Winter Tears

1

Tsunande didn't flinch as Haruno Sakura slammed her hands down onto the table, making cracks and dents in the polished wood.

"Tsunande-sama!" she screeched. "How could you!"

"I did nothing," she responded calmly, her chin resting atop her laced fingers.

"Don't bullshit me!" the other woman growled, her fingers curling into claws with her anger. "They asked you to do it, didn't they?"

Tsunande opened her mouth to deny the accusation, but she felt that lying would only make it worse now. Instead she said: "There was a concern raised about your ability to...cope with certain sacrifices a ninja must sometimes make on the battlefield."

"Stop sugar-coating it!" Sakura yelled, running her arms in a fit across the desk and sending papers and Naruto's collective knick-knacks flying everywhere. Tsunande rose out of her chair swiftly, glaring at the pink haired med nin.

"One more outburst and I will have you placed under arrest, Haruno Sakura!"

"I don't care!" Sakura thrust herself over the desk and glared nose to nose with the temporary Hokage. "You've already helped in separating me from them! What's the point? You'll just have one less med nin in your hospital!"

"What good is it to yell at me?" Tsunande scolded, her voice heavy with disapproval over her former student's behavior. "What's done is done now."

"Let me go!" Sakura demanded.

"I can't."

"Why!"

"Because I promised Naruto that I wouldn't let you follow them."

Sakura had a brief flicker of conflicting emotions rush through her eyes: Anger at being left behind, pain at not being trusted to handle herself, sadness that she caused so much worry for them, exasperation at the fact that she was nota genin anymore, she was a grown woman and could handle whatever was thrown at her...

With Sasuke and Naruto by her side.

"Please, let me go," she begged in a much calmer voice. "Tsunande-sama, please, you know they need me!"

"I can't, Sakura," her mentor shook her head heavily, her eyes sad. "I promised that I would keep you in the village."

"No," she deflated. She was losing the argument and she knew it. "Please... Then, if not me, another medical ninja! Send someone else that's not emotionally attached to them! Send someone!"

"That would defeat the purpose of two things," Tsunande held up two fingers. "Your safety and the safety of the other villagers." She sighed. "I know what they're doing is practically a suicide mission, but Naruto wanted to go alone, in order to spare every other shinobi in the village. Sasuke went with him because one man going in solo would be nothing but a meaningless death. But the two of them together," she gave her successor a slight grin, "if any two shinobi can rescue the Raikage and dissolve the hostile anti-relations faction, it would be them. Right?"

Sakura didn't want to agree. She wanted to send a whole batillion of Anbu to back them up, with her at their center. She wanted to find them and grab them by their necks, shake them, slap them, punch them (something violent to take out her anger on them), and then hug them tight. Her stupid, hard-headed, stubborn, wonderful teammates. Her friends. Her brothers. She covered her face with her hands and began to sob.

"Why did they leave me behind?" she whispered. Tsunande felt her heart breaking for the pink-haired woman, and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Because they care about you," she answered kindly. A pair of new hands squeezed her shoulders and Sakura looked up into Mako Naori's round face. Her stylized calico cat mask was pushed up, keeping her orange curls away from her sorrow-filled blue eyes.

"Let's get you home, Haruno-san," she said. Too emotionally confused to be suspicious, Sakura let herself be led away. When she and Naori left the office, Kigeki Haiyu and Chiaki appeared in their place.

"Are you sure about this, Tsunande-sama?" Jun asked the temporary Hokage.

"I can't go against the Rokudaime's wishes," she shook her head. "Just keep track of her, and make sure she doesn't leave the village."

"Hokage-sama," Haiyu lifted his stylized tiger mask to give the older woman a skeptical look, "are you positive you want an entire Anbu teamon one little med nin? I mean, to be perfectly honest, I think it's a waste of resources."

"Haiyu--!" Jun shoved her wolf mask off to glare at him outright.

"It's alright, Kigeki," Tsunande held up a hand. She looked directly at Haiyu. "Have you ever seen Haruno fight before?"

"No, ma'am," he shook his head.

"Well, she can fight," she assured him humorlessly. "And when she makes up her mind to, she willfight her way out of this village. Almost nothing can keep her away from the Raikage and Uchiha." She raised an eyebrow. "When she does, you three will be there to stop her from succeeding. My only word of warning to you is: do not underestimate her."

"All right..." Haiyu did not sound or look convinced. Jun grabbed his arm and towed him out of the office.

"We'll keep an eye on her until the Rokudaime's and Sasuke's return," she assured Tsunande over her shoulder, Haiyu protesting in her grip. The door slammed closed. Tsunande sighed and knelt to collect the scattered papers and things that had succumbed to Sakura's tantrum. Her fingers brushed a picture frame. She lifted it and glanced at the photograph. And stared. Her eyes clouded. Her fingers brushed shakily over the white-haired figure in the photograph. As the tears began to fall, she lifted her face to the row of kage portraits and pinned her gaze on the Fourth.

"Please," she said through numb lips, hugging Jiraiya's picture to her heart, "watch out for them."

She peeked into Hana's room first. The bed covers were rumpled and half on the floor, leading partway to the door which was ajar. She instinctively moved down the hall to Haku's room and pushed the door fully open. Two little black haired bodies lay tangled together seamlessly beneath the white cover sheet. She tiptoed inside and pulled it down to reveal both her children's sleeping faces. The sudden light made them simultaneously scrunch their noses and turn their faces to the side. She watched their identical, fluid movements in wonder. Haku cracked open one bloodshot white eye to look up at her.

"Mommy..." he mumbled.

"Ugh... Five more minutes..." Hana frowned but did not open her eyes.

"It's past noon, you two," she stated, slight worry in her voice. "Aren't you going to get up? It's Saturday."

"Mm... Not yet," Haku shook his head slightly. "Later."

"You're going to ruin your sleep schedule," she tried to argue.

"I don't wanna get up," Hana wailed, throwing her arm over her eyes dramatically. The movement made Hinata feel a bit better, but she was still worried.

"Why are you guys so tired?" she asked them.

"We...stayed up too late," Haku tried to rub the sleep from his eyes so he could speak coherently.

"Doing what?" she pressed.

"Reading," Haku rolled over (she thought) to avoid her eyes. She wasn't convinced.

"Hana? Were you reading too?"

"Mm-hmm," she mumbled.

Definitely a lie, she frowned and activated her Byakugan. Her enhanced eyes scanned over their bodies and picked out their nerve clusters and chakra coils. Totally depleted. How?"Are you sure?" she asked them again. Haku shifted to face her again, looking slightly apologetic.

"Don't worry about us, Mommy," he said. "We'll be fine with just a little sleep."

"What happened to you two?" she sat on the bed beside Hana's twisted body. The girl squirmed around so that her back was smoothed against Haku's chest and her arms and head were on her mother's knees. Haku's own arms automatically encirlced her and squeezed.

"Haku and I have been training for the past couple of nights," she explained guiltily. "We didn't want you to worry, but..."

This reason sounded much more plausible than the first... But it still sounded off. Hinata stroked the spiky hair of the closer twin. "Why didn't you just say that? Do you want to train together later?"

"We should really just sleep today, Mommy," Haku spoke up. "We're more drained than usual. With a full day of rest, we should be fine."

Hinata was scrolling through her repertoire of medical conditions, but chakra exhaustion was a very general symptom. She scanned their bodies for tell-tale bruises or cuts from hours of repetitive fighting. There were none. Her suspicion rose again; there was definitely something the children weren't telling her...

Their footsteps were muffled by the freshly fallen snow. They each hiked up the rise in silence, their breaths pluming out around their heads as they thought their own thoughts and contemplated the difficult mission looming before them. They crested the steep hillside and one of them stopped, the other instantly pausing beside him. The shorter of the two pushed back his hood, revealing a blond tousle of hair and a stylized fox Anbu mask. He was gazing back over their path, down to the now-small village nestled in the wide river valley. It was hugged by a wreath of deep green forest, looking so safe and secure and peaceful. His breathing temporarily paused, the rhythmic breath-cloud betraying him.

"Do you think...this is worth the risk?" he asked his companion. The second figure didn't respond right away. He reached up and tucked a few of the wayward strands of hair the cold wind was tossing around behind one exposed ear. Then his hand cupped the masked face, gloved fingers slipping beneath the mask to stroke the skin beneath it.

"You are worth everything," he said to the first, "and your will is mine. If you want to rescue her, we'll do it. If you want to turn back, I'll go back with you and never speak a word of this again."

"Tell me what I should do." The blonde's hand came up to grasp the other's.

"Follow your heart. You're the one who taught me that... dobe."

An inhale, a pause, a heavy exhale. "We could both die," he finally spoke his fear aloud. "You could die."

"I'm invincible, remember?" the hand squeezed firmly, lovingly. "And didn't you say that if I was beside you, you'd be invincible too?"

Pause. "I'm...afraid," the shame was thick in his voice.

"Fearing death is natural."

"I'm afraid of losing you," he specified.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"But..."

"Nowhere," he emphasized, using his free hand to push back his own hood, black spikes flipping out and falling neatly into place. "Believe in me, Naruto."

"I...believe in you," the blond turned his head to avoid the direct stare. "I just... I need to assure myself. I need to keep telling myself that this isn't a mistake, that we'll both come home alive."

"We will," he squeezed their joined hands, touched his other hand to the face beneath the mask again. "I promise you, we'll both come home. With the Raikage."

"Sasuke..."

"I'm right here."

"Let me see your face."

Obediently he reached up and tugged the mask down from his face, letting it hang around his neck. Naruto pushed his own mask up over his face and let it rest atop his head. His hands clutched at Sasuke's.

"Kiss me."

"Are you ordering me, or asking me?"

"Both."

"You don't have to order me to do something I want to do."

"Asking, then."

"Why?"

"I thought you wanted to."

"Tell me why you're asking all of a sudden."

"Please kiss me," Naruto's clouded blue eyes looked almost desperate. "Here, where I'm surrounded by everything I love. Before we walk into almost certain death." He struggled. "I just want...one moment--one kiss--that's not surrounded by secrecy or duty. Where I can just be Naruto and you can just be Sasuke and we can just be."

"Don't be scared, Naruto," Sasuke grasped his lover's face tenderly and tilted it up so their gazes locked.

"Kiss me, Sasuke," he pleaded.

They kissed. It was deep and it was long and it was as pure as the curtain of newborn snowflakes that began to descend upon them. Naruto was no longer the Rokudaime Hokage and Sasuke was no longer the elite Anbu Captain of the Uchiha clan. They were simply two people in love, and for that eternal moment, nothing else around or before them mattered.