always had. Long, straight, black hair fell down his head like water from a waterfall. His arms were crossed in front of his chest, and he stood there like he always had – authoritatively, intelligently, lovingly.
As she turned her weary eyes to meet his, he simply rolled them and turned away, completely disregarding her presence. As he took a step away from her, his form faded away like a wisp in the wind.
"Grandfather?" She gasped, before taking a shaky step forward, and then two steps back when she saw the others.
Her grand-uncle, Tobirama, stood to his right, directly behind Dan. He did nothing, apart from simply looking her in the eye and turning away as well.
Her sensei, Hiruzen Sarutobi, stood beside Tobirama, adorned completely in the solid white robes and hat that he always wore whenever he wasn't working or training. His pipe was in his mouth, off to the side, gripped between his teeth.
With an ethereal puff from his pipe, the Third raised an eyebrow at her, closed his eyes, and then shook his head slowly as he, too, turned away. As the strange ghost-like object faded from existence, the smoke from his pipe lingered for a moment, and Tsunade almost swore she could smell the telltale tobacco that her old teacher, and father figure, would use.
Although terrified to get a better glimpse at the others in the room, her eyes continued moving right on their own accord.
She already knew who the next person would be. If the previous three were any indication, then it could only be one person.
She hadn't known the man personally – or at all, really. He was a war hero during the Third Great War, which was the catalyst for her "field vacation". It was only after the war ended and she was long gone that he was appointed Hokage.
Regardless, Minato Namikaze stared into her eyes with a burning hatred that she had honestly never experienced before. She gasped as the cold, calculating blue eyes, somehow bleeding through the darkness of her office as the sun began to set behind her, ripped through her like a rusty kunai.
His arms were crossed, much like the first two, but his attire was completely different. He wore a traditional jounin outfit of green jacket, blue undershirt, and darker blue pants. A brilliant white cloak was draped over his shoulders, and they ran down his body commandingly, accenting his height and might.
If the specter could shout at her, she assumed the man would already be hoarse. Before she could even react, however, he turned on his heels in fury and began to march off, back into the void – his white cloak, adorned with the kanji for "Fourth Hokage" following him gently in the otherworldly breeze.
But the next two.
She could no longer hold her footing, and fell to her knees gracelessly as she observed the brilliant white mane of the man that she honestly considered her brother, best friend, and rival.
He towered over everything, just like she always remembered that he had. His dark green outfit was flickering under the rays of sunlight that danced through the room as the day began to slowly decay into night.
Jiraiya.
His gaze was the worst.
It wasn't mean, it wasn't hateful, it wasn't angry.
No.
It was disappointed.
Tsunade had to tear her eyes away from the visage before her, in order to help compose herself somewhat.
It didn't work, however - as the tears came forward, unbidden, past her locked eyelids.
"Stop… please…"
Then, she felt a small hand on her shoulder, much to her surprise. She slowly opened her eyes, and turned slightly from her position on the floor to view the person that had touched her.
Two brilliant, blue eyes looked back at her curiously, underneath a messy mop of blond hair. Six whisker marks were etched across his face like tattoos, and his orange outfit stood out in the darkening room like a lightbulb in the dark. He smiled at her weakly, before standing up with a sad frown, and turning back towards Jiraiya.
"W…wait! N-Naruto…" Tsunade gasped out, now completely out of her senses.
Instead of paying any attention to her, Naruto's figure simply took the outstretched hand of the still-disappointed toad sage, and the two turned and began to walk into the darkness.
"No! Come back here! No!" she shouted from the floor, before falling forward, her forehead connecting with the wood of the desk in front of her with a small thud.
"No… please, no…"
She continued to tap her head against the desk and quietly whisper to herself, as the tears fell freely from her eyes.
She sat there for what felt like an eternity, just thinking about her choices and her actions and her life up to this point. She had been a failure, if she was honest with herself.
Hell, she was a failure to every single person in this village, considering she took off and left it alone for damn near a decade and a half.
Every single shinobi she could have saved from the brink of death.
Every sick and dying patient, civilian and shinobi alike.
Every student she could have taught, to spread her knowledge and help as many people as she could.
No.
She had done none of that. For all intents and purposes, she was a selfish piece of filth.
All of her insecurities, her fears, her deepest regrets came pouring out of her like the tears that just wouldn't stop. It had been a long time coming, if Tsunade was honest with herself. After all, booze and gambling can only do so much, for so long, before things start to break apart.
Finally seeming to calm herself down, she frowned, readjusted herself on the floor, and leaned against the hard wood of her dilapidated desk. With a strained sigh, she laid her head back, resting her hair's cowlick against the groove of one of the drawers.
Then, she chuckled a little to herself, wiping her teary eyes with the sleeve of her dark green haori.
"Leave it to me to have a complete mental breakdown before a council meeting," she grumbled to herself, as she relaxed a bit more.
The moon was now rising fervently through the sky at a slow and steady pace – she had been sitting there, wallowing in self-pity for damn near an hour now. The moon's soft, ghostly glow floated through the broken windows like a fairy, kissing her face with a gentle, altruistic nudge.
The Fifth sighed, and ran a tired hand through her ragged hair. She had no idea what time it was, and how much longer she had until that accursed council meeting, but she assumed that it must be looming on the horizon.
With a huff, she willed her hand to rise above her head and dance about on her desk in an attempt to retrieve something. When calloused yet manicured fingers met the cool, soft paper, she smirked slightly and tugged it towards her – pen and all.
With one fluid motion, Tsunade snatched the falling pen from the air and brought the paper – the same from before – down to her waist. Positioning it on her thigh, she haphazardly scribbled "Tsunade S." on the signature line, and looked at it fervently for several moments before finally forcing herself to her feet, pen in one hand, paper clasped in the other.
She set the pen aside, and reached in her desk for a familiar ink and stamp set. The ink bottle was thrown open as soon as it was found, and a quick, systematic "5" in kanji form was spat across the signature gracelessly.
The Slug Sannin then took the time to fish for her chair against the far wall, bringing it back to her decrepit desk so she could think comfortably.
Finally, the small, shadowy outline of the clock came into her view, and she cursed slightly at the time.
She had an hour.
"Well," she grunted with a shrug. "Best make use of my time."
Her sake drawer was unceremoniously thrown open with a small rattle, and a pale grey bottle was procured from its depths.
As she brought the bottle to her lips, she frowned a bit, taking a closer look. Then, a small sniff.
"Wait," she muttered, "Is this absinthe?"
'It would certainly explain the hallucinations…'
With another shrug, she downed the bottle in one go.
"Stop! You are trespassing on Hidden Leaf territory! State your names, ranks, and village of origin!"
The two chuunin guards that stepped in for Kotetsu and Izuma while they were on their mission visibly tensed when they saw three shrouded figures stumble down the dark and winding path leading to the front gates of the village. They were no strangers to pedestrian traffic – but considering it was pitch black out, save for the dim light of the moon that sprinkled the treeline with a pale white glow, they had every right to be apprehensive.
After all, according to the rumors that were circulating around the ninja bars, the Hidden Cloud was gone, and the rest of the shinobi world was now locked in a fierce power vacuum – one that desperately needed to be normalized. These could be refugees, or they could be estranged, powerful shinobi that think they can take advantage of other villages' hospitality in order to exploit them for their own game.
The Hidden Leaf wouldn't stand for that.
After receiving no answer, one of the gatekeepers slowly made his way back over to the desk that they sat in for most of the day. His hand hovered over a large red button mounted under the table – one that would summon several ANBU units almost immediately. There was no telling what would happen at that point.
And so, after a bit of deliberation, the chuunin decided to give the three visitors one more chance.
"I repeat, stop where you are! Identify yourselves!"
And, surprisingly, they did.
A rough female voice echoed through the night sky.
"We… we're from the Sand… We need to speak to the… Hokage… immediately…"
"Who are you?" The chuunin replied authoritatively. At the mention of the Hokage, both guards tensed visibly and reached for their weapons. If they had the gall to demand passage to the Hokage, then this could be an (admittedly, poor) attempt at her life.
The girl from before went into a coughing fit, before the trio began to approach the gates again.
As they loomed closer, the ring of light emitted from the buzzing street lamp above the gates began to tug away at the mystery of their identities. Three browned, tan cloaks, synonymous with the Hidden Sand village, appeared before them, surrounding a trio of completely exhausted shinobi. One was completely unconscious, being dragged along by the other two. His form was small and frail, and the chuunin could smell the acute, iron stench of blood on his person.
They weren't faking this – at least, it didn't appear so from first glance.
The woman that spoke before turned her exhausted green eyes up to meet the gatekeepers, causing them to jump slightly as they stopped completely before them, illuminated brightly now by the synthetic gloom of fluorescence. She stumbled a bit, obviously not used to the feeling of standing still for more than a second or two.
'They must have been traveling continuously, for days,' one of the chuunin mused, but he made no sign to allow them passage.
"You didn't answer my question." It appeared that his fellow guard had the same sentiments. The both simply stood there, primed and ready to attack at a moment's notice.
The girl sighed painfully, before coughing again. "Tell… Lady Tsunade… we're friends… of Naruto…"
She passed out, slumping forward onto the gravel before the gates. The other shrouded figure, the one still moving at least, moved quickly to stop her fall before she faceplanted and hurt herself. The chuunin tensed visibly at the movement, but once he sat down beside his companion, cradling their injured third member, they had time to let what the sand kunoichi had said before losing consciousness sink in properly.
It was no secret who Naruto was – although he wasn't considered a legend or even much of a hero, he was still respected more in death than he ever was in life. It shocked the guardsmen considerably, to think that the blond brat had foreign friends; but then again, he did happen to be travelling with one of the Sannin for a good portion of his life towards the end.
"Please," the gruff, strained voice of the purple-faced man called out, breaking them from their thoughts. "We don't have much time. Gaara…" He looked down at the small frame in his lap, "… he doesn't have much time."
'Gaara?' mused the chuunin. 'Why does that name sound so familiar?'
"Stay here," the other gate keeper said plainly to his comrade, who nodded once in affirmation.
A moment later, a unit of ANBU were standing beside him, wielding kunai and various other weapons of destruction. After a small hand signal, they stood down immediately, before looking at the defending guardkeeper with mild curiosity.
"Please notify Tsunade that three Sand ninja are here to see her," he said with a small nod at the ANBU in command, wearing a cat mask.
"What business do these three have with Lady Hokage?" inquired Cat, before turning to look at the three disheveled and downright exhausted nin that sat before her, motionless throughout this whole exchange.
The chunnin only smiled at her. "They say that they were friends of Naruto."
Cat, being a rather high-ranking ANBU captain, jumped ever so slightly at that news. She had, of course, been brought up to speed regarding the events of Tsunade's past week – including her… disturbing discovery that the boy was still alive. That meant that she knew the gravity behind those words.
"I understand." Cat turned on her heels, pointing to two of her subordinates. "You two. Take the two weak ones and get them to the hospital." She turned back to the chuunin guard. "I'll go alert Lady Shizune and Lady Fifth."
With a handsign and a flash, she was gone.
"LADY TSUNADE!"
"Wh-what? What's the emergency?"
Several polished-off bottles of varying types of liquor came tumbling off of her as Tsunade jumped awake at her desk. She shook her head repeatedly, fussed with her hair, then frowned with narrow eyes at her assistant.
Shizune only sweatdropped. "I thought I told you that you shouldn't be drinking on the job again."
Tsunade rolled her eyes. "So what? I had a shit day. And from the way you burst in here, I take it that it's about to get much worse."
After seeing her students grim nod, she shook her head slowly and leaned back in her chair, tossing aside the sake and absinthe bottles. "The council acting up again?"
Shizune jumped, before grimacing, a terrified expression on her face. "Not exactly, Lady Tsunade…"
The telltale sound of a doorknob twisting echoed through the silent room. Then, it began to move.
Tsunade only raised a single eyebrow as a small, frail looking, cloaked figure entered her office. He was holding his side through the brown, dirt-stained robes, and she could see that he was barely standing, having to lean slightly the right in order to move without toppling over. His face and hair were covered by the large flowing hood of his cloak.
He looked like death – and Tsunade could smell blood from all the way across the room.
"He refused treatment, other than a soldier pill, before he could talk to you, Tsunade," Shizune said with a sad frown. "Besides…" She trailed off slightly, just looking at the figure apprehensively.
Subconsciously, Tsunade reached out with her chakra to test the limits of the man before her. To her surprise, he was essentially running on empty – this was bad. He would die without medical treatment – and he needed it fast.
But before she could open her mouth and let the medic-nin side of her berate him, the man raised a feeble hand up to his hood and began to slowly tug.
Tsunade smirked at his dramatics, reaching for one of her more full bottles of sake.
As her lips moved to the ring of the bottle, Gaara's hood came off.
Cold, distant, broken seafoam green eyes bore into her own. "Lady Hokage. We need to talk."
A heartbeat.
The sake bottle crashed to the ground.
"Sakura, what are you doing?"
The pink-haired kunoichi simply smirked at Lee, who was observing her antics curiously.
"Some simple chakra control exercises. I'm a medic-nin, and we're required to keep our skill at the peak in order to stay effective in the field. What I'm doing now could save your life."
The two Leaf ninja were currently staked out at their campsite, a little ways away from the Uzumaki shrine they had spent the previous day trapping. The clearing was small, yet cozy – more than enough space for four tents, a small table, and some camping chairs. Lee, in his usual dark green spandex outfit, was perched upon the edge of one of the chairs, staring into the closed palms of the team's medical ninja. She was focusing intently on whatever was inside of her balled up fists, sweat dripping down her forehead.
Lee sweatdropped in an unusual display of confusion. "But all you're doing is holding a rock."
With a bit of a pant, Sakura looked up, locking eyes with Lee. She smiled at him. "Exactly."
After a grunt of concentration, Sakura released the death grip she had on the rock, revealing it to the world.
It was perfectly round – about half an inch in radius, and completely smooth on all sides. Lee looked at it intently for a few moments, before widening his eyes past capacity and jumping out of his chair with an excited holler.
"Incredible!" he exclaimed, raising a fist into the air. He opened his mouth to congratulate her on her accomplishment, but a fist planted itself squarely in his cheek, causing him to fly off to the side and into one of the trees that girdled their campsite.
"What the hell had Kakashi-sensei been saying since we got here?" she hissed through clenched teeth, fuming with anger. "Shut up, Lee!"
"Just what seems to be the problem here?" came a lazy voice from the entrance to the campsite. With the lazy voice came a lazy jounin, brandishing a small orange book and looking over at Lee's quivering form with nonchalant boredom.
"I suspect you already know, sensei," Sakura said sweetly, shooting a sideways glare at the green beast before her. "I told him once, I told him a thousand times – now I gotta get physical." She smiled and rolled her eyes, returning to her chair with a soft thud.
Her eyes glazed over as she remembered more of her past life as a team member.
'I had to beat Naruto over the head all the time… who would have thought.'
She smiled somberly, before she felt Kakashi's presence move towards her and take the now unoccupied seat in front of her. He watched her hands with mild interest, but his book was still raised and he was only stealing glances.
"Tell me, Sakura, what is it exactly that medical ninja have to do to keep their chakra control up?"
The kunoichi blinked, clutching the pebble absentmindedly in her hand ever so slightly. Kakashi had never come to her with a question regarding ninja training. She always just sort of… assumed he knew mostly everything about the world of ninja. For the first time that mission, she was shocked speechless.
It would certainly not be the last.
"Uhh," she said dumbly, not sure how exactly how to explain it. 'I've never had to actually be the teacher before. This is weird…'
With a quick shake of her head, she rattled some sense back into her brain. "Right. Well, it's simple really. You have to already have above average chakra control in order to even qualify as a medic-nin, so naturally most of the basic training stuff is out. The leaf exercises, tree climbing, that sort of thing. Instead," she turned her attention back to the rock in her hand, holding it up so that Kakashi could see it, "we focus on the small, minute things. Like this, for example." She turned the rock about in her hand, allowing it to roll around slightly across the creases and folds of her palm. "I personally like this exercise because you can do it practically anywhere. While walking, while resting, while reading," she raised a slight eyebrow at her sensei. "Essentially, you take your chakra, condense it considerably, and use it to put pressure across the surface of a rock. Any rock will do. The chakra smashes and compacts the rock into a perfect sphere, if you do it properly."
She set the stone on the table next to her for good measure, and sure enough, it began to roll towards the edge. In one deft motion, Sakura caught the ball as it attempted to make a break for the earth.
"Hm," Kakashi said, with an eye-smile. "Sounds interesting. Mind if I have a try?"
"Of course not," Sakura said with a wave of her hand. "You just have to find your own stone." As Kakashi began to look around the earthen floor beneath them for a victim, Sakura placed the completed stone in her pocket and also began to scout for another.
When satisfied with her choice, she placed it levelly in her palm, noticing that Kakashi was doing the same with a stone he had chosen, mirroring her movements.
"Now, the first bit is pretty easy. The jagged edges are easy to break away and condense. It's once you get to the perfect sphere part that things get really tricky."
To show her point, she closed her palm, and began to concentrate, imagining a hollow casing of chakra surrounding the rock completely, before exerting pressure across its more ragged edges. It wasn't long before she felt the fragments of rock collapsing in on itself and compacting around the middle.
Satisfied with her demonstration, she opened her palm again.
Kakashi nodded in praise at the significantly smoothed over rock. Then, he opted to do the same, closing his lone eye in concentration for a few moments.
When he opened both his eye and his palm again, Sakura pouted. "No fair. Of course you get it down completely in your first try."
Sitting in the jounin's hand was a completely round sphere of rock. He simply shrugged with a sheepish eye-smile, leaning back in his chair.
Then, something in Sakura's brain clicked. "Wait a minute!" She leaned forward in indignation. "You already knew how to do that, didn't you?" She didn't bother waiting for his response. "Why did you have me teach it to you then?"
Kakashi's grin vanished immediately, and he looked her right in the eye. Although he was now serious, there was still a kind and thoughtful glimmer behind it. "Because, Sakura, I wanted to see how good of a teacher you are. Granted, one simple chakra demonstration may not be the biggest deal in the world, but I just wanted to see how you would react to it." He leaned back forward again, resting an elbow gently on the edge of the table. "Getting approached by other ninja, high-ranking or not, for assistance in your specialty, is something that's going to happen a lot in the future. You are the apprentice of the best medical ninja on the planet." He shrugged again. "Not to mention the fact that you'll probably be taking on a genin team of your own one day. You've got to be able to teach well to pull that off."
His eye curled back up into a grin, as he continued. "However, judging by the way you showed me how to do that, I'd say you're more than ready. Call it a sensei's random intuition, I suppose, but I'm glad I tested you just now."
Sakura smiled a little at the praise. Considering she was the last member of Team 7 – well, last member still in the village – it meant a lot to her that her sensei was acknowledging her talent. After Naruto had 'died', the team had been all but abandoned. Kakashi returned to normal Leaf Jounin duties, Sakura focused on her training with Tsunade, and all was right with the world.
Sakura blinked. She realized that this was the first time that she and Kakashi had been on a mission together since Team 7 ceased to be. Then she shook her head.
'What am I talking about! We just had a mission a few days ago to try and rescue the Kazekage. I suppose that can be considered our first mission back together as a 'team'."
Although, Sakura had to admit, she was treating this particular mission more as an extension of the Kazekage Rescue Mission than anything else. After the appearance of her long dead teammate, it had been all anyone was talking about. Hell, she couldn't go five minutes without thinking about her blond-cropped idiot of a comrade.
She frowned, pursing her lips in disgruntlement, as she stared off into space. 'Just what the hell does that fool think he's doing, running around dressed up like that, pretending to be an S-ranked ninja? He couldn't even handle me or Sasuke, let alone that bunch of freaks.'
Her thoughts drifted back to the briefing meeting they had with Tsunade before departing yesterday. They had poured extensively over all the information regarding the Akatsuki as soon as Shikamaru and his teammates left to find Gai. Asuma was already up to date with the information, but most of the members of the Naruto Retrieval Squad were not. Tsunade simply had to trust that the Sarutobi jounin could relay the pertinent data to the others, before they came across something they shouldn't have.
Regardless, Sakura had been awestruck at the gang of mercenaries and missing-nin that made up the Akatsuki.
'And Naruto's in with them.'
This mission was going to be… interesting, that much was certain.
Snapping out of her stupor, she blinked a few time to reorient herself. It seemed like Kakashi had taken heed of Sakura's inner monologue, and left to keep watch. Lee was back out in the woods, practicing taijutsu moves in the woods, quietly. That alone made Sakura gasp in surprise.
Otherwise, she was all alone. Neji was using his Byakugan to keep watch over the Mask Hall, while the strange-masked ANBU had simply melted off into the forest to do reconnaissance. Shikamaru's father was in his tent, a few feet away, but he was scouring over the rest of the Akatsuki files – the ones they didn't have time to finish looking over before being deployed – in order to formulate as many backup plans as possible. Sakura had to admit, now she knew where the Nara boy had gotten his intellect. It was… uncanny at times.
She took a deep breath and stretched a bit. She would be relieving Neji in a little under an hour. 'Might as well get back to it, then,' she yawned, before dipping her hand into her pocket to retrieve the nearly-complete sphere of rock she was working on before.
She frowned in confusion when she felt it, but pulled it out nonetheless. When it was finally in her hand, she realized it was Kakashi's rock from before.
So that meant….
Sakura clenched her fist in annoyance, causing the pebble to disintegrate into a fine dust.
So he hadn't known what she was talking about, swapped the two pebbles when she was trying to show him how to do it, and was only leading her on to try and 'teach her a lesson'.
"Kakashi!"
"B-but you're dead!"
Gaara lumbered across the Hokage's office, before throwing himself down into one of Tsunade's chairs gingerly, in front of her fragmented desk.
After a few moments of silence wherein Tsunade simply stared at the Kazekage with her mouth agape, she finally turned to look up at the visage of a very pale Shizune standing behind him, ready to be sent out on a moment's notice.
After looking at Shizune for a few moments, Tsunade blinked, a strange expression of shock, curiosity, and confusion etched across her disheveled face. Then, she ran a hand up through her hair, sighing slightly as she did so.
"Is this another absinthe nightmare?" she mumbled to no one in particular. At first, she thought that she had spoken quiet enough as to where no one had heard her, but much to her annoyance, the auburn-haired teen in front of her had.
"I assure you, Lady Tsunade…" he stopped for a moment, grimacing at some unknown pain, before continuing, "…that I am very much real. And as far as my mortality…" another pause, in which he looked up at Tsunade, right in the eyes, "…I technically was dead."
"And will be again soon enough if we don't get you to the hospital!" urged Shizune from behind him, obviously concerned for Gaara's wellbeing. Tsunade could understand – she was the girl's teacher, after all. One of the first lessons she instilled on her fledgling medic-nin back at the very beginning, when she could barely mold her chakra, was that human life was first, village was second. Not even as Hokage did Tsunade stray from that gospel.
"Relax, Shizune, both of us are perfectly capable medical ninja," Tsunade drawled, rubbing her head with the palms of her hands. "Granted, not good enough to subdue the beginnings of a rather nasty hangover," she added under her breath.
No one heard her that time – or, at least, nobody indicated that they had. It was all the same to Tsunade.
The alcohol-inhibited, thought-processing part of Tsunade's brain suddenly clicked into gear, and her eyes shot open at what the formerly-late Kazekage had stated moments ago.
"Wait… did you seriously just say that you were dead?" Tsunade said skeptically, still nursing her throbbing temples.
"Yes," Gaara responded plainly.
After a few moments of silence, Tsunade sweatdropped. "Would you mind elaborating?"
Gaara stared at her unflinchingly, before nodding once. "The Akatsuki captured me from my village a week ago. After defeating me, they took my unconscious body to one of their outposts, where they removed my tailed beast. I may be alive, but I am no longer who I used to be."
"A jinchuuriki?" Tsunade said bluntly, smashing through the elephant in the room like a bloodthirsty poacher. "From what I've seen and heard, I personally think you're better off now than before."
"That may be true on a personal level," Gaara began, before breaking in to a fit of coughing that rattled his weak and brittle frame. After waving off Shizune's fervent attempts to check up on him, he continued. "However, I no longer possess the power or energy required to defend-"
His eyes widened considerably for a moment, and he froze mid-sentence. Something must have scattered his thoughts, that much was certain. But Tsunade was unsure as to what. It was obvious that the man had been effectively rattled from the whole 'rebirth' thing.
Not sensing an end to his abrupt silence, Tsunade took the initiative. "Jinchuuriki are not weapons," she stated, with a little bit of power behind her voice. Naruto may be off doing whatever it was he was doing, but she would still defend his name, implicit as the current circumstances may have been. "I'm sure you'll be the first to agree. They're people, like you, like Shizune…" the kunoichi nodded in agreement, "…like me."
"You are right," Gaara said, breaking out of his trance, "I do agree with you. Wholeheartedly, in fact. But one cannot overlook the significant power and influence a jinchuuriki can hold if in the right position."
"Of course. You are testament to that. Same as with the Mizukage."
"And Naruto." It appeared that Gaara was also not a fan of elephants.
Tsunade couldn't help but grimace at this. "Yes. And Naruto."
After another few moments of somewhat uncomfortable silence, Tsunade sat up straight in her chair. "Right! Where are my manners. Lord Kazekage…" Tsunade raised a bottle in a toast, before pulling out two saucers from one of the dilapidated drawers in her desk, "welcome back to the Hidden Leaf. Can I offer you a drink?"
Surprisingly, Gaara nodded. Tsunade had to admit, she usually asked the question in jest, in order to lighten the mood surrounding her - she had to face it eventually - massive drinking problem. With a shrug, she filled the two saucers with what was left of her sake bottle, setting the rest of it aside.
"To peace," she said emotionlessly, before knocking the saucer back. Gaara did the same, not even grimacing at the intensity of the liquor. After a moment of staring at her empty shotglass, Tsunade frowned and set it aside, opting to drink directly from the bottle.
"Lady Tsunade!" came the exasperated cry from her assistant, as the Hokage plowed her way through yet another bottle of rotgut. "You can't drink on the job!"
"Relax, Shizune," she said, words already beginning to slur ever so slightly. She must have been drinking quite a bit beforehand, if her current state was any indication. "This is a diplomatic meeting. It's customary for the members to toast ceremoniously beforehand."
Shizune sweatdropped, shaking her head. "Yes, a toast. Not a drinking contest."
"Is that snark I'm sensing, Shizune?" Tsunade said with a raised eyebrow, hand still wrapped around the alcohol bottle like a baby.
"No, no," she said placatingly, before turning on her heels and walking towards the door. "Just so you know, if any of the councilmembers come in here and see you like this, I'm not bailing you out this time."
Click.
And with that, Shizune left the room.
"What does she mean this time," Tsunade grumbled, before paling. "Oh, shit. The council meeting. It's in fifteen minutes."
With one swift motion, Tsunade slapped a stopper on the top of the sake bottle, stashing it away in her desk somewhere. Another moment later, she stood up, walking around a little bit, trying to get the blood flowing better to her brain, so she could think properly in the coming hour.
Then, she stopped, suddenly realizing that she wasn't alone.
The sad, hollow green eyes of her Sand counterpart followed her movement absentmindedly, before shooting open in confusion when he felt a warm tingling sensation permeating from his back.
"Here," Tsunade said kindly, as she urged the green flow of chakra to dance from her fingertips to soothe Gaara's extensive internal injury. Then, she frowned in shock. "Damn, Shizune was right. You really need to keep an eye out for yourself, Lord Kazekage."
"Under the circumstances, I felt as though speaking with you held more precedence."
Tsunade slowly stopped healing Gaara, before turning around him and setting herself back into her chair with a surprising air of prestige. "I patched you up for now. You'll still need to go to the hospital once this is all over with."
A small, unconcerned nod was her response, which Tsunade took in kind. "Alright then."
Another few heartbeats of somewhat tense silence riddled the gloomy, moonlit office, as Gaara continued to stare off into space.
Then, suddenly, he shifted in his seat, sitting up slightly and locking eyes with Tsunade, obviously set in whatever plan he had made in the quiet prior.
"Lady Hokage," he began formally. "As Fifth Kazekage of the Village Hidden in the Sand, the Hidden Village protectorate for the Land of Wind, I am hereby declaring war on the Hidden Leaf."
Tsunade jumped, eyes widening in shock. "What? What the hell are you talking about?"
"Next," he continued without concern for the look of terror in her eyes. "As Fifth Kazekage of the Village Hidden in the Sand, of the Land of Wind, I hereby authorize a complete and unconditional surrender to the forces of the Leaf effective immediately. I accept whatever terms you wish to submit to us, on the one condition that they are not any less harsh than complete annexation of Wind Country and its assets."
Tsunade continued gaping like a fish. "Are… are you…"
"Serious?" Gaara finished with a dry voice. "Completely and absolutely. Lady Tsunade," he leaned forward slightly in his chair, and the depths of despair visible in his eyes returned with renewed vigor. "The Village Hidden in the Sand is gone. It was destroyed two days ago by a civil dispute that grew due to my capture and defeat by the hands of the Akatsuki."
With a pained cough, he looked down at her desk in a small sign of submission – or a sign of internal conflict. Tsunade couldn't tell which was which anymore; her mind was still trying to process what the Kazekage had just told her.
"Tsunade," Gaara said, shockingly without honorifics. "The Land of Wind, and what is left of her capital's people, are in dire need for leadership at this time. It has come to my attention that no one, not even myself, is fit to lead it internally. Therefore, it is in my best judgment to pass it off to you."
He reached under his robes, and pulled out a large, rectangular hat. It was once white, but Tsunade could see traces of emerald green poking out from underneath the grime on the tattered and tarnished fabric.
He narrowed his eyes at her as he set the hat on the table. "This is yours now."
"Umm…" she said, not entirely sure that this was actually happening. "You mean…"
"Yes," Gaara completed.
"Well, this complicates things…" Tsunade grumbled. Gaara only lifted a non-existent eyebrow in confusion.
Seeing his lack of understanding, Tsunade sighed and shook her head, resting her forehead on her hands, which were now perched atop her desk. For what seemed like the thousandth time that day, she launched into her commentary explaining the circumstances in the Hidden Cloud.
"As of earlier this week, we have it on good authority that a still-officially-undetermined assailant infiltrated and destroyed the Village Hidden in the Clouds." She said plainly, not bothering to look up to visibly digest his reaction. She emphasized the "still-officially-undetermined" part, although she assumed that Gaara had a pretty decent idea who was to blame.
A few more moments of silence echoed throughout the Hokage's office. Then, the hoarse voice of Gaara broke it unconditionally.
"I see."
At this, Tsunade did look up, only to see he was merrily staring off into space at the floor below him, pondering something heavily.
More silence.
Tsunade sighed, and began to move through the motions of lifting herself up and off of her chair.
She was interrupted by Gaara's voice once again.
"My unconditional surrender," he began, "was not the only reason I came here, Lady Hokage."
Tsunade blinked, and stopped, allowing gravity to bring her back into a comfortable seating position. If it was more important than the Sand's destruction and subsequent annexation of Wind, then it had to be good.
"As I'm sure you're aware, Naruto was a member of the pair of Akatsuki shinobi who captured me," he stated plainly, not bothering to wait for her reaction, which was indifference, as he expected. "However, there is more to that than I have let on, even with my siblings."
A raised eyebrow was the response from the Hokage, and Gaara paused only for a moment, before continuing. "He attacked me in my office while I was working and took me away from there, that much is well known."
He narrowed his eyes again and leaned forward in his chair again, this time with a much more authoritative aura about him.
"What nobody else knows, nobody but me, is that Naruto visited me first, to talk."
Two weeks.
It had been two weeks since they had originally set up shop at the strange Uzumaki building, and in that time they had receive nothing by way of communication, notice, or order from the Hokage. It was… strange, to say the least, but Sakura had full trust in both her sensei and mentor's ability to handle the situation. It was all in good hands, no doubt about that.
Still, it was unnerving that Gai still hadn't shown up. He was only supposed to be missing from their mission on his own for a day or so, but that day had stretched into two.
Then three.
Then six.
Then sixteen.
Sakura didn't say anything, but she could feel the anxiety and tenseness coming off of Kakashi, even if he attempted to hide it, like he did most every other genuine feeling he felt. She hypothesized, with a great deal of medical knowledge to back her up, that this was in no way good for the man psychologically, but Sakura was almost one hundred percent sure he knew that, and just didn't care. He was a widely respected ninja, and respect didn't come without a heavy price.
Unfortunately for most shinobi, that price was usually their sanity.
And Kakashi was a ticking time bomb.
Sakura sighed, rubbing her (rather large) forehead with a yawn. She had been on watch for hours now. It was almost time for Neji to relieve her, much to her absolute pleasure. Sitting completely still in a tree for half the day was damn near exhausting. It was times like these that she missed having someone who could abuse the Shadow Clone Jutsu with her.
'No!' Sakura said, a knot of anxiety bubbling to the surface inside of her stomach. 'I can't think about that. Think about the fact that soon enough, he'll actually be here.'
She blinked, slinking back into the large green tree she was perched upon unconsciously. 'It's bad enough we're here, but even worse that we have no idea when he's coming. It could be days, it could be weeks…'
She groaned.
It could be months.
Suddenly, a gentle hand rested across her shoulder, causing her to jump and tense away subconsciously.
Much to her rejoicing, it was merrily Neji.
"Sakura," he nodded at her respectfully. "Kakashi-sensei has instructed me to inform you that your time is up. He requests that you return to the campsite in order to get some rest. We will be having another team meeting at oh-six-hundred hours tomorrow morning."
It was the same standard thoroughfare, the same monotone drab, the same scripted line of words that she had heard for two weeks prior. She was falling into a rut, really, which simply was not a good thing considering the fact that three quarters of their mission called for them to be on their A-game for their entire time in the woods.
Regardless, she took it in stride, and began to stand from her position on the massive tree limb, while Neji essentially ignored her like he always did, opting instead to begin his shift then and there. With his Byakugan active, the time for talk had long expired.
With a shrug, she sent a passing glance back at the Hyuuga jounin, before jumping down from her position and lumbering back through the woods with only a vague idea of where she was going. Their campsite, after all, was meant to be completely hidden from outside view, for whenever Naruto finally did show up.
It was times like these that made Sakura wonder where the hell the other two jounin – as well as the ANBU – disappeared to. It almost made her feel like their efforts were completely inconsequential, because if she were a betting woman (which she wasn't – no one could possibly be, after interacting with Tsunade for more than a moment or two), she would wager that Kakashi and Shikaku were staked out somewhere nearby, keeping constant watch over the forest themselves.
They were redundant, essentially.
With a yawn, Sakura noticed the large, burnt stump from where a tree had burned to the ground after being struck by lightning. She was close – that much was certain. This was the marker she had mentally placed to be nearby their campsite. Granted, she was aware of the dangers of doing something like that – she could easily get turned around without some sort of detached, heavenly anchor point – such as the sun or the moon.
But she had been navigating this forest for over two weeks straight, so Sakura had a pretty decent idea as to how to get around in it now.
Hell, she could probably run through it at break-neck speed, blindfolded, without use of her arms at this point.
Hoping to never have to prove her assertion, she peeled her eyes for the small flicker of air in front of a large willow tree. Sure enough, there it was. Without knowing what one was looking for, one could conceivably pass right through the genjutsu casting point – the point that signaled the door to their campsite.
The skill of her sensei, and his jack-of-all-trades approach to being a ninja, never ceased to amaze her.
With another small yawn, she made a half-ram seal with her right hand, and a small black door appeared before her. She shuddered as she passed the aperture into their reclusive little nook in the forest, but it was quickly suppressed by the thought of her warm cot and a nice long nap.
Sakura trudged along, not sensing any of her comrades nearby.
'Huh, that's funny. Oh well, guess they're off doing their jobs then.' It wasn't inconceivable that they would all be gone from their base of operations at one time – hell, it had actually happened a few times already.
She threw back the flap to her decent-sized extended-stay tent, rubbing her eye with her free hand as she did so.
"Hey, Sakura."
She froze.
With a blink, she looked at her balled fist confusingly, as she pulled it away from her eye in sleepy lack of understanding.
'Did I just hear…?'
Her eyes shot open, any semblance of sleepiness driven from her system by a burst of adrenaline that accelerated her heart to damn near a million miles per hour.
With a shuddered cringe, she turned her head to the right and up a bit, where her cot laid in her tent.
A black cloak was draped across the makeshift bed haphazardly, obviously not considered in the slightest by the figure it was stretched around.
Two long-socked legs, with the white fabric wrapped under and around the heel of pure black shinobi sandals, were crossed in relaxation at the base.
She was honestly too scared to move her eyes up further, but they moved on their own accord.
Red clouds.
Black nail polish.
Two arms, also shrouded by the long billowing arms of the cloak, were tucked snugly behind the neck of…
Sakura gasped a little in fear when the gravity of the situation crashed down onto her like a wave.
Naruto.
He was just as she remembered seeing him from before…
…whiskered cheeks, sitting across a pale and deathlike face.
…orange hair, splotchy and disheveled, haphazardly thrown across his skull without too much care one way or another.
…a row of strange piercings that ran across his forehead, near his hairline.
And then, after a moment of silence, two eyelids slid open, revealing a pair of vibrant red, deadly-looking vulpine eyes.
To her surprise, however, he wasn't scowling, or seething, or going on like someone twice his age.
Instead, he was sporting a healthy grin, as he spun his right calve over his left knee in silent amusement. He looked just as chipper and blithe as she always remembered him, if she was honest with herself.
Then, he spoke again.
"It's been a while, eh, Sakura?" he asked with a cheeky grin.