Kakashi walked around aimlessly thought the streets of Konoha with his nose buried in an Icha Icha book he was pretending to read. Though he was a huge fan of the series most of the time when he had the book out it was actually to discourage human interaction. When people saw you reading porn out in public they tended to steer clear of you and not speak to you for some reason.
As a Jounin instructor Kakashi now had a great deal of free time and he spent most of it wandering around town or visiting the memorial stone. Unlike virtually all his peers he only spent enough time training to maintain his current level of skills. It had been years since Kakashi had found the motivation to push himself to improve further. That drive to keep climbing higher had died along with all his precious people.
Not that it really mattered in his day to day career. His natural genius and the level of skill he had achieved was enough for him to come out ahead in virtually any situation against any opponent. Somehow he was still one of the strongest ninja in Konohagakure no Sato. If his peers knew he had been coasting on his skills for a decade now and he was still better than most of them, well, he imagined a lot of them would be pissed.
As he casually strolled through one of the main avenues in the village Kakashi mulled over the conversation he'd had with ANBU Rat the previous night. That Sakura was possibly hanging around the hospital gathering intel for a foreign power in anticipation of the Chunnin exams seemed a stretch. It was hard to imagine what possible intel she could be gathering hanging out behind the hospital where she couldn't even keep track of who was entering and leaving. The reason she was doing it was probably innocent. However there did have to be a reason and he couldn't quite call himself a responsible Jounin-sensei if he didn't find out what it was.
He didn't feel like tailing Sakura to try and find out her intentions. It was boring and it would take away time from other things… like hanging out at the memorial stone. No the fastest thing would be just to ask her. A little Genin like her wasn't trained enough or experienced enough to be able to get away with lying to him and it wouldn't be hard to get the story out of her.
Still hanging out around the hospital also tugged at some alarm bells in his mind at other things he had been noticing from her. Sakura's chakra had recently started fluctuating way more than was normal. One day it would be normal and the next there would be a marked increase only for it to return to normal a day or two later. It was strange but if her chakra didn't start dropping below what was normal there was probably nothing to worry about. Still, maybe that's why she was at the hospital? Perhaps he should have insisted she go get herself checked out.
That theory didn't make sense however if she wasn't even going inside. Well no use wondering about it since he was just going to get the story from the girl. He just hoped it wasn't something stupid or embarrassing. When dealing with kids it usually tended to be one or the other.
Coincidentally as he was thinking about all this he happened to spot someone he recognized from having seen her once or twice. Walking down the street looking like she had just been grocery shopping was one Haruno Aiko, Sakura's mother.
Hmm lucky thought Kakashi. If someone knew what was going on with Sakura it would probably be her mother. It was standard procedure when going to interrogate someone to get as much information as possible from other sources. It made it much easier to trap people in a lie when you were questioning them. Not that he felt the need to go that far with Sakura but Kakashi was a professional (most of the time) and old habits died hard. Besides who knew what it could be? If it was some family or girly problem he didn't want to probe too deep if he could help it.
He put the book away as he approached her conscious about not scaring her off.
"Aiko-san," he said in greeting and to get her attention.
The woman eyed him warily. "Can I help you with something Shinobi-san?"
Funny, he was so used to every ninja knowing who he was on sight it was kind of novel not to be recognized. "My name is Hatake Kakashi, I'm Sakura's Jounin instructor," he said.
"Oh! Pleasure to meet you Hatake-san. Sakura's told us a lot about you. That you're a well… err very competent Shinobi. Even civilians like my husband and I have heard about you," she said a little awkwardly.
I wonder what Sakura actually told her parents about me. Probably nothing good he thought. There were some drawbacks to being known as an eternally late smutty book enthusiast.
"So what can I do for you Hatake-san?" asked Aiko politely.
"Aiko-san," asked Kakashi, "do you have any idea why your daughter would have been spending time by the hospital?"
Kakashi saw Aiko frown for a few moments as she considered the question before her eyes widened and all color drained from her face.
"I-," she stammered, still talking to him but clearly her mind was already a hundred miles away, "maybe. I don't know. Excuse me I have to go," she said.
Aiko started to walk away swiftly before Kakashi's hand on her arm stopped her.
"Aiko-san," he asked in a voice one might use when calming spooked animals, "what's wrong?"
The woman shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe it's nothing, I have to check. Please I have to go," she said with pleading in her voice. After a moment's consideration he released her arm and Aiko sped away into the crowd.
Something was definitely wrong. Before the end of the day he better go find his wayward student and get the story from her.
"Hey forehead! Haven't seen you in a while."
In another part of Konoha Sakura had been headed home when she ran into Team 10 coming out of an All-You-Can-Eat Barbeque restaurant.
Sakura turned to see Ino standing at the front of her team smirking in a way that told Sakura the girl was in the mood for a confrontation.
"Haven't seen you around either Ino-pig. I'd ask if you've been working hard but you've probably just been bossing Chouji and Shikamaru around the whole time," she said. She hadn't even thought about her response but bantering with Ino was automatic. Sakura thought she could be asleep and her mouth would still reflexively shoot off whenever her friend/ex-friend was around.
"They need a strong woman to keep them in line and I'll have you know I work harder than anyone on this team," Sakura could tell from Shikamaru's and Chouji's looks they didn't quite agree with that, "what about you? Has your big forehead and horrible personality finally soured Sasuke-kun to you for good?"
Sakura opened her mouth to retort that she would be the one to win Sasuke in the end as she normally would but she stopped. While she did have feelings for Sasuke they had recently taken a backseat to everything else going on in her life. Suddenly Sakura found she didn't want to argue with Ino about who would win Sasuke-kun's affections.
"Sasuke-kun is too busy training to worry about girls," she replied instead, "in fact my whole team is too busy training. We have to be ready for when we start the Chunnin exams you know."
Ino didn't immediately reply and there was an odd tension that went through the group. Taking a guess at what it was Sakura asked, "Are you guys participating in the Chunnin exams too?"
"Of course!" Ino said right away.
"Troublesome woman bullied us into it," grumbled Shikamaru, "and all this extra training has been a pain."
"Stop complaining! How are you ever going to make anything of yourself with that kind of attitude?" yelled Ino.
"Tsk, annoying woman," he mumbled while deliberately turning away.
"So what's with the mummy bandages on your arms? And if you wanted to do your hair like mine you don't quite have it right," said Ino, ignoring Shikamaru and focusing back on Sakura.
Sakura had taken to putting her hair in a low ponytail as opposed to the high one Ino preferred. "These 'mummy bandages' protect my hands during taijutsu training. Plus my hair looks way better than yours."
"You wish!"
They bantered like that for a few minutes and it was an odd experience for Sakura. On the one hand it was familiar and in a way comforting in its familiarity, a way to reaffirm her friendship/rivalry with Ino who was one of her very first friends. On the other hand it felt sort of… immature now. Whereas Sakura had once been passionate about the things they tended to bicker about now she just went through the motions and she found she cared very little if Ino's hair was better looking than hers. Sakura had more important things to worry about.
Eventually their sensei dragged them away and Sakura continued on her stroll home. She needed to get something to eat before heading back to the hospital. It was already day four and if she didn't 'feed' today she was almost positive she wouldn't make it through day five. She needed to stay calm and make it through the rest of the day. Maybe she would have to risk it and stay longer than normal or make an excuse to stay inside the hospital for a while. Maybe she would arrange for a 'training accident' and spend a few hours waiting for someone who would treat a sprained wrist. She was seriously reaching her limit and there was only so much more she could take.
When Sakura arrived home she saw her mom sitting on the kitchen table. She knew instantly something was wrong. Her mother wore an expression that was both extremely pained and resolute. She didn't look too well and frankly she looked like she was under a lot of strain.
"Mom, what's wrong?"
Her mother didn't answer right away. Instead she stood up from the table and walked towards her daughter. "Let me look at you," she said softly and firmly. Sakura was confused and worried by her actions but she let her mom do whatever she wanted to.
Aiko cradled Sakura's face in her hands. Then with some visible reluctance she used her thumbs to pull down on Sakura's eyelids. Whatever she saw there caused the woman to take a deep shuddering inhale. She released Sakura's eyelids and the hands she had on her daughter's face started shaking.
"Mom?" said Sakura feeling increasingly alarmed.
Sakura was flabbergasted as she saw tears start to stream down her mother's face. The woman put her hands on her daughter's shoulders gently and was examining Sakura's face like she had never seen her before.
"Mom? What is it? You're scaring me," she said a little panic in her voice.
Her mother started shaking. It looked like she was barely keeping it together.
"Sakura… How many have you… ?" she said before catching herself as a sob escaped her lips.
Sakura's eyes widened in panic as she realized what was going on. Her mother knew. Somehow her mother knew!
Sakura started to back away slowly from her mother, looking at her while internally having a panic attack. Her mother looked at her with the utmost sadness and heartbreak on her face. Then she did something Sakura would never have expected from her mother in a situation like that. She gave her daughter one last pained look then turned and ran out of the house.
The young girl looked after her mother for a few seconds before she felt sick. Sakura ran to the bathroom and knelt in front of the toilet in time to empty the contents of her stomach. Somehow she knew. Somehow her mother knew she was a killer. Somehow she knew she was… was some kind of freak.
After spending a few minutes emptying her stomach she dragged herself up to the sink and used the water to wash her mouth. Suddenly wondering what it was her mother had seen Sakura reached and pulled down her eyelid. What she saw was distinctly alien. Instead of the healthy pink one would expect to see the tissue underneath her eye was a bloodless bone white. She didn't know what it meant but obviously it had meant something to her mother.
Sakura looked at herself in the mirror. She didn't want this. It was too much. Why… why did…
The dam broke and the 'door' opened.
Sakura looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and saw what she had been expecting. Her eyes once again had a ring of white around the center that slowly changed to the color of honey around the edges. So her eyes always did change when she underwent her own 'change'. Good to know.
Her thoughts were brought back to the most pressing issue of the moment, that of her mother. For a moment she considered eliminating her mother before immediately discarding that thought. She had wondered to what extent her mind was altered while in this state. It seemed she still cared enough to not want to hurt her loved ones. Somehow that was a relief to know.
So what, if anything, should she do about her mother? After thinking about it for a while she concluded that the best thing to do would be nothing. Obviously her mother knew something about her situation. She'd have to ask her when she came back. The most important thing was that Sakura knew her mother and her mother would never do anything to intentionally harm her or put her in danger. Even if her mother somehow knew she had uncontrollable homicidal tendencies she would still do her best to protect her. In the end the situation probably wasn't as serious as she had initially feared.
But why did her mother suspect her in the first place? She didn't know. Possibly it was some other sign of her change that she was unaware of, like the lack of coloration under her eyelids. Sakura resolved to ask her mother when she returned.
In the meantime there were other problems that needed to be taken care of. While back to being undesirably 'normal' she had once again allowed the Hunger to get out of control. That was not good, not good at all. She could see the logic behind what she had been doing at the hospital but such a thing was a stopgap measure at best. Even if she lived in the middle of a war with constant death all around she knew she would need to kill herself eventually. Somehow she just knew that was how she was built.
Sakura looked outside the window and saw the sun was already setting. The hospice had worked before and there was no reason it wouldn't work again.
She took the time to go upstairs and change into something more nondescript than her ninja attire. After putting on an outfit of muted colors that would let her go as unnoticed as much as possible Sakura left the house to find her prey.
In the thirty minutes it took her to reach her destination at a leisurely pace the sun had already set. Being careful to remain out of sight Sakura used all the stealth skills she possessed and went from window to window looking in to see the patients with a small mirror. If she was going to do this on a semi regular basis it would be best to do some recon, henge into a nurse or a doctor and look at all the patient's charts so she could carefully select her targets beforehand. As it was she was just going to have to play it by ear.
Five windows down Sakura found a potential candidate. It was an old woman who had a room all to herself and seemed to be sleeping. Carefully Sakura opened the window and let herself inside.
It was child's play. She had been dying of cancer and was too weak to feed herself much less put up any resistance. After checking there were no nurses or staff nearby Sakura used the woman's own pillow and suffocated her.
Sakura absorbed the full death this time. Almost indescribable pleasure coursed through her as chakra exploded from her hara to every channel and every nerve of her body. It was like Sakura was feeling whole and complete for the first time in over a month. There was no way experiencing death second hand could compare. Sakura allowed herself a few moments to enjoy the ecstatic sensations at the dead woman's bedside before turning and slipping back out the window.
Saturated with chakra and feeling like a million ryo she glided back out onto the street with an almost giddy air about her. Nothing in the world felt as amazing as this. Realizing she had missed eating dinner Sakura headed towards the part of town that tended to have a lot of open air food vendors.
After Sakura had arrived and purchased a bounty of fried foods and sweets that she loved she pondered what to do next. Although she would not hurt her mother she still felt somewhat resentful that the woman had run out without giving her any answers and that she had possibly been keeping secrets from her. A bit hypocritical, yes, but if her mother had any information on what was going on with her it was totally different. Perhaps a night away from home would be what they both needed to cool off.
It was perfect actually. Tomorrow was one of the very rare mornings Guy-sensei had declared they should take the day off. Sakura would spend most of the night training and then sleep outdoors. Not ideal but with the warm summer nights in Konoha it wouldn't be too unpleasant. In the morning with cooler heads she would go talk to her mother and sort all of this out.
With this in mind she headed for the training ground near her house where she usually met with Guy and Lee. She stood on top of the creek with her chakra and started to go through the Goken forms she had been taught as a warm up. Her body felt amazing and she felt lighter and more free than she could ever remember feeling. She felt light as a feather in the wind as she threw kicks and flowing punches under the moonlight.
It wasn't just the chakra flooding her system. She felt like she was suddenly carrying forty pounds less of baggage both in her body and in her mind. It was absolutely incredible and it was a shame she had never felt her body in quite this way before. If she had half a brain she would stay like this forever.
Of course she suspected once she fell asleep she would wake up and be 'normal' Sakura again, with all her angsts, doubts and silly moralizing that didn't get her anywhere. It was frustrating to see coming that she was going to go back to that state and not be able to do anything about it. She would probably cry about the old lady and gnash her teeth, punch the ground and all manner of other nonsense. Sakura sighed. There really wasn't much she could do about that so she might as well focus and enjoy her training while it lasted.
Several hours later an exhausted but satisfied Sakura found a suitable branch high up in the canopy. She leaned against the trunk of the tree in a little groove and used her long hair to make a tiny improvised pillow for herself. Probably she should have thought to bring at least a thin blanket but the night was warm and one evening outdoors wouldn't kill her. Resolved to speak with her mom in the morning Sakura bundled herself up as best she could and drifted off to sleep.
(The Next Morning)
In his many years as Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen had made it a habit to be in his office well before dawn. The hours before the sun rose were the only hours he was guaranteed to be able to make headway in his paperwork without interruptions. It was also a time his subordinates knew not to interrupt him unless it was serious business.
Which is why he was surprised when one of the Chunnin still on night duty knocked on his door.
"Enter," the Hokage said gruffly barely looking up from his paperwork.
"Hokage-sama there is a civilian woman here to see you. She says it's urgent," said the Chunnin looking nervous.
Hiruzen stopped writing and had to fight not to scowl at the man. He didn't like to be interrupted during his 'special' time with his paperwork. "You know all civilian concerns go through the proper channels. Why are you bothering me with this?"
"Well," said the Chunnin nervously, "she said it concerns an active duty Shinobi. She said something about grave danger and potential lives being at stake. When I pressed her for more details she said she refused to speak to anyone but you."
Hiruzen sat back on his chair and sighed. As much as he was tempted to just send the woman away Konoha citizens knew better than to bother the Hokage with frivolous business. Looked like his paperwork would have to wait until he figured out what this was all about.
"Alright send her in," said the Hokage. He only hoped this 'grave danger' could be dealt with quickly.
Sakura slowly woke up with the sun shining in her eyes. Sleepily she thought the light would have woken her but she didn't think that was it at all. Slowly she opened her eyes to see a tall figure standing right in front of her.
"Gah!" she cried out startled. Forgetting where she was she turned and fell straight off the branch she was sleeping on. Suddenly wide awake thanks to a flood of adrenaline Sakura looked for a way to stop her fall. Seeing a branch coming closer just barely in reach she stretched her arms forward as far as she could. She struggled to attach herself to the branch with chakra and for a second thought she would fall but somehow managed to hang on.
"Kakashi-sensei are you crazy! You could have killed me!" she yelled in anger and fright as the adrenaline surged through her. With a grunt she pulled herself up on top of the branch that had stopped her fall.
"Yo Sakura-chan! I've been looking for you," he said joyfully completely ignoring her anger. With contemptible ease he jumped down to stand on the same branch as her.
"I was having a nice nap until you scared me half to death. Did you really have to wake me up that way? And why were you looking for me?" she said, starting to calm down from fire breathing angry to just extremely irritated.
"I just wanted to ask you something," he said.
"So? Ask away," she said starting to brush off some of the bark on her arms.
"Why have you been spending two to three hours a day in the park behind the hospital?" he asked, playful mood suddenly turning serious.
Sakura froze in mid motion. Suddenly the events from the day before came rushing back to her.
Her mom knowing something about what was wrong with her and suddenly freaking out and running away.
How she had finally lost control like she had been afraid of and turned into 'Evil Sakura.'
How she had killed a helpless old woman in her bed and then gone out for food and training like it was nothing.
How amazingly good it had all felt.
Oh Kami.
Sakura sank down to her knees and started crying. Big loud sobs filled with everything she was feeling, grief, pain, confusion, fear, guilt. Kakashi watched on helplessly as his student completely broke down in front of him.
"Sakura," he said gently. Not knowing what to do he awkwardly started patting her hair like he remembered his mother doing for him when he was a little boy. "Come now there's no need for that. You're a big bad Kunoichi of the Leaf aren't you?"
Sakura couldn't live like this anymore. She had to confess everything. She wanted to confess everything. "Kakashi-sensei… there's – there's something really wrong with me," she started. She kept her head down but her sobs subsided somewhat. Kakashi pulled his hand away but crouched down to be eye level with her.
"Hey, Sakura look at me," he said. She slowly complied looking at him through tear stained eyes. "As your Sensei I promise to help you deal with whatever it is that's going on. Remember my first lesson? Anyone who abandons their teammates is worse than trash. And I won't abandon my teammates," he said in reassuring tones.
Sakura looked him in the eye and felt a little better knowing that he meant every word. She nodded and gave him a look that she hope conveyed her gratefulness. Wiping away her tears Sakura took a deep shuddering breath as she thought about how she was going to start telling this story to Kakashi-sensei.
"It all started in the mission in Wave… when those men died. When they died… when they died I felt-"
"Haruno," a sharp hard voice interrupted them from above.
Standing on a branch right above her were two masked ANBU with their gazes fixed squarely on her.
"The Hokage has asked to see you. You'll need to come with us."