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Covenant
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Synopsis: Four years into the Fourth Shinobi War, Orochimaru offers to turn.
He all but requests Sakura by name to be the contact.
It is, quite clearly, a trap—least of all because he's supposed to be dead.
But what is a losing side to do except take the hand that's offered?
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10. The Missions
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TIME UNDERGROUND was disorienting.
Sakura had no idea how anyone lived their life like this. Why anyone would choose to.
She awoke with no way to tell how much time had passed except the amount of crust in her eyes and how stiff her back felt. How easily she slept in this slightly damp enemy cave was still bizarre. Certainly faster, and almost better than she slept on base. She pushed herself up from the sleeping mat and stood with a stretch.
There was a note and a teleport tag on the desk. Come to the lab when you're up.
The script was unfamiliar.
Well, there would be time to go later. If the summoner was willing to wait for Sakura to wake up, they could wait a bit longer while she prepared herself for human interaction. She needed a shower. There hadn't been time to rinse off after arriving on Iwa's battle base; she was too tired to do so when Tsunade allowed her to rest; and sleep swiftly took her after Sasuke and Suigetsu left the room.
She probably smelled absolutely rank.
Halfway to the bathroom, she wavered. Even if she showered, she had nothing to change into. Her clothes reeked as much as she did, patched with dried blood and secretion, most not even her own. Was there even a point in washing just to dress in the same dirty outfit?
There's no one to impress, she chastised herself.
They were all shinobi. While it'd work wonders on her mood to cleanse herself of combat, a little grime wouldn't offend anyone. Though the train of thought had her wondering where Sasuke stored the clothes he wore, as it obviously wasn't here.
This room hadn't seemed like a prison on her first visit, but the more time she spent in it, the more it felt like a cell. It was hollow, devoid of unnecessary pleasantries. Even the books on the shelves consisted of combat strategies and weapon maintenance. No windows, no rug, no clock, no closet, no dressers.
Efficient. Lifeless.
Defeated, she reached for the tag with a sigh.
The next moment she landed gently and without any chakra drain in the lab. The wall shelves seemed slightly more stocked. The floor was recently swept, a bright bite of antisceptic tinged the air.
Orochimaru leaned over something on the operating table. A mass of some sort. She was afraid to look, knowing what Orochimaru tended to experiment on, but curiosity would surely get the best of her soon enough.
"Welcome, Sakura Haruno."
"Please stop calling me by my name," she said. "There are rules in these situations."
"Then you should hurry and tell me what to call you instead."
Despite her better judgment, she approached the table. She'd lasted precisely 48 seconds.
She stood beside the man who, at one point in her childhood, she thought destroyed her life. And in a sense, he had. In a sense, he still was—but in another, it was all water under the bridge.
War was funny like that. It made friends of enemies, enemies of friends, and memories of loved ones. Brought life to the dead, even—for those who let their minds stray too far in quiet solitude.
The crumbling of a 12-year-old's impossible dream felt so inconsequential in the face of a world war. At this moment, Orochimaru wasn't the battering ram he'd once been. Inside this room, they were merely two of the best scientists in the world observing an operating table.
Orochimaru used a metal rod to probe a white, fat-looking mound smeared across the steel, watching it move as if breathing. Dark blue tendrils beneath its surface made a mockery of veins.
Sakura shuddered at the unnatural scene. "What is that?"
"Mm...how to explain it?" He jabbed at it violently, and the blob appeared to cower from him. "You could say it's a rejected prosthetic, but that would reduce it quite a bit."
"Who did it belong to?" She reached to touch it herself. It looked spongey, like the inside of a stomach wound.
"I wouldn't do that," Orochimaru said quickly. Her hand stilled inches away from the thing. "Although it can't see or hear, it does have a memory. It could imprint your chakra signature and pass the information to Madara when he returns to fetch it."
Startled, Sakura stepped back. "Madara? That thing came from Madara?"
"It did. It's a portion of his body that isn't taking. I'm to...fix it."
"What portion?"
"I didn't ask. Better not to know, sometimes."
Sakura hummed in agreement. There was so much to dissect in this morsel of information Orochimaru dangled before her. She glanced at him beside her—his face turned up in a smirk.
He knew what he was doing.
"If you explain this properly, I'll understand what it is," she tested. "I am a medic, after all."
"It's not a medical issue, really. It's more like a violation of the laws of nature."
She leaned towards the white mass to examine it more closely. It seemed to hold no liquid and appeared denser than fat or tissue.
"What do you mean by the laws of nature, exactly?"
"Well, by all accounts, and especially by nature itself, Madara should be dead. It's unnatural to summon the dead. Far beyond that when a person truly revives."
Sakura didn't bother pointing out the irony in Orochimaru considering anything against nature. "So you need to fix this part of him because his body is...decaying?"
Orochimaru turned to her, mouth quirked with surprise. "Very good. You're rather fast on the pickup, like Tsunade always was." His attention reverted to the blob. "Is this a gathering session, then?"
"I'd like it to be," she admitted. "But it can be something else if you don't want to think of it like that."
"Careful with your phrasing, Sakura Haruno. I'd prefer not to experience another beating." Sakura's brows furrowed. She wasn't sure what he meant. He continued—"I'll explain this matter in return for a promise from you."
Sakura crossed her arms and weighed her options. If Madara's body was failing, the Allies needed to know. But it was equally likely that Orochimaru was simply laying another trap and, upon agreement, would feed her false intelligence.
But if it wasn't false... "What kind of promise do you want?"
He reached toward a small metal rolling tray housing medical equipment on his opposite side, plucked a pair of incision scissors and tweezers from it, and resumed his work.
"I'll collect on it at a later time. You only need to agree to grant a promise in the future."
Well, it wasn't a bad offer. An offer from the devil, yes—but not an inherently bad one.
Yet.
And she was so intrigued by the thing he was cutting open that she might lose sleep for a week if she left this room without understanding it.
"Fine, no problem. I promise to make you a future promise."
Orochimaru smiled. "Then we have an agreement."
"Yes, we do. So, what's wrong with Madara's body?" she prompted, eager.
She rarely got the opportunity to learn in the heat of war. Sakura felt starved for something new and unknown. Felt that familiar ache to study what she didn't yet comprehend.
"I'm sure you've noticed that Madara rarely shows in battle anymore."
"Yeah, we've noticed."
"The body he reincarnated in isn't Madara's original body, but one built by merging his original body with parts of Hashirama Senju."
Sakura lingered on the name. "The First Hokage?"
"The one and only," Orochimaru affirmed.
This prompted a whole slew of new questions for Sakura. Where had they gotten the First's body? Who integrated the bodies? Why did they decide to merge these two, specifically? But Orochimaru was speaking fast, and it wasn't the time to pry for more.
"The union allowed Madara to unlock the Rinnegan." Had they known that would happen? How? "The transplant was initially successful for the first year or so, but it became evident that Madara and Hashirama's cells were growing increasingly incompatible."
"So his body's rejecting the First's cells," Sakura concluded.
"It's trying to. So much of Madara's body is made up of conflicting matter that it can't be rejected easily. It's mixed together with his own cells within his body. For now, he purges portions of himself periodically to slow the degeneration." How did that work? "This here is a purged piece. The purging process is time-consuming and draining, though, and the frequency with which he must perform it is increasing."
It sounded like—"Madara is dying, then."
She shut down the hopeful flutter that grabbed hold of her stomach.
Hope was dangerous.
"He's seriously injured, but he isn't dying. Not from this alone, at least—and not while I'm here to fix up the rejected parts enough for reintegration." Orochimaru sliced off a large portion of a blue tendril.
Sakura narrowed her eyes at him. "Then stop fixing them up."
"I'll continue working as I always have. You seem to forget that I don't really care which side wins this war. And more importantly, are you asking me to disobey orders and die?"
She opened her mouth to argue. Not caring who won and actively maintaining Madara were two vastly different positions; she could accept the former, but the latter crossed a line; it was about time for Orochimaru to explain his position thoroughly, or the Allies would have to reevaluate his role in the agreement.
The thoughts were interrupted by a pop. Turning on her heel towards the sound, she checked that her transformation jutsu was still in place.
But it was only Suigetsu.
He shot her a toothy grin that hit her with a shiver of pins and needles. "Came for that healing I was promised. Held out just to be seen by you, doc."
"Lay down." She pointed at the floor of the lab. "And hold on." She faced Orochimaru again; they weren't done. "You may not care which side wins, but we made the covenant with an understanding to bring down Madara collectively."
"We?" Orochimaru parroted.
"Yes, we, and healing Madara in this manner is in direct—"
"As I recall it, only you and Sasuke made a covenant. I merely cast the jutsu. Dear Suigetsu over there was just a witness." Orochimaru had separated the white mass into four parts and sliced through the largest one as he spoke. "If there is a 'we', the other half of it isn't in this room."
Sakura felt bitterness rise in her. The seal on her neck buzzed, her fist clenched.
"Don't mess with me, snake. I've been playing nice with you, but only because it's more convenient this way." She stepped closer to him, letting her chakra flare out slightly. "The four of us are all in an agreement. We concluded such with a covenant. And you are violating that agreement with these procedures."
"The kitten has claws, Orochimaru. Careful," Suigetsu jested from behind.
Orochimaru chuckled over the now five-pieced blob. "That she does. Please calm down, Sakura Haruno. The reality is that whether or not I mend these rejections," he poked the one he worked on for emphasis, "it won't stop Madara. He's got stockpiles of Hashirama's cells scattered across the world, secreted away. He's growing more as we speak."
She pivoted before her fist could lash out, teeth clamped down around her frustration, and knelt beside the star-fished Suigetsu.
"If it's as you say and he's got what he needs, then make him use his own means to stay alive. Stop letting him use you," she snapped.
Her hands flickered green as she placed them on Suigetsu's chest, patching him up without much thought to his injuries.
Both Sasuke and Orochimaru hid behind similar reasonings. They claimed their behavior couldn't be changed. Claimed they couldn't let Madara think they were being insubordinate. But wasn't that just fear?
Neither Sasuke nor Orochimaru seemed the type to cower under such an emotion. If Madara was weakened, as Orochimaru indicated, what were they afraid of?
If anything, it was the perfect time to make a move.
"It's not very nice to touch on a man when your mind is on other matters," said Suigetsu, pulling her back into the room.
Sakura scoffed. "Healing and touching are different things."
"Is it?" Suigetsu shrugged from his supine position. "Feels about the same to me."
"So what's your deal, then?" she asked, leaning back on her heels as she finished, ignoring his slightly inappropriate comment. "Why are you part of this agreement? Because you are part of it." She sent a sharp glare at Orochimaru.
"Seemed like it would be interesting, and I thought it'd be fun to destroy an army from the inside."
Sakura rolled her eyes. It was so dumb of a reason that it had to be true.
"Fun? There's nothing deeper that ties you to it?" Brushing herself off, she stood with a sigh. "That's a bit worrying, honestly. So nothing stops you from turning on the agreement if you think another plan's more interesting..."
"Nah. I wouldn't betray Sasuke," he said, standing as well.
Now that sounded more like the genuine reason—loyalty. Sakura jumped for the only chair in the room, settling herself in it before Suigetsu could. Suigetsu and Sasuke had been teammates for just as long as she and Sasuke had been. Even longer if they counted the last four years.
A memory flashed in her mind. She jumps onto a broken bridge and makes an offer for the second time. Sasuke gives an order she can't fulfill. A dying redhead. A crazed laugh.
"What happened to the rest of your team?" she asked. Near-death by chidori. "Taka, right?"
Suigetsu looked at the far wall. "Dead."
Oh. "I'm sorry."
"That's what happens in war." Stepping up to the operating table, he examined the shrinking mass that Orochimaru continued to slice into bits. "But it happened while I was—"
"Have you asked Tsunade about the seal yet?" Orochimaru interrupted.
Sakura leaned back into the chair. "I haven't brought it up. Why don't you just tell me what it is?"
She picked a book off the shelf behind her. One she'd read before, but she opened it to skim anyway.
"If I tell you, you'll have no reason to inform Tsunade. And I'm most curious about her input on the matter. You must tell me what she says."
"Is that the promise you want from me?"
Orochimaru chuckled. "No, but I do hope you'll still share."
Quiet settled on the three of them after that. Sakura's mind strayed in it.
Orochimaru was so different from the man her memories recalled. The difference was in his presence, in the movement of his chakra, in the way that he spoke.
And Sasuke, too—Sasuke was different.
When they were children, he rarely shared anything with her. When they were teenagers, she watched as he broke apart on a bridge and thought he might die there, nearly blind and fully crazed. Then the war started, and nothing was left of the boy she'd once slept under the stars with on C-ranked missions.
But this Sasuke spoke to her and seemed sane enough. This Sasuke was no longer a traitor to Konoha.
What changed these two men so drastically, so suddenly? If she was ever going to get an answer, it would be now, when both of Sasuke's minions were here without him. She prepped her voice for nonchalance.
"How come Sasuke seems so different?"
Suigetsu snorted. "He isn't any different to me."
"Was he always that...talkative with Taka?" she asked, genuinely shocked.
Suigetsu held his stomach as a deep laugh escaped. "Talkative? No."
His demeanor confused her.
"Why are you laughing? Haven't you noticed how much he talks?"
"I said that he isn't any different to me."
A tiny snake slithered under the doorway and derailed any further conversation. Its tongue flicked the air, smelling.
"Eugh..." Grimacing, Suigetsu moved away from it. "Even your slugs are better than those things."
Orochimaru kneeled, arm out. The snake made its way to his waiting hand.
And after a second, "You're being summoned back to the room, Sakura Haruno." Orochimaru peeled off his white gloves, then scribbled something quickly at his desk. When he finished, he approached Sakura with a teleport tag, pulling it back out of reach as she went for it. "Do ask Tsunade soon."
She glared, snatching the tag from his fingers.
"See ya, kid! Thanks for the heal—"
She landed on her bum back in Sasuke's room.
He was on the sleeping mat, and it was immediately apparent to her that he was injured. So injured that the fact they actually were alone this time barely registered before she crawled quickly to his side. His breathing was labored, eyes squeezed shut in pain.
Green hands hovered his chest.
Sasuke had four cracked ribs. Severe internal bleeding. He was pierced through the stomach with a blunt object. The left shoulder was dislocated again, and the left ankle was completely snapped in half.
"What happened?" she whispered, tending to his stomach first. Stomach punctures were fast fatal once they leaked too heavily into the abdominal cavity. "Was there another battle?"
"No. Just be quiet," he snapped. Then, "If you want."
Her seal hummed and quieted in the same second. Still, she obeyed, if only because he'd been so mindful even through the very evident pain. Sakura tried not to let her mind run with that thought.
It didn't mean anything.
Pouring warm chakra into him to numb her work, she repaired his body. The seal warmed in turn.
Silence spread between them, broken by his quickly-steadying breaths. Sakura realized belatedly that it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. It was a silence that sank into the space with ease, filling the unspoken air with understanding.
She was a medic, and he was a patient.
He was her source, and she was his gatherer.
They were once teammates who became strangers. Strangers who became enemies. Enemies who became allies. They'd never been nothing, despite what he'd convinced himself—despite what he'd nearly convinced her. They'd always been something, would always be something.
He could never escape this. Just like she would never escape him. Like they'd never escape that battlefield, ever.
Sakura wondered if he'd come to the same conclusion.
Once finished, she scanned his body a second time before removing her hands and moving to sit at his desk. She needed space between them before her mind drifted too far. He stayed on the mat, eyes still closed, breathing deeply.
"It's obvious you don't want me to see it, but your left eye is seriously damaged. You should let me take a look. I could probably heal it, and won't even say a word while doing it."
"Unlikely," he quipped.
A small smile crept across her lips.
The scroll with the strange language was rolled up on the edge of the desk. Sakura peeked at Sasuke, certain he might tell her not to, then grabbed and rolled it open anyway. She waited for a scolding that never came, vision roving across the parchment.
There were depictions of several hand seals and paragraphs of the unknown script beneath each. The signs flowed together like a fuinjutsu, or maybe a genjutsu. Without knowing how to read the description, it was hard to say.
Would she be able to learn the language if she studied the scroll? Could one learn a language without knowing a single word of it? If she took the time, she might discern the names of the hand seals in the paragraphs and go from there...
"Don't bother. You can't perform that jutsu."
His voice made her jump.
"...How do you know?"
He didn't answer.
She tried again: "What language is this?"
He didn't answer.
Sakura sighed, rolling up the scroll with exasperation. "How did you become so injured? And you have to answer this one. I'm acting as your medic, so I must know where all your injuries come from."
After a moment, he finally acquiesced. "Training."
"You got that injured from training?" She wasn't convinced. "Those were worse injuries than I see during some battles. Why train to such an extent?"
He said nothing, and she rounded on him with a glare.
"Why are you so open about some matters and closed off about others? I'm not trying to learn your deepest secrets here, Sasuke. It's a rudimentary question. I'm not asking about your motivations or intentions or desires—I'm asking a medical question pertinent to our agreement." Her eyes narrowed even further at his closed ones. "If you weren't so stubborn, it wouldn't be such a long conversation in the first place."
"It's an obvious answer."
She wanted to scream at him. "Evidently not."
Sasuke exhaled like his annoyance with her ran bone-deep. "We're at war. Perhaps your side is losing as bad as it is because you don't train to such an extent."
The barb hit its target.
It wasn't that it didn't make sense—he'd nailed it.
Her mind tumbled through the past four years. The Allies singularly endeavored to keep their numbers up in the first two. During the relative reprieve of the following two, they'd reconstructed base infrastructure and built out command structure.
Had the fighters trained during all that?
Surely they must have. Before the war, shinobi trained daily. There was no reason they'd train less now. Though Sakura wasn't classified as a fighter, even she'd trained when she found time away from medical.
...But had they trained to this extent?
Sakura realized with a start it was unlikely. Most of the Allies wouldn't have the stomach to injure their friends or comrades to such a degree.
"Does all of Madara's army train like this?" she queried.
"Who do you think I'm training with?"
"How frequently do they train?"
"Every day without a battle."
She stared down at the stone tabletop in shock. It was no wonder that Madara's shinobi seemed overall more adept than Allied shinobi.
After a moment, he scoffed. "You'll all die before you can win at this rate. Your Kage are seriously incompetent. Why does your army let them stay in power?"
And there it was: Sasuke's ruthless nature.
"We're allies." Her gaze slid to him. "Can't you try to be more cordial? Every other sentence out of your mouth doesn't have to be an insult or a threat."
"We aren't allies. I'm allied with the Kage. If I want to speak poorly about them, I can. You're just a contact."
"That's exactly what I mean." She slouched onto the desk, tired. "You don't have to be such an ass."
Academy Sakura would've fainted if she knew War Sakura would call Sasuke Uchiha an ass somewhere far in the future.
The backs of her eyes burned with a warning; she willed them to stay dry. Letting his words dig under her skin was pointless. This was merely his character. Always had been.
The chakra in her seal boiled at her acceptance of it, heat pulsing through her chest. She hated it—hated that it felt good and hated that it belonged to him.
Silence descended back upon them uncomfortably.
It felt like she'd lost a battle, or like she was ready to give up.
Searching the shelves above the desk for a blank parchment, she pulled it down to the tabletop after spotting one. The seal ached with increasing warmth. She reached for the abandoned quill on the lowest shelf and dipped it to the paper.
"Wait."
Halfway through the teleport jutsu, she paused, surprised. Endorphins flooded her system as she obeyed; it'd been a command. Sakura didn't even care this time—didn't dare look up.
"Do you—not sense anything?" he asked.
"...Where?"
"You don't—can't feel what's happening?"
Her brows furrowed as she stole a glance at him. He was scowling at his wrist laid palm-up in his lap, brows just as furrowed. Their seal's small, thin, black circle stood in stark contrast to the white of his skin.
"Where?" she repeated.
"This seal isn't normal."
She dropped the quill, fingers searching for her own seal covered by the black turtleneck she wore. Even through the cloth, it pounded when she touched it.
"Orochimaru refuses to tell me what it is," he continued in a low voice, "and I've not found anything about it in any of the books."
"It's not normal," she hesitatingly agreed.
Their eyes met. "I think we've been tricked."
It was the first time Sasuke had ever come to her with a problem. Her seal felt like it might set her on fire, mind landing on a single thought:
She could use this.
"I'll make a deal with you." Ignoring the similarities between her words and Orochimaru's earlier ones, she pressed on. "I'll find out what this seal is. I'll even find a way to undo it if you want. In exchange, I want you to train me." She paused. "And I want you to stop being rude. You wouldn't know it, but I defend you during Allied meetings and debriefs. Frequently. But it'll be hard to keep it up if you're always an ass when we're alone."
"When we're alone is when it's most needed." His voice was stern, his cold regard leveled on her. "You'll take things beyond reality."
"I won't. I'm not that little girl who begged you to take me with you anymore." A single pulse from the seal nearly made her eyes roll to the back of her head. "We're nothing more than source and gatherer. I understand that."
"You weren't supposed to be the contact in the first place."
"I know," she said.
"I wanted you to find someone else."
"Yes."
"That you came was likely a trick, too."
"Probably."
She held his gaze. This part of the conversation wasn't painful at all. In fact, it felt like he wasn't even aiming these words at her. He didn't even sound like himself.
Sakura saw the decision in Sasuke's eyes before he spoke.
"If you find out what this seal is, I'll train you."
She tried not to smile. She tried, but it still slipped onto her face.
"Great. What about the asshole part?"
He stood from the mat and made his way to the bathroom. "Find a way to undo it and we'll see," he said over his shoulder.
Stone rising to cover the opening, Sasuke disappeared behind it.
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After that, she ported back to Konoha base, boxing away all additional thoughts about her and Sasuke's conversation.
He'd been right about more than one thing. Namely: She shouldn't let herself think it was anything more than what it was. Now, and in the future.
Her tent was empty and quiet, as tidy as she'd left it. She'd forgotten to write Kakashi's tent's coordinates instead of her own, though it didn't seem like Tsunade was keen on enforcing strict adherence to that rule, anymore.
It was late in the afternoon. The light of day was disorienting.
Konoha base was nothing like Iwa's temporary battle base. The ground was soft grass, trees lacing through the tents. There was an excitement in the air, an anticipation as shinobi moved through the camp, relaxed. Even laughter tinkled in the air.
It felt alive, like a breathing body with a beating heart. As if it was ready to cling to that life with all its strength.
But there were no signs of training. Nothing indicated the base was preparing itself to fight, no overwhelming hunger to win was felt. The camp was nothing more than a hopeful body destined for a black tag to the corpse pile.
Sakura sprinted to the Hokage tent, surprised to find Kakashi inside. Working, of all things. He sat behind the pile of papers nearly as tall as he was sitting down. A huge smile took over his masked face when she released her transformation.
"Sakura!" He stood and motioned her over.
She ambled to him and allowed herself to be swallowed in a hug. It was tight, smelling of firewood and nostalgia.
"You've no idea how worried I was."
"I'm safe," she reassured.
He squeezed a bit tighter before releasing her, scanning down her body, affirming her words for himself. Satisfied, he stepped back and sat on the desk, sending papers fluttering onto the floor.
"Where have you been?" he asked.
"Did Tsunade not report? I was summoned to Orochimaru's lab."
Kakashi scratched his temple. "She's been helping Iwa's medical for nearly two days. All she reported was that you were alive."
His eye narrowed slightly and Sakura chuckled. Admittedly, it was pretty cruel of Tsunade not to be a bit more descriptive about his student's whereabouts—but entirely in the woman's character.
Sakura debriefed her encounters in the lab. She kept almost nothing this time. Almost.
She spoke of the white mass, of Madara's failing body, of Orochimaru's job. Revealed the alleged stockpiles of Hashirama's cells. Talked about Suigetsu's loyalty, the death of his team, and the strangeness of Sasuke and his mentor. She told Kakashi of Sasuke's injuries—how he'd gotten them and how Madara's army trained brutally and relentlessly and daily.
But she kept for herself the trickery of the seal and all discussions around it. It felt too personal, like an intimacy she didn't wish to share.
"Did Orochimaru say where any of these stockpiles were?"
"No. Just that they were in many places."
Kakashi tapped his chin, staring at a space above her shoulder. "And the blob, it was white?"
"White streaked with blue. The blue looked like blood vessels of a sort, but the mass held no liquid. It was something more solid than fat. Something skin-like, maybe...I wasn't able to touch it for safety reasons."
She could see him deducing something. Then he turned and sat back at the table, resuming work.
"What is it?" she questioned, curious. Her teacher had clearly decided on something a moment ago.
"Nothing for now."
She scowled. Sakura hated being kept in the dark.
"As soon as I confirm some things, you'll be the first to know," he said. He seemed to hesitate on his next words. "Tenten's team returned yesterday. She's fine, but her squad was attacked on their way back. You should check on her, she's in Shizune's medical tent."
"Shizune's?" Breath caught in her throat. Sakura knew what type of patients were usually relegated to Shizune's tent. "Kakashi, tell me before I go there—is she okay?"
"She's fine. Sorry if I made it sound otherwise. Medical was slightly underwater without you and the Hokage, so they placed her under Shizune's care for efficiency."
She released a sigh of relief. Then a thought hit her: Tsunade was gone.
For the first time in years—probably the only time for years to come. Kakashi held the full authority of Hokage in her absence. Sensei could give any order without any input from Tsunade right now.
It was perfect.
It was her only chance.
"Sensei." She focused on keeping her voice steady. "I have a request before I leave."
Kakashi glanced up, eye glinting curiously. "Yes?"
"I wish to go to Suna base. The Kazekage invited me at the last Kage meeting." His hands stilled on the parchment he held as she pressed on. "He asked that I assist with something in his medical unit."
Sakura remained motionless, meeting his gaze, chin lifted high. Kakashi was the most intelligent man she'd ever met, without a doubt. He had no peers in this aspect. She knew that he knew exactly what she was asking—and she knew that, as future Hokage, he must say no.
Policy absolutely forbade it. He had to say no.
And if he did, there was no arguing with it. But even though he had to say no, she still had to ask it of him. She had to. It was the only way she'd ever have the opportunity.
They stared at one another.
She wanted to shout—PLEASE, sensei, please, I'll never ask for anything again, I swear it, I swear it on everything, but you must allow me this one request, you must, you MUST—
"I'd never deny an entreaty from the Kazekage," he finally answered.
Vision abruptly blurring as hot, thick tears cut down her cheeks. Something inside her chest released like a bud blooming as a smile stretched her lips.
"Thank you, sensei," she whispered. Moving around the desk, she leaned down to hug him again. "Thank you."
Kakashi patted her head. "Return in a week." That gave her a day or less to spend in Suna, depending on how fast she could get there. "That's all I can give you… I'm sorry."
She nodded into his chest, softly crying. "It's more than I could've wished for. Thank you."
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Tenten sat on a medical cot reading a book when Sakura stepped inside. She beamed warmly at her before the two women embraced. Thick bandages wrapped across Tenten's torso and right thigh, but she looked otherwise unharmed.
Sakura scanned her without asking.
A broken femur was on the mend. Sakura pushed healing chakra into the bone, forcing it to regenerate itself fully. A residual injury from a sword puncture lingered on Tenten's side—Sakura mended that too.
"Thank you. I forget how good you are at that when you're the only one who heals me." Tenten rubbed her thigh. "Oh—I didn't mean that as an insult to your other medics. Sorry."
Sakura smiled. "It's okay, don't worry. Thank you. How'd you end up so injured? Can you tell me?"
"Sure, just close the tent in case."
Tenten recounted her mission. She led a team to the southwest tip of Fire Country, down near the Bay of Fire. They encountered no resistance on the way, and only a small patrol easily slain when they arrived at the coordinates. The coordinates landed right over a whistling field of switchgrass.
The team scoured the area for an entire day, searching for anything resembling a room with carved walls. But there was just a field, bushes, and the surrounding forest. They had a Hyuuga sensor with them, and not even their byakugan picked anything up.
"We were so frustrated. I was staring at the orders when it hit me like a brick. I felt so dumb," Tenten admitted, chuckling. "It said, Destroy the room with the opposite release used to enter, so I called everyone over to stand directly on top of the coordinates, and we went through different release techniques. And wouldn't you know it, as soon as someone used Fire Release, the ground opened up to a hidden staircase."
Her team descended into the earth, at least a mile down. There were thick genjutsu and fuinjutsu laced over the whole thing.
They reached a door sealed with a barrier ninjutsu none had ever encountered before. It took the team another day to break it, which was only possible after the Hyuuga extrapolated the hand signs used to create the barrier.
The door opened to a room with walls blanketed in runic carvings. A sprawling hurricane of black symbols formed a colossal summoning circle centered around a tiny, white sapling. They had no orders to inspect the room before destroying it, so Tenten immediately commanded one of her squadmates to use a Water Release technique.
Nothing happened.
Then she'd ordered them to aim it at the tree on a hunch. A deafening explosion shocked the shinobi to their knees as soon as the water touched the tree. The room imploded, dirt flooding in like a river from a broken dam.
Two of Tenten's team closest to the tree died immediately; the rest only survived by Moegi's near-lightspeed Earth Release that encased them in a protective barrier. The slow crawl back up through the earth had been hellish, painful groping with desperate gasps.
Enemy reinforcements were waiting for them when they breached the surface. They fought—only six of her team left—for hours. They were chased after that for days.
Just when they'd nearly begun to panic, Tenten wove them around a mountain and through an old, abandoned ANBU base and miraculously shook their assailants.
Then, per policy, they were required to circle the base for two days to ensure they weren't being followed. Tenten's leg was broken early in the fighting. She'd been downing soldier pills and calmative to stave off the pain most of the mission.
Sitting on the edge of Tenten's bed, Sakura clutched the woman's hand tightly. "I'm so glad you're safe," she murmured.
"Me too. I'm not typically dispatched to those kinds of missions anymore." Tenten was almost exclusively a gatherer these days. "It was my first time leading such a large squad of non-gatherers."
"I'm sorry about your team."
Sakura knew how bad Tenten was with death. It was why she'd been reassigned to gathering in the first place.
"I'm sorry about that, too... I did the best I could, but... I don't know. I'm trying not to linger on it much."
"With as many unknown variables, you did as well as anyone could've. You got most of them back alive. That's that matters."
"Thank you, Sakura... And, you know, this was the first time in a long time I felt like I was really doing something, so that helps a bit... Watching that room explode felt tangible, somehow. Not like the rest of it."
"What do you mean?"
"In battle..." Tenten's hand squeezed hers, eyes staring into Sakura's as if looking straight through her. "It feels so meaningless. All of it. This war, its price. What are we fighting for, anyway? I can't stand the sight of all those bodies when it ends. And the worst part is that Madara's dead look exactly like our dead. When they're all mixed together, it's impossible to tell us apart... I used to be so angry with them, but it just drags on and on, and no one left except Madara and Tobi wanted this. No one still fighting asked for this."
Sakura rubbed the woman's shaking palm with a thumb. Tenten wasn't probing for comforting words; she was seeking a release. Sakura recognized the desperate shadow on Tenten's brow.
It was the same one Ino had gazing across the Sangosho battlefield. The one Kitsuchi had when he'd accused her of treason. The one Tsunade wore when Sakura caught her unaware.
Every single shinobi held captive by this neverending war faced the same haunting battlefield at all moments of the day. There was no turning away, no running from it, no end to the montage of death when it was etched so deeply into the mind.
Sometimes, one crowded into a tight tent, friends passing around a bottle, and escaped it for a few hours. Sometimes, one fled responsibilities in a quiet forest and breathed for a second or two. But it was always there in the end, waiting. Growing larger the more one turned away from it. It only got bloodier, more fetid, deeper—more personal with every brief reprieve.
It was almost easier to face it all the time.
"We're ordered to fight, then we're ordered to kill, then we're ordered to do it again the next day and the next. On and on until we die or everyone we love dies. So we go and kill people who have loved ones of their own, hoping maybe it'll save our loved ones. Or maybe we do it out of revenge, or obligation. Maybe no one even knows why we're doing this, anymore."
Tenten's voice had become breathless with speed. "It's all pointless in the end. My whole team's dead, and no matter how many enemies I kill, they're never coming back. They're dead. And for what? They're gone forever, and look at those of us left... Are we even alive? Is this what it feels like to live? We have no say over our own lives, no control over the lives of anyone we want to protect. You could die tomorrow and what can I do about it, really? We fight and kill and it never ends. What's the point, Sakura?"
The women searched each other's stares for something. Sakura's begged Tenten to take back the words she agreed with before they settled long enough in the air to become fact. Tenten's yearned for Sakura to prove them both wrong.
"I don't know," Sakura eventually replied.
Was there a point to this? Was there an end? Would anyone make it out alive? Should they give up?
Neither had an answer for the other.
"I don't know either." Tenten sighed, wrapping her other hand around Sakura's. "But I know I felt a power wash through me when that room collapsed, and it's the first time I've felt anything close to hope since Lee died."
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there's a DISCORD for this story, if anyone wants to join to chat about it,
or just wants to chat about sasusaku in general!
the invite code is: WV62DCrCqM
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Again, thank you sooo much for all the kind reviews!
I'm glad so many of you are sticking around through the extREMELy slow burn.
I'm personally really enjoying building this story up, outside of SasuSaku...
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And thanks to Leech for beta-reading this chapter :)