Book VI: Sai

Sai had been following orders, just like he was trained to do. He had been following orders. He had! If questioned, he would have been able to say truthfully that he had been within an acceptable patrol distance of the Land of Fire's border. The uncomfortable feeling of what he'd come to recognize as 'guilt' did not dissuade him from convincing himself that using semantics in that particular situation was also an acceptable act. He had been ordered to patrol the border, he had not been specifically told which side of the border he was supposed to stay on. He had been following orders.

There was some - was 'consolation' the right word? - to the fact that he had stayed within the Land of Fire for five days, moving his patrol slowly and steadily in a wider arc across the border on the sixth day. It was perfectly logical in a preventative sense, because he could see any trouble coming before it actually reached the border. Time continued to pass as he mulled over the complex web of logic he was weaving while he swallowed his guilt and flew just a little farther away from the border each day.

Why wasn't he seeing one of Kakashi's ninken yet? It had been a long enough time, hadn't it? In the back of his mind he knew it had hardly been any longer than it needed to be, and yet it had been far too long. It was confusing, not being able to distinguish the proper length of time it was supposed to take for him to acknowledge and accept his...worry? That was the correct word, right? Kakashi had said it himself when he'd left, he'd said to stop worrying.

It had, surprisingly, helped quite a bit for the first few days, but now things seemed to feel much worse. Or perhaps his perception was off because he had no basis for comparison with this particular situation. When the ink falcon he'd sent with the Jounin for childish reasons he was still trying to accurately define arrowed its way to a fluttering halt in front of him, it was...frightening? Yes, that was a good word to use. Perhaps not in a life-threatening sense, but it was still a valid descriptor.

The fact that Kakashi had needed to use it in the first place meant his mission had not gone smoothly, and he had possibly lost his entire pack of ninken. Or, on a more worrisome level - because surely this was an acceptable time to worry? - he was currently using his ninken, which meant Sai needed to get there as soon as possible since he was the only back-up the Jounin had. He didn't know what he was going to find as he turned his hawk to follow the falcon back the way it had come, and he certainly didn't intend to imagine scenarios that appeared to cause him even more worry. He only wanted to prepare himself for a variety of situations so his response time would be swift.

When he turned the corner of the mountain and spotted his comrades below, he was astonished at the amount of - 'relief' was certainly the right word this time - he felt. He had not been expecting that kind of reaction in himself, which only made the startling set of realizations he had as he neared the ground all the more powerful. First was the understanding of the word 'epiphany'. It was a romanticized word that he felt people chose to use in place of simply saying they'd come to a logical conclusion. Except he actually felt that the specific term of 'epiphany' was what was happening to him due to the second realization that accompanied it.

The phrase 'heart-stopping' was a quaint one, and though it was completely unrealistic and highly exaggerated it did help him comprehend the level of emotion people would try to describe to him. He had never thought he would actually experience a sensation, outside of death, that he could truly label as a heart-stopping moment. So, when the two figures remained motionless - lifeless - as he guided the hawk to the ground, and he saw that Kakashi was holding Naruto in a manner that seemed entirely out of the scope of how he'd come to understand the man's character, and also should have had the younger shinobi making an excessive amount of noise about how unpleasant the situation was, struggling to get away, just...reacting in general, but he wasn't because he looked unconscious - dead -, he had an epiphany while it literally felt as if his heart stopped.

He didn't wait for the hawk to land properly before leaping off its back and pelting his way to a skidding halt on his knees next to those two very important people that he did not want to die! And they weren't dead - yet -, they were still alive! Except it wasn't making him feel a whole lot better because Naruto had scratches on his face that looked badly infected - which was, of course, impossible due to his healing abilities -, struggling to breathe with a shallow wet raspy sound that was all too familiar to Sai. Naruto was drowning in his own blood, staining his lips red, and Kakashi was grimacing and fighting to lift a slightly shaky arm. They were in very bad shape - dying -, and he just wanted to know what had happened!

"Three bodies inside," Kakashi said, his voice sounding gravelly as he gripped the front of Sai's vest. "One dead, one dying, and one alive. We have to bring them back. Also, send this message out to the Kages along with this location: 'Kuro no Oka', and the name 'Arai'."

"Understood," Sai nodded, fairly satisfied that his voice sounded so calm in his ears, because reflex and training were already kicking in as he mentally worked out how to perform the task set for him.

"Hey, check it out," Kakashi chuckled as his hand dropped back to the ground. Sai blinked and listened silently, because that's what you do when the light starts to fade from your friend's eye. "It took me almost ten days...but I got him back in one piece...Sakura won't have to rip my arms off, now..."

Sai paused, wondering if he should reply when it was clear that Kakashi was unconscious. He decided against it. There wasn't any time to be wasted, and he had to get them back to Konoha as quickly as he was able. Making an ink clone was the most efficient course of action to deal with the bodies inside the cave while he attended to the puzzle of how to get Kakashi and Naruto onto the hawk without injuring them further. Admittedly, he wasn't very physically strong, but he was certain he'd be able to lift Naruto by himself, at least.

He had only just begun to carefully pull him off Kakashi's chest when he had another highly unanticipated epiphany: Kakashi was very attached to Naruto, and cared a great deal about his well-being. While Sai was aware of the bonds between the two, he was still working on understanding the complexity of what the word 'bond' signified in general. It had become clear to him over the last few years that the word 'bond' meant vastly different things for each individual, and that one person could so easily define the word in different contexts concerning each bond they shared. Even more confounding was that the person on the other end would have yet another definition for that same bond.

Due to the circumstances, he had to conclude that he had neglected to notice something quite significant somewhere along the way which made him severely misjudge the strength of the bond from Kakashi's perspective. It wasn't easy trying to make sense of all the nuances of human emotions, even in a normal setting. However, it was excruciatingly difficult trying to figure it out when there were fingers gripping his throat, and a thumb digging into his windpipe threatening to crush it while he cringed at a mismatched pair of savage eyes staring right through him without a hint of recognition.

Very slowly, Sai took his hands off Naruto and lifted them up in surrender, spots dancing in his vision as he tried to calm his heart down so it wouldn't use up what little oxygen he had left in a system that was currently not getting any more to keep it going. The grip relaxed its hold, and Kakashi again sagged into...'unconsciousness' was obviously not the correct term, so Sai settled for 'a state of semi-awareness without lucidity' as he sat back on his heels and choked in air.

Well, this was going to make getting the pair of them safely on the back of his hawk a strenuous exercise in strategic planning...