After a quick meeting, the rest of her summons departed, though Noya was clearly very reluctant to trade the head scratches for the barren wasteland of Snow Country. She turned to Yasutomo with a raised eyebrow. "Well?"

"It's been a while, Misaki-chan."

"Oh shush, you knew where I was. And don't call me that! You know better."

Yasutomo just licked his paw, looking unrepentant. Sakura was never sure if that was his face or if all housecats were just naturally giant assholes. "You know, while I was in Suna, Gaara made me a sand cat that looks like you. Maybe he'll be your replacement." She perked up. "Maybe you'll even meet one day. I bet you'll regret that shitty attitude."

He stopped his grooming and gave her a dead eyed stare, ignoring her insults. "The Kazekage did what?"

Sakura sighed. "You know he's not yet. He's only eleven right now and definitely not ready." She smiled to herself, thinking of the letter she had sent to him earlier that day. "But I think he will be."

Yasutomo scoffed at her. "You're eleven right now and that hasn't stopped you from doing hardly anything."

Sakura waved her hand and took a seat on a comfortable looking stump, a bit relieved that she was able to get away from her overprotective teammates for a while. She had left Sasuke and Naruto snoring away a storm at their house, content that the seal would keep them safe. Kakashi had stopped watching her so carefully once they had left Suna. Sakura was almost certain he knew that she had snuck out to meet with Gaara at night, but he hadn't mentioned it to her directly.

Now that they had finally arrived back in Konoha, he was sure in his assumption that she wouldn't see any of the Kazekage's children again. She smirked to herself. Poor Kakashi, outsmarted by a child. Sort of.

"What I can do doesn't count. I'm not particularly remarkable, given the circumstances."

She saw him stretch in the moonlight, tail swishing irritably. "False modesty isn't a good look on you, Sakura-chan."

She frowned. "You're impossible. Why do I even keep you around?"

"You need someone to talk to that old man. Can you imagine sending Gintoki-dono to him?"

Sakura giggled, covering her mouth with both hands at the very idea. "I don't think there would be anything left after such a meeting."

He sighed. "If only. He's been particularly irritating lately."

"Gintoki or Jiraiya?"

Yasutomo looked more affronted than usual. "Jiraiya, of course. Gintoki-dono is always a paragon of excellence."

Sakura laughed. "Right, right. It's easy to forget that you actually like him, since you hate literally everything else in the world."

He sniffed. "I enjoy tuna as well. Maybe you should keep that in mind if you want to hear more about your erstwhile spymaster."

Sakura held up her hands in protest. "Do I look like a rich woman who has money to buy the kind of tuna you prefer every time I need a report?" Yasutomo just stared at her and she sighed, grabbing a scroll from her pack and unsealing it, revealing the sushi she had prepared before her journey outside the walls.

Yasutomo jumped from his perch and made his way over to her. "I don't eat rice, Sakura-chan."

She rolled her eyes. "That's for me. Just eat the sashimi and be happy about it, brat." They settled in to eat a midnight snack with Sakura silently lamenting the fact that she was technically too young for alcohol. A cold beer would have been a perfect complement to her strange meal in the middle of the forest, in the middle of the night. Tsunade would have been both proud and disappointed that Sakura had taken up her drinking habits. She pointed her chopsticks at Yasutomo rudely. "So tell me what's going on with Jiraiya."

He rolled his eyes, something she was sure normal cats did not do. "What isn't going on with him? Every time we meet, he asks questions about you, your location, what you're currently doing. For someone in his position, he's pretty shit at being subtle."

Sakura chewed slowly. "Don't underestimate him, Yasutomo. He hasn't lived as long as he has for no reason."

He waved a paw at her. "Yeah, yeah. I don't tell him anything except what you give me to say. He's just nosy."

She grabbed the last sushi roll and then sealed all the dirty dishes back into the scroll to deal with later. Thank god for fuinjutsu. "I can't say that I blame him. I pretty much dropped all that information on him and ran."

"Today he asked if you were even a woman."

She snorted. "Of course he did, the pervert. Probably wondering if my boobs were real."

Yasutomo gave her a look. "He asked that too." Sakura rolled her eyes, not even surprised at Jiraiya's actions. Sometimes he was such a gross old man. "His toads are disgusting."

Sakura laughed at the abrupt change of subject. "Don't say that to Gamabunta, he'll squash you like a bug!"

He was about to reply when they both felt an intense chakra presence headed in her direction. Her eyes widened when she recognized it, wondering if his partner was nearby. Yasutomo shot her a look and stage-whispered to her. "Should I get Gintoki-dono?"

Sakura shook her head. "No, it's not worth it. Maybe I can talk my way out of a fight. Maybe he won't want to fight, since I'm, you know, a kid." He snorted, but didn't leave her alone. I must be growing on him. "Yasutomo, you go. I'll be okay."

"I don't like it." She glared at him and he hissed uncomfortably. "Fine. But summon me back when you're done, so I know you're alive." He disappeared in a cloud of smoke and leaves just as Hoshigaki Kisame strolled through the path that led right to her tree stump.

The tall man stopped, looking surprised. Sakura figured affected ignorance might be her best bet to get out of this encounter alive. She waved at him. "Hello."

Before Kisame could respond or even attack, Itachi stepped out from behind his bulk. Sakura cursed his annoying ability to completely mask his chakra. Playing dumb was going to be impossible now. She only hoped that her affinity with Sasuke would get her out of this ridiculous situation; she had never dreamed Akatsuki would venture so close to Konoha so soon in the timeline.

"Sakura-san."

She smiled weakly at him. "Itachi-san. Such a lovely night for a walk in the woods."

Kisame grunted. "Itachi, what the hell? You know this kid?"

She could feel him gaze at her intensely, though she knew better than meet his eyes. "Sakura-san is friends with my little brother."

Kisame smirked. "Ah, of course, what else? Little Sasuke-kun." Sakura was surprised that Itachi's partner knew about Sasuke, but maybe they were closer than she realized. The personal details she had gotten from Hidan had obviously been skewed by his own bias, since she was pretty sure the weirdo hated Itachi.

"Sakura-san, why are you here? Were you looking for us?"

She waved her hands in front of her frantically. "No, no! Absolutely not. If I had known you would be here …" she trailed off, not sure how to phrase 'I'd be hiding in my closet' without sounding idiotic. She decided to just tell him part of the truth, it was easier to remember than straight up lies. "I was just talking to my summon. It's less complicated outside the village." She motioned to the seal tattoo she kept wrapped under her arm bandages. She had managed to hide it from the boys for three years now and Kakashi never noticed the fact that she never showed her wrists.

Kisame squinted at it in the moonlight. "Pretty advanced stuff for a kid."

Sakura drew her mouth into a thin line. "I'm pretty advanced for a kid." She immediately regretted her words as his eyes widened, but he threw back his head and laughed, slapping Itachi on the back.

"Your brother sure does know how to pick 'em."

"Indeed." Itachi had not stopped looking in her direction. She stared at his necklace, unwilling to look any further upward when he was so focused. "How is Sasuke?"

She smiled at him. "Sasuke is doing just fine, Itachi-san. Someday, he would like to discuss things with you."

Kisame snorted. "That's a diplomatic way of saying he wants to fuckin' murder your ass."

Sakura shook her head. "No. He knows Itachi-san had his reasons for doing what he did." She chanced a look at Itachi's face, not seeing a change in expression. "He just wants to understand what they were."

Itachi was deathly silent for a moment. "And how does he know this, Sakura-san? Has someone from the village talked to him about it?"

She pursed her lips, annoyed at the memory. "ANBU came to question him and me that night, you know. He didn't remember anything." She smiled softly. "Thank you for that."

"That doesn't quite answer my question." Itachi's voice was flat, with no affect. She could get nothing out of it or his very stiff body language.

Sakura frowned. "I told him you must have had a good reason for it. He has come to trust me enough to believe in the possibility."

Kisame was clearly confused by the way the conversation was going. "Why aren't you freaking out, kid? You know what he did, obviously. You don't even know what I'm capable of." His chakra presence flared like a beacon and Sakura did her best not to wince at the sheer amount of it.

She shrugged. "I'm not an idiot. Itachi-san obviously didn't snap under the pressure of being a prodigy, which, by the way, is the "official" story. Considering his actions that night, something else happened that I'm not aware of. As for you, well …" Sakura played with the moss by her hand, thinking of her words carefully. "I can guess. I'm not likely to win a fight, so I might as well relax if I'm gonna die."

Kisame laughed again, the noise loud against the quiet of the forest. "You got that right."

"Sakura-san, how did Sasuke do in the Chunin Exams?"

She was faintly surprised at the question. "Wow, you're well informed. Um, he didn't get promoted? But he won all of his fights! I think Hokage-sama wants him to work on his leadership skills before he becomes a chunin."

"He always did follow me around." Was that amusement she heard in his voice? Maybe she wouldn't die here after all. Maybe she could strike a bargain with Itachi, non-secret information about his little brother for more information on the Akatsuki? No, that won't work, I'm not about to out myself as Misaki to them. She put the idea aside to mull over later. She may never see Itachi again after today.

She smirked. "If his team were made up only of kunoichi, I'm sure they would follow him just fine."

Itachi sighed. "He's not even eleven yet, Sakura-san."

She shrugged. "The Uchiha genes are pretty, Itachi-san. He's been mistaken for a girl more than once on our missions."

Kisame snorted, amused. "Poor kid."

She grinned at him, willing to believe that he was starting to warm to her. She wasn't able to magically beat friendship into people like Naruto, but she could get along with nearly everyone if she tried hard enough. "He's weathered it fairly well."

"And Danzo?" Well, that's out of left field. It's like he doesn't know how to read the room. We were almost having a good time, Itachi.

"He hasn't approached me or Sasuke since you left." She kept silent on Naruto presence in their lives, unsure of Itachi's plans for her best friend. She knew he cared about his brother and might be inclined to spare his friends, but Akatsuki's goals where the jinchuriki were concerned made her wary. She couldn't actually trust him to do more than keep Sasuke safe. "If he's that much of a threat, it seems like he was warned away …"

Itachi didn't react, but she hadn't expected him to. Sakura had her own suspicions when it came to the harsh man who had once been her Hokage. No, a Hokage. Never hers. If everything went according to plan, Tsunade would be theirs until Naruto was ready to take the mantle himself.

She shifted on the stump uncomfortably. "So, uh, what brings you guys here? To be honest, I'm surprised that you're so close to Konoha, Itachi-san."

Kisame narrowed his eyes at her, feelings of goodwill apparently forgotten. "We can go wherever we want, kid."

"Well, yes, obviously. I was just curious. It's a flaw of mine."

Surprisingly, Itachi answered her. "I come back occasionally."

Kisame grumbled. "Too much. This is a scenic route and you wouldn't let me fight anybody." His chakra flared again irritably.

Sakura frowned. "You keep doing that and you'll have plenty of people to slaughter. You're like a giant spotlight of chakra."

He peered at her curiously. "Oho, a sensor?"

She sighed and stretched out her short legs from the stump, wondering if she'd be taller this time around. "Not really, you are just-" she waved her arms around wildly, unable to quite capture what she felt, "excessive."

Kisame grinned at her, his sharp teeth glinting in the moonlight. "Excessive is a very good word for me."

Now that Itachi had gotten assurance that Sasuke was well, Sakura wondered how this meeting was going to wind down. As her mind raced through the possibilities, an idea came to her, vaguely formed and quite likely suicidal, just like when she was in Suna. She was going to do it anyway.

"You know, there has been this one guy following us around lately …" She could feel Itachi's attention sharpen, though he had not moved. "I don't think he's one of Danzo's." How could she tie this back to Orochimaru without sounding too suspicious?

"Sounds like you got problems, kid. Doesn't bother me much."

Itachi's voice was low. "Be quiet, Kisame. I would like to hear this."

Sakura felt simultaneously terrified and triumphant and scrambled for the right words. "You ever get that creepy feeling about someone, though there's no real proof? This guy is like that. He's managed to accidentally bump into us many times over the past few weeks. It's suspicious."

Kisame was still amused. "Maybe he's just got a crush on Sasuke-kun's pretty face."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Creepy, but possible, I guess. It seems more likely that he's after something else." Like his eyes. Think Itachi, who other than Danzo would want Sharingan eyes?

"Like what?" Itachi wasn't taking the bait. Or perhaps, he wanted her to be obvious about it. She was toeing a very fine line.

Sakura shrugged casually and went in for it. "Last week he "just so happened" to find us during training and watched Sasuke spar with our other teammate. He asked me some very awkward questions while trying to seem normal. Questions about the Sharingan." The weight of Itachi's gaze was nearly tangible.

Kabuto had been very normal, actually. It was only her prior knowledge that made his questioning seem anything but innocuous curiosity. He had approached her while she was cooling down from her chakra building exercises, cursing the fact that even with her built up reserves, she would never have as much as her male teammates. She had watched Kakashi instructing Naruto and Sasuke on their elemental techniques, shoulders tensing as she could feel Kabuto loudly approaching from behind her.

Everything he does supports his clumsy genin persona. He is forcing himself to walk like that.

"Sakura-chan!"

She turned around, a polite smile on her face. "Hello, Kabuto-san. You are not working with your team today?" Who the hell even is his team? I never saw them again after the invasion. I hope they died. Her anxiety was making her spiteful.

Kabuto just rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. "Ah, no. Our sensei gave us the day off."

Pft, sure he did. Spies don't get vacations, Kabuto. "That sounds nice. What are your plans?" Hopefully it involves being far, far away from us.

He smiled at her. "I was hoping for some tips from you, actually." There was a flare of fire in the air as Naruto and Sasuke tried to force their katon and futon jutsus to work together. "Wow, your teammates are pretty good."

She cursed his timing. Elemental techniques were flashy and used up a lot of chakra, something Kabuto and ultimately Orochimaru would be interested in. "Kakashi-sensei has been working on that with them a lot."

"I didn't notice that Sasuke had red eyes when we met at the Ichiraku. Wow!" He watched them with sincere awe.

Sakura's insides froze and all she could do hear was no no no no repeating over and over in her head. "That's just his bloodline limit. It's not permanent."

"Oh? What does it do?"

She tried to be as vague as possible, though it was unlikely that Kabuto didn't know the properties of the Sharingan inside and out. "It allows him to track movements quickly and see through genjutsu."

"Nice." He looked at Sasuke appreciatively. "If I had something like that I bet I would get through the Chunin Exams no problem."

He had left not too long afterward, once she had given him sincere advice about passing the exams. Sakura figured it would be more normal if she gave him real answers. Kabuto had waved cheerfully at her teammates, who had been looking at them curiously when they realized that she hadn't rejoined them for some time. Once he was out of sight, she released a deep breath, one she felt like she had been holding for the entire conversation.

He's scouting Sasuke. Just like the Oto team in our first exams. I need to be alert.

The silence surrounded them like a heavy blanket and Sakura struggled out of her memories into her current, present danger. Itachi had not said a word after she mentioned Sasuke's eyes, but she did actively start to feel his chakra leaking out angrily.

Kisame's eyes widened, not used to see Itachi express any sort of emotion. "Whoa, man. You okay?"

"Sakura-san." Itachi's voice was as icy and angry as chakra. "Who is this boy?"

She picked at the moss. What if Itachi just killed Kabuto without going after Orochimaru? Sure, the older medic-nin would definitely be out of the picture, but the Sannin might send in another spy that she wasn't familiar with. "He's a Konoha shinobi named Kabuto. Look, this is going to sound weird, but I think he's working with someone outside the village." She shrugged. "I don't know why anyone would want to know about Sasuke other than you, though."

"What proof do you have?"

She winced. There it is, that whole proof thing. It really messed with her ability to convince people of things. "Nothing solid. Just a feeling Sasuke's in danger from an outside source."

He seemed to consider her words carefully. "That is sufficient for me."

Sakura stopped herself from gaping at him unattractively, but it was a near thing. Kisame was not quite as restrained. "Seriously? You're gonna take the word of a little girl that some nutso is after your brother's eyeballs?"

Itachi spoke in an alarmingly calm voice. He had already contained his emotions with a level of control that made Sakura envious. "I have experience with a number of people who would be, as you say, 'after his eyeballs'. The Sharingan is not as widespread as it once was." He looked over at Kisame. "We should go."

Kisame grunted in assent. "What about this kid?"

Sakura quailed internally, but bravely kept her serene composure. "If you're not heading toward Konoha, I'm not going to say anything. Not my business." As a Konoha shinobi, it was definitely her business to track and hunt down missing-nin from their village, but she wasn't particularly bothered by that rule.

Kisame had already walked away. "Not worth it to kill you anyway."

Gee, thanks. Sakura sat still as Itachi approached her, trying to breath normally. He squatted down until he was level with her and she looked at his forehead fearfully. He sounded almost amused when he said, "Sakura-san, you can look me in the eyes."

She did, noticing that he hadn't even activated his Sharingan. Was it like this the whole time? He always had it on when I saw him before. She tried to divert the conversation away from her obvious aversion. "What will you do with this information?"

She saw his mouth quirk, slightly. "I'm going to pay a visit to an old friend. He might be very familiar with your new found stalker."

He stood to walk after his partner and she called out after him, wondering if she would ever see him again. Orochimaru's strength was no joke. "Good luck, Itachi-san."

Itachi looked over his shoulder at her, his long hair fluttering around his face. "Thank you for taking such good care of my little brother, Sakura-san."

She waved her hand negligently and shot him a wry glance. "Eh, he's worth it."

Itachi smiled at her and vanished, leaving her astonished at how much a simple expression could transform someone's face.