Sakura shot a look behind her, stepping noiselessly through the forest. She had no trouble sneaking out of the tent and away from her boys as they slept innocently, but she was wary of Kakashi's interference. She had indicated a bathroom break with hand signals as he kept watch with his Icha Icha. Sakura hoped he had assumed she needed privacy for "girl things" and would leave her alone.

Having traveled far enough from her team, she found a nice enough stump to sit on and unwrapped a portion of the bandages covering her right arm. She quickly drew blood over the seal she had tattooed there and was unsurprised when her entire motley crew of felines decided to arrive at her call.

"Report."

Yasutomo gave her a dirty look and huffed noisily. "Not even a hello from our esteemed contractor? It's good to see you too, Misaki-chan."

She threw him an amused glance. "Hi boys. How are you? Did you do anything fun this summer?" Yasutomo snorted and washed his paw daintily, ignoring her laughter.

The twin lynx brothers, Noya and Ryu, bounded up to where she was sitting, nearly dislodging her from the stump in their enthusiasm. They came to a stop at her feet and rubbed up against her legs like giant housecats. Ryu whined at her pitifully. "Sakura-chaaaaan, it's been so long! We thought you had forgotten us toiling away in Snow Country!"

"Ryu, I saw you last week, when you told me nothing was happening and that there were no girls around to play with. Don't you start with me." His brother laughed at his scolding and butted his own head against Sakura's hand. "Noya, anything?"

"I have noticed slight, but strange, chakra signatures in the forests of Snow Country. It might indicate Zetsu's presence, but I have not been able to substantiate it so far." She nodded and absently stroked his head as she looked up at the caracal lounging indolently in a branch above their heads. "Keiji?"

"I tracked Sasori to the far reaches of Wind Country and witnessed him meeting two disguised Suna jonin on separate occasions. I was unable to get close enough to hear their conversation or their names, but I could give a description."

Sakura clasped her hands together tightly, looking both happy and distraught, an odd combination on her ten year old face. With a sigh, she pulled a scroll out of her pack and asked Keiji to dictate his information to her as she recorded the information by moonlight. She carefully worded her questions so that she could independently conclude that the men matched the description of the sleeper agents she knew to be in her version of Suna.

"At least this timeline is going the same as it was before. Once we start changing the big things, I'm going to lose my advantage."

Ryu perked up. "But Sakura-chan, you have us! We're the biggest advantage you could ever have!" She laughed then and fondly scratched behind his ears, to his great delight and his brother's disgruntlement.

Sakura turned to the last of her summoned group warily. Gintoki was an enormous golden tiger with glowing eyes and overwhelming chakra that simmered like an impending eruption. Sakura was exceptionally glad that he had hidden his presence before arriving in the forest with the rest, because there was no way she could conceal him from Kakashi.

Out of respect for his age and wisdom, she had requested his help instead of the pushy demands she had foisted on her other boys. Gintoki had surprised her by agreeing easily and so she had tasked him with locating and observing Hidan and Kakuzu.

"Greetings, Gintoki-dono. It has been some time since you joined us all."

He nodded his head regally. "I have been very busy of late. Your wayward shinobi are very powerful and not given to staying in one place for long. I have just come from Earth Country, where the large one has been collecting an extraordinary amount of bounties."

She frowned. "And no one cares that he is the one collecting all of them? You would think that a singularly powerful individual like that would catch the attention of at least Iwa, if not the Earth Daimyo."

Gintoki bared his teeth and hissed, a terrifying sight to those who weren't inured. Noya moved against her legs uneasily. "I cannot account for what those humans are thinking. I can only tell you what I see."

Sakura bowed her head. "This is true. I apologize for questioning you. I was merely thinking aloud."

"It is no matter. I will return now, lest they move and I lose the trail." Gintoki disappeared as he finished speaking, leaving their group in silence. Sakura quickly added a few lines to the scroll about the bounty hunter and his partner and looked to Yasutomo.

He had been given dual assignments: to skulk around Ame in an attempt to gain information on Pein's base of operations as well as liaise with Jiraiya when she had intel to give. She had tasked him with infiltrating the village as a stray cat, something he took immediate and loud exception to.

"Well?"

The cat sighed irritably. "Confirmation of Jiraiya's former apprentices Nagato and Konan as new leaders of Ame, to no one's surprise." She nodded and scribbled this down, her brush moving quickly through the strokes. "Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame were in town this week. It is the first time I have seen any of the other members in Ame." Her movements stilled and she frowned.

"Sasuke graduated last week with me and Naruto. Itachi's concern has always been his little brother, though I doubt Pein knows the full extent. I wonder how this two year bump has changed their plans from what I know."

"It's likely you made everything harder on yourself, Misaki-chan," He hissed when she reached out a hand to swat at him, sounding more petulant than angry. Yasutomo's bad attitude was likely to get him more than a half-hearted wallop one day, she just knew it. At least Jiraiya wouldn't hurt him; she knew he'd had plenty of experience with poor attitudes with Tsunade as a teammate.

Sakura rolled up the scroll and painted her own seal on it, binding it with more of her blood.

"Brat. Here, take this scroll to Jiraiya and let me know through the usual channels if he has news for me. Ryu, Noya, Keiji, keep vigilant in your locations and be careful. I don't want to lose you guys to something foolish."

After a quick affirmation and a belly rub for Ryu, her summons dispersed. Sakura slumped down on the stump she was sitting on, anxious about the news she had been given. She drew several deep breaths and tried to center her mind in meditation. Anxiety would get her nowhere and doubt would lead her precious people straight to death. She cleared her mind using her favorite method: naming off the ways she could kill someone with a chakra laced finger, starting from one hundred.

Ninety-eight, ruptured kidney via violent poking. Ninety-seven, strike to the nasion, sending bone splinters to the brain, Ninety-six, crushing the hyoid …

This was how Kakashi found her, sitting by herself and breathing evenly. She felt him before he spoke, but pretended not to.

"Sakura-chan?"

She opened her eyes in false surprise, looking at her sensei who was peering at her with real concern.

God, I miss my Kakashi. He's here, but not here at the same time.

"Oh! Hi, Kakashi-sensei. Is it my turn for watch?"

"No, Naruto has independently decided that he was going to take your shift and his together, because, and I quote, 'Sakura-chan doesn't sleep enough!' When I left, both he and Sasuke were squabbling over who got to take your turn."

She giggled fondly. "Those are my boys."

"It seems like was right, however he went about it. What are you doing out here? You need to sleep too, you know."

"I can sleep when I'm dead," she said, flatly. Kakashi gave her a sharp look and she felt annoyed at herself for being so defensive over nothing. "I … look, Kakashi-sensei, the boys snore something awful and I needed some time alone."

"The snoring part I can believe. I think Naruto is actually quieter when he's awake."

"Yeah," she said and smiled softly. "He's something else."

"So what is it?"

"You're so nosy, sensei. Did anyone ever tell you that?"

He looked up into the sky, mocking a thoughtful pose with a hand on his chin. "Hmm, nope. Can't say anyone's ever been so forward in their backtalk to me."

"Seems like it's about time. It's a good thing you have me around to beat your ego down."

"You are definitely not the cute little genin team I was expecting. I should make a complaint." He shifted from foot to foot and looked pensive. He finally came to rest on his haunches in front of her. "Sakura-chan, stop deflecting. Why are you out here?"

She absolutely couldn't tell him that she was a thirty year old time traveler with the overwhelming personal task of changing the world, but letting go of a little bit of her emotional baggage couldn't hurt. She sighed heavily and curled down into herself, wrapping bandaged arms around skinny armored shins. "It's just … Naruto and Sasuke are special, I can see it and I know others will be able to see it soon. Special people get recognition, but in our world, they're also in danger. Constantly. I worry about them. Constantly."

Kakashi patted her arm awkwardly. "Maa, Sakura-chan. Don't take so much on yourself. I won't let my team die."

She slapped his hand away angrily and his uncovered eye widened in shock. "Don't patronize me! I'm not some idiot child who can't see the world for what it is! Sasuke's brother is still out there! And Naruto …"

His eye narrowed. "What about Naruto?"

"You know what he is, Kakashi-sensei. I have dispensation from Hokage-sama to know as well, but I still can't tell Naruto himself about what he holds."

"This … doesn't bother you?" Inwardly he was cursing Sarutobi for not making him aware of her prior knowledge. When he came out here to find Sakura, he had been reluctantly expecting some awkward conversation about hormones and women's troubles, not an angry tirade about the state of shinobi world.

"Why would it? Naruto is just a boy who was used as a tool of his village, like all of us are. But the power he contains is something many will try to use as their own. That is what has me worried."

He couldn't deny the truth of words, but felt that as an adult, as her teacher, he had to say something comforting. This sort of thing had never been his forte and again he railed against Sarutobi for ever taking him out of ANBU. He didn't want to care about these kids, but they were wiggling into his heart like thieves in the night.

"Sakura." At his unusually serious tone, she looked up from staring at her toes. "We will protect them. Together." If it was abnormal to treat a ten year old as his equal, well, Kakashi had never been a normal man.

She smiled at him and sprung up from the tree stump, shaking out her limbs. "Yeah, we will. And each other too, right, Kakashi-sensei? You have too much to teach us to die on us so soon, old man." Her tone was teasing and her eyes were losing some of the darkened gloom he had glimpsed earlier.

He affected a shocked voice and placed his hand on his chest theatrically. "Old man?! You and Naruto both are going to get the worst of this survival training. I'm only twenty-four."

She led the way out of the forest toward their small base camp. "Is that in dog years?"

Kakashi let his shoulders slump and he sighed. "I never should have let you meet Pakkun."

Her happy laughter rang out in the dark forest, entirely unbecoming of a shinobi, but he was too relieved to say a thing about it.