"Hey Naruto!" Sakura said, waving at the Uzumaki as she entered the ramen stand.
"Sakura-chan, what are you doing here?" The blonde asked, mouth full of noodles. "And what are you wearing?!" He looked at the grey jacket and pants in surprise and she smiled.
"Ah, I'm shadowing Ibiki-oji-san today. This is the T&I uniform, no one ever believes I'm with him if I wear my normal outfit." She said before turning to the old man behind the counter and sliding a handful of bills to him. "Hi Teuchi-san, can I please get a bowl of miso and another of whatever Naruto wants for him."
The boy turned to her, eyes glistening with unshed tears and a beaming smile on his face. "Sakura-chan!" He sniffed. "Is this a dat-"
"No." She said and he wilted. "It's a good luck bowl for the future hokage." At that he got even more teary eyed, wrapping her in a hug and balling until he was distracted by the fresh bowls of ramen the old man slid in front of them. She was just finishing her bowl (Uzumaki had moved onto yet another one, babbling all the while) when a mane of white hair poked its way into the stall.
"AH! So there you are!" The man said, his booming voice filling the small space.
"Hah! It's the pervert sennin!" Uzumaki yelled, mouth still full of noodles. The Sannin begun to puff in offence before his eyes strayed to Sakura and he leaned towards Uzumaki with a salacious grin, jabbing the kid repeatedly with an elbow.
"Hey, Naruto, is this your girlfrie-"
"No." She said and the man wilted. Sakura was hit with the sudden and horrifying realisation that he was just an older Naruto. "I'm Naruto's teammate, Haruno Sakura. It's an honour to meet you Jiraiya-sama." She greeted, holding out a hand and smiling angelically instead of letting any of the realisation show on her face.
"It's always a pleasure to meet such an intelligent kid!" Jiraiya said, clutching her hand with two of her own and shaking it enthusiastically.
"Mhm, Naruto was totally right about you!" She nodded, her face guileless.
His hands stopped and he levelled her with a suspicious look. "And what, exactly, has Naruto told you?"
"Just that you're a perverted old weirdo with a poor taste in summons." She kept her voice childish and her smile blinding.
"OI!" The Sannin roared, pointing angrily at her, but she ignored him and turned to the Uzumaki.
"I've got to get back to Ibiki-oji-san." She poured as much fondness as possible into the moniker as possible. The Sannin abruptly stopped complaining to eye her T&I uniform. She put on a serious expression. "But make sure you stay safe, if you got hurt I'd have to track down whoever was meant to be protecting you and feed them their own manhood."
"Haha! Don't worry about me, Sakura-chan, it's not like I'm going anywhere!" The Uzumaki proclaimed. She smiled and walked out of the ramen stand, pausing halfway out the exit to look back and enjoy the way the Sannin had paled and was shying away from her.
"See you Naruto, Teuchi-san," She said with a bright expression before lowering her voice to a purr and eyeing the white haired man dangerously. "Jiraiya-sama."
The man grimaced back at her. She laughed as she left.
"Knock, knock." She said cheerily, opening the door to three stressed looking jōnin and Hatake's still form on the bed. She held up the bundle of forms she was carrying against her chest. "Ibiki-oji-san" she enjoyed the way Maito visibly became more wary of her, "sent me to collect your reports on the incident."
She passed a bundle of papers, a clipboard and a pen to each jōnin, cleared the papers off the desk, dragged it closer to Hatake, and perched herself on top. She looked up to the watching jōnin and raised her eyebrows.
"Well?" She waved at them. "Go on." The Sarutobi and Maito complied, beginning filling in the reports, but Yūhi was looking at her with a furrowed brows.
"Isn't this… above your clearance level?" She asked, her voice gentle like talking to a particularly stupid child.
"No." Sakura deadpanned, inspecting the nails of one hand.
"But-" She started.
"Yūhi-san," Sakura started, voice dangerously sweet. "I would like to remind you that my sensei is currently unresponsive," She waved a hand at Hatake and Yūhi's face turned troubled, "one of my teammates is being targeted by a pair of homicidal madmen, the village is still in chaos from the attack, and I've spent all day as the direct support for the head of an extremely understaffed T&I. Outside of a twenty minutes for lunch, this is the closest I've had to a break since well before sunrise, and I'm spending it next to the sick bed of someone I care about."
She leaned forward and let the full force of the day's frustrations show on her face, leaking a potent level of killing intent into the air. "Do. Not. Test. Me." Her voice was a snarl.
The Sarutobi handed his report to her and she began going through the information.
(If Morino had wanted her to just collect the reports and hand them in untouched he'd have sent a random courier genin rather than someone he described as 'passably competent'. Her job was to summarise what was relevant into a verbal report so he didn't have to look away from his other mountains of work as he learnt what had happened.)
"You're just a genin! You can't order us around!" Yūhi shrieked, an angry expression twisting her face.
"Kurenai." Sarutobi said, but she ignored him, opening her mouth to continue.
"Actually, I'm currently acting as Morino Ibiki's personal assistant, which gives me the ability to file disciplinary slips for anyone of an A+ clearance or lower." Sakura said in a monotone, focused on the report in her hands. Yūhi still had a mulish expression on her face but she wisely stopped speaking and went to work.
Maito handed over his finished report with a gleaming smile. "Congratulations, Morino-san must value you highly to put you in such a sort after position."
She nodded but didn't otherwise reply. Instead, she was frowning down at the reports. Her mind whirling as she tried to fit what she knew of Uchiha Itachi in with this new information.
It didn't fit.
Yūhi handed in her report and Sakura's frown only deepened.
She was vaguely aware of conversation happening around her but she couldn't find it within herself to pay attention, even when the Uchiha entered the room. Her mind too preoccupied with the current puzzle. She knew one thing for certain.
Every jōnin in this room should be dead.
Her eyes slid to the disturbingly still form of Hatake. Her mouth pinched.
Then an idiot was bursting in, the Uchiha was running and Maito- after far too long of a hesitation- was chasing after him. She ran her mind through the possibilities and sighed.
She would just get in the way.
She made a mental note to write up Yamashiro Aoba for screaming about classified information in an unsecured area, and sent a final glance at Hatake. She left, waving good bye to the other jōnin.
Worked on ignoring the acidic boil of anger in her gut.
Sakura had a village to help run.
Sakura spent the following weeks once again living out of T&I. With Hatake indisposed, Morino had gleefully monopolised her time, taking advantage of her high clearance level (An advantage she'd gained after the month of training he'd put her through. Apparently the head of T&I vouching for her and giving evidence of just how thorough his torture resistance training had been was enough to get her a clearance on par with most council members.) and general competence but her low ranking as a genin preventing her from getting sucked into the village's high mission demand after the losses of the invasion. Her days were a blur of training, paper work and running errands. Her nights she spent working until her eyes blurred deep in archives, reading everything and anything she could get her hands on related to Uchiha Itachi and the massacre.
It just didn't make sense.
Sakura's only breaks were during Morino-enforced lunch breaks. Usually during days where she'd begin to look particularly pale and drawn, he'd physically throw her out of the T&I building and order her to splurge on good food and visit some friends. Of course the man worded it differently ("You're stinking the fucking place up, Haruno!") but she'd gotten good at reading between the lines.
Sakura, having no real friends outside of her team and Shiranui (who was either working, sleeping or out of the village thanks to their crippled forces), would get a box of takeaway, some flowers and spend an hour or two sitting next to Hatake's or the Uchiha's bedside, playing with her nature releases.
She knew she didn't have the reserves (and probably wouldn't ever have them) to perform the Chidori, not to mention not having the Sharingan to really master it, but damn it all if that was going to stop her from putting her hands through people's ribcages.
She'd gotten to the point where she could manifest pure elemental chakra above her hands, just little streaks of lighting and bursts of water, and she felt close to figuring out how to reabsorb the lightning chakra, effectively turning herself into a giant circuit and getting some of the benefits of the Chidori with none of the drain on her reserves.
It was during this messing around that she had her biggest break through.
She'd been alternating between releasing water chakra and lighting chakra, testing how quickly she could switch between the two, when instead of a burst of electricity or a spray of water she instead got a thick, bright blue beam that shuddered and pulsed over her palm before sputtering out into nothingness.
She stared.
She tried it again, this time purposely trying to produce both lightning and water chakra at the same time. It worked. A large, almost dripping ring of bright, electrical blue pulsed around her hand. She tried to move it and the ring shifted and spun almost instinctively.
It was far, far easier than using water or lightning had ever been.
Sakura smiled.
"Sensei." She told Hatake's still form. "I don't think I'm a lightning and a water type, I think I'm something in between."
She spent the rest of her lunch break experimenting with the blue gloop. If she had a stupid grin on her face and significantly lower chakra levels afterwards, well, Morino only looked a little smug about it.
Sakura was at a crossroads.
She stared at the pile of files in front of her, arms crossed and legs bouncing under the table.
She'd gone as far as she could with legal and only mildly illegal means. If she wanted to figure out what actually happened with the massacre, she would have to start breaking into some seriously high level vaults.
She had found enough to know there was a conspiracy. To see the patterns in strange missions and a butchered shinobi record to know that Uchiha Itachi did not just randomly snap and murder his entire clan. To see the pattern of discontent being purposely sewed in the village. Good shinobi given terrible missions just because of their clan name. Intelligence files missing. Rumours spread. Psychological reports altered.
She could do everything in her power to get to the bottom of it.
But, at the end of the day, Sakura was nothing but a clanless orphan. Sure she had great prospects, a fantastic jōnin sensei and important teammates, but ultimately that just gave her a lot of potential.
Right now, she could be spirited away the moment someone didn't like where she was digging.
…She made a mental note to research better protections for her house.
On the one hand, she wasn't selfless or patriotic enough to put her life on the line for the sake of answers, on the other hand leaving a level of corruption this big- something that had apparently sacrificed an entire clan for unclear aims- to fester had a pretty high chance of coming back to bite her in the ass later.
Sakura pushed a harsh breath of air out of her nose and packed away the files. She had to stop.
"Hey Shikamaru!" Sakura called, the Nara turning to look at her with a grimace on his face.
"Sakura." He said, tone flat. The older version standing next to him dug and elbow into his ribs. "How wonderful it is to see you again." He deadpanned and she pouted before turning to the older version with a smile.
"I'm Haruno Sakura, it's a pleasure to meet you properly, Nara-sama." She said with a small bow.
"Just call me Shikaku, all that Sama nonsense is too troublesome." Older Version drawled, scratching a stubbly jawline. "You're the kid that follows Ibiki around, right?" They begun walking away from the administrative office as a group, the Nara attempting to put Older Version between them but the man's hand on the kid's shoulder purposefully steering him next to her and preventing it.
"Yep, since Kakashi-sensei is in the hospital I've been shadowing Ibiki-oji-san for the past month." She replied and he frowned.
"I was sorry to hear about Kakashi." Older Version said, more than slightly awkward.
"Thank you, Shikaku-san." She replied before turning a teasing grin on the Nara. "So, Shikamaru, how does it feel to be officially 'chūnin material'?" She asked and he scowled.
"Troublesome." He said.
"It's what you get for being competent." She said. "Are you going to be working under Shikaku-san?"
"Not until I have more experience."
"Well T&I would love to have you," Her grin turned sly. "You know, we hold a monthly shoji tournament."
His eyes narrowed, but there was a glimmer of interest in their depths. "Too troublesome." His tone was slightly disbelieving.
"Mhm, you would think so, but everyone there gets really serious about it." She said, nodding as she did. "Of course that's mostly due to the gambling and copious amounts of drinking, but the end result is still the same. Anko-nee-san is actually really scary into it."
"You people should be kept in cages." He muttered moodily. Sakura started laughing, high pitched and delighted. He quirked an incredulous eyebrow at her.
"You'll find out when you're older." She unhelpfully explained. The older version went a little pink. (She should not have gone into The Room.) A ball of orange caught her eye. "Hey, Naruto!" She called. "What are you doing here?"
"I was just about to ask you the same thing!" The Uzumaki said, peering suspiciously at the three of them "What are you doing with this lazy idiot? The only building around here is the ninja administration."
"Just some paperwork, we were promoted to chūnin." She said, ignoring the Nara's embarrassed mutterings.
"That's great Sakura-chan!" He beamed at her before a flash of jealousy crossed his face. "Did Sasuke…?"
"We were the only two promoted to chūnin."
"Ah, well that's great, you totally deserve it Sakura-chan!" He said earnestly and though she smiled back she was inwardly extremely confused. Was it because she was a girl? Was his jealously exclusively towards the Uchiha? But even as she watched he pouted enviously at the Nara, though none of the same sentiment was directed at her. Was it because she was his teammate and entirely nice to him?
The Nara, who had been paying more attention to the adult's conversation, chose that moment to interrupt.
"Who's the young woman with the big attitude?" He asked, an annoyed expression on his face and a hand over his mouth as if that would magically make the sound stop carrying.
"She's the new hokage." Uzumaki copied the Nara's posture, and seemed entirely oblivious to the way the words were shattering his worldview. "Oh, and although she looks young, she's really fifty."
The groups moved to split and Sakura took up position next to the Uzumaki. "See you next time, Shikamaru." She waved.
"Hey Shikamaru, let's meet up later, alright? I'll show you my cool new move!" Uzumaki said. "See ya!"
They left the Nara's behind.
(Sakura didn't know but the pair followed the interaction with an intense conversation about women, during which the younger version vehemently denied that she was even human, and thus couldn't be classified as a female.)
"So Naruto," She started, slinging an arm over the bouncing blonde's shoulder. "You're not hurt at all, the old pervert didn't… take advantage of you?"
The white haired Sannin scowled and started loudly insulting her, which set off the blonde Sannin and ended in them shaking each other angrily in the middle of the hallway. Sakura ignored them.
"Nope!" He said. "But I totally learned this awesome new jutsu and there were these bad guys and I blew them away like…!"
They headed to the hospital to a soundtrack of the Uzumaki's excited rambling, Sakura making 'oohs' and 'ahs' at the right moments. She would have figured this would be annoying to the others, but the Senju had a wistfully fond expression on her face the whole time instead, the white haired Sannin had disappeared after being punched through a wall and the brunette looked too stressed to be aware of her surroundings.
They entered the Uchiha's room and the Uzumaki fell into a solemn silence at the sight of the kid. The Senju strolled purposefully into the room- after eyeing the plushy, black cat Sakura had left at the end of his bed- her hand coming to rest on the Uchiha's forehead and glowing a medical green.
"He'll be alright, she's a great doctor." Uzumaki said. Sakura gave him a comforting smile and a pat on the shoulder.
"Of course she is, you went and got her after all." At that he brightened and watched as the Senju removed her hand from the Uchiha's forehead and the raven haired kid blinked himself awake. The Uzumaki looked between him and the Senju with a conflicted expression on his face.
"You look after Sasuke and I'll make sure Kakashi-sensei is okay, alright?" Sakura said softly and the blonde nodded, throwing himself towards the Uchiha. Sakura followed the Senju and her brown haired follower out of the room. "Ah! I'm Haruno Sakura, I'm sorry for not introducing myself earlier, I got kind of swept up in Naruto's enthusiasm." She said, affecting a sheepish expression.
"Hah! Don't worry about it kid!" The Senju laughed, clapping her on the back and sending her stumbling in a ridiculous show of strength. "I'm Tsunade, your new hokage, and this is Shizune, my apprentice."
"It's wonderful to meet you." She said. "Is it true you can punch through mountains?" Sakura's eyes sparkled with excitement. The Senju chuckled.
"It is, though it takes near perfect chakra control." The Senju said as she made her way into Hatake's room.
Sakura felt her interest catch. A plan line into place. She eyed the tall blonde's glowing green hand on Hatake's head. It would have to wait. She took a seat next to Matio, nodding to the man she'd built up somewhat of a camaraderie with- even if he'd never quite gotten over his wariness of her- after weeks of often sitting by the same bedside.
Hatake woke up in an impressively smooth move to a slumped seated position and a general aura of gloom. A little of the acidic anger in her gut relaxed at the sight.
"Humph, you were beaten by only two enemies?" The Senju teased, Hatake turned to look at her with a lone open eye, dark circles standing out in sharp relief against too pale skin. "I thought you were a genius."
A progressively more and more agitated Maito finally sprung to his feet, poking the Senju towards the door. "Forget about this idiot! Please take a look at my student Lee!" He cried, shepherding the blonde and her assistant out of the room. Sakura watched them go with a bemused smile. When she turned back Hatake was looking at her with a tired expression on his face.
"It's good to see you up, sensei." She smiled genuinely at the man. He blinked before sliding his open eye to the pile of plushies at the foot of his bed. Her smile widened. "I got bored of bringing flowers."
He raised an eyebrow at her, looking back and forth between the eight, disturbingly accurate ninken plushies and her.
"Once Gai-san figured out what I was doing he insisted on hand sewing their outfits."
"Aah." Hatake nodded. His voice gravelly with disuse. "How long was I out?"
"Almost two months." She replied and he gained a pained expression on his face.
"The others?"
"Sasuke chased after Naruto when he heard about what happened." She said and the man visibly wilted. "He encountered Itachi and had since been entirely unresponsive." The 'like you' hung unsaid at the bar of her throat. Sakura would enjoy ripping Itachi's pretty little eyes out if she ever got the chance. "Tsunade-sama woke him up successfully before coming here. As I understand it, Naruto was involved both in the fight against Itachi and Hoshigaki as well as a fight against Orochimaru, but sustained no lasting injuries. He's with Sasuke at the moment."
"And you?" He rasped, Sakura tilted her head.
"I'm fine?" She asked, genuinely perplexed by the question.
"You look exhausted."
"Ah, well." She sighed. "With you out of commission Ibiki made me his personal assistant. As there's been no Hokage and our forces have halved, the man's one of the three people currently holding the village together." She grimaced. "I don't think I've slept more than fours hours in one night since before the chūnin exams." A hand landed on her head, tiredly ruffling her hair. Tension she hadn't even been aware of in her spine melted out of her at the contact.
"Maa, I'm awake now Sakura-chan, you should go get some rest." He drawled, swinging himself out of bed and moving over to the small cupboard in the corner of the room.
"Should you already be moving around, Kakashi-sensei?" She asked dubiously. He eye-smiled over his shoulder.
"What the medic's don't know won't hurt them." He said and pulled his flak jacket over his shoulders. "And my cute little genin wouldn't betray my trust by telling them, would she?" He affected a mock hurt expression as he pulled on his gloves. Her grin turned sly.
"Is there a genin here, I didn't realise?" She asked with exaggerated confusion. A newly gloved hand patted her head.
"Congratulations, Sakura." Hatake said seriously. "You've earned it." He paused for a second. "Did anyone else…?"
"Just me and Shikamaru." She said and his eye smile became smug. She knew the man was thinking about Kohona's Green Beast. He adjusted his forehead protector and tucked the collection of plushies under his arms.
"Meet in Sasuke's room for a team meeting tomorrow at eleven." He said, before shunshining away.
Sakura glanced towards the door, considered going back to the Uchiha's room before yawning widly and figuring Hatake was right.
She headed to her house, ignored the general covering of dust and flopped into bed.
The next day she spent the morning running paperwork back and forth between T&I and the new Hokage's office (wearing practical shinobi black and her brand new chūnin flack jacket in celebration), the blonde woman appearing deeper and deeper in paperwork-driven despair with every pile.
Amongst the piles she slipped in an anonymous, colour-coded, labelled and systematically itemised binder full of her findings about the Uchiha massacre, freshly sealed to only open with the Senju's chakra signature, meaning only the Hokage, Sakura, and maybe Orochimaru could see what was inside.
Once she was thrown out of the building, ("I can't afford a fucking chūnin, Haruno!") she made her way to the hospital, stopping for an order of fresh meat buns on the way. She arrived at one thirty, a solid half an hour before Hatake would bother to show up.
"Hi, Sasuke." She said, slipping into the stark room and dragging a stool next to the brooding boy's bed. "I brought lunch!" She said cheerily, waving the box of meat buns before him, only for it to be knocked out of her hands. The boy shot her a glare before turning to brood out of the window. Her eyebrows were in her hairline, staring incredulously at the ruined buns. She knew the Uchiha would be moody, but this was… bad.
The Uzumaki strolled in, the Uchiha turned to give him a truly poisonous glare.
Her eyes narrowed. That wasn't a very Uchiha'y expression.
…Was it the mark?
"Why are you staring at me like that?" The blonde asked, his body language defensive. Irritation buzzed in the back of Sakura's head.
"Hey, Naruto." The Uchiha said, voice full of barely controlled anger, as he pushed himself to standing.
"Wha-what?"
"Fight me." Uchiha demanded, fists clenched and teeth gritted. "NOW!"
"What are you babbling about? you're still recovering."
"SHUT UP AND FIGHT ME!" The Uchiha roared, eyes bleeding red in a dizzying spin. "You thought you helped me?" His tone was mocking, acidic. "That foolish fifth Hokage or whatever, butting into other people's business."
"What?!" The Uzumaki's race reddened with anger.
"Sasuke, Naruto, stop it." Sakura said, admittedly halfheartedly. They both ignored her.
"Well then, I was thinking about it to." Uzumaki spat.
"Come with me." The Uchiha turned and walked out the door, smashing a meat bun underfoot as he went, the Uzumaki hot on his heels. Sakura mourned the food for a moment before following.
Maybe beating each other half to death would do them some good.
She trailed them up to the roof, balancing on top of a corner of the fence to watch the pair.
"Hah!" Said Uzumaki.
"What's so funny?!"
"Funny? No. I'm overjoyed actually. To think, how I can finally beat you."
"What did you say? Stop blabbering you loser!"
"I'm no longer the loser you once knew me as. I've changed!"
"You dimwit idiot, what are you so full of yourself for, huh?!"
"Eh, what are you losing your cool for? That's so unlike you. What?! Are you afraid now that you challenged me to a fight, huh? Sasuke?"
"Shut up and fight!"
"Before we start, you better put on your Konoha hitai-ate."
"I don't need something like that."
"JUST DO IT!" Uzumaki yelled and Sakura tilted her head. Was he actually worried about Uchiha and wanted him to reaffirm his loyalties? Surprisingly perceptive.
"You won't lay a finger on me, let alone my forehead."
"No! What I'm saying is this is a symbol, that we fight as equal Konoha shinobi!"
"That's why I say your full of yourself! You think you're on par with me?!" Uchiha spat, essentially telling the blonde he didn't give a shit about Konoha, though Sakura didn't think that the Uchiha realised that. She watched the perceptiveness of the Uzumaki melt away into pure rage.
"Of course I do! In fact, I've never thought of myself as inferior to you, not even once!"
"You're pissing me off!"
"That's because you're still weak, Sasuke-CHAN!"
They met in screams of anger. Both doing their best to beat the shit out of the other. Uzumaki used shadow clones. Uchiha used the giant fireball.
The flames died away to show two Uzumaki's, a ball of pure chakra gathering in one of their hands. Sakura's eyes widened. A thousand birds started chirping.
They were trying to kill each other. These fucking children were doing their best to fucking murder one other. One of whom had gotten their Sharingan and used it to pull the other out of harms way, taking potentially lethal hits in return, and the other who'd been unable to kill an enemy-nin after befriending them for five minutes beforehand.
How the fuck had things ended up like this?
Sakura didn't intervene. She wasn't attached enough to either of them to risk a ball of death or an A-rank assassination jutsu. They were both immature, arrogant and generally just acted like twelve year old boys. She could see herself getting there, could see the kinds of people they'd become when they matured. She could see a lot of potential.
She prepared herself to see that potential die on the roof of a hospital.
Fortunately for the boys, Hatake appeared just in time and threw them both into a water tank. She eyed the massive explosion in one and giant hole in the other.
"Hey! You two!" Hatake yelled. "What are you doing on the roof of the hospital?!" He turned to concentrate on the Uchiha so Sakura threw a coated kunai at the Uzumaki and swapped with it just in time to land behind the crouching boy.
She looked down at him dispassionately. He looked up at her, expression seething.
"I don't know what that jutsu was," She said, her voice dangerously flat. "But that would have killed Sasuke."
The anger on his face stuttered slightly. He pushed to standing and she leaned in with wide, serious eyes. "Is that what you wanted? To see him as nothing more than a smear of guts on the pavement?"
"What? No?! It wouldn't ha-"
She grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to look at the back of the water tank. The metal warped and exploded outwards from the sheer force of the jutsu.
"What would that have done to a fragile thirteen year old?" She asked. Uzumaki had frozen, staring wide eyed at the destruction. She pat him on the head once and left him to it, hopping down to grab her kunai.
She waved absently over her shoulder at the pair of jōnin as she jumped off the roof, intent on getting something for lunch- again- and going to see if Shiranui was somewhere she could bother him.
Sure, she'd given the Uzumaki a kick up the ass, but she wasn't one of the ones who taught immature, preteen boys those levels of techniques. They could deal with the fallout of that decision.