"Welcome, Kakashi. Only fifteen minutes late…you're slipping." The Hokage's amused voice greeted Kakashi as he body-flickered into the inner office, and he smiled a bit—not that it was visible beneath his mask—and nodded.
"I blame my genin," he replied, shrugging as he sat down. "Since I've started working with them, I haven't seemed to need to spend so much time…well, you know. Not that that stops me from having a bit of fun at their expense, of course." It was not an admission he would have made to many people, but it was true, even funny in an odd sort of way.
He had once all but sworn he would never take a genin team, yet it seemed that the act of teaching the team that had managed to pass his tests was finally allowing him to let go of the reasons he had had for not wanting to do so in the first place. His visits to the memorial stone were becoming more remembrance and reminder, and less wallowing in a guilt that he had known was unhealthy to carry but could not seem to make himself leave behind.
His genin were nothing like his old teammates, and he would never dare to compare himself to his own jounin-sensei, but he imagined he could see reflections of each of them in the other. Ironically, it had been Naruto and Hinata's stubborn protectiveness of Sakura, which so closely mirrored his own towards Rin in the wake of Uchiha animosity over her transplantation of Obito's sharingan eye into his own empty socket, that had finally allowed him to let go of the last of his misgivings towards the pink-haired genin. That he had switched roles, from protector to perceived threat, did not escape his notice, and he silently apologized to the spirit of his teammate for letting his anger over her death overpower his memories of her life.
If the Hokage intended to speak to him today about what he suspected, though, that protectiveness would have to fade somewhat. It was understandable, even justifiable, but there were times when principle had to defer to practicality, and his genin would need to learn everything he could teach them if they were to have a chance to survive what seemed to be coming. He would make them see that, if necessary; that, he had promised not just his teammates but his sensei as well.
"I imagine you have some idea why I wished to speak with you today," the Hokage said, apparently sensing that his thoughts had returned to the current problem facing the village.
Kakashi nodded. "Especially since you met with Yuuhi Kurenai and Sarutobi Asuma yesterday, yes," he said. "I've noticed an increase in ANBU activity since my team's return as well, even more than I would have expected. I'm unsure how what we discovered is related to the upcoming chuunin exams, though."
"That part, at least, seems quite clear," the Hokage replied, sighing as he turned to gaze out of his window at the town spread out below. "Several days after your team's departure, we received messengers from a new village, one located in Rice Field Country. This Hidden Village of Sound, as they call themselves, wishes to enter a team in the examinations."
"Orochimaru's spies."
It was not a question, but the Hokage nodded grimly in response. "Perhaps even more than that," he continued. "We were able to backtrack the movements of the ninja your genin fought, and we suspect he may have met with messengers from certain of the other villages that will be sending teams to compete. The ANBU team sent to investigate even found what appears to be a trail leading from our own village."
Kakashi simply stared at the Hokage for a moment, stunned at the enormity of what he was hearing. Betrayal, conspiracy on the grandest scale, collaboration with the most notorious missing-nin in the Leaf's history—and somehow his genin had found their way into the middle of it all. No, there would be no room for even well-intentioned defiance on his students' part; he would not lose them as he had lost his teammates.
"And then, of course there is the matter of the kunai you discovered," the Hokage said, breaking him out of his momentarily diverted thoughts. "I am sure you understand the implications of its presence there."
Kakashi could think of any number of explanations for that, but they all fit together in confusing ways, linked only by a word he had heard on occasion while he was still in ANBU. A finely-made kunai, marked with the Uchiha clan insignia, found in a place where its owner could have had only one reason to be, meant…
"Akatsuki."
"Quite." The Hokage's response was concerned, and for a moment his face appeared to show every year of his unusually—for a ninja, at least—long life. "I have had an…agent watching the activities of that organization for quite some time now, and we know for certain that Uchiha Itachi has been a member since shortly after he left the Leaf. Given what we know of their intentions, it is perhaps understandable that he would be near your team—or, more specifically, near Sakura. That he would reveal his presence, however, is cause for concern."
Kakashi cleared his throat, drawing the Hokage's attention, then said, "I might have an idea about that, actually. According to my genin, the ninja who attacked them said that he was just taking advantage of the lucky diversion caused by the ninja I was chasing. Assuming he was telling the truth, that still doesn't mean the diversion was as unplanned as he thought."
"You think Itachi may have deliberately drawn you away from your team, hoping that Orochimaru's ninja would act exactly as he did?" the Hokage asked, frowning thoughtfully. "That does seem possible; we know that Akatsuki is interested in the tailed demons for some reason, so he could have been hoping to gather more information on Sakura as the Nine-Tails' vessel.
"Even if that is the case, though, we simply do not know enough about Akatsuki or their goals to say anything with certainty. Given the more concrete threat posed by Orochimaru, not to mention a solid timeline for his plan, I cannot justify devoting any resources to investigating Itachi's actions. That does not mean that they should be ignored, however."
Kakashi almost flinched at the piercing look in the Hokage's eyes, and he remembered that Sakura was not just his student but the older ninja's as well. Caught between his concern for one genin and his duty towards the entire village, the Hokage had no choice but to place the village's safety as paramount—and expect Kakashi to make up the difference. It was not an enviable position to be in, especially given what he remembered and had heard of the rogue Uchiha's abilities, but Kakashi had no intention of shirking the trust the Hokage was placing in him.
"I understand," he said, and the Hokage nodded, a satisfied look on his face.
"I thought you would. Now, here is what I have in mind regarding the chuunin examinations…"
- - -
Sakura stared at her jounin-sensei, unsure if she had really heard him correctly, and she could see Naruto and Hinata doing the same. He had not shown up for their morning training session, but she never could have guessed that the reason would have been something like this. None of them had really expected him to meet them after lunch either, but when they arrived at their usual training grounds by the river, they had had to wait for less than half an hour before he appeared. For Kakashi, that was practically early, and she had suspected then that something important was going on.
"So…" she murmured, barely loud enough for her teammates to hear, as she considered what Kakashi had just told them. "Orochimaru—the 'master' that ninja who attacked us mentioned—is going to try to do something at the chuunin exams, and it probably involves at least some of the other villages, too. We don't know what, though, so in order to force his hand, we need to at least seem like we're giving him what he wants. Which is where the three of us fit in, assuming that what that ninja said is true."
Beside her, Naruto summed up the situation far more succinctly. "Bait," he said, sounding disgusted. "You want to dangle us out and hope that the most evil missing-nin in the history of the Leaf doesn't manage to kill us before you can get him."
Sakura wasn't sure she would have put it so bluntly, but she couldn't argue with her blond teammate's conclusion. Remembering some of the things the dead ninja had said made her shudder, and when she thought of what she had read about why Orochimaru had been declared a missing-nin, she couldn't help but wonder if Kakashi—or whoever had been responsible for this plan—was really serious. Even aside from that, though it seemed almost unimportant comparatively, the chuunin exams were dangerous in and of themselves.
"Yes, I'm quite serious, though we don't know whether Orochimaru himself will come or if he's only planning on sending people in his place. We have to plan for the worst case, though, and assume he will show up in person," Kakashi said, and Sakura realized she must have spoken aloud. "You won't be the only rookie team out there, either; he has been after the secrets of the Uchiha sharingan for longer than you've been alive, so Team Eight will be entering the exams as well, and in order to avoid any suspicion on his part, so will Team Ten."
Like that's supposed to make it better? Sakura wondered. Much as she disliked Kiba and Sasuke, she wouldn't wish death—or worse, in Sasuke's case, if Orochimaru's interest in him was similar to what his minion had said about Hinata—on either of them. Hearing that her friends would be involved too, especially when they had nothing to do with any of it except as camouflage to make the bait seem more attractive, upset her even more. Judging by their expressions, Naruto and Hinata felt much the same way.
"Even if we hadn't found out about this situation, I still would have entered you in the exams," Kakashi said, perhaps sensing their unhappiness, "and I imagine the same is true for the other teams' jounin-sensei as well. It's been a long time since the village has seen such a promising group of rookie genin. At least this way, you know what you'll likely be faced with."
There wasn't much Sakura could say to argue with that. It still bothered her that she and her friends were going to be used in such a seemingly callous manner, and the possibility of meeting the infamous snake sannin frightened her more than she cared to think. If it was a choice between knowing what she was getting into or going into it blind, though, she would take knowing and having a plan any day.
Besides, we're ninja, she told herself. Maybe we're only genin, but we still have a responsibility to protect the village. She was sure others had faced even more unpleasant duties in the past—knew they had; she had only to think of the seal around her navel to realize that—and hadn't walked away from them. How, then, could she do any less?
Kakashi nodded once, apparently satisfied with whatever he read on their faces. "Good," he said. "Now that that's settled, I'll tell you how I'll be preparing you for this. Or, perhaps I should say how we'll be preparing you, since the other two teams' jounin-sensei and I have agreed to hold some joint training exercises. During our team's regular practice sessions, you'll still be working on what I've shown you so far, but the joint exercises will be different.
"The Hokage thinks—and I agree with him—that the most likely time for Orochimaru to strike will be during the second part of the exam, since that stage takes place away from the village itself. That means we'll be running all of you through some actual exam scenarios from past years in order to get you used to the situations you'll be facing. Once you get used to those, the three of us will be introducing additional elements into the mix."
"Additional elements?" Hinata asked, breaking her silence for the first time since Kakashi had started talking. "Like what?"
"Like attacks from us, among other things," Kakashi replied, and Sakura gave an involuntary shiver upon hearing the hardness in his voice. "Our goal is to make sure all of you are as ready as possible for anything that might happen, so don't expect us to pull our punches. The next several weeks are going to be miserable for you, but I assume you would rather have a greater chance of living through the exams."
Despite the gravity of the situation, Sakura nearly laughed as she saw Naruto roll his eyes. "That's a pretty safe assumption," he muttered. More loudly, he said, "So we get to fight Sasuke's team? Sounds good to me."
For her part, Sakura wasn't nearly as enthusiastic about the prospect. She did have to admit, though, if only to herself, that she wouldn't mind a chance to show off some of the things she had learned. She was not helpless, and if Kiba—she wasn't stupid enough to think she could take on Sasuke—tried to humiliate her as he had at the academy, he would find himself quite surprised. That made her wonder something else, though.
"Kakashi-sensei, what about my fuuinjutsu?" she asked. "The Hokage said I could practice techniques away from the village, or with my team, but what about when we're working with the other teams?"
Kakashi looked at her intently, and she felt her face flush under his regard, wondering if she had said something wrong. "You're going to need to use everything you know if you want even a chance of surviving this," he said, his tone neutral. "I can't tell you to disobey your teacher, but it would be foolish not to practice with all the weapons at your disposal."
Everything? Sakura thought to herself uneasily, remembering fire and pain and blood. If it came down to that, though, she would do what she had to.
If one good thing had come out of this whole situation, it would have to be that Naruto seemed to have forgotten his anger at Kakashi, at least for the moment. "What about missions?" he asked. "We're not going to have to do stupid stuff like walk dogs or clean people's houses any more, are we? That would just be a waste of training time."
"No," Kakashi answered him. "No more missions, D-rank or otherwise, until after the exams are over. Until next week, you'll have the normal morning and afternoon practice sessions, but you'll be starting the joint exercises after that. Those could take anywhere from a few hours to finish up to more than a day, depending on the scenario objectives, so once you start doing them, our team practices won't be on a set schedule.
"That's later, though. Now," he said, shifting into more of a lecturing tone, "I'm going to show you some ninjutsu that are intended more for tactical purposes than direct damage. Hinata, these will probably be especially useful for you—you'll see why—but I want all of you to learn them."
As Kakashi demonstrated the first technique, one that shrouded the area around the user in dense, clammy mist, Sakura could see why he had said Hinata would find it valuable. With her byakugan, she would be able to see perfectly well through the fog, while most other ninja would be considerably hampered by being forced to rely on their other senses. It could also be used to cover an escape, Sakura thought, provided that the user had a good idea of the surrounding terrain.
She didn't especially like ninjutsu—for the most part, it seemed to rely too much on sheer chakra strength to be suited to her abilities and inclinations—but she couldn't deny the potential usefulness of techniques such as this one. While she was sure there were counter-techniques that could get rid of the fog, even a few moments' grace period could be enough to turn a doomed fight into a safe retreat. Grimly, she set her mind to memorizing the hand seals necessary for performing the technique, even as she wished it wasn't necessary for her to learn it at all.
- - -
'Need to link Shishou Fuuin—how? Double dependency from each cardinal direction to the intermediate buffer seal symbols? Or use two in conjunction, but chakra flow resonance could be an issue.'…ugh, I should've gotten something to eat before doing this, Sakura thought to herself as she heard her stomach growl.
It helped somewhat that, unlike the Fourth Hokage whose notes she was reading, she already knew that he had chosen the latter option. His reasons for doing so, though, were what really interested her, but with her luck they would be related to the chakra flow diagrams she still hadn't figured out. It was almost enough to make her want to scream in frustration, but, deciding that indulging herself in that manner would no doubt disturb her teacher, she simply banged her forehead on the table a few times.
"Great," she muttered to herself afterwards. "Now I'm confused, sleepy, and I've got a headache. Brilliant." Sighing, she raised her head back up and began reading the scroll in front of her again, this time focusing on the section with the two sets of mysterious calculations that both appeared to be correct—no matter how impossible that was. In spite of herself, she found she was glad the Hokage wasn't here to witness her frustration; even though she had no doubt he would sympathize with her, she still didn't want to disappoint him by displaying her ignorance.
He was busy, though, as he had been ever since her team returned to the village from their mission. When Sakura had come to his office that day for her weekly lesson, he had almost absently directed her to a back room, furnished with little more than a table and chair, and handed her the scroll of forbidden techniques before leaving again to tend to business that couldn't wait. She understood the reasons for his preoccupation—how could she not, especially after the past several days of grueling training and the promise of worse to come—but at the same time she missed their normal interaction.
If nothing else, perhaps he could have explained how to interpret the diagrams she had found in an anatomy text. While she knew from talking to Hinata what chakra coils supposedly looked like in reality, the confusing mishmash of overlapping lines and arrows on the charts didn't match the Hyuuga's descriptions at all, and she wished she had her friend there to help her. Consulting a medic-nin would have been an even better option, but she didn't dare do that; many of them seemed to harbor even greater dislike for her than the rest of the villagers did, as though they resented her for their own inability to save all the people who had died as a result of the Nine-Tails' attack.
And if I start feeling sorry for myself, I'll never figure any of this out, Sakura sighed to herself as she made idle designs on the pad of paper she used for her own notes. She tried to follow the equations written on the scroll, but some part of her mind was still wondering where she had seen a linkage between two seals similar to the one the Fourth had been considering; it seemed so familiar, but she couldn't quite place it—until she looked down at her notepad and realized that in her preoccupation, she had doodled out the 'fuse' seals used on explosive tags.
That's it! she thought excitedly, only just keeping herself from letting out a cry of triumph. As Kakashi had explained during the previous day's morning practice session, which had covered a wide variety of lethally creative trap styles, explosive tags used a miniscule chakra charge to trigger the tag's actual explosive portion. The seals used to delay the release of that chakra—and the subsequent explosion—were almost identical to the Four Symbols Seals the Fourth had incorporated into the seal he had used on her, so if that seal could be used to regulate the flow of chakra, it didn't seem like much of a stretch to assume that it was related to the equations she was studying. In turn, that meant that the imbalanced quantities the equations modeled were probably the seal's chakra and the host's chakra.
Sakura felt her head spin as she considered the implications of her discovery, assuming she was correct. The main seal itself was the physical manifestation of the Nine-Tails' chakra—and soul, apparently, based on her own recent experience—so if the twinned Four Symbols Seals were intended to balance that chakra with that of the person on whom the seal was inscribed, it would presumably result in massive chakra reserves for that person. Then the reality of the situation occurred to her, and her shoulders slumped in defeat. She was the host, and her chakra reserves certainly weren't anything significant, which meant she must have made a mistake somewhere in her chain of assumptions.
Back to the beginning, she decided, disappointed. She had to admit that she wouldn't be nearly as interested in the problem if it wasn't so difficult, but at that moment she wouldn't have minded some assistance, or maybe just a hint or two. Still feeling that the equations were the key to the entire puzzle, she bent over the scroll to examine them once again. They started from the same initial values, written down in the Fourth's surprisingly tidy script, but diverged radically after the first few steps—immediately following the references to the chakra coil diagrams.
Apparently the Fourth had had the same idea as Sakura, because she could see now that the left-hand set of equations described precisely what she had just assumed to be the case. She supposed he hadn't been able to make it work either, since the right-hand equations appeared to represent a situation more like her own. Something about the diagrams was nagging at her memory, though, and she began to flip through the anatomy book lying on the table next to the scroll.
It didn't take her long at all to find what she was looking for, and she groaned as she wondered how she could have been so unobservant. If she ignored all the arrows, different colors, and other symbols that cluttered the charts in the book, it was plain to see that two diagrams on facing pages near the front of the book were nearly perfect matches for the ones the Fourth had sketched in the scroll. It seemed her assumptions hadn't been quite as wrong as she thought.
I need to tell Sarutobi-shishou about this, she thought, part of her mind still numb at the significance of her discovery. Finally, she had the answer to one of the questions that had always troubled her: why her? Presumably, the Fourth had decided that the risks associated with allowing the Nine-Tails' chakra to mix with a human's, even filtered through the seal, were not worth the potential benefits, and so he had had no choice but to use a girl instead of a boy. She didn't understand what about the differences in chakra coil structure between the two sexes would affect how the seal operated, but it was clear that the Fourth had known and accounted for it.
Suddenly, Sakura remembered the words the Nine-Tails had spoken about how it would rather die—and do worse than kill her, before that—than be used, and, thinking of the implications of those neat rows of numerological equations, felt a chill run down her spine at the thought of the likely consequences if it had been sealed in a boy. The Fourth couldn't have known about that particular factor, of course, but she shuddered to think of how angry the demon inside her would have become if it had had to deal with its chakra being siphoned off for someone's use ever since it was trapped in the seal.
For the first time in her life, she was genuinely thankful that the Fourth had chosen to seal the Nine-Tails inside her rather than the other obvious possibility. She knew from examining archived hospital records that she and Naruto had been the only babies born that day, and before, she had assumed she was chosen simply because he saw her as more expendable than his own son. It had been hard to control her bitterness at that thought, sometimes, though the fact that Naruto himself was one of her closest friends made it easier. Now, though, she felt more than a little ashamed at how much she had subconsciously resented the Fourth's decision; he had had good reason to choose as he did, and perhaps an even better reason that he had not known about.
Getting out of her seat, Sakura gathered up the scroll and books she had been using. She was sure the Hokage would want to know this, but more than that, she was starving and exhausted both physically—Kakashi hadn't been exaggerating in the slightest when he said he would be putting them through hell—and mentally. She hadn't spent quite as long today studying the Fourth's notes as she had hoped to, but she was still quite happy with the amount of progress she had made, and she decided she deserved a bit of a break.
- - -
Just a little more time left on the rice, and…ack! The dumplings are going to burn! Sakura realized, hastily sliding the dumplings she had been frying off of their pan and onto a plate. Much to her disappointment, they were definitely a bit overcooked, but they still looked quite edible—not that that meant much in her current state, she had to admit, since she was fairly certain she would have eaten just about anything set in front of her at the moment.
The Hokage had been engrossed in an important-seeming conversation with two ANBU members when she had entered his office, so she had left as quietly as she could without literally tiptoeing past them, a bit disappointed that she would have to wait to share with him what she had discovered. Still, as significant as it was to her personally, she knew it wasn't anything so urgent that it could take priority over matters of village security—and if ANBU was involved, the subject of the conversation could have been nothing else. She wondered if it had been related to the upcoming chuunin exams, and if so, if she and her teammates would ever hear about it. There were still things Kakashi wasn't telling them; he didn't even try to hide that fact, but neither would he answer their questions.
Sakura wished she could feel annoyed at that—he was the one who had said that things would go better if they knew what they were facing, after all—but, perhaps because of the seriousness of the situation, for once her training as a ninja managed to curtail her natural curiosity. Even Naruto seemed not to mind their jounin-sensei's evasiveness too much, though he had been more than a little annoyed at first. To Sakura's relief, much of his anger towards Kakashi had faded away since the jounin's revelations about what was expected to occur during the chuunin exams, though it still showed itself in flashes at times.
Hm…what's that…smell?
"Oh, no!" she moaned, grabbing the pot in which the rice had been cooking and hurriedly dumping it out into a bowl—or, at least, what little rice wasn't inextricably glued to the pan's bottom and sides. Cursing her lack of attention, she pried at the glutinous mass with a serving spoon, trying to dislodge just a little bit more. What was left wouldn't have fed her even on a normal day, though, much less today; Kakashi had decided they needed practical experience in 'escape and evasion maneuvers,' which translated to her and her teammates dodging frantically through the woods for hours on end while he tossed shuriken and low-powered ninjutsu at them. He hadn't even given them a lunch break.
"Something wrong, Sakura-chan?" asked an amused voice from behind her, and, still on edge from the day's training, she threw herself to the ground and blindly flung the pot in her hands in the approximate direction of whoever had spoken.
"Ouch!" the voice yelped, and Sakura winced as she recognized it. "Sakura-chan, what was that for? Okay, maybe I should've knocked, but still…"
"Um…sorry, Ino-chan," Sakura said, feeling herself blush a deep red as she stood up and turned around—then had to bite her tongue to keep herself from bursting out in laughter. Ino, still dressed in the sweat- and dirt-stained clothes she had obviously been training in, stood there with her hands on her hips, an indignant expression on her face…and clumps of scorched rice clinging to her shirt. The pot lay at her feet, somewhat dented from having fallen to the tile floor, and the whole picture was so ludicrous that finally Sakura couldn't contain herself any longer.
"You…overcooked rice…don't startle me!" she managed to get out around fits of giggles, even as she plucked rice off of her bemused friend and tossed it into the pot. Finally, when she had gotten all of the rice off of Ino, she sighed, feeling her humorous mood vanish as quickly as it had come over her.
Now what am I going to do for dinner? she wondered glumly. Just dumplings wouldn't be enough, but it was too late to go shopping for groceries, and she wasn't sure she had enough money at the moment to eat out. Kakashi had said they wouldn't get their mission payments for another few weeks, probably, given how busy everyone in any sort of administrative capacity was with preparing for the chuunin exams.
Suddenly, she realized Ino was poking her forehead and looking at her curiously. "Hello, Sakura-chan…are you in there?" the other girl asked, now beginning to sound a bit annoyed. "I'm sorry I came in without knocking, but you didn't have to throw stuff at me, you know."
"I didn't…well, I guess I did mean to," Sakura said, sighing as she tossed the pan into her sink. "But it wasn't on purpose, Ino-chan, I promise. Kakashi-sensei has been training us really hard, and I guess I'm a little…"
"Jumpy?" Ino offered, a deadpan expression on her face. "Tense? Homicidal? I can go on, if you want."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Someone's been spending way too much time with Shikamaru," she muttered.
"I heard that," Ino said, sticking her tongue out at Sakura. "Don't be mean, or I won't show you what I brought over. And judging by the imitation of my dad you're doing, I don't think you'd like that very much."
"Hey! I'm not that hopeless in the kitchen," Sakura protested. "Well, at least not usually. I'm just a little—" She stopped talking in the middle of her sentence, forgetting what she was going to say as a heavenly scent seemed to waft into her nostrils.
Mmm…I smell yakisoba, and fresh steamed dumplings, and…is that udon Nearly drooling, she approached the small wooden table she usually ate at, entranced by the sight of the white paper cartons sitting on it.
Behind her, she heard Ino sigh. "Fine," the blonde girl said, and Sakura could hear the mock disappointment in her voice. "I can tell when I'm not wanted. Go ahead and ignore me, I don't mind. I'll just stand over here and watch you eat the food I brought over for you."
"Mmhmm, you do that," Sakura replied in between mouthfuls of udon. "Well, you could sit down if you want, I guess." Cursory courtesies offered, she returned to her meal, even as part of her winced at the thought of the reaction she would no doubt receive from her somewhat temperamental best friend once she was done eating. She would have to find some way to thank Ino later, but for now she was too hungry to concentrate on anything except the food in front of her.
Some time later, when the only remaining evidence of the very large meal Ino had brought with her was a single dumpling sitting in its carton, Sakura sighed contentedly. Turning to her friend, who was lounging on the sofa and amusing herself by tossing a kunai from hand to hand, she flushed as she recalled her previous words.
"Um…Ino-chan?" she asked hesitantly. "I…thanks for bringing me some food. I'm sorry I—"
"Don't worry," Ino said, leaning back over the arm of the sofa and giving her an upside-down grin. "I owe you for whatever your team found out that has Asuma-sensei finally teaching us stuff. Besides, I tried coming over to see you the day after you got back from your mission, but you were asleep then and I didn't want to wake you up. I've been too busy with training and working at the shop to come by since then, but we had the afternoon and evening off today, so I thought you might want some company."
Sakura smiled back at her, then frowned as she realized exactly what her friend had said. "You mean your jounin-sensei hasn't told you what's going on?" she asked, hoping she had misheard.
"Nooo…" Ino said slowly, trailing off as she apparently registered the surprise on Sakura's face. "Why, is something wrong? But…why would you know about it if Asuma-sensei hasn't told us?"
What do I do? Sakura wondered. Do I say anything, or not? When she saw Ino's innocently curious expression, she started to feel miserable at the thought of her friends potentially going into a dangerous situation without knowing anything about what was really going on. Surely their jounin-sensei had a reason for not telling them, though, and she wasn't sure if she had the right to go around him by explaining everything to her friend.
"…must have something to do with whatever happened on your mission that Naruto said he couldn't talk about."
The sound of Ino's voice interrupted Sakura's thoughts, and she nodded. "It's…well, it's connected." With practiced effort, she pushed away the memory of the ninja she had killed and what he had planned to do with her teammates. "But not completely. At least, I don't think so, based on what Kakashi-sensei told us…oh, I don't know what to do," she sighed, feeling tears of frustration begin to prickle at the corners of her eyes. She was tired, still more than a bit off-balance from the things she had learned about her seal earlier that day, and all in all really wasn't in any sort of mood to deal with something like this.
"Hey, it's okay," Ino said quietly, flipping herself over the back of the sofa and walking over to sit down at the table next to Sakura. She frowned a little as she slipped a comforting arm around Sakura's shoulders. "Of course I want to know what's going on, especially if it's something bad, but it's not your fault if you can't tell me. You're just lucky I'm not Shikamaru; not much interests him, but when something does, he never gives up on it."
"But it's something you should know," Sakura murmured, smiling in spite of herself at her friend's attempt to cheer her up. "I'll ask Kakashi-sensei tomorrow and see if he can talk to your jounin-sensei. Maybe he's just waiting until we all get together for the group training sessions."
Sakura fought the urge to giggle at the way Ino's face scrunched up in confusion. "Group training sessions?" the blonde girl echoed, then waved her free hand dismissively. "Never mind, but this one I'm definitely going to ask Asuma-sensei about. I'll just say you mentioned it to me offhand."
"Which is completely true," Sakura replied, then yawned deeply. "Sorry, Ino-chan," she apologized. "Kakashi-sensei really wore us out today, though, and now I'm all full and getting sleepy."
"'night, Sakura-chan," Ino said, laughing as she grabbed the last dumpling and popped it in her mouth. Standing up, she walked over to the door, then paused and turned around. "Oh, and you really should lock your door, you know. Otherwise some innocent bystander might come in and suffer a messy death by kitchen utensil."
Sakura pillowed her head on her arms, which were crossed on the table in front of her, and groaned. "Good night, Ino-chan," she muttered, even as her eyes drifted shut.
- - -
Author's Notes: Thank you all for your reviews of the previous chapter! This one took longer to finish than I had expected, unfortunately, but I neglected to take into account the dreaded after-vacation work pileup. Thankfully, things are somewhat back to normal now, and I have a bit more free time on my hands. With any luck, there won't be any more delays quite this long between future chapter updates.
This chapter sees Sakura make an understandable--but incorrect--assumption about what the Kyuubi would have done if it had been sealed in Naruto; for those of you who might be wondering how/if it relates to canon, I did want to clarify that she was mistaken. The canon-compliant explanation is that the Kyuubi was more willing to lend its power to Naruto precisely because it had been doing so for so many years, causing it to grow more tolerant of the idea, while this Kyuubi had been imprisoned for all that time in the metaphysical equivalent of a bank vault. Hopefully that explains some of the things people had been wondering about for the past few chapters; it's not really relevant in the context of this story (hence this note, rather than an in-character explanation), but I thought it might be interesting nonetheless.
As always, thank you all for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it!