Scarlet Scroll
Almost Martyrs
The moment he opened his door that morning to find two Root ANBU on his doorstep, giving him his summons, he'd suspected it would be about her. The Hokage called on him so very rarely, wanting to distance those closest to the previous Hokage from the inner circles of power, though he liked to keep an eye on all of them and occasionally throw out a stick to see if they obediently jumped to catch it. This was one of those occasions. He looked at the two smiling masks before him and knew he had to jump. For someone in his precarious political position, who had been favoured to succeed the last Hokage and was in the opinions of many foreign powers the rightful Hokage, he had to watch his step, for failure to obey was to expose his jugular to wolves who would only be too glad of an excuse to tear it out.
"The Hokage wants to see you," the men behind the smiling animal masks said.
At this point in the morning, Kakashi wasn't even out of his pyjamas yet. "What about?" he asked, folding his arms to squint at them. His door faced east, and the sun shone directly in his eyes. These men were little more than haloed silhouettes to him.
"You've been summoned, that's all you need to know. Be there in an hour. The Hokage does not tolerate tardiness."
They flickered away and Kakashi slammed the door, resolutely rubbing his eyes. Breakfast, he thought. Then a shower. Then he'd read his book. Then he'd wait until he was half an hour late before debating whether or not to step out the door.
He'd jump for his Hokage, certainly. But not until a good time after that stick had flown straight over his head.
There was no rush to find out the reason for being summoned anyway; he already knew it. He'd known he'd be approached today by Root the moment he'd seen Sakura rushing through the park with a bright red scroll in her hand last night. Hours of tossing and turning in bed, trying to convince himself that he'd been mistaken, or that she'd dropped a regular scroll inside a body during surgery at the hospital, or that it was someone else's scroll altogether... it was fruitless. He'd seen that scroll before too many times not to know what it was, what it meant, but seeing it then in Sakura's hand had been a shock he'd never seen coming.
Surely, he'd thought. Surely, the old bastard hasn't sunk this low.
At nine-thirty he slipped out the door and made his way slowly to the administration building. But at over forty minutes late he knew he'd offended the Hokage, and in order to tacitly put him back in his place, Kakashi was kept waiting outside for a further twenty minutes. That was fine by him. He knew perfectly well that the old coot and his cronies were sitting behind that door, twiddling their thumbs. If for every minute he could be late he could make the Hokage waste his 'valuable' time being petty, Kakashi viewed his tardiness as a huge success.
Eventually Danzou decided enough time had passed and a secretary emerged from his office to bow Kakashi into the room. She was female and a civilian to boot. All the secretaries were, and it didn't surprise him. If the work was tedious and required subservience, chances were Danzou had filled every position with girls and women.
Before the semi-circle of 'thrones', he bowed. He didn't kowtow as people were often required to do before the Hokage, as he doubted anyone in that room was under the illusion he felt anything resembling respect for his superiors. His official story, however, was that he had bad knees.
"Hokage-sama," he acknowledged.
"We have another little errand for you, Hatake Kakashi," Danzou rumbled. "Tell me, how long has it been since your last assignment for Project Seed?"
Without missing a beat, Kakashi answered, "Four months, Hokage-sama."
"Ah yes. As I seem to recall, Subject three was quite the disaster, but you redeemed yourself with number four. Now I have another subject for you... I think you'll like this one." With a smug sideways smile he gestured to the personal ANBU guard beside him who stepped forward to hand Kakashi a black scroll.
Kakashi snapped it open and gave it a perfunctory glance before closing it again. He hadn't needed or wanted to look; he already knew whose name was on this scroll.
Not satisfied with as little reaction as that, Danzou needled on. "Do you approve of my choice?"
"It is as you wish, Hokage-sama," Kakashi responded neutrally. "But I would not have thought this particular candidate was suitable for your eugenics program-"
"Don't use that word, Kakashi. Our only goal is to give this stagnating village fresh blood, not to purge or purify it. And what precisely are your objections to this particular candidate?" the Hokage asked, smiling nastily.
Kakashi swallowed. "Her family history is not promising. She has no ancestors or living relatives in the shinobi profession."
"Yet she is one of the strongest kunoichi of her generation, which must stand for itself, must it not?"
"Then surely she would be a loss to her profession if she were-"
"The hospital is overstaffed. We can spare a medic-nin for a few months."
"But she would not agree to this," Kakashi said shortly.
"She has already volunteered," Danzou told him.
Not for a second did Kakashi believe there had been such a choice. His jaw clenched for a moment, realising that there was only so much fault he could find in Sakura. "She's too young," he said quietly, a little desperately.
"Subject two was the same age, if not a little younger," Danzou pointed out with an upraised palm. "But perhaps you have more personal reasons to exclude her from the program."
"My personal feelings are of no consequence," Kakashi replied swiftly. "I will do whatever my Hokage asks or requires of me."
"Good. You may meet with her this morning. She may need some, ah, orientation," Danzou said, apparently deaf to the chuckles of his cronies over what such an orientation might entail. "She may also be considered a flight risk, so I am relying on you to ensure she doesn't do anything stupid, and for the course of this mission I am assigning Ari and Jin as escorts to help the mission objective to completion."
Kakashi bowed. "Yes, Hokage-sama."
"You may leave."
He backed out of the room, as it was forbidden to turn ones back on the Hokage (presumably because he would stab it), and proceeded sedately down the stairs till he was once again standing in daylight on the street outside. He blinked up at the pale blue sky and the clouds of starlings flitting over the rooftops, and saw all the other people walking the pavements as if it was just another day. Not one of them had just been commanded to approach their young student and inform her that it was her duty to not only spread her legs for the village but to give the village a child.
And by Suda Hiroshi no less.
Kakashi began to move. He was not heading off to find Sakura just yet; he had an appointment with that shady alley across the street first. Passing down the narrow gap between two office buildings, he didn't stop until he'd turned down another passage and was completely out of sight of the administration building and all the ANBU Root agents that swarmed around it. There he stopped and leant against the rough brick wall beside a rusty fire-escape. Litter lined the alley, piled high in every corner and nook like leaves in autumn. The dumpster nearby was near overflowing.
For a long time he just reclined against the wall, weighing the black scroll in his hand, occasionally flipping it idly. Then suddenly he could no longer stifle himself, and with a violent grunt he threw the scroll against the opposite wall of the alley.
It ricocheted off with a resounding crack and skidded away across the concrete, straight into a pile of litter. Kakashi stormed over to pick it up, fully ready to snap it in half and keep tearing and tearing at that paper until he felt right again.
A crunch inside the dumpster made him turn sharply, reaching for the concealed tanto in his sleeve, angry that he wasn't as alone as he'd wished to be. All he saw was the rapidly moving blur of a child running away down the alley away from him.
He stared after it, astonished. Had that child been in the dumpster all along? Had it been there all night?
He shouldn't have been surprised. In a village like this there were few people with living parents, and some became orphans sooner than others. It was such a fundamental truth of their society that there had always been a social service ready to take in all waifs and strays and find them shelter one way or another. There had never been any kids left on the street...
At least not until Danzou had decided to divert the funding for social services to the military budget. There were now more ANBU than ever. And now there were more homeless children too. It wasn't an act of senseless cruelty – desperate children were just the right recruiting pool for Danzou's Root army, and taking kids straight off the street and training them to become ANBU ensured a kind of loyalty that would be hard to break in years to come. The Hokage had it all planned out, and these ruthless endeavours to strengthen Konoha's forces and ensure its future was how he'd secured the full support of the council, the daimyou, and most of the civilians of Konoha who'd been left shaken by the decline of the village's power and prosperity after the repeated invasions. He'd had this planned out for years. The path to absolute control had been paved long before anyone could have suspected enough to stop his influence.
Suddenly deflated of all his anger, Kakashi turned back and picked up the black scroll to slip into his pouch.
Everyone's life was harder these days. That was the nature of things. There were good times and there were bad times, but nothing lasted forever. While Danzou held so much support, it was impossible to oppose him openly, and Kakashi had to hold it together for now and withhold any display of weakness before his superiors.
And so, for now, he straightened his gloves and ran a finger over the hem of his mask to ensure it was secure, and set off for Sakura's apartment.
She lived in the innermost zone of the village, where the apartments were smaller, tightly compacted, and cheap to boot. He too had lived in the same sort of accommodation until a few years ago when his home had been one of many buildings levelled in the rain country's attack, and he'd used the opportunity to trade up, choosing one of the bigger, more aesthetic residences towards the edge of town. He knew which building complex she lived in, as he'd always liked to keep a vague eye on the personal details of his subordinates, even though she had moved there after she'd been reassigned permanently to the hospital. Because she'd never stopped being his team medic.
But while he knew her building number, her apartment number escaped him. He knocked on the first door he came to and asked which door belonged to Sakura, and wasn't surprised that the young man who answered didn't even know there was any Sakura who lived in the same building. She must have spent so much time working that few of her neighbours saw her.
He struck better luck with the middle-aged woman who answered his knocks at the second door. She pointed up the stairs and said the pink-haired girl always carried her groceries up to the third floor. On that third floor he found another woman who pointed to door B3 wordlessly the moment he said her name.
So that was the door he stood before now, palms tingling as he tried to summon the courage to knock. He didn't want to be here. He would rather have been anywhere else right then, than standing in front of Sakura's apartment, wondering exactly how he was going to explain himself to her. He shouldn't have even been given this assignment. There were others involved in the program who could have overseen Sakura's case, but none of them knew her as personally as he did.
And that was what Danzou wanted; he wanted to see Tsunade's supporters debased and humiliated in the worst possible way. He wanted Sakura to know true violation, and he wanted Kakashi to not only witness it, but organise it.
If he couldn't find an excuse to throw his political enemies in prison, this was how he dealt with them.
Kakashi lifted his fist and knocked three times. There was no reply, so after a few seconds he knocked again.
He knew she was in there – he could definitely sense a living body on the other side of this door – but he understood that right now she probably didn't want visitors. He wouldn't want them either, if he was in her shoes.
No... he couldn't presume to know what it was like to be in her place right now.
"Sakura?" he called softly and waited. He hoped she would respond if she knew it was him at least.
The door cracked open a few inches and Sakura's pale smiling face appeared. "Kakashi-sensei?"
He might have been fooled, if she hadn't looked ready to slam the door in his face at any given moment. It made him feel incredibly untrustworthy when even his own student refused to open the door fully to him, and he knew this wasn't going to be an easy encounter. "I saw you last night," he began. "You looked a little upset, so I thought..."
Now she just looked even more strained. "I'm ok," she said, though her eyes screamed something else at him. Something desperate and pleading.
"Can I come in at least?" he asked. What he had to say couldn't be said on her doorstep.
For the briefest second she looked alarmed and darted a glance over his shoulder at her apartment, probably assessing if it was in a state fit for visitors. Whatever her conclusion was, she turned back to him grudging and grunted her unenthusiastic consent before stepping back and opening the door wider.
Her apartment was tiny. He hadn't quite expected anything this small, because he'd considered his last apartment to be pretty damn small but this was at least half the size. The bed took up most of it against the opposite wall, as did a low-slung coffee table next to it. Fresh clothes hung on a rail beside the door and wet ones were hung on a line outside her window. For how compact the room was, she seemed to have everything she needed... on her coffee table she had a few books and a beauty kit, and on a shelf over her bed she kept a single toothbrush in a cup.
He supposed that for someone who virtually lived at the hospital, this was merely a secondary residence where she slept only as a formality.
She sat down on her bed, hands clasped between her knees, and since there wasn't anywhere else to sit, Kakashi joined her, trying not to bump any part of himself against her.
"It's not exactly fit for entertaining," she apologised, looking away from him at the floor that was covered in a number of crumbs and socks. Kakashi spied a pair of panties hanging on her radiator and quickly looked away to examine her coffee table instead. "It's nice," he said. "I've never seen your apartment."
"I'm surprised you know where I live."
"Ah, someone told me," he said with a shrug. He would have explained that he'd looked her up months ago, yet he didn't seem to have the energy to launch any long-winded explanations of his nosy nature. "It's been a while."
"Yeah," she sighed. "I've been so busy at the hospital lately..."
"You enjoying it much?"
"I suppose."
She didn't sound even remotely keen on her work anymore. First and foremost, he supposed she had always intended to be a kunoichi, and medicine had been her second complimentary skill to further her career as that kunoichi. But with one sweeping legislation, she'd been forced into full time and very demanding healthcare, and only male medics were able to continue working in the field.
He wondered if this had been Danzou's final kick against Tsunade's coffin, to relegate all female medics to the hospital as if they were no more than nurses. But perhaps his grudge was against all woman-kind, to have also created the likes of the Women's Division. Did he truly doubt their ability? Or was it just that his preoccupation with appearances made him think the village put up a stronger front to other powers to revert back to reassert the old gender roles?
"I hear the W.D. is putting its case to the council again," Kakashi said. "Perhaps there's still room for Danzou to be persuaded to allow kunoichi full access to missions again. It would be nice. It's not really been the same since you left the team..."
He meant it, but Sakura appeared even more disheartened. "Yeah," she said, her voice growing weaker. "It would be nice to be a team again."
He'd scanned every surface in this room covertly with one hooded eye, but there was no sign of the red scroll he'd seen her carrying the previous night. It had to be in this apartment, even if all that was left of it were some burnt remains (if Sakura had done to her scroll what Kakashi had nearly done to his).
Finally he asked. "Where is it?"
She went still beside him. "Where's what?"
"The scroll. The one you were carrying last night."
"I wasn't carrying a scroll last night, sensei," she said stiffly.
"It was red." He put his hand on the mattress they were sitting on. "I suppose it's under here, isn't it?"
Her resolve of indifference broke. "Please, sensei, you have to forget you ever saw it," she whispered, eyes wide and face even paler than before. "If Danzou finds out..."
"It's not really me I'm worried about," Kakashi said softly, beginning to remove the black scroll from his pouch. "I'm glad you took his warning seriously, Sakura. One of the other women didn't... and that didn't end well for her husband, I'm sorry to say."
"One of the other women?"
"The mother of subject three," he said, spreading the scroll wide on the table. He remembered that woman better than all the rest. He'd been the one who had to hold her still as she'd cried and tried to beat him senseless while Root ANBU quietly removed her husband's body from the house. Heart attack, they said. Though everyone in the program including his wife knew it had been cyanide.
Sakura looked in dim confusion between him and the scroll on the table. She connected the dots slowly and unwillingly, until she could no longer deny the truth staring her in the face.
"You're my handler," she said bleakly.
And all Kakashi could say was, "I'm sorry."
Her eyelids flickered shut and for a long time she just sat there, hands clasped so tightly between her knees that they had long since turned white. He waited, knowing that if he said anything to her now it would be too soon, and after almost a full minute she finally drew in a long shaky breath as if it was the first she'd taken since she'd last spoken. "Please leave," she said quietly.
He didn't move. Although she sounded remarkably calm, somehow he knew that leaving her alone right now was the last thing she needed. "We should talk," he said, and like her he could only look at the scroll on the table. They couldn't meet each other's eyes.
"Ok," she said. "Let's talk. So when did you become Danzou's lackey? You certainly kept this quiet, but I'm sure Naruto will be proud of you when he finds out."
He winced. "You know I wouldn't be involved in this project if I'd had a choice, Sakura. I doubt you volunteered either, right?"
Her shoulders sagged a little, some of her half-formed anger easing away before it had even taken off. "I'm sorry. Of course... did he threaten to have you killed too?"
Vaguely, as he recalled. But Kakashi had been more concerned about the veiled threats to his teammates and friends that Danzou had made when he'd approached Kakashi for initiation. He distinctly recalled the Hokage nonchalantly commenting that with Kakashi helping to head the project, certain female acquaintances of his would be less likely to be involved. Danzou had broken his end of the deal, but that was almost a given, and if he tried to pull out now by claiming Danzou had violated the conditions of his cooperation, Danzou would merely deny this had ever been a condition at all... before executing the rest of the threats he still held above Kakashi's head. His life would be forfeit, and Sakura's well-being would be in the hands of far less pleasant agents.
"Danzou's threats mean little to me. I only obey because there's nothing to be gained and a hell of a lot to lose by throwing myself on the martyr's sword at this point, and at least I can hope to do a little good where I am now. Like with you."
"With me?" she repeated softly.
"I can help you escape Konoha," he said. "If that's what you want."
She was momentarily speechless, and slowly drew her gaze up to him. "Do you offer that to all the women you... approach?"
"Only the ones who I think stand a chance of evading the hunter-nin," he said darkly.
"And how many accepted?" she wanted to know.
He sighed. "None. I haven't offered it to anyone else," he said. "To be honest, leaving the village is suicide. The only missing-nin to have survived are Orochimaru, Sasuke, and Naruto."
"Do you think I'm up to their level?" she asked, wearing a thin smile.
His shoulders lifted in a tiny, almost imperceptible shrug. "It's up to you."
"Ah." Her eyelashes fluttered low to regard the scroll again. "So that's a 'no', and my choice is to obey or commit suicide?" she murmured softly, defeated. "It doesn't seem like much of a choice."
Kakashi was tempted to agree. If she refused, she would lay herself open to accusations of treason and insubordination, and contradicting the Hokage was just about the most dangerous thing you could do in this village. She could run-away, but with the ANBU tracker division more bulked up and better armed and trained and paid than he'd ever seen it before, her odds of survival outside the village were slim. "Maybe," he said, "if we could get in contact with Naruto… you could join him-"
"That could take months," she cut him off with a shake of the head. "If a whole division of ANBU can't trace him, what can we do?"
There was a very good reason why Naruto was keeping his head down; when there was a bounty on your head of a few million ryo, one tended to disappear off the map. He had been too much of a threat to Danzou – in both strength and popularity – and the old bastard had worked hard to muddy his name and reputation until he'd convinced enough people to support an arrest warrant. He was too close to the known criminal, Sasuke, he said. His mere existence had wrought untold disaster upon Konoha.
One day when Danzou's strangle-hold on the council and the daimyou was broken, and he made one misstep cruel enough to no longer be overlooked by the people, Naruto could return. Except no one knew when that day would be, and the more time that passed, and the more loyalty and power Danzou garnered with the new militarised ANBU, the hope to displace him grew slimmer and slimmer. At this point, even if Naruto returned and forced Danzou out, he'd never have the support of the ANBU, and the village would descend into a chaotic power struggle.
And until then, Naruto needed to remain hidden. There had to be thirty tracker nin out there looking for him, and forcing him to surface in order to take Sakura in would be dangerous, even if Kakashi knew how to contact him.
So what was left?
"Aren't you going to fill me in on the mission?" Sakura asked eventually, stooped beside him as if something heavy was crouched on her shoulders.
"Sakura," he began, "You don't have to-"
"I'll make my decision. In the mean time just do your job," she said, a little shortly. "Brief me."
He looked away, disorientated. He'd only glanced over the scroll in Danzou's office, just enough to take in Sakura's name and the name of her 'target', but now he forced himself to pick up the scroll and read it. Though he could have just handed the scroll to Sakura and let her digest the information, he felt the need to almost censor it for her. The wording was too cold. Too unsympathetic.
"They want you to find Suda Hiroshi in Otafuku Gai," he said, running the pads of his fingers lightly over the lines of text on the scroll. "He goes there at least once a week, usually during weekends, to blow off some steam with prostitutes. He spends a lot of money with the higher class establishments and he's been known to take mistresses before... so... that's probably your most likely angle. No point hiding you're a kunoichi either. He'd know the moment he met you."
"Why him? Why Suda?" she asked, looking a little queasily at his picture. Suda Hiroshi was not what Kakashi would call grotesque, or even particularly plain, but even he couldn't deny there was something unpleasantly pointed and oily about that that thin face and those heavy-lidded eyes.
"He has a sonic bloodline limit and all five of his children have manifested it. About twenty years ago he used it in a battle between the wave village and the cloud village during the third secret war, causing an avalanche. He's… more or less the reason why there isn't a wave village anymore," Kakashi explained.
She gave him a sideways look. "How dangerous is he?"
"Quite," he admitted with a helpless shrug. "His abilities are very broad and can be used long-range and short-range. Like I said he can cause avalanches, but in close combat he could destroy internal organs."
"How?" she asked stonily. Perhaps by fixating on the details she hoped to momentarily overlook the bigger picture.
"His bloodline limit is producing sound waves, and everything oscillates to a certain frequency, including flesh, blood and organs. If it exists, he can destroy it just by opening his mouth. He's not been known to use it indiscriminately, but it would be a case where you wouldn't know if he was attacking you until it was too late."
Sakura's eyebrow twitched up slightly. "I can see how Danzou would consider that a very desirable trait."
Kakashi shrugged. Was it really so worth it?
"As your handler I'd deal with arranging the meeting, the accommodation, and any other details. Two root members are going to be assigned to escort us, officially for your protection, but more realistically so Danzou can keep an eye on us, to make sure you're completing the mission and I'm not covering for you."
"Well, I suppose there goes that option of the window," she muttered.
He could tell he wasn't exactly selling her on the idea of this mission. Wouldn't Danzou be so disappointed? "It's up to you," he said at last. "If you want to take your chances going against Danzou, I'll support you as best I can. I wouldn't blame you. A mission like this is asking too much."
"Is it?" she wondered a little bleakly. "They ask us to lay down our lives for the village every day. I've gone on missions for Tsunade that almost killed me, and I never thought twice about it. Is asking someone to give life instead of take it really that bad?"
Kakashi remembered the other four women he'd been told to recruit. They'd all taken the news in different ways. The first woman had taken it stoically, as if it was any other assignment. The second woman had been younger than even Sakura, just a girl really, and the orders had devastated her, demanding she resign a huge part of her life over before it had even begun. The third subject had been a disaster. Already a mother with a young family, against Kakashi's warnings she'd told her husband and unwisely he'd confronted Kakashi publicly to get his wife removed from the program. Now she was a widow and a single mother to three children, and she'd confessed to him more than once that she wished he had just asked her to die for the village instead. This was in contrast to subject four who had taken the orders with a flippant shrug, succeeded with her chosen target in less than a month, and was planning to give the child up to the care of Danzou's underlings so it could be fed and raised on his brand of indoctrination while she got on with her life.
Though some women did their duty without any sign they even cared, he doubted it was easy for any of them. This wasn't the same as being asked to fight for the village. This wasn't the mission any of them had signed up for when they'd become certified shinobi. Ultimately, it all came down to choice.
"It's bad," he said slowly. "Danzou's done this to over a dozen women regardless of their will, forcing them to choose between this and death. It amounts to nothing more than rape."
She stared dismally into nothing. "So what do I choose?"
He shook his head faintly. "It's not for me to tell you what to do. All I can promise is that if you choose to run, I'll be waiting in the park tonight near the jungle gym from midnight. If you choose to go ahead with the mission, I'll be waiting with the escorts in two days by the village gates, midday."
Sakura raised her fist to her mouth, chewing on her thumbnail. She wouldn't answer him now, but he hadn't expected her to, and although he didn't want to leave her, he knew that she wouldn't be able to sort this out in her head until he was gone and she no longer had to concentrate on entertaining a façade for him. It was the same with the other women. He was not there to help… he was only Danzou's instrument, and each of them knew that, even Sakura.
"Think about it," he said, quietly getting to his feet and stepping around the coffee table to reach for the door. When he looked back at her, their eyes met briefly before she quickly looked away. He was right; she wanted him out of there and she wouldn't relax until then.
He shut the door quietly after him and moved to lean on the balustrade and look down at the street below. He didn't know what he was waiting for. For Sakura to start crying? To throw things at the door behind him? To come tearing out after him, begging for help? That wasn't who she was. Even if she was the kind of person to run for help, it would be deluded to think he was the one she would have chosen to confide in. They weren't close. He wouldn't force that closeness.
With nothing else he could do, he went straight home to start packing his bags and making preparations to leave. The park was a quiet, ominous place at night, and that was where Kakashi waited for Sakura to make her choice.
Sai was faced with a conundrum.
When Kakashi had left the apartment, Sai decided to abandon his charge of monitoring Sakura's tiny abode and follow him to wherever it was he was going in such an uncharacteristically direct fashion. Icha Icha was nowhere to be seen. It could only mean that Kakashi was preoccupied with something urgent or important, which in turn meant Sai should probably find out what that was. It was no doubt connected to Sakura herself.
The first thing the jonin did was return to his own house, where from his vantage point on the roof of a neighbouring terrace Sai saw him packing a travel bag. This made sense. Although Sai had not been privy to the details, he knew Kakashi was leaving indefinitely on a mission in a couple of days, along with Sakura. It was only natural the man would pack… and yet Sai knew something was up in a way that only someone who had spent long, disturbing hours studying this man's body language could detect.
Perhaps it was the way he was packing that tipped him of – like he was annoyed at every single object and article of clothing he threw in the bag. Or perhaps it was what he was packing – like everything from a hidden hole in the wall behind his bookcase. A little suspicious. To Sai's knowledge, people didn't usually keep all their most commonly used mission equipment in a secret cache.
But Kakashi didn't pack long. He soon left the house with Sai following at a safe distance and stopped at a residence Sai was not familiar with. It all became clear, however, when Kakashi knocked on the door and a tall blonde woman emerged.
She was a jonin from the W.D. – specifically, she was the jonin he had observed was courting Kakashi.
If he tried to sneak any closer he knew he would be detected, so Sai was forced to remain at a distance, far out of ear-shot and only able to judge the conversation by the expressions that crossed the woman's face. Eyebrows tilted up, eyes slightly narrowed, and lips parted. Attraction, mixed in with concern? Disbelief? Suspicion? Whatever it was, it was unlike their previously flirtatious interactions. Was Kakashi saying good bye? Breaking off the courtship?
After a while, all that could be said appeared to have been said, and Kakashi lightly embraced the woman before turning away from her. Neither looked happy.
It was all very intriguing. This would definitely go in his diary later.
From this house, Kakashi headed into town and approached a few people. Like the conversation with his lady-friend, these seemed like unusually short and serious interactions, and Sai noted that each and every one was from Danzou's watchlist – his highly confidential list of people known or suspected to be supporters of the previous Hokage or Naruto, the missing Jinchuuriki; Maito Gai, Nara Shikamaru, Kamizuki Izumo, Hagane Kotetsu, Kurenai Yuhi. What was he asking to make each and every one of them shake their heads and shrug like that? Did he want something? Was he looking for someone? Looking for help?
The Hokage would no doubt be very interested in hearing this, though Sai's vigil did not end there. He kept tabs on Kakashi as he returned home once more that evening, and stayed on as night set in. And just as he was about to finish up and go home himself, he detected more activity in the house. Kakashi was on the move again, and at quarter to midnight, he left the house and set off down the street with – as Sai had witnessed – a scroll in his pouch within which was sealed enough equipment and supplies to last a trek across one or two continents.
What exactly was this man up to?
His destination appeared to be the park. Sai kept to the shadows beneath the trees, silently circling the plateau where a children's climbing frame glinted in the moonlight. This was where Kakashi stopped and sat down on the bench furthest away from the glaring streetlights. He sat so still that had Sai not known he was there, he would not have noticed him.
What now?
"Why don't you come out, Sai? Anyone would think you were up to no good, skulking around in the shadows like that."
Sai stiffened a little, though he wasn't so surprised. Danzou kept Kakashi around for a reason, and if it wasn't for his stellar loyalty, it was because he was still one of the most formidable jonin in the village. He pushed away from his tree and stepped into moonlight, gravel crunching under foot as he gave up all efforts to disguise his presence. "I could say the same for you, Kakashi-sensei," he said.
"There's nothing suspicious about a man going for a midnight stroll," Kakashi replied evenly. "You're the one who's been stalking me all day, however. What is this? Some intensive new study of human behaviour you're conducting?"
Sai smiled blankly.
"Or perhaps Danzou is really the one interested in my behaviour?"
"That might be an accurate assumption," said Sai, who could neither confirm or deny any such thing unless he wanted the binding curse on his tongue to seize and choke him. "Would you like to hear my observations?"
Kakashi's hand emerged from the shadow, making a lazy gesture for Sai to do whatever he liked.
"You spoke to several suspicious persons today whom are known to be sympathisers of the exiled Jinchuuriki, appearing to seek aid from them, but it seems that was to no avail. You also spoke with the female jonin from the W.D. who showed three of the five signs of separation anxiety, leading me to think you have told her you will be going away for a long time. Now you are here in the park in the middle of the night, in what might appear to be an unscheduled rendezvous point, fully equipped as if you anticipate a long expedition beginning shortly, though you aren't scheduled to leave the village for two more days. All this began after you left Sakura-san's apartment earlier today."
"What a curious take on things," Kakashi murmured, still utterly relaxed upon his bench. "And what do you suppose I'm up to?"
"Someone witnessing this might assume you plan to leave the village tonight before your mission tomorrow, despite having no clearance. Possibly with Sakura-san herself."
With a rustle of clothing and a deep sigh, Kakashi stood up. "I see," he said, moving into the moonlight until he was no so far away from Sai. "And what do you plan to report to Danzou?"
Sai thought for a moment. "I will most likely tell him the truth: that I witnessed you preparing for a mission today. Since you are cleared to leave on one soon, it would be natural to assume this is normal."
"Of course," Kakashi said, nodding vaguely as he turned to regard the moon.
"But if you disappear tonight, I may be forced to give more… detail," Sai said. "Do you plan on disappearing?"
"What time is it, Sai?"
"It's fifteen minutes past midnight, Sensei."
"She's never late…"
"Excuse me?"
Kakashi turned back to him. "I'm not going anywhere tonight," the man said heavily. "Perhaps you were reading too much into what you saw today?"
"Yes," Sai agreed, though he eyes began to narrow. "May I ask a question, Kakashi-sensei?"
Kakashi made the same gesture with his hand. Do as you like, it said.
"What is this mission that you'll be accompanying Sakura on?" Sai asked. He had never in his life seen a mission upset Sakura as much as this one had, nor had there been one yet that had caused him to observe Kakashi making genuine preparations to abandon the village.
Slowly Kakashi turned to him, regarding him silently for a moment. The light of the moon hit the covered side of his face strongly, casting a shadow just as strong on the other, rendering him wholly unreadable. Then he reached up and grasped the edge of his mask to drag it down to his neck. He opened his mouth and presented his tongue, and even in this poor light Sai saw the familiar black bars running across its surface.
"I'm afraid Danzou got me a long time ago," Kakashi said, replacing his mask. "I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to, not unless you already know the truth."
Sai, stunned, just stared at him. Only the original circle of Root were muted by Danzou's binding seal. Those who had been recruited after Danzou's ascension to power had been spared such a measure, and someone like Kakashi, who had never joined in any capacity, was the last person Sai expected to see branded.
"What could be so bad that you'd want to abandon the village?" Sai wondered quietly.
Kakashi rubbed his jaw, like his own mouth was a traitor to him. "You have to wonder."
"Is it really so bad here?" Sai asked. He understood why some people remained so resistant to Danzou. Not everyone appreciated the creation of the W.D., or how much power the Hokage allowed his top advisors to misuse, but no one could accuse Danzou of not caring about Hokage, or of not doing everything in his power to make it a stronger, safer place. Even if some people didn't like Root ANBU like him patrolling the streets, it was ultimately for their own good.
But Kakashi had no answers. Instead of replying, he merely shrugged. "You should go home," he said, "or make your report to the Hokage if you like."
"That can wait, I think," said Sai. "What will you do now? Are you going home too?"
After a hesitant pause, Kakashi moved back to the bench. "I think I'll wait here a little while longer."
Perturbed, Sai forgot to smile as he stepped back. "I'll see you tomorrow then, Sensei."
Kakashi made a neutral sound. "Maybe."
Sakura had packed her bags that night, but she never got as far as leaving the flat. Freedom, as she rationalised, meant death. There were no two ways about it. Missing-nin had extremely short lives, and to spend what was left of it on the run, stressed and afraid that every day might be her last – was that really worth it?
If she stayed… if she completed this mission, she would live, but for the rest of her life she would be tied to a child. She'd never thought about children. It was too early in her own life to be entertaining such thoughts, and she had no expectations or dreams that this missionwouldderail, nor did she have a man in her life that would be alienated by it. But what did that mean for her future, to have a child that belonged more to the village than it did to her?
Perhaps there would be loopholes? Perhaps there were ways out of this that would make themselves known once she better understand the exact dynamics of her mission? As disturbing as it was to no longer know what her future held anymore, surely it was better than the fatal certainty of becoming a missing-nin.
After two days she finally gathered together the bags she'd packed and headed off to the village gates, still not quite believing what she'd been told she was really walking into. Surely there were so many things left undone? She felt like a sneak and a liar, walking away from the village into this life-changing mission without a word of warning to her friends. Or even her own mother. Good lord, what was she going to tell her mother?
But this was the concern of her handler only from now on. She only wished that hadn't been Kakashi.
She trusted him, of course she did, and perhaps that was the problem. Of all the people she didn't want to be party to this farce of a mission, it was the people she knew and trusted. But if it was going to be someone like that, she still wished it had been someone else. For Kakashi's face when she arrived at the gate was schooled and hard, and while that was probably wise given that two Root ANBU were standing beside him, it might have been nice if he'd given a smile, no matter how small, to reassure her.
Had he been waiting in the park for her two nights ago? Did he think she had made the right choice? Sakura wasn't sure herself.
"You ready?" he called to her.
No. She looked at the two ANBU standing beside him, and neither looked particularly friendly right then. They were measuring her up where she stood, and whatever conclusion the one on the left came to made him smile, unpleasantly. Did she dare admit reservations or weakness in front of them, knowing they were answering directly to Danzou?
She took a step forward but a cry from behind her made her pause.
"Wait!"
Sakura, turned, heart in her throat, knowing that this was her rescue call. There had been some terrible mistake – the mission wasn't intended for her – and this was the messenger who had been sent to relieve her.
But the woman, a tall blonde, was jogging straight towards Kakashi. Sakura recognised her faintly as one of the new jonin in the W.D., and the moment she realised that the woman was only interested in her sensei, her heart froze over again and she half turned away, already irrationally angry with the woman for giving her hope.
The blonde spoke softly to Kakashi so no one else would hear, shyly and bashfully, making it perfectly obvious that this was no official message. The two ANBU root nudged each other with poorly hidden smirks. Then the woman gave something to Kakashi and waved as he turned away.
"What was that about?" Sakura asked as he moved past her.
"Nothing," he answered evenly, and Sakura's mind, so wrapped up in her own problems, thought no more of it. "Are you ready?" he repeated, as if he needed to be sure.
Sakura sighed. "I'm ready," she lied.
And so they set off.
TBC
