And it's beginning to get to me,

That I know more of the stars and sea,

Than I do of what's in your head.

Ask Sakura to explain the official procedure for treating stab wounds to the head and neck, and she would talk your head off for the rest of the day. She was a healer second only to the Hokage herself, and she knew her stuff. She knew the ins and outs of the human body the way Ino knew every flower in her garden, or the way Kakashi knew every word of Icha Icha Paradise off by heart. She knew how to resuscitate the dead. She knew how to kill pain without drugs. She could stitch a wound so precisely that it wouldn't even scar.

But Sakura was not a doctor.

She was a human mechanic. They came to her broken, she sent them away fixed. Muscles, bones, blood and chakra were her cobs, gears and screws. Beyond that, her knowledge of the human body and its processes were limited.

Ask Sakura to explain what an aroused penis looked like, let alone how it worked, and she would probably gape at you in shock before mumbling that she'd once heard they were quite similar to bananas.

That was as much as she knew.

Sakura had left the academy long before sex ed entered the syllabus. Her mother had never elaborated these gaps in her knowledge and limited herself to teaching Sakura about menstrual cycles and the such. Her father liked to pretend that things like sex, boys and periods didn't really exist and so never talked about anything like that. Tsunade didn't feel it was necessary to include such details in Sakura's curriculum as she was merely training a surgeon, not a GP, and there was pretty much no one else to enlighten her.

Without a TV, she couldn't get any ideas from late night films. Without the courage to buy Icha Icha, she couldn't scrape anything from Jiraiya's vulgar, yet extensive knowledge.

She walked towards Matsura now with her lack of knowledge and experience hanging heavily over her head. She remembered the time Lee had asked her out on a date. She'd said no. Now she wished she hadn't refused. Given a choice between Lee and this pig, she would choose Lee in a heartbeat. She may not have gone all the way with Lee, but at the very least he might have given her a kiss. Her first kiss.

Now her first kiss would be given by an old pervert. And not necessarily to her mouth.

I'll probably be traumatized for life, she thought, stricken as she knelt on the soft silk covering the mattress. After this I'll probably never want to be with another man, let alone look at one for as long as I live!

Which was a shame really, because she was sure that sex was quite good fun once you found the right person (what with the way Ino drilled on about it) and she hadn't yet tossed out the possibility that Sasuke's sexual orientation might swing back in her direction if she were to give him a good reason…

Except Naruto would probably give him a better one. That was how these things usually went…

Sakura stopped crawling forward when she knelt only a few feet away from the end of Matsura's foot. She wasn't going to invite herself any closer. If Matsura wanted her to do something, he would have to tell her explicitly, otherwise she'd just find the loophole and do the least possible.

"Your guardian," Matsura rumbled, "mentioned that you were particularly good with your hands."

Actually, he'd said that she was particularly good with her mouth. But he probably didn't need correcting lest he be reminded…

"You can start on my feet."

He wanted a massage? Sakura almost cried in relief. This she could do. She'd been working massages for the last five years and she'd had plenty of old fat clients to prod and poke in that time. Suddenly she could see Matsura as a client – albeit one she didn't particularly like, but at least he seemed less scary than before.

Pulling away his tabi socks tentatively (and trying to ignore the rather strong odor), she set to work kneading her thumbs into the sole of his foot. She would have preferred to have some oils with her to slick his skin, but she didn't want to involve anything that might be construed as kinky.

After a few minutes, she switched feet and cracked his toes intentionally hard. Matsura didn't seem to care. He'd closed his eyes and for all intents and purposes went to sleep. The only indication he gave that he was awake was when he mumbled, "Higher."

Sakura chewed her cheek savagely as her warm hands slipped up his calves, bringing his foot onto her lap to keep the leg levitated. She regretted that move instantly the moment his heel dug deliberately into her crotch. She said nothing, merely enduring the unwanted touch. Had he been a real client, either she or Tsunade would have strung him up by the tentacles by now. Had he been a real client, she would not have been doing this in nothing but a pair of panties. Because she was simply a poor orphaned girl, she could do nothing more than hold her tongue and keep running her hands over his grizzly shins.

"Higher."

Sakura paused, feeling uncertain. He was asking her to massage his thighs. This was a problem for two reasons.

a) He was still wearing pants.

b) When Tsunade had been teaching the principles of massaging, she had made one thing abundantly clear when it came to male clients.

"Never, ever, ever massage higher than the knees!" the hokage had said to the girls gathered in her office as she tapped a life size poster of human anatomy which hung on her wall. "The same goes for the abdomen, hips, etcetera, etcetera. Basically just stay away from that whole area. While this isn't a problem you'll find with your female clients, just beware that men are considerably more sensitive in these areas. The last thing a male client needs is a pretty young masseuse giving him a raging erection. Very embarrassing."

The girls had laughed, pretty embarrassed by the hokage's overly frank explanation. Sakura laughed with them, blushing.

Tsunade had then tapped a picture of Jiraiya, complete with a red slashed circle around his face, the likes of which was normally found on the back of his books. "And don't ever massage this man. It doesn't matter what you touch, he'll still get turned on."

Sakura didn't fancy turning Matsura on. She wanted to avoid that for as long as possible, but it wasn't like she was in a position to refuse.

"I can't reach any further," she told him quietly. "Your… um… pants are in the way."

Matsura raised an eyebrow. "Then take them off," he said, as if stating the most obvious thing in the world.

Sakura nearly balked. This was somewhat like asking a stick insect to take the pants off a walrus. Walruses didn't wear pants, but if they did, a stick insect would sure have a hard time removing them.

Nevertheless, it was her job to grin and bear it. With shaking hands she reached out and began picking timidly at the buttons at Matsura's rather generous waist. When they were undone, Matsura shifted a little, making her task a little easier in pulling them down his equally generous legs. The pants, she realized, once she'd removed them, were virtually big enough to fit four Sakuras into – two for each pant leg.

She also realized that Matsura liked going commando.

And that mushroom was a better comparison than banana.

Rasengan and Chidori.

Naruto and Sasuke.

Colliding on the roof of the hospital and about to kill each other.

Kill Sakura.

Someone would have died that day if he hadn't intervened. If he hadn't thrown Sasuke into one water tank and Naruto into another. She would have fallen apart if he hadn't turned to her, bent down, and given her a kind smile; one gesture and expression so apart from everything around them that she can't help but cling to it. She wants to believe it, even if it is fake.

Her teammates are tearing their world apart – her world apart. And they don't care. But he does.

"Don't worry, it'll be alright. Everything will be as it used to be."

It takes a while, and it gets a lot worse before it gets better… but he keeps that promise.

"Touch it."

"…what?"

"The same way you were doing the massage. Touch it."

It was just flesh.

Just a tool.

Sakura reached out with trembling hands…

Sakura sits weeping against the chainmail fence behind the timber yard. Her face is red, her cheeks are wet and she can't summon the will to get up and go home. But what does it matter? No one is around to see her cry.

A child is dead. A little boy, barely six years old. And she, a jonin, was helpless to just watch him die. Her strength is monstrous… but it was not enough.

She doesn't deserve her title.

And all she can do was cry.

Children's voices. Footfalls. Sakura looks up to see four people walking towards her along the fence. Three bickering children, barely out of diapers and a tall defined man with a mask and a dirty book. Sakura gasps and tries to dry her tears before they reach her. She pinches her lips together to keep from sobbing as he passes.

"Yo."

She raises a hand in response, not able to speak.

He doesn't even look at her.

The children fall quiet, staring at her apprehensively as they shuffle after their teacher. He may not have noticed her tears, but they do. And as soon as they mistakenly think they're out of earshot, she hears their whispers start up again. What's her problem? Why's she crying? Do you think she was dumped?

Feeling even more broken than before, she finally has the will to stumble home. Whether it's the children's nosy whispers or her former teacher's complete disregard, she feels too ashamed to continue crying on the street.

But she only makes it as far as the market, where she collapses on a whicker basket full of chickens.

At least she doesn't cry anymore. All she can do is watch people walk by, enjoying their lives. Adults, children, civilians and ninjas. None of them know that one small thread of life was cut that morning. No one cares that someone's child is gone forever. It's heartbreaking to realize how fragile a life is. One lucky kunai and she too will befall the inevitable fate of every living man and woman.

Sakura doesn't think she can cope.

It can't be more than half an hour later that someone taps her on the shoulder.

There he is, silently holding out a plastic beaker of milkshake and cream – just like the ones she used to order when Team Seven went out for a celebratory meal which he sometimes paid for. He's not looking at her, as his book is still in the other hand. His three kids are still bickering behind him as they poke at another basket of chickens.

She wordlessly accepts the milkshake and stares at it, hardly able to look him in the eye, but so grateful that her heart literally aches from the intensity. His hand drifts over her head, ruffling her locks with cold, damp fingers – testament to carrying the milkshake for three blocks. Then that hand is turning a page and he's drifting off after impatient children, saying "Seriously… you should give that chicken back," tiredly to their calls of "Come on, Kakashi-sensei!"

And suddenly, Sakura believes she can cope.

"Show me exactly how good this mouth of yours is."
Sakura stands in the hokage's office with him at her side. She's handed a mission she knows she can't deal with, but because she has something to prove, because this is her only chance to talk to him again, she knows she's equally incapable of turning it down.

He looks at her in concern. He offers her the first of many chances to back out. She doesn't see the real consideration behind his words.

He's not concerned because she's weak.

He's worried because she's his favorite.

But she can't see it, so she gives the wrong answers again and again.

Touching Matsura was like touching a toad. Not only did he vaguely have the same texture, but she also couldn't shake the feeling that she was touching something poisonous that would contaminate her fingers. As much as she tried to take her mind away and concentrate on her task, she found it almost impossible. Every grunt and slide of flesh brought her crashing back down to earth harder than ever until she was painfully aware that she, Haruno Sakura, was on a bed with an old man, debating whether or not she would be able to stomach taking him into her mouth.

For a start, she was only just managing to keep her mochi down at the mere brush of her fingers against his revolting little penis. To put it in her mouth was just asking for trouble.

And even though Kakashi had said her blowjobs were to die for, he really couldn't vouch from personal experience. Nobody could. Sakura had never given anyone oral sex, and she was slightly worried that she would give herself away by messing it up with Matsura. She wasn't even exactly sure how one gave a blowjob…

So instead she hedged awkwardly, wondering if the old ninja was elite enough to catch her before she punched her way through the wall to freedom.

But Matsura wasn't patient with foreplay. Rather than wait for her to sum up the courage to bend her head, he grabbed her arm painfully hard and yanked her up toward the pillows. She flopped against them with a gasp and looked up as Matsura loomed over her. She tried not to feel like a sardine next to a whale. She tried not to feel scared.

It was difficult.

"Turn around," Matsura ordered.

Sakura obeyed, all but quivering in fear and apprehension. She reckoned she knew what was coming, and the reality made her pliant and stiff. Like a puppet. Matsura made her kneel before him with her back brushing the fabric covering his rotund belly. He grabbed and squeezed at her breasts, not caring that she gasped in pain at the roughness of his touch. She wasn't human to him. Just an object.

One of his hands reached down to forcefully fondle her between her legs, through her panties. Sakura almost twisted away in shock. It was nothing like Kakashi's touch. Her teacher had been right when he'd warned her that Matsura's hand would be a hundred times worse.

Matsura wasn't gentle like Kakashi. He didn't make her wet like Kakashi had.

Matsura noticed this when his hand dipped beneath her fabric. Sakura was glad she was facing away from him so he couldn't see the murderous grimace that crossed her face as he plundered his fingers through the most intimate area she possessed. Rather than make her heart pound and her legs quiver, it simply made her want to commit homicide.

Then he plunged two fingers inside of her.

Sakura screamed and nearly bucked clean away. It hurt! Something tore around his fingers, bringing tears to her eyes and a searing pain around his intrusion. Her efforts to twist away were renewed, but Matsura held her firmly. A low chuckle resonated in her ear.

"I thought he'd already tasted you," he muttered thickly. "That guardian of yours must have a pencil-dick."

Almost as if to gloat over this discovery, he removed his hand and splayed his fingers across her breast again. Sakura watched the smear of blood being spread over her skin and her whole body turn cold. What had he done?

Matsura moved his hand over her shoulder and sucked thoughtfully on his moist digits. Sakura nearly gagged. "Here I thought you'd already been broken in. You're more innocent than I realized… and I do prefer the innocent ones.."

Sakura began struggling with real effort now. She couldn't stand for him to lay another hand on her – to touch her in that way again. But it seemed that at least part of that hulking body was actually muscle, and no matter how much she writhed and threw her weight against her arms, she couldn't break free. She even tried gathering her chakra, the way Tsunade had taught her, in an effort to make her strength a better match for his. She didn't care if it gave her away. She wanted out!

But Sakura had neither the focus nor the level-headedness to bring her chakra under control. She was crying and sobbing without realizing, struggling to find a lash of power with which to strike back.

"Calm down," she heard Matsura command over the incessant sobbing she could hear. "Crying is wholly unattractive."

His speech was slurring. Sakura wondered if his own lust was getting the better of him, when he slumped heavily against her back, almost crushing her to the bed. It was only because of Sakura's lightning reflexes that she managed slip out from under him, though she slid straight off the bed and onto the matted floor in her haste.

Matsura fell to the mattress, wheezing. His glazed eyes narrowed on her in realization. "Little bitch…"

Then his consciousness left him.

Sakura remained huddled on the floor, breathing hard and staring at the man's heaving back as he slept. She could see he was struggling against the hold of the drugs, but even an elite ninja couldn't fight something inside his own body. Although, it was uncertain how long he'd be unconscious for. He could only have taken a small, diluted dose… and he was a big man. The drugs might only last for a few minutes.

Even with this unnerving thought hanging over her head, Sakura found it difficult to move. The pain between her legs had eased, but the one in her chest seemed only to intensify with every passing moment. She knew she should have been happy and relieved to have succeeded in phase one of an extremely difficult A/S class mission…

So why did she feel like she'd failed somehow?

On her knees, Sakura crouched further down until her forehead touched the floor. Her hands were wrapped tightly in her hair, pulling at the extended locks as her eyes screwed shut and she tried to purge her memory of the mission so far. Oh god, what would she give to forget the sensation of his fingers tearing into her?

She trembled with rage, and a strange kind of anxiety that she didn't recognize until she heard Kakashi's voice.

"Sakura?"

Above all else, she was afraid of him seeing her like this.

Mistakenly, she wondered if he might not actually see her if she just stayed put on the floor and didn't say anything. How she'd missed him entering the room, she didn't know. Yet another ninja blunder that she'd have to beat herself up for at a later point when she was done with the current urge to stick her head in the oven for how far she'd let things go with Matsura.

Kakashi's footsteps came around the corner of the bed, and she felt more than saw his presence looming over her. She heard a rustle of cloth and a partially gloved hand touched her naked back tentatively. "Are you alright, Sakura?" she heard him murmur.

Sakura lunged upright rather suddenly, arms clasped protectively over her breasts as she gave him a grin. "I'm fine," she lied brightly. She knew perfectly well that her face was probably a little red from crying, even if her tears had dried. Her eyelashes were still tellingly spiked with latent moisture. Even as she beamed up at her former teacher, she saw his brow pinch in slight concern.

But if she could trust Kakashi to do one thing, it was to respect her dignity. Granted, she couldn't trust him to do much else beyond that though. That one time she'd gone away on a long mission, he'd completely forgotten to feed her fish – resulting in a few horrible glassy-eyed and water-logged corpses welcoming her home once the mission was over. And he'd never once paid for his round at the bar. Nor at dinner. He made a habit of making vague promises and then conveniently forgetting them. And the less said about his overall punctuality, the better.

But he knew when to step back and treat her like an adult capable of handling her own issues.

Although… it could also just have been laziness and an aversion to get involved in emotionally tiring matters.

Sakura liked to think it was the former. Kakashi couldn't be that heartless… possibly… maybe… unless…

Oh, hell, she couldn't really be sure about any of Kakashi's motives.

He offered her a hand and Sakura hesitated for a moment. To take his hand would probably expose a lot more of her breast than she was comfortable with. But then, it felt silly feeling shy around a familiar, trusted man like Kakashi after all she'd let Matsura see and touch. Smiling shakily, she accept his hand and got to her feet. He probably noticed her wobble, which may have been why his fingers remained closed tightly around hers even after she was safely on her feet again. She looked up at him, about to tell him that she was perfectly fine, when she realized he was staring at her chest.

That pervert!

Sakura opened her mouth to give him a sharp piece of her mind when he beat her to it. "You're injured."

He'd seen the blood.

"Oh… no, this?" Sakura pulled her hand away from his to wipe at the drying blood on her partially exposed breast, giving him a slightly flustered laugh. "It's nothing."

She could see him looking over her carefully. He'd seen that the skin on her chest was unbroken, and so was looking for the real injury. Sakura looked down as well and saw a small streak of blood also marred her stomach.

She may as well have had a bright flashing arrow pointing to her panty line.

Sakura looked up at the same time as Kakashi and their eyes met. Now that respect for personal boundaries and issues was gone. "Did he hurt you, Sakura?" he asked bluntly.

Sakura's mouth went dry, and she began backing away, looking for her clothes. "N-No, I… it was just-"

The back of Kakashi's hand touched against her collarbone, preventing her from walking past him. The contact burned, making Sakura twitch faintly with awareness. She tried not to show it as she looked at Kakashi again, feeling guarded.

He spoke again, slower and more meaningful. "Did he hurt you?"

The way he said it… he sounded exactly as he had that time she'd tried to make excuses as to why she'd not done the morning press-ups he'd assigned her for an entire week. As she'd mumbled her way from lie to vague lie, he'd simply kept repeating the same question, slower and more enunciated each time. "Why haven't you done them?" Until she'd been forced to confess that she simply hated getting sweaty so early in the morning. It was bad for her complexion.

Kakashi had prescribed ten laps around the training pitch at that point.

And Sakura knew now that even if she thought up excuses and lies or simply insisted that it was nothing, he would not stop asking until she told the truth.

That didn't mean she wouldn't try though.

"It's alright," she said, feigning honesty. "I got a little cut on my leg, that's all. I already healed it."

There were two faults in this lie. The first being that Sakura hardly bothered healing anything less than major, performance-threatening injuries. The second being that there was no blood anywhere on her legs, and from the way Kakashi looked down at her smooth, blood-free thighs, he saw this quite clearly for himself.

But mercifully he decided not to press the issue.

Leaning back, he gave her a smile that matched hers for fakeness perfectly. "Alright then," he said lightly, eye crinkled in pretend pleasantry. "Good job, Sakura. I knew you could do it." Then he stepped back and pointed to her pile of clothes as if he'd been personally holding them hostage until she'd answered his questions.

Feeling partly relieved and partly infuriated, she moved to pick up her yukata and wrapped it around her tightly as Kakashi gave Matsura a once-over. Sakura joined his side, still feeling faintly incensed, just as he was peeling back Matsura's eyelids to check his pupils.

"Mm." Kakashi straightened and shoved his hands into his pockets. "He's still on the verge of consciousness. He could wake up at any moment."

Sakura eyed the half naked man in distaste, before turning a curious eye on Kakashi. "In that case we'd better start looking for the vase. But… isn't that what you're supposed to be doing right now?"

Kakashi shrugged aloofly. "My search led me here."

Sakura ground her teeth. "You were sticking your nose into my side of the mission weren't you? What, you didn't think I was capable of doing it without your help?" she asked bitterly. But to be honest, she was more annoyed that he hadn't arrived sooner. She probably would have been singing his praises if he'd arrived in time to stop her taking Matsura's pants off, even if his arrival at that point probably would have gotten them both killed.

"Coincidence, is all," he said easily, her words clearly brushing off him like water off a duck's back.

They both fell silent as Matsura gave a half-groan and stirred slightly, before falling silent again. Kakashi regarded the prone man carefully. "We should probably kill him," he commented.

Sakura's mouth dropped open slightly as he moved to take one of the ornamental wakizashi down from the wall. He unsheathed the short blade and let the gold encrusted scabbard clatter to the floor. But as he moved back towards the bed, Sakura's hand on his arm stopped him. He paused to look at her questioningly, before blinking with realization. "Oh, sorry," he said. He turned the blade and held it out to her. "You can do the honors."

As much as she wanted to take that blade and ram it through the old pervert's heart, she didn't think it was appropriate. To be honest, she was shocked that Kakashi was even suggesting such a thing. "We can't kill him," she whispered. "That isn't part of the mission."

"If he wakes up too soon, the mission will be over," he pointed out.

"We're not being paid enough to risk killing him," Sakura hissed back. "And all he's done is steal. You can't kill a man for stealing-"

"He's done more that steal," Kakashi snapped. The harshness of his tone took her aback for a moment, making her hand drop from his arm. He gave her a mildly apologetic look, but they both knew he was right. With a sigh, a went on a bit more gently. "How many girls has Matsura taken to his bed? Do you think they're not worth – do you think you're not worth-"

"Three hundred and eighteen…"

Both Kakashi and Sakura looked sharply to Matsura, with Kakashi raising the wakizashi guardedly. But neither needed to have worried. The man was still fast asleep.

"He's talking in his sleep," Sakura breathed, frowning slightly. "I think… was he responding to what you said?"

Kakashi crouched down slowly. "Matsura-sama… what's your full name?"

"Ichiro… Matsura Ichiro…"

Sakura looked to Kakashi for confirmation, but all he did was shrug. "I can only presume that's the truth," he said eventually.

"Ask him about the vase," Sakura said, tapping his shoulder. "Where's the vase?"

"Matsura-sama," Kakashi began again. "Where is the vase you stole off a man living in Tsukoyomi valley?"

Matsura grunted again. "I have many vases…" he muttered thickly. "Where's the girl…?"

Kakashi ignored the question. "This vase is painted with gold and has a blue diamond embedded in it. There's a cockerel on the side of it."

They both waited apprehensively for the old man's response. He took so long that Sakura wondered if he'd fallen into a deeper state of sleep where he was no longer aware of them. But then he said, "On the Fifth floor… in the private gallery… down the hallway of mirrors…"

Sakura had to love Tsunade and her miracle drugs.

"Right." She tugged on Kakashi's black sleeve. "That's all we need. Come on, let's go."

Kakashi didn't budge. "Is there anyone else in the compound who is as strong as you, Matsura-sama?" he asked. "Who is the next strongest to you?"

Sakura realized he was checking to see if there were any other people who could pose a threat to their mission, should they run into trouble. But it was rare for people of Matsura's stature to keep around others who could rival his strength. That would only be inviting trouble. People like him kept a pack of underdogs at his beck and call and avoided taking on the elite.

"Matsura Jin… my son… he's even better than me…"

Sakura groaned aloud. That was the last thing she needed to hear. "Good grief… you mean we didn't even subdue the biggest threat?" She was a few seconds short of tearing out her artificially extended hair. "Don't tell me all that crap was for nothing."

"Where is Jin?" Kakashi asked the talkative sleeping man. "Is he in the compound?"

"He returned today… most likely sleeping off the journey in his room…"

"Where's his room?" Kakashi pressed.

"…Sixth floor…"

Kakashi nodded slowly. "If we don't raise a fuss, we should be able to avoid him," he told Sakura quietly. "We'll have to be extra discreet."

Sakura nodded grimly. "That was the plan all along, right?" she pointed out.

Kakashi stood up abruptly. "Let's go then," he said, and turned towards the door.

Sakura looked at his retreating back incredulously. "So he's not worth killing now?"

"Not if his son is anything like Sasuke."

Ah, overly powerful geniuses with personal vendettas against people who murder family. Sakura dreaded to think how powerful Jin would be if he was better than his father who already rivaled Tsunade and Jiraiya in terms of strength. Best not get on his bad side.

"Come on, Sakura," Kakashi prompted her sharply when she failed to follow as quickly as he liked. She started and pattered after him, throwing one resentful look back at Matsura's snoring body before she left. She may not have been able to stomach killing an unarmed, defenseless man, but should anything nasty befall him in the future, she wouldn't be too choked up about it.

Kakashi was waiting for her out in the brightly lit corridor. It was only then that she realized there was something different about him. "You changed your clothes," she commented. He'd taken on the uniform worn by most of the low-level ninjas around the compound.

"I have a kage bunshin being guarded downstairs. It's best if people don't notice there's two of me walking around," he answered her loftily, looking up and down the corridor carefully. "You changed your clothes too."

"It's what they gave me," she said quietly.

Kakashi glanced down at her. He must have seen something in her face, because he obviously felt compelled to ask again, "Are you sure you're alright, Sakura?" His tone was nonchalant and untroubled, but he wouldn't have asked if he wasn't at least a little concerned. "If you want I can finish this part alone and we can meet up again outside the compound near-"

"No," she cut him off. "Don't even think that. I can do this. This is the easy part."

Kakashi shrugged, and began leading the way to the staircase.

The trip to the fifth floor was largely quite difficult. Every now and then they heard voices and footsteps and would wind up having to duck into empty closets and storerooms to avoid being seen. It took so long to make it up three flights of stairs that Sakura began to worry that Matsura would wake up before they ever got to the fifth floor gallery. Although all this hiding brought some luck at least. On the fourth floor, Kakashi ushered her into a vacant washroom just in time to avoid the contingent of cleaners that passed by. Sakura took the brief opportunity to quickly wash the blood from her breast and stomach, and the stench of Matsura from her skin. If she took a little too long scrubbing her hands, Kakashi didn't comment. He simply waited silently, looking fixedly at the door until she found the strength of will to lower the bar of soap, unable to get much cleaner.

Then they set off again.

The fifth floor was blessedly empty, and the moment they exited the staircase, it became apparent that they were in the right place.

A long corridor, flanked by mirror after mirror stretched out before them. It turned a corner ahead of them, and in the reflection of the opposite wall, Sakura could see a distant mismatched man and girl standing at the top of a staircase.

"Hey," Sakura began, feeling cynical and tired. "Do you reckon this is the 'Hallway of Mirrors' that guy talked about?"

"Hallway of Overkill seems more appropriate," Kakashi remarked as he started down it. Sakura followed close behind, and looked to the side as the movement of her own reflection in the mirrors caught her eye.

"Oh… yuck…" She almost stopped in shock.

The girl looking back at her was pale and wan with large, darkened eyes, a wide forehead and disarrayed hair. She looked young and frail – so different from the mental image she'd been carrying around in her head for years. She'd never seen anything so further from a ninja, which was a shock. Where was the spunky hairstyle, cocksure smile and practical clothes? Who the hell was this meek little girl staring fearfully back at her?

No wonder Kakashi kept asking if she was alright. She was almost tempted to ask herself exactly the same thing. She did not look well. Although florescent lighting was never kind on anyone's skin.

"Sakura, come on." While she dallied, Kakashi had already reached the end of the corridor and was disappearing around the corner. Sakura broke out into a jog to catch up and trailed behind him down another stretch of mirrored corridor before they came to dead end and a single door.

"Gallery?" Sakura guessed.

Kakashi cracked open the door the barest on inches and took a swift measure of the interior. Suddenly he through it wide and gave a nod. "Gallery," he agreed.

Like most of the other rooms in the building, the gallery was fairly square, but so large that it probably took up most of the floor. When Kakashi flipped on the lights, they could see that throughout it was littered all kinds of glass tables, glass cabinets and glass shelves, and on every available surface sat some kind of priceless artifact. There was so much valuable junk in that room that Sakura wasn't sure where to begin looking. She saw several dozen vases straight off the bat, but none of them matched the description she'd been given. She couldn't even make out the stuff on the other side of the room.

"This could take a while," Kakashi said, taking out a kunai from the pouch at his hip. "We may need an extra set of ears."

A sliced thumb and a summoning scroll later, and Pakkun was sitting wearily on the wooden floor in front of Kakashi. "Yo," rumbled the dog. Sakura wondered if this speech mannerism had been picked up from Kakashi himself.

"I need you to sit by the entrance and keep an ear out," Kakashi told the dog. "If you hear anyone approaching, let us know."

"Sure thing." The small dog yawned and trotted forward to park his furry rear by the doorway. For all his droopy eyes and mournful expression, Sakura knew he wouldn't let his master down.

Kakashi looked at Sakura. "You take that side of the room, I'll take this side. Meet in the middle."

He'd probably forgotten at this point that she was the one who'd been designated mission leader, and was therefore the only one allowed to be giving out such orders. But why bother arguing over pedantic little details that she agreed with anyway? Besides, if she tried to boss him around he would probably only stare at her incredulously. Feeling tired and abused by all men in general, she rolled her eyes and started wandering amongst the priceless relics. Plates, armor, swords, statues, ancient artwork… Sakura cast a bored eye over them all, interested only in finding golden cockerels and blue diamonds.

She glanced over her shoulder at Kakashi, who was leaning over a cabinet and paying no mind to her whatsoever. Pakkun still sat by the doorway, but he was too busy scratching his ear with a hind leg to notice her gaze. Sakura went back to her task at hand. Suddenly she paused over a likely customer. "Ooh."

"What?" Kakashi called across the room to her.

"Oh…" Sakura waved him off. "Just a cow. Not a cock. Sorry."

They went back to searching. Or rather, Kakashi went back to searching while Sakura continued to space off, thinking up the top twenty best ways to emasculate dirty old men. She'd gotten up to number seven, which involved an ingenious use of Shino's bugs and bodily orifices when Kakashi called her name. "Huh?" She hadn't been paying attention.

"I think we've found it," he said as Sakura joined his side, to take a look at the vase he'd located.

With a lacquered blue finish and a golden cockerel etched into the side, it seemed likely. The tinged blue stone in the cockerel's eye could have been a diamond, but Sakura was no expert. "I guess that's it," Sakura said. Even if it wasn't the right vase, Sakura didn't particularly care. She just wanted to go home now.

"Better make it more travel sized," Kakashi said, getting on his knees to perform a series of complicated seals that would compact the stolen vase and disguise it. While he did this, Sakura looked to where Pakkun sat by the door, keeping an eye out for intruders.

It was as Kakashi was packing away the vase-turned-kunai into his hip pouch that the small dog suddenly sprang upright. "People are coming, Kakashi," he said, running over to them with a clatter of claws on wooden veneer. "Two of them. I heard one refer to the other as Jin-sama, but they're definitely coming this-"

"Jin?" Sakura hissed, and immediately began looking around for a weapon.

Kakashi paused for a brief moment, assessing the situation. Sakura knew the thoughts running through his head. Their one exit was compromised. The room itself held no practical whatsoever. The footsteps and voices in the corridor outside were now audible to even Sakura's ears, and any minute now they were about to be discovered in a place they really shouldn't have been in… and by a man who supposedly rivaled a sannin.

"Pakkun," Kakashi hissed sharply to the dog. "Go quickly."

Pakkun didn't need to be told twice. In a discreet waft of smoke, he disappeared on the spot, leaving them to their fate. Sakura was already reaching for a hefty old samurai sword when Kakashi grabbed her wrist. "Don't be stupid," he told her sharply, and pointed across the room. "Get against the wall. Now."

Sakura obeyed, wondering what he had in mind as he left her to quickly turn out the lights again. The room was plunged into darkness. Sakura pressed her back against the cold wooden panel of the wall behind her, realizing how futile the situation was. Sure, they were perfectly hidden by darkness now, but there was only one room on this floor, and when Matsura's son entered, he would undoubtedly turn the lights on. What was the point? They'd still be caught!

Suddenly Kakashi was in front of her, standing so close that she could feel the warmth radiating off him and smell the faintly musky smell that accompanied a man who'd been traveling a full day but had yet to take a bath. By all reason, it should have been unpleasant… but to Sakura, it was oddly comforting.

A brief comfort which promptly flew out of the window when she felt him tug on the sash at her waist. "Wait – what are you-?" Sakura's hands flew to the folds her yukata, holding them together to preserve her modesty as her sash fell away. "Kakashi-sensei!" she hissed, feeling utterly mortified, even though he could probably see nothing through the darkness.

Probably.

But even as she attempted to close the material, Kakashi's hands were at her neckline, tugging the cloth off her shoulders with his thumbs. No matter how much she squeaked with indignity, Kakashi was having none of it. "Now really is not the time, Sakura," he admonished quietly. "Just do as I say."

Sakura realized she just had to trust him.

"Put your arms around my neck."

She complied, stiffly, locking her hands behind his nape. The action left her yukata to swing open freely, much to her embarrassment. When she felt a pair of warm hands reach inside her clothes to press against her back, her arms tightened to a near choking hold around Kakashi's neck. Her teeth ground together, restraining the fair number of expletives begging to be hissed.

However, Sakura's indignation fled the moment she felt Kakashi's knee force it's way between her thighs. Her mouth dropped open in shock when one of those unbearably hot hands slid down to cup her buttock, hoisting her firmly against the front of his body. She could feel everything. Her bare breasts against the rough cloth of his chest. Her stomach pressed against the hard plane of his abdomen. Her hips tilted in perfect alignment with his. Not one bare inch was left between them, leaving absolutely nothing to imagination.

Everything was suddenly so very intimate, and Sakura was feeling more of her old teacher than she'd ever wanted to know about. A million thoughts should have been running through her head with hyperactive speed. Rage, fear, humiliation, shyness…

But the only word she could seem to conjure up was, Oh…

Kakashi's hand slipped from her bag for a brief moment to tug down his mask, and from the light in the doorway, she saw a flawless line of silver outlining his strong jaw. "I'm sorry," he whispered thickly, with real feeling. "But I'm going to have to kiss you."

TBC
A/N: Oh well, there are worse things… XD