A/N: Doven has done some beautiful fanart for Scarlet Scroll (and House of Crows for that matter!), and the link is up on my profile, so all you awesome people should go check it out! :D


Scarlet Scroll

Negative Capability


Sakura didn't know what had woken her. Through the window she could see the sky had lightened to a soft indigo that preceded sunrise, and the nightly rave in the streets had finally gone quiet. She didn't think that would have roused her, but perhaps she'd grown so used to the light and the noise that their absence disturbed her?

Or was it the soft puff of air brushing her back?

Slowly she turned over, and the sleepy, burgeoning confusion and shock never got a chance to take hold of her. The moment she laid eyes on Kakashi the memories of the night filtered back. She remembered the gentle pleasure and the tears, and how hollow she'd felt afterwards… and cleansed. When had she fallen asleep? When had Kakashi, for that matter? How had that even been possible for either of them?

But what should have been a supremely awkward moment felt rather ordinary, and natural in its simplicity. Kakashi was still fast asleep, stretched out on his stomach at a semi-respectable distance, and perhaps because of this unguarded state Sakura was able to look upon him without fear or panic or nail-biting embarrassment. When he woke the acute anxiety might very well come flooding back, but until then she almost felt content to bask in their last intimate moments together. There would never be another night like this, she thought.

There was relief with that thought… and something else too. Something that made her heart knock against her ribs. Audibly.

No… that sound wasn't her heart. Sakura blearily lifted her head from the pillow. Those were footsteps coming up the stairs, staggering and heavy.

A jolt of pure adrenaline shot through Sakura, more effective than any shrill alarm clock. She reached to grab Kakashi's shoulder, intending to shake him, but the noise had penetrated his sleep and he shifted onto his side the same moment Sakura sat up. Both of them had their attention trained on the door, listening as the footsteps stopped at the top of the stairs at the end of the corridor. They waited. It could have been one of the staff, or any one of the other guests.

The sound of a slurred, drunken curse removed all doubt, and suddenly the footsteps started up again, approaching, fast. Kakashi hissed an expletive beneath his breath, and faster than Sakura had ever seen him move, he scrambled out of the bed, grabbed his clothes and flung himself out of the window – half a second before the door slammed open and Jin appeared, swaying.

"Still up I see…" he said thickly through his mask. And although it was no guarantee he could see straight in the state he was in, Sakura discreetly tried to inch herself across the futon to obscure the imprint in the pillow and the rumpled sheets that Kakashi had left behind. "You sssshould come out with us some time, Saku-chan. Free drinks for girls in some places, you know. I'd like to see you let your hair down… unwind those panties from your cunny."

Sakura's lip curled in revulsion as he stumbled forward, laughing at his own joke. The nauseating stench of booze washed over her. "You stink," she muttered.

"Of the best beer in all the five nations!" he cheered, throwing out his hands. "Isn't the fire country just the besssst?"

He stepped on her yukata which lay discarded on the floor and looked down at it in confusion for a moment. Then his greedy, lecherous eyes wandered back to her and over her bare arms and shoulders. "Waiting up for me?"

Sakura's fingers clenched the sheets to her chest so tightly they were in danger of tearing. "Get out!" she yelled, not caring if she woke the whole of the inn. In fact, she hoped so.

"Guys can get real tired of the hard-to-get act, sweetie," Jin sniggered, moving closer to the futon. "Everyone can see you're dying for a real man to teach you a lesson."

To her horror, his shaking, fumbling hands moved to his belt and he began to unbutton himself. "What the hell are you doing?" she demanded, not nearly as loud as before. Humiliation choked her.

"Just stay quiet," he rumbled. "No one has to know, if I pull out in time…"

The kunai was beneath her pillow. She would cut it off before it ever came near her, and as he came to kneel on the end of futon, still fighting with his belt, she slipped her hand behind her to close her hand firmly around her weapon.

At exactly the same second, another man stormed into the room. Jin never knew what hit him – and what hit him was the corridor wall when Kakashi seized him by the straps of his uniform and hurled him back out through the door. It wasn't the first time Jin had been knocked unconscious this way. Kakashi only paused long enough to make sure he was out cold before turning back to Sakura, running a hand down his severely rumpled shirt which was almost certainly on backwards. He appeared to have dressed in quite a hurry. "You, ok?" he asked.

She shrugged and rolled her eyes. A drunken Jin was more of a danger to himself than anyone else. "It's nothing," she said.

He raised an eyebrow, almost certainly capable of distinguishing 'nothing' from 'something'. "Well then," he sighed. "I better take him back to his room."

"Of course," Sakura agreed cordially, watching him turn away to finish zipping the fly he'd forgotten. "And thank you."

He paused, perhaps to ask what she was thanking him for, but then he seemed to decide against him. Just as well; Sakura didn't think she was thankful that he'd cheated her of a good excuse to make Jin bleed. But as she watched him pick up Jin's arm and artlessly drag him away down the hall she wasn't sure exactly what she felt… except that maybe an important chance to seal and end to their affair on a fitting note had just slipped away from her.

For that, she could thank Jin.


It was, as they called it, 'the mother pot', or the 'jack load', if Sai remembered his idioms correctly. He had only come into this little corner shop to ask the keeper some questions about reportedly shifty looking characters who had been seen loitering in the area (Danzou's regime frowned heavily on teenagers with enough spar time to loiter when they could have been signing up to Root). When he'd seen the badly fitted rug that matched nothing else in an otherwise meticulously decorated bookshop, he'd been curious. When he'd seen the trapdoor beneath it, he'd been suspicious.

Now he was standing in the basement, next to a worried shopkeeper who couldn't stop wringing his hands- and for a good reason. He definitely wasn't licensed to hold this kind of stock. Plunging his hand into the nearest sack, Sai lifted a handful of ultra high quality rice grains and watched them run between his fingers like sand. "Are you aware that due to southern volcanic activities, rice production is down more than thirty percent, and varieties such as this are currently subject to strict rationing?"

"I had this stuff saved since before the rationing," the shopkeeper said, a curious mix between defiant and terrified.

"And it's all for your own personal use?"

"Of course."

"And you're not, say, selling it on for a neat profit?"

"Uh..."

Sai moved on from the sacks of rice to more interesting boxes containing foods that had been outright banned by Danzou's council for violating newly imposed health standards or protectionist policies. Not only was Suna's Hard Rock candy bad for your teeth, they were unpatriotic. He looked at the sweating shopkeeper. "I have been tasked by the Hokage himself to root out the rats of the black market and destroy it by any means necessary, which includes carrying out whatever punishments I feel are appropriate to guilty parties. This is not your lucky day."

"Steady on!" cried the shopkeeper. "A guy's got to make a living! Books don't sell as well these days since all the bestsellers like Icha Icha got banned."

"Times are tough for everyone," Sai said indifferently. "Everyone must make sacrifices for the greater good, but people like you grow fat off the suffering of others by stealing food from one person to sell on to the next at extortionate prices."

"My prices are very reasonable," said the shopkeeper, betrayed by his indignity.

"ANBU will be pleased to hear that," said Sai, taking the old man by the elbow to usher him back to the ladder leading to the shop floor. He would definitely earn some points from Danzou for stumbling on this little cache of illegal goods.

"Wait a minute! Can't we come to some sort of arrangement?" the shopkeeper begged. "I'm not hurting anybody, and surely there's something here that would be of interest to you."

Sai paused. "Are you offering me a bribe?" he asked, surprised.

"Of course not, sir!" spluttered the old man, "I would never presume someone as respectable as yourself would ever be so corrupt as to accept a bribe, and I myself would never dream of dishonouring you or myself by bartering for leniency!"

Sai sighed. "Pity." Bribery would have been an intriguing experience. He began pushing the man for the ladder again.

"B-but if you were open to a gift that would show my appreciation for all the hard work you do for this village...?"

Sai pulled up short again. "What did you have in mind?"

The man rushed to a cupboard at the end of the cellar and flung it open. "The finest wine and sake in Konoha, from the orchards of the earth country!"

Sai didn't drink, and so remained unmoved.

"Magazines!" the shopkeeper cried, ripping open a box of gentlemen's special interest literature. "You don't see girls like this anymore on the top shelf."

Sai hadn't ever been that interested in porn either, and though there were some excellent models that could be used for references, he preferred more realistically proportioned men and women for his artwork.

Seeing he had once again failed to interest, the shopkeeper gestured towards him. "I see your hands are covered in ink stains and you carry the odour of oils. Would you by any chance happen to be an artist?"

Sai looked at his hands, and realized to others he must look like a stereotypical artist or one very mucky pen-pusher. "I am."

"Then perhaps you would be interested in these?"

From behind a mound of grain he dragged a box that must have been sitting there a long time to have gathered this much dust. He brought it to Sai and folded back the flaps for him to examine the contents, and when Sai looked inside he would have gaped if he had been capable of such strong emotional reactions.

Reaching inside he withdrew one small, dusty bottle of Jet ink. Anyone else standing there might have said, 'But Sai! There are plenty of ink bottles on sale at the stationary shop!', because the quality of Jet ink was known only to specialists like himself. This was the finest ink there was, pure black, waterproof, and with just the right viscosity that it would spread from a brush like liquid silk. All specialists like himself coveted such quality, but supplies had run low as border tensions increased and the art supply shop Sai had once frequented went out of business. He hadn't been able to procure this ink for months now.

And beneath these bottles were palettes of paints, rarer still for being imports.

Sai looked at the shopkeeper, mildly astonished. "Where did you get all this?" he asked.

"I couldn't possibly name my suppliers, but it's well understood that the Hokage's barons always have a little spare of everything going, and they would hardly notice if one were to skim a little off the side." The shopkeeper pushed the box towards Sai. "Have the whole lot if you like. This stuff is a bit too niche to sell on anyway since no one else wants it."

Certainly none of barons could appreciate the kind of fortune Sai held in his hands. "How much would you have sold a bottle of ink for?" he asked, holding up the Jet.

"Oh, a couple of ryo," explained the shopkeeper. "Or less depending on what a customer could afford."

Sai blinked. "But this box is worth hundreds," he said.

"And it costs nothing to liberate from the philistines living in their fancy mansions who couldn't tell watercolours from poster paint," confided the old man, winking at him. "Better that it goes to those who need it than those who have it simply because they can afford it."

"Do you get all of this stuff from the barons?" Sai inquired.

"All of it. The restrictions and bans don't apply to them, you know."

"And they don't notice?"

"You should see how much they throw out. The contents of one of their garbage cans could feed a family for a week. What's so bad about scavenging this stuff before they waste it?"

"And could you get more?" Sai asked, "Of this ink and paints and such?"

"Absolutely!" The shopkeeper clapped his hands, delighted. "I have some people working in their houses... all they have to do is wait for their next big bulk order of scatter cushions of whatever, and slip a little Jet ink with the rest and in a week or two I'd have it here ready to be picked up for a fraction of its usual cost."

"Amazing," said Sai, tucking the box beneath his arm. He started for the ladder.

"So you don't plan to report me?" the shopkeeper asked hopefully, hurrying after him.

"For what?" Sai had already weighed his options. If he turned this man in, the best he would get was a proverbial pat on the head from his superiors, so it seemed to Sai that his most profitable course of action was to reap the benefits of the corruption that said superiors enjoyed, and keep this source of cheap food and art supplies open.

Danzou could not fault him for his amoral brand of logic; it was the one Root had installed in him after all.


The riverside was a very quiet place at midday. In other towns and villages, on a sunny day like this, one would have to beat others away with a stick if they wanted a whole park to themselves, but the echelons of Otafuku Gai wouldn't be seen dead out of bed before well into the afternoon. This left the best part of the day to the early risers like Kakashi and Sakura who left their hung-over teammates drooling in their beds to take a walk down the empty park paths. The spot they'd found beside the riverbank was beautifully secluded and sheltered. While Kakashi reclined and read his book, Sakura lay back on the soft grass and closed her eyes, soaking in the rays of the sun that she had begun to miss.

There was nothing for them to do now but wait. In another week Sakura would be able to take the first pregnancy test, and then they would find out if their efforts had paid off. In the mean time, they were back to not discussing it. Old habits were far too easy to slip back into, and neither of them had mentioned what had taken place between them on their last night together, or questioned if it had changed things between them.

Things evidently had changed however. Kakashi was no longer planting himself in bars to avoid her, and Sakura had stopped shutting herself in her room to avoid everyone. This was a vast improvement for both of them, but to say things were back to the way they had been before would be a mistake. It was impossible to do the kind of things they had done and not feel different around one another, even if they could do their best to pretend, and the odd little hesitation or pause or sideways glance showed the pretence wasn't so perfect.

A splash made Sakura jump. She sat up, but all there was to see was a duck floating backside-up in the water, making a noise every time it dived. There was no reason to be so jumpy - they weren't doing anything wrong, but these days she couldn't shake the feeling that simply being alone with Kakashi was an illicit activity. They'd had a narrow escape when Jin had almost walked in on them in flagrante, and ever since then, Sakura had been especially wary of their chaperones. Idiots they might have been, but if they ever came to suspect anything…?

Deciding the duck probably wasn't an agent of Danzou, Sakura gathered the remaining half of her sandwich and shredded the bread to throw into the river. The bird paddled over with an agreeable quack, gobbling down the bits of soggy bread with gusto.

"I thought you were saving that sandwich for later," Kakashi noted.

"The bachelor duck needed it more," she said, trying to see if she could land a piece on the duck's back.

"You shouldn't forget to eat. It isn't healthy," he cautioned her.

She didn't mind his concern as long as he didn't mither her to death. "You sound like a fussy old grandmother," she retorted, shooting him an annoyed glance, that ended up flicking over his long, solid frame. There was no confusing this man for an elderly woman, that was for sure.

Sakura quickly returned her attention to the duck, wishing she would stop noticing things like that. She'd been trying so hard not to acknowledge Kakashi as a man since the beginning of their short, perfunctory affair, but it had been a whole lot harder since the night when, at least for a little while, they'd been real lovers.

She'd been right to want to resist that kind of involvement. She'd worried it would cloud her feelings and her judgement and that was exactly what was happening. But the discomfort and pain that she'd truly feared had not come. When she looked at Kakashi, she didn't see Hiroshi. That was all she could have asked for.

Her sandwiches reduced to crumbs, Sakura rolled up the foil and stuffed it into her pocket with a deep sigh. That was Kakashi's cue. He snapped his book shut and rose to his feet. "Come on. If we step lively we'll catch the matinee at the cinema."

"I'm not watching Icha Icha 3 again," Sakura warned. "Five times was enough."

"We won't," he said, and as Sakura got up he added, "they're showing the first two back-to-back."

Sakura made a sound in her throat like thunder, but a few hours in a dark room staring at a screen was as good a way to waste time as any. "If we must," she said, as if heavily put upon, and turned to leave.

She froze when Kakashi reached out to her, stroking his fingers through his hair. Oh no, she thought. This was exactly what she was afraid of. He'd gone and got a false expectation of their relationship and now-

But then Kakashi retracted his hand and showed her the strands of dead grass that had been caught in her hair with a faint smile. "Oh," she said, feeling like she'd missed the last step on a flight of stairs. "Thank you."

Like the perfect companionable gentleman, Kakashi gestured for her to lead the way. "Shall we?" he suggested, every bit her platonic friend.

Sakura looked at his gesturing hand and remembered the way it had run over her naked hip. She could probably count the calluses off the top of her head. Instead she squeezed her eyes shut briefly and turned away, heading back towards the path through the trees.


The Icha Icha trilogy was a classic. Kakashi couldn't understand Sakura's reluctance to witness such art in motion, but despite her insistence that she couldn't stand the films, once she was settled into graze-mode with a pitcher of soda in one hand and a box of popcorn in the other, she was a fairly content customer, even if she stared at the screen the way a dog stared at the TV –transfixed more by the moving pictures than the story.

In the dark theatre, they had chosen seats as close to the front as possible. Kakashi knew all too well what kind of films these places showed late at night and what kind of things the people in the back rows got up to. Even in the middle of the day there were some strange looking loners huddled around the back of the theatre, although Kakashi was pretty certain that anyone who went to see an Icha Icha marathon had impeccable taste and good moral hygiene.

He glanced over to make sure Sakura wasn't too bored. Her eyes were half-closed and she was munching steadily on the popcorn. When she noticed him looking at her she met his gaze questioningly. She offered him her popcorn –reluctantly, he felt – in case that was what he was after. It wasn't, but he accepted a handful and gave her a smile.

Kakashi was about to turn his attention back to the screen, where it deservedly belonged, when he glanced up to someone sitting in the half shadows at the very end of the last row. Another one of those peculiar characters… but the moment Kakashi glanced at him, the figure's head moved ever so slightly, as if until that moment he had been watching Kakashi.

Perturbed, Kakashi forced his gaze back to the movie, though he was no longer paying attention to the storyline. While Sakura slurped noisily at her soda, Kakashi discreetly polished the metal protector guarding the back of his glove with his sleeve until it shone as clearly as any mirror. A little subtle repositioning, under the guise of folding his arms, and Kakashi could see the reflected image of the figure in the protector.

He was definitely watching them.

Most likely it was Jin or Ari, or someone else Danzou had sent. But it seemed strange that after weeks of no surveillance they would suddenly be tailed, unless something had happened to cause them to be suspicious in the eyes of their teammates. What if Jin had finally decided that knock on his head hadn't really been caused by falling over, drunk, as Kakashi kept telling him? What if someone had seen him and Sakura together, or leaving the love hotel?

Yet Jin and Ari weren't the only enemies they had in this place. What if it was Hiroshi? Or someone sent by Hiroshi?

What if it was just a regular pervert who was trying to check Sakura out?

Kakashi couldn't be sure until they left the theatre. Until the end of the film he kept up the pretence, laughing at the right moments and stealing Sakura's popcorn when she left it unguarded, but checked on the reflection in his metal protector every few moments to keep an eye on their admirer. As soon as the credits began to roll, he grabbed Sakura's hand and dragged her out of the theatre faster than an Icha Icha film deserved.

"What's up with you?" Sakura asked, jogging along behind him as they plunged through the queues for the next showing. "Don't you want to see Part Two?"

"I'll pass," he said, glancing over his shoulder once before pulling her through a set of doors into another dark theatre.

Sakura took one look at what was playing on the screen and blanched. "Um… it's ok, you know… I wouldn't say no to seeing another Icha Icha film. We don't have to watch… this."

Kakashi, who was busy peering back out the circular windows in one of the doors glanced over to see what she meant. "Oh." Porn.

"What are you looking at?" Sakura asked, noticing he was more interested in what was going on out in the corridor than what was happening on the screen. She came up beside him to squint through the second window.

"There was a guy back there… I think – there is he. Get down."

They both stepped back out of sight as the dark-haired man in the hood strode past the entrance of the theatre, heading for the exit. Once out of sight, they both poked their heads up again.

"What was that about?" Sakura asked. "You don't owe him money, do you?"

She was probably having flashbacks to her days with Tsunade. "That guy just walked out in the middle of an Icha Icha double bill," Kakashi pointed out to her. "He's obviously up to no good."

Sakura gave him a stupefied look. "Maybe he has standards."

He ignored the taunt. "He was watching us the entire time we were in there, and now he's probably trying to follow us."

Sakura blinked, and the significant silence that followed as she realised the implications of being tailed was spoiled a little by the keening orgasmic cries of the woman in the film. Kakashi did his best to ignore it.

"Someone working for Hiroshi?" she breathed. He imagined being tracked down by that man was pretty high on her list of fears right now.

"Maybe," he said, trying to sound reassuring. "Let's just go back to the inn and see if it's been compromised. We may have to move, although it's probably just Jin or Ari."

"Didn't look like Jin or Ari to me."

"Yeah, well, neither one of us know what they look like beneath those masks. Come on."

Every theatre had its fire escape, and together they slipped out into an alley through the emergency exit beneath the screen and made their way back to the inn along a convoluted path of the quietest streets. They saw no more suspicious figures looming in the shadows, and when they reached the inn, nothing appeared to have been disturbed, though neither Jin and Ari were anywhere to be found.

"I think we're safe here," Kakashi said.

"I don't like this," said Sakura, sitting upon her rolled up futon and biting down on her thumb nail without breaking it.

"I know…"

"That bitch has been in here cleaning again," she sighed.

He snorted. "For a moment there I thought you might actually be worried about being followed."

"Oh, believe me, I don't like that either!" Restlessly, she rose and kicked her futon open and threw down her bedding as haphazardly as possible, like a hamster that couldn't be happy with her new clean cage until she'd completely rearranged her nest to be as messy and comfortable as possible. "Why would someone be following us? I mean, could it be the two idiots? Why would they suddenly start doing their jobs? They haven't cared before about chaperoning us… unless, Jin actually saw us and remembers and-"

"Jin doesn't remember anything," he interrupted.

"How do you know?"

"He'd be insufferable if he did. He'd probably rather blackmail us first before bothering to report to Danzou."

Flopping down in her nest, Sakura resumed biting her nails. "Then what if it's someone working for Hiroshi? If he's discovered I'm still alive, I could see him sending someone after me to finish the job."

"Is he that vindictive?" Kakashi asked quietly.

"Yes," she said, with absolute certainty, and if anyone knew that man, Sakura did. She probably knew him better than his own family.

Kakashi sighed and rubbed his mouth through his mask. "Perhaps it's best if we leave here sooner rather than later," he said. "How many days till the end of your cycle?"

"About five," she said, frowning.

"Good." He nodded to himself. "You should take an early pregnancy test tomorrow."

Sakura's hands twisted in her lap. "Those aren't always accurate," she warned quietly.

"It doesn't matter. Whatever the result, we can use it as an excuse to go home, back to Konoha."

He saw her blink rapidly, computing the possibility that they would be able to leave as soon as tomorrow. Maybe she'd begun to think that she would never get out of this town? Or maybe she was leery of the prospect of taking the test? He had to admit… he wasn't sure he wanted to know the result. He wasn't even sure which result he was hoping for.

"Ok", she said, nodding in bemusement after a long pause. "We'll do that."

Kakashi smiled supportively for her, and passed his hand over her head, ruffling her rosy locks despite her calmly disgruntled expression. He had to stop and pull himself back when he found his thoughts drifting back to how those beautiful locks had looked splayed out across the pillow when he had finally made her come.

He packed up a pack of cards from the window ledge. "Go fish?" he offered.


Admittedly, Sakura hadn't gotten much sleep that night. She blamed it on her full head and full bladder, after Kakashi had insisted she drink at least two glasses of water before bed. She was still awake when she heard Ari and Jin return in the early hours of the morning, stumbling around like a true pair of idiots down the corridor. Sakura reached for the kunai under her pillow and held it at the ready, but nine times out of ten, they never bothered her. They carried on past her door to the room they shared with Kakashi.

How he coped with such louts, she would never know, but she had the greatest respect for Kakashi's obviously god-like patience. However, he might have been just a selectively heavy sleeper.

She slept for a little while after that. She was too tired not to. But before the clock turned to seven, the insistent press of her bladder had become too much to tolerate. She rolled out of bed like a bloated seal and half hopped and tiptoed her way down the corridor to the bathroom.

It was almost within reach when someone stepped out in front of her.

" What, are you camping out the bathroom now?" she cursed Kakashi, dancing on the spot. "Out of my way!"

"Need to pee?" he asked, refusing to move.

"If you don't get out of my way, I can't be held responsible for what will happen!" she threatened.

"You might want this," he said, handing her a small white box. Sakura knew what it was without looking at it, because even in her state of desperation she could trust Kakashi to never forget a trifling detail like a pregnancy test.

"Maybe later," she said, trying to duck around him.

"Maybe now. You know it's most accurate first thing in the morning."

"Alright! Just don't stand outside the door or anything." Accepting the box, she finally managed to barge past him and shut herself into the bathroom.

In retrospect, it was a good thing she was desperate for the toilet or she may have ended up pacing the length of the bathroom at least fifty times before she considered even opening the pregnancy test box, as she had last time. It was like receiving her medic qualification exam results, and not wanting to open the envelope and remove all doubt about the result in case it was the one she didn't want. This time, however, there wasn't a result wanted. There was no 'passing' or 'failing' a pregnancy test; you were either pregnant or you weren't, and neither option appealed to Sakura.

The feeling that all her supposed 'choices' converged into one lump of hopelessness removed much of her hesitation. What was there to fear when there was nothing to look forward to? She tore the box open and blitzed through the instructions which were always the same. Here was a stick: piss on the stick.

It was only when the deed was done and the 120 second countdown began that Sakura started to feel anxious. She set the test down on the sink, picked it up again, walked to the door, and then walked back, placing the test face down on the toilet seat instead.

Two minutes must have come and gone, and Sakura played with the ends of her hair, trying to work up the courage to pick the test up again. Just get it over with, she told herself sternly, and flinched – almost reaching for the white stick but failing. It's not like it matters which result you get.

She must have been waiting too long. Kakashi tapped on the door. "Everything alright in there?"

"I thought I told you not to stand outside?" she shot back.

"I'm not," he replied, "You've been in there for ten minutes. How long does the test take?"

That got to her. Nothing gave her courage like the need to put on a strong, capable front for Kakashi. She snatched up the test at once and stared at the indicator for a few seconds before she could fathom its meaning.

And then Sakura learnt she had been wrong. It did matter, and she had not realised how desperately she had been needing to see that little blue line until it was there and her knees were threatening to buckle beneath the powerful wave of relief. Because there really was no other word to describe it. A relief…

It was a relief.

Slowly she ditched the stick into the bin and calmly unlocked the door before Kakashi could begin knocking again. "It's ok," she said, noticing his taut expression. "It worked. I'm pregnant."

The second she said it, the cooling relief that had soothed her fled, replaced instead by a gu-churning sensation that rose up like nausea. The corridor spun and she pressed a hand to her head as if staving off the most sudden and violent migraine of her life. "Oh god," she gasped, short of breath all of a sudden. "I'm pregnant…"


Ari and Jin were sceptical at first. They were naturally suspicious of anything Sakura claimed, but even they couldn't deny the impartial readings on the pregnancy test.

Jin might have seemed… almost disappointed. His time of gadding around with strippers and prostitutes and tormenting Sakura on a daily basis was coming to a close, and his carefully feigned indifference was far too cold to be genuine. Ari, by contrast, seemed perfectly happy to leave Otafuku Gai.

"That maid," he said, "was beginning to get clingy anyway."

"So much for being sterile," Jin sneered at Sakura as he pushed past her abruptly. For once she barely reacted; no glaring, no teeth grinding, no threats being spat out. It wasn't like she could correct him and protest that she hadn't lied about Hiroshi, but this time Sakura looked as if she thought she might have deserved Jin's snide remarks.

"I suggest we all pack our bags. I'd like to be out of here before noon," Kakashi said, and watched Sakura drift back to her room like an automaton. Was she really that calm, or was she in shock? He knew that a good man would have gone after her, to comfort or reassure her, but right now he assumed that she wanted to be alone – because that was exactly what he wanted. As much as he'd tried to prepare himself for this almost inevitable news, it still struck him like a sledgehammer. To the gut.

When they went back to their respective rooms, Kakashi slipped away for some air. The morning was crisp and blessedly cool on his face, and the streets were quiet enough to provide a sense of peace, but not so quiet he stood out. What was one more dead-eyed roughed up man wandering the streets of Otafuku Gai?

There were three things they said about this town. You came here either to lose your virginity, your money, or yourself. If you stayed too long you lost them all, and everything after that too.

Well, he had survived, and most importantly, so had Sakura. The long weeks of standing helplessly by while his young friend was disassembled and misused, to become the tool Danzou desired her to be and nothing more. Well, now they had cheated the system, and cheated the Hokage. Mission accomplished, they were going home, traitors and subverters. Their pyrrhic victory was a hollow one.

But they were alive, and they were going home, and although they would keep tapping to the Hokage's tune, one day the opportunity to take back the village would be theirs. And whatever child was born of this union would never have to know tyranny.

Whatever child…

Kakashi pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes until lights flashed against his eyelids. He couldn't undo what was now done, and he had to face the fact he was complicit in creating a child for convenience, and whether or not it grew up to see another revolution that would free Konoha, what kind of life had he condemned it to? Even if a legitimate Hokage was restored, and the people who had fled returned, and everything was back to how it had been before… it would never be the same. Not for him, and certainly not for Sakura.

When his hands dropped from his face, he took a moment to steel himself. There was packing to be done, however minimal, and then they would be returning to Konoha. They'd be reporting to Danzou by the end of the day, and whether their scheme had truly saved them would be decided then. In the mean time, he had to bury his fears for the future. Sakura had to see he was confident about what they were doing, even if that was far from the truth.

He was about to turn back in the direction of the inn when he noticed, too late, that he was being watched. At the mouth of an alley stood the dark-haired man he had seen at the theatre, and no longer was he pretending to appear to be just another bystander. He was staring at Kakashi just as boldly as Kakashi stared back.

A slight jerk of the head, beckoning him, and the figure vanished back into the alley out of sight.

For several moments Kakashi remained firmly planted in the middle of the street. Basic training screamed that you did not follow your stalkers into dark, secluded places where the possibility of being surrounded and overwhelmed were high. But those intending you harm didn't usually act this audaciously.

Kakashi began to move toward the alley. Yes, it might have been a trap, and if so it was a damn blatant one, but he'd walked into others before and lived to tell the tale. If this was someone who intended Sakura harm, it might just as easily be the perfect opportunity to dispatch them.

But the alley was empty. Kakashi followed it till it ended in a high brick wall, garbage bags piled high and well rotted. He didn't sense anyone nearby but he looked around carefully. If his stalker hadn't scaled the walls and fled over the rooftops, the only place he could have gone was through the old wooden door to his right that had been left slightly ajar… invitingly so.

Definitely a trap, he thought with a sigh.

That wasn't going to stop him from strolling right into it. He was not in the mood to be trifled with today, of all days, and if anyone planned to jump him on the other side of that door he would – for the first and last time – unleash upon them the turbulent anger and violence that he'd had to hold in check ever since Danzou had first approached him to take part in his inhumane directives.

Placing a few fingers to the brass handle, Kakashi probed for traps with a little exploratory chakra. If there was any nasty surprise that would be set off by opening the door, like an exploding tag, the crackling clash of chakra would warn him. Feeling nothing, however, Kakashi tentatively pushed the door open and stepped into the darkness-

Instantly, something smacked him on the head. The blow wasn't hard, but it was enough to make Kakashi stiffen and snatch his kunai from its holster to ward off the next assault. He'd sensed nothing – no intent, no presence – who or what had just conked him?

The offending weapon lay on the ground, and he crouched slowly to pick it up, scowling in bewilderment when he realised what it was.

"A shoe…?"

"You're so easy! I can't believe you still fall for that!"

The dark haired man came forward into the light from the door and slapped a light switch on the wall to fill the storage room with stark, flickering light. That was when Kakashi realised he didn't have dark hair at all. He was a blond. And now he had whisker marks on his cheeks…

"Naruto?" He knew it was true but still he couldn't help sounding uncertain.

"Do you know how hard you are to find, Sensei?" Naruto was grinning at him like a lunatic, making it hard to believe he was one of the most hunted men on the continent. "I had to bribe at least three people back in Konoha before I got even the vaguest idea of where you'd been sent out, and Otafuku Gai ain't exactly a small place to comb. When I finally did find you yesterday at the cinema, I could have sworn you actually tried to ditch me. Can I have my shoe back, please?"

"That was you?" Kakashi said, obligingly handing the shoe back that Naruto had placed above the door. "Why didn't you come over?"

"I had to make sure you were alone. Danzou's got eyes everywhere you know, and I've seen the two masked men hanging around you two. They're a pain to get round." As Naruto hopped, jamming his lost shoe on, Kakashi examined him carefully. If not for his distinguishing features it would have been hard to recognise him after all these years. It might have been easy to mistake him for his father than his younger self. "But no big deal. I'm here now."

"Right…"

"You did try to contact me, right? I got the message you needed to see me."

Kakashi shook his head faintly. "Naruto, that was months ago."

"And I only got the message a couple of weeks back," Naruto said defensively. "I wish I could give you a more direct method of contact, but you know how easy it is for them to track those sorts of things. What was it you wanted, anyway? I know you don't take risks like that for nothing."

Kakashi was still lost for words – and thoughts. Here was Naruto in the flesh after he'd had to convince himself and Sakura that contacting him was so close to impossible that it was hardly worth the risk trying. He'd never gotten his hopes up. He hadn't even thought about the possibility that Naruto would eventually show up or he never would have accepted Sakura's proposal.

Even when masked, his students had always demonstrated an unnerving capacity to read his face without ever actually seeing it. "You're not pleased to see me, are you?" Naruto observed sadly.

"No, that's not it," Kakashi said quickly. "I only… really wish you had gotten here sooner."

"Why?" Naruto's face began to harden with concern. "What's wrong?"

It was a simple enough question, but Kakashi didn't know how to begin explaining all the things that were wrong in the world and how Naruto's appearance now only further complicated matters. But he was spared formulating any insultingly sanitised explanation of Sakura's mission when they both heard soft footsteps on the moist gravel of the alley, coming closer.

Naruto didn't react. However, Kakashi spun abruptly and moved directly in front of Naruto to shield him from sight and attack if need be. If it was Jin or Ari, consequences be damned, he would have to kill them.

Yet the hand that pushed the door wider was feminine… and in stepped Sakura.

Kakashi might have preferred one of the idiots.

She stared at him, non-plusssed, then her gaze swept the room full of boxes and storage containers. "Kakashi?" she murmured inquiringly. "What are you doing in here?"

Kakashi felt the shove as Naruto barged past him. No wall or person would separate him from his old teammate, and with a jubilant cry of, "Sakura-chan!" he threw his arms around her with all the delight Kakashi had ever seen him muster, every bit of it as genuine and whole-hearted as everything else Naruto said and did.

And while Kakashi saw the shock register on Sakura's face a second before she accepted the embrace, she didn't once smile.

And if she couldn't summon it for her best friend, he knew her smile was gone for good.


TBC