Another First Time

Chapter 7: The Troublesome Client

In less than five minutes, a dressed but confused Sakura showed up inside the Hokage's office. The Hokage herself was still in her day clothes, looking exceptionally peeved. Sakura was surprised to find Sai was in the room also, looking as disgruntled as his relatively emotionless face could allow.

"You two," Tsunade began, "have a mission."

Sakura shot Sai a furtive glance, but found that his eyes were trained on her teacher. As she turned her own eyes back to the front, Tsunade began talking again.

"As you both know, the Fire daimyo and his wife are currently in Konoha. This visit had been quite a surprise, which might explain the huge explosion of gossip and impromptu decorations."

A vein on the Godaime's forehead twitched, but Sakura and Sai wisely made no comment, and the blonde soon went on.

"According to the Fire daimyo, there are indications that missing-nin from the Fire Country want to make attempts on his and his wife's lives soon."

"What exactly are these indications?" Sai asked.

"He was evasive about that," Tsunade growled, clearly annoyed. "Said he got them from a 'reliable' source and just continued to say he was hiring a couple of my shinobi."

"So, you want us to protect them?" Sakura guessed.

Tsunade scowled and shook her head. "That's what I had suggested to him, but you have to know, Sakura, that our daimyo is possibly the most paranoid man ever to walk the face of the earth! He requested that I have two ANBU impersonate his wife and himself, while he and his wife are kept safe in the village, and when the attackers come, to take them out."

Sai, who had been deep in thought and silent apart from his first question, spoke up.

"Tsunade-sama, I understand what you have been saying so far, but I don't see why two ANBU are necessary. From what I gather, you have doubts about the validity of his claims. If we aren't even sure that there will be an attack on them, I don't think we should rush into anything."

"I know, I know," Tsunade answered irritably. "The problem is that the bastard practically ordered me to do it! And although I'm the Hokage, without the support of the daimyo, I'm as good as sacked! I wouldn't have to assign this to you two, but he specifically requested ANBU. I cannot spare any other ANBU for this, as our village security will need to be tightened if the daimyo and his wife are staying here. Sai has been in ANBU for years, and Sakura, you've just about cleared the ANBU requirements. Together, you should be enough for the so-called threat the daimyo keeps ranting about."

"One question, shishou," Sakura ventured. Tsunade looked at her and nodded.

"Even if you don't want to spare your best ANBU for this, why us? We've just gotten back, and I'm pretty sure there are more ANBU at our level," Sakura said.

"You two have working experience with each other, and know each other relatively well. The thing about ANBU is that you really don't know your teammates – everything is said and done beneath those masks. You two are different – since you'll need to be posing as a married couple, you'll have to at least appear to be in tune with each other," Tsunade shrugged.

It was then that the full scope of the mission fully hit Sakura.

"You want me, to play his wife?" Sakura slowly asked, turning her gaze from her teacher to the teenager beside her.

"Yeah, that's the idea," Tsunade replied, looking a little bit more cheerful at the thunderstruck look on her student's face.

"Tsunade-sama, you know that I have no experience whatsoever with formalities and such," Sakura griped. Tsunade lifted an eyebrow.

"Haven't you heard of 'learning on the job'?"

"B-but…" Sakura sputtered, gesturing wildly at Sai. "H-him?"

"Are you saying there's something wrong with me, Ugly?" Sai asked, turning to Sakura.

Sakura huffed and replied, "No, it's just…I just don't understand why we can't do more research, have a plan, and then strategically take out the attackers!"

"Politics," Tsunade glumly replied, thinking back to her heated conversation with the daimyo.

Sai turned away from Sakura and asked, "When does the mission start?" He ignored Sakura's exclaim of protest, or her mumbled, "I so didn't agree to this yet, you bastard."

"In the morning," Tsunade answered. "The two of them are supposed to leave for home tomorrow, so you two will have to 'become' the daimyo and his wife by tomorrow morning. You will both have a brief meeting with them, just so you will have a chance to pick up on their mannerisms and personalities. The two of you will also have to use the jutsu I use; the Henge no Jutsu that won't need you to consciously keep it up."

Sighing at Sakura's mutinous expression, Tsunade said, "Look, if you two find enough evidence that the whole thing is a spoof, you can contact me using communication scrolls and I will get you out of there."

Sakura's gaze snapped up. "Really, shishou?"

"Yes," Tsunade wearily answered. "Heaven knows you two are beyond pointless missions anyways, and this really may end up being a waste of time. But I suppose you can never be too careful. Anyways, you two better get as much sleep as you can. Meet here in the morning at eight."

"Yes, Hokage-sama," the two chorused, as they trooped out. Once outside, Sakura muttered to herself, "I still can't believe we have to do this."

"Think of it as a vacation," Sai said, walking beside her. "If the claims are really as absurd as Tsunade-sama believes, it'll be easy and we'll get to live in luxury for a while."

"I suppose so," Sakura sighed. She was not looking forward to being forced to wear kimonos day and night. Those damn things were unbearably constricting.

Sakura cursed fluently under her breath as she desperately tried to tie the obi of her kimono. No matter what she tried, the knot just wouldn't stay. And at the moment, Ino wasn't there to save her. Neither was Hinata. Or Shizune. Or even Kurenai. Tenten would be a lost cause – that girl knew less about kimonos than Sakura, even.

"Why the hell won't it stay together?" growled Sakura as she felt another carefully tied knot fall apart. That had been her third try, and she swore she would just tie it like a hitae-ae if her next try resulted in failure as well.

"When in doubt, use a senbon," Sai lightly said, announcing his entrance into the room.

Sighing, Sakura knew she didn't have much option. She took a long and particularly thin senbon needle from a table nearby and stuck it deep into the knot. To her relief, the knot stayed. Now, she only had to hope that it wouldn't stick itself into her skin, and that no one who spot it and blow her cover.

"You are so lucky you don't have to wear something as stupid as this," Sakura muttered, while Sai sat down to wait for her to finish dressing. It was true – the male form of the kimono required much less hassle, and looked just as refined.

While Sakura continued to mutter obscenities, Sai gave Sakura a good look. He was quite unused to her looking so, dare he think, beautiful?

She was wearing a traditional, deep blue silk kimono. There were embroidered purple and sky blue butterflies decorating the dark material. A soft pink obi tied into a sophisticated butterfly knot (held together by the senbon) held her ensemble together. The white and light blue collars peeping out from the outer kimono, as well as her slightly flushed face were a testament to the many bulky layers she was wearing. By all rights, she should have appeared awkward and heavy-looking. And yet, he had never seen her looking so feminine, not even on the rare nights Ino coaxed Sakura out for drinking and dancing.

Sakura made the last adjustments to her heavy sleeves with an annoyed grunt and turned to Sai.

"There. Do I look presentable?" she asked, arms crossed over her chest.

Instinctively, Sai stood up, took Sakura's arms, and uncrossed them. He placed them in a more lady-like pose, resting softly on her abdomen.

"You look less ugly than usual," he said, before wordlessly walking out the door.

Sakura, with a rather violent blush on her cheeks, placed a hand over her thumping heart and murmured, "What was that all about?"

Meanwhile, Sai was outside looking at his hands, wondering why he had just done that. Placing a pale hand on his rapidly jumping heart, he mumbled, "It seems to do that a lot whenever I'm around her…"

Thoughts of each other dissolved as Tsunade stormed down the hallway. Hearing her teacher arrive, Sakura exited the room and stood beside Sai, determined not to look at him.

Not noticing the rather charged atmosphere between the two, Tsunade said, "You're both armed and ready, I presume?"

Sakura mentally checked off all the weapons hidden strategically in her kimono and nodded. Sai too, was completely armed and ready.

"Okay, time for the henge no jutsu. This is what the Fire daimyo and his wife look like." She handed the two of them glossy, colour photos.

Sai took his, and looked down at the man staring back at him. He appeared to be in his late-twenties, early-thirties at most, and like Sai himself, had dark hair. His eyes were dark also – the only major difference was that the man in the photo was more tanned than he was. His jaw line was also rather strong, making him look arrogant.

Sai made the necessary hand seals and felt the transformation take place. He looked at the Hokage, who nodded in approval.

Sakura was also examining her photo. The daimyo's wife had long, ebony hair tied loosely at the ends, and large, innocent-looking blue eyes. She looked to be only in her mid-twenties. She was also even more slender than Sakura was, and obviously didn't have the toned muscles Sakura sported.

Sakura picked up a lock of her pink hair and sighed – she would miss her defining trait. Several quick hand seals later, Sakura looked exactly like the woman in the photo.

Sai turned to Sakura, and if it weren't for the fact that he was Sai, his reaction would have probably been something like, "Woah!"

But since Sai was Sai, he merely pursed his lips and said, "Ugly."

Expecting her student to retaliate and hit Sai, Tsunade smirked. However, when Sakura landed absolutely no blows on the male, she frowned. Sai, too, seemed to be surprised that he wasn't getting pummeled.

Sneering at their surprise, Sakura said, "The person he insulted isn't me, it's the daimyo's wife."

Tsunade let out a laugh (that sounded more like a cackle to Sai) and replied, "Well, I suppose you're right."

Looking more serious now, Tsunade went on, "Anyways, you may know already, but the daimyo's name is Takahashi Hideki, and his wife's name is Kanako. When speaking, you both need to use formal language. Sakura, you must always refer to Sai using the correct honorific. Understood?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Good." Clapping her hands together, Tsunade gestured into the room at the end of the hall. "Shall we?"

The three shinobi quietly entered the room, Tsunade and Sai leading with Sakura trailing slightly behind Sai, as was expected of her. Sighing internally, Sakura was glad she was never born into a particularly noble clan – she just could not deal with the whole "submissive female" façade.

Inside, sitting serenely and sipping tea, were the real Takahashi Hideki and Kanako. They both looked up at the trio's entry. Tsunade nodded at the couple, while Sai and Sakura dropped into respectful bows. Hideki merely sniffed at them while Kanako gave a weak, but warm smile.

"These two are the ANBU-level shinobi that will be impersonating yourself and Kanako-san, Takahashi-sama," Tsunade announced. At the Hokage's nod, Sai and Sakura transformed back to their real selves to give the daimyo an idea of who he was paying, as well as to dispel the awkwardness of talking to someone who appeared to be physically identical to oneself.

Looking Sai and Sakura over, Hideki gave a brief nod, while Kanako tipped her head forward politely and said, "Pleasure to meet you."

Sakura tried her best to smile genuinely, but Sai figured it wasn't worth the effort and dropped one of his brightly fake smiles at the two.

"ANBU-level, you say," Hideki said, looking rather skeptical that two people as young looking as Sai and Sakura could be ANBU-level. His doubts seemed to increase as he took sight of Sakura's pink hair and Sai's midriff-baring shirt.

Tsunade gave a curt nod, rather annoyed that the daimyo would question her, the Hokage's, choices.

"Hokage-sama, I presume that these, ah, youngsters are clear as to where their loyalties lie?" Hideki continued, oblivious to the twitching vein decorating the Godaime's forehead.

Before Tsunade could retort, Sakura replied for her, in honeyed tones, "I assure you, Takahashi-sama, that as my teammate and I were both born and raised in Konoha, we have a very clear idea as to where our loyalties lie."

Nodding, the daimyo answered, "Is that so? Well, I mean no offense, but I really don't want a repeat of what happened with Uchiha Sasuke."

Seeing Sakura and Tsunade's stricken looks, he said, "Oh yes, we've all heard about that. What a pity, really, he was such a talented young man – I saw him at the chuunin exams some years ago."

"Uchiha Sasuke returned among our ranks over a year ago," Sakura stiffly replied. Sai didn't even have to look at Sakura to know that her fists were clenched and her back as straight as a ruler.

"Has he really?" Hideki asked, looking surprised. "Oh, I suppose that's good news, is it not? I am sorry, I just thought, as a part of Uchiha Sasuke's previous team, you may have picked up on some of his less admirable traits."

The Uchiha doesn't have any admirable traits, Sai thought, while Sakura looked shocked that the daimyo knew who she actually was.

"You are Haruno Sakura, are you not? The apprentice of Tsunade-sama, famous for your immense strength, medical skills, and…temper," Hideki chuckled a bit at the last part.

Sakura gave him a plastic smile to affirm his words. Now she really didn't want to waste any more words on this man. Noting Sakura's hidden irritation, Kanako gave the female a sympathetic smile.

"Well now," Tsunade briskly said, "it is time for you two to get going. Sai, Sakura, I will see you two at the gates. Make sure the henge is up before you leave the building. Takahashi's servants will be there to escort you."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"One last thing."

Sai turned to the Hokage while Sakura wiped off her plastic smile.

"No one within Takahashi-sama's household knows that you two are in disguise, and it is my wish that you keep it that way. Expect this mission to last for at least several weeks – during this time, you can release the jutsu when you are both alone. Sakura, you may also choose to cast a genjutsu on the household during the times that you and Sai might want to train."

Once the two were outside and the door was safely shut, Sakura let out a string of profanities while Sai merely gave a small, exasperated smile.

"Ugly, you know you cannot let your emotions take over like that," he reminded her.

"Come on, I deserve at least some cussing after spending ten minutes with that pathetic bastard," Sakura snapped, still utterly irritated.

"Stop complaining," was Sai's only reply as the two began walking down the stairs.

"And you!" Sakura began, rounding on Sai. "When we're undercover, you better not act like him when it's just the two of us. Or else, I swear I will give you a beating that you will remember!"

"Trust me Ugly, I really don't want to be like him," Sai answered. Feeling slightly more reassured, Sakura sighed and sped up before Sai called out, "You're supposed to be behind me, aren't you?"

"Bastard," she huffed, but she complied and slowed her pace considerably, until she was once again behind him.

Turning around to face her, Sai smiled and said, "I love you too, Kanako-chan." He had transformed during the three seconds it took for him to reply to her.

Sakura resisted the urge to flash a rude hand gesture at him, and instead transformed into the soft-spoken woman she was supposed to be impersonating.

Once they stepped outside the building, they were directed to a lavishly decorated carriage. Sai waited until Sakura was seated before climbing in himself, and took the opportunity to look over "his" servants. There seemed to be two rather large processions – one in front of the carriage, and one behind. There were also two teams of four-man cells protecting them – one leading and one taking up the rear. All in all, it was quite an effective set-up to deter enemy attacks – if it weren't for the fact he and Sakura would be higher above the servants and shinobi (since they were on an elevated carriage), making them an easy target. Of course, that wasn't taking into consideration the fact that both Sakura and himself were fully trained and armed shinobi.

Satisfied with his observations, he turned his attentions to the female beside him. Glossy red lips were turned down and perfectly plucked eyebrows were knotted together. Sighing internally, Sai knew he'd take the pink-haired, green-eyed, and unpredictable Sakura rather than the black-haired, blue-eyed, moody beauty he was currently beside.

"Have a safe journey, Takahashi-sama, Kanako-san," Tsunade briefly grasped the hands of the (fake) daimyo and his (fake) wife.

"Many thanks for your hospitality, Hokage-sama," Sai replied, with an air of importance. Sakura nodded demurely, and gave one last look at her teacher. Tsunade gave her a discreet, yet encouraging smile, and Sakura felt something inside of her lift.

At Sai's nod, the servants began walking and the carriage moved forward. That "something" inside Sakura's heart dropped again as she realized that there was still so many friends she hadn't said "hi" to. She had just come back from a two-month training mission, and here she was, rolling right out of Konoha again. The thought was depressing, to say the least.

Sai noticed the mood of his companion was turning steadily worse. Her fists were clenched so tight that he wouldn't be surprised if her perfectly manicured nails would be drawing blood soon. Turning to his "wife", he asked, "You don't look well, Kanako. Are you feeling alright?"

"Ugly, you look terrible."

"I'm fine, Hideki-sama," Sakura softly answered.

"Back off."

"Are you nervous about traveling?"

"You wish we weren't leaving so soon, right?"

"A little."

"Yes."

"Don't worry. We are perfectly safe and well-protected."

"We are capable shinobi. As soon as we take out the suspected attackers, or gather enough evidence to disprove his claims, we can go home."

"I know. Thank you, Hideki-sama."

"Thank you, Sai."

As Sai turned back to the road ahead of them, Sakura looked up at the man sitting beside her. Although his face was different, his words, his heart – they were still the same. And that thought alone comforted her.

"No matter what has changed in these few hours, at least he's still a constant source of…"

And Sakura left that thought unfinished.

a/n: The Henge no Jutsu mentioned in this chapter is basically the simple transforming justu that all shinobi know. The only difference is that this one doesn't disappear or dispel even when the user is unconscious, etc. Just like Tsunade. We all know she's like...50, but she looks more like a 30-year old woman.

And yes, more of the rather strange fluff that is SaiSaku. I just love them together, don't you? And what does Sakura think Sai is? A constant source of...annoyance? Humor? Affection? Who knows. I don't either, actually XD

Another big thank you to my beta, Silver Matter, for checking this chapter as well as the last one :)

Enjoy!