The Sun Goes With You

Chapter 2 - Snow

i never thought of running

my feet just led the way

-bright eyes, if the brake man turns my way

four years later

Sakura was balanced atop a tree branch in a forest nearly six hundred miles from Konoha. Her current mission had brought her back within the borders of Fire Country - it was closer to her old home than she'd been in months.

She removed her Anbu mask - a crimson and cream bear - and squinted up at the sky. It was late evening; the sun had receded and deep blue was darkening across the horizon.

The sky growled, threatening rain, and she sighed back at it, as if to say I'm not afraid of you, but I wish you wouldn't.

Of course, her request went ignored. If anything was going to be considered the grand theme of her life, then this would be it: ignored pleas. The rain came down in sheets and she frowned at the clouds from her perch in the tree - the coming hours had threatened to be miserable enough already, even without this downpour. Rude.

Her dark clothes were soaked through quickly, sticking uncomfortably to her skin. The grey vest gained another fifteen pounds of water weight, but she did not move. Her eyes adjusted to the watery veil that was drowning the forest, and her nose began to detect the scents that had been masked by wet earth. The rainfall on the leaves provided feeble cover to more pressing sounds: footsteps, labored breathing, a pounding heartbeat.

People.

This far into forest, there would be no civilians. There was no path to follow, and the only thing in any direction for hundreds of miles was trees, endless and densely packed over the uneven, mossy ground. No civilian would venture this deep into these woods; it had to be a ninja. Sakura was certain it was her target, even through the carelessly masked chakra signature. For someone with as meticulous control of chakra as she, the smallest edges of energy might as well have been a flashing sign: it's me, I'm your target, I'm here. Kill me.

She was not happy to oblige. But she would do it anyway.

The footsteps were not alone. Two more heartbeats. A three man cell. Predictable, easy. Possible formations ran through her head. Her heart rate increased imperceptibly, her adrenal glands pumping epinephrine into her rushing blood, her pupils dilated. The familiar dread that seeped into her core was quickly silenced. The footsteps were growing steadily closer to her stakeout, dangerously unaware of her presence.

She waited until they were so close they were almost under her. She prepared to jump, her joints anticipating the fall they were about to take. There was the slightest hesitation that she was experiencing more and more lately, catching in her breath.

This is real.

The last thing those footsteps and heartbeats saw were emerald eyes, pink hair, and glowing blades of green energy.

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It was springtime in Ice Country, and the Anbu base thawed by precisely one degree.

Morino Ibiki savored that single degree. Treasured it as he sat as in his frigid office, the fire crackling in the wood stove doing nothing to soothe the ache in his aging fingers.

Morino Ibiki was many things. An eskimo, he was not.

A knock came at his door in two short, sharp raps.

"Come in," he barked. If the operative that knocked let so much as a hint of that bone-chilling spring breeze into his office, then he would spatchcock him like a chicken.

A masked operative silently slid into his office and approached his desk, dropping a soaking wet scroll in front of him. The mask did little to hide the ninja's identity from his commander - Ibiki was glad to see him alive.

"Found this," the operative said, gesturing to the scroll. "It's got your name on it. No seals or tags or anything. Looks harmless."

The scroll was bound with the telltale white ribbon of a successful mission, with his name written in neat, delicate strokes. And he knew who had left it behind - Ibiki narrowed his eyes at it, as if it might jump up and run off of his desk if he let it sit too long.

He picked it up and rolled the scroll over in his palms, the wet paper sticking to his skin, and he looked up at the operative who had brought it in. It was too early for this - the sun wasn't even entirely up yet. "Where'd you pick it up?"

"Mile out of camp," the operative said, frowning. "Stuck in a tree trunk."

Ibiki raised his eyebrows in surprise. She never came that close, not when she knew he was in the camp. He ran several scenarios through his head - arrogance, failure, injury. But she had never been the arrogant type, she'd never failed a mission, and she certainly couldn't be injured, not when she was a more skilled healer than the fifth hokage herself.

He stood abruptly, his metal chair screeching against the stone floor. The operative flinched, but Ibiki didn't much care. This was his chance.

She's here.

"Dismissed," Ibiki barked as he quickly stalked out of his office. "Return to your post immediately."

He hurried across the slushy, icy dirt of the encampment, not bothering to button his flak vest shut to keep the freezing winds at bay. There was no time for comfort, not when she must know that he was coming for her.

He flung open the heavy door of the medic cabin, out of breath. He was not the spry young spring jonin he had once been, but he could still get where he needed to go when a reward was promised.

His efforts were not wasted. Haruno Sakura was there, crouched over a box of medical supplies, stuffing rolls of gauze into small pockets on her vest and into the small duffel she carried with her. She froze when she heard him walk in.

"Haruno," Ibiki puffed, trying not to sound winded.

She slowly turned to face him, and rose to her full, unimpressive height. Her eyes remained guarded, if a little guilty. "Ibiki."

"You slipped up, dropping the scroll so close to the camp. You couldn't evade me forever," he said, and finally buttoned his vest. Damn Ice Country. It would be the death of him - hopefully sooner than later.

"I would never want to evade you," she said sweetly, zipping up her now thoroughly stuffed supply bag and patting her pockets. "But unfortunately, I have new orders. From the hokage, you know, so it's out of my hands. So I'll be heading out."

"I don't think so," he growled, and blocked her from sliding past him out of the cabin. "Do you understand that, as an Anbu operative, I am your commander?"

"Yes, commander-sensei," the girl said sarcastically, and bowed. If it was a little exaggerated, he allowed it to pass without remark. But he did not allow her to pass by him.

"And as an Anbu operative, you have a duty to the organization to alleviate the workload. Especially if you're going to be pilfering supplies," he narrowed his eyes at the rolls of gauze spilled on the floor.

"Ibiki, we have this discussion every time," Sakura sighed, her shoulders drooping ever so slightly. "Can we skip it for now? I'm in a hurry."

"I don't ask much of you, Haruno," he said, raising his hands placatingly. "I deliver your reports to the hokage quickly, I sign off on the evaluations you miss, I allow you to pillage my medic's supplies. I don't pry into your business."

"As you shouldn't. It's confidential," she said tartly. She was starting to get snippy; he would have to get to the point.

Her attitude did not bother Ibiki, although it might have when he was a younger man. He had the highest clearance possible - nothing was confidential from him - but he had been instructed not to investigate after her missions, and he didn't. He'd been in the business too long, and every type of directive possible had passed over his desk. Assassinations, undercover work, espionage, even less-than-legal operations - no, Ibiki remained steadfast in his pointed disinterest of the missions she was given. He had never once wanted to peek into the scrolls that she delivered like clockwork.

What Ibiki wanted was to set her loose on some of the more challenging directives that were piling up in his inbox. Missions that returned bodies to him, not successful reports. He had lost - no, Konoha had lost - good men on these missions. More than shinobi. Sons, brothers, fathers, husbands, friends. Zippered inside each body bag was a piece of a family, a puzzle piece that would never be returned to its picture.

But her? A machine. No failed missions, no late reports. A perfect operative (if he didn't count the attitude), protected under Anbu designation, but free from Anbu responsibilities. If she was good enough to be the hokage's own operative, then she was good, period. Maybe she could ease the steady pileup of bodies on his front steps.

He didn't know how she did it. Sure, they said she could match the fifth hokage in any contest, but he privately thought that many of his operatives could do the same. She must have some sort of secret up her sleeve. He didn't begrudge her this - it was smart to have one, and he had a few of his own, even after so many years in the game. He didn't begrudge her this at all - he just wished he could get his hands on it.

However, she wasn't his to command. She was the hokage's. She did not take orders or missions from Ibiki or anyone other than that damned rascal of a copycat ninja hokage.

He drew in a deep breath to steady his frustration. "If you would just look at some of the missions that come across my desk. Take one or two that are on the way to your next one. We're losing operatives faster than they come in. I can't send anyone else home in a body bag."

Her eyes softened, but barely. "What do you think I'm doing out there, Morino? Don't you trust your hokage?"

"Of course I do." And he did. While he didn't think the new hokage was the most serious of the bunch, he was surprisingly competent as a leader. "But you have to understand. The S-rank missions are coming in faster than the Academy can turn out genin. The peacetime after the war is coming to a swift close."

"I know it is," Sakura said wearily. She sounded tired, small.

Memories leaked unbidden into Ibiki's mind. They did this sometimes, despite his best efforts to leave the past where it belonged - in the past.

An exam room full of nervous genin. A wide-eyed and pink-haired girl, an uncontainable blond tornado, and a raven-haired boy whose intense frown contradicted his carefully concocted air of disinterest. Team seven. So similar to the sannin, even then.

But if he'd had to pick one of them that would amount to nothing - and he had picked one, that very afternoon, who he'd decided was nothing more than a squad filler - it was the girl. No bloodline limit, no tailed beast, no clan. No taijutsu, no genjutsu. Just enough book smarts to answer the questions on a chunin level exam.

But here she was, a war hero, a student and confidante to two hokages, an Anbu operative. Standing in front of him ten years later, tiredly contemplating the disintegrating peace. She'd made herself into something, proved them all wrong, and Ibiki could respect that. But he couldn't ignore it.

"Do you have anything on the way to Kiri?" she asked after the long silence, her voice still tired. "I can take one or two on the way there, and if you have one that isn't so time sensitive, one on the way back."

Ibiki's ears perked up. She was offering to take at least three missions. That was at least three men who could be used in other missions, or who could maybe be spared.

"How long?"

"Four months," she shrugged. "At least. Maybe six. Got anything?"

He almost laughed at the redundancy of the question. Of course he had something. Multiple somethings. "You sure you can only take three?"

"Give me what you've got. I'll get to it eventually."

"You'll be back in six months? That'll be blizzard season," Ibiki said cheerfully. He had not expected such a victory, not here, not now, not with her.

"Then maybe that's the time that I stick around for a while," she winked, and hoisted the bag of stolen supplies on her shoulder. "But for now, fork over the missions. I really have to go."

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six months later

Sakura squinted up at the sun, a blinding but welcome sight after so many weeks trapped in the dense fog of Kirigakure and the miserable network of caves underneath it. How anyone could willingly live there was beyond her.

It amazed her how quickly the fog had dissipated as soon as she'd stepped over the border, like nothing but magic had kept the opaque water droplets suspended in the air.

For a brief moment, she allowed herself to yearn for the green of Konoha. She hadn't seen her home in years. The closest thing to permanence she had was the Anbu base in ice country, and she was so rarely there. For good reason - it was miserable, and Ibiki was a bastard.

But she did not linger on thoughts of a home she would never see again. She rolled up her sleeves, letting the sun kiss her skin, and stuck her hand into her bag, rummaging for the last scroll Ibiki had given her. She'd warned him that she could have been gone for a very long time, but she'd gotten lucky and finished Kakashi's mission within the timeframe she'd promised.

Quick did not mean easy, however. Her stomach churned at the thought of the necessary violence that had occurred at her hands; the slick, somewhat slimy warmth of blood that had spurted onto her face and slid down her neck, only to congeal in the valley of her collar bone in the hours after the fight. The crunch of bone, easily powdered in her grasp, and the feel of sinews being sliced to ribbons.

The familiar sight of green chakra incinerating a man's flesh.

She put it out of her mind, though. If there was one thing Sakura knew, it's that she would be made to answer for her actions. But she wouldn't answer to them a minute sooner than she had to. She unrolled the scroll and scanned its contents, praying that she could have a reprieve from the violence.

Maybe. It was a collection mission. If she could get in and out undetected, then there would be no need for anyone to die.

She had just picked up Kakashi's next orders, too. One of his dogs had met her on her way out of town. Her work seemed never-ending. She liked it that way - it kept her mind off of the other things that were rattling around in her brain.

The work quelled whatever darkness had rooted inside of her. The busier she was, the less fuel there was for that fire. The fire that was still growing daily, if infinitesimally. The fire that made her fingers tremble and made her wake up with the sheets soaked in sweat, a scream unable to dislodge itself from her throat.

The work stopped her from seeing things, feeling things - so much pain, none of it rightfully hers, the last rites of the lives that were snuffed out in milliseconds, lives that had no right to end while she was watching, moments she should not have been allowed to intrude upon - Mama-

She shook the vile thoughts out of her head. For now, she could rest. For now, there was a brief interlude between missions. She could pretend that she wanted this. Pretend that she needed a break.

She sat on a grassy hillock and pulled lunch out of her pack - some fishy, unappetizing abomination that she'd picked up on her way out of Ame. After one bite, she didn't have much of an appetite left, so she tossed it aside and fell backwards onto the grass.

As she stared at the sky, she thought of just how different her present and past were. How different her present was from anything she'd ever thought it could be. A younger Sakura would never recognize the woman she was now.

She spoke very little; most of her conversations were written on paper, or took place inside her own head. She often went weeks or months without seeing her own reflection, cutting her hair with a kunai the second it started to brush her shoulders. There was no longer any girlish softness about her, not in appearance or demeanor.

She wondered what Ino was doing in that moment; Sakura liked to imagine her sipping tea in her family flower shop, frowning about some boy or another. She wondered after Lee, Hinata, Shikamaru, Kakashi. Her friends. She had places she liked to imagine all of them; happy, safe, protected. Married, hopefully, maybe with children. Doing something that made them happy.

She did not wonder after Sasuke. Not on purpose, anyway.

Communication with the hokage had been sparse - which was to say, nonexistent. She'd left small messages here and there, but she had no confirmation he'd received them, and there was no way for her to receive messages in deep cover in Ame or Kiri. She assumed that if anything pressing happened in Konoha, she would pick up gossip on her travels, or Naruto would send her a letter if Kakashi was too busy.

She tried not to worry about what it meant that Kakashi's updates had been falling off. It could not mean anything good.

Ibiki was right. The peace was crumbling. She had seen it on the road. Shinobi from other villages were less trustful, less willing to help in a bind. Even Sakura herself - she hated to admit it, tried her best not to give in to it - felt her amiability towards other nations dwindling, her patience with other ninja growing thin.

Peace could not last forever. But she had hoped it would have had a longer and fuller life than a measly five years. If it had not lasted even long enough for an apple tree to bear fruit, then what had all of those people died for? Nothing?

Sometimes it felt like nothing.

Mama, Papa.

She watched an impossibly small spider weaving an impossibly small web between two blades of grass.

"Life is coming for you too, little buddy," she murmured. "Not just me."

It didn't care for her words, continuing to labor tirelessly on its tiny masterpiece.

She stood and brushed off her pants. It was time to get back on the road. Ibiki's mission promised to be simple enough, and then she would return to the ice country base. She might even stay there for a few days, sleep in a real bed. See who the new medic was and if he or she needed any help, see if anyone had left behind any good paperbacks. Not romances.

She peeled open the mission scroll that Kakashi had had delivered by one of his dogs and scanned its contents.

Head back to the Ice base. You're getting a rookie this year. No arguing. It's tradition.

Love, Kakashi.

p.s. go easy on Ibiki. He's cold and elderly.

She frowned and squinted at the words as she read them again, hoping her eyes were playing tricks on her.

Kakashi, you bastard.

She might be spending more time in the snow than she had anticipated.

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Sasuke took one last look at his apartment, scanning the sparsely furnished space for anything he was leaving behind. He was wearing the standard black mission garb, complete with green vest and red armband; a pack of modest size was hoisted on his shoulder, carrying the belongings he thought he might need for an extended contract with Anbu. It wasn't much - mostly just weapons, in fact, as he figured everything else might just be kind of pointless.

As he was turning to leave, he remembered something. He walked back into his bedroom and pulled open the top drawer of his nightstand.

At the bottom of the drawer, well-hidden beneath stacks of folded shirts, was a picture.

He fingered the edges of the photograph before tucking it into the pack with the rest of his belongings.

Sasuke did not spare a second glance for his apartment as he left. He hadn't cared for it, and he had been aching to leave Konoha for months - years, if he was honest. He was done trying to fulfill Itachi's ideas of protecting the village from the inside.

We'll keep the apartment for you, Kakashi had promised.

No need, Sasuke had replied.

We'll do it anyway, Kakashi had shrugged. Sasuke had shrugged right back, figuring that Kakashi could do whatever he wanted with the apartment. It was his village, after all. He was the hokage.

No, Sasuke did not spare a second glance. Hopefully he wouldn't be back for a long, long time.