For every shinobi, the view of their village's gate coming into their field of vision after a mission was always a welcomed sight - the ability to come home on their own two feet was not something guaranteed, and Hatake Kakashi never took it for granted since he was a genin.
Of course, he now had an additional, very pressing reason to be overwhelmed with relief - a giant white slug was waiting for their return a good distance away from the posted guards, and her blonde summoner that was standing beside her was quite dwarfed by her impressive bulk; Pakkun must have successfully relayed his scroll that Kakashi had sent ahead with his pet pug a day ago.
As he drew nearer, the giant slug slithered forward to meet them, and he carefully lifted Sakura up to the slug to be engulfed whole into her body.
That never stops being creepy, he grimaced under his mask. His arms now felt oddly empty, and his fingers flexed as if unused to the missing warmth of his pack Omega.
"Take her to her room, Katsuyu-sama," Tsunade told the slug. It acknowledged her with a nod before turning around and made for the Hokage building at once. With both the slug and Sakura now out of earshot, she crossed her arms over her chest and gave her full attention to the panting Copy Nin to ask quietly, "You said her heat came on spontaneously, and that she had been experiencing a full heat since when?"
Kakashi mopped at this sweaty brows with the back of his hand, and did his best to ignore the voice inside of him telling him that he had to chase after his pack Omega, to make sure that she was safely tucked away inside her nest made of his clothes, to cover her in his scent and pheromones, reassuring her with his presence while she nursed her heat symptoms. "Ah. I'd say her heat started just shortly before we left Sunagakure, though, she had been suffering from her pre-heat symptoms at least since the day before?"
A click of her tongue in annoyance, and Tsunade glanced over her shoulders to double-check that the guards were still safely out of earshot. Then she asked in a tone that was dripping with accusation, "And this had nothing to do with the urgent missive from the Kazekage's office?"
The silver-haired jonin blinked at the sudden fire in the Hokage's eyes, and he vaguely recalled seeing a bird of prey messenger flying overhead early on the second morning of their trek home; it had came from the direction of Suna, and from its flight trajectory, looked to be headed towards the Land of Fire. That had most likely been Takamaru, the fastest messenger bird in the Land of Wind, no doubt carrying with him an important message for the Hokage - it was now obvious with the way Tsunade was grilling him.
"I have no idea what you are talking about, Hokage-sama." How could he? He had spent the better part of two-plus days racing across the desert with an unconscious kunoichi in his arms, and only stopped twice for rest and food; if he had to guess, it must have been a high-level mission report from Suna regarding Gaara's rescue, and was transported by their most important messenger bird just because of how secretive the matter was.
"Meet me three days from now in my office, after Sakura's matter is settled," Tsunade said, and then she pointed a finger at Kakashi's chest while frowning, "And you need to shake off the influence of her pheromones before then."
Oh.
Kakashi awkwardly patted at his chest, this time knowing exactly what the Hokage meant - he was a messy concoction of domineering Alpha scent (which he used to keep Sakura's heat symptoms levelled), and she had been held so close to him for the past few days that her Omega sweetness had worked their way into his pores; to say nothing of the fact that her slick had ran freely down her thighs and coated his entire front.
In short, he reeked of the urge to breed.
Swallowing against the dryness of his throat that he was abruptly aware of, Kakashi nodded. As the Hokage led the way back into the village, Kotetsu and Izumo who seemed to always draw the short draw when it came to guarding the gates snapped to attention, and they both shot quizzical looks at the Copy Nin as he skulked past them. Kakashi resolutely avoided meeting their gazes, as he suddenly became all-too aware of the itch between his shoulder blade and the simmering heat mounting in his chest. While he knew logically that Sakura was a pack Omega and not his mated Omega, his instincts were screaming otherwise at him - her sudden departure from his side while practically dripping heat pheromones had sent his Alpha side into a frenzy to protect, to hide away, and to copulate.
With whom, he was not certain. From the subtle scowl that Tsunade had sent his way once or twice, it was obvious that his Hokage was expecting the worst of him; if Tsunade was wondering if the Copy Nin would resort to finding a willing partner in the red light district of Konoha.
He had better options. Hatake Kakashi could safely say that an Alpha jonin was a desirable lover to many.
By the time Tsunade turned to check if the silver-haired shinobi was still behind her, the only hint that he had ever been there was the scent of gunpowder lingering in the air.
Heat.
Wet heat.
Scorching, wet heat.
It was all Sakura was aware of as she sprawled out in her nest made up of her pack Alpha's clothes. She had practically torn away her own attire as she made her way into her soft cocoon, and the bindings that she had around her breasts were now loose and barely clinging to her sweat-covered skin. Her boyshort undergarment that she favoured was soaked through with her slick, and they were tacked to her skin uncomfortably due a combination of friction and warmth.
Sakura's nest was secreted away in an isolated room deep in the bowels of the Hokage building - a room constructed out of stone and wood, only modernised with electricity and a filtered ventilation system after she became the Hokage's apprentice (she preferred not to speculate about what the room was previously used for). The chakra-based locks that secured the entrance was a new addition as well, keyed only to the chakra signature of three individuals in Konoha: Senju Tsunade, Shizune (who was a Beta), and of course, herself. Kakashi was not granted that level of clearance despite his status as her pack Alpha because of his unmated status.
Whom she wanted more than logic dictated, as she whined and whimpered as each spike of heat raced through her body, all ending in her throbbing cunt. Never in her eighteen years had her womanhood felt so hopelessly empty, and all she wanted in that moment was to have a pair of firm hands around her hips, helping and guiding her towards…
Towards…
"Alpha," she groaned, and through her half-lidded eyes she glanced towards the corner of the room where she had dutifully kept a store of necessities for her heats. Bottled water, high-protein dried rations and a supply of pain medication if she should experience a headache during her heat - which was surprisingly frequent. But her eyes were staring beyond that, and more heat bloomed on her cheeks as she recalled the item that she had tucked away under it all, as if ashamed that she even had it to begin with.
A sexual aid, shaped like a phallic object that she had only ever seen in its flaccid state in all her years of training as a medic-nin; something that she had bought on a whim when Ino had dragged her into one of the nicer sex shops whilst they were enjoying a weekend off at a hot springs resort (the shop proprietor seemed put-off by the sight of two teenager girls gawking and squealing at her wares, and Sakura felt obligated to buy something just to placate the seething matron). Ino gave her the widest grin ever when she saw the size of the dildo that Sakura had purchased, and made a giggling comment, "Either you are secretly fantasising about being an Omega, or you must be a size queen."
Ino's trashy romance novels (ok - pornographic mastabatory aids) revealed the Yamanaka heir's taste for Alpha-Omega romances, where their dalliances were often described in graphic details and were never lacking in waxing lyric about the size of an Alpha's genitalia. The first time Sakura read one such story, once she was done turning as red as a tomato, she firmly pointed out to Ino that the typical Alpha male's penis was generally no larger than a Beta male's.
"Generally," Ino leered, and she waggled her eyebrows at Sakura before pointing at the next smut-filled paragraph, "And you are forgetting about the knot, sweet summer child of mine. That adds at least two more inches, and I don't mean only sidew- ACK."
A quick jab to Ino's rib courtesy of her elbow stopped her from finishing her sentence, but Sakura's brain had filled in the rest of it, anyway. A physical trait that was unique to Alpha males was that during their ruts or their mate's heats, the base of their penis would swell up just before ejaculation, eventually forming what was colloquially called a 'knot'; the biological purpose of which was to keep their semen inside of their mate long enough to ensure impregnation. Such a quirk of evolution worked only if one's partner was an Omega, as such an intrusion would be a painful affair otherwise. Basically, if an Alpha's partner was not an Omega, knotting was all but impossible.
That was probably what Ino had meant when she saw the slightly bulged base of the dildo that Sakura had picked out, and the pink-haired kunoichi did not know whether to die of mortification from her instinctive wants, or to die from relief that Ino's "Omega" comment was not because she had somehow learnt of Sakura's secret.
Right now, holding that obnoxiously bright pink dildo that was still sealed in its factory packaging, Sakura wavered.
For five whole years she had successfully avoided touching herself during her heats, the fear of ruining her nest with slick sitting ill with her fastidious side. There was also the little voice inside of her warning her that if she started, she would not be able to stop herself. Losing control of herself for those brief few minutes when she masturbated outside of her heats was still a tolerable idea; surrendering herself to her instincts for days was not.
Suddenly aware of how thirsty she was, Sakura reached for a bottle of water with trembling hands, and she could only glare furiously at how her fingers were refusing to obey her. Breaking the safety seal on the cap should not have taken her more than a fraction of a second, and yet here she was fumbling with it after more than a few heartbeats.
How was she even going to thrust a dildo inside of herself with hands like that?
Gasping around a mouthful of water, she shivered and put it aside, then threw herself face-down into her nest with a loud groan of resignation.
This was going to be the worst day ever.
Correction. The fourth day of her heat was the worst day ever.
Most of yesterday had passed in a blur for Sakura, as she alternated between fitfully tossing in her nest, fussing over the way her limbs had shifted all the clothes around, and remembering to stay hydrated as she sweated nonstop day and night. It was akin to her first heat when she realised her secondary gender, except that now her fears and shame had been replaced by an insatiable hunger inside of her. Right now, she was feebly clutching at her womb while wallowing in the too-small tub in the adjoining bathroom, the modest, traditional-style tub preventing her from stretching out her limbs. She would have been content to soak in it, except that she knew she would cramp up if she stayed in her current position for too long. So after cooling her temperature somewhat, she was forced to throw her towel-clad self spread-eagle onto the floor.
The dildo remained in its place next to the bottled waters, practically taunting her with its neon pink presence.
I shouldn't even be thinking about this, she reprimanded herself, even as her fingers wrapped themselves around the smooth plastic packaging, her other hand securing the towel around her like a scrap of modesty. When she realised that she needed both hands to crack the plastic casing, all she could do was sigh in resignation, and let the towel fall from her body and pool around her.
The first pop from the plastic seal cracking open echoed so thunderously in the silence of the room that Sakura automatically whipped her head around to face the door, and she waited for half a minute before she finally convinced herself that no one was around to catch her shame of opening up a sex toy; it seemed all too possible in her mind for either Shizune or Tsunade to pop in unexpectedly, though they have never once interrupted her during her heats. This, she blamed on her sense of shame that was causing her already overheated body to turn an even rosier red.
Once she successfully removed it from its plastic prison, the medic-nin in her tried to make a clinical assessment of said object - blindingly pink (why in Hashirama's name did she pick the pink one of all the colours available, anyway?), a good heft to it, the length and girth of an average male penis, and an interesting pattern of ridges and dips around the circumference of the length. She resolutely ignored the prominent knot at the base even as her mouth became suddenly dry.
At least it was not battery operated - the prudish part of her was concerned with being overheard using such an object.
Naked as the day that she was born, she climbed back into her nest and snuggled down, doing her best to ignore the slight sweat-soaked fabric on contact. Irrationally, she glanced around the room, eyes lingering pointedly on the door one more time as she reassured herself that her privacy was secured, and only then did she allow herself to succumb to the coil of heat in her ribs - parting her thighs, reaching down to lightly spread her folds with one hand, and the other directing the underside of the toy against her…
Oh.
Fire.
Fire in her veins. Licking and racing from her chest and down into her cunt. Electrifying.
The feel of rigid silicon against her slit, the slightly flared head of the dildo notched just right against her clit - it should not send her back arching and her mouth parting in a sudden gasp; should not have caused a pulse of slick to immediately gush out of her, spilling over her fingers and the toy, and making the next slide of it against her that much sweeter.
Still unfathomably concerned with being overheard despite the isolation that she was under, Sakura slapped her free hand over her mouth, and she muffled whatever sounds of pleasure she could as her hips bucked shamelessly against the stroking length of the dildo pressed to her, enjoying herself more than she thought possible with a manufactured pleasure aid; she could not remember a time when she was so sensitive and so easily turned on outside of her heats, and she whimpered in anticipation of more pressure, more everything.
And she still had not put it inside of herself, yet. But it felt too good right now - the slightly uneven texture of the dildo rubbing against her clit and folds - and all she could do was rock her hips in a broken rhythm to chase after that high that she had been craving since Gaara all but shoved her head-first into her first orgasm in front of someone other than the privacy of her bedroom (and that one time in the bathroom late at night, but she preferred not to think too much about it).
Red hair, red kanji, and red robes.
The resulting flood of warmth she felt deep inside of her, she immediately attributed to her heat. There was no logical reason as to why the Fifth Kazekage had to be more than a temporary indulgence, other than the fact that he had grown into a very handsome young man, was overwhelmingly polite to her, and the flecks of broken jade in his intense green eyes as he offered her the slyest peek at his canine teeth…
"Gaa… Sasuke." She forcefully pushed another man's name past her lips, trying to visualise those onyx irises and hair so black that it was almost blue in the moonlight instead of the red-red-red. It was easy to imagine how Sasuke would look now as an eighteen year old, seeing how strong the Uchiha bloodline ran in him; hair longer, cheekbones higher, his eyes still as arrogant as ever.
It was just too bad that those black irises kept changing to jade-green ones - still so vivid in her mind despite barely having been in close proximity to Gaara for what amounted to several hours combined, compared to years of knowing Sasuke.
She twisted her head to the side, a whine building up in her chest. It came out in a wild, unrestrained groan as she found herself leaning into the softest silk to have ever touched her skin - part of the Kazekage's formal attire, hastily stuffed into her nest when she first entered her room.
White sage. Thyme. Sandalwood. The slightest hint of iron.
She shifted her sexual aid just right to push slightly into herself, and her body clamped down instinctively to milk what it really wanted; remembered the enticing warmth coming off a certain redheaded shinobi who had given her so much pleasure with just his presence - his bearing regal, the blood-red of his hair framing an equally blood-red scar.
Alpha.
She came with a shuddering moan, slick pouring out of her cunt even as sweat covered her brows, and the hollow dissatisfaction of a heat-based orgasm without the anticipated bite to the junction where her neck and shoulder met caused her to dig her fingernails crudely in their place instead; a mockery of a mating mark, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to mimic the presence of blunt teeth and feral possession. Pumping the dildo shallowly inside of herself to avoid touching her too-sensitive clit, she rode out the final waves of her pleasure, pressing her face deeply into Gaara's scarf throughout it all.
The edge of her heat somewhat relieved for now, Sakura tried to calm her racing heart by shifting onto her side and clamping her legs shut; she frowned when she realised that she had instinctively rolled over to wrap her throat and chest in the Kazekage's white scarf.
Another inhale. Refractory. A completely natural act.
Sandalwood and iron. Gaara.
She had no memory of Sasuke's scent to invoke, did not even know what his secondary gender was since he left before he presented. Would he smell like the sun-dappled forests of Konoha like Gaara? Or would his scent reflect his darker, more driven nature? Kakashi smelt like the solid earth beneath her feet, and the hint of mineral oil laced in his pheromones was a constant reminder of their chosen profession. Gaara, despite being a foreign shinobi, reminded her starkly of home and duty - the solid presence of towering Konoha trees, mixed with the sandalwood reminder of incense burning at her family altar, and the iron of their ninja tools. What would Sasuke smell like to her?
It would not be better, more right than Gaara's, her Omega whispered to her.
In this moment of brief reprieve before the next wave of her heat came rushing to torment her, Sakura closed her eyes, and dreamt of red robes and undulating sand dunes.