V. New Leads

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The following week after Seiyo Academy's elementary soccer club wins their game, Haruno Sakura comes across another, bothersome problem.

"I really hope you can come, Haruno-chan." A delicate smile blooms on the cross dresser's face like a flower in spring. The entire class dies to a silence and from the corner of her eyes, Sakura can see Hinamori frozen with a gaping, open jaw.

The pre-pubescent face shines brilliantly and for a second, Sakura is nearly moved.

I've always had a weakness for pretty things…

"Thank you for the invitation, Fujisaki-san," Sakura returns the gesture with a charming smile of her own and gently places the card back into the Queen's hands. Be polite, always polite, she chants in her mind as Yuuki throws a few kunai two meters away for practice. "But I think I'll have to decline."

Gasps fill the air and Sakura does not have the energy to stop her eyes from rolling.

"Oh my. Did we do something to offend you?" Fujisaki lifts his right hand to cover his mouth in sorrow and are those tears in his eyes?

"Of course not." Sakura smoothly answers (because, Ino is the better actor), grabbing Fujisaki's hands in a pseudo-earnest move to convey her 'sincerity.' "I just have so many responsibilities to attend to after school - I simply cannot miss them. Surely you understand…?"

Ahahaha, the tables have turned now, eh, princess? Sakura cackles inside her head as Fujisaki falters at this point. They make eye contact for a brief moment and Fujisaki's eyes clear.

"I understand completely, Haruno-chan. Then, what about over the weekend? We have a meeting this Sunday..."

Sakura blinks at the words, because Fujisaki is quite good at maneuvering conversations -

She stops.

No, that's not right, is it?

That really isn't it.

There's just something about this world...

(In the span of less then three seconds, Sakura realizes that she has been treating this entire world like Konoha's inferior. These children are no younger than when Ino first started manipulating the crowd to her whim, or when Sasuke cleanly cut off a rabbit's head for dinner during an Academy field trip, unblinking and without remorse).

Don't act so arrogant; you're behaving just like Sasuke, the bitter thought crosses her mind and Sakura almost laughs.

What exactly makes her better than these children?

Is it her reflexes, her talents, her status as a ninja?

(she's just so… tired. So old, and so very, very tired).

Weren't you in the same position, ten years ago? she thinks blithely, the urge to laugh bubbling again against her throat. She refocuses her gaze.

"Very well. Sunday it is." Without warning, she releases her tightening grip on Fujisaki and offers an old, bitter smile.

I've forgotten the importance using every resource that I can. How… unprofessional of me.

-o-o-o-o-o-

That night, Sakura shares her sudden change of plans for the weekend with her "guardian."

"Wow, how sudden!" Nikaidou gushes, voice high-pitched and bubbly as always. "You must be very excited, Sakura-chan. Not many kids receive invitations to the Royal Garden."

"So I've heard." she takes a dainty bite out of her fish (dinner is, once again, cooked by her; really, exactly how Nikaidou survived by himself with his lacking skills is beyond her) and eyes the intense interest in his face with a hint of apprehension.

"Well, I'll be happy to hear all about it when you get back." A spark of annoyance flashes through her and judging from Nikaidou's mocking eyes, she knows she is too slow to hide it away.

"Of course, oji-san." Her facial muscles twitch into a smile that is all too predatory (god, has she always been this sloppy? Sloppy and unprofessional and disgustingly slow).

This world lets her be far too lax.

One day, Sakura swears with sweet hope, one day, your lovely skinny neck will be fodder within my hands.

And as they stand up to clear the table with false cheer, she briefly wonders if Nikaidou ever gets tired of his act.

It's almost amusing: surely there's something - a personality, a character - lying beneath the multiple layers of fake brightness and the fake coldness underneath.

(Sakura would know all about keeping up acts. She's been doing so her entire life).

-o-o-o-o-o-

The Sunday of, Sakura arrives five minutes prior to the arranged time.

"Precarious brats aside, this Royal Garden is certainly something," she notes with a hum, taking in the various plants and flowers surrounding her. Some of them she can clearly spot and name, while others are obviously species of a different origin.

(it's clear that the Royal Guardians are not lacking in money, much to Sakura's annoyance. Who honestly gives a bunch of pre-teens that much monetary control?)

Next to her, Yuuki responds with a near undetectable twitch and Sakura smiles.

"So tense," she teases, and the Guardian Character snorts, but obediently puts the kunai away.

"You will thank me later on." Yuuki reassures with a firm look, but there's a glint in her beautiful blue eyes that tells enough.

Sakura beams.

(there's something so wonderful about Yuuki's eyes and Sakura wonders if it's the result of her lonely subconscious because they are the color of the sky and -)

"Haruno-chan!"

Unsurprisingly, the Royal Guardians are there before her.

With swift, silent steps, Sakura walks up the stairs and greets them expectantly.

"Good morning," she smiles while baring her teeth, looking directly into Fujisaki's eyes.

(regardless of her prejudice, this meeting better be worth her time; it was a pain to reschedule her class at Watanabe's dojo)

"Good morning!" Four voices respond back.

One boy is suspiciously silent.

"It's good to see you again, Haruno-san," Hotori gives a polite but sincere smile. He gestures to an empty seat across from him. "If you would like, please take a seat."

Amused, Sakura wonders what Hotori would think if, for all his politeness, he knew his mannerisms and words eerily followed Konoha's standards for intimidation and torture.

The moment she takes a seat, however, someone else stands with abrupt haste, the ends of his chair screeching violently against the marble floor.

"Kukai?" The youngest girl peers into the older boy's pale face. "What's wrong?"

"I," Almost like a mouse facing a cat, Souma's face reluctantly faces Sakura's own, as if magnetically pulled. "I - "

The other Guardians watch with rapt fascination.

Sakura's lips curl in amusement.

"It's been awhile, Souma-senpai," Her smile widens when the boy's face grows impossibly whiter. "How are you?"

Goosebumps appear along Souma's arms as his entire body shakes with tremors.

A pause before -

"Bathroom." he blurts out, and the rest blink in confusion. "I mean, I'm good, but - bathroom."

The word is repeated a few times in a mantra, and Souma clings to it like a lifeline.

With the legs of a paralyzed old man, he drags himself away, muttering, "I'm going to the bathroom."

"Okay," the girl - Yuiki Yaya - cheerfully says with wide eyes. "Just come back soon!"

Splat.

The greenhouse falls to an incredible silence, the sound of running water offsetting the sight of Souma sprawled, twitching, at the bottom of the stairs of the pavilion.

"Kukai!" Souma's Guardian Character, Daichi, wails with horror. "It can't end like this! It can't!"

The silence becomes even more pronounced.

"So," Sakura says after a long moment, forcing the attention back to her person. She smiles predatorily. "What can I help you with?"

"Well, uh," Hotori is quick to recover and the rest follow his example, tearing their eyes away from Souma's half-conscious form. "We just wanted to have a brief meeting with you, to make sure you're informed of all the details."

He motions to Yuuki, silent and meditating on top of the table.

"Wow," one of Hinamori's Guardian Characters, Ran, swoops in with interest. She leans forward, gradually moving closer and closer to Yuuki. "You're kinda strange! In a good way!"

Yuuki pulls out a kunai and lets the weapon rest next to Ran's throat.

"Come closer, and I'll remove your head," Yuuki states, eyes still closed in concentration.

Wisely, Ran immediately backs off.

"This is Yuuki," Sakura introduces to the frozen group. With a sigh, Yuuki stands, kunai disappearing into the folds of her pouch, and bows shortly.

"Well met," the Guardian Character says, before moving to rest sedately next to Sakura's shoulder.

Sakura hums, feeling somewhat vindictive and petty enough to ask, "And you all are?"

Hesitantly, like rusted cogs turning for the first time, introductions begin slowly before picking up pace. Naivety returns their cheerfulness, but it's not enough to remove their lingering wariness.

Far more aware of this than any of them will realize, Sakura bares her teeth, and makes sure this will be the last time anyone ever thinks they can hold her by their whims.

-o-o-o-o-o-

She's not entirely surprised when the meeting provides nothing that Souma hadn't mentioned previously.

It's an entire waste of time, full of tea and treats and idleness, and Sakura struggles to not condemn them for it. At least she can say she's explored that option before closing it off completely.

She raises her hands, fingers outreached to grab the darkening sky above, ears pricking as the front door closes softly.

(she's bitter, she realizes. Absolutely bitter about her situation and it's shameful that she's taken it out on a group of children).

"I think," Sakura says out loud, head resting on the floor of the porch. "I need to change my tactics."

"That would be wise," Yuuki agrees, sharpening her weapons a short distance away. "You're becoming easily frustrated."

Sakura blows out a puff of air and the long strands of her hair fly away at the motion.

"You're right," she admits, the words struggling to come forth. "I'm chasing non-existent leads. It's better to start off small, right?"

"Baby steps," Yuuki suggests, and Sakura smiles at the thought.

She won't apologize for her actions; she's not sorry, but she should have found a better outlet for her anger. She'll be more careful because now, she knows what will happen if she becomes complacent.

"Let's see what old man Nikaidou is up to so late at night," Sakura says to the fading stars. "He's got work tomorrow - what an irresponsible adult."

"Very suspicious," Yuuki adds on and Sakura laughs, the sound filling the hollowness in her throat.

-o-o-o-o-o-

Nikaidou knows cat-boy. Sakura wonders why she is not as surprised as she should be, but Nikaidou knows cat-boy and suddenly, some things become a little more clear as the lines are drawn.

"Why didn't they just use their phones?" Sakura asks, though to who, she is unsure. "Why come all the way here, in the middle of the city, in the middle of a crosswalk, just to share a few words?"

She thinks Nikaidou is an utter failure at trying to act cool, and could learn something from Kakashi-sensei.

"He was lame, but he had his moments," Sakura tells her Guardian Character. They're resting on top of a skyscraper, breathing in the city smoke. Moving between buildings is quite different from moving between trees, and Sakura enjoys the challenge. "Maybe you'll get to meet him someday."

"I look forward to it," Yuuki answers, sharp eyes tracing the suspicious figures below. "Now, do we follow your guardian, or the young boy?"

It takes a split second to decide.

"Nikaidou," Sakura says decisively. "Better yet, let's head back. I've learned a lot."

She stands up, stretching her arms and relishing the bones cracking along her shoulders. "I doubt this will be their last encounter. We'll see cat-boy again."

-o-o-o-o-o-

And indeed, they do.

"This," Sakura murmurs, watching as Nikaidou shifts a hand. "This might be a lead."

She tilts her head to the side, sensing more than seeing the chakra within the building below becoming more malevolent. A foot forward, and she stands at the very edge of the rooftop, ready to walk down the walls until -

She looks up, and lo and behold, there's cat-boy.

The wind whistles past as they stare at each other, Sakura on the roof's ledge, cat-boy on a telephone pole of all things.

"Ikuto!" Cat-boy's Guardian Character shrieks, tugging incessantly at the boy's sleeve. Its voice is high-pitched enough to reach Sakura kilometers away. "Do you see that? I know her, she's that bully!"

This can go two ways, Sakura thinks, as Yuuki readies her fists for a fight. I can ignore cat-boy, walk down to see what exactly Nikaidou's done and gather some valuable information that way.

On the other hand, he knows Nikaidou, she considers, her eyes never breaking from cat-boy's own. And if I give more of myself away, it would be a gamble. He could tell Nikaidou and then the game's all over.

A moment later, and Sakura stops short.

Who am I kidding, she wrinkles her nose at how cat-boy has positioned himself. Cat-boy has no idea what he's doing - god, standing in full view of the roads? Anyone with a working neck can see him.

"Yuuki," she finally says, choosing to be the first to break eye-contact. "A little help, please?"

"Of course," the little woman asserts, and immediately, a boost of chakra is sent Sakura's way.

"Thank you," Sakura sighs in contentment, simply enjoying the feeling of fresh energy coursing through her veins until she steps forward.

A blast of air rushes past her entire body as she falls and, with several hand signs, Sakura vanishes from the eyes of anyone who could be watching.

Her feet catch the cement wall and she allows a moment for her younger body to adjust to gravity's sudden pull. She skips down to the floor holding the vicious chakra and unwittingly, her lips quirk at the sight of a familiar figure.

"Hinamori again, huh?" Sakura sticks to the side of the window and watches as the girl whips a huge paintbrush from nowhere. "She's always in the thick of everything."

Channeling chakra carefully to her eyes, she narrows in on the lips of the pre-teen, swiftly reading the words spilling out of them.

"Hmm," Sakura clicks her tongue at the sheer ridiculousness of Hinamori's new, shiny powers. But the display has been enlightening and by the time the light show concludes, Sakura is long gone, leaving the scene to cat-boy and his hysterical Guardian Character.

-o-o-o-o-o-

"We've learned several things this week, Yuuki," Sakura recounts to the little guardian that night. "First, it seems that our little Royal Guardians aren't just in it for fun - there might be an opposing side, creating these X Characters… "

She bares her teeth into the blank shadows of her tiny room. "And it looks like Nikaidou is our number one culprit."

"There's also the young boy," Yuuki points out, arms folded against her chest. "He wasn't there just to sight-see."

"No, cat-boy definitely has a role in this," Sakura murmurs, staring into the glowing red numbers of her alarm clock. "But exactly what, I'm not too sure of."

She falls onto her mattress with a considering huff.

Even more importantly, the chakra here is incredibly wild, she reminds herself, bidding Yuuki good-night. Incredibly wild and incredibly emotional.

Hinamori speaks to those characters - pleads with them, bargains with them, converses with them.

It's entirely unnatural. Unnatural to her at least.

I can work with this, Sakura thinks, curling into the covers of her second-hand blankets. The heaviness in her lungs recede at the thought. Until a way to get home becomes more clear… I can definitely work with this.

-o-o-o-o-o-

i live! sort of. The chapter is quite short, but I found myself enjoying the writing process again, so we'll see what may happen from here. HSJ is kind of a refreshing breather for me, because everything else I write takes a heavy sort of commitment; I take everything too seriously, and exhaust myself because of it.

here, I plan on taking things not so seriously, and so you'll see a lot of - I hesitate to call it lazy writing - but definitely more relaxed. this is something I'll continue to come back to when I need a break, and I hope that whoever's still here will enjoy it with me!

on a side note, this chapter is all about Sakura being Done With This Bullshit, and deciding to Take Matters Into Her Own Hands. her interaction with the Royal Guardians at their garden is a lot darker than anticipated, but it stems from Sakura being sick of having to play pretty all the time, and she takes it not-so-appropriately out on a group of ten-year-olds. Yikes.

Share your thoughts! And as always, thank you for all these years of support!

- SE