KitC 9

It's not Sasuke-kun.

I should probably say that right from the get-go. Face it, if you hear someone's defecting from Sound then the hope is that it would be him. In fact, when I got the message from Tsunade-shishou, I assumed it would be him. I wanted it to be him. But I think even then, somewhere deep down, I knew it wasn't going to be him. Ever.

"Explain to me why we have to be here again?" Ino whined, twirling a long strand of blond hair. She had on a bored expression as she glanced at the stage. The curtain wasn't even up yet and she was complaining. I didn't want to think about how she would be three hours from now when the opera was still going on.

"We're doing a dry run for tomorrow," I whispered to her from my neighboring seat. "I want to get our timing down."

Ino sighed dramatically, crossing her legs so the fabric of her red dress pulled tightly against her. "Why opera? I mean, the traditional ones in Konoha are bad enough, but this modern version is torture!"

I shrugged. I didn't have an answer for that. All I knew was that the box Shikamaru had given me had a copy of the playbill for this show with a date and time written on the cover. Tsunade-shishou had explained they had been working on this possible convert for a while and he had finally agreed to jump ship. She wanted the operation to be low key, which is why we were sent. But she was also wary of anything that came from Sound, which is why there were three ANBU squads monitoring the situation from a close distance.

"Curtain up," crackled the voice in my ear.

I resisted to the urge to look up. I knew Tenten was up there, somewhere in the maze of catwalks, monitoring the stage from her perch. Instead, I picked at the gray fabric of my own dress and looked over at Ino to see if the situation had improved. It hadn't.

"Stop pouting," I whispered.

"I'm not pouting," she replied, lips turned downwards as her arms crossed against her chest.

"It'll give you wrinkles when you're older," I said sweetly.

"At least I don't have gray hairs now," she smiled.

I pulled at my hair, looking for any trace of gray until I heard Ino giggle next to me. I punched her in the arm. She pinched my side. The people around shushed us loudly and the opera began.

I wouldn't say it was painful, per say, despite the fact that Ino made multiple attempts to escape. It was just... well... long. One person was stabbed and they sang about it for a good ten minutes. Then they realized they were dying so that was another ten and let's not forget the twenty minutes of lamentation that everyone else sang once the stabbing victim was dead. The medic in me was severely irked by how easy it would have been to save the victim if they had sought medical attention rather then sitting around, caterwauling about their wound.

The intermission came and Ino was out of her seat before the rest of the row had moved. If I hadn't grabbed her arm I'm pretty sure she would have knocked everyone down to get out. I looked up at the balcony and saw Hinata slowly lowering the opera glasses. She barely glanced over at me before standing up.

We wandered out into the main concourse and Ino made a beeline for the bar. She ordered a glass of wine, flirting shamelessly with the bartender to get it nearly filled to the top. I gave her a reproachful look.

"It's not like this is the real thing," she complained, sipping the drink.

"It's supposed to be as close to it as the real thing," I snapped. "Why can't you take this seriously?"

"Because seriously, I doubt this guy is going to show up at all," she replied. "I think this is a trap."

I would have argued but part of me felt the same way. Hinata joined us with a small smile, opera glasses in her hand. "It's lovely isn't it?" she said. Ino and I stared at her and she pinked considerably. "Well, it's... um... not too bad?"

I sighed. "Hinata, you're allowed to like things we don't."

"Yeah, like Naruto," Ino muttered so only I could hear, taking down more wine as she did. I glared harshly at her and she sighed. "I didn't mean it or anything. I'm just... so BORED." I didn't feel at all inclined to try to fix that but Hinata, powered by my assurance that it was okay, quickly launched into a dissection of the opera so far. Her eyesight were apparently not the only sense that was perfect. She was picking out subtlety in the music I couldn't hope to understand.

The lights flickered as intermission came to an end. Ino chugged the rest of her drink and I had to pull her away before she tried for a second one. We made our way back to our seats. I tapped the mic in my necklace and Tenten replied with a yawn that she was still in place. Ino fidgeted as the score started up again and I tried to ignore her, concentrating on the music instead.

The second act was mostly like the first – long, drawn out conversations that could have been completed in a minute in the the real world. Ino fell asleep and I didn't see a reason to wake her. It was really just a dry run and I was getting tired of fighting.

The final scene began and I was relieved. On the stage, the murderer from the first act was preparing to flee. His wife was on her knees, begging him not to go. She was desperate, every word she sang with filled with despair. Her hands clung to his jacket and as he tried to walk away she was dragged along with him. She promised him anything he needed, volunteered to come with him, give up everything just for him. Finally he turned and held her close and told her that staying behind was for her own good.

He left. He just left her behind even after all that. I expected a long solo on how she felt followed by someone coming in to save her, to hold her hand and promise her it would be for the better. But she cried on the stage, alone, for a minute, each sob was gut wrenching. And then she stood up slowly, walked to the table and picked up a knife.

She plunged it at her heart. The curtain dropped. The lights came up. Applause erupted and Ino woke up with a start.

"What'd I miss?" she asked, adjusting her dress. She looked over at me. "Sakura... are you crying?"

At dinner that night, we reviewed the plans for the next day. Just before the opera ended, we'd have to meet the defector and bring him to the train station where we would make the trip back to Fire Country. We were familiar with all the exits, knew the layout of the opera house by heart and were ready to nail this mission. Tenten gathered up the papers so she could go brief the ANBU squads.

"Can I come?" Ino asked.

"Why?" Tenten replied, clearly suspicious.

"Because I want to help you," she smiled. Tenten raised an eyebrow. "And fine, ANBU uniforms are really hot."

Tenten shot Hinata a look before she shrugged, letting Ino trail behind her commenting on which of their friends would look best in an ANBU uniform. Hinata and I remained at table in silence for a while after they were gone. I couldn't look at her directly, the passing glances showed me she was concerned. Apparently Ino's question at the opera had been heard by everyone.

"I'm fine," I said finally.

"Well... it's okay not to be," Hinata replied.

"It's not Sasuke-kun."

"We know. But... I think you want it to be."

I looked at her and forced a smile. "I'll always want it to be." She reached out and took my hand. I glanced at it for a moment before giving it a reassuring squeeze. I was fine, I was going to be fine.

The next night was here before I knew it. Ino and I entered the opera and found our seats, settling in for another long night. She sparkled though, chatting with her neighbors over how excited she was to get the chance to see this opera. She was in perfect form, as always, when it counted.

"Curtain up."

I scanned the crowd in the dark, looking for someone who might be our defector. No one looked out of the ordinary to me but still... I focused on the row of seats near the right side of the stage. I gently nudged Ino and she followed my gaze. Her frown confirmed my suspicions.

When intermission came, we waited around the bar for Hinata, trying not to look anxious. She looked about the same when she finally arrived. I didn't even need to say anything. "Yes, it is definitely the same group from yesterday and they are most definitely shinobi."

"Maybe they're opera fans?" Ino asked wryly.

I shook my head. "Someone else was doing a dry run last night."

"It's a either trap," Tenten replied, her voice soft in our ears, "or else Sound was tipped off."

"What do we do?" Ino asked, looking at me.

"We have to go through with it. If they were tipped off, they're going to kill whoever was planning to defect. If it was a trap... well that's what the ANBU are here for, right?" We spent the rest of intermission attempting to look relaxed, all the while scanning the crowd for any other potential threats.

The second act seemed longer then last night but that was because all I could do was stare at the trio of men sitting silently. None of them looked familiar but that didn't mean they weren't as dangerous as some of the known Sound operatives. The final scene began on the stage and a man in the front left row stood up, leaving his jacket on the seat.

"It's him," Tenten said.

Ino played a perfect role as the suddenly sick friend. She excused herself politely and I guided her through the aisle with profuse apologies. Most of the people around us looked sympathetic. I could only hope it was enough to keep that group of Sound-nin's from getting too suspicious. I glanced up at Hinata's balcony and saw she was gone. It should have been all I needed but for some reason, I just felt drawn to the balcony next to hers.

He stood up, but even before he had emerged from the shadows I knew it was him. "Sasuke-kun," I whispered, feeling Ino twitch under my hold. He glanced down at us and I saw how he had changed once more. His eyes were darker, colder, and the aloofness from his youth had built up like a brick wall around him. He held me in his eyes and didn't look away. It was even worse than when Naruto and I had confronted him before.

The woman on the stage was crying, begging her husband not to go. And I... I turned away and quickly pulled Ino out of the theater. We had a mission. We had to succeed. I had to keep going.

"Report," I hissed into the microphone in my necklace.

"They're not moving," Tenten whispered.

It didn't feel like a success. Even when we entered the lobby and the defector was waiting there for us. Something was off, it just felt... wrong.

"On the ceiling," Hinata cried as she ran down the stairs towards us, Byakugan active as she looked to the large windows in the front of the Opera House.

"Down!" I managed to get out just before the glass shattered. The sonic blast knocked us all back and blew the doors to the opera stage wide open. People started streaming out and through the chaos I managed to make out the catwalks hanging low over the audience. I fought my way to standing. "Sparrow! Get him out of here!"

"With me, please," Hinata said, grabbing the defector and pulling him off the ground. They dove into the crowd and disappeared from sight. The Sound-nin from the roof rappelled in and landed in the middle of the lobby. The ocean of people parted around them and they locked their gaze on us. Not running away had obviously made us easy to pick out.

"Ready?" I asked Ino.

"Born."

Dresses for kunoichi are designed with one major factor in mind. Ninety-percent of the time you were going to be fighting in it. Ino and I hit our hips at the same time, calling out the dispel jutsu. The seams disappeared, letting the fabric split up to the mid-thigh. Right where our kunai holsters were.

There were four of them so it was easy for us to split the work. I went left, Ino went right and we flanked them with a barrage of kunai. The initial attack had forced them only a few inches back before they retaliated. Sound jutsus are a pain to deal with, ruptured eardrums would make doing anything twenty times harder. Soon, we were both retreating out of the way so we wouldn't get hit. It didn't take long before we were pushed all the way back into the stage area.

The catwalks were barely hanging on. Tenten was dealing with the three men who had been in the front row as best as she could. They were constantly sending Sound jutsu at her and she was trying to avoid them as the catwalk began to collapse slowly beneath her. I could see hear her yelling but I couldn't hear a word she was saying. My only hope was that she was alerting the ANBU to our situation.

Tenten had managed to maintain a height advantage which let her throw a few of her 'special' kunai at them in retaliation. The seats around them disappeared into a crater and the three found themselves on the catwalks, expecting relative safety. Well, until they found themselves at the wrong end of a pair of katanas wielded by a rather annoyed looking kunoichi.

I jumped up on the audience seats and started throwing a few explosion tagged kunai myself. Oh yeah, they really didn't like that. One charged at me, arm ready for a punch. I dodged one strike, two, three and four in rapid succession. The speed of his punches was nothing like what Lee could throw, it was almost child's play.

"Goddamn it, you bitch, stay still!"

Oh... HELL NO.

I hope the Sound-nin learned that day that there are few words you never use when fighting a Konoha kunoichi. The b-word was definitely one of them. I didn't just hit the guy hard. I hit him, sent him into his friend and then watched as they both disappeared into the horizon.

Yeah. Try saying that word again with your jaw firmly stuck somewhere near your feet.

The catwalk whined and fell down into the seats, sending up an enormous plume of dust. I checked on Ino first, who used that moment to leave her body as she took over one of her attackers' minds. I held her up as best I could while I searched for Tenten. I took me a moment to realize it wasn't just her fighting anymore. One of the ANBU squads had appeared to lend a hand.

"Sparrow?" I yelled into the mic, hoping that Hinata was still in range.

"I'm fine, Blossom-san. ANBU have met up with us and we are heading towards the train station."

That was a relief. Ino squirmed in my arms as she came back to her body. "No one else is coming, this was it. ...are you groping me?" she demanded.

I dropped her so she fell between the rows of seats. I did, at least, take a moment to appreciate her work. One of her attackers was down, the other had managed to pin himself to a wall with kunai. He seemed somewhat confused as to why he would do that to himself.

The ANBU made quick work of the stragglers. Tenten came over and helped Ino stand up, trying not to laugh at the fact that she was firmly wedged there with her feet in the air.

I jumped up to the balcony where Sasuke had been but there was no trace of him save a familiar scent lingering in the air. I gently touched the seat where he had been sitting. It was still warm. I couldn't move for a moment, all I could think of was that stupid opera. Of that wife who couldn't let go, who let herself be dragged and finally was left behind. I understood each one of those sobs, each moment from when he left until the end.

Only my end wasn't going to be like hers. I wasn't left alone, people had come to help me. I held onto the chair tightly until it cracked and broke apart under the strain. The assembled Konoha group looked up, expecting another attack. But I simply brushed my hands against my dress and jumped down.

"Head out! We have a train to catch."