AN: Upload schedule is now every 10 days rather weekly.
The clang of metal on concrete echoed against the dim walls again, Sakura fell to her knees in exhaustion, already wincing in anticipation of Yugao's barking. She felt a kick in her side, "Get the fuck up pinkie, nobody said it was time for a break,"
This was Team 7's life for the past 6 weeks, at first Naruto and Sakura had been in shock of the harshness they were subjected to, even Sasuke seemed to take a moment to adjust to their treatment. At this point, however, Sakura didn't even have enough energy to complain about it even to herself in her own head. She knew ANBU Black Ops were an elite division, and that it wouldn't be easy, especially as a newly minted chunin, but she wasn't ready for this at all. Day in and day out she'd be tortured by her instructor, usually Kakashi or Yugao, but sometimes by a different captain she didn't know the true identity of.
Oh yeah that was another thing, nobody called each other by their names here, the instructors made sure of that. Even when she stopped making that mistake she still had to watch the others endure making it. Naruto somehow still hadn't learned, and Sakura cringed every time she heard him say 'Sasuke' instead of 'Hawk'. She'd be subject to the boy's yells of agony as Kakashi punished him with ridiculous exercises that even Guy or Lee would be too humiliated and intimidated to attempt.
In fact she was about to watch it one more time, before she could even forget the pain in her ribs Yugao had caused, Naruto stupidly opened his mouth, "Guess still I'm better than you with the sword Saku–,"
He couldn't even finish saying it before Yugao had swept him off his feet, Sakura could vaguely here him mutter, "Fuck," before Yugao had picked him up by the hair and looked straight into his eyes.
"Still getting into trouble Fox?" she taunted Naruto, "Now imagine once again for me, you're on a mission and you call Sakura here by her actual name, instead of just Groundhog." Here they went again with the same old lecture, "Since you're clearly an incompetent sorry excuse of an ANBU, you've also mistakenly left one of your enemy assailants alive. They go to their kage, and suddenly the kage of that village knows the name of an ANBU of Konoha. So that kage goes and cobbles together the most sophisticated espionage his village can muster. With just a name they find what part of the village she lives in, stations their own ANBU to kidnap her at the safest moment in time. And then takes her back to their village where their interrogators will successfully detract the details of every single ANBU mission she's ever been on, exposing countless state secrets that will make it exponentially easier for them to leverage power over Konoha. Does that sound fun to you?"
"No. . ." Naruto managed to hack out.
"Then why is it that you keep doing it over and over again?" she replied.
"I just don't get why it's such a big deal, Kakashi was in ANBU and he's famous, Zabuza knew his name, the sand genin knew his name, why isn't he a target. Surely they could do it to him?"
"That's where you're wrong Naruto, the information that your sensei is a former ANBU is technically a secret you're only privy to because you're a shinobi. Despite his fame other villages can only speculate his background. In this world speculation isn't worth a damn compared to confirmation.
Second of all, the average ANBU is not Kakashi Hatake; Kakashi Hatake is not only far too dangerous to risk kidnapping, but also has far too much political value for the Leaf. Kidnapping Kakashi Hatake is an act of war.
Now sure, maybe as a jinchuuriki you're a bit similar, but Sakura over there isn't. When Sakura gets captured, she will have to use the brain-melting suicide techniques we teach ANBU, to prevent information to be extracted from her. Even if you're fast enough, it doesn't matter if you or Kakashi or Sasuke throw a fit, no responsible Hokage will risk intervening to save her." Yugao stopped for a moment and Naruto noticed her face softened and filled with regret and sorrow, "It doesn't matter if they're your comrade, your best friend, your sibling, or your lover, they're shinobi and they're still tools to be discarded when it's not politically favorable to keep them anymore," tears had pooled up in her eyes and Naruto knew she was thinking about Hayate, "You get it now? You have to follow the damn rules," she finished.
"Yes. . . .ma'am," Naruto replied.
"Good, now go and ask Might Guy for your punishment," she said before she released his hair and let him collapse on the ground.
Sakura had finally recovered from Yugao's earlier kick and gotten up, but it wasn't fast enough and Yugao noticed her lack of movement, "Oh you took this long? You need to practice today's slashing patterns for the rest of the day, and if you stop you're gonna have to make up for it after sundown."
Sakura didn't even make eye contact and grunted in response, any sort of defiance would make it even worse and she could not afford to be held up after sundown. The library's worth of studying ANBU required was still waiting for her at home, and the consequences of failing an anatomy exam were much more dire than physical training punishment. That bastard Naruto was lucky he could use his clones to study, but Sakura just remembered the amount of Might Guy challenges he had subjected himself to had canceled any studying advantages the clones gave him, and she felt better at his expense.
When she had finally suffered through the day's kenjutsu, she happily strolled outside of the musty bunker they were forced to train in, and proceeded to collapse less than 300 feet from it. Right next to Naruto.
"Good evening Naruto," Sakura said as the orange setting sun bored straight into her eyes.
". . . ."
"Naruto you need to wake up, if they catch you slacking you're gonna be doing this all night." she responded.
Naruto finally spoke, "I . . . . actually did finish. I just don't want to start studying yet."
"Nuh uh, I'm not having you fall asleep again," Sakura replied as she picked her aching body up and grabbed Naruto's wrist, dragging him by the arm towards her home.
"Please Sakura, no, I can't do this anymore." he pleaded.
"I don't care," she replied.
"Do you know where Sasuke is?" Naruto asked her, noticing his absence.
"Nope," she replied, "Probably got himself in trouble somehow, we don't have time to wait for him to finish, now get the fuck up or I will use Mega-Sakura as motivation."
"That doesn't work on me anymore, when I disappeared that second week, after I bled too much on Kakashi's sandals they realized I can't handle genjutsu."
"Of course it took you an entire week to learn how to dispel genjutsu," Sakura replied in annoyance.
"Hey c'mon, big chakra," he replied.
"Use all that chakra to get up already then," she complained.
"Fine, fine," Naruto said and finally got up from the ground, "Let's go study the best spot to slice in the left leg to make someone bleed out,"
"Actually we're studying medical ninjutsu today," she said
"We should do anything but that," Naruto replied in annoyance, as they arrived at Sakura's door and walked up to her room.
"C'mon Naruto you'll get better at it, don't you want to know how to heal wounds if Ino is ever in trouble? What if some scoundrel wounds her?" she teased.
"Lalalalalala I can't hear you, I'm not listening to this," Naruto said as he covered his ears.
Sakura gasped sarcastically, "You don't want to save Ino? That's not very romantic of you!"
But Naruto wasn't having it, "Still can't hear a thing you're saying, who even is Ino? I don't know any Ino Yamanaka, let's stop talking about random girl from the academy."
Sakura did another exaggerated gasp, "I'll tell Ino you called her a random girl from the academy."
Naruto threw his hand at Sakura and covered her mouth, looking her in the eyes, "Don't say that," he whispered as if Ino was hiding behind the corner, "Fine I'll do your stupid medical ninjutsu practice." he said as he removed his hand from her mouth.
Sakura smirked, satisfied the situation had gone her way, and proceeded to get their books out while Naruto reluctantly conjured up two shadow clones. Sakura actually enjoyed studying with Naruto's clones, she could ask them specific questions and they'd have an easier time answering that one Naruto shuffling through all of that same information in his brain. They were also extremely convenient, as an extra pair of hands, and as dummies to practice on, although there seemed to be a sentiment among the clones that they were 'more than just meatbags to experiment on'. Sakura was even concerned they might try and rebel one day, but Naruto assured her that would never happen and that he could dispel them at anytime.
Once they'd spent some time setting everything up, and reviewing, Sakura decided it was time to be hands on again. "We have to be careful Naruto, we're doing artery repair today, that can be really dangerous," Sakura said.
"Well that's why I don't like this stuff, it's not fun injuring myself," he replied as one of the Naruto clones handed them towels.
"There's nothing to be worried about Naruto, it's really simple. First you need to hold the limb from one side, and slow down the blood, then use your other hand to perform jutsu. Here, I'll do it on you first so you can see how it's done, and don't panic when it's your turn."
"Okay," Naruto grumbled as he held his hand out and brought a kunai to his forearm. He braced himself and winced as he made a short horizontal gash across it, instantly causing blood to gush out of the wound.
"Don't heal this one, Kyuubi." Naruto told the fox spirit.
"Gladly," the fox spirit replied, and continued to let blood gush out from Naruto's arm and down onto the towels on the floor.
Sakura took a hold of Naruto's arm, and grabbed the upper end of the limb to restrict more blood flow. Naruto felt her chakra enter his arm, further slowing down the pool of blood. He watched as she calmly brought her other hand, "It only takes rudimentary water release, so you should be fine when you do it yourself," She said as she used her chakra to move the blood out of the way and make the gash more clear. Her hand proceeded to glow green and the wound slowly closed, until there was nothing, not even a scar to signify the potentially lethal wound that was only there seconds prior.
"Think you can do that?" Sakura asked as their eyes met.
"Mmmmmmmm, no," he replied.
"Well you're about to anyway. Don't worry about it, if something goes wrong I'll be able to heal myself. So just stay calm."
"I'll do my best," he said.
"Okay, 1 . . . 2 . . . 3" Sakura counted down before making an identical gash to Naruto's on her own arm.
Naruto grabbed her upper arm and squeezed, successfully restricting the flow of blood, he focused his chakra into his hand, trying to pinpoint the water in the blood in her arm. It took him longer than it took Sakura and she watched his eyes twitch in frustration.
"Your hand's a little high but don't panic, you can do this." she tried, and watched as Naruto kept going. She finally felt his chakra enter her and further slow down her blood flow. Naruto proceeded to bring his other hand up, hovered it over her cut, and attempted to manipulate her blood. The cut began to clear up, the only problem was it was too slow. So slow in fact, that the little blood that was still flowing through her arm was leaving the wound faster than Naruto could move it out of the way.
"I can't . . . . I can't," Naruto started panicking quickly and Sakura looked up to his face.
After a few seconds it was clear that Naruto was too flustered to keep going, so Sakura brang her own hand up and cleared her arm of blood, "It's okay, I'll handle the blood, heal the wound."
Naruto didn't say a word and simply began to work on it, it took significantly longer than when Sakura did it. It took so long that Sakura had to keep moving her own blood out of the way for him to finish it.
When her cut had closed, Naruto crumpled in his chair, completely defeated, "That was awful Sakura,"
"It's okay," she replied, "you'll get better at it eventually."
Naruto had his eyes closed, still overwhelmed by the panic of seeing such an open wound and not being able to close it in time.
"Oi Kyuubi. You see that?" he said to the demon-spirit.
"Not only did I feel the emotions of your first hand embarrassment, I felt my own second hand embarassment watching you fuck up so bad." the demon said back.
". . . . ."
Naruto was flabbergasted at that, "That's . . . . . Anyway, you always are able to heal my wounds super-fast right? Well is there anyway we could do that with someone else?"
Now it was the fox's turn to be flabbergasted, "None of my previous jailers has ever made a request like that."
"Really? Why not?" Naruto asked.
"I suppose it's the whole matter of trusting a demon." the Kyuubi replied.
"Oh . . . . Okay, but like, is it possible?" he reiterated.
After a really long pause, "Yes it's possible,"
"I still can't believe they made you a chunin," Temari said as they walked down the streets of Suna, trailing behind the Kazekage.
"You know, you say that everytime I come here, I'm starting to think it's just a dig at me." Shikamaru replied dryly.
Temari laughed at his response, "Can you blame me? I mean seriously, how did they even get your lazy ass to accept? I would've expected you to be like 'Hmm actually after doing ten million calculations in my massive brain I've determined that being a missing-nin is slightly less of a drag than having to be a chunin, so I'm leaving this village.'"
"See you're forgetting the most important thing here," Shikamaru replied, "My mother would hunt me down and drag me back if I tried to run away."
"Oh my god you're serious, that's actually the only thing stopping you from doing it," She said incredulously.
"It's not so bad, I mean think about it, 3 days of every month they send me all the way to an allied village just to give a pretty girl a scroll, a cheap but effective way to pacify me." Shikamaru managed to say it in the same lazy tone he said everything else despite the brazen flirting he had just done.
"Hmmm, that so? Is your mission also to seduce the Kazekage's sister for political leverage, or are you just happy to see me?" Temari said.
"Dunno, guess you'll have to wait till the next inter-continental shitshow to see if I come and defend the Sand's princess." Shikamaru replied.
Gaara turned around to talk to them, "You can stop flirting with my sister now, Shikamaru."
Had this been just six months earlier, Shikamaru's blood probably would have run cold at Gaara's words, but by now he'd had the opportunity to watch the boy grow into his own. What was once a confused boy trying to connect with a populace that was terrified of him, was now a confident leader with growing admiration in his community. Sure, sometimes he said weird things and you couldn't quite tell if he was joking or if he was about to kill your family, but it was a massive improvement. Shikamaru made a mental note to himself to thank Naruto for saving this poor kid, it had probably prevented war from breaking out.
"You're too harsh Lord Kazekage," Shikamaru began, "she flirted with me first."
"And I said none of that Lord Kazekage business either, I'm not even older than you."
"Of course Gaara," Shikamaru replied, "I hope my visits here have been useful to you,"
"They have in fact been useful, the information Konoha has provided us with has helped numerous times in securing our border, especially in the time shortly after the Chunin Exams. Many of these people we're passing by now are only fed because Konoha's intel kept our crops safe and secure."
"I'm glad to hear that Gaara, it's good to see your relationship with your village strengthening, I can't wait to inform Naruto."
"Has he been well? It's unfortunate we haven't been able to meet since that time,"
"He's been doing good, he has a lot of value in Konoha, and you know because of the . . . status, you both share, our kage has been careful in slowly allowing him out of the village more often."
"Yes I understand, it will be awhile before the Chunin Exams are held in Konoha again, hopefully we can meet before then." Gaara said.
"Yes, hopefully," Shikamaru responded. The conversation came to a natural rest and Gaara returned to Kazekage tower as Temari escorted Shikamaru to the gates of Suna. They stood there, outside the gates, out of sight and earshot from the gate guards. Shikamaru's back was against the wall and Temari had her hand on his flak jacket, softly leaning on him.
"Don't miss me too much while you're gone Shika," Temari told him playfully.
It hurt, it hurt so much to lie, but he knew he had to, "You shouldn't be too worried about that, I'll be back soon enough,"
"Promise?"
Seriously? Did she have to do this to him? Why had she picked now of all time to be vulnerable? Whatever cruel higher power was out there must have been dead set on making him feel as awful as possible right now, "I promise," he finally managed to reply as he held her chin and gently pushed it up so they'd make eye contact. One last time. One last look.
Then he detached himself from against the wall, slithering out of her grasp, he walked away from her, "Try not be busy with a mission when I'm back." He cringed at the irony, knowing full well he was going to be the one busy with a mission this time next month. Shikamaru had always avoided caring about things. Those who cared about things got caught up in them, and then had to deal with troublesome things all the time. Now he'd gone and done it, gotten himself mixed up with a woman, and a troublesome one at that. Some genius he was.
Of course, he had Jiraiya to blame for this too, out of everyone involved in ROOT Infiltration, Shikamaru was basically designated as the spearhead of the mission. Just a month after the assignment, he and he alone was already certified ANBU. The logic was that Shikamaru was the best one to scout things out in advance, and it would be beneficial for him to be strategizing right from the beginning. The logic was completely sound and Shikamaru knew it was the right thing to do. After three months in ANBU, doing the best job they could of dropping little crumbs, at the right spots, they had finally gone and done it. A ROOT operative had contacted Shikamaru, they finally had their foot in the door.
Unfortunately, that meant Shikamaru could no longer act as a diplomat, his trips to the Sand had been going on since before he had started in ANBU and he was lucky to continue them, but the first thing the ROOT operative had told him when inviting him to join was that he would have to abandon that mission. Ever since the Uchiha massacre, Danzo was operating a completely underground organization, unknown to the Hokage's administration. Thus, newer members of ROOT could not actually abandon their ANBU posts, not immediately at least. To Danzo, that was already a liability, adding normal missions, especially of the nature of Shikamaru's to the mix, was absolutely not okay.
As Shikamaru made his way back home he couldn't stop himself from lamenting about it more. Neji and Kiba had only recently gotten into ANBU, and Team 7 was still in the middle of training. Of course, it'd be extremely weird had they all entered simultaneously, but did it really have to be Shikamaru to get the short end of the stick like this?
Who knew if he'd even survive this mission, the original report Yugao and Yamato had delivered to them had told Jiraiya's account of a dying ROOT member, being chased by her own comrades. If he somehow made it out alive, he hoped Temari of the Sand wouldn't be too angry with him.
