Scarlet Scroll

Sunlight


"You look so different, Sakura-chan!"

Sakura stood back as far as Naruto's arms would allow and looked her old friend up and down. "You're one to talk," she told him, noticing he'd had to temerity to grow yet again. Not only that, his face had lost the round boyishness she was used to, and she could only assume he hadn't been eating enough, or that this was perhaps what happened without his steady diet of ramen. Then again, he might have just finally grown up. No matter what, he still grinned like an idiot, reassuring her that no matter how bad things had gotten for him, he was still the boy who'd fled Konoha with a wink and a wave and a promise that he'd come back when it was time to become Hokage.

Sakura wished she could say the same about herself.

However, there were more important things to address than superficial changes. "What are you doing here, Naruto?" she asked, before letting her gaze slide to Kakashi. "What are you doing here, for that matter?"

Kakashi lifted his chin, choosing to ignore her question. "Were you followed?" he asked shortly.

"I don't know," she responded coolly, "I didn't realise you were off to a clandestine meeting when I followed you. Had I known I might have thought to check, so maybe you should have told me?"

"It's not Kakashi-sensei's fault, Sakura-chan," Naruto said quickly. "I took him by surprise."

She stared at him, horrified. "Naruto, you can't just pop around for a surprise chat when you feel like it! You have the whole village out to get you and two agents of Root could be heading this way as we speak. It's nice to see you, but it's not worth the risk of being caught."

He held up his hands. "Chill, Sakura-chan!" he cried out. "Kakashi-sensei asked me to come. Right, Sensei?"

"You asked him to come?" Sakura repeated, looking to an uncomfortable Kakashi for confirmation. What the hell had he been thinking? More importantly, how had he been able to contact the number one untraceable ninja?

"Before we began the mission, I tried to get a message to Naruto for help. I didn't think he'd really receive it... not after so much time," Kakashi sighed and dragged the nail of his thumb across his eyebrow. "If I'd known he would come, I swear to you Sakura, I wouldn't have... I wouldn't have agreed to it."

Naruto's smile began to fade in the midst of confusion. He looked between his former teammates. "Well, it's ok," he said. "I'm here now. What was it you guys wanted?"

His question was met with a resounding silence. Sakura went so still she might have even stopped breathing while Kakashi's gaze had dropped to floor and stuck there. Neither made any attempt to answer the question, and Naruto felt like one trapped between two grinding stones. "What?" he demanded, brows knitting together. "What aren't you telling me? Has someone died?"

"Nothing as bad as that," Kakashi reassured him, though Sakura's disbelieving scoff said otherwise.

"Ok," Naruto said slowly, unconsciously inching out from between them. "What was it you wanted from me?"

Kakashi lifted his hand as if to gesticulate, then dropped it was a defeated sigh. "I wanted to know if you could get Sakura out of Konoha," he said. "If you could take her with you."

"Why?" he spun to look back at Sakura. "Did something happen? What's wrong?"

"There's no point now," she said, blinking flatly. "It's too late."

"It's not too late," Kakashi told her. "You could leave with Naruto right now-"

"You can't," she interrupted, voice struggling to remain even. "You can't put me through all this and the tell me there was a way out all along! I didn't go with Naruto in the first place because I was scared I'd hold him back and get us both killed, you think I'm going to be able to keep up with him now?"

"I wanted you to have the choice," he said, his faint tone pleading with her. "But I gave up hope that he would come in time."

Naruto folded his arms loosely. "Look, guys, I kinda took a big risk coming here. Do you mind telling me what's going on?"

Like a diver about to take the final leap, Sakura sucked in a breath. "A mission," she told him shortly. "But Kakashi was mistaken. I'm sorry he wasted your time."

Maybe Kakashi was a little stung by her words, for he looked at her silently for a moment before turning back to Naruto. "I have to check on our two idiot Root escorts and make sure they didn't follow us. I'm sorry I can't stay and catch up but I'm sure you two have a lot to say to one another, so I'll say goodbye now."

He reached up and brushed his hand over Naruto's head affection as he moved past them, even though Naruto was almost as tall as his Sensei now. And as Kakashi slipped out, Naruto turned back to Sakura, bemusement clouding his features. "Have you two fallen out over something?" he asked.

"A little bit," she admitted.

"It must be serious, you called him 'Kakashi'."

"Did I?" She no longer noticed these things. How she felt towards Kakashi was so muddled these days that the appropriate form of address escaped her. Sometimes it was only right and natural that she keep adding 'sensei' to his name, but at other times it was impossible to pretend he was still a teacher to her. "Don't worry about it, Naruto. Things are a bit tense at the moment."

The way he stared at her made her uncomfortable. It was the same way Kakashi looked when she was doing a poor job disguising her feelings and he pitied her too much to say anything. But Naruto didn't understand the same way. He didn't know what she was going through. "I know you keep saying you'll slow me down," he said, "but if you want to come with me, I don't mind. In fact, it'll be totally cool. I'm going to Suna next – Gaara's a complete stick in the mud when it comes to rallying support, always saying he's got to put his village first – but maybe I can talk them into letting you borrow some of Chiyo's study scrolls. I know how much you admire her techniques, and those guys still remember you and what you did for them."

Sakura's throat was threatening to closed over the lump that had risen. She swallowed and measured her breaths, determined to remain strong. "Maybe one day I'll get to go there again," she said quietly, "but a place like Suna is crawling with Root spies. You might be able to avoid capture with brute force if all else fails, but don't pretend that if I went with you it wouldn't be a case of you having to protect me every step of the way."

He grinned. "I don't mind-"

"I do," she said. "It was always safer that I remain in Konoha, and that's the only place I can be of use to you. You need supporters at home, Naruto."

"It would be nice to have company though," he sighed. "What with everyone wanting to catch me, it's getting kind of lonely."

"Who are you trying to kid, Naruto?" she scolded without ire. "You make friends wherever you go. It's like a supernatural power you have, I swear..."

"Yeah, but some places are pretty suspicious of a guy travelling alone. Couples are always less conspicuous," he said, getting a very old and very familiar glint in his eyes. "Hey, Sakura, hey, we could pretend to be, like, married."

Married? Sakura almost smiled. A little bundle of joy on the way would compliment that act quite nicely... but they were hardly an inconspicuous pair, and lugging around a pregnant woman was a sure way to shorten his days of freedom. "I don't think Hinata would forgive me," she told him mildly.

"Ha, yeah... that's true," he scratched his head, his thoughts drifting away as a faint pink tinge touched his cheeks.

Hinata's passionate declaration of love had literally been the talk of the town in the days after Pain's invasion, but since that moment events had conspired to keep them apart. Danzou had turned public opinion against Naruto so easily after Tsunade had passed away, and Hinata – already so painfully sensitive and shy – had withdrawn after Naruto had departed without ever once getting the chance to speak to her.

Sakura didn't know how her friend felt about the diffident Hyuuga, but bringing her up was a sure way to distract him from his other line of pursuit, and she sure as hell wasn't going to let him in on the truth and burst the illusion he'd wove around himself that his friends were fine and safe and there would always be hope. In today's climate, someone as positive and sweet-natured as Naruto had to be protected. If the world was allowed to drag him down to their level, the world would lose something very important.

"I'm glad I got the chance to see you again," she said, wondering as she said it if it would be the last time they would see each other for years. Or for ever. "You're kind of cute now, Naruto."

His pink cheeks nearly developed a full blaze of red. "Well, you were always beautiful," he muttered, chucking her jaw with a thumb and forefinger. "But... you look sadder these days too, Sakura-chan."

She tried to smile to reassure him, but her mouth felt weak and it came off more as a pained grimace. "Don't worry about me," she said. "I'm not the one with multiple divisions of Hunter nin on my tail."

Catching his hand, she squeezed it. "You should go before they come looking for me."

"Yeah." He nodded, but before either of them stepped away he launched forward, pulling her close in a tight embrace.

It was only Naruto, doing what Naruto did best, but in that split second Sakura felt a stab of pure panic shoot through her heart. He must have hugged her dozens of times –if not hundreds of times in the past, and never before had his arms felt transformed into a cage, like a vice attempting to smother her. She held herself rigid, battling the impulse to squirm free, or just collapse against him and cry. It was only Naruto.

She'd messed herself up pretty badly if her best friend's body terrified her. It felt like an excruciatingly prolonged minute before he drew back, frowning down at her slightly as if he sensed something was wrong with her. She could break down and apologise... explain everything to him.

Instead she lifted her head and gave him a nod with an assurance and courage she just didn't possess. "Goodbye, Naruto."

Only when his hands left her shoulders did she finally feel free to breathe. Then without a word he simply disappeared.

And Sakura was finally alone once more.

She took that moment for herself, dabbing at her eyes to check for treacherous moisture and straightening her dress in case it had been rumpled during Naruto's hug. When she was sure she presented an ordinary, if false, image to the world, she stepped out of the dim little storage room into the alley.

Kakashi hadn't gone all that far; he was standing against the wall only a few feet away. "You didn't tell him," he said.

Eavesdropper, she sighed inwardly. "No."

"He's going to find out," he cautioned. "It's not something you can hide."

"He doesn't have to know the truth," she said. "No one has to tell him about Hiroshi. I don't think he should ever learn about us."

Kakashi pushed away from the wall, and walked around her. He stopped short, just close enough to hear his grunt. "You're right. He can't know about this. Danzou will give you an official story to stick to... this'll be his truth as well as everyone else's."

How long could one live with such an enormous lie? Sakura wondered, but she had no answer. "Do you think we did the right thing?" she asked bleakly.

Kakashi didn't have any answers either. "I can't think about it anymore."

He turned and began to walk away, no doubt to catch up with Jin and Ari to start the long trip home. Sakura followed like a shadow and decided it was the last time she would ever ask. What was done was done, and the consequences were bridges they would have to figure out how to cross when they came.


The journey back to Konoha was longer than she'd anticipated on account of Kakashi forcing them to stop repeatedly for rests. This was for Sakura's benefit, he said. In 'her condition' hard travel wasn't advisable, even if Sakura herself felt no different than usual. That morning a little plastic stick had informed her she was pregnant, and if not for that she wouldn't have known. When she thought of all the classic symptoms of pregnancy she'd read in books or seen in television dramas, like morning sickness, bloating, glowing, she knew she had none of them. Maybe that would come later, she thought. And maybe then she would be used to the idea.

Meanwhile, the constant stops did nothing for her except try her patience. She'd thought she would be glad of the day she returned to Konoha, but she found that although she could leave Otafuku Gai without a backward glance, she wasn't looking forward to seeing her old home and friends either. She'd spent nearly twenty years carving out her place in Konoha, and now that she was returning there she was conscious of the fact she had changed and might no longer fit. What then? How would she explain all this to her mother? To her friends?

Every step made her feet feel heavier and the temptation to break away and flee into the forest was one with which she flirted half-heartedly. Yet when every time Kakashi called for a break and forced her to sit and take refreshments, she felt arrested. There was no desire to go on and still she had no desire to delay the inevitable.

She just wanted it all to be over with.

At least the two idiots didn't bother them much. They spent the entire trip walking a good few hundred yards ahead as if they were a little more homesick than either would admit, and the distance put them a long way out of earshot should Kakashi and Sakura have felt the need to discuss anything sensitive. Yet they didn't. In fact they didn't talk at all. Aside from suggestions of direction and when to pause, the journey was silent and neither appeared to notice. They each had their own thoughts to contend with. Feelings, normally such subdued and easily managed things, were running too high to trust speaking.

By the time they reached the gates of Konoha, Sakura just felt drained. She let the guards at the checkpoint poke and prod her, and let them needlessly quibble over the type of ink on her passport. They let through two established Root agents like Jin and Ari without much trouble, but she didn't care if they delayed her and Kakashi. They were only making the two idiots wait for them, and by extension, the Hokage himself.

When they were finally allowed through, Sakura got the sense of being marched to the Hokage tower. Her three male escorts closed around and cut through crowds like the prow of a ship through water. Sakura saw no one she recognised because she kept her gaze focused on the back of Kakashi's vest, and if anyone saw her she at least did not have to look them in the eye just yet.

At the Hokage tower they were ushered up the stairs and past the statue-like forms of the Root guards that lined the hallways, apparently paid to do nothing but stand around and look intimidating.

It was at this point that Sakura noticed a faintly amusing transformation had come over Jin and Ari. On the mission they had acted without fail like two spiteful little boys, full of obnoxious jokes and juvenile attitudes. In the Hokage tower they became the drones they had been forged to be, speaking to other drones in the same flat monotone they all communicated in, as if they had been successfully purged of all their emotions as their training demanded. When they reached the ante-chamber outside the Hokage's reception room where they would wait until being called, the two idiots took up station against the wall.

Sakura actually scoffed out loud at how ridiculous the whole thing was, but no one looked at her. They had to pretend they were so emotionless they couldn't even respond to her derision anymore.

And as usual Danzou, despite being informed of their arrival and obviously not busy, kept them waiting beyond a reasonable time. Sakura refused to show her impatience and sat on the bench against the wall without moving while Kakashi paced casually before her as if bored. He was a much better actor than her. Then again, he'd been in this program a lot longer.

She wondered how many times he'd been here with other women, waiting to be debriefed after a 'successful' mission.

But of course this time was different. There was no success here; the mission had been gravely compromised and the penalty for that didn't bear thinking about. They should have been nervous wrecks... and yet, Sakura felt remarkably calm right now. She'd been through too much and faced all her fears. An old man with gout didn't scare her anymore.

At last the doors were opened to Danzou's little throne room and they were escorted into the atmospherically dim chamber. The semi-circle of seats were full again today, and Sakura sank listlessly into the full kowtowing posture Danzou demanded. Kakashi didn't, however. That was interesting. Did he hold a higher position in Danzou's regime than she'd realised, or was he actually flaunting the rules?

"I am told your mission was a success," she heard Danzou say, an unidentified tone colouring his words. "Rise."

Sakura stood obediently and looked at Danzou.

He seemed amused with himself. "Of course, we will have to be sure," he went on, rising to his feet to approach them. While he was looking at Sakura she was sure he would address her, but she wasn't all that surprised when he moved past her and spoke to Kakashi as if she was no more than a witless animal who had been trotted out for show. "Did you find her performance adequate?"

Whether Danzou knew it or not, there could easily have been a double meaning to his question.

Kakashi remained impassive, staring into the distance like he too might have been Root's star pupil. "She is exemplary," he said evenly.

"Any complications with the target?" Danzou asked him.

"No, sir," Kakashi answered. "He did at one point attempt to murder Sakura and soon after fled, but fortunately the mission had already been completed."

"Did he realise her identity?"

"No, sir. I imagine he attempted to murder her because he was merely a violent psychopath, as I'm sure you are well aware of, Hokage-sama." The faint insinuation that Danzou had chosen Hiroshi for this trait specifically hung in the air like an elephant trying to hide in the corner.

Thankfully, Danzou was going to ignore it. "Good. Then I expect a full write-up within a week, and we shall see about moving you onto a new subject."

Kakashi might have inhaled a little sharply at this. Danzou didn't notice, as he'd already turned his attention back to Sakura. "You have served your village admirably," he said, like a proud grandfather. "You will be richly rewarded for your contribution. Once you are checked out by our private physician and your condition is confirmed, you will receive a five percent raise. Once the pregnancy is established in six months or so, you will be given new accommodation to suit your change in circumstance and you'll be put on fully paid maternity leave for the following year. Do you find this acceptable?"

It was a paltry consolation for being whored out against her will. Like Kakashi, she steeled herself to show nothing of her disgust. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."

"Oh," added Danzou, as if he'd remembered something, "and one other thing too..."

His hand lashed out faster than she could follow, seizing her by the throat and jerking her forward with a crushing grip. Sakura's heart nearly exploded in panic. He knew!

Beside her she thought she saw Kakashi move, as if to interfere, then subside just as quickly as every other guard in the room moved their hands warningly to their weapons. He already knew what was going to happen, it seemed.

"You are not permitted to talk about this pregnancy for at least three more months," Danzou said, his foul breath stifling her airways. "When you do speak of it to your friends and family and acquaintances, you will explain you were a careless slut who got knocked up on her mission. Do you understand?"

She couldn't answer even if she wanted to. In retrospect that was a good thing. If she'd been able to move her jaw she would have spat on him.

It was then that she felt something piercing her throat. Little pain, but with the viscosity of tar she felt it invade her and crawl up her trachea, coating everything and winding around her tongue till she thought she was about to choke. She closed her eyes and fought for breath.

Danzou pulled her ever closer. "Now you will make me a promise," he told her, "and with the power of this binding jutsu you will keep it till the day you die. I will make certain of it."

Sakura gagged, but she gave up thoughts of trying to twist free. She knew what this was. Sai had explained it to her before, and she knew that whatever promise she was bound to next would either cripple or kill her if she tried to break it. Goddamn it, why hadn't Kakashi warned her?

"Haruno Sakura. You must vow to me and upon pain of death, that you will never reveal to anyone the true identity of your child's father."

Sakura's eyes flashed open, and if there was a flicker of triumph in them it was too brief for Danzou to witness. But suddenly she felt like laughing. What an old fool he was!

"I vow it," she told him thickly.

Her reward was a sharp burning pain on the back of her tongue that took her breath away for a moment. Danzou released her so suddenly she would have slumped to the floor if Kakashi hadn't caught her elbow.

"Return to your work," Danzou said dismissively, settling back in his chair. "Your handler will arrange your appointments and any concerns you might have should be addressed to him."

If there was ever going to be a cue to leave, that was it. Sakura felt Kakashi manoeuvring her firmly towards the exit, walking fast and forcing her to keep up. Her throat was burning with the effects of the binding jutsu and when she tried to speak all that came out was a gasp of air.

"You won't be able to speak for a while," Kakashi muttered to her as they descended the stairs past lines of guards. "I'm sorry, he's not normally that rough. I wasn't prepared."

"Nice to be the exception," she whispered. But if Danzou thought he had her ground beneath his foot, he was mistaken. He hadn't had her silenced so much as ensured she could never reveal the fact that she'd deceived him.

Once outside the tower, Kakashi didn't stop. There were still too many Root ANBU around the Hokage's place of business and he didn't appear content to converse anywhere near them. Sakura went along with it. After two months of being ushered around like a child who couldn't be trusted to take care of herself, she was used to it. He finally stopped outside the gates of a community allotment. There was less human traffic around there and there were only the runner-beans to overhear them.

"Take some cough syrup and you'll be fine," he said, watching her rub her throat ruefully.

"Easy for you to say," she rasped.

He shrugged. "I've already been bound. Almost everyone in the program is."

"So, my hazing ritual basically." She tried to clear her throat but she still sounded like her voice box had been put through a shredder. "Nice to feel like one of the gang at last."

Kakashi was watching her more closely than she cared for. "You won't be able to tell anyone I'm the father now."

"Isn't that for the best?" she asked. "If I can't tell anyone the truth it'll remain between us, so maybe you shouldn't think of yourself as the father anymore. As far as anyone else in this program is concerned, Hiroshi fathered it and we have to act like that's true. And maybe it is? Don't feel as if you have an obligation to me or any child... because you don't."

He sighed and eased back on one foot. "What do you plan to do now?"

"Go home?" Sakura shrugged. "Have some cough syrup. What else is there to do?"

"I can walk you," he offered.

She gave him a patient look. "You babysat me for two months, give it a rest. I can remember where I live-"

"You're back!"

Sakura's vision filled with blonde and she took a startled step backward only to bounce against the inconveniently placed trashcan behind her. But it was not herself who was under attack; it was Kakashi.

"I thought that was you," the woman cried in greeting, and Sakura was strongly reminded of a golden Labrador greeting its long lost owner. If she'd had a tail it would have been wagging. It was an unusual reaction for someone like Kakashi to inspire, and Sakura stared at her in bald suspicion. Attractive, blonde, blue-eyed, and pretty enough to get away with a bright shade of red lipstick. Curvy as hell, tall, and speaking with a husky, throbbing voice that would best be served narrating adverts about chocolate. "Did you just get back from your mission?"

Sakura turned her wide-eyes on Kakashi.

"Kimiko," he greeted uncertainly. "Hi."

"I see my charm kept you safe," she said flirtatiously, and reached up to fetch out the golden chain around his neck – the one with the little charm shaped like the character for "Ki".

A wave of shock prickled though Sakura, leaving her numb and feeling so far away from what she was seeing. Her hands reached discreetly behind her back to tug her sleeve down over the jade bracelet she was wearing.

"Kimiko," Kakashi said, taking her hand to draw it away from the chain. "This is Sakura, my student."

Not so long ago she had been upgraded to 'friend'. Was this some kind of demotion? Sakura didn't even try to return Kimiko's friendly greeting and bob, she just stared at her.

"She's lost her voice," Kakashi explained hastily.

"Oh, you poor thing. I heard there was a bout of laryngitis going around," fussed Kimiko sympathetically. "I didn't mean to interrupt if you were talking business, but when I saw you, Kakashi, I thought I should come over. See if you still remembered me."

"Of course." He smiled vaguely. Soft and sincere, and Sakura didn't think she'd ever seen him look that way at anyone before.

"And, well, if you're not too tired... maybe you'd like to go to dinner tonight?" Kimiko asked, wringing her fingers anxiously.

Kakashi looked at Sakura hesitantly. She could see what he was thinking and felt his pity, and knew that he was gearing up to politely turn this woman down at such an awkward moment. Sakura lashed out rather harder than she meant to, striking Kakashi's arm with the back of her hand. She didn't say anything but she didn't need to; her stupefied expression said it all. He looked back at Kimiko. "I'd like that," he said.

With a blush, Kimiko ducked her head, pleased.

How quickly Sakura suddenly felt like a trespasser, and how idiotically blind she'd been. Of course the charm around his neck was from a lover. Why had she never realised that? She was obviously his type – glamorous yet down to earth, and matching him so perfectly they might as well have been designed for one another. Her type was made for his type and anyone looking at the two of them could see it. But he had never once mentioned to Sakura that he had a lover. Had she known would she ever have asked him to...

Could what they'd done even be considered unfaithful?

"I should go," Sakura rasped, and without waiting to see Kakashi's reaction she turned and began to walk away.

For the first time in weeks she could go wherever she wanted, and no one would be following her or watching her. It had been so long since she'd had such a small, simple freedom that it was no wonder she felt a little overwhelmed, like she was walking aimlessly into a pitch black wilderness in the middle of her own home village.


"Would you believe me if I said I'd missed you?"

"I guess I'd wonder what ulterior motive you had."

Kimiko laughed gently and laced her fingers together with his. "I missed your company, is that so hard to believe?"

"Most of my friends would say so, yes," Kakashi told her.

"You're too hard on yourself."

Their gentle, easy courtship had been something Kakashi had prized before this last mission, and it seemed all too easy to pick up where they'd left off. A few months ago he had looked at this woman and wondered if she was the 'one', and decided he didn't mind going along with things and seeing where they led. If it was to a detached house, a marriage and kids, that would have suited him fine. Normality was something he had begun to crave in recent years, and Kimiko was stable enough and interesting enough to suit him for the rest of his life – however long or short that proved to be.

But now her flirting affections made him uneasy. He couldn't shake the feeling he had betrayed her, though he told himself he had only done what he had to with Sakura. And from the look on Sakura's face, he wondered if he had betrayed her too.

Perhaps normality was not something he deserved anymore.

"Did you miss me, Kakashi?" Kimiko asked invitingly.

"Of course," he replied, a little too automatically to sound believable. She looked at him curiously before tilting her head.

"It's ok if you don't want to come to dinner tonight," she said. "I'll understand."

He shook his head quickly. "No – I want to. I'm just burned out that's all. The mission was a little hard."

"Alright," she said. "But if you're burned out, you probably need to rest. Let's have dinner next week? At my place?"

He smiled. "That would be nice."

"I'll make you my continental special, a secret recipe handed down in my family for generations, more prized than any jutsu," Kimiko declared. "I hear a way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I'll make sure you don't forget me again."

"I didn't forget you," he told her, lifting his hand to tuck her blonde locks behind her ear. "I thought about you a lot, actually... and I missed you."

A flush of pleasure tinged her high cheekbones and she leaned into his hand. "I hope you don't think I'm being too forward, Kakashi, but... may I kiss you?"

He hesitated. Was it really alright to carry on with one woman while another was pregnant with his child? Sakura may have made it abundantly clear that he was not to consider himself the father, and if he was sensible he would take that advice to heart and get on with his life as if this mission had never happened, as would be expected of him. But it wasn't just a matter of keeping up appearances... he wanted to accept Kimiko's advances, whether he deserved them or not.

After a moment he nodded. With a fire flickering in her eyes she slipped his mask off his chin and stepped forward. She was tall enough to kiss him without standing on tip-toes as Sakura would have needed to do, but unlike Sakura she at least was willing to kiss him. He could detect the scent of her lipstick; such a subtle, feminine smell that mingled with an expensive and understated perfume. Sakura hadn't worn make-up when she wasn't with Hiroshi, and when she'd been with Kakashi, the smell of her body had never been obscured. The only artificial scent on her skin had been the mild aroma of the inn's cheap bar of soap.

He broke the kiss a little guiltily. Kissing one woman while thinking far too much of another was pretty low for Kakashi's standards, even if Kimiko couldn't possibly know. She seemed satisfied anyway, stroking his cheek like it was the first time she'd seen his face. Maybe it was?

"You seem a little preoccupied," she commented, licking her lips and drawing his attention to the lipstick that was now probably smeared across his mouth as well. "Are you thinking about your mission?"

Kakashi nodded. It was essentially true, he thought.

"Then I should leave you be," she said, with a wry smile. "I'll catch you later, ok?"

"Goodbye, Kimiko."

With their hands still joined, she stepped away until she reached the limit of their arms length. She squeezed her fingers around his for a beat, then with a smile she released him and went on her way, bouncing more than usual with every step.

Kakashi watched her walk away – or more specifically watched her derriere – until she was no longer in sight. Then he turned, and absently caught the bars of the allotment gate as he looked out over the hodgepodge garden of flowers and vegetables. It was a peaceful sight. After Konoha had been rebuilt and restructured, Konoha had lost a lot of its old charm to the hasty erection of emergency housing. What had once been a very green district was now mostly concrete, wood, and plaster. These little corners of shared garden were a nostalgic sight.

And Kakashi wasn't the only one enjoying the view.

How he had missed Sai, sitting there in the middle of a crop of sunflowers, Kakashi would never know. He stopped dead and hastily pulled up his mask. "What are you doing?"

Sai glanced up at him and raised a large art pad. "Drawing."

Kakashi let himself through the squeaking gate to approach. "May I see?"

"You may." Sai made one last dash with his pencil and turned the pad around for Kakashi to appraise his artwork.

It was, of course, a sketch of him and Kimiko kissing.

"Hey, wait a minute-" Kakashi moved to snatch the pad away, but Sai whipped it out of reach.

"Two hundred ryo," he said.

Kakashi narrowed his eyes. "What?"

"If you want the picture, it'll cost you two hundred ryo."

"Since when did you get so mercenary?"

"I have always been a mercenary. I have just been expanding my skills more lately," Sai held out his palm. "Two hundred ryo."

Reluctantly, Kakashi forked out two coins from his pouch and handed them over. Sai dutifully ripped off the top sheet and gave it to him, and Kakashi had to admit it was rather good. If the subject hadn't been so person, he would have been tempted to frame it.

Then he noticed the sketch that had been on the page beneath it. "You drew Sakura too?" he asked. "How long have you been sitting here?"

"Most of the afternoon," Sai told him, holding up the pad for him to see his sketch of Sakura. "I came to draw the sunflowers but more interesting subjects kept showing up."

The sketch of Sakura was a strong likeness, uncannily so. Sai had caught the sadness around her eyes perfectly... it was impossible to look at this sketch and not see the misery this girl was in, whether you knew her or not. "How much for this one?"

"It's not for sale," said Sai.

"Five hundred ryo."

Sai gave him a blank stare. "It is incredibly difficult to get Sakura to remain still for portraits, and this is the first where I am satisfied with the proportional representation of her forehead," he said. "It's not for sale."

"A thousand ryo."

Sai mutely held out his hand.

At least the good thing about someone like Sai was that there was no knowing or funny looks for handing over that much money for a sketch of his student. He was interested in only counting his coins as Kakashi examined the sketches. "It's good to see you Root types are busy keeping the village safe," he said with a slightly belligerent bite to his tone.

Sai paused and looked up at him. "Sarcasm," he deduced.

"Very good. And how much did you overhear between me and Sakura?"

Sai returned to his money. "Listening detracts from seeing, so I didn't hear anything about any baby while I was drawing."

"Sai," Kakashi began, feeling his temperature rise.

"I heard nothing, Kakashi-sensei." Sai got his feet smartly, disappearing the money into his pouch. "Thank you for your patronage of the arts."


The sight of the house she had grown up in was always enough to soothe a weary traveller, and Sakura found herself once again glad that her mother's house had been one of the few at the edge of the village that had remained standing after the final bomb. Maybe it leaned to the right more than it used to and the paint had been stripped in the heat of the blast, but Sakura was glad to see it at a time like this.

The front door was always open. Her mother never locked it, reasoning that in a town full of ninjas, there wasn't much point. Sakura let herself in, stepping out of her shoes in the porch and into the hall. For a moment she stopped there, savouring the smell of her old home and whatever was baking in the oven. It smelled like some kind of fruit pie – her mother had always had a sweet tooth.

"Hello?" she called, voice cracking but beginning to recover, "Mama?"

"Sakura?" Her mother appeared at the end of the hall with a spatula. "How was your mission? Normally you call first."

Her mother looked so pleased to see her that Sakura put her best effort into manufacturing a smile for her. However, it had quite the opposite effect on the older Haruno, whose delight began to fade as her spatula dropped to her side. "Oh goodness – what's happened?" she whispered.

"N-Nothing," Sakura replied, always perturbed by her mother's preternatural ability to read her feelings. "I just came round to say 'hi'."

The woman wasn't fooled for a second, and in fact Sakura wondered if that was exactly why this was the first place she had come after leaving Kakashi. This was the one person in the world who knew herand had always accepted her. She didn't want to open up to anyone right now and plead for sympathy and understanding, and with her mother she didn't have to. It was clear that with only one look at her daughter, Mrs. Haruno knew something terrible had happened, and Sakura felt unstoppable tears welling up that she had spent long months trying to hide.

"Oh, Kitten." Her mother came forward and pulled her into a hug. "Let's go into the kitchen and have some pie. It's better to talk with a full stomach."


TBC