Sakura stared at the sudden change in events, she gripped the metal bar tighter, ignoring that every part of her body was screaming in pain. Her heart beat furiously as the man who had suddenly appeared and to all intents and purposes saved her but he had done so by completely and utterly overwhelming her attackers. And she still had no idea whether he was going to turn round and target her next and Sakura knew that she would stand no chance against him, and she had no idea which side he was supposed to be on. But she still found herself edging closer, curious, after he asked the woman why they had targeted her of all people.

"She knows something, something important and we need to find that out" The woman said, "Surely you of all people can understand that, you look like you've been properly trained, you're here for a reason too am I right, we can work together and she can tell us what we need to know." She continued and Sasuke was mildly impressed that at least one of them had a brain. She had known enough of the way he fought to see that he was probably in ANBU or a similar organisation himself and if the circumstances were any different Sasuke would have considered backtracking and putting an end to this whole sorry affair. As it was he was still going to put an end to it, but it was going to end less than diplomatically.

He let his eyes flick back to the girl, to Sakura, who was standing straight, armed with the old rusted metal support from a nearby shop. He could see, even from this distance, that she was shaking.

"Don't you think if she knew anything she would have told you by now." Sasuke said evenly keeping the sharp edge of his knife pressed firmly against the other man's throat. He pulled at his hair viciously again keeping his head twisted backwards at an awkward angle. "I mean, look how easy it was for me to get you two to tell me part of your plan at least."

For a moment he saw a flash of anger on the woman's face before it was replaced by an expressionless mask, Sasuke recognised all too well, still, she was protective of her partner and that was all he needed to know.

"What do you think a little village girl could tell you anyway?" Sasuke continued easily and he was amused to see Sakura almost bristle at that, like an angry cat.

"We know the Resistance passed through here." The woman said triumphantly, "even after the Akatsuki killed that other one. We watched him struggle away and followed the trail of blood and we would have finished him off but it looked like the cold would do that well enough. He looked so hopeful to have made it here it was almost funny as he couldn't be saved, but he might have passed on some information before he died if someone came out and saw him."

"How very remiss of you not to check that" Sasuke said calmly as his mind worked furiously.

Sasuke would admit that he was surprised that they knew that the Resistance had come here again. It made him wonder how long they had been watching this village, maybe for weeks waiting for them to all let their guard down and carry on as normal before stirring up all the bad memories again and targeting someone. They seemed to enjoy watching people suffered but most of all Sasuke wondered if they had seen him and Gaara clean up the body. He hadn't been recognised, not yet anyway, but it had more or less decided for him that he couldn't let them walk away. It would be too risky to consider it now.

To buy himself some time Sasuke glanced towards Sakura who was still standing some distance away holding the metal bar. She shifted uneasily when he turned his full attention to her for the first time and noticeably tightened her grip on the bar she had. The woman looked at her as well and sneered.

"So how about it?" She said turning her attention back to Sasuke she took a few steps towards him, ignoring that he tightened his grip on her partner. "A little sharing of information. You must be here for a similar reason to us. How about a little co-operation?" She deliberately lowered her voice at that last bit and Sasuke, who didn't think anything else could shock him, found himself proved wrong. What? Was she actually propositioning him? He must have misinterpreted her, but no, she was smiling at him, he had titled slightly to one side. This was certainly...new.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes and shifted his position so he could put pressure on the man's back with his foot.

"How about you tell me everything you know or I break your partner's spine." He said stonily and the woman hurriedly held out her hand.

"No wait, wait! There's no need for that really. I can tell you." She said and Sasuke momentarily wondered why she was so desperate to keep her partner safe. No that it mattered to him beyond that her protectiveness being useful to his own purposes.

"Don't." The man wheezed but when Sasuke started to push on his spine with his foot the woman jumped in again.

"We think they're recruiting." She said hastily and watched Sasuke carefully, only relaxing a bit to continue more steadily when Sasuke let her partner slump in his arms without twisting his body at an odd angle.

"And?" Sasuke said looking meaningfully down at the man he was holding, making it clear what was going to happen if she didn't start talking again.

"Well, the first one, the dead man, was up here investigating something but he passed through a lot of places and may well have suggested joining the Resistance before the second lot of people came after him. And then someone disappeared from here too we wanted to follow him to see what they had given him as a rendezvous point but we watched them all and he spent the most time with her so she must know something about them."

"This is all just inspired guesswork." Sasuke said, "although I suppose I should commend both of you for your vivid imaginations. You have no proof." Out of the corner of his eye Sasuke had seen Sakura look relieved to hear that whoever it was who had left the village had probably gone to meet the Resistance and he mentally cursed her for her response. The other woman had undoubtedly seen it too and chalked it up to further guilt.

"She can give it to us. If you let us we can get her to tell us everything." Yes, because they had been doing so well at that before. "You saw her face she knows something. And you know we can get it out of her eventually."

"Sorry." Sasuke said and he swiftly broke the man's neck. The woman went white.

"You bastard!" She shouted as Sasuke threw that body aside. She was wasting precious time to try and get an advantage over Sasuke with her emotions raging and in no time at all Sasuke was in behind her, twisting her arms behind her back.

"Seems like you've lost your will to fight." He said as he looked down on her.

"You bastard," She repeated. "He was my brother." So that was it, a brother-sister killing team, it certainly took family bonding to a new level and Sasuke shouldn't be surprised at how much the regime was able to twist family bonds. He knew that from his own brother. "Why did you even do that?" She cried and Sasuke watched dispassionately, finding it strange that she had taken such relish in beating Sakura only to cry so much at her brother's painless death.

"You know why." Sasuke said softly leaning down to her level. "You said it yourself, under torture everybody talks. And I can't have you letting anyone know I was here." And then it was all too easy for him to do the same to her.

Sakura was horrified when her sort of rescuer stepped away from the second body. He seemed to have his own agenda and she had no idea where she fit into that and as he turned his attention to her again she raised the metal bar.

"Stay away from me." Sakura said clearly and the man shook his head slightly.

"I'm surprised you can still stand after that." He said evenly, "any attempt to hurt me with that will probably only end up hurting you more than me."

"I can still try." She said defiantly and he tilted his head to one side.

"I'm sure you could." Sakura almost lowered the bar out of confusion. He almost seemed amused by her. "And let me guess, you have no idea what those two were talking about except, of course, that last part about the missing person."

"Yes, I mean no." Sakura said and he raised his eyebrows at her. "I know someone who left but I thought he'd been taken. That's it and no matter what you do to me I won't change what I've said. There's nothing more to it than that."

He took a step towards her and Sakura flinched automatically and he raised his hands in a peaceful gesture.

"Don't be ridiculous girl if I wanted to harm you you'd be dead by now." He snapped and Sakura hefted the bar higher ready to take a swing at him if she needed to, and Sasuke could see her stubborn determination return.

"My name's Sakura." She said clearly and he raised an eyebrow.

"So I heard."

"Then use it." She said firmly, glaring at him. He took another step towards her, and Sakura could see under the dim lighting around them from the clear night's sky that he had blood on him, probably from when he had beaten the man first, and noticing that she felt faintly sick.

"Okay then Sakura," he said and Sakura couldn't help shivering at the way he said her name, it made her vaguely uncomfortable and she wasn't sure why. "What I really want to know is why those two thought you might know something, and why they thought you were being protected in the first place."

"I don't know." He shook his head slightly.

"Surely you can guess."

"That's-"

"Come on, you don't seem stupid to me," He cast his eyes over her injuries, "Not completely stupid anyway but I think I can put that down to misplaced bravery or just ignorance rather than you being a complete idiot."

"I am not ignorant." Sakura snapped and the man chuckled slightly, it was a strange noise, almost as if he wasn't used to doing it.

"You live in a small village in the middle of nowhere in a country that trades in secrets and continuously lies to the people that live in it, of course you're ignorant."

"And you are surprisingly well informed for some helpful stranger passing through." The man said nothing, in fact he seemed to be ignoring her and Sakura couldn't help feeling slightly offended that he had suddenly appeared and, she could admit, saved her and for what? She wondered what his agenda was as it was too much to hope for him to not have one at all but if he was plying her for information Sakura couldn't figure out how he was hoping to achieve that, or if she had already unwittingly given him what he wanted.

And then suddenly, he was gone. No, Sakura realised, not gone, he was behind her she could feel him behind her before she even stumbled backwards, hastily turning round to check that suspicion with her own two eyes. He caught her wrist and held her close to him before she had time to back away too far.

"I think it goes without saying that this never happened" He said and his tight grip on Sakura's wrist made her want to squirm away from him but she refused to look as scared as she felt. At least she tried not to let him know how much he intimidated her. "I'm sure you've done that before as here, anything out of the ordinary never happens, remember?"

Sakura went cold, he seemed to know about the body, but how? And how had he gotten the better of those ANBU agents was he one of them or not? Sakura had no idea where to place him, what he was going and why and she realised that she probably was as ignorant as he had said.

Sakura had no idea what was going on, who he was meant to be. It didn't seem as if he was part of the Resistance, somehow she didn't think they had been trained to kill, to be so ruthless. At least Sakura hoped not. She momentarily wondered if they were pinning any hopes of liberation on another set of killers but then dismissed that thought as too horrible to contemplate. But what was he if he wasn't quite ANBU, and wasn't quite the Resistance. In the middle of her home, the place she had known her entire life, Sakura felt quite lost as everything she thought she knew was ripped away from her.

Suddenly he pulled her even closer until his mouth was right next to her ear.

"I was never here." He said harshly and the pressure on her wrist released. She blinked and it seemed as if in the time he had vanished.

"Sakura?" She dimly heard a voice calling for her and whirled round. The two bodies were gone too. No not gone. Certainly they had moved but if she really squinted she could see some shapes in the shadows. Still they had moved far too quickly for her to keep up with.

"Sakura, there you are." It was Shizune hurrying up to her, "we heard some –noises" She stumbled over the word "and were worried. Oh, what happened to you? We never should have let you leave." She exclaimed when she took in Sakura's appearance. Sakura wondered about protesting, that it wasn't as if they had known what would happen on her walk home, that she would have been targeted. But then she began to think about what that man had said that she must have had some idea why she was targeted, why she was being protected. And about the missing boy.

Was this all because of Naruto, what had he done? Had he actually joined the Resistance? And why had that other man stepped in. He was strong and fast enough to have destroyed the two man ANBU cell but what was he? The woman had talked to as if he was one of them but if that was the case why would he have killed his allies, why would he have protected her? Sakura knew she would be puzzling over that for a while.

Her mind spun, and what about that body, the one that started this chain of events it seemed. That had been mentioned too. He was definitely part of the Resistance but why was he here. Why was everything suddenly centred around Konoha.

"Sakura?" It was Shizune again, but she seemed to be further away this time. Sakura tried to respond and found that she couldn't. Instead without really registering anything she pitched forward and passed out.

Sasuke watched as the woman who had actually hurried out towards an ANBU attack caught Sakura in mid fall. He was surprised the girl had stayed standing for so long. That she had been so coherent when he was talking to her but he supposed that it was the rush of adrenalin and fear that kept her going and now everything had caught up to her.

A movement caught his eye and he looked across at Gaara, who was looking down at the two bodies with something resembling curiosity.

"I saw what you did." The other man said, "all of it."

"I know," Sasuke said, he had noticed Gaara standing a little way away from the start, before he had intervened. "You didn't stop me, or help."

"You didn't need help." Gaara said flatly, "And in my opinion you could have finished those two off a little quicker." Sasuke gave him a sharp look.

"And why didn't you stop me?"

"What does it matter to me? I didn't know those people."

"They're meant to be our comrades."

"That didn't stop you." Gaara said. "What I want to know is why you would want to throw everything away for that girl. She was brave, I'll give you that. But when these two don't return they'll send out another team, a tougher one, and she'll be found again. You've only delayed what's inevitable."

"And what is that?" Sasuke asked.

"They'll kill her, whether she knows anything or not she's as good as dead."

"At least I didn't stand and watch it happen." Sasuke said flatly. Gaara almost chuckled.

"What is it with you and this place? Years of missions and as soon as you step foot into this tiny little village everything goes out of the window for you." Gaara said, "Everything you've done here could have you branded as a traitor." Sasuke had no response to that, he knew Gaara was right. Instead they watched as an older blonde woman joined the other in supporting Sakura. He had seen those two about and he wondered if the two ROOT agents were right in saying that they were protecting Sakura but from what? Were they just generally trying to keep her safe from the horrible realities of the regime or was there something deeper going on like the two ROOT agents were suggesting. Or were they just fishing and there was nothing hidden going on, just accusations for accusations sake.

"What do you thinks going on here?" Sasuke asked, "Despite all appearances I'm not so sure this is an ordinary village. Not after all this."

"Who knows." Gaara said simply, "Most of this seems to be ordinary people with ordinary lives but there is something else going on here. If that man from the Resistance dragged himself all the way here there must have been some reason for it. You wouldn't travel that far, that wounded, unless you had to and he must have known that dying in town would mean that an investigation would soon follow. The Resistance can't be that stupid not to know that anyway."

"I wonder if that girl is being protected." Sasuke said after a moment's pause.

"By you at least anyway." Gaara said dryly and Sasuke sent him a sharp look. "Well if she is then what for? There's nothing special about her as far as I can see. We've been here for a while and she's not tried to contact anyone she spends her time healing the sick and learning how to help people even more. She's a regular little do-gooder but I can't see why anyone would be too interested. Unless you could answer that one, why was it so important you save her, what made her so different from everyone else that we left behind that you knew would die."

"She was braver than the others." Sasuke said quietly it was the best thing he could say to his partner, what had really happened was that somehow she had brought something up that had been buried inside of him a long time. He had seen her face and it had reminded him of someone else's who had looked up at him and someone else with wide eyes and tried to follow them everywhere. It was like she had reminded him, by refusing to give in to the two ROOT operatives, that things could be, and used to be, different. Gaara frowned at him.

"Sentimentality will get you killed." He said. "It would be better if it never happens again."

"I wasn't being sentimental." Sasuke said, "I need to get rid of these." He added gesturing to the dead ROOT members. Gaara shrugged slightly.

"I can give you a hand. There's nothing else to do of interest here anyway." He said and began going through their belonging to remove any trace of identity they had. In theory once in ANBU you weren't supposed to carry anything that marked you out as an individual. They were meant to be nameless, faceless agents that served Danzo's will but this rule went widely disregarded as everyone had something that marked them out, even Gaara.

Between them they emptied both bodies' pockets and bundled them up to dispose of later. Gaara gave Sasuke a few sideward glances he couldn't help feeling a little curious about his partner's behaviour and he wondered if it was going to bring them anymore problems.

Not that Gaara was particularly bothered about the two dead ANBU agents, he had no sense of solidarity with them, they had never met and even if they had he wouldn't have been disturbed by this either. If those two had been stupid enough to cross swords with Sasuke, so to speak, then they deserved everything they got, Gaara thought, if they were that determined to survive they should have done better.

"What do you want to do with them." He asked finally. "This is all farmland so it's too risky to bury them and I am not helping you carry them far. It's your own mess."

"I'll burn them." Sasuke replied without hesitation. "It gets very dark here so if I take then out towards the woods over there I can get it hot enough to burn without anyone seeing smoke. And besides if anyone sees or smells it no one will say anything."

"Alright." Gaara muttered and he bent down to pick up one of the bodies. "Let's get this over with them." Sasuke almost smiled, he thought Gaara had said he wouldn't help. But he wasn't going to point that out now, it would be easier and quicker with the two of them anyway. He shouldered the body of the man, trust Gaara to leave him with the heavier one, and made to follow where Gaara had disappeared to. Then he paused slightly looking back to where the two women had taken Sakura off too. The girl, Sakura, had definitely been familiar to him, he could vaguely remember something but as Gaara had said there was no point dwelling on these things.

He had killed two ANBU agents, people who were meant to be his comrades and they had believed that they were on to something, maybe they had been about to uncover something about the Resistance after all who was he to say. He and Gaara were just here chasing the trail of a necklace that only proved that someone had come across Asuma's body and they didn't even know if that person had found him alive, and received whatever message he had, or dead. Either way, Gaara had been right, his actions had been treasonous and shouldn't happen again.