Sakura's dreams immediately before she woke up were harrowing. She woke up tense, senses already studying her surroundings for any danger. Sasuke was still in his corner. He seemed asleep but as soon as she moved his eyes popped open.

They looked at each other silently for a moment. Sakura could remember the night before quite clearly. Sasuke had physically forced her to lay down on the pallet and had bodily pinned her in place. He seemed to be taking more opportunities to touch her. But that... He ended up right over her, looking for all the world like he was about to kiss her. And then he just pulled away.

Sakura let herself look away. She had more energy today. She could tell she wasn't at optimal strength yet, but as a doctor she would say the patient could check out of the hospital and go home for more rest & recuperation. Which was just as well.

"I can't help but feel something bad is coming." She said.

"Hn," answered Sasuke.

"And you still feel you need to go your own way?"

Sasuke was silent as he stood up and stretched. He glanced at her once and then stepped over to his pot and food stores.

Sakura stood up and prepared herself for the day, dry washing her face, straightening her clothes (including the borrowed kimono) and combing her hair with her fingers. She sat back down and pulled her hip holster to herself. It held several weapons and other supplies, including her gloves and hitaiate. She pulled these out and tugged them on.

The hiraishin that Katsuya had passed to her yesterday was tucked under her pillow. For various reasons she didn't want Sasuke to see it yet.

Sasuke boiled rice and laid out seaweed for onigiri. He set some water for tea. He pulled out a canvas bag and held it out to Sakura. "You can take any of the medicine Genmei gave me that you think you can use."

She tried not to make a face as she took the bag. Sasuke was tidying, clearly making final adjustments on what he would take and what he would leave behind. Sakura's sense of unease persisted.

"This is the kind of morning for bad news." Sakura remarked. She wanted to ask him. To beg him for another day alone. But her tongue felt thick in her mouth. She already had more time than she could ever have hoped for.

Sasuke handed her a rice ball. "We should hurry."

"What?"

"Eat quickly so we can go. I want to make sure you get to your team before anything happens. Then I'll go."

Her stomach tightened. He was so eager to leave her again. But still...Sakura frowned. "I appreciate your desire to see that I'm safe, but I am not going to run, Sasuke. If something is coming I will face it."

Sasuke looked at her sharply. "If you have to face it, face it with your team."

"Why can't you face it with me?"

"If any trouble comes for me, I deal with it alone, you shouldn't be part of it."

"What?"

"You said yourself you're not 100% yet. Anyway, if the Iwa shinobi come for me again then they're not going to be as easy as the two from the day before yesterday."

"Are you kidding me? After what you've seen that I can do you think I'm weak? You think that I will get in your way or something?"

"NO!" The tea kettle began to whistle. "Sakura, let the Iwa think I killed them. It'll be better for you and for Naruto. Let them chase me for a bit while you get back to Konoha. You'll be helping Naruto. You don't have to go around proving how strong you are all the time!"

"Says the guy who spent his teenage years forcing the world to see how strong he was...!"

Sasuke made a frustrated sound and turned to the boiling water.

It had been a while since Sakura felt a morning like this. Where everything looked right but felt wrong. She felt faintly sick. She truly did not want to let him go. But she was out of options. "I just..." She whispered. "It's been eight years. No, 12."

Sasuke gave her a cool look. How could look so insufferably unperturbed? How could none of this touch him? "Eat your rice," he said.

"It feels like that day." She muttered, half to herself. "I guess four and half years ago..." She couldn't stop the memories of that mission. It had been difficult for her and worse was the fact that everyone applauded her for what she did. She chewed on the rice ball and accepted the cup of tea from Sasuke.

"This was back when I was chunin. I actually got my final letter of recommendation out of it. There were three squads of us and we had to raid a stronghold of rogue shinobi. It was a large stone house with a tower that let them see for miles around. There were also lots of tents in the field around the house. They were supposed to have a weapon in the tower so we had to take it down first."

Sasuke settled down with his food and watched her quietly. Sakura was aware that she was talking as much to calm her nerves as to stall for time. It was a difficult to recount, but maybe that was fair after hearing Sasuke's story the day before.

She took a deep breath and continued. "We were going to attack from three different directions at the same time. But my squad got stuck in our fight. My captain was Shikamaru. Kiba was also on our team and in the fight they were knocked out and taken away by the enemy. Hinata and I were the only ones to get away. She wanted to get the guys back. But our mission orders were still to take the tower. It turned out the weapon was some kind of thing that focused ninjutsu attacks like lasers and could hit someone far away.

"Imagine being able to hit someone with a fireball from a mile away! I saw it do that and I thought I needed to take out the tower first to save the other other two teams. So I sent Hinata to track where they took Kiba and Shikamaru. I told her to keep an eye on the tower because I was going to take it down. When it fell she was supposed to send a flare into the sky so I could find her again."

Sakura paused. She had second guessed herself so many times and years later she was no more sure of what she should have done. She frowned and bit off a piece of her onigiri and took a swig of tea. "I realize it's not a great plan, but it's the best that I could come up with." Sakura sighed. There was no point in recounting the fight to get to the tower. She had brought every brutal tactic she knew and took no effort to be precise or measured. "I had to take down that tower, that's all that I cared about. We could chase down the enemy or find and heal our captured teammates later."

She finished her rice ball and washed it down with the last of the tea.

"You probably had to kill several people to get to the tower." Sasuke had a curious look on his face.

"Yes." There was no use being indirect. "I never got to check how many or anything. I just needed them out of my way. It turned out that the shinobi who-"

Sakura was interrupted by a shout outside, at some distance from the cottage. "OI. We know you're here, SASUKE UCHIHA! Show yourself now!"

Sakura froze. Damn, she had been hoping they had more time. Still, this opened a possibility she had almost given up on. It would require trusting Sasuke's new-found commitment to non-violence, but if he held to it...there was still a slim chance.

Sasuke spoke quietly. "The genjutsu is still up at least. We can probably figure out where they are and find a way around them. They can spend the day yelling at an illusion..."

"Don't mess with us, Uchiha! We know you're around here! Young Kouki here told us! And old Genmei says he's probably not lying, now that we've knocked out a couple of his teeth!"

Sasuke cursed softly.

"Come on out, Uchiha! You don't want to make an old lady cry, do you?"

Sasuke closed his eyes, lips set in a line. "Damn them." He hissed.

"Genmei is the healer lady?" Sakura spoke in a hushed tone.

"Yes."

"Wow she's really not going to like ninja after this, even you."

Sasuke gave her a black look.

Sakura smirked. Now the bastard couldn't run. She pulled the hiraishin out from under her pillow and got to her feet. "Let's do this."

Sasuke's eyes went wide. "You intend to fight them." Then he looked puzzled. "With that?"

Sakura held up the hiraishin. "This is not a weapon, it's a trump card. Lower the genjutsu and let's go meet the bastards." She strapped her thigh holster around her shredded pants and nodded to the door.

Sasuke looked distinctly unhappy but he stepped through. Sakura followed him. Out beyond the gate a four Iwa shinobi milled about, looking in different directions, but she could feel more chakra signals in the trees. She could count nine chakra signals in all. With the cottage at their back, they were effectively surrounded.

Sasuke's eyes focused on an old, stooped woman who stood pressed against an Iwa shinobi with a kunai to her throat. To one side of her was a young man who was perhaps 18, on his knees and held in place by his hair. His face was already swollen from a severe beating.

"Dammit," muttered Sasuke. "Fuck. This is not what I wanted."

Sakura instantly understood the difference between them. She knew exactly how much more capable she was when she had a team. Even one former teammate who was trying to embrace a more pacifistic life.

Sakura reached out and touched his arm. When Sasuke looked at her she smiled. "We can do this. I'll help you, and I promise I won't kill anyone. Please, Sasuke, lower the genjutsu."

Sasuke looked at her and swallowed. "Hn." She could feel him gather his chakra and go through the hand signs. "Kai!"

The Iwa shinobi stopped their milling at once, and focused on the two of them. The Iwa captain who held the kunai to Genmei's throat spoke, "Ah, you do have Haruno here. Well that makes things more interesting."

Their interest in her caught her slightly off guard but Sakura refused to show it. She called down to them, "What is your business here, Iwa? Why are you hurting those people?"

"These people?" The captain scoffed. "These people are from a village known to be harboring the rogue shinobi, Sasuke Uchiha. We had to be firm, but with enough encouragement they agreed to tell us where he lives."

"And what's it to you? Sasuke Uchiha is the concern of Konoha and this is the Land of Fire." Sakura couldn't help saying it. She knew it would rile some of the Iwa, but her whole case rested on this area being under the jurisdiction of Konoha shinobi.

Several Iwa did cry out, of course. There were curses and some called her a liar and a bitch. The Iwa captain raised his arm for calm.

"That's not a settled matter, Haruno. We say this is Land of Earth. And two of our Iwa shinobi turned up dead two days ago. We know they came here to investigate the rumor that we could find Uchiha here. When they didn't come back we suspected they found him." The captain locked eyes with Sasuke.

Sasuke looked back calmly.

The captain growled. "We demand recompense! We lost two of our friends! How will you make this up to us!"

"Your 'friends' were trespassing on Fire territory, they had no right to attack Sasuke and you have no right to demand him in recompense!" Sakura sensed that several of the Iwa shinobi positioned themselves to be ready to attack. She kept her pose calm. Her first interest was to keep Sasuke at her side and second was to get the kunai away from Genmei's throat.

But then the captain laughed. "You must think we're stupid! We don't need Sasuke if we have you! Our medics examined what was left of Kishi and Toshi. Your brutality is obvious and the way they died is clearly in keeping with what our bingo book says about you, not about Sasuke Uchiha!"

Sakura's blood ran cold. She hadn't quite anticipated that. She felt Sasuke adjust his weight next to her. She practically hear him thinking, "see, I told you so!" She clutched the hiraishin more tightly in her hand.

"This is the one chance you get, Sakura Haruno. Save the old lady and this idiot here," he gestured to Kouki. "We'll even give the Uchiha a few minutes head start before we start chasing him again." He gave a cold grin. "Not everyone here agrees with the treaty to stop hunting shinobi for their kekkei genkai."

Sakura could feel her anger rising. Maybe Sasuke wouldn't mind if she went back on her promise for this one asshole? She kept her face as cool as she could as she took two steps forward. As calmly as she could she asked, "What is your name? And what are you asking me to do?"

"You can call me Touru Hidaka. And isn't it obvious what I'm asking? Throw down all your weapons and surrender to us at once!"

"Well then," another voice called out. One that nearly made Sakura's legs shake with relief. "We can't have that, now can we?"

Kakashi stood several feet to Sakura's right. She recognized almost a dozen charka signals of Konoha shinobi arrayed around and behind her, facing the Iwa. It was the full complement of shinobi under Kakashi's command, with whom Sakura had been sent to keep an eye on the border.

Sasuke shot her a glance. Likely this only added to his growing list of terrible things happening today, but she couldn't help smiling. For once she knew something could go their way. If he would just have some faith.

-傷-

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